Month: April 2023

Planting Trees is Planning our Future

If you remember, we had Permaculture Consultant, Nick Ferguson, come out to our property and evaluate our land, our goals, and our resources to get it done. Part of those plans included a food forest and fodder trees for livestock.

This spring, we purchased twelve hybrid willow cuttings and twelve hybrid poplar cuttings from Nick and we finished planting them today. We still want to pick up some white mulberry but we will need to find some in-stock. From these, we will be able to propagate more trees, hence the tight plantings.

I put some of the old sheep fence around the plantings to keep the deer from picking at them and my dogs from doing any damage while cavorting around chasing each other.

You can also see that James has been busy opening up the land by removing briars, saplings, and sick trees. It’s a lot easier to take a walk in the woods now.

Driver’s License Updates

It’s been a bit since I wrote a blog post. We’ve been focusing on YouTube and getting on with building stuff, but yes… I should also write more. Well, let me get to the topic at hand.

After the last kerfuffle with with the Drivers License Center, I got my voter registration card and that was pretty painless. I returned to the office in December with all the paperwork they had requested of me… until they asked me for my medical card. In Ohio, CDL drivers that travel out-of-state must get a physical and carry the card given as proof that they are medically sound to drive. If you don’t travel out-of-state with your commercial vehicle, you don’t need one. Not so in Tennessee.

They told me that there are places you can walk in as an outpatient and get your exam done, but they couldn’t tell me any of them because they were not allowed to recommend any. I don’t know the area so I didn’t even begin to know where to start. They mentioned a chiropractor could do it. I gathered my paperwork and went out to the parking lot to research places that could do exams in the area. None of the chiropractors could see me. Exasperated, I drove home; defeated once again by bureaucracy.

I stepped away from it, enjoyed Christmas with my kids, and waited for the weather to clear up some. I finally found out that there are walk-in clinics in the area that can do CDL medical exams and visited one. No problem.

I returned once more to the keymaster of driving legally, with all paperwork once again. By this time, I’m sure they were tired of me. I, again, submitted to their scrutiny and finally, I was able to secure my Tennessee Drivers License.

James went up in March and got his license the first try. 😛