October 4, 2017

Oh my goodness.  Farm maintenance never ends, does it?  So I have been concentrating on farm maintenance since my husband went back to work and I am now job free.  In many cases, it may also include those finishing touches that we never got around to, but are necessary to help our farm buildings last.  For example, last post, I published the new stained calf barn.  In addition to getting the red and white barn we always wanted, the two coats of stain seals the wood (and we all know that moisture ruins wood quickly) to make the calf barn last a lot longer and honor that time and energy we expended to build it in the first place.  The same goes for our plumbing shed.  We had only ever gotten around to putting a coat of primer on the shed which did not seal it very well, so I discovered this time it had to be pressure washed, scraped and sanded before I could re-prime, paint and trim it again to finally be sealed, as well as look the way it always looked in my head only.



Over the summer, my husband had devised a way to get rid of the Japanese beetles that he hated and feed the chickens at the same time, and I don't think we have given you a picture of it before, so here it is.  It simply involves a Japanese beetle trap and a tin pie plate filled with water.





We processed the rest of the Freedom rangers, this time freezing them as cut up chickens after discovering that our grown kids really don't know what to do with a whole chicken (we will have to do some re-teaching).  We decided to keep 8 of them because we need for them to scratch the cow pies in the pasture.  Truth be told, it is also because one of the remaining chickens is one with a leg deformity that we call "Gimpy" and we have grown too fond of him.  So, since we were going to have them at an older age, we decided to add a roosting pole and two nesting boxes to the chicken tractor.  The roosting pole is being modeled by Gimpy who kept me company while I was installing it.  The leftover bamboo pole made a perfect roosting post when secured by two screws so it won't roll or get kicked off. I created a new tab that includes the making of the chicken tractor.

I repainted our farm sign at the mailbox.  The wood had split so it needed to be put back together, which necessitated that it be totally repainted.  I used my favorite appliance epoxy paint as a base with simply acrylic paint for the logo and sprayed a clear coat on top for protection.  I think I must be getting better at painting, as I was much happier than the first time I painted it.  No matter that I am an amateur painter, it works!  As a friend said, I put out the bids for getting it done and I won!

I tried making this comfrey salve from a recipe I got HERE from the Prairie Homestead.  We had comfrey growing, I just gathered some broadleaf plantain that God had graciously provided, (I had dried and shredded the comfrey and broadleaf plantain) and picked some rosemary to just throw in the crockpot with it.  I tried it out on a Monday putting some on my left arm that had been in a lot of pain (I was wondering whether I had cracked a bone as it had been hurting for a couple of weeks).  By Wednesday morning my arm felt significantly better, and I assure you, it wasn't from resting the arm.  I had been drawn to it after reading that it helped sciatica and I was actually wanting to make it for my neighbor, so we got together and made some.  The rest, as they say, is history.

We got smarter and moved our electric fence so we can move our cattle from the front pasture to the back without having to herd them to keep them out of the flower bed.  Those darn steer sure have a mind of their own!  At least we learned that they like to eat daylillies and perennial collards.  They have been out of the front pasture for a few days and it works like a charm.  The grass was tall in the back, so we will give the front pasture some resting time.  We are hoping for rain soon to help the front pasture grow.

September 10, 2017

When I was coming up, I can't tell you how many times I heard the phrase "a place for everything, and everything in it's place."  I don't think at that time it really registered with me just what that meant.  After I had my second child and decided to stay home full time, I was sinking fast in that direction until I wrote myself a job description, picked up all the books I could at the library to "sharpen my saw", and was lucky enough to come across the book "Sidetracked Home Executives".  This book taught me organizational skill and how to be clean and uncluttered.  I don't know if you have noticed, but homesteading requires a lot of "stuff".  For every different set of animals on our farm, there is more "stuff".  When you move onto your homestead, it is a great idea to live there for at least a year to figure out what you are going to use and where you are going to use it before you decide to try to get organized.  Of course, it is also best to find out if an item deserves to have their own place, even before you bother.  Sometimes you get what you thought was going to be essential and it just gathers dust. . .

Closet before with air intake LARGE

Then there is the fact that you have been brain washed your whole life to think a certain way is just the way it is done, and since everyone else is doing it, it must be the best idea.  One case in point is putting your clothes in a dresser.  Well, if you are the one that puts away the laundry, you might notice that when your hands are full of laundry, you have to wrangle with all of these drawers, one after the other, many heavy with clothes.  My son decided a long time ago that he didn't like dressers, and now I can see why.  Shelves are ever so much easier to use and you don't have to open and close them when your hands are full.  When you can put them in a closet so you don't have to see the clothes laying out, all the better.  We finally re-did our closet, took out the dresser and built some shelves.  I absolutely love how much easier this is making my life.  We also cut down an oversized air intake that was taking a large portion of our closet (after consulting an HVAC guy).  Here is a VIDEO of our made over closet.  The boxes at the top of the closet are made out of some cardboard copy paper boxes covered in fabric with a see thru pocket for labeling.  With the leftover clear vinyl, I made door flaps for the dog house to prepare our dogs for the winter and to keep me from having to wash and dry a lot of dog blankets.  I believe that if something is sitting around and not being used, it is junk, and if it is used, then it becomes useful
instead of junk.

Processing Station

In other news around the farm, we processed 20 chickens, and put two coats of Cabot stain in Fireside Cherry on our calf barn and trimmed it in white.  Now we have the red and white barn that
we have always dreamed of.