Write the Vision

And the LORD answered me and said: "Write the vision and make it plain upon tablets, that he may run that readeth it.  Habakkuk 2:2

And so I write out our plans for our little homestead.

For 2011 (with approximate completion time):  will strike through when completed.

1) Fence in the pasture common area (February)
2) Install inhabited beehives (March)
3) Plant several blackberry bushes and one more grape vine (April)
4)  Install new shaded herb bed (April)
5) Build fly/maggot traps for chicken feed (May) Husbandman drew the line at farming flies.
6) The Bachelor Pad- a separate fenced area to house our goat buck (May)
7) Build pens and fill them with meat rabbits for breeding (June)
8)Add removable plywood walls on the barn (as opposed to the present billboard tarp walls)- (December)
9) Install hay storage area over pump house (whenever) Decided that wasn't such a good idea... they'd maul us at each feeding.
For years beyond:

1) Add another partition to the pasture, one each year of 2012 and 2013, including separating and burning felled branches in each paddock.
2) Develop a grain patch to grow some of our own goat or chicken grain. (2014?)
3) Install a geothermal AC/heater (2012?) Removed from to-do list.  Not cost effective.
4) Clear to southern property line (2012)
5) Install a southern "fence" and plant blackberries and grapes along it. (2013) May be rethought with plans for a tree house.
6) Add muscovy ducks and/or turkeys (2012)
7) Clear area for garden expansion, expanding about 10-15' each year beginning in 2013.

Mad Dash Blog Post

Forgive me.  I don't have time for this but am doing it anyways as I'm WAY behind in my record-keeping.

 I finally completed my mushroom logs.  I got shiitaki soaked dowels from Fungi Perfecti online, drilled holes in a log completely covering the entire log, pounded the dowels in and sealed them with beeswax.  I melted the beeswax in an old coffee pot/dispenser that I found.  One of those you'd use at a party or office.  It heated the wax perfectly.  I used a paintbrush to dab over the plugs.  I had enough for 1 large log and the beginning of another.  I'll use the coffe pot/beeswax combo again to make dipped candles for Christmas presents.  Perfect size and shape.  May even use the dispenser feature to make some molded candles too.

And husbandman and a friend added the roof to our barn.  The closed off section contains our pump.  The area under the roof doubles our current "barn" space.  We intend for the sides to be removable so its nice and open for hot weather and cozy and snug in the winter.  So far we're dithering between using plywood or a billboard tarp that we'd merely roll up come spring.  We're going to try the billboard tarp first and see if it will work.

And none too soon.  This is our old "barn".  It served us well as a makeshift shelter until we knew what we really wanted.  The next phase of improvement is to add a common area to the pasture, which will include the barn and main gate, that the animals can access no matter which paddock their opened to.  Fencing is never finished.

In other news, we managed to slaughter all our turkeys.  We roasted one on Sunday (Thanksgiving was a bit different this year) and while it tasted good, I don't think I'm the best judge.  I'm very used to our own chickens so frankly I'd have been sadly disappointed if it didn't taste as it did.

We learned lots at the purple cow festival and the county fair... another post for another day.  Suffice to say we've decided to go ahead with honey bees and just be totally and completely dependent on our dog to keep any roaming bears at bay.  I'm also going to start a shaded herb garden.  And we'll begin design and construction on some small-child-friendly rabbit pens sometime next year.  Lots in store for us.  Lots to keep us busy.

Now on to the rest of life.

One Big Happy Family

Everyone's together in the pasture now.  Well, except the chickens.  And they get along very well I might add.  No squabbles other than the you're-smaller-than-me-so-get-your-head-out-of-my-feed-bucket-head-butts between the goats.

Despite the tall grass and my disinclination to mow, Valentino and Esperanza are in the pasture with Button right now.  A couple nights ago we noticed Button doing some interesting acrobatics and being a bit more feisty with the goats than usual.  Tis the season so Valentino got to bunk with her.  And Esperanza HATES being alone.  So unless a little farm girl wanted to spend all day and night petting her, Esperanza was going to have to go where he went.  We're leaving them all in there together for 3 days doing what we can to make sure the "job" is done well.  :->  Please excuse Valentino's appearance.  Hardly acceptable to be courting a lady, but he doesn't like me combing out his wool.  Its all shed, just clumped in there until I brush it out.  I did most of him before I had mercy on his restless soul.

Helen is due to have her kids (presuming there are twins) on the 19th.  She's looking rather robust these days.  Her bag is filling out.  I check her tail tendons everyday for any signs of birth.  Thankfully there have been none as birthing more than a couple days early is really hard on the little ones.  Meanwhile, we are hobbling along with no milk for now.  It will be so nice when she kids as she at one time gave a full gallon a day.

Copper, though a wee little lad in comparison, remains the king of the pasture.  He's fine with his new feathered subjects though.

And here's the turkey's night time abode.  I wrapped it in barb wire to keep the goats from rubbing against it and trashing it.  However, I also have to keep it closed as they love to go inside.  I refuse to barb wire the inside so closed it stays.  I put the turkeys' feed bucket on top of it.  They can fly up and eat but the goats don't bother to try to get into it.  I don't know what I'll do when the birds are too big to fly up there, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

A couple of Blue Slate turkeys.  5 of these remained after the massacre incident and they are really pretty.  One Royal Palm (black and white ones pictured with Copper) is a tom as it has started to strut its stuff.  Three of these guys remain.  I'm hoping we have a tom and 2 hens, perfect for breeding come spring.

 And here's the newly refurbished trailer.  One of our welding friends and Husbandman worked all day one Saturday to get it looking this good.  Its been a year since we've felt like the trailer was up to the challenge of hauling compost so we were in dire need of some.  We lined the expanded metal with a section of a billboard tarp and I shoveled in a load yesterday.  Today I applied almost all of it as I had some cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, mustard greens and kale that all were needing more growing room.  I'll probably get another load next week too. They have plenty and we need it all!

And that's all the updates from this end... Maybe the next post will be announcing a birth! 

Bad Puppy

Rough day on the 'stead yesterday. After finally getting a grumpy, over-tired 2-year old to actually stay in bed, I was desperately trying to catch up on my chores when I noticed a lump in the front yard. Hmmmm... it looks like that lump has feathers. Closer inspection revealed it to be a half eaten turkey.

We've been day ranging the turkeys in the back yard. The plan is to day range them in the pasture but I didn't want to throw them out there until they were used to the drill. I set up some baby gates around the door of the pen so they had more space where they wouldn't get bothered by the dog, but they usually chose to just fly over and roam. And Angel (the dog) would chase some, but not too badly unless they strayed really far from the pen. She's a fast dog so if her desire were to catch, she'd have no problem whatsoever. In the evening, they come home to roost, we lock them up and they are safe.

Yesterday morning while working in farmer girl's "pretty patch" we noticed a turkey straying all the way into the front yard. I took it back once and not too long later it was back, assuming it was the same bird. Angel was chasing it, I caught it again and again returned it to the secure area. Late afternoon, upon discovering the half eaten turkey, I ran to the back to see if the others were safe. I counted 7 (where there were 10), locked them in the pen and went hunting for the others. I soon found another one in the woods towards the front, alive and well, and another barely alive. I locked up the good one with the others and transferred the injured one to the dog crate. It appeared as though her leg were broken or maybe she was spraddle legged. I put a call into a bird rescue place to see if they could talk me through saving her. Meanwhile I'm trying to decipher what took place. I was home the whole time. Inside and busy but I would have thought I would have heard Angel barking if an unwelcome animal were visiting. I had no other option but to deduce that Angel must have killed the turkey.

I decided to follow the folk wisdom... tie the dead bird around the dog's neck for a couple days. I took the half eaten bird by the remaining foot and Angel immediately pulled against me by the wing, staking her claim. I then had little doubt that Angel was the culprit. I tied it to her and went back to the injured one which I then found dead also.

The bird rescue lady said the deaths were likely caused from stress. The story I'm spinning is that the birds strayed to the front yard, Angel chased them incessantly to get them to the back (she doesn't bark unless there's an unwelcomed animal around), the one died from stress and, being dead, Angel decided it was a meal. The second one was still alive which is why Angel probably didn't go ahead and start munching on that one too. Either that or she was full.

Later that evening we were debating about how to protect Angel from critters wanting the rotting meat- she's just not a fighter. She's an alarm, a scary alarm, so animals don't challenge her, but if something vicious were to decide she had what they wanted, I don't think she would fight at all. Anyway, that dilemma was solved as we noticed that she had eaten the rest of the bird though I thought I had tied it high enough to disable her from reaching it. We had already disposed of the other bird. This morning she merely reeked of rotting meat and has likely not learned her lesson. So she's spent most of today in the 6'x8' kennel. Tomorrow she'll have her usual reign, but I'm certainly not letting her around the turkeys again. She'll have to be kept tight until the turkeys are ready for the pasture... or should I say the turkey PEN is ready for pasture. I need to wrap the pen in barb wire to prevent the goats from rubbing against it and destroying it. Then I think they'll be fine to set out. Still a bit nervous about it, but given that they even come "home" when it starts to rain, I think they should be ok.

Turkeys!

A couple months ago we took in a few chickens from people who didn't want them anymore. Shortly later we met some friends who were wanting to get into chickens. We gave them these. The little farm girl was sad to see the funny-head chickens go, but when I said they were going to a family who didn't have any chickens at all she responded with, "No chickens, Mommy!?!?! They need them really bad!!!" And that was the end of her sorrow.

Well, that family ended up not wanting them too much. They had built a very large and heavy pen and with their property being a touch low, they just didn't have enough dry ground to keep up the fresh grass supply. So they gave the chickens back... with the pen!

This is a HUGE blessing! My wheels immediately started turning thinking of what we could do with this awesome pen. (We gave away the chickens on craigslist) So, it's only natural that I started thinking about TURKEYS!

Our last turkey attempt was 2 years ago with industry-standard double-breasted turkeys. We ordered 4 poults, 2 survived which we named Thanksgiving and Christmas. Thanksgiving was a big Tom that weighed over 50 pounds at slaughter. He was 37 pounds dressed and I had to haul him into the bathtub for the final cleaning before slaughter. And then who has a roasting pan for a 37 lb bird? We decided then and there to never raise frankenfoods again (all double-breasted birds are artificially inseminated as they are too big breasted to mount and mate naturally). Yet ordering heritage breeds required a much bigger order and cost almost double the standard breeds. So we decided we would wait until we were ready to really do turkeys... as in get a starter batch and keep some for breeding and hatch out our own birds each year. This pen is perfect for that. It's a bit small for a bunch of full-grown turkeys, but it has a side door for day-ranging. We may convert our old goat barn into an overflow turkey night house. We can let them out during the day, round them back up at night, let the hens hatch out a clutch in the spring and slaughter the extras in the fall. The toms aren't nearly as noisy as roosters so it just might work.

But even better, we found a local source (several of them!) for poults and picked up 10 of them the very next day. We have 6 Blue Slates and 4 Royal Palms. They've been here a week and are all doing very well. We aren't day ranging them at this size. We'll wait until they are considerably bigger and start with a small area before we turn them out to the pasture. We'll be just shy of "market weight" by Thanksgiving so we'll probably just slaughter one then and wait until Christmas for a few more. We'll over winter maybe 4 or 5 and see how they do in the spring!