Saturday, February 27, 2016

Greenhouse, Goat House, and Fast and Slow Chickens

The hills beyond...

Steve finished insulating the back wall of the greenhouse. We want to make that back wall a thermal collector, so it will be painted black.

We would like to convert this extra building, now just storing stuff, into a goat barn.  Three pens, including a birthing pen, and a milking area will fit just fine in here.

And here is a video showing all our silly chickens chasing Steve who is holding the feed bucket.  All except one.  Well, bless her, we cant all be fast....

Saturday, February 6, 2016

Catching Up

 We have been in winter survival mode, coupled with a frustratingly slow knee rehab.   It has been a low snow winter. We actually got down to bare ground, and maple sugar season started early.  I fired up the evaporator for the first batch of syrup, but it started snowing, so I had to quit early.


The evaporator set up when I started. 
Then winter decided to return 

The farmer man hanging the sap buckets

The newest addition to our little goat herd... Mary.  She is expecting in late April, so we will have babies!  The plan is to milk her, and have our own farm dairy.

The chickens do NOT like snow, so they mostly stay in their small area in the barn.

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Wish List 2016

 A BROADFORK.  

There are several things we hope to acquire in 2016.  Here are a few that top my wishlist.
1. A broadfork.  This is a dandy garden tool which aerates the soil, but does not destroy its structure, like a rototiller will do. Thats important, since the number one thing we have to do is build soil.  You can watch some videos and get more info on tje  broadfork here.
Meadow Creature Broadfork

2.  A two person crosscut saw.  Yeah, sounds wild. Why would we want to have to cut down a tree by hand?  My thinking is, this is a good backup tool in case some crisis makes gasoline either unavailable or unaffordable.  Hey,it could happen..

3. Fencing for the horse paddock.  This is a biggie.  We want something like this.
4.  A dairy goat doe, hopefully bred for late spring kidding.  Before we invest in a dairy cow, I decided to start slightly smaller.  I am particular about breed and quality, so this search might take awhile.  And I am not interested in having to feed one all winter anyway, so no hurry.


Those are the first things on our list.   Right now, I have a tiny bit saved up from egg sales towards the Broadfork.  We will need that early spring.