Spring planting continues

My favorite plum tree - blooming already!

Spring is HERE! We have baby goats, flowering trees...and planted seeds as proof. I had so many little updates after all our hard work last weekend that I decided to do one big 'picture post' to cover them.

So last weekend we got a lot done around the homestead. I was off Thurs & Fri and between those two days and a weekend with only a little rain, we were able to be very productive. First off, we finally got those codling moths out into the apple trees. I still need to make a few more, but we are pretty well covered now.

Codling moth traps hanging in our apple trees.

Then we set about using the rope hand-held chain saw that I ordered to remove a few high branches. Our neighbor to the south lives on a very, overgrown piece of land. The trees are super tall and a couple of them had HUGE branches that hung over and shaded one of our apple trees. We wanted to cut them down, but they were so high, they were well out of reach of our ladder. Even a ladder combined with a chainsaw on a pole might not have been enough. So I searched online and found the nifty little tool we used. http://www.cspoutdoors.com/higlimropcha.html

While I've seen lots of people complaining about this tool, it worked great for us. One branch split before we'd sawed all the way through, but it was not 100% heathy to begin with...the other branch worked great. One of us sawed while the other pulled on a rope tied further out on the branch to keep it from falling directly onto the apple tree. I can't wait to see how this tree produces now that it'll get some sun!

The tree we were trying to help is circled in blue...and the branches we cut in red. If you click on the photo - you can see it larger.

Then we went to work in the garden. With the hay I cleaned out of the goat shed, we mulched the berry brambles.

With some extra compost we had, we 'fed' the grape vines.



Then I moved one of the square foot gardening boxes. I have created a plan to move almost all of them eventually. I want to move them closer together, add another row, and then put down mulch or gravel on the walkways inbetween. Having to mow that grass is a pain and I was annoyed at how much grass started growing in the boxes. I think we'll be better off getting rid of a lot of it. Anyway, I planted in the one box that will remain where it is and then I moved one more box so that I could plant there as well. I planted 5 different kinds of peas (snap peas, snow peas and peas that you shell) and three different kinds of spinach in the boxes. I also left space to plant more next week so that we stagger the harvest a bit.

The boxes in the middle of the move. Only the one in the foreground has changed so far - it moved to the left to make room for another box next to it.

The box where I have spinach and peas planted. The 4 squares that look a little drier than the others is where I'll plant more spinach next week.

Rick set about planting our potatoes. We did two garbage cans full of them (which I will post more about later) and one long row in the row garden area. Rick dug that row last weekend (while the ground was wet and reasonably soft). He then planted multiple types of potatoes (Yukon golds, russets, red, etc). We even planted a few potatoes that we'd grown last year (as an experiment). We did it differently (and in a different area) than last year. Instead of planting them in the ground and mounding dirt on top of them, he dug a trench, losened the bottom soil and then planted them in it. Then, as they grow, we'll cover them with the soil we dug out of the trench. I can't wait to see how it all works!

Rick planting potatoes in his beautifully dug trench.

The full trench - after all the potatoes have been planted. Sweet potatoes will go elsewhere (it's too early for them).

Lastly, we spent a little time taking stock of all that is growing in our greenhouse. This coming weekend, I'll be planting more tomatoes (starts) and a few other things to supplement what we've already got going. Our tomatoes from the first planting are doing really, really well. I hope we can get them into the ground before they start fruiting!!

Our mish-mash of plantings. Every time I see this shelf, I think 'a rag-tag fugitive fleet' from the introduction to the original Battlestar Galatica. I don't watch the new verision - I wonder if they use the same line?

Our first tomato seedlings - now almost full plants. How cool is that?

Lastly, just because they are so darn cute...another goat baby photo. This is Sass taking care of Oreo and ...wait for it... Pepe (after Pepe Le Pew). Both boys are getting playful and curious already. I forsee a full time job of keeping track of those guys in our near future!

A Goat that Plays Turtle?

What a morning!

I got up a tad earlier than usual to make sure I was at work by 8 am. I took care of the chickens, and then fed and watered the goats. Then I grabbed my milk gallon filled with water and headed out to the greenhouse to make sure nothing was drying out. It all looked good, but I gave everything a small drink anyway. The temps in there are perfect right now. We've rigged a long outdoor extension cord to the greenhouse and have an oil-filled radiator in there set to low. It's got a thermostat on it, so it keeps the greenhouse from dipping below about 55 F. It's working well so far.

Anyway, I thinned a few tomato plants from the shelf and set them down. Then I watered everything and then left. I got almost all the way back to the house before I remembered the plants I'd clipped. I went back to get them so that I could give them to the goats while they were still fresh. I'm glad I did, otherwise I would not have still been outdoors to hear Sass. She was bleating quite loudly. When I looked, she appeared to be annoyed at Buddy. He was in one of his rambunctious moods and was butting her, presumably trying to get her to play with him. She butted him back, but when he wouldn't leave her alone, she got loud. She was running away from him and he was chasing. When she started coughing from breathing too hard, I immediately went in to break it up. While I was facing Buddy, I heard Sass jump up on the table we built for play purposes. When I turned around, she was actually lying on the ground, on her back, legs in the air. She must have jumped and fallen! She was squirming around and I assumed she was trying to get up. She's kind of large right now (being pregnant and all) and she couldn't do it herself. I helped to partially roll her over, and she managed to get up the rest of the way on her own. Then Buddy started in again! She followed me out of the gate (not something she normally does in the morning) , so I let her wander around a bit giving Buddy a chance to calm down. When I brought her back in, I calmly stood between her and Buddy until he got the picture and seemed to relax. I wasn't sure if it was ok to leave, but I had to get to work! I kept an eye on them both while I finished getting ready and everything seemed calm enough that I felt ok leaving.

Luckily, I think she's fine. I just keep thinking how awful it would be if she hurt herself either trying to jump on the table, or trying to get herself up, and no one was around to help. I think that this weekend, we are going to have to make adding additional fencing to the goat pen a priority. We need a way to separate them if necessary. We may also have to look into getting Buddy a friend that he can rough-house with...

Building a Greenhouse

The 'site' before we'd done much of anything at all.


My husband unpacking the box that the greenhouse kit shipped in...

Here the frame is assembled and we started putting in the polycarbonate panels.

I skipped taking any photos between unpacking and getting the frame to this point because that process took us a couple of months. A part got broken, we tried to glue it, then we had to get a new one sent, etc. It was a mess. We were begining to think that we'd never get this thing built!

Here you can see the building within a building (or a garage). It was helpful to have a solid flat surface on which to work.

The greenhouse was pretty much completed while still in the garage.

The base. We leveled a spot, laid down the weed cloth and then...

staked the base frame into the ground in the corners.

Then we got a truck load of river rock gravel to cover the weed cloth.

The base with the gravel - awaiting the greenhouse.

This is the frame we built from 2x4's so that we could carry the greenhouse out to the site without dropping it (or torquing it). We set the greenhouse on top of this frame and successfully carried it to the other side of our property.

After we fitted the greenhouse over the base, my H installed all the little locking screws that hold it in place.

The finished greenhouse!! There is a vented widow on the north side of the greenhouse and the door that you see is a split door so that the top can be left open for ventilation.

We bought this shelving for organizing the basement, but for now, it works as a plant shelf. The first seedlings are already happily enjoying the sunshine.

We also put our two dwarf citrus trees flanking the doorway. One is a meyer lemon, the other a navel orange.

The corners of the greenhouse all have little downspouts so that it's easy to set up a system to collect rain water. We are going to start with 5 gallon buckets, but depending on how much rain we get, we may have to install some real rain barrels.

Weekend update

I can't believe that my first post of 2009 isn't until the 7th! Good thing I didn't have "blogging more" as one of my resolutions, huh?

So we had a busy holiday and a productive weekend. After all the snow and ice, we had some issues with local flooding...but our house (including the basement) stayed nice and dry. Our road? Not so much. Both the road we take into our small town center and the one we live on (about 2.5 miles from us) was completely under water for a few days and closed to all traffic. Luckily, we did discover at least one route from our house, over high ground and over the ridge around the flooded areas. I also assume that if we were to head straight over the 'mountain' that we'd avoid all flooding using that route as well. Not something we'll want to do on bikes anytime soon, but in a car, it's fine.

So this weekend, we accomplished a lot. First of all, we dried off Sass. Her milk production has been falling off lately. It's natural to only get about 10 months at most out of a good dairy goat, so when her production began to really fall, we stopped milking her. I actually had to buy my first gallon of cow's milk yesterday. Man - does that taste like water or what? Ew! We did freeze some of her milk in preparation for this time, but it didn't turn out so well. Apparently, freezing skim milk is a bad idea. After defrosting, it remains separated. Ick. The whole milk we've frozen seems ok, so we'll probably defrost that as necessary for baking, cheese making or for soap making. If we have enough whole milk stored, I might try skimming it to see how that works. We'll see.

Because of all the rain, a section of the goat paddock is really, really muddy. Unfortunately, the area is near the goat shed and the gate, so we have to trudge through it. The goats avoid it as much as possible, so that's good. Bad bacteria can live in that mud (especially with the warm temps we've had lately) and that can lead to hoof rot in goats. We have learned that a healthy goat who gets plenty of copper in their diet will be able to defend against these bacteria, so we are making sure that the goats have plenty of fresh mineral available to them. We were afraid that Buddy had some hoof rot going on because he started limping. When we looked closer, it was just that his hooves were in bad need of trimming. We were told that Sass only needed it once every three months or so, but it turns out that Buddy's hooves grow much faster than that. We trimmed them as best we could over the weekend and he's already doing better. We'll probably have to do another trim next weekend, but like on a dog, you can't cut off too much at once for fear of bleeding. Of course, I managed to shave two of my own knuckles off with the hoof plane. My blood spilled is no biggie though - I'm capable of keeping my wounds clean all by myself! ;-)

We also did some work with the chickens. I cleaned out their coop while they were free-ranging. After I'd scooped out all the bedding and chicken poop (into the compost pile), I removed the temporary floor. I used it as a template to cut another floor for future use, and I put the first one back in for another few weeks or so. Then I piled in new bedding and my H fixed the perch attached to the nesting boxes which was sagging. Lastly, he tightened it's attachment to the wall for stability. The chickens were just happy to have the opportunity to run around after being cooped up so much! I like that the coop now smells better when I go digging for eggs. Speaking of which, our influx of eggs has now exceeded the previous influx of milk! We are getting eggs in all three colors now that the 'easter egg' birds are finally laying. The white leghorns are still the most prolific - we get two white eggs every day and we only have two white birds. We are collecting a total of 4 to 7 eggs each day and it's still winter. What happens when they hit their peak laying season in the summer? We are going to be overrun! I think we'll put a sign out front and sell them (the eggs, not the chickens!). Otherwise, they are really going to go to waste. I am collecting good quiche recipes though...I figure I'll bake up a few and freeze them.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that we'd purchased a greenhouse kit for our Christmas present to each other. Well, we were pleasantly surprised when it arrived a couple of days after Christmas! We spent part of this weekend cleaning out the garage and making space to assemble it. We were able to get the main frame partially assembled before we broke one of the main connectors. Oops. We have requested a replacement piece, so once that arrives we'll be able to continue with assembly. The plan is to put it out in the garden area where the sun hits the longest in the winter. We'll lay down the base, fill it with gravel on top of weed cloth, and then fit the frame on top of that. It's a polycarbonate window greenhouse with a small vent and a split door. The whole thing is only 6x8, but I think that'll be plenty big enough for us for now. I'm taking photos as we assemble this, so once it's done, I'll have a full pictorial to share!

The bathroom when we bought the house...'before'.

The bathroom as we were painting it. You can still see the pink counters that we hope to fix shortly...

Lastly, we made a few decisions about interior decorating. I'm actually quite excited. We finally picked out bedding for our bedroom and we came to the realization that we'll probably have to repaint. The blue we picked is nice and it looks really great with our furniture, but it's hard to match to bedding that we both agree on (the original bedding we chose sold out before I got a chance to order it!). We are also going to tile the counter tops in our bathroom. This is the bathroom that was pink that we repainted a pale sea green/blue. We originally picked the color with plans to buy solid-surface counter tops in a black/white/grey/blue speckled pattern, but they are just not in the budget right now. We have lots of experience laying tile over counters, so we are going to do black and white ceramic tile over the nasty pink counter tops. We'll also replace the ugly black sink at the same time. We can do all this for less than half of what new counters would cost us! All of this is temporary anyway. The eventual plan is to re do the entire bathroom. It's like a long hallway right now with doors at both ends and it's unnecessarily big. Our plan is to put a wall down in the middle of it and create a small half bath off the front hall and a private master bath that adjoins our bedroom. I'd also like to set up a graywater system for the toilets at the same time. That's quite a bit into the future though...we certainly don't have the cash for that right now, and we refuse to use credit.

The greenhouse - such as it is

Our little 'greenhouse'

I'm almost embarassed to post this as it's so pathetically ugly...but whatever. We don't have a true greenhouse. I really should add it to my side bar (perhaps I will before anyone even reads this!), but our plans do include buying a kit and building one ourselves. It won't be big...we certainly don't need big. But it would be nice to have a real one with vents, and doors and such.

In the meantime, I wanted to try something so that we could see how growing in the winter would work in our climate. I got this idea from the Square Foot Gardening book and I modified it a little to suit my needs. This is one of our garden boxes with a temporary greenhouse installed over it. I made sure that both ends opened so that I could reach all the plants easily enough.

The inside where you can see the duct tape, the top bar and how the ends go into the soil.

This is how it went:

1) remove all dead debris from boxes (including acorns...where did they come from??)
2) bend 2 10ft 1/2 inch PVC pipes in arches over the ends and stick them in the dirt
3) cut a 4 ft piece of pipe to be the top crossbar for stability and screw it in place
4) cover the ends with 3mil plastic, securing it with duct tape to avoid cutting/tearing it
5) cover the rest of it with the same plastic and secure the base with 4ft leftover 'grid' boards and nails
6) spend a week trying to decide how to best secure the top plastic to the end pieces
7) find plastic spring loaded clamps at ACE and use those to secure the plastic in place
8) mix compost into each square prior to planting to add more nutrients
9) plant!

Here it is all closed up. You can see the plastic clamps holding the plastic to the pipe.

We have mostly leafy greens planted. I did add a couple of onions, leeks, and one broccoli plant, but I have no illusions that those will actually work with our temps the way they are now. It does get to 60 during the day still, but with not much sun, I think the soil is too cold to sprout most things. Hopefully the lettuces, spinach, kale and chard will work, though. Again, late planting...I need to break this lousy habit!

I got word this evening that my visa was approved and that my passport is on its way back to me right now. I should receive it tomorrow which means that I am all set to depart for China on Saturday. I'll be vising Dongguan and Zhongshan, neither of which are tourist destinations. That's probably a good thing since I'll barely have any time outside of when I'm working to see anything anyway. I am flying into Hong Kong and supposedly staying at a really nice hotel, but I'll only be there for one night and probably won't get to see too much. It's an awful long way to go for 3 days. If I had my way, we'd not be wasting the money, the time or the crazy amounts of fuel to go there just to schmooze (essentially). But, when it's important to my boss..it has to be important to me.

I may or may not have internet access - so this may be my last post for awhile. I return next Thursday and once I've recovered from what is sure to be severe jet lag, I'll be back to posting. Until then "Zai Jain"!

Another busy weekend!

Roasted veggies - half from our garden, half from the organic grocery

Another busy weekend under the belt!

This weekend I wanted to remain as on top of things as I could be. This is mostly due to the fact that this will be my last weekend open to do things for a few weeks. Next Saturday morning, I leave for China, for a week, so anything that was falling behind on the schedule needed to be addressed right away.

The first thing on this list was to put up the gutter that has been down since we had the work done on the front entryway. Without it up there, rain water comes down the roof and dumps in the mud to the left of the door. We were afraid that if this continues, it would eventually soak into the basement! So, we got that up this weekend and we changed the flow direction so that it empties to the side of the house were eventually a rain barrel will go.

I had to make a crisp to take to dinner with friends on Saturday night. I wanted to make something I'd made before, but I didn't have time this past week to try out something new. I had a recipe for an apple-blackberry crisp, so I thought I'd give it a shot. One ingredient appeared to be missing and the topping was only flour and I tend to like ones with oatmeal in them. So I made the exective decision to experiment even though it was for 'company'. I went with the filling from one recipe and the topping from another (cutting out a little of the sugar) and luckily, it was delicious! I'll definitely be making that one again - particularly when the occasion calls for guests!

The evening out was really fun. Good food, good company, good conversations...and a nice break from 'farm life' for a few hours. It was well needed. Sunday was one of our busiest days yet, so having a 'civilized' break on Saturday night was well timed.

On Sunday, we had to clean out and move the chicken coop. That happened during breaks in the rain. We moved the coop to it's next location in the row garden area. This spot was FULL of weeds and grass for the chickens to devour, so I think it's a good spot from their perspective! My H also cleaned out the goat's shed. He pulled out all the 'soiled' hay and we spread it over the row garden covering the spots were the coop has already been. He then filled the back corner of the shed with pine shavings instead of hay this time. It's good for smell (smells fresher longer), but unfortunately, bad for Buddy! The pine shavings stick to his fleece, so this morning he looked like a snowball! Live and learn. Next time, we'll try putting down the pine shavings and then covering it with clean hay in the hopes that we'll get the benefits of both beddings.

I planted the garlic finally this weekend. I wanted to do it a couple of weeks ago, but things got in the way. The advantage to waiting was that the ground was very wet, so it was relatively easy to hoe up all the weeds in the area I wanted to use. I made an area that is about 6ft by 5 ft, marked it with white fence posts (from the old electric fence), planted 9 rows of 3 types of garlic and then mulched it with about 6 inches of pine needle straw. I'm excited, because I've never grown garlic before! I picked the spot I did because it's the one corner of the row garden that neither of the sprinkers will reach. This way, if we have to water the rest of the garden after June 1st when the garlic is supposed to remain dry, we can without worry.

Then I set about building a mini greenhouse out of one of our 4x4 square foot gardening boxes. I picked the one that had no trellis on it already, installed two 10 ft 1/2 inch pvc pipes in an arch at each end and then covered it all with 3mil plastic. I cleaned up the soil prior to doing this, so planting should be quick and easy. I do still need to locate some type of clip to hold the plastic in place in a couple of spots, but once I do, I'll take photos. I think it'll work really well in our temperate winter weather. I'm not sure it would be very effective in places were it gets really cold except as a way to get seeds started once spring comes around.

By this point, I was wet (it was raining off and on) and covered in mud. I went inside, threw my muddy stuff in the wash, and set about doing my kitchen tasks for the weekend. I re-made the cinnamon grape preserves. When I did, I ended up with an extra half pint of preserves that wouldn't fit in my waterbath canner, so that jar is in the fridge awaiting my first taste test. The other 7 pints are happily resting on the counter. The best part is that it gelled this time!! Yipee!! And look at what a pretty color it is:

Cinnamon Grape Preserves - take two!

Then I washed out the pot and started making chili. I made a double recipe so that we'll have plenty to freeze for those nights that cooking is just not in the cards. Then I started on dinner. I'd bought a free-range organic fryer chicken at the local 'foodie' grocery store, so we decided to have that on our vertical roaster. It's a roasting pan like this:

Vertical roaster - great for chicken!

I did the chicken with a citrus rosemary grey salt rub, and the veggies with the same. I roasted small potatoes from our garden along with two different types of carrots (pictured in my title banner). To that I added parsnips, rutabaga, purple potatoes, yams and sweet potatoes from the organic grocery. Everything turned out beautiful (see photo above) and was awesomely delicious except for the rutabaga. We were not impressed. I still have one more, so I'm going to try cooking it a different way next time.

Sunday night after my H milked Sass, we administered the dewormer to both goats. While Sass was on the milking stand finishing her grain, we did Buddy's. I held him while H gave him the injection. Immediately after we did, he started screaming and rolling on the ground! We both freaked out a little and thought that maybe we'd done something wrong. Within a few seconds, he'd calmed down. Then my H remembered that the vet had said it would burn a little. Buddy is pretty much a pain wimp, so in retrospect, his reaction was normal for him. Then we did Sass's and she did not like it, either. She didn't flip out quite like Buddy did, but she clearly was not enjoying the sensation. I felt so awful! I hate inflicting pain on them!! I'm SOOO glad that I'd already ordered the hermal dewormer for them. It's supposedly pleasant tasting and it definitely won't cause any pain. That should arrive this week, so we won't have to do this injection for them again.

Lastly, we had an unexpected task to complete on Sunday. While I was out in the garden most of the afternoon, Sass was very vocal. That's unusual for her - but she was bleating away, very loudly. That's a common sign of estrus for goats...just one we've not noticed from her in the past. We also discovered that she was very affectionate to us (prior to the dewormer incident!), so we had a feeling that her last encounter had not impregnated her as we had hoped. H called the buck's owner and we arranged to bring her over there late Sunday afternoon. When we put them in together, it was totally different from last time. She did not play hard to get and we watched the deed at least three times before she indicated that it was time to go. We have no doubt that she is impregnated this time and that last time was clearly not the full act. Oreo (the buck) was not quite as 'cute' as he was the last time we saw him after a month of making himself 'presentable' to the does. Bucks actually pee on their beards and face during the breeding season making them extra gross and stinky. Last time, I think it was early enough in the season that Oreo wasn't all grossed up completely yet. This time, we could smell him when we got out of our truck! We both agreed on the trip back home that our property is not big enough to house a buck during mating season unless we want to live with that smell in everything! Ick! Anyway, we are now 100% conviced that Sass has been impregnanted and that we'll have kids the first week of April. :-)