8 pints pasta sauce. Three more trays of sun-dried going into the hopper. My advice to those who would can fresh tomatoes or processed ones.. when squeezing the seeds out of them after parboiling and peeling them, SMELL the tomatoes. If they smell 'off' or not like a tomato is supposed to smell, then throw it to the chickens.. or, uh, put it in the compost bin. They're not going to make your sauces taste as good as they could. We've had a lot of rain and picking tomatoes when they're just turning orangish or reddish is best, as they will ripen just perfectly off the vine and taste just as good, despite the fallacy of the marketing hype that tells us all that only vine-ripened tomatoes are worth eating. Bah!
Planted twelve pepper plants that were in small containers and not doing so well. Mike had prepped a 4 x 4 area and I added finished compost to the top of it and then stuck the plants in that. It's been raining so water will come from the top and let the water take the nutrients from the compost down into the soil where the roots stretch.
Also added compost to the watermelon and the gourd plants just outside the garden. I saw one of the apple gourd plants today that I planted in the specialty gourd area and it had a tiny little apple gourd on it! Woo hoo!!!!
For harvesting gourds, you have to wait until they dry or the stem turns brown before you pick it, otherwise the gourd will pucker and the whole thing will rot. Once the stem is dead, the gourd itself has also begun to dry and won't rot after you remove it from the vine. I could also just leave them in the field and let them dry, but I don't. I use the greenhouse during the late summer just to dry gourds. The greenhouse, at that point, is too hot for anything else.
While I was doing the inside work on the tomatoes today, I thought of this beautiful woman who is about to embark on the journey of her life. She is going to homestead in Virginia. I was thinking back to a time when we were doing all the stuff to prepare ourselves for farm life. We bought a cream separator (and used it, but ironically, not on the farm, yet). We had chickens in a fancy neighborhood until the roosters started to crow and we had to off them. We grew a small (18 foot by 14 foot) garden and learned to can stuff. We learned how to test the soil and how to make compost and compost tea... and a lot more. We were preparing, but nothing can prepare you for farm life, really, unless you were born on a farm. Luckily, this woman will have had some experience as a child on a farm and be better prepared than we were. My bones ache just thinking about what she's up against.
Tired.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Sunday, June 24, 2007
gourdacious grounds and then there's more.
Saturday: 5 pints tomato/spaghetti sauce. 10 jars (1/4 pints mostly) sun-dried tomatoes. Two more batches in the hopper.
Sunday: 6 pints salsa - combining the stuff I made a few days ago but didn't can, with the hot mix I did today. EXcellent flavor combined. Salsa fresca and cooked salsa together.
On Saturday, I put compost on a bunch more gourd plants. The gourd society here is pretty picky about their gourds and if I don't get them thick enough, I'll be run out on a rail. Which is what happens at their meetings, and which is why I don't go to them any more.
Most of the plants are doing okay, but the ones in good soil by the house and in the garden (where they shouldn't be) are so healthy that I know the gourds need this extra boost of compost. I also took a smelly, maggot-infested container of natural fertilizer that had been soaked with rain and will add a bunch more water to it, then sprinkle the fields with it.
Mike cleaned out the barn on Saturday and fixed a few things like the front-yard-gourd-area-to-the-street-fencing. Then we were able to move the orange portable fence out further and watched the goats go nuts over the new area to browse and eat.
On the ground, underneath where the broody hen was nesting (she had only one egg this morning, but about ten the day before - which means we need to set our trap again and catch the possum or raccoon that's been getting them), Mike found a snakeskin, probably from a rat snake or corn snake. We have a few snakes around these parts.
Today, Sunday, I've made a cooked salsa by throwing things in that I know go with it. I also look online for recipes, but never use them, only cooking times, ideas about what goes in them and general prep instructions from many sources. This is how I think the Internet is most useful. A ton of ideas from which to create your own unique flavors. Also making lemon bars and since baking is much more a science sometimes than an art, I use a real recipe and just one.
Mike is making tomato bread (what else!) and smoked some tomatoes on the grill, then let me have them to dry. They smell wonderful and fill the house with the smell of oak wood.
One of our little goats, Thirty, which is Ten's kid, is having problems with worms, so Mike and I wormed it. Mama goat, who we thought we gave a good dose of worming stuff to before, seems to have worms again. Poopy butt, swollen jowls, lethargy. All signs of an unhealthy goat.
In the afternoon, we got another fifty feet of fencing installed, pulling down the old field fence and attempting to put up newer stuff. This ridiculous neighbor ( a mile down the road a bit) stopped by -- mind you, many people stop by to give us reports like "I've been here 27 years and never seen nuthin' lahk it.." or, "this flood was really unusual". All reports amount to the same thing -- that the flash flood we had wasn't typical. But THIS lady... "this fence goes down every single year..." Uh. Huh. Mind you, we've been here three years and only once has this happened and everyone else says it hasn't happened for a long time. The lady had expensive hair, a nice car and one of those really fake smiles that say, "I don't belong in the country".
We are both exhausted, but managed to go to Home Depot, to the grocery store and to Tractor Supply to pick up some goat feed. Mike is making chicken wings for dinner and I just don't know how he has the energy to do it.
On the way home, heading down the driveway to the house, we watched the goats. They have access to the area we set up that goes beyond where they were able to eat but have not gone out there all day. This is probably because they don't have to go far to eat grass. But they were, at the end of the day, in this newly created area. We think that because they weren't allowed to go into it until yesterday late in the day, they just didn't go there in the morning. Creatures of habit, they are.
Sunday: 6 pints salsa - combining the stuff I made a few days ago but didn't can, with the hot mix I did today. EXcellent flavor combined. Salsa fresca and cooked salsa together.
On Saturday, I put compost on a bunch more gourd plants. The gourd society here is pretty picky about their gourds and if I don't get them thick enough, I'll be run out on a rail. Which is what happens at their meetings, and which is why I don't go to them any more.
Most of the plants are doing okay, but the ones in good soil by the house and in the garden (where they shouldn't be) are so healthy that I know the gourds need this extra boost of compost. I also took a smelly, maggot-infested container of natural fertilizer that had been soaked with rain and will add a bunch more water to it, then sprinkle the fields with it.
Mike cleaned out the barn on Saturday and fixed a few things like the front-yard-gourd-area-to-the-street-fencing. Then we were able to move the orange portable fence out further and watched the goats go nuts over the new area to browse and eat.
On the ground, underneath where the broody hen was nesting (she had only one egg this morning, but about ten the day before - which means we need to set our trap again and catch the possum or raccoon that's been getting them), Mike found a snakeskin, probably from a rat snake or corn snake. We have a few snakes around these parts.
Today, Sunday, I've made a cooked salsa by throwing things in that I know go with it. I also look online for recipes, but never use them, only cooking times, ideas about what goes in them and general prep instructions from many sources. This is how I think the Internet is most useful. A ton of ideas from which to create your own unique flavors. Also making lemon bars and since baking is much more a science sometimes than an art, I use a real recipe and just one.
Mike is making tomato bread (what else!) and smoked some tomatoes on the grill, then let me have them to dry. They smell wonderful and fill the house with the smell of oak wood.
One of our little goats, Thirty, which is Ten's kid, is having problems with worms, so Mike and I wormed it. Mama goat, who we thought we gave a good dose of worming stuff to before, seems to have worms again. Poopy butt, swollen jowls, lethargy. All signs of an unhealthy goat.
In the afternoon, we got another fifty feet of fencing installed, pulling down the old field fence and attempting to put up newer stuff. This ridiculous neighbor ( a mile down the road a bit) stopped by -- mind you, many people stop by to give us reports like "I've been here 27 years and never seen nuthin' lahk it.." or, "this flood was really unusual". All reports amount to the same thing -- that the flash flood we had wasn't typical. But THIS lady... "this fence goes down every single year..." Uh. Huh. Mind you, we've been here three years and only once has this happened and everyone else says it hasn't happened for a long time. The lady had expensive hair, a nice car and one of those really fake smiles that say, "I don't belong in the country".
We are both exhausted, but managed to go to Home Depot, to the grocery store and to Tractor Supply to pick up some goat feed. Mike is making chicken wings for dinner and I just don't know how he has the energy to do it.
On the way home, heading down the driveway to the house, we watched the goats. They have access to the area we set up that goes beyond where they were able to eat but have not gone out there all day. This is probably because they don't have to go far to eat grass. But they were, at the end of the day, in this newly created area. We think that because they weren't allowed to go into it until yesterday late in the day, they just didn't go there in the morning. Creatures of habit, they are.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
7 pints salsa
5 half-pints sun-dried tomatoes and one more sheet drying. The dehydrator we're using will not be able to keep up. Luckily, I inherited one a few years ago and will be using that one, as well soon, if our tomato crops keep producing like they are now.
Last year, I was busy doing stuff for the sesquicentennial at the school where I work. Of course, that meant that the farm suffered immeasurably since I was not around and not processing what we had grown and not tending to the growth in the field. There were times when I had to throw out many of the tomatoes because they were rotting on the counter. But not this year.
Mike asked me to count the tomato plants we have this year and I laughed. This year, I cut all the bottom leaves off so the plants would grow tall. By the time they did, we had not yet put the cages on them (which would have been a bust, I think, considering how big the plants are and how much fruit is on them. The small cages that I used for a few of them are just bent over with the weight of the fruit this year). So the sprawling plants, ladened with goodness, take over the garden, produce so much that I'm running to keep up with it. I think he wants to quantify what others know as a tomato plant, but it's hard to do when the tomato plants are producing probably twice or three times what someone else's plants would do.
I will probably do a few more batches of salsa then switch to spaghetti sauce. These are things we use a ton of during the year, although we haven't had spaghetti in a long time. I think it's too common a food for Mike. :) Or maybe he had too much of it as a kid. I know I did. But the same sauce we can use for his homemade pizzas and that's worth it. He's such a good cook and what I offer up to the whole cooking business is my uncanny ability to can ably. Say that ten times fast.
I also provide many of the herbs we use, both dried and fresh. And, of course, I planted the garden with plants I grew from seed while Mike did the peripheral stuff, like build huge compost piles for me and do the tractor work to prep the fields. It all works and we work very well together.
Now, if we could only get some raw milk for cheesemaking.
5 half-pints sun-dried tomatoes and one more sheet drying. The dehydrator we're using will not be able to keep up. Luckily, I inherited one a few years ago and will be using that one, as well soon, if our tomato crops keep producing like they are now.
Last year, I was busy doing stuff for the sesquicentennial at the school where I work. Of course, that meant that the farm suffered immeasurably since I was not around and not processing what we had grown and not tending to the growth in the field. There were times when I had to throw out many of the tomatoes because they were rotting on the counter. But not this year.
Mike asked me to count the tomato plants we have this year and I laughed. This year, I cut all the bottom leaves off so the plants would grow tall. By the time they did, we had not yet put the cages on them (which would have been a bust, I think, considering how big the plants are and how much fruit is on them. The small cages that I used for a few of them are just bent over with the weight of the fruit this year). So the sprawling plants, ladened with goodness, take over the garden, produce so much that I'm running to keep up with it. I think he wants to quantify what others know as a tomato plant, but it's hard to do when the tomato plants are producing probably twice or three times what someone else's plants would do.
I will probably do a few more batches of salsa then switch to spaghetti sauce. These are things we use a ton of during the year, although we haven't had spaghetti in a long time. I think it's too common a food for Mike. :) Or maybe he had too much of it as a kid. I know I did. But the same sauce we can use for his homemade pizzas and that's worth it. He's such a good cook and what I offer up to the whole cooking business is my uncanny ability to can ably. Say that ten times fast.
I also provide many of the herbs we use, both dried and fresh. And, of course, I planted the garden with plants I grew from seed while Mike did the peripheral stuff, like build huge compost piles for me and do the tractor work to prep the fields. It all works and we work very well together.
Now, if we could only get some raw milk for cheesemaking.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
6 half-pints sun-dried tomatoes.
Gathered about 15 lbs of tomatoes this time. Processed about seven pounds, which includes parboiling and then squeezing the juice and the seeds out of them.
Cut and put into the dehydrator another two trays of tomato halves, with salt and home-dried herbs. The six half-pints came from four trays processed yesterday.
Mike prepped the salsa that will be canned this evening (against his will).
I came home yesterday to find that one of the goats -- Eight's kid, wasn't around. Her other, older kid was lying with her, but the whether with the whiter head born late last year wasn't. I looked around, circling the barn about three times. Only the other goats of the same age and body size are females and tagged -- 26 and 32, specifically, were there. I fed the goats and fowl, then headed for the back backwoods (versus the woods directly behind the house) always scanning the landscape for a white and brown goat body, this one being about 50 pounds worth. They're easy to spot if they want to be spotted. Otherwise, they disappear. After traveling through many spider webs and discovering that the whole place is overgrown again and the wood Mike cut last year is still on the ground in the far back, I headed back to the house, noting that the trash from March's flood was still on the ground, as well. Picking it up is on my growing list of things to do.
The kid wasn't anywhere to be found and I was about to scan the front area where the goats are not currently allowed when it just showed up. Don't know where it was, but it was confounding that it just appeared, to say the least. It's too hot to bury another goat right now and I just don't have the energy.
Watched more LOTR and washed several loads of dishes after processing and canning tomatoes. Another 30 lbs of tomatoes sits on our counter, ripening.
Gathered about 15 lbs of tomatoes this time. Processed about seven pounds, which includes parboiling and then squeezing the juice and the seeds out of them.
Cut and put into the dehydrator another two trays of tomato halves, with salt and home-dried herbs. The six half-pints came from four trays processed yesterday.
Mike prepped the salsa that will be canned this evening (against his will).
I came home yesterday to find that one of the goats -- Eight's kid, wasn't around. Her other, older kid was lying with her, but the whether with the whiter head born late last year wasn't. I looked around, circling the barn about three times. Only the other goats of the same age and body size are females and tagged -- 26 and 32, specifically, were there. I fed the goats and fowl, then headed for the back backwoods (versus the woods directly behind the house) always scanning the landscape for a white and brown goat body, this one being about 50 pounds worth. They're easy to spot if they want to be spotted. Otherwise, they disappear. After traveling through many spider webs and discovering that the whole place is overgrown again and the wood Mike cut last year is still on the ground in the far back, I headed back to the house, noting that the trash from March's flood was still on the ground, as well. Picking it up is on my growing list of things to do.
The kid wasn't anywhere to be found and I was about to scan the front area where the goats are not currently allowed when it just showed up. Don't know where it was, but it was confounding that it just appeared, to say the least. It's too hot to bury another goat right now and I just don't have the energy.
Watched more LOTR and washed several loads of dishes after processing and canning tomatoes. Another 30 lbs of tomatoes sits on our counter, ripening.
Sunday, June 17, 2007
black sweat pants, stickerbur dance.
Farm life is beginning to be easier, but only after three years of being here. Every evening, Mike and I sit and ponder this fact, ponder life or the universe or other stuff, but of course, that involves sitting outside with the goats, or with the dog and various chickens scratching around and sometimes a peacock checking us out. Today, all the creatures want to be around us - especially since we have chips and my homemade salsa, but most particularly, the corn chips. Corn is a universal food, loved by all and eaten by nearly evrything on the planet in one form or another. It's very popular with our breeds. I just wish I could grow it successfully.
But that's another story.
Farm life is good because of the fields of gourds and literally tons of vegetables which happen to be mostly tomatoes and peppers at the moment (with errant gourds growing in and around them, as well) . It's a good life, too, because the animals are all pretty healthy.
We have the growing of tomatoes down.. that we have. It's the weed populations and it's why the black plastic didn't work and it's what we need to do next year that's eating us -- and all the bugaboos that we have to work out next year. All these improvements from last year creates a mysterious mix of success that we have and continue to have, but yet, never really have totally. For example, had the weeds not taken over, had the gourds ALL germinated properly, had we had the sprinklers set right.. you know the drill... something can always be done a bit better.
But it's always an adventure.
In the Texas heat - mild for this time of year, it's eighty degrees outside but feels 100 with the humiidty-rampant air that sucks the last breath out of you and leaves you wringing out your shirt in the yard to dispense with the water/sweat accumulations.
Today, I planted about a fourth of the first part of the 'acre' of gourds again today while Mike repaired fences. The germination wasn't what it should have been and the blank spaces in the field need to be filled in. I know that in Texas, you don't plant anything past the first of July and expect it not to fry in the summer heat, so I'm running out of gourd-growing time.
I also added compost to many of the existing gourd plants that seem to be a bit puny. Hopefully, they'll come around before it's too hot and begin their long, long vines that will stretch, eventually, across the full acre. We have great compost, piles of it, in fact, but it does no good if it's not sitting on top of some plant or the other.
I have been feeling the effects of the steroids that are used to combat poison ivy (Dexamethazone) and frankly, have lost a large part of the last two weeks because I've been so out of it. The drugs make me crazy, make me pant and panic a lot, tend to make me feel 'drunk' and make me act like someone I'm not.
The nurse I called on Friday felt like I needed to go to the hospital emergency room in Bastrop because I simply ca told her how the drugs were screwing me up. She had already told Mike that I shouldn't drive and should not do anything else, for that matter, except drink lots of fluids. I called the doctor's office simply because I could, for the first time, do this without wanting to bite their heads off for what they did to me.
I drove home the back way on Friday -- and barely, really, made it without killing someone or myself. Or maiming someone since I know I'd go to jail if I did anything more.
But alas, the effects of this fiasco are almost over. I will never, ever call the doctor on a weekend. Somehow I think they were punishing me because I interrupted their dinnertime and thus gave me these potent steroids for retribution. You don't want to mess with their dating time.
Anyway, back to the farm. We seem to have a bead on the goats' health and that's important. And it's Father's day, so Mike's on the phone with his dad, no doubt regaling him of all the things of the farm, since Mike's dad lived on a farm in his youth.. and soon it will be time to make dinner. And then relax for the rest of the evening. Or finish the second DVD of the Lord of the Rings, Fellowship of the Ring long version. Both my parents passed away in the last ten years, so there's no need to call anyone. Game over, obligation over. I miss them both, especially my father. Take care of yours. It's an important lesson to learn, but you don't have to learn much. Honor those who brought you to this world and love them for who they are, not for what you think they should have been.
But that's another story.
Farm life is good because of the fields of gourds and literally tons of vegetables which happen to be mostly tomatoes and peppers at the moment (with errant gourds growing in and around them, as well) . It's a good life, too, because the animals are all pretty healthy.
We have the growing of tomatoes down.. that we have. It's the weed populations and it's why the black plastic didn't work and it's what we need to do next year that's eating us -- and all the bugaboos that we have to work out next year. All these improvements from last year creates a mysterious mix of success that we have and continue to have, but yet, never really have totally. For example, had the weeds not taken over, had the gourds ALL germinated properly, had we had the sprinklers set right.. you know the drill... something can always be done a bit better.
But it's always an adventure.
In the Texas heat - mild for this time of year, it's eighty degrees outside but feels 100 with the humiidty-rampant air that sucks the last breath out of you and leaves you wringing out your shirt in the yard to dispense with the water/sweat accumulations.
Today, I planted about a fourth of the first part of the 'acre' of gourds again today while Mike repaired fences. The germination wasn't what it should have been and the blank spaces in the field need to be filled in. I know that in Texas, you don't plant anything past the first of July and expect it not to fry in the summer heat, so I'm running out of gourd-growing time.
I also added compost to many of the existing gourd plants that seem to be a bit puny. Hopefully, they'll come around before it's too hot and begin their long, long vines that will stretch, eventually, across the full acre. We have great compost, piles of it, in fact, but it does no good if it's not sitting on top of some plant or the other.
I have been feeling the effects of the steroids that are used to combat poison ivy (Dexamethazone) and frankly, have lost a large part of the last two weeks because I've been so out of it. The drugs make me crazy, make me pant and panic a lot, tend to make me feel 'drunk' and make me act like someone I'm not.
The nurse I called on Friday felt like I needed to go to the hospital emergency room in Bastrop because I simply ca told her how the drugs were screwing me up. She had already told Mike that I shouldn't drive and should not do anything else, for that matter, except drink lots of fluids. I called the doctor's office simply because I could, for the first time, do this without wanting to bite their heads off for what they did to me.
I drove home the back way on Friday -- and barely, really, made it without killing someone or myself. Or maiming someone since I know I'd go to jail if I did anything more.
But alas, the effects of this fiasco are almost over. I will never, ever call the doctor on a weekend. Somehow I think they were punishing me because I interrupted their dinnertime and thus gave me these potent steroids for retribution. You don't want to mess with their dating time.
Anyway, back to the farm. We seem to have a bead on the goats' health and that's important. And it's Father's day, so Mike's on the phone with his dad, no doubt regaling him of all the things of the farm, since Mike's dad lived on a farm in his youth.. and soon it will be time to make dinner. And then relax for the rest of the evening. Or finish the second DVD of the Lord of the Rings, Fellowship of the Ring long version. Both my parents passed away in the last ten years, so there's no need to call anyone. Game over, obligation over. I miss them both, especially my father. Take care of yours. It's an important lesson to learn, but you don't have to learn much. Honor those who brought you to this world and love them for who they are, not for what you think they should have been.
5/29/2007 14 pints of bread and butter pickles
6/17/2007 5 pints of salsa
6/17/2007 1 pint sundried tomatoes
6/17/2007 2 half pints sundried tomatoes.
Twice a day we're walking the tomato patch collecting a hundred tomatoes. Going to be a banner year for us. We can all our own tomato products including sundried tomatos, whole, stewed, barbecue sauce, paste, sauce, salsa, tomato chutney, spagetti sauce oh and tomato soup too. We're getting far more tomatoes out of far fewer plants this year. We are scurrying around looking for recipes to can too.
This weekend has been rainy, unusual for central Texas in June. So we have only done a few hours of outdoor work. I did some tractor work to level out the ground where the fence repairs are still going on from the March flood. I also collected some gravel and put it down on the driveway where water pools up. I cemented in a new gate post for the section of fence along the gourd field that collapsed during the same flood. Kristi collected many pounds of tomatoes, watered everything in the greenhouse, collected all the rotting tomatoes and pelted the goats with them. 216 in particular had tomato seeds all over her. Kristi also put down a cart load (1200 lbs) of compost on the first section of the gourd field. These are the plants she started in the greenhouse. I loaded the cart for her with the tractor being careful not to over do it. The first time I used the tractor to load the cart I flattened both tires because the compost was too heavy.
Once the ground dries out a bit I'll go try to hammer in 3 fiberglass poles for the gourd fence and reattach the HT wire to the gate post. That will be one minor repair done after the flood.
6/17/2007 5 pints of salsa
6/17/2007 1 pint sundried tomatoes
6/17/2007 2 half pints sundried tomatoes.
Twice a day we're walking the tomato patch collecting a hundred tomatoes. Going to be a banner year for us. We can all our own tomato products including sundried tomatos, whole, stewed, barbecue sauce, paste, sauce, salsa, tomato chutney, spagetti sauce oh and tomato soup too. We're getting far more tomatoes out of far fewer plants this year. We are scurrying around looking for recipes to can too.
This weekend has been rainy, unusual for central Texas in June. So we have only done a few hours of outdoor work. I did some tractor work to level out the ground where the fence repairs are still going on from the March flood. I also collected some gravel and put it down on the driveway where water pools up. I cemented in a new gate post for the section of fence along the gourd field that collapsed during the same flood. Kristi collected many pounds of tomatoes, watered everything in the greenhouse, collected all the rotting tomatoes and pelted the goats with them. 216 in particular had tomato seeds all over her. Kristi also put down a cart load (1200 lbs) of compost on the first section of the gourd field. These are the plants she started in the greenhouse. I loaded the cart for her with the tractor being careful not to over do it. The first time I used the tractor to load the cart I flattened both tires because the compost was too heavy.
Once the ground dries out a bit I'll go try to hammer in 3 fiberglass poles for the gourd fence and reattach the HT wire to the gate post. That will be one minor repair done after the flood.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
thunder and it's moving this way. Kristi is fussing over her garden. We've
changed the position of the portable electric fence and the goats are
greedily eating. At the same time I can take credit for mowing even though
I am letting the goats do it. I am sitting on a chair in the driveway
entering this blog post via my Palm Treo, sipping wine and swatting at gnats.
The wind is starting to pick up feeding the upcoming storm. Soon I'll have
to bring the goats in and go inside for the night. Temperature is dropping
quickly now.
We've been watching our roadrunner pair building their nest. The are so
used to us we can walk by them and they hardly move. They've been buidling
their nest and practicing mating rituals for a couple of weeks now. I'm
thinking we have a bird-friendly place what with chickens, turkeys, pea
fowl and guineas. I'll keep the fence where it is for a few days, until
the goats have mown it down to the ground. Filling their bellies and
robbing me of the 'pleasure' of mowing. And sweating. And sneezing. Then we'll
move the fence to another overgrown location. At present, with 11 inches of
rain over normal so far this year and more expected in a few minutes, I'm
not lacking in locations for grazing.
___
Monday, June 11, 2007
Sunday we "harvested" the rest of our chickens for the year. We came out with a total of 28 birds. One had been killed by a raccoon and one was dead in the barn stall when we went to collect them in the morning. We are going to leave up our festive chicken harvesting area till next weekend when we intend to harvest our first goat. We have a couple that are a little older and we need to stop them from getting any older. No doubt that the older ones will be a little tougher but we can always stew them or braise them. I love cabrito, Kristi not so much. I need to make something that is especially delicious. Then it will be something to look forward to. I have some research to do before we do the deed. I have no idea how to butcher the kid to get good cuts. No doubt I'll make a mess of it the first time or two. To celebrate, we're getting our freezer repaired tomorrow. Gotta have a place to put the lil baby until we can stomach eating him.
Saturday Kristi cleaned out the backyard goldfish pond. She also pruned the overgrown trees that obscured the view of the pond. Now we can see it from the house. It looks great. I mowed the back yard and as I was finishing I saw a chicken running around with a snake! By the time I saw it the snake was dead. It was about 12 inches long, probably a grasssss ssssnake but I didn't get a close look. The hen was pretty protective of her booty. It's amazing just how much a chicken can eat. Kristi reminded me of one of our first chickens that ate a HUGE beetle larva that we found in the compost. It was about 3 inches long and as big around as your thumb. She swallowed it whole.
We've been having fun moving our portable electric fence around and letting the goats mow the grass and weeds. They do a nice job. What's great about it is that we are doing slightly less work I (it does take some effort to move the fence and get power to it) and the goats are going to bed with full bellies. Yesterday we herded them into the driveway since the grass was getting long due to the recent wonderful rains.
I repaired my creek water pump once again. The male adapter that goes into the pump and connects the piping system has broken twice. Saturday I bought a rubber coupler hoping that the rubber would absorb some of the vibration that is fracturing the plastic. It didn't work though. The pressure was enough to blow the rubber coupler apart. So I bought a broken horse stall mat from TSC for $10.00, cut a chunk off of it and put it under the pump. I ran a full tank of gas through the pump and it didn't break. So far so good.
We're a little disappointed with the new gourd field. We only seem to have about 20 percent of the plants that we expected. So we will likely have to put some more seed down while we have the creek water available. We also have to put compost down for all these hundreds of plants. That will help the shells to grow thick.
Saturday Kristi cleaned out the backyard goldfish pond. She also pruned the overgrown trees that obscured the view of the pond. Now we can see it from the house. It looks great. I mowed the back yard and as I was finishing I saw a chicken running around with a snake! By the time I saw it the snake was dead. It was about 12 inches long, probably a grasssss ssssnake but I didn't get a close look. The hen was pretty protective of her booty. It's amazing just how much a chicken can eat. Kristi reminded me of one of our first chickens that ate a HUGE beetle larva that we found in the compost. It was about 3 inches long and as big around as your thumb. She swallowed it whole.
We've been having fun moving our portable electric fence around and letting the goats mow the grass and weeds. They do a nice job. What's great about it is that we are doing slightly less work I (it does take some effort to move the fence and get power to it) and the goats are going to bed with full bellies. Yesterday we herded them into the driveway since the grass was getting long due to the recent wonderful rains.
I repaired my creek water pump once again. The male adapter that goes into the pump and connects the piping system has broken twice. Saturday I bought a rubber coupler hoping that the rubber would absorb some of the vibration that is fracturing the plastic. It didn't work though. The pressure was enough to blow the rubber coupler apart. So I bought a broken horse stall mat from TSC for $10.00, cut a chunk off of it and put it under the pump. I ran a full tank of gas through the pump and it didn't break. So far so good.
We're a little disappointed with the new gourd field. We only seem to have about 20 percent of the plants that we expected. So we will likely have to put some more seed down while we have the creek water available. We also have to put compost down for all these hundreds of plants. That will help the shells to grow thick.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
chicken killing time
Last weekend, we exhausted ourselves by killing and processing 20 chickens on Saturday. What this entails --
We bought 30 more cornish crosses after the flood (we'd actually lost quite a few before the flood due to putting them into the regular chicken coop and not realizing that the regular chickens just wanted to kill them by pecking them apart).
These chickens we bought nine weeks ago and have been feeding them all along. These chickens, when nekkid, look just like the store-bought chickens that come in nice little packages for you.
We bought 30 more cornish crosses after the flood (we'd actually lost quite a few before the flood due to putting them into the regular chicken coop and not realizing that the regular chickens just wanted to kill them by pecking them apart).
These chickens we bought nine weeks ago and have been feeding them all along. These chickens, when nekkid, look just like the store-bought chickens that come in nice little packages for you.
farm along spring roads
The pear tree in the front, along a line of fruit trees (several plums, two peaches) bore great fruit this year, unlike the other fruit trees. No plums to speak of and one peach that rotted in the fridge. The other seven or so were probably eaten by squirrels.
I looked through old posts and found none that have shown the disastrous grace of the flood we had on March 12th, the first day of spring break in these parts and as I work for a school, that was the first morning that I had off... and I worked most of it at the farm, probably about 10 times harder than if I'd gone to work!
Here's what happened (email sent):
We've been inundated. Woke at 3:30 because a goat was screaming - a goat we normally don't hear at night. It was raining, but Mike went out to check on it - in his underwear, an umbrella and shoes thrown on. Since he was going, I knew it was safe to go back to sleep. Five minutes later, Mike is on the back deck and sticking his head in the door. "Help. We're underwater!" Up, up up we go until that night. Exhausted both of us.
The barn was under 3 feet of water, which means goats that are not more than a foot and a half high were trying to stay afloat. We got them on top of some hay bales, but barely and Mike had to yank one or two of them when they'd fallen off the edges of them. Remember that their moms are wanting in the stall with the hay in it as well and we let them all in there. The hay was wasted and useless after the flood and so whatever they ate of it now would not be a bad thing.
Mike went to get a rope from the greenhouse, about 40 yards from the house. Not sure if he was thinking clearly, but we were going to try to haul each goat across the flooded, rushing divide between the flooded barn and the side yard to the house which was, thankfully, on higher ground.
When he came back to the barn, I'd already gotten rope from the garage, attached it from a huge tree next to the house, then to one of the heavy wooden fence posts and then tied it off to a beam in the barn. We used this lifeline from the barn to the house to carry, under one arm while we hung on because the entire neighborhoods flooding was going straight through the property on the way to the creek in back.
The water was rushing so fast from uphill that if we'd been caught in it, we most likely would have wound up in the electric fence or drowned. Much like a torrential river. But the lifeline allowed us to carry the smaller goats to the yard, which is above flood level. I pulled one of the nannies, after one escaped and headed to another high point where a stack of rocks had been piled, away from the barn, but not where we needed her. I got the second goat with Mike's help
through the water so that the little ones would have one adult goat (the
rest were in the water in the barn) to control the group. This seemed to
work and now we had the mom controlling the young ones underneath the shed roof where it was drier. Most of the goats either followed or stayed on the hay bales in the barn.
We lost our five turkeys that we were raising for later in the year,
along with 30 cornish cross chickens that died in the flood. The chickens
were roosting and I think all of them survived. It was still dark outside, so
we had to wait until it's light to assess the damage.
Because it wasn't light, we just decided, since goats and people were settled, that we'd sit calmly and read the paper. It was going to be a long day. We had to salvage the stuff in the tack room (most of the feed was spoiled because we'd stacked it on the floor) and the hay we got out of the stall, after giving much of it to the goats. They couldn't go to their stomping grounds and eat because they couldn't get there! The entire front area was flooded and the side was also, leaving us pinned in, essentially.
The sick goat had to be buried as well as the cornish crosses and Mike found the dead turkeys in the stall where they were flooded. We had to go in search of things like feed buckets, stools, anything that floated out of the barn. The whole back wooded area was so misshapen and looked like something out of the Star Wars swamp scene when Luke first meets Yoda.
I cleaned out the tack room a few days later. It was filled with mold and bad feed and stunk to high heaven. It costs us a great deal to replenish the feed and the hay, but eventually, we got through it and now we're more prepared for it. The lifeline from the house to the barn is attached to the midpost, we carry a better flashlight and have hooks for buckets along the barn stall walls. I put in cinderblocks in the tack room so the feed remains above flood level. THe hay in the hay stall is now also up higher and the boards underneath it will support stranded young goats if need be.
We were pretty lucky not to have lost all the young ones. One of the stand-offish goats I took care to sop off after the flood and the rest of the goats were actually a lot tamer, if not very upset over what happened and a bit in shell shock. They were actually good for a little while, not digging into my thighs with their horns to move goats out of the way during feeding time, etc... But now they're the same goats they always were.
--
Later -- one goat that had fallen ill with bad worm problems drowned, but we think she had already died before she drowned. Our casualties were, in fact, numerous enough to have to find a dry place to bury them -- the old pet cemetery was across another point of water that fed into another part of the creek on the other side of the property. The rain went downhill into the 'j' of jiffy lube's symbol, curved around and then headed back to the creek. Luckily, the house was spared. Many neighbors would later tell us that the water hadn't gotten that bad since 26 years before. We just moved in three years ago.
While we were struggling, with a flashlight and whatever house lights we could use to see into the barn area so we could find more animals, we noticed police flashing lights at the top of the property, sending people back the other way. The creek was flooded and anyone heading into it along where it joins with the road and our property would have simply been swept away.
The damage to our fences was almost catastrophic. The entire dogleg fencing went down in a big way, took out long-standing posts in cement and basically has killed that field for the goats since it went down this day. It's now June. We still haven't fixed the fence, but we're well on the way to doing so. Just a few more small events need to happen and we bought the correct fencing this afternoon. SOON!
I looked through old posts and found none that have shown the disastrous grace of the flood we had on March 12th, the first day of spring break in these parts and as I work for a school, that was the first morning that I had off... and I worked most of it at the farm, probably about 10 times harder than if I'd gone to work!
Here's what happened (email sent):
We've been inundated. Woke at 3:30 because a goat was screaming - a goat we normally don't hear at night. It was raining, but Mike went out to check on it - in his underwear, an umbrella and shoes thrown on. Since he was going, I knew it was safe to go back to sleep. Five minutes later, Mike is on the back deck and sticking his head in the door. "Help. We're underwater!" Up, up up we go until that night. Exhausted both of us.
The barn was under 3 feet of water, which means goats that are not more than a foot and a half high were trying to stay afloat. We got them on top of some hay bales, but barely and Mike had to yank one or two of them when they'd fallen off the edges of them. Remember that their moms are wanting in the stall with the hay in it as well and we let them all in there. The hay was wasted and useless after the flood and so whatever they ate of it now would not be a bad thing.
Mike went to get a rope from the greenhouse, about 40 yards from the house. Not sure if he was thinking clearly, but we were going to try to haul each goat across the flooded, rushing divide between the flooded barn and the side yard to the house which was, thankfully, on higher ground.
When he came back to the barn, I'd already gotten rope from the garage, attached it from a huge tree next to the house, then to one of the heavy wooden fence posts and then tied it off to a beam in the barn. We used this lifeline from the barn to the house to carry, under one arm while we hung on because the entire neighborhoods flooding was going straight through the property on the way to the creek in back.
The water was rushing so fast from uphill that if we'd been caught in it, we most likely would have wound up in the electric fence or drowned. Much like a torrential river. But the lifeline allowed us to carry the smaller goats to the yard, which is above flood level. I pulled one of the nannies, after one escaped and headed to another high point where a stack of rocks had been piled, away from the barn, but not where we needed her. I got the second goat with Mike's help
through the water so that the little ones would have one adult goat (the
rest were in the water in the barn) to control the group. This seemed to
work and now we had the mom controlling the young ones underneath the shed roof where it was drier. Most of the goats either followed or stayed on the hay bales in the barn.
We lost our five turkeys that we were raising for later in the year,
along with 30 cornish cross chickens that died in the flood. The chickens
were roosting and I think all of them survived. It was still dark outside, so
we had to wait until it's light to assess the damage.
Because it wasn't light, we just decided, since goats and people were settled, that we'd sit calmly and read the paper. It was going to be a long day. We had to salvage the stuff in the tack room (most of the feed was spoiled because we'd stacked it on the floor) and the hay we got out of the stall, after giving much of it to the goats. They couldn't go to their stomping grounds and eat because they couldn't get there! The entire front area was flooded and the side was also, leaving us pinned in, essentially.
The sick goat had to be buried as well as the cornish crosses and Mike found the dead turkeys in the stall where they were flooded. We had to go in search of things like feed buckets, stools, anything that floated out of the barn. The whole back wooded area was so misshapen and looked like something out of the Star Wars swamp scene when Luke first meets Yoda.
I cleaned out the tack room a few days later. It was filled with mold and bad feed and stunk to high heaven. It costs us a great deal to replenish the feed and the hay, but eventually, we got through it and now we're more prepared for it. The lifeline from the house to the barn is attached to the midpost, we carry a better flashlight and have hooks for buckets along the barn stall walls. I put in cinderblocks in the tack room so the feed remains above flood level. THe hay in the hay stall is now also up higher and the boards underneath it will support stranded young goats if need be.
We were pretty lucky not to have lost all the young ones. One of the stand-offish goats I took care to sop off after the flood and the rest of the goats were actually a lot tamer, if not very upset over what happened and a bit in shell shock. They were actually good for a little while, not digging into my thighs with their horns to move goats out of the way during feeding time, etc... But now they're the same goats they always were.
--
Later -- one goat that had fallen ill with bad worm problems drowned, but we think she had already died before she drowned. Our casualties were, in fact, numerous enough to have to find a dry place to bury them -- the old pet cemetery was across another point of water that fed into another part of the creek on the other side of the property. The rain went downhill into the 'j' of jiffy lube's symbol, curved around and then headed back to the creek. Luckily, the house was spared. Many neighbors would later tell us that the water hadn't gotten that bad since 26 years before. We just moved in three years ago.
While we were struggling, with a flashlight and whatever house lights we could use to see into the barn area so we could find more animals, we noticed police flashing lights at the top of the property, sending people back the other way. The creek was flooded and anyone heading into it along where it joins with the road and our property would have simply been swept away.
The damage to our fences was almost catastrophic. The entire dogleg fencing went down in a big way, took out long-standing posts in cement and basically has killed that field for the goats since it went down this day. It's now June. We still haven't fixed the fence, but we're well on the way to doing so. Just a few more small events need to happen and we bought the correct fencing this afternoon. SOON!
Friday, June 01, 2007
Last time I talked about hacking back the plants that were fouling the electric fence. Well, Kristi has come down with an increasingly bad case of Poison Ivy. Ouch. She's smearing goop of several different types, anti-itch stuff Calamine lotion. None of it helps yet you have to do something. Two weeks and it should run its course. As of today, one week is done.
The new electric fence works great. To solve the problem of getting power to it I used a long roll of insulated wire and ran it from a section of fence that was working. Of course that fence was on the far side of the gate that the goats need to go through to get to the temporary area. So I would coil the wire up and leave it out of the goats path. Entice all the goats by shaking my feed bucket (this drives them wild) when they were all right up next to the fence, swarming and jumping like sharks in chum, I flung the gate open and ran for the area I wanted them in. All 35 goats stampeded right after me. Once they were in there they quieted down and started eating. I will admit that I sat in there with them for a couple of hours watching them eat, but I had an ulterior motive. This portable fence looks different than any other fence that contains the goats. That means that they are going to test it. Our vegetable garden is only 20 feet away from where they were so there would be some temptation to go eat all those pretty plants. Sure enough, one by one goats would brush up against the fence and get a strong jolt. I snickered at each one. With all the trouble the goats are to maintain, and all the problems they have caused us I get a cruel pleasure watching them get shocked. Billy goat backed into the fence, got zapped and he immediately bolted into the center of the field and was looking around, craning his neck trying to find what creature hurt him. While I was watching at least 10 goats came into contact with the fence with various reactions. Alas I had to cut my fun short as I had to bake a cake.
We are continually coming up with new areas that we can move this fence and have the goats do our mowing for us.
It looks like our chickens are about ready. So this weekend will be the unpleasant and necessary chore of "processing" them. We are slow at getting this done so it will likely take both days to do 30 birds. Then we can clean out the barn stall where these chickens are and that will help reduce the flys.
I had another run in with a corn snake on Wednesday. I had blown my buttercream frosting having overcooked the syrup beyond the softball stage, I was using an old candy thermometer that came from somebody elses house and it didn't read properly. That meant that when I added the hot syrup to the egg yokes the syrup immediately solidified into hard lumps and the eggs were ruined. You'd think we would have a virtually limitless quantitiy of eggs with all our chickens wouldn't you? Well it's extreemely rare that we run out but sometimes they aren't in the house. I went out to get some from the coop and as I reached for the door, I saw a corn snake slithering toward the door. Without thinking i reached out and grabbed it. By this time it had gotten about half way into the coop. Now it's dark outside and I couldn't see the largest part of the snake which was already in the coop. I had grabbed the last third of the creature. The first two thirds was entwined in a wire rack that was originally a hay feeder for the goats and is now used by the roosting chickens to sleep on. I couldn't pull the snake out through the wire and it was struggling to get away. I couldn't turn the light on without letting go and then it would be loose in with the chickens. What to do? I reached down and grabbed my phone, turned it on and speed dialed Kristi in the house. So she came out, turned the light on and I was able to extricate the snake from the wire rack. Kristi pointed out that this snake was smaller than the 2 that we had seen mating the other day. Great so how many do we have here? No wonder Eatz (cat) is always freaked out. This snake was more aggressive than the others have been which basically would patiently wait for me to let them go. This one struck and tried to bite me. I adjusted my grip to right behind it's head and went to release it. I'm sure it's back stealing eggs already.
Next post - chicken processing fun.
The new electric fence works great. To solve the problem of getting power to it I used a long roll of insulated wire and ran it from a section of fence that was working. Of course that fence was on the far side of the gate that the goats need to go through to get to the temporary area. So I would coil the wire up and leave it out of the goats path. Entice all the goats by shaking my feed bucket (this drives them wild) when they were all right up next to the fence, swarming and jumping like sharks in chum, I flung the gate open and ran for the area I wanted them in. All 35 goats stampeded right after me. Once they were in there they quieted down and started eating. I will admit that I sat in there with them for a couple of hours watching them eat, but I had an ulterior motive. This portable fence looks different than any other fence that contains the goats. That means that they are going to test it. Our vegetable garden is only 20 feet away from where they were so there would be some temptation to go eat all those pretty plants. Sure enough, one by one goats would brush up against the fence and get a strong jolt. I snickered at each one. With all the trouble the goats are to maintain, and all the problems they have caused us I get a cruel pleasure watching them get shocked. Billy goat backed into the fence, got zapped and he immediately bolted into the center of the field and was looking around, craning his neck trying to find what creature hurt him. While I was watching at least 10 goats came into contact with the fence with various reactions. Alas I had to cut my fun short as I had to bake a cake.
We are continually coming up with new areas that we can move this fence and have the goats do our mowing for us.
It looks like our chickens are about ready. So this weekend will be the unpleasant and necessary chore of "processing" them. We are slow at getting this done so it will likely take both days to do 30 birds. Then we can clean out the barn stall where these chickens are and that will help reduce the flys.
I had another run in with a corn snake on Wednesday. I had blown my buttercream frosting having overcooked the syrup beyond the softball stage, I was using an old candy thermometer that came from somebody elses house and it didn't read properly. That meant that when I added the hot syrup to the egg yokes the syrup immediately solidified into hard lumps and the eggs were ruined. You'd think we would have a virtually limitless quantitiy of eggs with all our chickens wouldn't you? Well it's extreemely rare that we run out but sometimes they aren't in the house. I went out to get some from the coop and as I reached for the door, I saw a corn snake slithering toward the door. Without thinking i reached out and grabbed it. By this time it had gotten about half way into the coop. Now it's dark outside and I couldn't see the largest part of the snake which was already in the coop. I had grabbed the last third of the creature. The first two thirds was entwined in a wire rack that was originally a hay feeder for the goats and is now used by the roosting chickens to sleep on. I couldn't pull the snake out through the wire and it was struggling to get away. I couldn't turn the light on without letting go and then it would be loose in with the chickens. What to do? I reached down and grabbed my phone, turned it on and speed dialed Kristi in the house. So she came out, turned the light on and I was able to extricate the snake from the wire rack. Kristi pointed out that this snake was smaller than the 2 that we had seen mating the other day. Great so how many do we have here? No wonder Eatz (cat) is always freaked out. This snake was more aggressive than the others have been which basically would patiently wait for me to let them go. This one struck and tried to bite me. I adjusted my grip to right behind it's head and went to release it. I'm sure it's back stealing eggs already.
Next post - chicken processing fun.
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