March 16, 2017

On a cold winter day, what does one think about?  Me, I'm thinking that there's got to be a way to better utilize all that heat sitting in the attached greenhouse.  Sure, some of it was coming through the open windows, but not fast enough.  The thermometer was reading over a hundred (of course, it is also sitting in the sun), even though it is 44 degrees outside.  In the house, it was 66 degrees even though I had been using the heater (but I do have a tendency to set it on 65. . .)  So as I went to sit in the greenhouse to warm up, I looked down and spied the box that was holding the ventilation fan that we had not yet installed.  Eureka!  I knew what to do.  I took the window screen out of the window, opened it enough to insert the ventilation fan in the top, cut a piece of 2 x 4 to brace the window that was holding it up, and cut a slice of 1 x to snug it up at the top.  Then I fished the cord into the bottom of the window and turned it on.  Oila!  Hot air pouring into the house!  Happy Dance! Yay!

Our border collies don't like dog food, so we have been buying cheap chicken leg quarters and large bags of rice to serve as the foundation of their dinner (along with leftovers).  This usually leaves us with lots of chicken bones that I was sure we could use for something.  Sure enough, I found that ground bone meal is excellent for the garden.  So I dried them out in the oven until they were brittle per instructions I found on the internet, and once they had cooled, put them in my ordinary blender in small batches which pulverized them with no trouble at all.  Next time, I am going to try drying them in the greenhouse so I can save on electricity.

We have a hen that is sitting on some eggs that I don't think were fertilized by our rooster.  As I felt sorry for her, I am planning to sneak some chicks under her.  Unfortunately, it got really cold out right after we got the chicks.  Lows around 19 and 20.  I am hoping that this will be gone in a week and we can continue on with that plan.  In the meantime, the chicks sure are cute!  This time we got some Silver Wyandottes and some Isa Browns.  We are working on a separate brooding house made from our old mini coop, and will show you that when it is finished.

Since we have a pasture with very little shade, we had built a shade structure on skids.  We found out that the steer could push the top and make it lean forward, so we spent some time adding some braces from leftover chain link fence poles.  One one side, we made it in a diagonal in one direction, and used the opposite diagonal on the other side.  We also hammered the ends a bit flatter on the braces so we could use the shorter screws we had on hand.



The sweet potato slips are finally starting to grow.  I also tried my hand at making some spray-on deodorant out of oregano infused alcohol.  It works well.  Additionally, I have been using it as a "first-aid solution" for our animals, as oregano is very good for that.  Seems to work well.  I picked some of our oregano and let it sit in the alcohol for a couple of weeks, then filtered it out and put it in the bottle.

February 27, 2017

What a great weekend!  We had plenty of sun and working outside was awesome.  Our big project for the weekend was bamboo trellises for the hops.  We decided to move the hops as they weren't doing much.  We felt that they were getting too much sun in relationship to the water they weren't getting (we prefer a self-service farm).  Several things came to our minds.  Move them to a spot where they can get some afternoon shade, and preferably that area might be a little more damp.  Of course, it may be more damp due to the afternoon shade.  Anyway we picked a side of our property that we get afternoon shade and went to work.  We were also keeping in mind that we needed to put them in soil that was high in compost so it would retain more water.  Warning!  If you are a perfectionist, working with natural materials is challenging.  They are not the same dimension at the bottom as the top, they are not the same diameter all over, and they are probably not exactly straight.  As my husband and I are both perfectionists, this was a VERY challenging project for us.  However, we do think it came out beautiful and was a great way to spend our weekend with breaks in between for sitting in the swing and drinking iced tea.  Other considerations for working with bamboo are that it is lightweight and hollow, which makes them more "rickety."  We found extra braces necessary, as well as we pounded some smaller pieces of bamboo in the ground (about a foot  long) and set the trellises over them.  It was also challenging that the ground we were putting them on was not perfectly flat.  We tried very hard to go with the flow, as well as to just get the job done, and not stress over the details too much, making up the design as we went along and faced each challenge.  We ended up buying some deck screws that did not have a taper at the top, 2 1/2" long that worked perfectly.  The tapered screws were causing the bamboo to split.  We also pre-drilled the holes to eliminate as much split as possible. We made the sides of the trellises 7 feet tall, and the top piece 8 feet across, as we want to be able to stand on the ground and pick the cones.  Six trellises were decided on due to having 6 varieties of hops and wanting to keep them separated.   Our idea for the area was to have trellises for the hops, make them a beautiful feature in our yard, and provide a shade structure for us and our chickens.  We feel like we accomplished all of that for around $30 for all six trellises (thanks to the Drews' family for providing the bamboo!)

The daffodils on the farm that are lining our driveway are beautiful this year. . .