Holy cow! The picture itself is beautiful, but nobody wants to see snow when we're this close to planting season.
Homesteading - "The stormy March has come at last..."
Holy cow! is right - you are not that far west of me!
Beautiful photo Darius - just cold here, thought I might be done with fire building for the year, but nope :/
Picked up more dirt for containers today, gotta love the broken bag deals at the garden center - beyond cheap.
And....we all wish that we could sleep like this at the drop of a....errr...spoon? Garden Center and Grocery shopping tires my gardening buddy out :D
Awww... he's cute!
Woke up to snow this morning. Very depressing. Had a special service planned at church and expecting lots of visitors. Had to move service to 2pm and not many people showed up. Sad. DH slipped in the yard this mornng and hurt his knee.
Beautiful snow photo Darius! Even though I am sure it is depressing at this time of year.
Cajun, hope your DH didn't do his knee any major damage.
Cute lil gardening bud ~ Hineni. Can't believe he has grown that much! So, you have mentioned constructing a chicken tractor. Would you describe your design for me?
Same here, Cajun, hope he heals quick!
That is a pretty snow pic! I know you'd rather it be a green pic tho, sorry.
Saturday was insanely cold here. Gratefully we missed the freeze they got to the west of us. Shoveling compost was put off till Sunday and it was so hot I had to take a layer off...sheesh, Texas weather. I was so worn out, I slept just like Hineni's grandson! I'm not that cute tho! ;0)
Cajun, hope hubby's knee is doing better.
Only 40 here again, but the sun is trying to peak out. Suppose to hit 50 today and 60 tomorrow. WhooHoo!
DH's knee is sore still but he is not limping now. He started HBO treatments again today. Doc has ordered 10 more treatments and will do a skin graft halfway in. Then they will get him fitted for special shoes. Praying this takes care of it. He had to go to heart doc after HBO today. Doc gave him some more fluid pills. Says his heart is fine and all tests show it is working well but they can't get the pressure down inside his heart. It will cause damage if they don't get it figured out.
Weather was very nice today. Had a bad headache so I took a hot shower and layed back down. Didn't help. Finally got some relief after I took a muscle relaxer. Then I was able to get outside and get to work. Got lots done. Shifted a bunch of chickens around and even brought a pen down off the hill in back. It was quite a feat and i felt rather proud of myself but I am going to be sore. Got the 3 bantams moved into a smaller pen. Got the EE roo and 2 EE hens into a bigger pen. Got the segregated RSL back in with the flock. Got the sick hen into a small cage and she is in the house now. I am afraid she may have a broken egg inside. Will get her on antibiotics tomorrow.
I need to go to bed. Took a muscle relaxer and I am falling asleep.
Hope it was restful, Cajun. You should be proud. I know how hard it is to take care of everything while tending a loved one. Always leaves me praying for a normal day, whatever 'normal' may be.lol Hope the little gal pulls thu too :0)
Today we are scrounging around. Trying to use whatever possible on hand, to get electric and welded wire fencing around the field garden. Hope we can get enough together for the kitchen garden as well. Would be so nice not to do the daily 'rabbit chase'.lol
Cats work well for the kitchen garden... I don't even have moles/voles in mine anymore. Very occasionally I see rabbit droppings on the hillside behind the house, but never in the yard and never see any damage in the garden.
We have 4 dogs and 2 cats. They all attempt do a good job with the mice, voles, squirrels, strays, raccoons, hogs, skunks....
The rabbits? They allow them to come and go as they please. Last year, we had two separate rabbit nests in the yard. My buddies didn't even bother their babies.
I guess I wouldn't have to worry about them if chose to raise rabbits.lol Which I have no desire to do ;0) Maybe the dogs and cats think the rabbits are furry chickens?
Ahhh, the chickens are another matter all together! My cats have never seen one, and I have no idea what their response would be.
Rain, rain, go away. Come back another day.
I've had enough of the spring rains already. About 6" in the last 5 days and it's still raining this morning, with a chance of flurries this afternoon. Knock on wood, it's been mostly in the 50's and 60's. If this keeps up much longer I may have to resort to Hineni's container gardening.
You can send it this way... I need 2" tomorrow morning, anytime between 8 and 10am..o.k.? thanks. I should keep my mouth shut, I get a bit superstitious joking about rain.
Morning started off cold...most of the morning felt like I was taking one step forward, two back. I tried to pull frostweed that has reseed in the lily beds, only to realize I was shredding bulbs in the process. grrr.
Bought a few parsley transplants, lost mine and haven't seen any seedlings.
Sowed some nasturtiums where squash will go later next month. Might be too late for them..worth a try. Squash bugs were thick last year!
I was feeling fancy and sowed radishes in a diamond pattern. Always looks so pretty in magazines. Has never worked for me, mine always look scraggly, yet I keep trying :0)
We're down to a light drizzle. Forecasters are predicting the next 3 days to be sunny and in the mid 50s. WhooHoo!
And I'm counting on that to have fair weather to put together shelters for my feeder pigs and bottle calves. Just spent a small fortune on supplies. Good thing I'm using some scrounged items. LOL Haven't got the animals yet, but I'm getting close. The owner of the feed store says it cheaper to buy a pig off someone than to raise one yourself. My pigs better be pretty darn good tasting. I'm just saying...
I've got all of my spring crops started in trays in the house, which I will move to the greenhouse for a week or two (once they all finish germinating) to get a little more size to them. However I did buy two 4-packs each of broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts and cabbage, plus a container of leeks...just in case. Plus a fabric row cover to protect them in the garden from the cabbage worms and moths. Want to make sure I've got something to deliver to my CSA members starting in May. I've got a bunch of stuff that needs to go directly in the garden as soon as it drys up a bit. Come on sunshine!
I just solved my water problems ... had a 3 inch well put in today.
That should provide the house, nursery, all the garden I want and then some with all the water I need.
can't wait to try it out LOL
This message was edited Mar 10, 2011 9:37 PM
Ouch! You spent some retirement dollars... How deep is your well? I am sure it will pay for itself with the dry years we have been seeing.
Have a friend that drilled a deep well last summer to water his extensive/expensive Japanese maple collection. Sadly the maples began to die and they determined there is some natural chemical in the water that is causing the damage. I would suspect that is rare but perhaps not with all the oil/gas drilling going on in east TX these days.
Nights still seeing mid 30s here but the plum and peach blooms are hanging in there. Lizards_keep, do these blooms need pollinators or need to be pollinated? I haven't seen any errant bees yet this spring and wonder if I should be out there with a brush?
Yes, MsRobin ~ I can see you doing CSA container gardening. lol
Raining here for 2 days. We are under a flood watch. It was turning to snow. Have not been out in a couple hours. Praying the roads are not bad in the morning for DH's trip to the hospital.
Van is broken down at the hospital. Borrowed a friend's SUV to go pick DH up. He will use it in the morning to go for his treatment and our friend will go fetch the van home on his rollback. Van needs a new ignition. Could be worse so I'll count my blessings.
Fella supposed to come by tomorrow after work and get 10 dozen eggs. DH bought me 6 Golden Comet chicks to replace some of my older layers this summer. They are cute. Sick hen is looking much better.
Quote from podster :
Ouch! You spent some retirement dollars... How deep is your well? I am sure it will pay for itself with the dry years we have been seeing.
Have a friend that drilled a deep well last summer to water his extensive/expensive Japanese maple collection. Sadly the maples began to die and they determined there is some natural chemical in the water that is causing the damage. I would suspect that is rare but perhaps not with all the oil/gas drilling going on in east TX these days.
Nights still seeing mid 30s here but the plum and peach blooms are hanging in there. Lizards_keep, do these blooms need pollinators or need to be pollinated? I haven't seen any errant bees yet this spring and wonder if I should be out there with a brush?
Yes, MsRobin ~ I can see you doing CSA container gardening. lol
Lucked out on the well ... It sanded out at 100 feet and has about 30 feet of water in the hole. Not sure on the flow yet but it seems to be ample. Figure that it will pay for it's self in about 5 years. less if they raise the rates again. Last time water went from $27.00 a month to $32.50 and they lowered the minimum usage. So the average bill for the house is about $42. to $47.00 a month. Add another one for the nursery and gardens and it adds up fast.
Tried to go with a pond or other ways to capture and reuse rain water but dollar for dollar the well was the cheapest way to get a steady water supply.
Peach is self fruitful and doesn't need a pollinator. Most plums are partially self fruitful and will set fruit without a pollinator but not very reliably. Always best to have a pollinator to insure good crops year after year with them and most other fruit. Here Methely and Santa Rosa are the two that work the best and cross pollinate well with each other and have abundant crops. Those are what gave us all those plums last year.
Always good to see the bees but most of the fruit trees here will get along with wind blown pollination and other bugs doing the work
There are two people around here that let them winter bees on their property so we always have amble amounts of them in early spring.
We have the beekeepers here normally but hadn't seen them this year. I also haven't seen the normal spring swarms of bees. Not good!
The Lizards will love your well. With the TX water situation going the direction it is, you will be in glad you already drilled I suspect.
I'm a happy girl...I see sunshine and blue skys!
Quote from podster :
We have the beekeepers here normally but hadn't seen them this year. I also haven't seen the normal spring swarms of bees. Not good!
The Lizards will love your well. With the TX water situation going the direction it is, you will be in glad you already drilled I suspect.
Yeah ... it's not getting any cheaper. That's for sure
LOL
Mornin' everyone! YES, the sun is shining. Ugh on the last couple of days. It is SO wet, I am very thankful I am container gardening this year. I suspect around July we'll all be wishing we could see 3/10's of an inch, not to mention the 3" I got in one day this week for over 6" total this week. I think we're caught up now for the year. I'd like to request slow and steady now going forward please :)
@ Podster re: chicken tractor - it's an 8 foot long rectangle, with a 2.5 foot x four foot roost/coop at the end. Very plain. Robin found the design for me on the web and I saved the picture, no real building plans or anything, but I think I have it all figured out (ha! famous last words). I plan on making a divided double hinged opening at the back to clean and get egg access. I'm not trying to put wheels on it, just two eye hooks and some clothesline rope on the front coupled with some oomph to move it around. I won't pick up the hens until after I return from my daughter's graduation in early May - and that's considering if I actually get to go. The one thing I hadn't considered was how I was going to open and close the roost door (thanks YouTube) so I had to return to get a pulley to operate that from outside of the tractor. I want to try to get it done this next week before my daughter leaves, everything is always easier with two sets of hands when you get to projects like this. I'm a little worried about how wet it is out there where I want to put them, which is inside the garden fence. I'm not sure how my Pyrs will react to them, so they need double protection initially. They keep rabbits, moles, deer carcasses and everything else around here for gnawing, and I've even seen some vulture feathers in the yard before...lol! They may just think I'm bringing them a new food source :)
My strawberries and asparagus are en route, so I need to do the bag garden for the berries and figure out where the heck I'm putting a permanent asparagus bed, as I've nearly abandoned my first area of consideration. I don't think I can afford the dirt and the dog protection it would require. Thank goodness I'm not working, although the money thing hurts, as I'd have no time. I either have time or money, but not usually both :D
@Lizard - good news on your well. I was just reading how badly the Ogalalla (?) aquifer is doing this year again; I hope that's not the one your pulling from.
Ya'll all have a good day now,
~Sunny
Wet as can be here. Nasty. When it rains it runs through my chicken pens. I had to throw a bale of straw in one pen to get the girls up out of the mud. My game hen has gone broody. I sold 10 dozen eggs today. Got 10 dozen more to sell. Picked up 20 eggs today. Sick hen is about the same. Going to bathe her tomorrow. Her hind end is nasty. Chicks are all doing fine. Garlic is coming up. Working on getting seeds together for the swap. A bit disappointed today. One of my EE hens laid a light tan egg. I suspected one of them was a BSL as she has the red in her collar but she is rumpless. ? The other one is also rumpless but she has no red and a very small comb so I am hoping she will lay a blue or green egg. I have the 2 of them in with my EE roo right now.
Tell me what yard eggs are selling for these days? I've been getting some from a friend but he won't put a price on them and I want to be sure I am paying him fairly.
Hineni ~ thanks for the chicken tractor info. I am afraid I am suffering an urge. lol
The current world news about the earthquake and tsunami in Japan hits home about the importance of having a food supply AT HOME. (Assuming one still has a home.) It's been about a day and half since the disaster first struck, and the top concern after life is the already extreme shortage of food and water. Can you imagine what it will be like in a week?
With the collapse of a nuclear reactor and the explosion at the nuclear site, folks nearby are being evacuated. However, those farther away are being advised to stay inside in case of radiation fallout, yet few have any food or water supply to enable survival inside for very long. There are reports of hundreds of people outside grocery stores, drug stores and petrol stations. With roads in shambles, no electricity in many places, and few communication devices working, it will take time to get supplies to those people. Probably as long if not longer than the fiasco in New Orleans following Katrina.
This has put a kink in my long-time preparedness: the location of many of my supplies. About half the food and most of the water I have stored is in my root cellar, which is a separate building from the house. In the event of a nuclear disaster, it may be unsafe to go outside to collect anything from that building. I have a spring for an alternate water supply, and some filters, but if it is unsafe to go outside, I'd be mighty thirsty quite soon.
Something to think about. How prepared are you for an immediate and unexpected disaster?
I too have been following that tragedy with horror. In this case, they will need to be dependent on others for their salvation but in my (live to close to the locale)opinion NOLA was totally different and the majority of those that waited to be rescued there did not avail themselves of the aid that was on site prior to the predicted event. That created a whole new can of worms!
Catastrophe survival gives lots to think about but as prepared as we ever could be, we could never anticipate every scenario. I lean toward prepper rather than doomer but were it indeed nuclear, I agree with my DH... he would want to find 'ground zero' and be there when it hit.
So regarding preparation, for survival I think water would be primary and the capability to sanitize any available water source if needed. Most storage foods require water for preparation and any medical necessities also would have need of water as well for sanitation if nothing else.
Odd to read your post this a.m. as I just purchased the book (One Second After) you had mentioned on your blog. It sounds so much like another vintage read ~ Alas, Babylon. Have you read that?
Nope, haven't read that one... my library doesn't have it. In fact my library has very few of the books I want to read before deciding if I want to buy them. The library favors children's books, visual media and pulp fiction as far as I can tell.
I lean more towards Prepper than Doomer too. I am mostly concerned about 'doom' where the government has so much increasing power to decide what is good for us and what isn't... and enforcing it by law. That covers everything from raw milk to my lack of choice about wearing a helmet if I ever ride with my brother on his Harley. Or wear my seatbelt, or mandatory insurance... yada, yada.
Goodmorning, All! Lots of sunshine and already 52* here. Headed to the mid-60's. WhooHoo!
Yestersday I put together a small feeder pig shelter and then a small fenced enclosure made with 3 hog panels. My intentions were to use the hog panels to make a tarp covered hoop house with 2 panels and cut the 3rd panel in half for the back and front. But after much rethinking of the idea, I decided to go with a small 7'Lx4'Wx4'H tarp covered shelter (originally used years ago as a night shelter for guineas) and then I used the 3 hog panels to make a big U-shaped fenced area. I want to "train" the piglets to potty in a specific area and didn't want it to be inside the hoop house. When I get the electric fence finished, this will all be inside an area about 300' long by 75' wide, with about 1/2 of the long side in the wooded area and the other half in pasture. (I know it's a huge area for 2-3 pigs, but I'm working with the original electric fence layout from a few years ago for the 2 goats we had) At that point, I'll use the hog panels to make the hoop house as originally planned directly behind the small shelter. Having a few challenges... although the shelter is on a reasonably flat spot, this area of our property is on a downhill slope towards the small spring that runs through the middle of this wooded area. Trying to keep them far enough away from the house (although it is kind of upwind from the house and deck), yet far enough away from the spring which feeds the fishing pond behind us to prevent contamination.
I agree about being more of a prepper. I watch these catrasphrosies (sp) on tv and can not even begin to imagine how terrifying this is for people. I would not be able to handle it.
CajuninKy, hang in there. Thinking of you and your family...and the little hen :0)
Chickens? Yes, you all need them.lol
My anxiety level went thru the roof watching the news. I hate feeling helpless. I save/grow food because it's how I want to live, not preparing to go out. Yet, it's still hard not to get aggravated when I see people screaming "the supermarkets are out of chicken!" or "all I have is half a jar tomato sauce for dinner". It takes so very little to be prepared for a few weeks ahead of time.
It didn't help my anxiety that DH brought home The Road, to watch last night...uggg!
Darius, same situation with my library. Have you ever looked into paperbackswap.com ? It cost about 3.00 to mail a book, but I find it the cheaper then ordering used. As long as you have books you're willing to let go of.
Lulu, thanks. I just needed a little validation that my idea wasn't too far fetched. I really like the idea of them spending a couple of weeks in the "nursery pen" so they can get used to me, plus start using their potty spot. That also gives me a little more time to make sure I've got the electric fence up properly to contain them.
I'm thinking about using 6 or 7 wires, alternating hot and ground starting with a ground wire being the lowest, then spaced 6"-8" going up. I keep thinking of the drought conditions over the last few summers and that seems to be the way to go with a low water table. From what I've been able to find online, the fence has to be set up to zap the animals in front of the eyes to make them back up. If it's behind the ears, they will continue going through the fence. With this setup, they are supposed to be zapped if they try to go through the wires from both above and below their heads. I wanted to just use hog panels for ease of installation by myself, but as I was laying out the corals and pastures on paper and saw how big of an area the pigs will have, the hog panels would cost me way too much. I wasn't confident enough that I could get woven wire stretched tight enough, so electric it is for now.
Need feedback regarding the electric fence....am I understanding this right?
I splurged when we were feeling a little flush last fall and fully stocked my new pantry area with mostly on sale items. Besides all of the canned goods, baking supplies, powdered milk, etc, it includes several cases of soups and some canned meats, plus a few complete meal packages. I feel confident about a short term crisis of maybe a few weeks. Still have to stock water, but still haven't figured out a place to store it.
From what I gleaned reading about others pig experience, the 'hard' fencing is a backup to teaching the pigs respect in terms of the electric. The pigs won't always stop, but rather run forward when shocked, the hard fencing backup keeps them from running thu.
I have read where others will build a smaller pen with electric around the bottom. While using small plastic flags on the wire. Once the pigs are older, recognize and respect the wire are put out on pastures with hot wire only.
I have no experience.. going to learn a lot from YOU! :0)
The trick is to train your pigs to respect the hot wire, then all you would need is a single wire about 12" off the ground. Set up a hot wire and put some food on the other side . Your pigs will encounter it in a calm moment and back away. If they are excited they will in fact run through it unless they have been trained. However you may need more fence to keep predators out.
It is necessary that the potential victim be CALM initially.
LOL Haven't got as far as planning on how to train them to the hot wire. Feeder pigs are pretty few and far between around here. Right now I'm just trying to get a temporary piglet pen and shelter put up, in case I find them before I have the electric fence up. The pen I have set up is about 20' x 8' and probably 25-30' to the nearest fence line and 300' from the house where I'd have to plug it in. When the fence is up and running, the fence charger will be about 50' from the house. I've also read that if there's a hot wire and the pigs get shocked, that they won't cross that line even if the fence is moved, so that is a concern.
The overall plan is to run an electric fence line (using alternating white tapes and white wires) around an approximately 300' x 300' area, with the back half for the pigs, half of the front half for a couple of goats and the other front half for a couple of bottle calves using the same tape and wires to divide it into the 3 sections, if it can be done. When Al gets backs in a few weeks, then we can fence in a few acres of pasture off of the corner where the calves will be, using just the wires.
We do have a bunch of dogs that roam the area that I am concerned about. We hear a coyote once in awhile and I've heard there are a few bobcats. I've taken into consideration the cost of a woven wire fence with one line of electric inside vs all electric and I already have everything for the electric fence except for a large roll of the tape. We're also not sure if raising livestock is something we want to do full time, so I don't want to invest a lot of money in something we might not use again.
I may have to rethink my whole plan...
TulsaDawg pastures pigs and could give you good advice on fencing, ect. Ours were penned pigs so I'm no help with pasture fencing for pigs.