Last year we struggled in the heat to make some hay. This year I decided to try and make it easier for us all. One of the hardest parts is to rake up the hay and bring it all to the barn for hand baling. I decided to first of all, rebuild the baler so it was upright, to compress it easier and thus make more solid a bale. I then secured it to a pallet and then fitted sled runners to the bottom of the pallet. This way we could drag it with the lawn tractor and bale the hay along the windrows. This was a big hit with the family, and you can see a few pictures of this on my daughter's blog Two girls and a farm blog. The link is on the side. In the end we ended up with eighty five good looking bales.
The hay from last year is being used for rabbit litter under the cages. The rabbits are eating me out of house and home and do not care that all they are producing for me is a steady pile of manure for the garden. At the moment the buck is trying to do his part, but the two does are not recipricating.
The rest of the old hay will be used as cover mulch for a section of garden that we will be sowing winter cover crops, wheat and sumflowers. We have decided after breaking the tiller four times this year, that we will be practicing a no till garden.
We were recently given over thirty raspberry canes. I chose eighteen of these and planted them in the orchard. Tony's job each evening is to water these. Because of this, and wanting to set up an irrigation system for the orchard, I have been looking into using gray water from the washing machine. It would not be practical to fit a permanent system, so what we have come up with is to run a hose out to the patio, where we will have a barrel fixed to a cart. The cart can then be wheeled to the top of the orchard and connected to a drip irrigation system.
We have just started picking blackberries and this year I intend to put some by to make some wine. If we get as many as last year, we will have plenty to make wine, jelly and the family's favorite, blackberry cobbler.
Monday, July 15, 2013
Sunday, May 26, 2013
Summer and wood chippings
School is out and we become full time farmers for the next three months. We have now got the rabbitry up and running with one buck and two does. They are New Zealand Whites and will be ready to start "working" in the next week or so.
Our garden has been converted to a no till garden. We recently aquired about three hundred cubic feet of wood chippings from a local tree service and three quarters of the garden is now covered. the remaining quarter was already planted, but once these have been harvested, then it will also get a covering. I have planted some shallots in the wood chippings and they are coming up nicely. We have also planted a row of sunflower seeds in the mowed area to the side of the garden by making a hole and dropping the seed in the hole. To my surprise they are also coming up. I am growing these for food supplement for the rabbits.The swale is working well keeping the garden moist. The bank infront of the swale has also been covered with wood chippings and we plan to plant peas in it.
Hay making has started and I have made an agreement with a friend to supply him with as much hay as I can.
Our garden has been converted to a no till garden. We recently aquired about three hundred cubic feet of wood chippings from a local tree service and three quarters of the garden is now covered. the remaining quarter was already planted, but once these have been harvested, then it will also get a covering. I have planted some shallots in the wood chippings and they are coming up nicely. We have also planted a row of sunflower seeds in the mowed area to the side of the garden by making a hole and dropping the seed in the hole. To my surprise they are also coming up. I am growing these for food supplement for the rabbits.The swale is working well keeping the garden moist. The bank infront of the swale has also been covered with wood chippings and we plan to plant peas in it.
Hay making has started and I have made an agreement with a friend to supply him with as much hay as I can.
Friday, February 22, 2013
A little soapbox time
As I have mentioned before I don't get involved in politics or religion, but when something makes me react like this, I feel I have to do something.
My wife likes to watch videos on Wimp.com, in fact we all do from time to time. Anyway, we were home from school due to a snow day and just wasting a little time on the computer. She then read the title of a video she was about to watch. "This video should be seen by the whole world". Okay, usually when you get emails like that it means that you are about to get attacked by viruses, but this wasn't an email and I didn't really want to be the only person in the world who hadn't seen it. Before I give yo the link to it, I must warn you it is not pretty. It shows baby albatrosses in the Midway Atoll, dying a horrible death due to ingesting bits of plastic. This is a trailer for the full feature film made by a guy called Chris Jordan. At the end of the trailer, he gives you the address of his website and yes, you guessed it, I went there.
The link to the trailer is http://www.wimp.com/beseen/ and the link to the website is http://midwayfilm.com/index.html.
I'm pretty certain that if you read my blogs, it is because you are the same kind of person as I am. You love nature in all its forms. You probably feel you have a responsibility to leave this planet a tiny bit better than how you found it. I know in this age, that is a hard thing to accomplish, especially when one group of experts tell you one thing, and another group tell you the opposite. But every now and then you see something that you don't need experts telling you what to think, because it's there right in front of you, and this was one of those moments for me.
What the hell are we doing to our planet when we dump all that crap into the oceans. If you watch the videos on Chris' website, you will see some guys cleaning up a beach. They shovel loads of stuff onto the sidewalk and heave old fishing nets that have been discarded by commercial fishing boats. As soon as they finish, one of the men takes the camera down to the wash line and already there are loads of small pieces of plastic being washed up onto the sand.
In another clip, a wildlife officer does an onsite necropsy on a corpse. In that one bird he pulls out about six bottle tops, as well as other unidentified bits of plastic. Bottle tops are the most common item found in these bird.
I have never been a fan of bottled water. At all the meetings I have ever had to attend, there are always bottles of water handed out, as if it is more of a corporate badge than a source of hydration. If I have ever wanted a drink, I have always provided my own bottle that I filled up from the faucet. After all, that "spring water" they pass out is probably from the same place I got mine.
It is reported that there is a flotilla of plastic and other garbage floating in the Pacific, the size of Texas. We have got to stop crapping on our planet and ruining it for future generations. We have got to clean up our act and start being responsible for our actions. The technology is there to convert plastic back to oil. Oil that we can use elsewhere, instead of further messing up the planet with deep sea drilling and fracking. The main problem with that idea, as well as other cleaning systems is no one is making enough money out of it. We are just too greedy for our own good. When all the fish in the sea have gone, or are too poisonous to eat and the water is too toxic to swim in, then maybe someone will do something about it, because someone will be losing money.
It's time to wake up and smell the pig shit, because no one is smelling of roses anymore. We are all guilty and it's time to man up and fix it. No excuses.
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Almost coming of age
We are almost farmers! We have been busy building rabbit cages and they are now hanging in the barn ready and waiting for the occupants to arrive. I have a couple of extra jobs to do before we go and buy any stock. I have an idea to hang some hardware cloth under the cages to catch the manure. The urine will drop through to the floor which will have straw. The manure will stay on the hardware cloth until it is swept off the end into a worm box. The straw on the floor will be changed regularly and the soiled stuff will go on the compost heap.
I have also got to build a rabbit tractor that the young rabbits will be grown out in. I intend to use some of the pallets I have been given to make the frame and the shelter for the tractor. It will be heavier than most but I want it to be. That way any predators will have trouble getting under the cage.
We have an old storm shelter that was built in the cold war era. In fact I think it is as old as the house, which is over fifty years old. Apart from the obvious use of being a haven when the tornado warnings go off, it sits idle. I had the idea of using it for the majority of our food processing. The rabbits can be processed in there and when we eventually get broiler chickens, I intend to set up the plucker and such in there. I can take a water supply from the well-house which is just above the Hobbit House as we refer to it. The inside has to be repainted as the damp has got into it and the lime wash or whatever they used has begun to peel off badly. I will repaint it with latex paint which should help seal the stonework.
We intend to grow grain crops this year to offset some of the feed bill for the rabbits and eventually chickens. That will be my next major task, to prepare the ground for oats, red clover and sunflowers. We will be trying seed balls for some of this. They are a mixture of seeds, compost and clay, which is mixed together to form small balls which are hardened in the sun. You broadcast them and wait for it to rain. The rain dissolves the clay and hopefully the seed has been in contact with the compost and has germinated. They then send their roots down into the soils and away they go. This is all a ploy to get away with not tilling the ground. The vegetables patch it being switched over to no till as well. I will be trying to grow potatoes and the like under mulch, rather than dig into the ground.
I have also got to build a rabbit tractor that the young rabbits will be grown out in. I intend to use some of the pallets I have been given to make the frame and the shelter for the tractor. It will be heavier than most but I want it to be. That way any predators will have trouble getting under the cage.
We have an old storm shelter that was built in the cold war era. In fact I think it is as old as the house, which is over fifty years old. Apart from the obvious use of being a haven when the tornado warnings go off, it sits idle. I had the idea of using it for the majority of our food processing. The rabbits can be processed in there and when we eventually get broiler chickens, I intend to set up the plucker and such in there. I can take a water supply from the well-house which is just above the Hobbit House as we refer to it. The inside has to be repainted as the damp has got into it and the lime wash or whatever they used has begun to peel off badly. I will repaint it with latex paint which should help seal the stonework.
We intend to grow grain crops this year to offset some of the feed bill for the rabbits and eventually chickens. That will be my next major task, to prepare the ground for oats, red clover and sunflowers. We will be trying seed balls for some of this. They are a mixture of seeds, compost and clay, which is mixed together to form small balls which are hardened in the sun. You broadcast them and wait for it to rain. The rain dissolves the clay and hopefully the seed has been in contact with the compost and has germinated. They then send their roots down into the soils and away they go. This is all a ploy to get away with not tilling the ground. The vegetables patch it being switched over to no till as well. I will be trying to grow potatoes and the like under mulch, rather than dig into the ground.
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Agrarian Nation: —1876—Patents onFruits & Plants
Agrarian Nation: —1876—Patents onFruits & Plants
I have recently found this blog and I spend quite a bit of time reading about how it was all done before the petroleum era. I think we should all start relearning these skills so it doesn't come a too much of a surprise when we run out of oil or it gets too expensive to buy. Apart from that, it is really interesting reading about the old days.
I have recently found this blog and I spend quite a bit of time reading about how it was all done before the petroleum era. I think we should all start relearning these skills so it doesn't come a too much of a surprise when we run out of oil or it gets too expensive to buy. Apart from that, it is really interesting reading about the old days.
We are still here!
Well Dec 21st 2012 came and went and I still haven't seen a zombie, unless you count the kids when we get them up for school in the morning. So now we have to plan for the coming year and hope that it isn't nearly as hot and dry as last year.
The main project this year will be the rabbits. We plan to get a buck and three does, either New Zealand Whites or Californians. They will hopefully be supplying us with enough meat to negate buying any from the store. I also intend to use the boat this year and provide us with some fish.
I have two cages already made for the breeding rabbits. I need to build a couple more and also a rabbit tractor to raise the young rabbits in once they are weaned. They should grow nicely on fresh pasture each day.
The adults will be mainly fed pellets, plus greens and hay, but I intend to start producing my own feed for them. I have looked at sprouting wheat and barley, also growing them to seed in the field. Another thing I want to grow is sunflowers. This is all experimental this year, but my intention is to be self reliant for all animal food eventually.
One of the other projects I have in mind is to build myself an extension to the barn for food processing. A friend of mine has been supplying me with pallets and I am going to use them to build the structure. As there won't be mains electricity to it, I will either run batteries charged by wind or pedal power.
I have been reading a lot about the different ways you can use pedal power to run different types of appliances. There is even a design for a field winch, where you have the unit at one end of the field and it pulls a cultivator, plow, or anything else that could have been pulled by a draft animal. This idea really appeals to me as once it is made, it will cost nothing to run and you get some exercise in the process.
After all the hard work the family did getting in the hay last year, we have plans to make it easier and more efficient. The hand baler worked well enough, but we spent a lot of labor moving the hay into windrows, then carting it to the barn, then baling it. We still had a stack outside of the barn which Tony has moved into the barn now. The plan is to rebuild the handbaler, but mount it on wheels so it can be towed behind the tractor. We will make the bales as we go and then move them to the barn. The raking will be done with a small dump rake that I am building from angle iron and old bicycle parts. The tines for the rake will be got from Orschleins, who sell them for a couple of bucks each.
The garden suffered from the drought and the infestation of locusts last year. This year we have dug a swale above the garden, expanded the garden plot to four times the area and will be experimenting with a no-till policy. We will use hay to mulch everything. We have plenty. I will also work harder on digging out the mud from the pond if it dries out like last year. The problem with that was getting the diggings up the hill to the garden. If we do get a pedal powered winch, then that will solve that problem.
All in all, it promises to be a more productive year in 2013.
The main project this year will be the rabbits. We plan to get a buck and three does, either New Zealand Whites or Californians. They will hopefully be supplying us with enough meat to negate buying any from the store. I also intend to use the boat this year and provide us with some fish.
I have two cages already made for the breeding rabbits. I need to build a couple more and also a rabbit tractor to raise the young rabbits in once they are weaned. They should grow nicely on fresh pasture each day.
The adults will be mainly fed pellets, plus greens and hay, but I intend to start producing my own feed for them. I have looked at sprouting wheat and barley, also growing them to seed in the field. Another thing I want to grow is sunflowers. This is all experimental this year, but my intention is to be self reliant for all animal food eventually.
One of the other projects I have in mind is to build myself an extension to the barn for food processing. A friend of mine has been supplying me with pallets and I am going to use them to build the structure. As there won't be mains electricity to it, I will either run batteries charged by wind or pedal power.
I have been reading a lot about the different ways you can use pedal power to run different types of appliances. There is even a design for a field winch, where you have the unit at one end of the field and it pulls a cultivator, plow, or anything else that could have been pulled by a draft animal. This idea really appeals to me as once it is made, it will cost nothing to run and you get some exercise in the process.
After all the hard work the family did getting in the hay last year, we have plans to make it easier and more efficient. The hand baler worked well enough, but we spent a lot of labor moving the hay into windrows, then carting it to the barn, then baling it. We still had a stack outside of the barn which Tony has moved into the barn now. The plan is to rebuild the handbaler, but mount it on wheels so it can be towed behind the tractor. We will make the bales as we go and then move them to the barn. The raking will be done with a small dump rake that I am building from angle iron and old bicycle parts. The tines for the rake will be got from Orschleins, who sell them for a couple of bucks each.
The garden suffered from the drought and the infestation of locusts last year. This year we have dug a swale above the garden, expanded the garden plot to four times the area and will be experimenting with a no-till policy. We will use hay to mulch everything. We have plenty. I will also work harder on digging out the mud from the pond if it dries out like last year. The problem with that was getting the diggings up the hill to the garden. If we do get a pedal powered winch, then that will solve that problem.
All in all, it promises to be a more productive year in 2013.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)