several things to do . . .

Haying is a hot, dusty job that takes some getting used to.  And yesterday we spent some of the day getting HOT and DUSTY with grass.

The boys and I have helped out with putting hay up on other people's places, but this is our very FIRST hay crop from our OWN farm.  In addition to the boys and I working outside, the girls helped out as well heaving the 50lbs bales around!  It was WORK!

Since we don't have large machinery on the farm, we are asking others for help with some of the tasks around the place.  An old, wise farmer/friend came over and mowed, raked, and baled this batch for us the other day.  Being dry enough, today we put it up in the barn for winter feed for the animals.  Total from this small patch of land was 108 bales.  He did some more cutting this past evening and next week he will get to the other 8 or so acres.  No buying hay this year and having it hauled to my farm!

 Asher has been working with Mr. Wilson for some time now.  He is one of the several grandsons that own farm land around my property.  He owns his parents old house around the corner from us and uses it as a bee yard for his bee keeping passion.  His granfather is the man that built my home and farm.  The farm has been in his family for years, until the mid 80's when it was sold to "outsiders."  Since then, it has changed hands a few times with different stewards for the area's historic farm.  He is a kind, generous, helpful grandfatherly man that has taken a liking and interest in Asher sharing the same passion for tending bees and trapping.  He is a WORLD of information for Asher AND our family. They even both share the same birthday!  Yesterday he noticed we were using the push mower to clean up around the fence row and decided to be a helping hand, AGAIN.  He brought down his tractor and bushhog so I could mow the large teasel weeds that cover the woods pasture.  It was fun driving a tractor and taking out the plants in one BIG swoop!  Hopefully it will give the smaller grasses and clover some sun in order to grow. 

 We are also in the process of cleaning up and finishing off the upstairs garage attic turning it into a game room.  Along with the ping pong table I bought years ago, I purchased a foosball table for the children and I to play with.  Since we rarely go to town or do "outings," I wanted to have several things for them to do while they are here on the farm.  Riding and playing with animals, pond swimming and canoeing, bows and arrow/gun shooting in the woods, and now the game room.  I am teaching Nolan some construction skills of drywall on some small pony walls I built.  Next he is going to mud/tape, and then paint them. Currently I am staining the wood floors and will be leaving the walls and the ceiling raw lumber for the rustic look I LOVE.  I am turning the room into a country, turn of the century farm looking homestead room full of drying herbs hanging from the ceiling, bucket lights, and farm knick-knack to adorn the wall space. 



thinking and planning . . .

This year is our first attempt at making our own hay.  The open pasture, about 8 or so acres, is full of timothy grass, red clover, and of course some big WEEDS.  My thinking, cut it, store it, feed it to the animals and they will sort out what they don't want.  I asked a neighbor farmer to cut it for me and today we are going to put it up in the barn.  Hopefully he'll get to cutting the rest of it fairly soon.

 Another bulding project I am working on are the garden pergolas.  The pergola is going to be used for grapes to grow on, and provide some shade when we are out in the garden area.  This is the first of two that will be covering the junction of the Gator path.

 Since I have built many things using traditional nails and screws, I wanted to challenge myself with joinery on this project.  I decided that I wanted to try the old method of fastening wood together with dowels like the barns were built years ago.  It took a little bit of thinking and planning and I had to take the whole structure apart once to redo the posts, but there is not ONE piece of hardware holding it together.  It is esssentially a large jigsaw puzzle that can be dismantled and moved if needed.  Since it is free standing, it is a little wobbly so I am going to come up with a plan to make it a little more stable.

And then our garden grows.  The mounds I am using for the potatoes seem to be working so far.  That is the green leaf ABOVE the ground looks good.  In the fall we'll see if the food that is UNDER the mound turns out.  I sure hope so.  :)



enjoyable work . . .

Now that summer holiday has started, I feel like a child in a candy store.  So many things to look at, wanting so many things, and RUNNING around to make sure to soak up all the store has to offer.  The difference between the child in the candy store and me is that I am not in a candy store, and I am not looking for candy.  But all the same, on the farm, I am "keyed up" like a child with farm maintenance to do, building projects, and highly motivated to WORK.

Work.  I like the verb part of speech of this word. to do work; labor. As well as to be in operation, as a machine. I can hardly call what I do here on our farm work.  Sure, it is labor, sure it does expend energy, sure it is a whole bunch of tiring tasks.  However, when you want something done, and like doing it, it is hard to call it work.  That is what it is like here for me.  A whole lot of ENJOYAB:E work to be done.

Recently we have been getting coffee grounds from one of the coffee shops in town.  I approached them a month or so ago with the idea of having them save all the coffee grounds for us to use here on the farm.  It truly is a win/win situation.  Every two days we get a 5 gallon bucket full of grounds to amend our soil.  In return, they don't have the wet, heavy mess in their trash cans at the shop.  When we get it home we dump it, let it dry, take the filters out, and then mix it with manure for one of our composting methods.

 I also bought a chipper/shredder the other day from a friend.  Nolan and I turned an old stick pile into mulch and are now using the wood chips to mulch around the newly planted fruit trees and raspberry bushes.  This year we planted 6 new fruit trees and 25 raspberry canes.

 On the area where we chipped up all the wood I created an experimental garden.  Here I layed potatoes on the furtile ground and coverd them with some old, wet straw.  I am not going to water them at ALL and see if I get a yeild from it.  It is also right on the edge of the woods.  I'll see how that works out!

 I recently collected and recycled some wood pallets as our main compost bins.  They are not the best ways of composting fro sure, but it is a start for us.  I have been putting our manures in them as well as the grass we collect from the neighbor mowing his 4 acre lawn.  His grass and our animal manure is making us a black, earthy soil amending compound that is going to change our food from good, to GREAT!

 I added another fence to the orchard/garden area and to have a place for the raspberries to grow.  Ildi likes rows and columns. The compromise for me was to have them on a fence IF they had to be put in rows.  The garden is in rows this year as well just to make it easier to work with all the other changes/work we have to do here.  But next year . . . it is going to change!  Nature likes curves.  And nature likes edge.  I am in the process of thinking about how I want to move away from the traditional gardening methods of plants put in rows to the way nature causes things just to be "planted."

creating together . . .

Homesteading requires a bit of ingenuity.  Ingenuity that includes everyone's ideas and help.  When you want to do things around a farm, and you have no BIG equipment to work with, it definitely takes great ideas.  This idea that we came up with today is going to be logged in as our GREAT idea for this summer's garden row making work.

It all started with the "different" plan to not till the garden.  A permaculture thing.  We needed to create some beds to plant in and to direct sow some of the seeds for this year's garden.  And with the garden made mostly of clay, and chock full of weeds, we had a big job ahead of us.  A few times the thought of just tilling it up again seemed like the best thing to do.  Instead, we went on with our plan to leave the soil as is so it can begin to heal and to become a fertile place to plant.

The garden was first mowed really low, then we brought in a layer of composted manure and then some sifted dirt on top of that.  We used a screen I made last year for composting, and added a support structure/row making tool to it.  After we shoveled in a layer of compost, we went to the barn pasture to get some of the dirt out of a mound that a friend dropped off last year.
 

 

 Shoveling rock filled dirt into the handmade sifter

 

 Sifting the dirt to get the big rocks out

 Dumping the rocks into a pile for a later project

 

Then part of the sifting tool is multi-tasking as a row making sled (something I might have to patent)

   Dirt is filled in

 

 And the Gator pulls it to make an exact 24" row complete with leveling it off

 The row to the right was our attempt at making a row without our new homestead tool.

Today we got three rows done relatively easily and we were all happy that our new multi-tool worked so well.  During the loading of the compost and the dirt, the children and I talked about what was and was not working with our new equipment.  And after each dirt load, we dropped by the wood shop and I made minor adjustments to the row maker having it work even better than the time before.  Thanks to all the valuable input.

Since our efforts were a success, we all had FUN shoveling compost and dirt because we were thinking, laughing, and spending some great time CREATING together.

hatching our own . . .

The weekend of Easter, Dad and I decided to hatch out our own chickens. So I got together what we needed. Almost a month later...CHICKENS!

Wednesday the 18th, I noticed one of the eggs was cracked.

We watched for about a hour but nothing happened. Next morning, I went to check, and the egg was cracked almost all the way around!  

It struggled for about fifteen minutes and then out it popped! Unfortunately, the rest of the eggs did not make it. Here is a picture of the chick after it was dry. Now the mom is so protective of her chick that she will attack me whenever I go near.

 
Posted by Macy

gutter sludge . . .

The past week, and the last couple of mornings, has been a a welcomed change for us.  We are in the process of drying up Janey (our milk cow) and went down to milking one time a day.  Last week the children (except for Nolan) stopped their milking chores in the evening.  Nolan and I still continued until Friday which became our last milking day.

We are drying her up because she is due to calf this July.  We want her to give as much of her reserves to the young one as possible.  This is all new to us, the cow, the farm, the everything, and it seems fascinating to learn how to do all this "farm" stuff.  At times I feel as though I am just making decisions "on the fly," and lots of decisions at that!

Since the chicken, cow, horse, and pig thing has gone good, thank God, we have decided to add SHEEP to the mix as well. It seems like a natural progression to add another task, and I am excited to get to know how to work with yet another animal here on the farm.

I sent in a deposit already, and we are waiting until the ewe's finish lambing for the season until we get our pick of the litter.  We were third on the list for sheep this year, so we will wait until all the people in line before us get the lambs they want, then we get to pick.  They are the Romeldale/CVM breed and we plan to use them for breeding, eating, and wool production.  Ildi is excited about learning how to spin!

In addition to adding sheep to the farm, we are also in the beginning stages of transforming our traditional homestead/farm to a more "forest garden" utilizing more permaculture ethics, principles, and strategies.  You can get a look at what permaculture is here.  Permaculture Principles

So to begin the process of this transformation, I transplanted some silver maple trees, that had sprouted next to the horse barn, to the front yard.  I had recently cut young saplings down and tried to work against nature, and now am trying to work creatively WITH the natural process and design how we want our place to develop.  I added the maple trees on the road side of the front yard and am planning to plant some nut trees closer in, and then finally some fruit trees even closer to the house turning our front lawn area into a beautiful fruit producing "woods" that provides shade, takes less maintenance on mowing, and provides a block from the road.  Today I spent most of the early afternoon fixing some gutters and digging out the leaves and twigs that have clogged up the downspout.  And then I used the gutter sludge as mulch for the newly planted trees!

farm photos . . .

Some updated farm children pictures.  A new photographer friend of the family came out to the farm to do a photo shoot of a local student, and while she was here, she snapped a few of the youngers.

planting these ones . . .

I normally don't respond to mail campaigns for donations.  I am a little, really a lot, skeptic that even a dime goes to the actual cause.  But a few weeks ago I got a letter from the Arbor Foundation that wanted a minimal donation of only eight dollars.  Even when they are minimal like that, I don't respond.  I like helping people or organizations out where I can see where the money has helped them, not being used to pay a WHOLE bunch of people who sit behind a desk to solicit more funds.

On this occasion they send me 10 flowering trees and 2 Lilac bushes.  I had dug the holes on Friday to plan out where I wanted to see some beautiful foliage in the future, then yesterday some of the children and I went about planting them.  Since it was a warm day, they went barefoot, AND got to dig in the dirt!  Does it get any better than that for a child?

 The trees that came were color marked so we were able to tell the difference between them.  And they were really small.  It will be several years before we get to see the fruit (the beautiful spring buds) of planting these ones.  In a week or so I will be receiving the 11 fruit trees I ordered, and the 30 raspberry bushes that will be adorning the small patch of woods next to the house.  I am excited to get, and plant them.

more farm skills

Since it is now officially spring, we have the great pleasure to get out in the garden and start the planting for this year.  And this year, the peas we planted the other day are going to have a new look.  We cut some branches off the "down" wood in the woods, and then plugged them into the ground for a trellis of sorts.  And a pretty, natural kind of trellis at that!  I love natural looking, functional things.

And to the city slicker, we looked like pros taking the pig into the butcher shop tonight.  To the farmer . . . we looked like what we really are . . . GREEN at it all!

Our pig reached the grand scale weight of about 344 lbs so it was time to take him to the market.  That weight, plus I had already put close to $250 worth of feed in him.  The trip to the butcher shop started the other day with putting a hitch on the van.  Which  didn't work.  So we "phoned and friend" who helped us out with his truck.  Along with the borrowed truck, and the borrowed trailer, we coaxed the pig to the end of the barn, and with lots of help, and using some old futon bed frames, got him in the trailer with relative ease.  I was quite impressed with the children and their help.

For those that want to know how to weigh a pig that you can't actually pick up, you simple follow the string (or flexible tape measure) method.  Measure the distance from between the ears to the tail.  Then measure around the heart girth right behind the front legs.  Multiply the hearth girth, times the heart girth, times the length and divide by four hundred.  For example, if the measurement of your pigs length is 53, and the heart girth is 48, then the math would look like this . . . 48 x 48 x 53 = 122,112.  Then divide that number by 400. It goes like this . . . 122,112 / 400 = 305.28  At that point, you can estimate that your pig weighs around 300lbs!  Once you get over 300 lbs, this way tends to over estimate the weight by a few pounds.  As well, if the pig is under 50 lbs, it will tend to underestimate the weight a slight bit.

All this to say that we will have some choice cut pork in the freezer in the next couple of days that averaged us around $1.74 a pound, and a whole new set of farm skills.

growing food in hard times . . .

My newest art venture is the barn quilt I am working on for my barn.  I have always been fascinated with quilting patterns, and have done several projects in and outside the classroom with designs notable on quilts.  This one is a 4' x 5' piece of plywood that was on the property when we moved here.  It was one of two signs that advertised the family's antique and dried flower business.  The other sign I used as a giant chalkboard in front of the farm to write notes on.  The design on this sign has a pattern on a 4' x 4' section in the middle of the board.  I added the words BARN on the top and QUILTS on the bottom 6" sections in hopes that I can conjure up some barn art business.  I am hoping that this launches a whole new idea to people of how to display art on the outside of buildings.  Barn Quilts are recognizable art for people who who want to adorn their barn with art. To me, that is just the start!

 Today we started the groundwork for two new sections for the garden.  I first started by putting some recycled concrete in places to mark out the garden spot.  Next, I mowed it down as far as could to get most of the grass and weeds clipped off.

 After the mowing was complete, I had the boys help in spreading some of the barn manure on the area; a great way to clean out the barn, and to add matter to the soil to make it more fertile.  My next step is to add some COF materials (complete organic fertilizer) and then we will be ready to plant.  It will be another few weeks before we put anything out but we are getting ready now since the weather is so nice outside.  I am currently reading "Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food In Hard Times" by Steve Solomon and am motivated to try gardening in a different way.

 

 These two new plots adds 3000 more square feet to our garden.  In total, this year we will try to keep up on 9000 square feet of garden space.