October

Summer is officially over and it seems hard to believe. Here's what we've been working on in the last few weeks

-I finished the trailer coop after 3 months of working on it. I spent some late nights in the garage or driveway trying to finish it. I went from short sleeves to flannel shirts during that time

-we've been trying to figure out what to do with all the apples we've been getting, and we just have 2 trees producing. Naomi made a ton of applesauce, we have a large bin full of apples sorted for fresh eating, and many more that are damaged or too buggy to eat

-we just pulled our potatoes. We didn't weigh them, but the yield seemed lower than what we were getting at our old site. Our total number of plants was way down, too though

-we discovered that our geese are not Toulouse, as we had wanted, but most likely some sort of African mix. They are going to go to the freezer soon, hopefully this week

August 11 rain

It's finally raining today, and we're forecasted to get 1-2". It's been a few weeks since it has rained at all. The pool under the culvert was the lowest I've ever seen it (and it has fresh bobcat tracks in the soft bottom mud).

I'm hoping the rain will make the graas spring back up and I can rotate the geese onto areas they've been previously. So far they haven't overlapped at all but I'm running out of space.

August 8 2015

As always, I'm finding it hard to keep up on posting stuff here, so I'm going to try something different. I'm hoping that going forward, I will use this space more as a journal or a log of what's happening and I'm not going to worry about trying to post pretty pictures with news of what's happening here. There will still be pictures, but I'm thinking I'll write more brief, descriptive posts.

With that said, we're a week into August, and it's been dry. The grass is dormant, and I've been moving the geese every 2 days. 

We lost a goose 2 weeks ago to what we think was a bobcat. Now we're keeping the fence electrified 24 hours a day.

A lot of our crops have failed this year for a few reasons. First, we're finding that the soil here is severely lacking in fertility. Also, a lot of it is basically sand and dries out really quickly, unlike the clay soils of our old garden at our apartment. Amongst those failures were all our corn, some beans, all our squash, amaranth, and quinoa. I'm concerned that the potatoes aren't doing much either.

We pulled our garlic and that seemed to do fine. I think we harvested it at the perfect time too. There is a bed of beans that is doing well and another of beets. Our bed of greens did well too- mustard,  kale,  and chard.  And we have a volunteer pumpkin that is doing great. 

We're shifting our focus now on building compost and increasing the fertility of our beds, and building more beds. 

Summer 2015 Update

I really meant to caption all this a few weeks ago, but that didn't happen  so I'm just dumping it.

All the Birds

So far this year, we've really upped our quantity of birds. Some of the additions were planned, and others were not. Amongst them are chickens, ducks, and geese.

First of all, we adopted two new ducks, Lily and Daisy. They came to us separately, but both on short notice and not in top health. We found Lily via a friend via facebook via craig's list. Lily, a Cayuga, was hatched in a classroom, and then brought home to live with chickens, whom promptly attacked her. When we picked Lily up, (she was named Cala at the time) she was bald on top of her head, and one eye was in really bad shape. We took her to the vet and she got eye goop for us to apply twice a day for some number of days which I've since forgotten.  In our care, she gained weight, grew all her feathers back, and her general disposition improved greatly (she was a biter). She also narrowly avoided eyelid reconstruction surgery (yay!).

Lily during her bum eye days

Daisy came to us via the waterfowl hospital. Some well-intentioned person found this duck and dropped her off at the waterfowl hospital in rough shape. The hospital couldn't keep her so we stepped in. Daisy came to us with bad lice on her head, and some weird foot problem, which later turned out to be a broken toe. A week or so went by before we brought Daisy back to the vet. She was already free of lice at the time. They did some x-rays and discovered a severely broken toe that the doc says will never reconnect. Daisy's foot was super swollen and full of gross liquid. She was on antibiotics and some kind of anti-inflammatory pain killer that made her totally zonk out. We finally learned the correct way to force feed a duck her pills, unlike our previous failure with Penelope to do this. Daisy is in much better spirits now (the doc said she was 'depressed' when we picked her up) her lice are gone, and she's making a great recovery with her foot. Naomi is going to take her back in tomorrow to get the foot drained and get a follow up. We're hoping to put her into the main flock tomorrow if all goes well with Dr. Duck.

Daisy, after getting her foot drained at Dr. Duck

We also got Cornish Cross broiler chickens this year for the first time. I was expecting them to be weird, but I got more than I bargained for with just how weird they are. These are the same type of chickens raised commercially for meat like you'd buy at the supermarket. They're generally 'harvested' around 50 days- commercially at 40-42 if I remember correctly. We have to withhold their feed for 12 hours a day so they don't "flip" or die suddenly from gaining weight too fast. They cry for food when they don't have any, and they eat so much so fast that their crops bulge tumorously from their chests. And they're heavy already, like, SUPER heavy. We started putting them outside this past week now that their chicken tractor is finished. We're looking to send them to freezer camp before the end of June. If we wait too long, we risk losing all of them, They're like Cinderella's carriage, but a chicken that we're going to eat. And instead of turning into a pumpkin, they're going to die at midnight.

bulging crops and all

the tractor

Then we got a new group of layers and multi-purpose birds that will become our pastured flock, but our plans changed a little on this. Because of the bird flu that's going around, a large part of our order didn't come in. We were supposed to get 3 Buff Orpington cockerels and a bunch more Buff Orpington pullets, but no buffs came in at all. Instead, I chose some more Silver Laced Wyandottes and got a couple Silkies. I had never been interested in Silkies at all until I found out they're great broodies. The feed store said they could get more Buffs in, but not until June 3, so I said OK. I really really wanted some boys, and the only boys they had that day were Rhode Island Reds. Noooo thank you! So now we're waiting on our Buff Boys, 3 of them, and I threw in 3 Buff pullets for good measure. So, we ended up with way more chickens than we first intended to, but that's OK. Those boys will be way behind the other birds, and will be too small to do much protecting for quite a while, but it's better than no boys I guess.

little silkie!

We got luckier with our goslings than we did with the chicks however. The goslings weren't supposed to come until June 26th or something, but I went into the feed store one day to drop off the order form and they said the geese were coming early- May 22th instead. We're having fun learning from them and watching them. They're so wiggley! The geese have been spending their days outside in the polydome where they can eat grass and not make a stinky mess in a brooder in the house. I can't wait until they are bigger and can be outside full time. And I can't wait until they're eating enough grass that I don't have to mow!

Once we get the boys on Wednesday, that should be it for animal acquisitions for this year, unless of course I pull off my rabbit plans. It's really time-consuming to have so many small birds that need constant attention- changing water, filling feeders, dumping out poopy brooders, and turning lights on and off, but it's also fun, rewarding, and the little puffballs are so cute!

Just the Latest Birds

We picked up some more birds yesterday! Just a middle group, but here are Americaunas, RIRs, wyandottes, silkies. The hatchery had to back order our orpingtons because of bird flu!

Spring 2015 is here!

And it's snowing. Things have been progressing, however. The ground is starting to thaw a little in the places where it's bare. The snow is finally starting to melt little by little. As soon as it gets squishy enough outside, we will transplant the 72 fava bean plants we started in toilet paper tubes.

The ice on Penelope's stock tank pond is starting to thaw. All the birds are laying (we got 7 eggs from 7 birds yesterday). Things are starting to turn!

Driveway Puddling

When we first moved in, I thought the way water puddled on the driveway was just a nuisance. Any time it rained, the driveway would fill up, and a few hours later it would be gone again. This winter has brought some additional frustration though. In the last few weeks, I've really begun to realize the problem that this is.




From the road, the driveway slopes down toward the garage. Just before the garage, it slopes up again steeply, creating a big cup that holds water with nowhere to drain. This puddle can be 12" deep in some spots. It often freezes over and makes a big mess. When it's not frozen, it leaves no way to get in or out of the house in the front. One of the deepest pockets is in the walkway from the driveway to the door. 

To further complicate things, the catchment area of this puddle isn't just the driveway itself, nor the roof of the garage that drains directly onto the driveway (no gutters), but the collection area extends out to the road, and all the way to the crown of the connecting state highway. We live in a rural area with no storm drains. The town's official storm water policy is to let the town's natural waterways take all of the surface runoff. A few hundred feet downslope on the road, there is an outlet to the brook. The problem is that all that water runs into the driveway instead of passing it by and going out into the brook. The driveway also has no lip on it, and being lower than the roadway, all the water flows into our driveway. 

 This is the driveway after I've shoveled the water off. It gets mostly dry, but on warm melting days like today, it will be filled up again in an hour.

Here's  a short video of me removing water from the driveway with a snow shovel. I've found this to be the most successful method of getting rid of the water.



We're hoping to be able to fix the driveway at some point sooner rather than later. The neighbors say the driveway's been this way for 30 years. At some point, the driveway definitely shifted, settled, or sunk because it's cracked all over. It'd be nice if the water drained out TO the street, rather than in from the street. Off the side of the garage, where a lot of the water drains (usually via wicking where the water level reaches the grass on the side) the ground is VERY wet almost all of the time. I bet fixing the driveway will result in that area drying out a bit, too.

Newest 1,000 members of the farm

Welcome to our newest members!

What I didn't explain in the video was how I made the worm bin. It started as a big plastic bin. 30 gallons is roughly a good size for the amount of kitchen material that 2 adults makes, so we got a bin that size. Then I drilled holes along the bottom for drainage and near the top for ventilation. I covered the bottom with screen to keep everyone who should stay inside inside and everyone who should stay outside out (centipedes love to eat worms). The whole bin went up on blocks, with a tray underneath. The majority of the bin in filled with moist paper. The moistness should be equivalent to the moistness of a wrung-out sponge.

This is the chart I made to help us remember what goes where!

Gullibility

We, as a whole, tend to think of a gullible person as being dumb, naive, lacking common sense, or other similar negative traits. If you happen to suffer from gullibility, (as I often do) you are familiar with the feeling of foolishness, shame, or being taken advantage of when you realize that someone's got your leg. Many times, the person on the pulling side of your chain means well, or perhaps is lighthearted or humorous, but there is another side as well.

It is of my belief that the fault lies not with the gullible, but with he who is spinning tales. Naomi and I have many discussions about the types of people we want to associate with, and the type of future we wish to create. We respect hard work, kindness, communication, and honesty. I don't wish to fault the person for whom honesty is the norm; he or she who believes everything that another person says, because we believe in honesty and communication. There is no comfort in doubt. The gullible person is strong for adhering so closely to a policy of honesty in the face of those who wish to misrepresent themselves and the truth.

I can't end this thought without needing to mention the role of critical thinking (thanks Naomi) in our interactions, but this is all I wish to dive into at the moment.

Icicles

Plans for 2015

Things are always in flux, and I really like to think out loud. It especially helps me while planning, because I can easily see the flaws in my ideas once I tell someone else about them. With that being said, some of the things that Naomi and I were planning for 2015 as of a couple of months ago have changed somewhat. We're also trying to focus on what we can do based on time, money and resources in the coming year. The following are some of the things Naomi and I have been discussing as of late. Naomi may have a few more, but this is what's on my mind:

• Geese, not sheep
• rabbits
• mobile chicken coop
• worm bin
• refine duckponics
• gutters on the house
• attempt to replace one rotten windowsill

Geese- I had been talking about getting lambs in the spring because we have SO much lawn. Mowing it takes time, gas, and mower maintenance. Sheep would turn that grass into something productive- meat.  Well, the summer was very dry, and when October rains came, I realized just how wet some of that backyard lawn really is, which makes it totally not suitable for sheep.

I had also been interested in getting some geese, but thought I'd save it for a later year. Once I decided sheep were out, geese seemed like an easy decision. They're much much cheaper to obtain, I can stock them in a higher density, they also eat grass, and they would love it when the backyard gets a little wet. Pretty sure that's a done deal. I'm going to try to figure out how to still use the polydome I got from our neighbor to house the geese in. They might need a little ramp and some ramp training like Penelope got when she was a baby.

Rabbits- Rabbit might be one of my absolute favorite foods in the world. They existed in such abundance at our apartment that it seemed silly to try to raise domesticated rabbits. While we saw a few here in the end of summer/ early fall, they certainly weren't in abundance. Aside from shelling out for some infrastructure and stock costs, rabbits don't seem too tough to pull off this year. I had originally planned to knock this out during the end of winter, but I've sort of hit a design flaw and I'm focusing on some other stuff at the moment, mainly music. Rabbits are reasonably easy to take care of, not cost-prohibitive in regards to feed and care, and can add a significant amount of extra lean protein to our diets. Plus, they're cute and fluffy.

Mobile Chicken Coop- I've been talking about this quite a bit lately. I want to build another coop similar to our existing one, but on a trailer platform and be able to move it around the property. I want to fence the chickens into small paddocks with electronet, or even just non-electrified fence in the beginning so that I can focus their efforts where it will do the most good, and spread them across the landscape rather than keeping them in a fixed location- which usually turns into a mudhole. Again, this is a moderate expense, but if done right, should last a long time and its benefits will outweight the cost long term.

Worm Bin- A few years back I had wanted to start a worm bin, but couldn't find an appropriate place to site the bin while living in our apartment. Our basement now seems to have a very consistent temperature, and would be a great location for a worm bin. What little amount of food scraps we've been generating have been going straight into the chicken run, but it's never enough volume all at once to get some good aerobic compost going. A big part of our tiny volume of food scraps is that with the ordeal of moving, we didn't produce nearly the amount of veggies from our garden as in previous years. We just can't afford to buy the kind of produce we're used to producing ourselves. Just this morning we were debating over the best use of our shredded paper, and it hit me again- WORM BIN. So, this is a relatively new idea, but seems easy enough to get going, especially considering we have most or all of the parts needed. We just need for the ground to thaw a bit and find some appropriate worms.

Duckponics- This is Naomi's area of expertise, but she mentioned some adjustments and upgrades she's planning on for this year. I'll let her tackle that when she sees fit.

Gutters- We dearly need gutters on our house. They would fix so many issues that we're having like basement infiltration, exterior rot on the house (see windowsills), foundation stuff, and water supply issues. I'm really hoping I can slam this one out before next fall. I haven't even begun to research the cost of this, but we've got so many water issues I can't NOT get them.

Windowsills- Most, if not all of the windowsills on our house are rotten. Like sponge-soft. It's easy to see where water sheets off the roof, hits the house, and then hits the windowsills. I need to do a lot of work on the windows other than the sills, too, (reglazing, new storm windows) but it doesn't make sense until the water issue is resolved. I am, however, planning to try replacing one windowsill and see how it goes. If it isn't too much of a nightmare, I will then plan on doing the others. I'm hoping to replace the sills, eventually get new storm windows, and otherwise rehabilitate the existing wooden-sash, double-hung windows because they're beautiful and fit the style of our home very well.

Information 2014 & 2015

Perhaps this is all in my head, but I feel as though one of my jobs in our household is systems manager (since that is something that I naturally do well). As the systems manager (that I just crowned myself as), I would be better suited to my job if I glean more information about the systems I am attempting to manage. In my year-end books read review I do for my own benefit, I noticed that not only did I not read a great number of books this year, very few of them were aligned with my goals of furthering our agricultural life. Here were the books that I DID read in 2014 that help me have a wider breadth of knowledge.

•  The Tinkerers: The amateurs, DIYers, and inventors who make America great by Alex Foege
• 101 Things to Do 'Til the Revolution: Ideas and resources for self-liberation, monkey wrenching and preparedness by Claire Wolfe
• Loving and Leaving the Good Life by Helen Nearing
• Getting Food from Water: A Guide to backyard aquaculture by Gene Logsdon
• The Chicken Chronicles: Sitting with the angels who have returned with my memories: Glorious, Rufus, Gertrude Stein, Splendor, Hortensia, Agnes of God, The Gladyses & Babe: a memoir by Alice Walker

In 2015, I would like to read more, and read more books that further our life goals. I am fully aware that information comes from sources other than books, but I worry that this is emblematic of the information that I have been researching this past year.

Here's to a new year and new books to read! 

Energy Audit

On Friday, we had an energy audit of our home. I had been really excited about it, too. The program sounds great- tons of rebates, air sealing, duct sealing, thermal imaging, and a ton of (arguably crummy but "free") lightbulbs.

For $99, I figured that even just the weatherstripping on the doors would be worth it. We also desperately need to replace our windows because the sills are so rotten they feel like a sponge. The program was offering a rebate of $50 per window. At least we got the weather stripping done on the doors, but that's about the only thing we got.

In the first 5 minutes, the guys spotted some asbestos tape sealing some ductwork below the bathroom. I don't remember if the building inspector had spotted that or not, but I don't remember it. One of the guys immediately said they wouldn't do the blower door test because it's too dangerous. The blower is powerful enough to agitate the asbestos and make it airborne. So that was that on the blower door test. They proceeded to do the weather stripping on the doors anyway at least. There was no doubt that the doors were drafty, considering you could see sunlight through the door frames when the doors were closed.

Then the other guy said they'd still do some ductwork tests to seal up where the ducts leak, and boy do they leak, but we encountered the same problem- that bit of asbestos tape. Not surprised, but disappointed.

When Guy #1 was doing the weather stripping, he left the plastic wrappers to blow across the yard. OK maybe he forgot? Then came the lightbulbs. Guy #2 went around and switched out our lightbulbs. We got 4 LEDs and the rest got changed to CFLs. Luckily, we got to keep all our incandescents, which we need for brooder lights. By the time the guys had left, we realized they didn't even leave us the extra CFLs we were supposed to get. The program supplies 25 CFLs, but they left with the extras. They DID leave behind 2 more LEDs and an extra showerhead, which was in addition to the one they installed. WHOOPS.

And as for the rebates, Guy #2 would only sign off on a few of them, and we only have 120 days to redeem them. No window rebate, and no insulation rebate. SHIT!!! Overall, I am really disappointed. At least we got our doors sealed up well. They didn't do any thermal imaging, but said we "probably" have insulation.

the white band in the center of the photo is the alleged asbestos

I don't mean to fault the workers for not performing those tests, but I'm definitely disappointed. I'm also planning on taking steps for remediation of the asbestos as well, and seeing what else I can do to make our house more efficient. On the advice of my friend Paul, I also plan on filing a complaint to Energize CT against the crew who came out and their lack of professionalism. I didn't go into a lot of detail in this post about all of the the things that went wrong that day, but they were numerous.

2014 Wrap-up

2014 had a lot of turbulence, but we did manage to get some data!


Having more birds definitely meant more eggs, but we unfortunately stopped keeping track of eggs when we moved into the new house.



Some dates that we noted on the calendar:
2/22: Started Eggplant, Lettuce, Pepper seeds
3/8: Started Tomato seeds
3/18: 1st Penelope Egg of Spring
4/5: Started Squash, Watermelon, Cucumber seeds
6/14: Moved into House! :)
8/3: Fabio began mounting hens
9/5: 1st Tweeter egg
10/14: Planted Garlic in bed #1
11/3: Duck pond frozen
11/8: The Chop
11/14: 1st Snow
11/15: Ground Frozen