It's a busy time at the moment. Just last weekend we planted ten flowering trees along the bottom of the front yard. These are all native trees and they are hopefully going to break up the monotony of all the green with lots of spring color from the blossom and the color throughout the summer and fall from the leaves.

We have also cut a vegetable bed behind the well house and planted three rows of potatoes. I am in the process of cutting another bed for onions. It's heavy going though, even with the tiller. I've probably picked up enough rocks to build a wall.

Lea Ann has been busy in the side garden with all her other vegetable seedlings. Also the Iris' we were given last year are starting to blossom so she is excited about them too.

The fifty native fruit trees arrived this week and we will be planting them this next weekend. These were bought at a very good price from the Missouri Department of Conservation.

Soon after we moved in we noticed a small dark cat snooping about the place. It would come sneaking around the house at night and occasionally I would see it around the pond in the morning. I assumed it was a neighbor's cat that visited for the cuisine. Well the kids were playing Frisbee around the barn the other evening and Lea Ann said she thought she could hear a kitten crying. I crept into the barn and sure enough, tucked behind a bit of baseboard was a single blond colored kitten. We had named the dark cat Midnight, so the kids named the kitten Sunshine. I've been quietly checking on the kitten each day and it seems to be doing okay. I wondered if it had been abandoned by the mother and she had taken the rest of the litter elsewhere, or that it was the lone survivor of the litter and the others had been killed by a possum or raccoon.

The dead oak in the front yard has been felled and the wood from that should keep us in fuel for a couple of years. It was a load off our minds as this was large, and too near the house for comfort.

We feel there is going to be a lot to do this year, but it will be worth it in the end. To think that by the end of the summer we will have our own vegetables and even our own eggs if I can pull my finger out and build the chicken coop.

Back to Plan A

What was plan A, I hear you ask? And why did we go to Plan B? Well let me take you back a few years. About 10,000 of them actually. Before that time everyone fed themselves on what they found, and they left it there because they knew that when they came back again next year, it would give them another bunch of food like this year. They moved about and fed themselves on raspberry from the edge of that wood, and then they ate hazelnuts as they traveled through the wood. Maybe finding some Oyster mushrooms growing off an old log.

This went well for a short while... about 50,000 years. But you know how it is. There must be change or else everything will stay just like it is. Also, we have to feed the growing population. Did you know that at the last stone age census, there were fifty people living in McDonald County? How the heck are we going to feed all those people with just a few raspberries and hazelnuts. I know, lets cut down those woods, dig it all up and plant some corn in nice neat rows. Then when someone eventually invents a combine harvester, we can quickly harvest all the corn we've grown and make lots of recipes that I saw on primitive Pinterest last week.

Well that's been okay for a while but now there are thousands of people in McDonald County, and do you remember Jed Clampit found that black gold that we used to make gas for that combine harvester we eventually got invented? Well it turns out that the black gold is running dry and the insects have started eating all our corn. But we sorted out that last problem because some clever people invented a spray to kill all those insects, and they also invented a bunch of stuff to put on our crops to make them grow quicker and bigger. What does it matter that the soil is turning to dust, we just have to pour more stuff on the fields each year to make the corn grow. What? You say you don't like corn? It gives you allergies? What are allergies? We never had them when I was a kid. Must be something else we need to invent to stop that.

Now I've heard there are some strange people about these days. Subversives I dare say. They say they have come up with a really great idea. They say they are going to plant different stuff all over their farms. They say they aren't going to grow just corn, and what's more, they reckon they aren't going to use any of that brilliant stuff that the clever people invented. They say they are going to bring the soil back to what it used to be like. And they are going to let nature take it's course with the insects and stuff. It all sounds a little far fetched to me, but I do like a raspberry now and again and apparently there are more calories in hazelnuts and chestnuts than all the corn we have been growing. I do think it's a bit subversive to me. I think it will cause a lot of problems for all those clever people in time. Those clever people will probably have to get a job at Walmart. What? Walmart will be turned into a Farmers Supercenter Market? Are you telling me that I won't be able to buy my chemical enriched food anymore?

Hello, my name is Graham and I'm a subversive.

Busy time ahead

I have recently been studying the world of permaculture. I had heard the word being used for a while but had never really known what it was. I just thought it was one of those buzz words that get bandied around. But when I sat down and started reading about it, I realized that it was something I had been trying to do for a while.

Basically it is a design concept that you use to get the most out of your garden or homestead without using up the natural resources. Using recycling, positioning and sustainability, you can keep a property feeding you as well as making it a clean and natural place at the same time.

We are awaiting the arrival of fifty native fruit trees that we will plant around the property to use as a food source, attractant for the wildlife and as a natural boundary. We have also ordered some Oyster Mushroom spore to grow in spent coffee grounds. There is a good example of recycling waste and reaping the benefits by growing what is a staple food in this house. Once the myceleum has eaten all the coffee grounds, it will be put on the compost heap to carry on the recycling process.

I have just finished building the top bar bee hive and it will go out on the edge of the property on the other side of the orchard. Now I have to build a trap hive, which is a smaller version of the main hive. I t will be set in a tree on some property that a friend of ours hunts. He has seen bees there and if I can get some free bees out of it, then I'm all for that.

We have also got to order some fruit trees for the orchard. These will be apple, pear, and plum. I was going to order some grape vine cuttings, but a friend gave us some from his garden. These are black concord grapes and I look forward to making some nice red wine from them.

One other thing I have been reading about is aquaponics. This involves keeping fish in a tank, pumping the water from it up to a growing bed where we will grow vegetables. The action of flooding the growing bed with the dirty fish water will feed the roots of the vegetables and then draining back into the fish tank as clean water. I f I can source all the parts, I am going to give this a try.

So as you can see, our family is going to be pretty busy this spring.

Pesky neighbors

We had our first fall of snow last night. It was only a dusting but it certainly transformed the place. I was glad that the snow didn't settle on the driveway as it is steep and winding and my go to truck is 2WD. Going down that with either ice or snow on it would probably find me in the fence, or worse, in the gulley at the bottom of the drive.
Nearly every evening this week we have got home from work and found one or two of the neighbor's cows in our field. It's a little annoying that I can't say for certain where they are coming through. There are a few saggy spots, but some of these beasts are big and don't look like they could jump the fence. It's going to take a day of working around the property, fixing and tightening the wire, because we are hoping to get a couple of bottle calves in the Spring and we need the fence to be 100%. I might wait until this cold snap has passed through first.

End to the year and plans for the future

So the year comes to a close and if anyone had told us at the start of the year that we would be in our own homestead with a dog, we probably would not have believed them.

We have quite a few plans for using the land, and a kind of time frame for these ideas, but as it is our first winter here, the main job is to get through the hard weather to come. The driveway is steep and curved so if we get snow or ice, it will be a little tricky to get out without slipping into the gulley. The well has already given us concern this year, and although it is working perfectly at the moment, we are still not sure if there are any pipes that are exposed and run the risk of freezing.

We have a dead oak in the front yard, that if it comes down in any direction will cause severe damage. We have had several people come knock on the door and offer to take it down, but only one of them mentioned insurance and the quotes have ranged from $100 to $500. We don't have the cash available at the moment but as soon as we do I will be getting it taken care of.

One of the things we want to do is keep some bees. I have spent the Christmas break building the hive so it will be ready for them in the Spring. The type we will be using is the Tanzanian Top Bar Hive. If you don't know of this type, it is a very simple design of hive consisting of a box with bars resting on the top. There are no frames as there are in the regular hives, rather, the bees build their combs on the underneath of the bars. This produces a much more natural comb although it makes less honey.

We have ordered fifty wild fruit trees from the MDC and they will arrive in March. Most of them will be planted around the edge of the orchard with the remainder planted sporadically around the pasture.

The main fruit trees will be ordered in the next month or so. This means we will be digging a lot of holes come springtime.

The other projects for the coming year are to build a chicken coop and raise some laying hens, buy a couple of cheap dairy bull calves and then feed them up for the fall. There are a few squirrels and rabbits on the property, so I would like to work at maintaining habitat for them as well as farming it. It would provide an alternative meat source. We have already started a small vegetable garden but there are plans to build on this and provide us with enough vegetables to prevent the need to buy in.

I wrote this today so we can look back on it in twelve months time and see what worked and what didn't.

Happy New Year to you all from Outlaw Farm.

The arrival of Jack

When we talked about moving to the new house, one of the subjects was whether we would get a dog. I had planned to eventually get a guard dog for when we have livestock, and maybe a dog for hunting such as a beagle or retriever. But definitely nothing that would become a house pet.I wanted a dog that would earn its keep and not just lie around the house all day being petted.
If you read my earlier post about the water problem, you will appreciate the level of stress we had in the house for those sixteen days. Well right slam dunk in the middle of that our friend Joyce tried talking us into taking a stray pup that had turned up at her door. To say that Jack is a good looking dog would be a lie, but he has one of those faces that you can read too well. And when we went to see him, just out of courtesy for Joyce as she had been helping us with our water problem he kind of worked his magic on us, or should I say he worked his magic on Lea Ann.
Lea Ann will tell you that she is a cat person and not a dog person. She will tolerate them but only if they don't bother her by asking for affection. I expected her to come up with some valuable excuse for us not to take Jack, but it never came. Instead she started talking about getting all the supplies and equipment needed to keep a dog. So much to the delight of the kids, we were going to have a dog. But not yet. We all decided that until we had the water problem sorted, Jack would stay with Joyce.
We finally picked him up a week later and brought him home. He quickly settled in and apart from tearing the carpet under the door that separated the mud room  from the sun room on the first night, he was a perfect puppy. And clever too. He quickly worked out that if he was to get his feet under the table, the one person he would have to impress would be Lea Ann. She went round mumbling things like "Darn dog" and then when she thought no one was paying attention, she had him in her arms or on her lap, tickling his ears or rubbing his belly.
We are still working at house training but even that is going pretty well. I have to say that for a terrier type of dog, we aren't sure what he is specifically, he is probably one of the sweetest natured dogs I have ever come across.

Water, water everywhere...

Labor weekend was a good time to get a few jobs done around the house, so I decided to replace the pressure switch in the well house. It had been causing some harsh words whenever we did the laundry as it would start to quit on us halfway through a wash. I drained the system, turned off the power and changed the switch without a hitch. The hitches came when I went to re-pressurize the tank. I realized that the 12v air compressor would not reach all the way up to the well house, so I would have to do it with a foot pump. That was going okay, considering it was 95 deg and I had the same amount of room in the well house as a sardine in a tin. Halfway through pumping it up, I turned my head and cracked it against the heat lamp bulb, breaking the bulb and splitting my head open on the broken glass. I rushed into the house with blood pouring from the wound and instinctively went to the back bathroom to clean the wound. I was doing this while trying not to alert Lea Ann to the blood everywhere, as she faints at the sight of blood, and there was a lot of it. Stood in front of the basin, I then realized there was no water to wash the wound. Only one thing for it, I called to Lea Ann that I needed her to go out to the well house. She called back from the living room 'Okay' while still chatting with one of our friends on the phone. 'Now please!' I called. 'Okay, I'm going' she replied, while still chatting to her friend on the phone. 'Um, I'm bleeding here!'
'Oh crap' she replied as she said good bye to the friend and dashed out of the door. 'Turn the freaking water on for me!' Moments later the water started coming out of the faucet and I was able to clean all the blood off and check the wound.
I was soon back out at the well house and before long had the system back up and running.
Later in the day, Lea Ann happened to mention that the toilet in our bathroom was not filling up very quickly. I checked it and realized that the water supply to that end of the house was down to a trickle. It took me a few minutes to realize that there was a bunch of sand in the faucets and the cistern valve to the toilet. I eventually managed to clean it all out and everything was running perfectly. I was finally happy with the job done.
The next day was Sunday, the day I do our laundry. I put the first load in and away it went, until it came to the first rinse and the water supply stopped. Cussing profusely under my breath, I went back to the well house and flicked the breaker switch off and on. Nothing. The pump had decided to stop altogether.
I eventually came to the conclusion that it was now a job for the professionals. But there was another problem. It was Labor Day weekend and there would be no one available until Tuesday. Tuesday came and Lea Ann phoned a few companies and we eventually chose one from a nearby town. But they could not come out until the following Monday. This meant we would have to ration bottled water, fill the toilets from buckets filled from either friends houses or school, shower either at friends houses or school and do our laundry anywhere we could.
The guys came out on the Monday, and they pulled the pump, pipe and cable up out of the well. The pump definitely had packed up, but they said as far as they could tell, the pipe and cable were perfectly okay. This was good news as the price of $2000 they had quoted was for all three items to be replaced. This would knock $400 off the bill. But they said they did not have a pump with them and would have to order it. It should be here by Wednesday at the latest and we would have water back on by Thursday at the latest. They also had mentioned that the old pump was about twenty five years old and usually these pumps had a service life of about twelve years, so if we get the same life out of the new one I will be happy.
Thursday came and went and they had not turned up. Lea Ann phoned them and they said the pump had not come in but it was due the next morning and they would be out with it as soon as it arrived.
It didn't turn up. By this time we were experts at water management but really sick of  not having running water. It's not until you don't have it, that you realize how much modern life revolves around running water. I don't think being without power is as bad as being without water. Anyway the company promised us that the pump had been sourced from another supplier, it would be in on Monday morning and they would be out with it as soon as possible. Monday morning came and guess what? They phoned to say all their crews were out on emergency jobs after the storms over the weekend.
They eventually came out on Tuesday and fitted the new pump without a hitch. Relief is not the word to describe how we all felt. After sixteen days without water, we have all learned to appreciate the value of that very simple liquid.