independence days - week 5

since i'm struggling to get the garden in again this year due to my rambunctious toddler, i thought taking the id challenge would be a good moral booster for me. i try to practice this idea anyway during the growing seasons so it's a great reminder of how much i really do even when it feels like i don't.


1. plant something:
sat: none - rain
sun: between storms: 344 sugar beets (for goats and sheep mostly)
mon: potted up: 25 echinacea, 8 spearmint, 11 peppermint, , 5 catnip, 2 comfrey, 4 feverfew, 4 purple goosefoot, 4 motherwort (prepping for local horseradish festival) between rain showers
tue: none, cold and rainy
wed: ha!
thu: transplanted ashwaghanda and wood betony seedlings into garden
fri: woodruff and garlic chives i stole from my mom's house today

2. harvest something:
^harvested eggs
^rose petals for drying
^strawberries!!!

3. preserve something:
^pressure canned 4 pints black beans, 8 pints red beans, 1 mixed pint from dry beans

4. prep something:
^ordered seeds to grow winter goat & sheep feed: parsnips, rutubaga, kohlrabi, kale, swiss chard
^firmed up 2nd wwoofer for the season and offered 3rd and 4th wwoofer's a time slot

5. cook something:
^made granola (first time in a long time)

6. manage your reserves:
^discovered 1 bin has been compromised. pulled out all bulk items (rice, noodles, flour, sugar, black beans, garbanzo beans, red beans) and relocated what could be salvaged


7. work on local food systems:
^sold eggs and jellies at local farmer's market


8. reduce waste:
^use canvas bags at grocery store
^re-use egg cartons for our nest run eggs
^grocery shopping (i rarely do any other kind than this) less, reducing amount of waste coming into the house
^using smaller bags for garbage to encourage less waste

9. Learned a skill:
^planning/researching raising root crops for goat and sheep feed for winter time

good day sunshine

the sun is finally emerging again. with the vast amounts of rain we've been getting, all my seeds are just sitting there, not sprouting or doing so very slowly.

last night, i noticed spaghetti squash finally emerging. the beans are also sprouting but that's about it. no edamame, okra, acorn squash, 2 other winter squashes, cukes or watermelons.

and, everything i've planted is just sitting there. the tomatoes look sad, i've lost a few. the peppers were disappearing to the rabbits, we made tiny cages to cover them. they aren't growing though. neither are the 6 celery plants or basil or anything else.

the potatoes are slowly merging but they were planted long, long ago.

i still have some basil in pots and it's growing quicker than the stuff in the ground. i wonder why. they are both outside.

harvest wise, i've gotten about 1 dozen strawberries per day. jaden and sage gobble them up w/in seconds. i've sampled a couple but that's it. it's too much fun watching the joy on their faces from eating them.

the portable chicken coop is done and is in place in the back pasture. the broilers seem happy. i've got pictures on the camera to download and post. next up is the fencing for the garden to keep out the chickens and allow us to let the chickens free range all day and then renovating the garage for the WWOOFer who is arriving july 7. we actually have 2 coming jun 1 - 14 but they'll be tent camping. the july one is a single mom with a 3 year old and will be here for 1 month. then we have another one coming in august. here's hoping it's a better experience than last year!

we currently have 10 eggs in the incubator. we started with 36. when the hens brought the numbers down to 13, we brought them inside. i candled them last night and discovered 3 bad ones. so, here's hoping the remaining 10 will work out. i'm thinking of putting them back under the broody hens next tuesday (hatch day) so they will raise them and stop this silly broodiness and get back to work giving us eggs. i'm considering pulling a few more eggs and trying for a 2nd round. we have another hen going broody that i could put them under at the end of the 3 week period. i just hate taking away from our egg supply to do it. but we desperately need more hens to lay so we can supply more eggs. ahhh, such a vicious circle!

thanks for all the comments on the previous post. i am looking forward to this experiment. right now, the seeds have been ordered. i think everything i ordered needs to be planted in aug/sep time frame for overwinter storage. i'm consulting the root cellaring book (that may be the title, i don't remember but it's one of the popular ones on the subject written by a husband and wife, possibly last name bubel or something like that).

how much does a rutabaga weigh?

or beet? or parsnip? or kohlrabi?

i ordered several root crop seeds for experimental animal feed. i estimate we'l be feeding 7 goats and 3 sheep this winter. those 10 will eat an average of 40 pounds per day. multiply that by 6 months (182 days) and that equals 7300 pounds. wow.

i don't expect to grow that much but you never know. the complete list of what i hope to grow (we'll be eating most of these too):
turnips
parsnips*
carrots*
sunchokes*
beets
kohlrabi
rutabaga
kale*
swiss chard*
several winter squash varieties: pumpkins, buttercup, etc.

* marks those i will leave in the ground and cover for protection.

this year, i hope to rate their yield vs. weight and compare that list to what the animals prefer. then next year, i'll grow more of what they prefer. w/in 3 years, i hope to get them mostly off grain and onto root crops for winter feed (plus hay - see below).

i feel that i cannot truly be self sufficient with animals if i'm always needing to purchase our feed for the animals from outside sources. i don't want to be one of those 'homesteaders' who raise a whole menagerie of animals to be self sufficient and raise their own feed but yet still be dependent on others to feed their feed. did that make sense?

we have plenty of land that can be better utilized to accomplish this goal. we are taking over the back field that the farmer usually farms and turning it into a hay field. there are two types of hay i'm interested in: a mix of clover, vetch and alfalfa and a mix of oats and peas (grown together and harvested when oats start to turn). supposedly, the latter is good if you have poultry in with your goats/sheep as they will scratch and eat the oats that fall out of the hay. we hope to keep our turkeys in with them. we'll cut these with a mower on the tractor and then hand rake it and pile it loose in the shed. if need be, we have a sickle to cut it with.

i am very excited that we are approaching this goal. from day one of owning animals, i've wanted to be able to provide them their feed. the $20 worth of seeds i'm investing in will hopefully be a great start. i was just reading this morning how someone was growing 4 - 90' rows of parsnips and a few rows of carrots to feed their 2 cows during the winter. it's great to see others are attempting this as well.

i also am growing some black sunflower seeds. that started when i discovered several had sprouted from the goat bedding i had covered the potatoes with. they love these sunflower seeds and they are expensive. i hope to set up a small patch and see what my yield is. they will make a yummy treat and also a good supplement for the does in milk.

carla emery's country living book also has some great information on feeding animals in this manner. the whole 'what did people do before they could go to rural king and buy grain for their animals' aka the pre-cornfed diet.

has anyone else had any experience with this method of feeding livestock?

next, i'll be researching what to grow to feed the chickens during the winter.

in other news, the pesky rabbits have been taking out my cayenne pepper plants one at a time so greg fashioned me some mini pepper cages out of hardware mesh. they are dinky but hopefully will keep any more from disappearing (i've only got 3 left).

the joy of naming...

chamomile, calendula, goldenrod...

clover, echinacea, bergamot...

these are a few ideas for the new goats. the first group for the light red ones and the latter for the darker one.

independence days - week 4

since i'm struggling to get the garden in again this year due to my rambunctious toddler, i thought taking the id challenge would be a good moral booster for me. i try to practice this idea anyway during the growing seasons so it's a great reminder of how much i really do even when it feels like i don't.

slacking a bit this week. most planting is done for now. waiting for field to be plowed for corn...

1. plant something:
sat: 29 sweet potatoes / 25 genovese basil / 3 ft. spinach / 8 spaghetti squash / 8 sweet meat / 6 table queen squash
sun: 133 okra seeds, 1 paprika pepper, 5 cayenne peppers, 6 celery plants, 8 different kinds of lettuce; transplanted lots of escapee sunchokes, cosmos and fennel, planted more thyme, cilantro and amaranth, elecampagne, butterfly bush
mon: 20 edamame seeds, 3 yellow scallop seeds, 3 yellow watermelon seeds, 5 raspberry plants, moved around a bunch of volunteer seedlings: dill, fennel, comfrey
tue: none
wed: 29 thai basil, 39 spicy globe basil
thu: none- on a field trip
fri: 36 cucumber seeds, bushing variety

2. harvest something:
^harvested eggs
^yellow dock root and leaves

3. preserve something:
^yellow dock root

4. prep something:
^weeded beds and paths, preparing to lay more cardboard and mulch over pathways to cut back on weeds
^weeded strawberries and more paths
^did i mention weeding???
^found local source for hay seed mix

5. cook something:
^yellow dock leaves

6. manage your reserves:
^cleaned and organized 2 shelves in basement, made note of another area to do the same with
^ordered 10 lbs of chunk sea salt
^looked at new goats for homestead

7. work on local food systems:
^signed another person onto our chicken cooperative
^ordered round 2 of broilers
^sold eggs and jellies at local farmer's market
^received a free vendor booth at the horseradish festival to sell plants (i'll have a mix of herbs that are edible and medicinal)

8. reduce waste (was compost something):
^use canvas bags at grocery store
^re-use egg cartons for our nest run eggs
^grocery shopping (i rarely do any other kind than this) less, reducing amount of waste coming into the house
^using smaller bags for garbage to encourage less waste

9. Learned a skill:
^nope

field trip!

i took the kids to look at some goats a friend is selling today. we left at 8 am and got home at 6pm. it was a great break from the everyday mundane...

first, the goat shots. i'm hoping to get 3. 2 are first time fresheners and 1 was born this year. they are half or more lamancha so i've got to sell greg on the elf ears. i milked both and the milk was very sweet and delicious!


this is snowball. at this point, i'm undecided about her. her teats are tiny and her bag small. her hind end is narrow too.


this is the doeling i'm interested in. mostly because she has horns. they missed her when they were disbudding. our herd is horned.

snowball headshot. (the name would definitely change).

this is cinnamon (her name would have to change too, can't have 2 cinnamons). i am sold on her. she was easy to milk, even being a first time freshener, her teats were larger and hind end wider.

headshot

tori doesn't usually milk her first time fresheners. yesterday, she put both on the stand to see what she could get. they freshened in feb and mar. snowball gave 1 1/4 cups. cinnamon gave 3 cups. the kids were not removed from either of them prior to the test. i think cinnamon had twins and snowball a single birth. so, cinnamon at this point seems very good. snowball came from good lineage so she could be better with time and the right feed (neither is on the poundage for milkers).

now, on to the fun stuff...(ok, the goats were fun too!)


pyrenese mix puppies


mr. peacock kept showing off for the hens. the female peahen is currently setting on eggs. while the hen is away, the cock will play!

mr. duck...mrs. was setting on her eggs and a few chicken eggs.


here piggy, piggy...


jack the miniature donkey


one of 3 bunnies.



nina absolutely LOVED the horse after she got over freaking out being on him solo. she wanted me on there. i was wearing a skirt so i didn't think it would be wise.


amos is 30 years old. he was a sweet pony...


2 semi-wild icelandic horses. one of three chicken tractors they have in the pasture. they currently have another 425 chicks in the brooder. i don't recall how many were in the 3 tractors in the pasture. probably 300. they have them processed and sell them.


sage LOVED the pony. he got mad when i took him off.


jaden enjoyed him too. poor thing was foundered. i felt bad for him.

fluctuations

logging my daily work into my garden journal, i noticed something i've kept noticing over and over this spring...things are taking longer to develop this year. i wonder why. the weather temperature wise has been pretty accommodating. maybe it's all the rain?

other odd observations:
*lilacs hardly bloomed. i wonder if this is something to do with last spring's late freeze?

*one apple tree didn't bloom

there were a few other oddities but i didn't write them down so i don't recall what they were.

anyone else noticing differences in cycles/growth?