May on the Homestead

[bee_pipes]

4/30
Another blasted swarm! There aren’t going to be enough bees in the blue hive to make honey now. We are giving this swarm to Tony. He’s busy right now building a hive.

Today I got the mower running again. Karen has been quite patient with this procrastinator, and I didn’t force her to the point of nagging. I had ordered a spare drive belt earlier, after noticing the wear on the old belt. We put the new belt on and the mower was still very sluggish. It seemed like the forward and backward pedal could not be pushed far enough. It was a simple enough linkage with no adjustments or play. Fortunately, there was a second hole in the linkage lever, closer to the pivot. It was the devil to reach the spot, but moving the linkage closer to the pivot gave it more horizontal range in its travel. Hopefully that has the mower fixed for another few years. Nothing heavier than leaves goes in the trailer from now on. I still think the outer range of the gears are a bit stripped from overloading. Hopefully we can nurse it along until the petroleum runs out.

5/1
Last night was dog washing day. The simplest way we have found is to drag them, one by one, into the shower. It was an ordeal not to be looked forward to with two dogs, four makes it quite the chore. It seems like a good idea to strip away the dirt before their front-line goes on, important here with tick season in full swing. It is also a good time to give them their heartworm pills. The dogs are always so shocked that we would do such a thing to them, and spend the entire time trying to escape. The two big dogs get a frontline application that is dosed for their weight and goes on their neck. The pups get a spray version. When they were very small the dosed version was not available so we got the spray. Right now they are tipping the scales at about 40 lbs and will get the dosed version when the spray runs out. The ticks are making a good run of it right now. This is the first and worst part of the season. They will decline by June, and then resurge briefly at the end of summer. Chiggers have not put in their appearance yet – they will start getting bad in May and also decline in June. Chiggers are the most aggravating of these pests, though not as gross as the visible ticks, and require spraying pant cuffs and boot tops to keep them off when out in the yard. Even with precautions, some will get through and we have found clear fingernail polish to be the best remedy. Untreated, chigger bites can drive you crazy for a week or two, with nail polish they can be held down to 24 hours or less.

Checked the top-bar hives today. The swarm has made incredible progress in drawing comb so I moved the partition and gave them another 10 bars to work on. Not so with the package. They are drawing comb, but have not progressed nearly as far. The swarm had comb that was dropped on the floor after being hived from the swarm trap. The main reason for today’s inspection was to get that old comb off the bottom of the hive. I wanted to give them a week to get settled in. Glad I didn’t put it off another day. They were in the process of building a metropolis on the bottom of the hive. I filled a 2 qt. bucket with comb scrapings, having to pack it with my fist to get it all in there. The second swarm that we were going to trap for Tony has absconded. We didn’t get it trapped last night and it was gone early this afternoon. We noticed while making preparations to trap it tonight.

Regards,
Pat

[wy0mn]

Hi'ya Pat.
Hey, bees swarm around an 'extra' queen right? What happens if you excise the superflous queen. Won't they go back to the original pheremone queen/hive? Too late for that swarm, but what about the next?
Uncle Henry used to capture rogue queens & start them in a new hive.
Lex

[OzarkMtnDaredevil]

I wish bees were the thing on my mind today. NOAA is forecasting heavy weather in this area again. Hail and Twisters not ruled out. It's getting really old.
In the past week or so, I got zuchinni, peppers and tomatoes in the ground. I blocked a tarp up over most of them. The good news, tho, is that I'm going to hit the PowerBall numbers on Saturday!

[bee_pipes]

Yeah Lex, you try to catch new queens while they are still in the cell. I had just checked recently, even got two queen cells, but one must have hatched. Recent readings say the old queen gets restless and as soon as she has a bred replacement, will take off with the older workers. A better beekeeper than me would have stopped it ;D

We're getting warm weather too Rob. The nice days are wonderful, but the price to be paid is some pretty drastic weather when the warm air contrasts with a cold front moving in from the north. This is tornado weather for sure.

Regards,
Pat

[bookwormom]

well, Blackie had a calf yesterday evening, way back in a thicket. I think it is another boy.
We just lined a large wooden box (8by3 by 5) with torch down roofing to catch rainwater. The roofing has really gone up in price, I was shocked, but water tanks to buy cost heaps more. We bred our Great Pyr , planning on keeping a couple of males, but she had six girls :o, just now getting cute and feisty. Today is a good day to plant leafy things, cabbage and lettuce will not bolt as likely.
I would not mind a good rain. It has been chilly a couple of days, in my frost pocket it froze the tops off my young potatoe plants, warm and very windy yesterday, really drying weather. Sweet woodruff is on the verge of blooming, I may pick some and make maywine for the company.
No use getting mad, but sweet hubby got a bunch of goose eggs in the incubator. I need more geese like a nail in the head. Yesterday we found a fresh,wild turky egg on the top pasture with a hole pecked in the shell.

[Deberosa]

We are back into cold weather here after a couple of nice days. Those days were packed with frantic activity - trying to catch up from being stuck inside.

The straw bale gardens are ready to plant and I have many starts waiting for a good time to go into the ground. I cleaned out much of the back garden area around the grapes and kiwis, adding a Niobe Clematis - my favorite.

The pigs are doing well - venturing farther and farther into the brush. They got outdated yogurt for dinner and thought that was really great. ;-) THey also are liking their daily ration of eggs. The dog likes to play with them and right now they are about the same size but that will change! They do come running when I call with their treat already.

Daisy is eating like crazy - I think her udder is getting larger now too. I've been cutting down tall grass around the place where it is growing and giving that to them. The grass overall is barely growing and the buckwheat remains an inch tall. I may have to give up on getting any green manure this year...

On a positive note - the tomatoes in the reconstructed hoop house are blooming! I will need to stake them soon so I gained a significant amount of time this year with that project! I have huge basil plants also.

I am thinking of hiring some help - figure I could afford someone for 4 hrs a week through the summer, or 8 hours every other week however it works out. The projects are greatly outnumbering the free time around here and it would help to get caught up on things a bit. I think I found a good person in the paper this week - worth a try at least. Especially since my regular job is going to demand some extra hours for the near future.

[WRTN]

Yeah Lex, you try to catch new queens while they are still in the cell. I had just checked recently, even got two queen cells, but one must have hatched. Recent readings say the old queen gets restless and as soon as she has a bred replacement, will take off with the older workers. A better beekeeper than me would have stopped it *;D

We're getting warm weather too Rob. The nice days are wonderful, but the price to be paid is some pretty drastic weather when the warm air contrasts with a cold front moving in from the north. This is tornado weather for sure.

Regards,
Pat

Our bee hive is confirmed missing its queen but the worker bees are still build comb.

I have 2 Nuc's coming in this weekend and am going to put them in the "queenless" hive and I have another hive on order from Mannlake that should be in this Monday.

I gotta get started on some tractor, truck, mower, and other maintenance. Got about a half dozen oil changes to do.

Gotta get the tiller out and ready to till the garden.

Sorry to hear about the hive swarm. The bees left in our hive built one as well. I need to remove it.

[humbug]

The weather has been really beautiful the last week. I have been busy putting in the garden. My baby chicks are no longer babies and need a real chicken coop. I will start on that today. They are growing like weeds. Parts of my garden are starting to come up. I need about 60 days in May to catch up... ;D ;D ;D
I am thinking about putting in some fruit trees..the deer managed to wipe out my last ones... :( :( I am installing a new six foot tall fence around the back of my lot. I figured a few fruit trees would be a nice addition.

[WileyCoyote]

Just a little note... know what keeps deer away?
Used cat litter.
Deer can't tell the difference between barn cat pee and poop or wildcat pee and poop, and so avoid where these animals frequent.

A friend of mine is a horticulturalist at a well-known plantation garden, and they have cats in the barns that are litter-trained - solely for the purpose of putting the used cat litter (sand-type) on the outside perimeter of the gardens (not where tourists walk!). It works.

[TNDadx4]

We put in a decent part of our garden... tomato plants, herbs, corn and potatoes. During this past week. My youngest son is adamant about having his own garden, so we have some space that we gave him adjacent to ours to work on.

[bee_pipes]

5/5
Today we start building the dog house. I got off to a late start this morning, sleeping in until 8 AM. The weather is perfect for this sort of job, cool nights with days reaching near 80 degrees. In the last few weeks the leaves have filled in on the trees and there is ample shade to work in during the daylight hours. The bugs, also available in ample quantities, are beginning to gear up for their big spring season. If chiggers haven’t started yet, their cousins are out there. I am covered with bites from lying on the ground to work on the lawnmower. When we make our run to the lumber yard we will need to make a side trip and get a fresh supply of bug repellent.

5/6
I have been experimenting with bread. Last batch was using something called a “sponge”. It was a batch of whole wheat that made two loaves. The recipe called for mixing the whole wheat flour with butter milk and letting it sit out for 12-24 hours. I let it sit for 24 hours. After sitting, it is mixed with a cup of white flour and treated like a normal bread recipe – knead, rise, punch, loaf, etc. The 24 hours in the buttermilk seemed to have really set loose the gluten – the batter was about as smooth as anything I’ve ever seen. The bread was okay – made good toast and sandwiches. The crumb (internal soft part of the bread) was interesting. Some of the bread nuts talk about custard quality to the crumb – I now see what they were talking about. It is disconcerting at first – you wonder if it’s doughy and undercooked, but the bread is cooked and in fair shape so far as air bubbles, etc. The quality of the bread when chewing is really smooth. I don’t know that we’ll use that particular recipe again, but it was an interesting variation. We got that recipe from “Nourishing Traditions” by Sally Fallon, pg 493, “Yeasted Buttermilk Bread”. The results were most surprising because a typical whole wheat loaf is usually half whole wheat flour and half white flower. This was 4 cups to one cup, which normally results in a heavy loaf.

That book and “Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day” by Hertzberg and Francois was recommended to me by Karen (Shamrock). It is an interesting slant on bread making. They claim you can mix batter in advance and keep it in the fridge for up to 2 weeks – longer if frozen. Of course, the whole process of mixing batter and baking take longer than 5 minutes – about 30 to make the batter. Their claim is that you can break off a piece of dough, shape the loaf, let it rest (unattended), then bake it (unattended). The actual work involving you is 5 minutes – shaping the loaf, putting it into the oven, taking it out of the oven. This morning I made a batch of one of their doughs. The mixed dough was put in a 6 quart container and came up to the 1 ½ quart mark (approximately). Their instructions call for letting the dough rise for 2 hours (more or less, depending on temperature of water used, temperature of room, etc. Our kitchen is generally chilly and takes longer rise times than commonly called for in recipes, so I let it sit for 4 hours. When we came in, from working on the dog house, the dough had very nearly risen to the lid – over the 5 quart mark. It’s sitting in the fridge now. Tomorrow we’ll try caramel rolls or fritters with it and I’ll let you know how it turns out.

The dog house is progressing. We will be finishing the deck today, and hopefully the last 3 walls. By then we’ll know how much tin roofing it will take to get it covered and the dogs can stay outside indefinitely.

5/7
The caramel rolls were a qualified success. I pulled too much dough, they were too big, and the one in the middle did not cook all the way. We ate the outside ones, sharing them with friends Joel and Tony, and the general consensus was that we were very near something good. The next batch will use less dough and produce a smaller roll – it should cook all the way through. The bread itself was ideal for this sort of thing – too rich for sandwich dough, but excellent for rolls. Tomorrow we try fritters.

The supplier we get the metal roofing from will not have our order until Friday morning. That means we have to fabricate a temporary roof for the dog house until then. Rain is in the forecast for Thursday – hopefully not another gully washer. The fourth wall went up today. The final dimensions are 12’x6’, with an enclosed space of 4’x8’. The ceiling is ridiculously high for a dog house, but we had to do something to accommodate the fence surrounding it. It is way past overkill.

5/8
The dog house (shack ‘o dogs, as my wife Karen has been calling it) is done. When picking up the last of the lumber for the roof, I found the local hardware store sells metal roofing. It took us until 6:30 in the evening, but we got the devil roofed. I guess we’re getting old, but this was two full days of work, with a partial day on Monday after getting materials. We were both done in and have declared today a holiday. This coincides nicely with the rainy weather. The dogs now have a shelter that provides relief from rain, sun and cold weather. The picture shows scrap 2x4 being used to hold up the flying roof corner. The landscape timber on the ground below will be cut to size and used as a post, but not anytime in the next day or two, the scrap is adequate for the time being. The dogs have already been gnawing at the house, and will no doubt do much damage. I loaded some straw inside the enclosed portion, the straw having a number of corn stalk pieces in it. They were having a good time playing in the straw and will no doubt get some diversion from chewing on the stalk fragments.
http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk217/patandkaren/dog_hootch.jpg

Today we finished off the dough batch making fritters. Actually, that’s just a short name. The book uses traditional names for some of the creations, originating in Europe. Fritter seems easier to use than beignet. The dough used was challah. There was a sweeter dough, brioche, but as this is all experimenting, I kept it conservative. The book recommended dough, rolled to ½ inch thick, cut into two inch squares. The squares did well with frying; only a few refusing to roll over and stay rolled over. The same problem you’d see with egg rolls. On the whole, most of them cooperated and were easily done. Next time I think we’ll opt for pieces half that size or smaller. The finished fritter has a nice crust and is sweet enough by itself. You roll them in powdered sugar after they come out of the fryer and they make excellent companions for a cup of coffee.

Regards,
Pat

[OzarkMtnDaredevil]

Pat, that's great looking kennel that you built! I wouldn't mind staying there myself (I often get sent to the 'doghouse' by the wife). I could teach them not to gnaw at the house. That is, as long as you don't let the dogs see you passing me Fritters thru the fence ;) .

All of my veggies survived the weather and are doing well. Planning to put in another row of tomatos this weekend.

Rob

[jen_in_southtexas]

It is so nice to read about everyone's homesteading life and projects going on.
I am still actively seeking some property that is 3acres or less. For those of you who dont know, i got really screwed on the purchase of my 10acres. Its a long story that makes me so angry. So needless to say I pulled out of it and I am back to square one.
As the same story goes, i want to be debt free of land payments. I dont have the money in full but if i can get a 2yr or less loan/financing then im ok with that. There are owner financing people but the problem with that is that they jack up the price so much. For instance, I found a 5acre plot for $25,000.00 unimproved land and same owner is selling 2.3acre lot for $26,000.00 unimproved land but this one does have running water. I KNOW water doesnt cost but about 3000.00 or less to drill a well. I have been looking within a 50mile radius. I really dont want to go thru a bank for a loan because they make things so complicated and long and drawn out. The applications are ridiculous.
I need to start payments on something right now because I would like to be done with it before i turn 40 because i refuse to be paying rent.
Anyway thanks for letting me vent and if anyone has any advice it is greatly appreciated.

Thks,
-j :(

[wy0mn]

Looks as if our weather is easing off a bit. Saw a five minute flurry yesterday, the first since last Fridays whiteout.
So this weekend I'll try to make it to Casper & order my cabin kit (feed Karen a lobster for round-heels day too) :).
Lex

[WileyCoyote]

Jen, have you tried looking on
www.landsofamerica.com
or
www.landandfarm.com ?

Look in the Texas listings if you don't want to move too far. I found my dream home - a 1910 farmhouse that used to be a dairy plus 60 acres - on landsofamerica. Of course it is 1600 miles away, but we are moving in May 30. It took almost a full year of looking to find what we wanted in our budget but when we found it we pounced!

Don't be shy - I have met (in emails) many excellent realtors who list on these places, gone to their webpages via their links on their listings on landsofamerica and landandfarm, and made many discoveries. There's a lot more out there than you would think!!!

[LeatherneckPA]

Our intrepid boy hero (trapped in a 50 yr old body) is experiencing interesting side affects to his transformation. He has succumbed to a mid-life crisis, in the form of becoming a backyard poultrist. (Back porch actually) His day-olds were not supposed to be delivered until his day off (Wed), but the USPS called yesterday and said, "Congratulations, you are the proud father of a very noisy box. Please come get it."

The brooder is just a plywood box, 4' x 6' x 2' deep with a simple screen door top. Thursday I will build a small stand for it so that I don't have to kneel to change water and feed. (Darned 50 yr old hard used body!!)

The heat lamp wasn't enough for such a large area with an open top, so our bumbling apprentice decided to cover 3/4 of the top with blankets in an attempt to trap heat. It worked. The thermometer on the ground reads an pleasant 85ºF. From the way they are all spread out our boy genius (his words, not his DW's) concludes that they are content.
http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll15/LeatherneckPA/IM001229.jpg

And here we can see the variety of his new flock, even at this early stage. Things should only become more "attractive" as they feather out. He is assuming the yellow ones are the NH Reds. The ones with the brown bars on their backs are Gold Laced Wyandottes. And the ones with the white dots on their heads are maybe the Barred Rocks. With everything else being Black Austalorps. (Or so he believes.)
http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll15/LeatherneckPA/IM001230.jpg


Hey, Photobucket made this experience VERY easy!!

[sbemt456]

Congrats on the new early babies! They are so fun. My babies were 3 weeks old wednesday, and if I could figure out how I would download pics of the Black Australorps and Cornish Cross to compare the size difference. The one thing I know for a fact is the Black Australorps have black eyes, they kinda look like little jet black beads. And the grow into beautiful big birds.

stella

[humbug]

What adorable little chicks....they are so cute at that age..Mine were there a couple of months ago..now they are all feathered out and half grown...cute but not as cute as yours...did you order a mixed batch?

[LeatherneckPA]

Yep, ordered a mixed batch on purpose. Sounds silly, but I wanted the visual appeal of the mix. We looked through the Meyer catalog and picked breeds we thought would look goood together. DW is a little upset that there aren't any plain white ones, but I couldn't find any plain white chickens that lay brown eggs and I wanted all brown egg layers.

[bookwormom]

quote:
DW is a little upset that there aren't any plain white ones, but I couldn't find any plain white chickens that lay brown eggs and I wanted all brown egg layers.


for white brown egg layers get White Rock, actually a good all purpose breed. I think Meyer's hatchery has them, at least they did.

[LeatherneckPA]

bookwormmom, way cool. thanks. i will try to order some up asap

[wy0mn]

Got off my butt, went to Casper today & ordered the cabin kit. Delivery here in Medicine Bow scheduled for the 20th, I'll haul materials to the site as I need them.
Snowed this morning, gone now.
Chick pics look good! I'm thinking of the Old English games myself. The red sub-breed looks neat. But for now I have too many other, more critical, projects started to mess with critters... sigh.

[Deberosa]

Chickens are great entertainment - one of my dark cornish came out of the brush with 10 new fuzzballs. I know I have several more on nests including the Red burbon turkey hens all on nests of dark cornish eggs.

It's still cold and rainy - so in between storms I've been working on the gardens. Everything is way behind this year because it's been so cold here. Mid 50's are the norm often with wind and rain and two days ago we had a hard frost. However the tomatoes in the hoop house have flowers on them - yah! At least something will grow this year. I tilled under the cover crops I tried to start - they simply won't be in the cards this year. I may just cover crop much of my garden later and hope for better next year. YUK.

[aerontg]

Jen, have you tried looking on
www.landsofamerica.com
or
www.landandfarm.com ?

Look in the Texas listings if you don't want to move too far. I found my dream home - a 1910 farmhouse that used to be a dairy plus 60 acres - on landsofamerica. Of course it is 1600 miles away, but we are moving in May 30. It took almost a full year of looking to find what we wanted in our budget but when we found it we pounced!

Don't be shy - I have met (in emails) many excellent realtors who list on these places, gone to their webpages via their links on their listings on landsofamerica and landandfarm, and made many discoveries. There's a lot more out there than you would think!!!

Hey Wiley. I found those sites to be a little confusing. Can you tell me how to find "land contract" acreage (with old houses) on there for the state of Kentucky? We are currently in a 2-acre land contract and realize that this isn't nearly enough acrage for us.

Aeron

[WileyCoyote]

I'm sorry, Aeron, I don't know what 'land contract' acreage is... unless it is leased farmland. I have seen many listings with "40 acres under lease" but I am not sure how you WOULD lease them, unless you simply contacted the owner directly. I haven't leased property in 24 years, so I don't know... Again, I apologize.

The sites ARE confusing. The best way to play with the listings is to go to the state in which you are looking. Once there, I go to "Search by Region" and select "All" (on landsofamerica) then use the parameters to choose size, type of property, and price.

Today I got started on packing again; the weather was really bad this morning and we were surrounded by thunderstorms and tornado threats. It cleared up this afternoon, and I went out to start a burn for all of the scrap paper and torn up boxes. I kept walking past the garden, and the blackberry bushes kept tearing at my ankles. Finally I stopped and looked down. The blackberrries were ripe!! And huge! and there were hundreds of them!!!

So I went in and got a basket and went berry pickin'. Right now I have a blackberrry cobbler in the oven... and have to get back to packing. Meanwhile, the storm clouds have moved back in and it is raining again...

[LeatherneckPA]

Pretty good morning for us. DW and I got up nice and early (800am is early if you don't get home until midnight) and went to Lowe's to purchase a new lawnmower. Our brats (DD and WSIL) have turned the other one into a "sometimes" thing for me and an "ain't happening" for Cindy. We bought a nice new Troy-Bilt and gave them the one they have broken. Don't care what they do with it.

Got all the grass in the garden area mowed down so I can start putting in the remaining boxes and walks. Everything will get a bed of cardboard, topped off by the grass clippings from mowing the lawn for a mulch.

While I was out there I got my first "ah-HA-A" moment regarding soil amendment. For the first time in our history of gardening I actually have radishes that are worth eating!!! All that compost last year did a great job of loosening up our heavy clay soil. Who knows, I might even get some carrots this year too?!

Next job was to nail together a stand for the brooder to bring it down to a level the DW can actually reach to the bottom of. It had been on 2' tall supports, but with the 2' tall walls added "her royal stubbiness" could not reach to the bottom. I lowered it to only 14 " and she is much happier.

After that it was time to come to the prison. I can't WAIT to retire!! Every day I work requires 13 hours including prep, commute, and work time. Add in 8 hours sleep or so, and I only have 3 hours left for EVERYTHING else. C'MON AUGUST 30th!!!

[bookwormom]

well, you know time flies unless you are watching for a pot to boil. ;) ;)

I cooked on the woodstove today. It is cold for Ky. Hubby assembled frames for the new supers.
wow, one has ripe blackberries and the other has snow.

[gardenfay]

Dang! Ripe blackberries - that is great.
Well, we don't have snow here in town anymore; but did about 10 days ago - also got down to 13 F about that same time.

but now you can just see snow on the mountains; the tulips, daffodils, hyacinths are blooming and trees are starting to bud out.
But today it is pretty breezy and cool. i Am getting impatient for summer; but i know it will be here soon. And when it does, i have to say that for me, the summers here are unbeatable. so i will just try to be patient :)

[wy0mn]

lol, no snow today, thats for sure & for certain! 72F right now.
Serviced both our vehicles bumper to bumper, put up a 6strand electric fence around Karens garden (town deer), rehung a pair of gates.
Shes keeping me busy until the cabin materials arrive, I've told her I'll be less than a ghost around here after the 20th.
Lex

[machinemaker]

Just an update from the colorado rockies, here is the view out to my shop.

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj310/machinemakerkss/maysnow.jpg
kent

[LeatherneckPA]

Kent, is that REALLY today!!?? It's the middle of May, for crying out loud!! No, thank you.

[homesteadingnky]

I do enjoy reading what you all have done or are doing!!

We worked in the garden today. It dried up enough to do some tilling and hoeing. I prefer double dug beds that are planted intensively and mulched heavily, much easier to deal with!!!!! However, do to sickness, I am settling for more of a conventional set up this year. It's our first year with a garden on our new farm and my brother-n-law is helping us. In fact, we wouldn't have a garden were it not for him! He's been such a tremendous blessing!!! We are blessed to have family that has the same interest and values as we do!!

We planted more tomatoes today (Cherokee Purple), and some green bell peppers too. Our rows are about 85' long and we tilled and then hoed most all our beans and peas (8 rows of Roma green beans, 8 rows of Fordhook limas, 1/2 row of soldier beans, 1/2 row of brown dutch beans, 2 rows of KY wonder pole beans, 1/2 row of Christmas pole beans, 1/2 row of Asparagus pole beans, then that many rows or more of Corn (several different types and can't remember exactly how many of each right off). We didn't get to the other section which has more corn, KY cowpeas, Squash (4 types), peppers, and tomatoes. Still too wet in that section (it has more clay in that section and takes longer to dry but we've had a better germination rate of everything in that area.)

We hilled up our taters last week. We planted 30 lbs. of Red Pontiac, 30 lbs. of Yukon Gold, and 20 lbs of Kennebec. We love our taters!! We've harvested about half our broccoli and all our green onions are ready. We have a bunch of sweet onions that are looking good and a lot of good looking cabbage as well.

We still have only planted about half of what we have to plant and are having to prepare more ground. We intend to can or freeze all we want and then bless some of our friends and family with the rest. We would like to do a CSA or something like it someday but for now we're just having fun and learning all we can.

Hoping we can sell our house soon so we can move to the farm. It's a 20 minunte drive and we want to be in it every day but with gas like it is that's just impossible! Camped out last week so we could be there to do more. We have a 10'x12' bldg. there that we store things in and we set our tent up next to it to sleep in. My brother-n-law fixed us up a real nice fire pit and so we had a blast. Fixed smores just before we went to bed and I was hilling up taters before the sun came up the next morning. What more could a man ask for?

It started raining before we got packed up so we decided to leave the tent. Big mistake. It stormed Sunday and the tent is destroyed!! The rain fly was shreaded and wrapped up in the fence we have around the place. Oh well, you live and learn I guess.

I hadn't posted much in the last couple of months so I thought I'd share what was going at "Family Thyme, Gardens" that's the name we've given our homestead. We are all about family and spending time with our family and we are getting into herbs as well as veggies so we thought that family thyme gardens just fit us to a T.

Hope you all have a great week,
Homesteading Dad

[bookwormom]

did I ever mention this is my favorite board? I just love to read all your postings and realize I am not alone in the world.

we are keeping busy. It has rained every second day, but with this sandy soil it dries up fast. Prayers are answered. I started a second "terrace" garden sometime in late winter, laying up a retaining wall out of old tires and filling in behind it with rotting wood, branches etc, covering the whole thing with a thick layer of woodchips, of which I have an abundance, curtesy the power company. dI planned to make 'hills' of spoiled hay, straw (what I have left) topped with spome manure and then I would have liked to have some dirt to top it all off. None in sight. well, yesterday I cleared out the area where we are planning to make our grey water treatment facility, which consists of a two foot deep area lined with pondliner, filled with gravel and planted in suitable plants. After I cleared all the sapplings, brush etc I found a natural dent in the ground that had filled with debris over the years and was filled with four tractor scoops of good soil. Just the amount I needed to get by on. I got my growing patties ready and planted two packs of triple treat pumpkins, corn and peppers in the area.
It is not done by a longshot. the lower part of that garden does not have the chip layer on, and the tires have nothing planted in them. well, Rome was not built in one day either. My first terrace garden , just a tad above garden 2, is planted in tomatoes and one row of artichokes. It took me longer this year, I don't know why. The strawberries are starting to turn red, the little sticks husband got from the Arbor society all seem to live, I stuck them in individual pots as I figured they would never make it otherwise. Now if I knew what they are. I see two redbuds and two trumpet vines. well, husband emptied the contents of our new incubator on the compost pile. what a disappointment. we got two chicks and two goslings. I hope one of our hens will have sufficient brooding instincts. I used to have real good mommas raising several broods for me every summer, but now they seem to start and then not stick with it long enough. three geese are setting now and it looks like they might be serious. Heaven help us if they each hatch a clutch. I don't know what got into husband. what are we going to do with all the geese, this is not Europe.
I know how to pluck them, when and how, as we always had geese and there was a market at Christmas and of course for the down. But we did not even have roast goose for Christmas because we could not kill one. call us chicken. Chickens are easier to kill, even turkeys, but a goose I find very hard to butcher.

I noticed today that ferns are sold for 10 bucks, the same ones I have en masse in the woods. I walked away befuddled and wondering if I should pot a hundred of them up and take them to the fleamarket. A friend of mine raises irises and does a blooming business at the fleamarket.

I am also wondering, once food prices go skyhigh who has money for ferns. Fertilizer went from $300 a ton to 900. I can not imagine it not having an effect.

[sbemt456]

Dang it Bookwormom, you got ripe strawberries already? Mine look really good that I planted this year and are blooming, I read somewhere that you should pick off the first berries to increase more plant production? Your thoughts please. My little new 1 ft tall blue berry bushes are blooming too, and that aint right, they too little. Grape vines have leaves, now if those things bloom this year I'm yanking this stuff out of the ground, cause I know it takes a few years for them.

My cornish cross chicks are almost ready to butcher, about 2 more weeks. Moved them yesterday to the bigger chicken house away from the black australorps and they will weigh 2 to 2/12 lbs or more each already at just 4 weeks old.

We have all our main garden planted and it came up great, with the exception of the white half runners, dont know where they went but it wasnt up. Finding fertilizer in our area is a trick, we had to pick it up in Winchester yesterday on the way to the doctor. No one is farming in our area any more, havent seen many gardens either. Dont know what these people are going to do as this area is not a place with a lot of jobs and employment. Our little town is fast becoming a retirement community.

Folks I think this will be a good year for fruit trees too. We have an old old Keifer pear tree here on the farm and it is loaded with little pears, which is unusual. And wild blackberries are everywhere covered with blooms. Might be a good year for jam and stuff like maybe wine.

Happy gardening!

stella

[homesteadingnky]

We've got ripe strawberries too. Only problem is the aggravating birds. I forgot to put the net over them and the birds are eating them before I can get them picked.

We bought a bunch of flowers yesterday for our girls butterfly garden. Went with the intention of going simple and of course, I went overboard as usual! Spent way too much, but they will have an awesome butterfly garden and it should benifit our veggie garden as it will be really close and many of these plants will draw in bennificials. We'll probably mingle some of the flowers in the main garden as well.

It's raining again, as it did yesterday. I don't want to complain about it though because we don't have a good way to irrigate our new garden as it is not close to any water. So, all the rain has been a blessing in that respect! We just have to get it all mulched so that we can stay ahead of the weeds.

My wife also found some really awesome bird baths. One is about a foot tall and has ivy and a butterfly molded on it and on the inside of the bird bath along the rim it says, "His eye is on the sparrow and I know he watches me". and the other one is really small only 6" high by maybe 10"-12" long and is shaped like two hands cupped together and says on the front of it, "By His hands we are fed." She found them at KMart during one of our many stops yesterday. They are perfect addittions to our retreat garden!

Pulled a tick off of me last night. I guess it's that time again. I always dread that, not for me but for my girls. They both have really long hair and I've always worried what would happen if we got into a bunch of seed ticks and they got in their hair. I pray that never happens!!

I beleive it was Debrosa who sent the link to the green house back several months ago, we intend to build one very similar to it soon. We are trying to get our ducks in a row for this and hoping our house sells soon!!!! We had another showing yesterday but still no offer. Houses here are a dime a dozen. I still can't beleive we bought it with no more land than it has. I guess we were temporarily insane. If gas prices continue to go up we'll have to rethink everything from my job which I will have to work an 8 hr day just to cover my gas to work only for a week, to our commutes to the farm. May have to go ahead and get a camper and move over their even before we sell. I'm sure the gas is messing with most everyone, except the mennonites/Amish that is. Well, my rambling indicates my need to get off here I guess.

Have a blessed day,
Homesteading Dad

[bookwormom]

one tick so far? wow, we have oodles of them. Our daily evening ritual includes checking each other for ticks. I have at least 20 bite sites on me, for some reason they itch worse in the evening,.
Sgtella, I planted those strawberries in the spring of 2006, did not let them bear that year, last year we had that drought, besides, the blossoms froze off at easter. It is about time I am getting some strawberries. there are loads of them, but not very big. Now the raspberries I could not keep from bearing. I hope they do well for me this year.
I planted a bunch of baby asparagus plants into pots this morning, set out statice plants, mulched four rows of potatoes, four to go. It was a lovely May morning, cool and rainy, perfect to plant things. Blackberries are blooming like crazy here. I hope to get a lot.
then hubby needed help with the chicken coop he is building. We want to keep chickens in the orchard.
the tractor is way too small, we are planning to use it for the little ones if the incubator winds up working.

say, you all have an add under this Quick Reply Box, left of the middle, saying in green, underlined letters:

African American Grants
$30 000 in African American Grants
Never Repay-Get Your Free Kit

I have to check this out. Nobody ever offered me 30 000 never to be repaid

[bookwormom]

one tick so far? wow, we have oodles of them. Our daily evening ritual includes checking each other for ticks. I have at least 20 bite sites on me, for some reason they itch worse in the evening,.
Sgtella, I planted those strawberries in the spring of 2006, did not let them bear that year, last year we had that drought, besides, the blossoms froze off at easter. It is about time I am getting some strawberries. there are loads of them, but not very big. Now the raspberries I could not keep from bearing. I hope they do well for me this year.
I planted a bunch of baby asparagus plants into pots this morning, set out statice plants, mulched four rows of potatoes, four to go. It was a lovely May morning, cool and rainy, perfect to plant things. Blackberries are blooming like crazy here. I hope to get a lot.
then hubby needed help with the chicken coop he is building. We want to keep chickens in the orchard.
the tractor is way too small, we are planning to use it for the little ones if the incubator winds up working.

say, you all have an add under this Quick Reply Box, left of the middle, saying in green, underlined letters:

African American Grants
$30 000 in African American Grants
Never Repay-Get Your Free Kit

I have to check this out. Nobody ever offered me $30 000 never to be repaid

[machinemaker]

sounds like a country song, "I want to check you for ticks!" I did see our first humming bird two days ago and the aspens are budding, but another 6" of snow today here in the pass. the &*%*$!# chickens got into the green house and distroyed some plants!
kent

[SpoonBread]

speaking of humming bird, I was wearing my read coat outside cause it's been unusually chilly here. Well from out of know where I was dive bombed by a hummer, flew up no more than 5 inches away from my face. He sat there for a minute looking at me like " What the heck, YOUR not a FLOWER!!" and flew off. Planted some nice red snap dragons in pots on the back porch, maybe he'll come back.

I keep pouring over potential land and homesteads every night when honey goes to bed, but still no luck. I've found several that I liked that would work fur us and in out price range, but most are too far out for him. I think he's just hesitant about getting tied down some place. He was raised a bit of a gypsy, as was I. Unfortunatly that just made me want to put down roots more, and he enjoys the freedom. GO FIGURE!
I've moved about 8x's in the pas 5 years, and damn it I'm getting tired of movin!

[WileyCoyote]

ROFL Spoonbread! I have many hummingbirds right now, and if the feeder is empty, they flitter right in my face and tell me off, as soon as I get out of the pickup!

I too used to be a mover - every two years - but we have lived on this 1/3 acre now for 23 years. However, finally talked hubby (once a serious city boy) into a real farm.

[homesteadingnky]

Bee_Pipes,

How are the bees? Haven't heard lately. I've been following your post as I intend to get started with bees in the next year or two myself. I've read 4 or 5 books on the subject and numerous online articles. But I like to know what someone is really experiencing. I know a couple of guys close by who are bee keepers and I hope to spend some time with them this year.

The garden is way to wet to be in today so today I'm going to clean the car ('95 camaro) and get ready to put a for sale sign on it. I've said for 6 or 7 yrs that I need to sell it. It's not a practical family or farm vehicle. But boy is it fun to drive! Unfortunately it doesn't get great gas mileage any more and it has a few minor issues. I may take the money and buy a gas moped or something like that.

My best to you all today,
Homesteading Dad

[SpoonBread]

Wiley:

Bird's can get pretty pushy when they feel they've been neglected.;) *Hopefully I will be as lucky as you. I think my hubby will come around, he just has alot of requirements I have to work around! haha *We'll figure it out eventually, Just gives us more time to look and save up I guess. *

[Deberosa]

It finally warmed up here the last couple of days! So it's been frantic planting and mowing and weeding time!

Tomorrow I finish up the backyard garden and hopefully get the two front gardens planted as well as make a run for more animal feed of all kinds.

I have several Dark Cornish hens coming out of the brush with bunches of chicks. One set has two "mommies" - a hen and one of the Red Bourbon turkeys! The pigs are disappearing into the brush - hopefully to clear it out, they don't seem to eat much but are growing really fast. My bird feeders are filled with gold finches.

I got fly predators and sprinkled them around today also during lunch, as well as leading Daisy out for her half out of lawn mowing. ;-) She is eating like crazy.

The clover I planted is bright green but the buckwheat all died - so much for that cover crop this year. I'll get that field ready for planting soon. I also will be starting all of the pumpkin and squash seeds inside this next week.

Seems like I'll never catch up but somehow everything does manage to get done, at least everything that matters.

[homesteadingnky]

We responded to an advertisment for 4 free logs in our area yesterday and today we went to get them. They were taken from an old cabin in a near by county. I wasn't sure what I'd find but I was peasantly surprized!! They were 8' long and were 6" wide on the two hand hewn sides and 14" wide on the two other sides. We took the pressure washer to them and they cleaned up beautifully. They are American Chesnut. A rare find indeed. I took two of them and gave two to my brother-n-law who helped me go get them. The were pretty heavy. Absolutely beautiful!! We are going to use one for a mantle in our new house and are considering our options on the other one. We've considered making a couple of benches. Any ideas???

Homesteading Dad

[Deberosa]

Sounds like a great score! It's amazing what people give away.

I did get more planting done, but also it was time to shop for animal feed. On the way back stopped at a local garden show and got some cool yard art. ;-) I LOVE yard art!

So here is my completed front yard garden. I got the straw bales planted in the back but it was very hot today so didn't do alot until it cooled off. Go figure - after all of the cold wet weather.

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b340/deberosa/008-3.jpg

The cool flamigos are new. ;-) But the garden is a combination herb, veggie, flower garden. In there I have a wide variety of herbs from rosemary, sage and thyme to Valerian, lemon verbena and oregano - a little bit of everything. The strawbale garden has parsely, basil, greens, chard, peppers, nasturtiums and lobelia for flowing down the sides. There is a mulbery tree behind the flamingos.

I built this garden by throwing down boxes and feed bags and covering with mulch for a year. Each year I plant the previous year's area and throw down more feed bags and boxes. So the bare areas this year will be filled next year. It works great - the soil is wonderful and very easy to dig in once the grass composts.

Tomorrow I hope to finish the back yard and take pictures.

[homesteadingnky]

Cool picture. So, on your strawbales, you just put the plant in the strawbale just like you do in the garden/dirt? Do you add anything else (dirt)? If not, how do they get the nutrients/minerals that they need? I'm very interested in this and may try it myself this year. I remember reading something that I think you posted about this before but I forgot where that was and what exactly you did.

We are going to have an area that will be our garden retreat where we'll have our girls butterfly garden, along with our herbs and rose bushes, a shade garden, etc, and we love yard art as well and will incorporate fountains, birdbaths, birdhouses, statues, and all kinds of what-nots, as well as trelisis, arbors, and benches. We want a place that we can hang out in and forget about all the daily stresses. The veggie garden helps but this will be an even more special place. It's been in my mind for the last 6-7 years and it's finally going to happen. We took the first bunch of flowers and plants down there today and will start on it next week.

Homesteading Dad

[Deberosa]

I put details of my straw bale garden on my Blog at deberosahomestead.wordpress.com

[wy0mn]

Went to the Ranch this morning. Blue & white wildflowers are everywhere! The Hedgehog cacti are showing their red-orange blossoms too. A very patriotic theme.

Put my new Wilson directional cellular antenna on the tower, full scale reception but can't call out! May have to buy a booster (amplifier) to reach the commercial tower. I was hoping this would be a simple plug~n~play operation like the cell we use for a house phone.

Cabin materials are slated for delivery this Tuesday! Lex is gonna be a busy old boy...

[jen_in_southtexas]

I have continued the search for some property. *I was considering a 5acre tract but i really dont want or need that much. *When i get older i feel that i may not be able to keep up with it. Then i came across a 1 acre track driving a lesser travelled county road about 11miles out of town where it is very nice and quiet. *There was a for sale sign. *It is nice and green, unimproved...mowed and all, nice mesquite trees. *I got out of the truck and walked the perimeters as they were flagged. *I immediately liked the feel of it, its location and the possibilities. *I called the number but the answering machine came on so left a message. *That was Friday then Saturday I get a returned call. *I met the gentleman and we discussed this. *They are very affordable payments at a 5yr term and easy terms at that. *I told him that i was very interested but that i would like to think it over over the weekend. *So that is where that stands. *It is a pretty piece of property and the soil is muuuuuuuch better than the other properties i have looked at. *I will call him tomorrow.

On a different note, i went to the "free" section of craigslist and came across an ad for free landscaping timbers and fence poles. *I called the number and the lady said that they were part of a deck that her husband disassembled because they were remodeling their backyard. *Most of the pieces were 8ft tall except for a few pieces that were about 6ft tall. *I made out like a Bandit. *I can use some of those to put up a fence wherever i decide to settle. *He also had a crosslink chain fence type gate...'bout a 4ft by 3ft. *Some rust but other than that in great shape. *I also found a 7ft pole bout 6" round good for a corner post. *Found it while out driving around. *I love finding these things! *

Thats about it on my end. *The wildlife in these parts sure are out and about. *We had some much needed rain and things are really starting to turn green. *Saw 5 wild turkey, several deer and a rattle snake sunbathing in the middle of the caliche road and several rabbits. *Nice to see the wildlife active and on the move.

-j

[msta999]

Good luck on getting your property. Let us know how it turns out. You must have your mind made up if your picking up poles for your new fense. ;)

[bee_pipes]

5/13
The time is really flying. We have gotten good rains the last few days, though the weather is a bit on the rough side. Most of the fronts that have marched through have been accompanied by tornadoes in surrounding regions. The spring weather is still on the dynamic side – cool, almost cold evenings followed by 80 degree days. That’s a lot of energy to lend to weather when change is in the air. News anchors are talking about how bad this spring is for destructive weather – perhaps, but if there was nothing else to talk about they would make a fuss over it to fill air time. We are really blessed to have the relative peace of this hollow, which has protected us from the brunt of the weather.

Work has been progressing outside – the place is looking pretty good and it feels like we have it up and running for the season. Today we will get some odds & ends at the grocery store to prepare for our brief absence. Thursday morning at 0-dark-thirty we will leave for a wedding in Kansas City. The drive is not overly long or unpleasant, and we hope to make good time now that we have seen the St’ Louis arch and Hannibal, making those side-trips unnecessary for this journey. It is hard getting my head around the fact that we will be away for 4 days. Staying in a hotel, wearing clean clothes, no animals or dirt – it will be a departure from what we do on a daily basis, to be sure.

New peppers have been put in the garden, beans and peas are growing rapidly, tomatoes and gourds seem to be hanging in there – the tomatoes have recovered from their shock and are beginning to show signs of vigor. We have one last bed to get weeded and cultivated so that cantaloupe and cucumbers can get planted. I really let this bed slide and there are grassy bushes growing out there. Some of this grass is tenacious and takes quite a bit of elbow grease to dislodge. Wish we had more of that growing in the lawn. This year’s new products (so far) are tobacco and comfrey. Tobacco has a number of uses around the yard as organic mulch and pest control; comfrey looks promising as a livestock feed for the poultry. Both are going into the back field, well away from the garden. The tobacco is too big to allow it to use room in the garden, the comfrey is an invasive weed and we don’t want the roots getting into the garden soil – we have enough weeds in the garden already. I’d like to try peanuts this year, but I am afraid the year is getting away from me.

We have been collecting turkey eggs since the beginning of May and have 9 eggs to show for our troubles. We had hoped to have 20 by the time we returned from KC, playing percentages to assure a hatch of 12 minimum. Five of the turkeys have been reserved by a paying customer; and we had hoped to have at least a half dozen for ourselves to process and freeze. We have to make decisions about chickens and guineas too, but the turkey eggs will need a 1 week head start on the chicken eggs. We came across a guinea nest yesterday – they practice guerilla brooding. I don’t think we’ll need to hatch any guinea eggs, if we can capture the clutch before the parents manage to lose the keets.

5/19
Last night we got back in from a 4 day trip to Kansas City. We haven’t been on a trip in quite a while, but fell back into our rhythm in short order. KC is about a 9 hour drive from here, and we are able to avoid most cities except Jackson, Tn and St. Louis, Mo. South East Missouri, on the far side of the Mississippi River, is flat and low lying. We saw a number of flooded areas, usually around creeks, rivers and other outlets to the river. Water levels must be high, backing the local waterways up. No houses or anything, just trees that have their trunks covered. Near St. Louis we saw a ball field flooded – backstops and soccer goals poking up out of the water were the only clue to the purpose of the area. About mid-state, traveling up the eastern border on I-55, the landscape turns to gently rolling hills and outcroppings of rock are visible. We crossed the state on I-70 and ventured no further into Kansas than the south-western edges of the KC metro region. I am grossly ignorant of geography, and travels to this part of the country always provide revelations. I knew KC was a rail head for the beef being driven up from Texas, but never seem to remember that the Missouri River travels through that city. The Missouri, emptying into the Mississippi about 10 miles north of St. Louis, travels across the state from Kansas City as a course of about 300 river miles. Called the “big muddy” by the earlier settlers, they claimed the river was “Too thick to drink and too thin to plow”. Louis and Clark made their first camp upriver from St. Louis – sort of a winter training/practice camp for the members of the expedition before jumping off into the wilderness. KC, so far as I recall, was not even a settlement at that time. Draining the upper western part of the country, this side of the Rockies, this river has a tremendous reach.

Kansas City is a pleasant enough place. We traveled through the downtown area briefly, but look as hard as I might, I saw no signs of a seedy underbelly. I am sure there are parts of town that you would do well to steer clear of, but it must be well concealed and small enough to stay hidden from view. Most of what I saw were impressive buildings, lots of green spaces, and a tidiness that seems to be missing from older cities. It reminds me of Indianapolis and the newer parts of Atlanta. KC has also been experiencing tremendous growth in the last few dacades, the same as those two cities, so it may be the parts I saw were not old enough to get that dingy covering of age. Traffic is no worse than any other major metropolitan center, and better than many of them. I would much rather try to find my way through KC than Chicago or Los Angeles.

We got a dose of big city noise and dirt, ate rich food in entirely too large of portions, and are glad to be home to our quiet little hollow. We also brought along guests – Karen’s sister Pattie and her husband Tim. They visited us shortly after moving here and were much impressed with the changes made. We have them for 2 days of rest and relaxation before they have to press on – visiting Tim’s family in Arkansas on their return to their home in Carlsbad, New Mexico.

While in KC we visited a most interesting museum. The steamboat Arabia hit a snag on the Missouri River in 1856 and sank in short order. The wreck was buried in river mud and forgotten for the most part. Time went on and the Missouri River changed its course, as it was wont to do from time to time. In 1988 a team of local treasure hunters followed stories of this wreck and found the remains buried in a cornfield. The boat was loaded with wares for restocking stores along the Missouri and contained a treasure trove of dishes, cookware, tools, fabrics, etc. The condition of the cargo was remarkable – preserved in the mud. Of course, a muddy tomb is not without drawbacks – the items had to be cleaned up and restored, but the condition of the salvage is remarkable. The treasure hunters, when they found the state of preservation, had second thoughts about selling the salvage to secure their fortunes, and built a museum to display the artifacts. It is quite an impressive collection and well worth the admission price. There are supposed to be another 400-600 wrecks in the 300 river miles between St. Louis and Kansas City, waiting for some persistent individuals to find and dig them up.

The animals were all in good shape, cared for by friends Tony and Joel. Everybody was well fed and there seem to have been no problems, with the exception of a dead guinea. It was the last white one, and it seems to have flown into the dog pen. Tony found the carcass and placed it near the compost bins for me. He must have found it shortly after the dogs did – it was pretty much whole and had most of its feathers. The pups can pluck and strip a carcass of meat faster than I can.

The rain that was falling when we departed seems to have good effect on the vegetation. Grass on the roadsides, we saw while driving home, is waist high. Last minute transplants to the garden and yard – cantaloupe and comfrey, seem to have survived their sudden change in situation. The garden shows a marked improvement over four days of unobserved growth. Tomatoes and peppers are beginning to find their stride and have benefited greatly from rain and sunshine. The evenings are still quite chilly, slowing plant growth and keeping afternoon temperatures from getting excessive. For now we’ll settle for slower plant growth and be grateful for the moderate daytime temperatures.

As of yet the bees have only been observed from the outside of the hives. Today I hope to make an inspection and harvest a little honey. I have 3 new supers to build and a hand full of frames to assemble. I have not been feeding the top-bar hives for the last week, and this should be the real truth teller on their status – if they can survive on their own foraging. It has been long enough that new brood should be moving up from house-keeping positions to outside foragers, replacing the workers that arrived with the package. The profusion of weeds and wildflowers would seem to indicate an ample supply of nectar and pollen, so I am hoping for the best.

I finished Logston’s book “Small-Scale Grain Raising” and have ambitions to get the beds tilled and soybeans planted. The soil is poor, to be generous, and soybeans seem to be the best green manure you can plant for soil improvement. We may just get a winter wheat crop planted this year to test drive the soil after turning the soybeans under. The book is excellent and many of the author’s recommendations are well in reach of the average gardener. It was entertaining to learn about common grains in more detail and I feel well armed to make new blunders in an area I know virtually nothing about. At least the seed is inexpensive, so it should prove to be cheap entertainment.

Regards,
Pat

[WRTN]

Hey Pat,

Kent stopped by the house weekend before last and brought us 2 "nuc's" of bees. I installed the nucs last Tuesday and the bees have been busy hauling huge amounts of pollen into both hives.

I ordered a 2nd hive that came in last Monday.

I had no idea that 5 frames of brood and honey could be so heavy. I also noticed that the bees in the nucs were a LOT more aggressive. Had to constantly be smoking them and in a few instances smoke the crap out of them.

I fed the bees in the nucs with sugar water in a 3 gallon pot with several sticks in it for them to climb on for a few days which they were heavily eating. Once I got the bees into each respective hive, they wouldn't touch the sugar water. I suppose that is a good sign.

The gnats and flies have gone berzerk so I ordered some adheasive fly strips and some Fly Predators before we are over run in Biblibical proportions! ;D

Still no sign of the 4 hens who disappeared with about 3 dozen chicks a week ago but our hopes are that they will return in a few weeks with grown up chicks.

[bee_pipes]

Well congrats on the new hive Randy. My best to the wife.

The first time I tried this, I figured full sized hive bodies were the way to go. I was in my 30's then and could handle a box like that. Now I wouldn't risk my back or coordination. Today we got the three new supers built and frames built, but never made it to the hives for inspections. There is much activity going on and the bees are bringing home loads of pollen.

You're right - the gnats are really bad this year. We had gnats in Virginia when I was growing up, but these devils are something worse. The locals call them buffalo gnats - they are bigger and hungrier than the little pests I remember.

Regards,
Pat

[LeatherneckPA]

They are American Chesnut....We are going to use one for a mantle in our new house and are considering our options on the other one. *We've considered making a couple of benches. *Any ideas???You are SUCh a lucky dawg!!! How about using it to make a nice dining table to match that mantle?

[LeatherneckPA]

Well, we are two weeks into the great chicken experiment. They all have nicely feathered wings and still have fuzzy bodies and heads. They are starting to grow tail feathers. And they now have necks. Long, skinny necks.

They have learned not to run away when they hear Dad's voice. In fact, they are all raising their necks up and staring at me when I raise the screen to feed and water them. I believe they have decided that Dad's voice means FOOD!!!

I must have stood out there for ten minutes yesterday laughing until I had tears in my eyes. After the first week they started trying out their wings and doing LOTS of hopping. Yesterday there was one chick on top of each feeder and waterer (4 total). Everybody else was jumping up, trying to knock them off. Regular chicken game of "king of the mountain". Guess I'll have to install a roost in the brooder for them Wednesday night.

Thanks to the wings I can now tell my Golden Laced Wyandottes from my New Hampshires from my Barred Rocks from my Black Australorps. Of course, everybody is moving around too much to get an accurate count of who is what. Everybody is doing fine.

The big tractor is framed out on the bottom half. The only thing I haven't decided yet is whether I want to raise the floor of the shed two feet and increase the ground space, or keep the shed low for aesthetics, weight management, and ease of cleaning. With 96 sq ft of grass space w/o raising the floor I am inclined to lean that way for the reasons indicated. That's still 4 sq ft of grass space per bird until fall and then somewhere between 8-12 sq ft per bird after the culling of the roos.

[wy0mn]

WooHoo!
Cabin materials were delivered today.
My drivel will be sporadically posted. lol.
I've set a deadline of the 4th of July (grid Independence Day) to have this thing up & at least campable.
Wood heat, wind/solar powered.

Ciao

[jen_in_southtexas]

Well folks, it looks like i got me a new piece of property. :D That one acre lot i had my eye on will be officially mine at closing in a coupla weeks. I am so excited!!! It is the perfect size for me. I cant wait to mow the grass, trim the trees, lay out the gravel driveway etc. So much to do but i cant until i have signed on the dotted line.

I would love to share pictures from my neck of the woods but when i test post it tells me that my pics have been removed or deleted. I have even resized them. I want to see the actual pic on my post and NOT the url address. Can someone please help me? I use photobucket.

Thx,
-j

[LeatherneckPA]

Well folks, it looks like i got me a new piece of property. :D....I would love to share pictures from my neck of the woods but when i test post it tells me that my pics have been removed or deleted. *I have even resized them. *I want to see the actual pic on my post and NOT the url address. *Can someone please help me? *I use photobucket. Thx,
-jCONGRATULATIONS JEN ;D ;D ;D

Photobucket makes the pictures VERY easy. Underneath your pic in the album is a list of like four items, the bottom one of which is for a URL. LEFT CLICK on that and it will flash a little box briefly that says COPIED. Go to your post and RIGHT CLICK, then PASTE and the URL will appear in your post. However, when you click to post that entry it will substitute the photo. At least, that's how easy it was for me.

[jen_in_southtexas]

Thanks LeatherneckPA.

And thank you for the instructable on the pic posting. I tried that and it still will not work. I have posted for help in the general section. Maybe someone will rescue me.

-j

[Deberosa]

Wow - plans coming together - that's great!!! Congratulations!

Today has been "interesting". T-Bone broke out of her pasture and headed straight for my new garden! With Jake's help (somewhat!) we herded her to the back pasture but I had the other gate open! So back she went to the garden. Then into the freshly tilled beautiful seed beds I built just yesterday. Jake hot on her heels and the two of them dodging back and forth in the fresh tilled earth. >:(

I finally got her in another small fenced area and then opened it to the area where Daisy is for now - they are doing some major mowing now so I left them there!

I sure am glad I have everything cross fenced just for such occasions.

The back yard garden is planted with okra (it actually started this year) tomatoes and basil in pots, scarlet runner beans on the trellis, a straw bale garden with cilantro, greens, head lettuce, radishes, chard, carrots, beats, spinach and hot peppers.

Then I planted perenials like wintergreen and wild ginger and chinese lanterns mixed in with lots of cosmos and zinnias. It will be great if everything grows!

I got supplies to build a small patio off the back deck to connect with the deck for the wood fired hot tub. In the corner I am going to put a whiskey barrel and fill it with rosemary, thyme and sage which here grow all year and will provide me with those herbs right outside the kitchen door. Soon there will be no more lawn in the back yard - yeah!

[jen_in_southtexas]

Thank you Deberosa. *Im so excited about it. *I cant wait to start working on it. *I priced some material today to get some idea of what a small cabin would cost to make myself. *I will review that later tonight.

Here are some pics thanks to 'tufhelp' for the detailed instructions. *Thank you!

My new property frontage. *Of course it looks much better in person.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh112/lillybug71/One%20acre%20homestead/Mynewoneacreproperty003.jpg

Another pic different view
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh112/lillybug71/One%20acre%20homestead/Mynewoneacreproperty004.jpg

This cactus looked pretty with the sun behind it. *Note that these are very abundant in these parts, edible and very tasty believe it or not.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh112/lillybug71/One%20acre%20homestead/Mynewoneacreproperty013.jpg


This little rattler was on the middle of the road sunbathing. *Looks like a diamond back. *If you can zoom in on it it is very pretty.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh112/lillybug71/One%20acre%20homestead/Thelittlerattler-1.jpg

-j

*

[Deberosa]

Great pictures and a great property! Nice and flat and a nice number of trees - doesn't look like any neighbors either. Is it square also or more oblong? Does it have a well or anything at this point?

I am not so sure about the rattle snake though! ;-)

[homesteadingnky]

The diamond back is pretty (I can say that because it's not in KY)! ;) I guess that's why I love it here in KY, ticks are our biggest issue in that regard. My wife found a deer tick on her tonight.

We've spent the last several days in the garden. Got more tomatoes from the float bed planted. Today I planted; Box Car Willie, Amish Paste, Cream Sausage, Red Pear, Yellow Pear, Pink Brandywine, and Reisentraube. I also planted more Black Beauty Zuch., Charleston Gray and Sugar Baby watermelons, some canteloupes, and some Indian corn. Yesterday I planted yellow bell peppers and the girls butterfly garden.

We are also preparing to camp out on our farm this weekend. Looks to be a beautiful weekend. 8) Hope to get all the gardening done before the weekend so we can just chill. Can't wait to fire up the dutch ovens!! ;D

Homesteading Dad

[jen_in_southtexas]

It is a square piece of property with the survey markers clearly staked. No neighbors on either side of me. But no telling what can ever happen. The property to my left is also for sale. I thought about getting that too but i dont need it. There is enough elbow room for me on my land and more.
There is no well, electric or septic. That will happen in baby steps.

-j

[wy0mn]

Beautiful spot lady, happy for you.
Not sure of the elevation at my site, been told its too high for snakes. Haven't seen one within 25mi of it.

[LeatherneckPA]

No, really!!

I came home tonight and stopped at the brooder as always. Shook fresh feed down from the mason jars and talked to the kids. There was a whole bunch of them that came over and stood beneath me scratching and pecking at the wood. So I wondered to myself, "Self, I wonder if they'll eat from your hand?" (I call myself "Self" when I talk to me, just to keep us separate and the answers straight.)

So I dug a handful of mash and laid my hand flat on the bedding. Took a little while, but sure enough a few brave souls ventured up and took feed straight out of my hand. First it was a Wyandotte, then a couple of NH's, and finally a Barred Rock. then my back gave out. I dumped a cupful of a mash in a pile and watched them really go to scratching after that.

[bee_pipes]

5/21
Yesterday was a pretty good day. Got the area around the sawmill mowed and ready for work and inspected the hives. Fears about the yellow top-bar hive were largely disproved – they are not as far along as the swarm, but are continuing to make progress. The remainder of the top-bars were finished for the white top-bar hive, containing the trapped swarm, but they were not ready to be released into the remainder of the hive. They are doing well, but the explosive growth they were experiencing seems to have leveled off. The green hive, a langstroth that has yet to throw a swarm, seems to be building up to critical mass in population. Large groups of bees are outside the hive. The new supers have to be painted, but won’t be ready any earlier than tomorrow. I managed to get them primered but never got to painting them yesterday.

Yesterday we witnessed a power struggle between the roosters. Rocky, the second rooster, seemed to think he had a shot at becoming top rooster. He is larger, a result of having no responsibilities and being first at the feeder. He prevailed and dethroned Sluggo as the cock of the walk. Sluggo was mortified and humiliated, not being able to beat this upstart. When we locked the chickens up I had to search for Sluggo and catch him – no major effort – he seemed lethatgic and was no doubt exhausted from the strenuous day. Both were showing blood – which seemed to be a result of biting. They didn’t use their spurs very effectively, but had ample comb and wattle to bite. Sluggo was sequestered on the guinea side of the chicken house and given food and water. A hen that was trying to go broody on the chicken side of the house was placed in there with him. This may work out well for breaking up broody hens. Two were trying to go broody on the guinea side and placing them on opposite sides seems to have thrown them off. They are still displaying behavior peculiar to their state, but don’t seem to have any desire to occupy nesting boxes on the different sides of the house. All three spend much time trying to find a way back to the nest boxes they were occupying, but are up and moving around. Hopefully they will be out of broody behavior in a few days.

5/22
Yesterday was spent mowing the back field. It started with mowing around the sawmill to get ready for operations and I guess I just sort of got carried away. The fruit trees are getting overrun with weeds and need to be mulched badly, so the tall grass lying on the ground in back will be collected and mulched. We have a cart that picks up grass clippings and leaves when pulled behind the lawnmower, but the grass in back is jut too heavy and the ground too uneven for a device made for suburban lawns. Looks like we’ll have to bite the bullet and rake and haul.

We put lilacs in back as sort of a border on the main path/road going through the field. One of the plant suppliers had a sale a few years ago and we put in 25 of them. After doing a rough survey of the area with the idea in mind of adding more cultivated space, the planting of those lilacs were not the best locations. I think they will have to be moved to free up more space. Rather than a border, maybe more of a hedgerow with room for a vehicles to travel next to them. The rising cost of gas and feed is making it a priority to produce more of the feed ourselves. Some of the farmers in Tennessee are now resorting to mule power to avoid the cost of feeding hungry tractors and combines. Mules have to eat too, but at least you can raise their food.

Plans right now, as things stand, are to get soybeans planted in back as soon as the soil can get marked off and turned. Soybeans are not the most useful of crops by themselves, so far as feed and other uses are concerned. They do have their uses when combined with other grains, but alone they are inadequate for a balanced diet. The main purpose of soybeans would be to improve soil quality. The soil in back is rocky and while some of it produces great sod, most of it is pretty sad. The soybean plants will introduce nitrogen to the soil, develop microbial cultures and add much needed organic matter. Plowing the crop under as green manure will begin the long process of developing topsoil and pave the way for other more useful crops like wheat and corn. We will not be able to make this a commercial enterprise because of the small space, but anything we can produce for ourselves and the animals will put money back in our pockets by eliminating necessities that we must drive to town and purchase.

Got the back raked and loaded into a trailer for mulch. I can see a need to put higher sides on the trailer – a project for a future date. Should be an adequate amount for mulching the fruit trees.
http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk217/patandkaren/haywain.jpg

Tonight the guineas ran off a possum. I suspect he’ll be back after the birds go to bed and calm down. By the time I figured out what they were chasing, it was too late to get the varmint. We set the trap and hope to have some luck tonight. Just a day or two before we left for Kansas City I found the two end joints off the wings of a guinea. They were left in the dog pen and the immediate conclusion was the dogs had gotten it. The dogs were acting very guilty about these remains, but it didn’t look right. When dogs catch a bird they pluck it, eat the muscle tissue, then pick over the carcass at their leisure. There were not enough feathers for a plucking party and no carcass evident, just the wing joints. Now we have a culprit. With a little luck I’ll have a possum in the trap tomorrow, without luck we’ll be down another guinea in the morning.

Regards,
Pat

[jen_in_southtexas]

Thanks wy0mn. I cant wait to see your cabin. Progress pics would be great!

-j

[rideaway]

Boy, the weather is doing weird things...last Thursday, one week ago today, we were sleeping outside on the ground because it was 102 in the shade at 2 pm and still hot as Hades that night (which is unusual for the Southern Oregon coast)...today, it was 50 degrees...and the wind is blowing, it's overcast and feels like fall. We had 4 days of beautiful weather (Thurs, Fri, Sat, Sun) and then the season changed...a co-worker made a comment about how next year he was taking all summer off (the whole four days). ;D

Got the garden pretty much in last weekend, almost 3 weeks later than last year, so I'm a little worried, but because of my sister's stroke and ensuing life issues, some things just got delayed. I've learned to let life do what it needs to when that stuff happens.

[Deberosa]

It's been a busy weekend around here.

I put the finishing touches on the back yard garden (well almost!). DIdn't get a picture of the little patio off the back door I completed - later!

The grapes and kiwi should produce this year. The strawbale garden has cilantro, lettuce, mixed greens, peppers, carrots, spinach, radishes, beets, fennel, and some lobelia to trail down the sides. The center garden has okra, zinnias, cosmos, a mix of shrubs and perrenials including wild ginger and wintergreen and Angelica in the middle of the garden.

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b340/deberosa/004-4.jpg

The field garden needs one more tilling before planting with purple bush beans, soybeans, alfalfa, spelt, pumpkins and winter squash and whatever else I can think of to put in there! I have separate gardens for all of my corn, root crops like parsnips, turnips, beets, carrots and mangel beets as well as summer squash.

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b340/deberosa/009-4.jpg

I put soaker hose in the hoop house. Still need to plant the basil and some marigolds in there. But I have tiny tomatoes - a first this early in the season.


http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b340/deberosa/011-2.jpg
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b340/deberosa/012-1.jpg

The dark cornish hens are busy with chicks - they are great mothers.
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b340/deberosa/016.jpg

Couldn't find the pigs most of the day - they are somewhere in here:
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b340/deberosa/019.jpg

That's about it for now - more planting, mowing and fixing up tomorrow!

[jen_in_southtexas]

Thank you for sharing those wonderful pics with us Deberosa. Looks like you are one busy woman tending to the farm with lots to keep you busy. That was one pretty dark cornish hen. I'd like to have some of those someday.

Your part of the woods is a far cry from the lay of the land here in my part of the woods. You dont see trees like that here in deep south texas. Im not complaining because I love my Texas and we all need to appreciate what we do have.

Life is good!

-j

[nancy1340]

jen_in_southtexas, check out Home Depot for small cabin's. They are fully finished on the outside and you can finish them out inside. If you can do without power, plumbing and them being finished inside for a while you can move in as soon as they are set on your property. A few concrete blocks and your good to go.

[Deberosa]

Several nice days means I've almost caught up with the gardening!

Front yard is done, Back yard is done. At least as much as is going to happen this year on both! I am going to clear out the gardens entirely around the house - lost control of them last year... Time to start over with lots of mulch but that will be later.

I tilled the rest of the veggie gardens into seed beds and all are ready to plant. Tonight I got in my cut flower bed of zinnias, calendulas, and cosmos (yes even more of them!). I put in a 25 ft row of two different kinds of cucumbers - slicing and pickling. I put in 24 hills of summer squash - twelve of zuccini, 6 of yellow crookneck and 6 of patty pan. This year I put them all on 4 ft centers instead of all crowded together like last year. ;-) I still need to mulch in between heavily though. I also put in some spagetti squash with the sweet peppers on the straw bale garden so they can trail down the sides and across the garden.

Tomorrow I hope to try out my Earthway seeder for the first time and put in beets, carrots, turnips, parsnips, and mangel beets in these gardens. Most of that is for livestock feed. THen I have the corn area ready for planting with corn, sunflowers and pumpkins. After that it will be the purple snap beans in the field and the rest of the livestock crops plus any leftover tomatoe plants.

I might have it all done by the end of the weekend since the weather seems to be holding off this week.

Then I need to string up more electric fence and turn the cows loose to mow more of the pastures for me. Right now we are mowing yards and throwing the clippings to them which is getting old!

The pigs are growing fast and they have definitely decided they like eggs. Unfortunately that means they hang out by the feed trough waiting for dinner instead of going out and digging around in the brush. Hmmm.

Moved the pullets to the hen house at two months old. The 4 white turkeys need to move somewhere but they are still a bit too small to trust outside because of owls.

Every once in a while I get to just look around at the progress, which is good! Seems so much better this year with more experience.

[homesteadingnky]

Boy the garden is looking good! :) Picked off a nice green tomato today so my wife could fry it up for me (like I need it). I do love fried green tomatoes!!

I hope to post some pics soon of the garden and what will I guess be our "before" pictures. In a few years maybe we'll have the after ones.

We spent yesterday cutting thistles. Hundreds of them!! Chopping them up roots and all so that my father-n-law wouldn't spray 2-4-D (agent orange) any where near our garden.

Last weekend we camped out on our home place and it was so much fun and sooooooo peaceful. We cooked on our dutch ovens and had some unbelievable meals!! Then worked in the garden as much as we could. Planted a few more tomatoes and several herbs in an herb bed.

We had a guy who was doing some work for my brother-n-law do some dozer/loader work for us today. We are trying to do what we can while we wait for our house to sell.

I got a call toady from the Dr's office. Results from the heart echo test I had last week. Seems I have a leaking valve in my heart in addition to the Sarcoidosis. I knew that I had been getting tired a lot quicker than I used to. Don't know how serious it is yet or what it will mean but I'm hopeful that it won't be to bad. I am so ready to put in a hard days work! I can't do much these days without having to rest for a while (some times days).

Anyway, I'm very excited about our garden. The potatoes and beans are blooming, and the pole beans have runners that are probably2' long on some of them. The corn is growing fast and we have dozens of little squash about 2"-3" long. Won't be long now 'till we fire up those canners! ;)

Happy gardening,
Homesteading Dad

[bee_pipes]

5/25
Today we got a lot done re-fencing the chicken pen. The last wall was re-fenced and three runs of wire were put over the top. We worked from about 8 Am till 1 PM and were really running on fumes by the time we knocked off. All that’s left is a little stapling and reinforcing the wire with j-clips. Even in this nearly completed state, the chickens are more secure than they were before. The old wire is rusty and we saw many holes while putting the new wire on.

Yesterday we went to Tony & Kay’s house to pick up a load of wood shavings. Tony makes a lot of shavings while planing wood. Most of the shavings go to a woman we know as litter for her cats. He had old bags of the stuff he had thrown out in the woods behind his house. This is actually better because they have been exposed to moisture and the microbe cultures in the woods. The majority of the shavings were cedar and we’ll use them to mulch the blueberries.

5/28
We have been getting some much needed rain the last few days. Monday we received 1 ½ inches in short order – perhaps a bit more than we needed at one time, but welcome nonetheless. Tuesday we received another ¾ inch over the course of the day – a much gentler shower, hopefully soaking the ground deeper than the deluge of Monday. The rains are clearing from our region today. By noon we should be out of the weather system.

Yesterday morning I went over to Tony’s to help him with his tractor. He has lost his power take-off (PTO). The PTO is a drive shaft from the engine that powers accessory devices – in this case his mower. For some reason when he engages the PTO the control lever moves freely and does not engage. Looking in his owner’s manual we saw the lever moves a fork to slide a gear to engage the PTO. Assumptions were that the fork was damaged. Tearing down the tractor required removing the seat and disconnecting the hydraulic system from its pump. The hydraulics had to be removed to expose the inner workings of the transmission. Darned if we know what was causing the problem – by the time we got the transmission opened and could watch the parts moving as we worked the engagement lever, everything was working. We tested the PTO and it was engaging normally. We got the transmission and hydraulics reassembled and retested the PTO – all worked fine. Tony had been working on the tractor a few days earlier, when this problem started showing up. He was not able to get the tractor torn down as far as we did yesterday, but the problem was still present. All too late – after reassembly - we thought of checking the bottom of the transmission to look for broken pieces of metal that might have caused the malfunction. We’ll check again another day. An intermittent problem like this will resurface again – anything that magically and mysteriously disappears is not fixed, just hiding for the moment. There were no signs of obvious damage and all parts fit tightly.

5/31
Checked the bees yesterday. Added two new supers to the green hive. I was expecting it to throw a swarm, bees have been all over the outside of the hive for a week or two. The daily high temperatures are rising, it could be a matter of crowding and heat. The blue hive, after throwing two swarms, has an entrance reducer to make it easy to defend the hive with the reduced manpower. The swarm in the top bar hive now has the entire hive to use – I removed the divider. I tried to intersperse drawn comb with new top bars and got disastrous results. The newly drawn comb is so fragile that two of them broke loose and fell to the bottom of the hive. I scooped out the comb and threw it in front of the other hives – they will rob the honey from the comb and leave the wax. Heat may have been a factor too. It was not an extremely hot day, but plenty warm. The wax, a soft substance to begin with, was not strengthened by the heat of the day. This mishap has still been instructive – I can see the tools used to work with langstroth hives are not real useful for top-bar hives. I’m a thinkin’ food tools – spatulas and such, might be more useful. Also, a collection bucket for the comb. By the time I got done cleaning up the mess I made in the top-bar hive my gloves, hive tool and brush were covered with honey. Had to stop and clean up before inspecting the last hive.

Last night we gave the dogs their monthly bath. This is a bit of an ordeal that none of us looks forward to. The dogs spend the entire time trying to escape, requiring some ingenuity on my part to confine them and work the shampoo into them at the same time. They could probably get along fine without monthly baths, but it seems a shame to not loosen up any ticks and dirt before applying the next month’s dose of front-line. Ticks have been particularly bad the last week or two. After finding one or two, your attention gets called by the slightest stirring of an arm or leg hair by a breeze. As we have ceiling fans running, you are in a constant state of self examination. Soon enough they will peak, and will only be occasionally seen the remainder of the summer.

Spent this morning mowing high grass near the edge of the woods. I had hoped to get in there with the ATV and trailer to load up on dirt from the wood’s floor for the blueberries. Took longer than I planned – the heat of the day is on us and the sun is shining on the area we were going to dig. My own fault for staying up late last night and rising late this morning. Everything is in place for this job so is can be started at first light tomorrow. There are other tasks that can be done today that don’t require a long commitment outside. The roto-tiller needs attention – lost a tire. The original tires were pneumatics. We would frequently lose tire pressure and even break the seal of the tire on the rim. When this happens I have been putting an inner tube in the tire so that we can re-inflate it with the small air compressor. Before we got the air compressor, everything around here – ATV, trailers, tiller, etc. was inflated by use of a bicycle pump. You can do it that way, but I don’t recommend it.

I am anxious to begin breaking ground for our back garden, where we will experiment with growing grains. Common sense would tell me to wait for autumn and move the lilac trees from the area, but I have never been much bothered by common sense. Lilacs, of all the trees I have had experience with, seem particularly difficult to kill with any lasting effect. They have been over-pruned, accidentally mowed down, and neglected to the point of turning feral. Lilacs seem to be geared for survival. So long as there is a viable root, they send up suckers. In the interest of getting a crop of soybeans in this year for soil improvement I think we’ll move the lilacs, even though it is the height of the growing season. We need to get areas staked off and twined so we can get measurements of the bed and fit it with room of access. Tilling such a sizeable area will be a chore, but that can get knocked off a little at a time.

Well, that pretty much puts done to the month. I’ll be turning 50 in a few days. That would be a depressing milestone, like turning 40, but the 40’s were full of such pleasant surprises that 50 no longer looks like a bad thing. It helps to have older people around to watch – they don’t seem to be letting their 50’s and 60’s slow them down, so I am encouraged that life doesn’t stop at some arbitrary number.

Regards,
Pat

[bookwormom]

quote by Deberosa
I put in 24 hills of summer squash - twelve of zuccini, 6 of yellow crookneck and 6 of patty pan. ??? ??? ??? ???
are you planning on a roadside stand? I hope they do well.

something has been eating my seeds before the seedlings could sprout. I always use a lot of seeds, you know the old saying:
"one for the rook, one for the crow, one to die and one to grow". Three hills of banana melon came up thick, but seven hills show NOTHING. I'll transplant some of the extras, hope they will take. I see that there are holes all over the ground, about the thickness of a knitting needle.

I have to go and clean a gallon of strawberries. They are slowing down now. berries seem to be the way to go in Ky. I found there is a rather large patch of wild blackberries at our "front gate" (nothing but a cattle panel to keep the critters in".

[Deberosa]

I am planning on feeding my chickens, pigs and cows with the extra squash.

It's a beautiful day today and I got to use my Earthway seeder for the first time. More human and animal feed - three rows of beets, 5 rows of carrots, 3 rows of mangels, 3 rows of parsnips and 3 rows of turnips all 25 ft long! Next the corn and beans and sunflowers go in. Plus scattering the alfalfa, spelt, buckwheat in the field garden.

The seeder works great! Makes very short work out of sowing many row crops for sure. Hopefully I can reduce purchased feed with some of these crops this year.

[jen_in_southtexas]

Nice to hear of everyone's progress/daily life on the homestead. *I am still waiting on the closing of my 1 acre property. *They said that by June 15th it should be done. *Im just ansy.

I thought I would share a few pics of a nice little find at a 2nd hand furniture store from a coupla weeks ago. *I stop in now and then to see what they have. *On that particular day i found this Dietz lantern. *It looked nostalgic and very nice. *For 10bucks it wasnt bad. *The red globe is not broke or fractured but it seems to have some overspray on it as you will see in the pics. I cleaned it up a bit but will spend more time on it later. I have it set on a corner table. I like looking at it. Im sure that it holds lots of stories. I read that they used this kind of lantern on the railroads to signal 'danger' or 'caution'. I also read that they used it on ships. If anyone knows anything on these lanterns please post up. *-j

Front view
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh112/lillybug71/dietzlantern001.jpg

Close up
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh112/lillybug71/dietzlantern003.jpg

Top view
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh112/lillybug71/dietzlantern004.jpg

Back view
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh112/lillybug71/dietzlantern007.jpg

[msta999]

WOW! I just looked at one of these lanterns last weekend. A friend of mine has it in an old building, just hanging on the wall, gathering dust. Also has an old cook stove, he told me I could have. Started looking at the stove and it has some broken pieces on the inside where the wood goes. Don't know if it could be fixed or rather if it would be worth fixing, you can fix anything with enough time and money, just do you really want/need to. ???

[CarolAnn]

mista999 - the stove may cost more to fix than it's worth. Cast iron can be welded, but it's not easy to do and it may never be as strong as new. Cast iron (as opposed to forged iron) is brittle - that's why so many old stoves are in pieces!

Talk to a welder and get some estimates before you incur the expense of moving something that might turn out to be a heavy pile of scrap metal!

[msta999]

CarolAnn,
that is what I was thinking. I think I'll just leave it where it is. Although it won't hurt to take a better look at it, which I will do this summer.