April on the Homestead

[Deberosa]

What a great way to end March - thank you for the picture DM!

It's supposed to not rain for three days here! The tiller is on the tractor and I am ready to till to put in buckwheat and spelt. The buckwheat I will till in for the garden in June and the spelt will grow all summer.

Finally!

[High_Desert]

So far a productive year for us, we are making some great progress.

Fruit trees are here and just waiting for the soil to thaw. I should have done this years ago.

Chicks will be here tomorow night, I have not raised chickens since I left home 24 years ago, my daughters are excited.

Last, I have tomato and pepper seedling in the utility room window that I have not managed to kill yet. Shoot, it may be a reallly good year!

HD

[oldie]

A great day here, the sun is finally shining. We have had close to 18 inches of rain in March. Most of the gardens we had planted have been washed out, but we will replant as soon as it dries out. The peach trees are blooming, and the grass needs cut. Everything seems to be going as usual, behind where we would like to be. A friend is sending us a couple of plum trees, so we will have to get those planted.

Have a great day !!!!

[hillbillygal]

It's been raining so much, we've not had a chance to get the garden ready for the taters and onions. It is plowed but that's all that's been done since the ground is so wet. We had a shed brought to our house for use as a chicken coop next year and will use it as a garden shed this year. Hopefully April will be a good month for us!

[humbug]

My chicks are growing like crazy. I ended up building a brooder house for them because I was afraid they would jump out of their kiddie pool to freedom. I was hoping to get it done on my days off..but I still need to shingle, trim and paint it and put hinges on the chick door.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a271/nvhumbug/chck%20brooder%20dogs/chickbrooderdogs001.jpg

I started with the deck.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a271/nvhumbug/chck%20brooder%20dogs/chickbrooderdogs009.jpg

Then I built the box..


http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a271/nvhumbug/chck%20brooder%20dogs/chickbrooderdogs025.jpg

This is how far I am now. I will get the rest done on my next days off. I also need to build the chick yard. But my chicks don't seem to mind..they are quite happy..

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a271/nvhumbug/chck%20brooder%20dogs/chickbrooderdogs022.jpg

[bee_pipes]

Sweet! Is the roof hinged?

Regards,
Pat

[DM]

Looks like you did a great job to me!!

DM

[Deberosa]

Great chicken house! I've been busy this week with three rain free days in a row!

Got the cover crops started, moved 12 blueberry bushes and one currant bush to the former 10 by 20 area where the poultry carport was for a year. The soil was well mulched and fertilized with lots of huge earthworms in it! I left the frame of the carport - figure I can' throw a net over it when it comes time to protect the blueberries from the birds.

The strawbale garden is halfway in and haul in 4 more bales of hay to hold Daisy and T-Bone over until I get back from my trip next week to put them in their new area. By then the leaves should be out so she will have some good browsing. Also refilled all of the storage for chicken feed - and as usual the price has gone up!

Getting the hay was entertaining. They hired a guy from the city to work at the feed store. He didn't even know what hay was! Loading my truck with 4 bales took 20 minutes and the poor guy was beat! He had come here from the city to build their "dream house" - probably for an interest only loan or variable mortgage because now he is loading trucks at the feed store. Made me thankful that I "settled" for just an ordinary house rather than getting far into debt. I told him to just think in a few months he would be slinging these bales for the rest of them. He seemed to think it would be more likely he would have a different job. ;-) He wasn't there today when I went to get the feed...

We caught the ducks and they went to the neighbor's big pond today. No more messy drinking pools!

Jake is learning temperance in his chicken herding. Every evening some go into a tree near the fence and fly into their old area - and every noon they must be herded to their new area where there is food and water. It started out to be a half hour project and it's now down to a few minutes. Partly because the chickens are getting the idea but also because Jake is learning to slow down instead of chasing the birds all over the place. It's sort of fun to do! ;-)

So the rain is supposed to start again now - but that will be good for all of the seeds in the garden.

Hope you all are finally getting out into your gardens this month!

[rideaway]

We now have three piggies and two lambs. Brought the lambs home yesterday. One little ewe is soooo quiet- just a small little baaaaahhhh... the other one is sooooo loud....she screams BAAAAAHHHHH! Waiting for the neighbors to complain!

My home doesn't feel like home right now...My older sister, only 49, had a stroke two weeks ago, and we made the decision that her 15 yr old daughter would live w/ us. My sister is in a rehab facility and we don't know how functional she'll be...she has no use of her right side at this time, is on a feeding tube, and very little speech. The daughter is pissed off because we have stricter rules than she is used to. It's hard and it's making me very depressed. I want to help her realize her life wasn't normal before, but she is not a point to realize that, and I am trying to keep things normal for my 12 yr old daughter and feel like I haven't been able to talk to my two daughter's who are in college at all, and one of them is having financial aid troubles...

I'm pissed off about the whole situation and that makes me feel guilty!

Oh well...if the rain would quit on the weekends and I could get outside that would be better...

Thanks for letting me vent!

[LeatherneckPA]

That's it! I've taken the plunge!!

I just placed my order with Meyer for our first batch of chicks. WOW! The earliest delivery date is May 7th.

We went for a colorful flock for our first time; Barred Rocks, Black Australorps, NH Reds, and Gold Laced Wyandottes; 6 each, all straight run. I hope to get at least 8 pullets out of the mix to grow out for eggs. The rest are freezer birds.

[LeatherneckPA]

rideaway sorry to hear of your sister. There is hope however. My Dad's first stroke left him paralyzed on his left side and unable to eat or speak for almost three weeks. Then he slowly regained almost everything. He finished up deaf in his left ear, and that was pretty much it. He had a total of three, and bounced back pretty well every time.

As for the DN, I grew up in a house where Mom and Dad took in foster kids. But not just any old kids. OH NO! They had to take in "emotionally disturbed" kids. After a a period of about 6-9 months they all started to settle into the family routine and follow the rules. We had an arsonist, an Oedepist, a couple of biters, several runaways, and others that were just plain disobedient. Our family (4 brothers plus Mom and Dad) provided a steadying influence and a positive role model for over 50 of these kids over the years. Bear with her, give her time, and involve her in EVERYTHING the family does, especially chores. She'll come around.

[nancy1340]

rideaway sorry to hear of your sister. *There is hope however. *My Dad's first stroke left him paralyzed on his left side and unable to eat or speak for almost three weeks. *Then he slowly regained almost everything. *He finished up deaf in his left ear, and that was pretty much it. *He had a total of three, and bounced back pretty well every time.

As for the DN, I grew up in a house where Mom and Dad took in foster kids. *But not just any old kids. *OH NO! *They had to take in "emotionally disturbed" kids. *After a a period of about 6-9 months they all started to settle into the family routine and follow the rules. *We had an arsonist, an Oedepist, a couple of biters, several runaways, and others that were just plain disobedient. *Our family (4 brothers plus Mom and Dad) provided a steadying influence and a positive role model for over 50 of these kids over the years. *Bear with her, give her time, and involve her in EVERYTHING the family does, especially chores. *She'll come around.

Leather, this is as close as a meaning for your spelling of Oedepist *as I could get.

"the son of Laius and Jocasta who in fulfillment of an oracle unknowingly kills his father and marries his mother"

So did you have someone that married his mother or kill his father? Shivvvvver.

[sbemt456]

Rideaway the only person that I guarantee will take care of or appreciate you is you. Please dont make the mistake I have, take care of yourself and all will be better. I have had a lot of problems with my mother, I understand you are tough spot, but spring is here and ya can get outside so they cant get ya in a corner.

Here in Kentucky we finally got a few dry days and got the garden tilled and ready. This evening after hubby got home we planted onions, lettuce, carrots, and peas. It is supposed to rain tonight so they will be up soon. Got holes dug for grapevines that will be here this week, got railroad ties in place to make my herb bed, thats gets finished in the next dry spell. Flower beds perinials are up and growing like crazy. Birds are building nest in every nook they can find and birdhouses too. Got the riding mowers both to start and run, now need some work on the rototiller and we will be set except for the building projects we want to do.

Darn I am tired, I need a nap.
Have a great week all!

stella

[LeatherneckPA]

Nancy you are on the right track. 13 year old who came to us because he assaulted every boy friend his single mom ever brought to the house. Final straw, he snuck into her bedroom one night, broke both of the boyfriend's legs with a baseball bat and then tried to force himself on his mom to show how much HE loved her.

First thing we did was invite him out to play baseball with us. we made a point of showing him that we were pretty darned good with a bat too. No problems. He emulated us boys, joined the Marine Corps. My Mom still gets Christmas cards from him every year, with big thank you notes on Mother's Day and her birthday. And he's still in the Corps retires in 2 years.

[LeatherneckPA]

It's only mid-day, but I stopped for lunch and guess where my butt landed?

I have built two small garden boxes so far from left over dog-eared fence boards. 3'x6' and 6 inches deep. But they aren't on level ground so they vary from a true depth of 6" to about 13".

After I laid down a weed barrier of newspaper I dumped a wheelbarrow full of straw and rabbit poop, then followed that with two wheelbarrows of soil from last year's "too shady" garden. I wouldn't choose the site for this year's garden, but that's where the sun is, sooo-o-o.....

I KNOW it's already 2-3 weeks late for peas, so don't bother spanking me for that. But that's what is getting planted in the first box. I think I will get the second box planted with onion sets, lettuce, and radishes.

You should see the worms I uncovered while transferring my soil!!!! Last year I mixed a 50/50 mix of garbage top soil (from an excavator) with free scrapings from an abandoned feed lot operation. WOW!!! This is going to be my best garden ever!!!

Well, the sandwich is finished. More later. Stay safe.

[nancy1340]

Nancy you are on the right track. *13 year old who came to us because he assaulted every boy friend his single mom ever brought to the house. *Final straw, he snuck into her bedroom one night, broke both of the boyfriend's legs with a baseball bat and then tried to force himself on his *mom to show how much HE loved her.

First thing we did was invite him out to play baseball with us. *we made a point of showing him that we were pretty darned good with a bat too. *No problems. *He emulated us boys, joined the Marine Corps. *My Mom still gets Christmas cards from him every year, with big thank you notes on Mother's Day and her birthday. *And he's still in the Corps retires in 2 years.


I bet you all kept a close eye on him for a long time. It's very good to hear he seems to be doing OK. I hope he realizes how lucky he was that your family took a chance him.

[LeatherneckPA]

peas, swiss chard, leaf lettuce, and radishes are in the new garden box.

today I am building a second set of steps to the back porch, so we don't have to go through the dog yard, and so we have easier steps to negotiate. see, I tend toward the artistic sometimes.

when I built our deck I started with an 18'x18' square, and then I lopped off the corners to create an octagonal shape for the last 7' out from the house. I dropped the smaller 12'x'12' deck to the west side by 12" and gave it a nice step down plus lopped off one corner to keep the octagon theme going.

and that's when things got carried too far. i decided to make the steps match the 45º angle of the corners. it was a "personal challenge" and a design element that i wanted to carry through out. well, when you angle 10" steps by 45º they end up only being 6" steps. and you simply can not bring anything up or down those steps because the railing won't let you come straight up the steps. BUT IT LOOKS VERY INTERESTING!!!

[pinetreefarm]

Everything is about up in the greenhouse. Have 14 flats going plus regular plants. Banana tree is sprouting baby trees.

And now up to 15 inches of SNOW. It is coming down right now. I know we need moisture but this is ridiculous! Wind has picked up...grrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Drat zone 3

Pine

[bookwormom]

come on down to seven.

This is about the busiest time of the year, no doubt. The house just gets a lick and a promise, we can barely look through the windows, but the garden is shaping up. Sweet hubby tilled thell new area that is to be the herb garden, disked the pasture,( I know we are late, and it has been so windy we can not overseed or spread amendments). naturally tractor needed a new innertube at a crucial moment. Fridolin the loneguinea rooster wakes me up every morning with a noise like he is starting up his two cycle engine. Everything that can be planted has been planted. My little greenhouse is about full. I started cleaning out the barn and goat shed, happy feeling, all that lovely manure, but we will have to do it on the installment plan. Husband better not shovel too muingch with his bad shoulder, and after loading one load and unloading it somewhere else, I have to do some other chore that is a little easier on the body, like transplanting seedlings into pots. We just need some kind of chicken tractor for sweet hubbyb's 4 week old chicks. I don't think they can be released into the wild with the free ranging chickens.
my computer has been acting weird again and this is taking me ages to type. I guess I won't be posting much with this going on. Really frustrating.

[wy0mn]

Snowed/blowed in again today! Either way the roads are closed once more.
Think I'll drag a lounge chair, some pink flamingoes and a Jimmy Buffet CD out into the snow today. That should put an effective end to this fimbulwinter!

[Northern_bushrat]

Starting to harvest the first salad greens in our container in the cabin while the snow outside is still knee-deep. I will start my indoor winter garden even earlier next time! The Swiss Chard we overwintered in the cabin is growing like weeds too, so there's fresh greens to eat.
The ducks have all been laying now for about a month and we're getting 6-7 eggs per day! I started pickling a bunch.
Waiting for the bears and migratory birds to show up, must be any day now.

[msta999]

N Bushrat,
what do duck eggs taste like? Are the simmilar to chicken eggs?

[Deberosa]

I had alot of catching up to do today after being gone for a week. So started on the hoop house.

A storm in December ruined the old hoop house so I am moving it to be oriented with the wind instead of broad side to it. I lost about 15 feet of the plastic, so it's a bit shorter. Still used all 17 of the ribs though figuring it will just make it a little more sturdy.

Got as far as the ends up and the ribs in place, just need to get the plastic on and tied down which is the simpler part. I'll have room for three dozen tomatoe plants inside this year which should be plenty.

The tomatoes are all ready for the hoop house - they grew like crazy while I was gone! I put a small heater out in the green house that only kicks on at 50 degrees. It seems to have done the trick for the plants out there.

I have a turkey sitting on a nest of Chicken eggs - figure that can't hurt anything so left her there. I don't have Tom turkey anymore so her eggs won't be fertile. I have a banty setting on a nest of buff eggs in the hen house.

The cover crops don't seem to have sprouted at all, hmmm. I'll give it another week before giving up on that trial. It got to 80 degrees here on Saturday but is back to damp and cold now - near frost every morning next week.

That's about it - things are getting really busy around here!

Debbie.

[nancy1340]

Deb you need to read the rules again. You are suppose to post pictures at least every month so we can see how your little homestead looks through out the year. ;D

[Faye]

I have been complaining because it has been so wet I can't get my garden planted. We have been having temps in the 80's. I am not complaining anymore because there is no way I could protect all the plants I have ready to go in the ground if they had already been planted. We are under a freeze warning tonight. All the older people said we would have a freeze in April because it thundered in March. I don't put much stock in stuff like that but, it is 40 degrees right now and is supposed to freeze tonight. Of course, being in Lower Alabama it won't take it long to get back into the 80's, like a couple days! Then it is supposed to rain friday and saturday so if I don't get things planted before then it will be at least another week. It rained friday night and saturday morning so my garden is still wet. I hate living in a low area but not much I can do now.

[Deberosa]

Deb you need to read the rules again. You are suppose to post pictures at least every month so we can see how your little homestead looks through out the year. *;D



The last pictures I posted were from about 10 days ago in the cover cropping and April garden posts. That will have to do for now!

[Northern_bushrat]

N Bushrat,
what do duck eggs taste like? Are the simmilar to chicken eggs?

I can't find any taste difference. The duck eggs are quite a bit larger (weigh in at about 3oz/egg), and the yolks are much bigger in proportion. When fried, the egg white tends to be more solid, not as soft, as in chicken eggs.
We have Khaki Campbell ducks, they lay as much as good laying chickens. One big advantage of ducks for people in the north is that they are way hardier than chickens. And IMO they are more fun to have and cuter :)

[nancy1340]

The last pictures I posted were from about 10 days ago in the cover cropping and April garden posts. That will have to do for now!


Wellllllll ::) I guess that will work. LOL

[bookwormom]

quote
I can't find any taste difference. The duck eggs are quite a bit larger (weigh in at about 3oz/egg), and the yolks are much bigger in proportion. When fried, the egg white tends to be more solid, not as soft, as in chicken eggs.
We have Khaki Campbell ducks, they lay as much as good laying chickens. One big advantage of ducks for people in the north is that they are way hardier than chickens. And IMO they are more fun to have and cuter


and they do not scratch around in your flower beds either I take it. I have to consider them. we like duck eggs, used to have a couple of white pekings to keep the slugs under control. I only scrambled them and used them in baking.


I cut a trail through brush with snippers and am about worn out. we still have quite a piece of jungle to clear. the goats do not venture into it, only nibble from the edges, I would not want to get into it in summer either, but with trails the critters will follow me in and they can work their way left and right. they have cleared some area that way of honeysuckle and sawbriar, brambles and roses. They sniff at poison ivy and move on. Right now they really go for the multiflora roses.
It got cold again, frost predicted for tonight. The contender peach is blooming full force, we planted it because it blooms late and is supposed to evade spring frosts. huh, so much for that.

[bee_pipes]

4/5
The chickens are starting to eat eggs. We just recently changed their feed to a lower protein content because grass is growing and bugs are making their appearance. I am guessing the change may have brought this on. We will have to make more checks of the henhouse during the day to collect eggs and hopefully prevent this problem. I also put out oyster shell, a source of calcium for egg shells, in hopes of relieving any deficiency that may be causing this problem. I only hope we are not too late. If a hen acquires a taste for raw egg, it can be mighty hard to get them to stop.

4/8
Yesterday my mother and two nieces arrived from Atlanta. The kids are on Spring Break and mom brought them up for a few days to visit.

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http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/1586/niecebeessj2.jpg
Today we worked the bees. The youngest niece put on gloves, helmet and veil, and worked the smoker for me while I inspected the hives. Her older sister had no desire to get in the middle of a bunch of bees, so watched from the sidelines. The bees are laying eggs and rearing brood in the frames that are supposed to hold the honey, indicating that the queen has moved to the top brood chamber and is laying on the bottom of the honey super frames. The remedy for this is to reverse the two bottom brood chambers to put the queen back on the bottom. Brood should be reared on the frames closest to the entrance of the hive. I took the smoker and sent my niece out before making this change. It is extremely disruptive to the hive and the bees strongly resent this sort of activity. I was working in old jeans and a long-sleeved shirt and managed to get two really good stings – one was a bee that crawled through a hole in the jeans and tagged my kneecap, the second was a bee that strung me right through the heavy gloves I was wearing. By the time I felt the sting the bees were all gathering to make their contribution to the sting sites and I had to work quickly to smoke the area. When bees sting, they release a chemical referred to as the alert pheromone which calls the area to the attention of the other bees as a threat to the colony. The bees smell that pheromone and continue to sting, increasing the pheromone and calling yet more bees. The smoker covers the smell and halts the escalation. I finally got the manipulation done, but the bees were much stirred up so we called it a day, so far as the hives were concerned.

I pulled two of the honey supers that the bees were not really using. The comb was poorly drawn and there was some nectar in it, and the brood cells. The brood must be kept at 90 degrees within the hive, so these frames will chill below that temperature and the brood will die off. When the frames are replaced on the hive the bees will clear out the dead brood and hopefully restore the frames to honey only. I also put in metal brackets for the frames on these supers. One reduces the number of frames to 9, rather than the standard 10, which will give us larger honey comb. The bees will make the comb thicker because of the slightly increased distance between the frames. The second set of brackets reduced the number of frames to 8, which will give us thicker comb for extraction. This provide us with thicker comb that is easier to decap and will give more honey with fewer frames to extract. The blue hive is quite strong and will have to be watched to prevent swarming. The green hive is not quite as strong and may need a little supplemental feeding.

4/9
Today started we got some planting done. The weather is calling for frosts this weekend, so we only put the cabbage, lettuce and broccoli in. The girls helped by digging the holes with a trowel and fetching water from the creek while I broke up the soil with a post hole digger. We got the plants in and the first watering. Rain later that night sealed the deal.

We also finished the job of cleaning out the chicken house, starting this year’s compost bin, emptying and washing collection buckets. Not the most agreeable job in the world, but the girls worked hard and did a fine job of it.

4/10
No egg eating – frequent collections and oyster shell seem to have halted the problem. We also have a polish or top-hat chicken that has been laying eggs outside the house and is sitting on the nest. I noticed yellow matter dried on the shells of some of the eggs – she may have been the egg-eater.

4/11
Our bee guy came through about 9 PM last night. Myself and a friend from Wayne County met him and we each took delivery of a package of bees. The two hives are doing okay – I wanted to reload the top-bar hive and give it another try. This time I cut pieces of foundation and glued it to the top bars with melted beeswax to give the hive starts on comb.
http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/9844/topbarframesfx0.jpg

We had a miserable rainy day today and business to attend to in Columbia today, but a small window of relatively calm air and mild temperatures let me shake the package into the hive. As a matter of fact, everything went so well that I completely forgot to open the queen cage so the colony could free their queen. This time we put in a partition to reduce the real-estate the bees have to protect, put an entrance feeder in to reduce the size of the entrance they have to protect, and put comb starts on the top-bars, as mentioned above. The last two days have been too windy, cold and busy to tend to the queen, but she will continue to be fed through the wire of her cage by workers.

Today Karen and I got our Tennessee driver licenses renewed. Mine was due in June, hers in December. Tennessee is one of the states that thought it was a good idea to issue licenses to illegal aliens. Some idiot thought it would be a windfall in insurance premiums if they were all legal drivers. If they break immigration laws and drive without licenses, why would they worry about mandatory insurance laws? All the move did was clog the DMV with a bunch of folks that didn’t speak English and anger many tax paying citizens waiting in a line that moves slowly under the best of conditions. When I got my license in 2003 it took 3 hours from arriving at the DMV to walking out with the license. I didn’t need to take any tests, just exchange a Virginia license for a Tennessee license.

4/15
A break from the wet weather finally! We made good on the day. We got the grass mowed around the house – don’t need high grass with snake season fast approaching! I got out in back and mowed the sedge – nothing left standing except the lilacs we planted and the trees we wanted to leave. The field actually looks pretty good with the high grass cut, though the dogs will be disappointed. They love to chase each other through the high grass.

Karen was collecting yard rubbish (leaves, etc) for the garden when she discovered a brick patio behind the house. She was raking and the rake made a sound like it was traveling over a stone – not an unusual sound with this soil. She eventually uncovered the stone and saw it was a brick. While trying to clear the brick, to ensure it wouldn’t catch a mower or something, she found it had a partner next to it. She kept uncovering and found more brick, laid into the ground. We have a hill behind the house, and the amount of soil and grass over this old patio must represent at least a decade of neglect.

Today I also got a chance to get into the top-bar hive. I neglected to pull the cork on the queen cage before closing the hive when installing the package. I was most gratified to see the bees had already started drawing comb out of the foundation. The combination of the partition and smaller entrance seems to be working. The bees seem quite active and we have noticed a lot of them around the porch – usually indicating they are on orientation flights and learning the lay of the land. I am hopeful for this hive and hope we can make it work.

Regards,
Pat

[AlchemyAcres]

Very cool Pat.
Thanks for taking the time to post.


~Martin :)

[bee_pipes]

4/17
Last Tuesday, while working outside, Karen saw the first asparagus spear. So far no companions, but it was good to see. The trench was top-dressed with compost when we emptied the old bin.

Yesterday we got out in the garden and worked. Karen and I got our potatoes planted and worked on reinforcing the fence where gourds and other climbing plants will grow. Last year the gourds were on the fence adjoining the dog pen and the dogs made quick work of many of the gourds. The fence also had a pronounced sag from all the weight it was supporting, causing us to reinforce it with weld wire back on the 3rd.

Today we made it out to the garden again. We have a lot of plants that are getting long in the tooth from sitting in the seed starter and desperately needed to get planted. The weatherman assures us we have seen the last frost and freeze of the year, the forecast shows nightly lows won’t get below 40 degrees for the next week, so we decided it was time.

This particular part of Perry County has a soil type called chert. Chert is loaded into dump trucks and hauled all around the state as filler for road shoulders. From a distance you’d swear it was red clay, but it is more of a gravel mix of hard stone – flint – with some sort of iron filler. The soil where we put the garden would have made a good parking lot, but had little to recommend it as garden soil. We first built a fence around the area to keep out dogs, poultry, rabbits and other critters. Next we started turning the ground with a roto-tiller. Each year (thanks to my smart wife) we scrounge cardboard from the dumpsters at Dollar General and other stores and lay it down on the soil. On top of that we pile yard clippings and other organic matter and let it sit over the winter. The tilling serves to break up the soil, the covering adds layers of organic matter. We’ve been at it three years and the garden has really improved. Each year we add new beds and increase the quality and quantity of the soil. Obviously, we aren’t farming as an outside business – this would never pay off fast enough and would be too labor intensive to make sense commercially. But we do get a lot of great food from the garden and surplus that isn't eaten or canned is used for barter with neighbors.

The tomatoes got planted in a bed that was tilled for the first time last year. We planted corn in that bed last year and the roots really did an excellent job of making the soil workable. The depth of the top-soil wasn’t that impressive, but the fact that there was top soil and it wasn’t quite like rock made me happy. For those of you that are gardening novices, the great thing about tomatoes is that anywhere the stem touches the ground, it will send out roots. As I mentioned above, the plants were getting tall and spindly in the seed starter – most of them were 18 inches or taller. We dug holes 12 inches into the ground, trimmed off all the branches lower than 12 inches, and planted them. We have done this in the past and gotten excellent results. When the tomato plants first start out, you’d think they stopped growing or went into shock. The plant above the ground is okay, but under the surface it is sending out roots. After about a month the plants really kick into gear and start growing like mad. It’s not unusual to have plant stems thicker than three fingers, they do well with dry weather and produce huge quantities of fruit.

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http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk217/patandkaren/planting_tomatos.jpg
spindly 18 inch plant next to 12 inch hole. Behind it, tomato plants in ground. This will become a large srub when the roots grow and start doing their job.

Digging a 12 inch deep hole in chert is a real chore. Shovels are useless. A pick or mattock works, but the best thing I have found is a steel post hole digger – the best $18 I ever spent. This is just a heavy, 5 foot steel rod – flattened into a blade on one end, flattened into a tamper on the other. Not only do we get the holes dug, but there is a lot of leverage to heave up soil around the hole and loosen up the bed. Best of all, you get a close look at how the soil is doing. After three years of working this soil with yard waste, compost and cardboard, we have lots of earth worms and a good culture or microbes in the soil. Below what scanty topsoil we have managed to build up is sterile subsoil – undisturbed chert. Topsoil goes back into the holes with the tomato plants and the subsoil, after larger rocks are picked out, is used as filler on the surface to get some air, accumulate organic debri, and just generally get enriched by exposure on the surface. We rotate beds every year, and this progression of corn and tomatoes really helps to add organic matter at a decent depth. Last year’s tomato bed will be getting planted with melons this year, and beans and peas will be getting planted in older beds to enrich the soil for next year’s vegetables.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk217/patandkaren/planting_tomatos1.jpg
Post hole digger for 12 inch holes.

The garlic planted last fall is going like gangbusters. We got 5 varieties in the ground and are still enjoying last year’s harvest.
http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk217/patandkaren/garlic.jpg

I started tracking expenses and income for the poultry. With the cost of grain rising, feed is not getting any cheaper. It’s like gasoline – the price is going up and will never come back down again. The tool for tracking this information is a simple Excel spreadsheet – like something used for a checking account register. It lists debits and credits (feed purchases and sales) and keeps a running total of the flock off to the side. I was very nearly breaking even – a few dollars in the hole – selling eggs at $2.00 a dozen. The folks that buy them love the eggs and don’t care if they contain guinea, duck or turkey eggs. But I really got ahead by selling fertile eggs got hatching at $1.00 per egg ($3.00 for turkey) and chicks and keets ($3.00) and poults ($5.00). I’m not a licensed reseller/retailer and tell folks up front that I’m not certified with any agricultural agency or anything, they don’t seem to care. I also don’t ship – I’ll meet someone in town for delivery. So far I made $20 off of a local lady that wanted guineas and have a deposit on 5 poults. I do guarantee fertile eggs and will replace or refund them, and require a deposit of 50% up front for live birds so I don’t wind up to my eyeballs in hungry chicks and no-show customers. I’m not going to get rich, but if the eggs and babies can pay for the feed, we’re getting free eggs and meat. The spreadsheet is not 100% accurate – it doesn’t take into account things like electric for the incubator or brooder lights, but if I can net a profit of about $20-$30 while running those appliances I’m pretty sure we’re in the black.

Be happy to send anyone a copy of the spreadsheet - just PM me with your email address and I'll send it to you. I'm planning on using the same format for honeybees and other expenses.

Regards,
Pat

[DM]

It was sunny 75 here today!! 8) And we should have more of the same tomorrow!

Today i got started moving some manure and some composted hay/manure mix to my garden spot from my neighbors feed lot.... Now, this is the REAL DEAL here!!

http://www.fototime.com/A42D1B7C98FA26A/standard.jpg

http://www.fototime.com/20DA98788965EC4/standard.jpg


I did put a couple bucket loads of that "real deal" on top of the sand in the tator patch, and then i started hauling the "composted" manure/hay mix to the rest of the garden spot!!

http://www.fototime.com/D68A334F80CBFB5/standard.jpg

http://www.fototime.com/20D2ED02A7F173F/standard.jpg

I knew this guy was trouble right off, and there's NO WAY i'd get off my tractor when he was around!!

http://www.fototime.com/600C4552774D664/standard.jpg

He would charge my tractor and bang his head on the bucket, trying to push the tractor backwards!!! He did it over and over!!! When i'd steer off to the side, he run in front of the tractor, and charge it again and again!!

http://www.fototime.com/5DF08322FD8867D/standard.jpg

Finally, after i pushed him backwards at least a hundred feet!! He turned and ran, kicking his heels high in the air, like he won or something... LOL LOL.... SO, i then got back to hauling compost!!

http://www.fototime.com/5B7954837746FD8/standard.jpg

Untill i had my garden spot FULL of "black gold!!"

http://www.fototime.com/8EC598AC7740E8B/standard.jpg

Next, i will be rotavateing it in, and that just "may" happen tomorrow??

I hope you enjoyed the picts!!

DM 8)

[reyecat]

Love the pics and the story about the bull.... what a funny guy!

Oh but I'm jealous of your compost and space..... Happy for you though!

[humbug]

Today my baby goats were born...
this little guy arrived first....

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a271/nvhumbug/babygoats020.jpg

A darling little buck isn't he..

His sister arrived 15 minutes later...

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a271/nvhumbug/babygoats017.jpg

an adorable little doeling...

Here is the whole family...

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a271/nvhumbug/babygoats022.jpg


The mother is named Spice...so I named the little doeling Sugar..but I have no idea what to call the buck..any suggestions??

DM..you can send some of that wonderful brown gold this way...I wish I had it for my garden..


Bee..I am envious of your bees..my beekeeper fell through..and decided not to sell any of his hives....so I am beeless right now...

I enjoyed the photos and info..thanks for sharing.

[Deberosa]

Wow - it's looking like spring everywhere!

My cover crops of buckwheat and spelt came up finally. I tilled in the rest of the fields that were to wet after work today. I'll let them sit for a while - it's still supposed to snow on Saturday! This is very unusual for around here. I also tilled the back yard area that had been covered with weed cloth for a couple of years.

Tomorrow I make a trip to a favorite nursery. A friend and I take a day and go each year. Last year I got the 4 great apple trees so I'm looking forward to more great deals this year.

THree pigs are arriving next Friday - yeah! I'll be building their new shelter this weekend as well as going to a sale on the other side of town. Billed as "75 women cleaning out their houses, yards and barns". Sounds like I might find something there.

We are eating salads from the greens in the greenhouse and I hope to keep that going year round now. Still want to harvest the fresh nettles around the barn also before too long. There just isn't enough time!

[Baxtherin]

Humbug, for names for your little buck how about Snaps, or Snails, or Puppy dog tails? We had a kitty named Toad, so I'm kinda partial to that name too. ;D I love the pictures of the goats.

Travis

[bookwormom]

How about Gruff for the little buck?
Nice pictures you all.

spring is springing

l :) :) :)

How do you come by so much of the good stuff DM? (drool drool)

[MooseToo]

quote

and they do not scratch around in your flower beds either I take it. I have to consider them. we like duck eggs, used to have a couple of white pekings to keep the slugs under control. *I only scrambled them and used them in baking. * *

so just how do you go about scrambling slugs ?

[flatwater]

MooseToo , When I used to live in the way north Seattle area all you would have to do to scramble slugs is step out in the grass and you could scramble at least a couple of them

[bee_pipes]

4/18
Well, yesterday we got the tomatoes planted and came inside for lunch. Of course, after lunch you have to take your after lunch nap, and after that – well, there might be a Law & Order on that you haven’t seen yet (unlikely). You just don’t seem to be able to get a head of steam up after that. We did fair yesterday, and went at it hard today. Today we got hot peppers, green peppers, gourds, beans and peas planted. We worked from about 8 AM to 1 PM and think maybe a light afternoon is the way to go. The weatherman is calling for rain tonight, so the plants should be well-heeled-in after the showers. The plants are watered as they are put in the ground, but a nice shower will soak all the freshly turned earth.

4/20
Today we were out in the garden, breaking up a seed bed for carrots, radishes and other root crops when we heard the bees getting louder. We saw an awful lot of activity in front of the blue hive, the strong hive with all the brood being raised in the honey comb and queen cells. Apparently I didn’t get al the queen cells or there was a second queen already hatched, whispering conspiracy to potential swarm members.

The swarm relocated to a nearby tree branch 10 or 15 feet over the ground. The swarm is the dark spot in the tree, above the green hive, almost at the top of the picture.
(Mozilla/Firefox users right-click View Image for larger picture)
http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk217/patandkaren/swarm3.jpg

We looked around the place, got some scrap lumber and old rusted metal roofing and threw together a shanty sort of shelter in a location approximately where we want the new hive to go.
http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk217/patandkaren/swarm1_shanty_building.jpg

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk217/patandkaren/swarm2_shanty_built.jpg

Now we have to get busy and throw together a new hive to hold this swarm. They will be okay in the swarm trap for a few days. Our experience is that two days should be enough time to make a new top-bar hive, if we don’t get too fancy. At any rate, we have everything we can think of prepared at this point. Tonight I will shake the swarm into the trap and hang the trap back in the shanty. At least that’s the plan. This is the second time a hive has lost a swarm. I never claimed to be a good beekeeper.

Regards,
Pat

[sbemt456]

Well here in Kentucky it is spring as well I do believe. The birds are singing and I got dirt under my nails.
Got my baby chicks last week from Marti Poultry all alive and well. Tried to take one at a time out of the box to give them a drink and they would squirm right out of my hand and go to the the water cans. Hyper little fellows.
Finally got the strawberry pyramid in place and the hubby filled it with good dirt from our river bottoms and got the berry plants in and mulched.

Got an herb bed built and the hubby spent 2 evenings after work hauling dirt again from the bottoms to fill it. Got the herbs in and they have lived so far, just need to get the mulch put down in there.
Got mulch around the new grapevines so they can be seen and not mowed over

Hopefully it wont rain next weekend so the boys can come home and help their dad put the fence around the main garden to keep out the critters and we can plant that as well. Too many things to do and not enough time.
I just keep trying to get it all done before I have surgery on the elbow as I think that might slow me down a bit for several weeks.
Happy gardening all!

stella

[bookwormom]

we got everything planted except tomatoes, corn, beans etc. The peppers I started are still so little I think they won't amount to anything, same goes for eggplant. I need to make a notation in my notebook to start those earlier next year. I also got artichokes going in little pots. So far they look fine. I am curious how they will do. Has anyone from Kentucky experience with them? I figure they should do well, thistles grow all over the place where you do not want them.
Sweet hubby is still working on the new pasture. He got it seeded yesterday, now he is pulling a cattle panel behind the tractor over it. Hope it is not b futile. Like they say, proper tools are half the work. At home we had a reversible gizmo that had long teeth on the bottom, for breaking up clods, and short ones for harrowing in seeds, some people also had a big roller, like a giant rolling pin you could drag behind. I am almost done picking up brush and piling it where it is not in the way. wild flowers are all over and I had to be careful to not trample them to death. I don't know about Brownie, the lady we bought her from said she was to have a calf in April but she has not changed one bit, and now the bull is trying to smooch her up. He did that in November, too. I am wondering if she could be barren?
She is such a pretty little cow, if she does not have a calf it will be a big disappointment.

[Deberosa]

I got lots of plants in my annual trip to the local nursery on Friday. The hail kept coming and going all weekend though and it was mostly cold and nasty - very unusual for this time of year. I also found a 5 ft diameter heavy butcher block table top for only $60 that I couldn't pass up. ;-)

On Saturday 6 sex link chicks and 4 broad breasted white turkey poults jumped into my truck. ;-) They are now in a brooder in the greenhouse.

The weather was so nasty that not much outdoor work got done but we did get the plastic mostly on the hoop house. One end needs to be fastened and it will be done but the hail and sleet drove us inside again.

I hope to get tomatoes into the hoop house by mid week because they are already outgrowing the greenhouse. I either need to repot into gallon pots or get them into the greenhouse! It will house about three dozen vines this year - one for each rib of the house and a few on the ends. I'll also plant basil which I am harvesting already in the greenhouse in there.

Also need to get the pig shelter built this week too, didn't get it started due to nasty weather.

[DM]

It's been very nice here with sunny weather and mid 70's temps... I managed to get out into the woodlot today, as i had a customer/friend who needed some 5/4 lumber...

Here's the tree i chose to get the lumber out of... So, i cut all the lower limbs off it,

http://www.fototime.com/9C35669AB13E531/orig.jpg

And fell the tree,

http://www.fototime.com/AB40B92E9B1DC42/orig.jpg

Next, i trimmed the limbs off, and sawed the 8'-6" "butt log" out of the tree,

http://www.fototime.com/BABF347574EC492/orig.jpg

And used the pallet forks and grabble to carry the log to the mill site...

http://www.fototime.com/7AD349746099C9D/orig.jpg

Here's the log on the mill deck...

http://www.fototime.com/BFDC054ABFF03DB/orig.jpg

Now it's time to mill it into 5/4 lumber for a customer/friend, (5 quarter = 5 quarters of an inch or 1-1/4" thick) so i start sawing ithe log by takeing the outer "slabs" off...

http://www.fototime.com/6BEEBDDC010D531/orig.jpg

Then after taking a board or two, i keep turning the log and keep sawing boards off it...

http://www.fototime.com/AB87A55FEA91B2E/orig.jpg

http://www.fototime.com/748EA414CC07ACD/orig.jpg

Untill i got down to the last cut that gave me the last two boards...

http://www.fototime.com/BA0C4EE0ADEFD29/orig.jpg

Sooo, here's the "tally" for this log... I got (10) 14" wide boards, and (1) 9" wide board, all 8'-6" long...

http://www.fototime.com/C19103C16903665/orig.jpg

With the log all milled, all i have to do is deliver the lumber...

So, that's what went on today on my homestead.

DM

[Deberosa]

You make it look so easy! That was a nice size tree - will you make the rest of it into lumber also?

Thank you for the pictorial!

[bookwormom]

well, proper tools are half the work.

[msta999]

Question, don't you have to let the wood dry, before you use it to build something?

[DM]

I take all of the logs i can get out of a tree, even short logs BUT, this tree had a really screwed up top, and there was no top logs... It will get cut up for firewood...

As for building with green lumber... It depends on what your building... For sheds and barns, you can nail it right up, or put it on stickers and let it air dry for 30 days when it will be plenty dry for home construction lumber...

For furniture use, then after air drying outside for 30 days, you can move it into a heated building and let it dry another 30 days where it will be usable for cabinets ect...

Keep in mind, this is pine, and pine dries fast and is pretty forgiving... Other species requires a different drying schedule...

DM

[bee_pipes]

4/21
We trapped the swarm – the first time I’d ever done that. Learned a lot of valuable lessons too. For instance, it would probably be better to handle them on the branch until off the ladder. I had the idea of cutting the ends of the branch to remove any excess, put the bucket shaped body of the swarm trap under the swarm, cut the branch between the tree and swarm so it would rest on the bucket, then carry the whole business down the ladder. That might have been a good idea if dealing with something inanimate. Bees have a habit of wandering all over the place, and when they came in contact with the bucket they pretty much crawled all over the outside of it, so I wound up hugging to my chest a bucket full of bees covered with bees. Conventional wisdom says that a swarm doesn’t sting or act aggressive because they aren’t protecting a hive. That could be true, but if you squash one between your chest and the bucket, they will sting. Once a sting happens, the alert pheromone is released and others look to make their contribution to the sting site. I got the swarm cut loose, into the bucket, and down off the ladder. There were a lot of angry bees buzzing around my head so we set the whole affair down and walked away. The angry bees followed us up on the porch and we lit the smoker to cover the smell of the sting sights. Even so, they were disoriented and caught in my clothes. We got about 6 bees or so off me, smoked up real well, and headed back out to the swarm trap. They had calmed down a little and returned to the inside of the trap and back to the cluster on the branch on top of the trap. At first it looked like the bucket was full of bees to the point of overflowing. A closer look showed that they had just lined the inside of the trap. We have the branch a good shake into the bucket and the swarm fell off. Brushed as many bees as possible into the bucket from the rim and slapped the lid on. A scrap of old window screen had been stapled over the entrance hole to the trap, so they were pretty well contained in the trap (except for a few angry bees buzzing around). We got the trap hung under the shanty we built, set out a feeder of sugar water for morning and pulled the window screen from the entrance. We were wearing protective gear, but a smoker was useless for controlling them – they weren’t in a hive. The smoker had uses for covering the smell of stings, as mentioned, but a swarm is not a hive.

When dealing with bees, there are two animals. There is the individual bee, the physical creature that has stages of physical development – egg, larva, pupa and adult. Then there is the social creature, the hive. The hive consists of the queen, workers and drones. Both creatures reproduce – the queen is fertilized by a drone and lays eggs. Fertilized eggs are workers (female) and unfertilized eggs are drones (male). The queen maintains order through pheromones and other more subtle means of communication. The workers service her and maintain the hive while she goes about the business of laying eggs. The workers feed and care for the larva, maintain the hive, forage for food, etc. The drones do nothing except wait for an opportunity to fertilize a queen – They carry the queen’s DNA to other queens. When a queen hatches, she goes on a mating flight through drone congregation areas. Any drones that catch her will mate with her, and event that is fatal to the drone. If she is the queen of the hive she returns to the hive and begins her work, never to see the outside world again. In the case of a secondary queen, it can go a number of ways. She can enter into mortal combat with the reigning queen, killing her and taking her place as hive mother. This is called supersedure. Sometimes the hive decides the old queen is not up to snuff, or the hive comes under stress and the queen gets the blame. They will raise the new queen and set the stage for superseding. Sometimes the workers will “ball” the old queen – crushing her. That indicates a stressed hive. Or, in the case of a swarm, the old queen is getting itchy feet and has determined that the hive has enough stores and population to support reproduction. They raise a new queen, she mates, and a group of workers gorge themselves on the honey stores and leave with the old queen to find a new home. A good beekeeper prevents swarms by good management. With this being the second swarm we’ve had, my beekeeping skills would seem to leave much to be desired. Live and learn.

By the end of the day we had the hive built, and Karen even got two coats of paint on the hive body. Tomorrow we paint the roof and make the top bars. Hopefully we’ll have it ready to roll by evening and make the transfer after sundown. This hive is not as fancy as the last one, we were a little rushed to get it done. I tried winging the construction and wound up making a few mistakes – nothing disastrous, and some of the joints are not as tight as the first time we made this type of hive. It also took a sheet of plywood and part of another sheet – I messed up cutting out the parts. If they are oriented correctly one sheet of plywood can supply all the parts. I made a layout diagram, for future use, showing the relative positions and orientation of the parts on a sheet of plywood. With these hives as an expedient way to put up a swarm, I expect we haven’t built the last one.

4/23
Yesterday we continued work on the hive. It is complete, with the exception of the top bars. Karen worked on the painting while I used the table saw Tony gave me to rip and trim 2x4’s into top bars. I also checked the old top-bar hive with new package, it was time to ensure the queen had been released. She was released and a quick look at the comb being drawn was more than reassuring. I think we have a handle on this new method of managing bees.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk217/patandkaren/top_bar_comb.jpg
brand new comb from top-bar hive

Tonight we hived the swarm. My friend Tony came over to help me and Karen. We smoked the entrance of the trap, chasing many of the stragglers and sentries inside. Then we stapled a piece of window screen over the entrance. The trap was then set on an old package box. Next we removed the hootch and put the new top bar hive in place. My calculations were off on the base supports, so we had to remove them, drill new holes and put them back on. With the darkness and the swarm trap contained, we could remove gloves and helmets while performing this work. We then got the hive ready to receive the bees – removing enough top bars to shake the bees into the hive - suited back up and got the smoker going again. We smoked the trap one last time and pulled the lid. I was surprised at the amount of comb, in the swarm trap, they managed to draw in just three days. The combs must have been 3 or 4 inches long. It was very thin and broke off when the lid was removed and turned sideways. I wanted to get the bees out of the comb – the queen might have been there. For lack of a better plan, I just let the comb drop into the bottom of the hive. I’ll have to retrieve it later, but tonight is not the night to plan that. We shook and brushed the bees into the hive and started replacing the top bars. Bees were crawling all over the place. We finally got the hive closed back up, brushed bees off each other, and returned to the house. We must have brought a dozen bees inside with us, I can hear them buzzing around the few lights that are on right now. We let the bees calm down for an hour or so and then checked on them. There are quite a few clustered around the feeder and outside of the hive, and a good number of them on the swarm trap parts. Hopefully the entrance is not blocked with the comb we dropped into the hive. The next few days should tell us if they will stay in the new hive or abscond.
http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk217/patandkaren/swarm_hiving.jpg

Regards,
Pat

[aprilconnett]

Pat,
I really admire your dedication to your bees. Hubby and are both deathly allergic, so no matter what we could never do that. Thanks for sharing.

[humbug]

Spring is the busiest time of the year for me. I have been getting ready to get the major portion of the garden in. Today I hauled a load of sheep manure from the neighbors..

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a271/nvhumbug/workApril26002.jpg


And spread it out on the garden....

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a271/nvhumbug/workApril26004.jpg

and then I tilled it in. This is only a very small portion of my garden. I transplanted out some broccoli and cabbage but despite covering them with straw an unexpected 12 degree morning got them..so I will be replanting on Monday.

The baby goats are doing well and growing...

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a271/nvhumbug/animalsapril26002.jpg

The chickens are all feathered out and rapidly growing out of the space in the brooder house...

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a271/nvhumbug/animalsapril26004.jpg

I will have to get the chicken house built soon...

and this is my corgi Sassy..she is bred and due to welp in a couple of weeks....

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a271/nvhumbug/animalsapril26006.jpg

So young ones are springing up everywhere. This is definately keeping me busy.

[Deberosa]

Looks great Humbug!

I got tomatoes planted in the new hoop house this weekend - that meant finishing the construction and setting up the walkways, etc. My tomatoes were close to two feet tall and starting to get blossoms before I buried them as deep as I could. The smaller hoop house will hold 37 plants this year with more space.

We built the new pig shelter and got everything set up but getting pigs has been a bigger challenge. At least we got to pick them out today!!! Two black and white spotted and one white pig. They may call soon, he was called in to work because he needs to give them wormer and put rings in their nose. At least two of them are gilts and one barrow I think. Mostly gilts were left.

Decided to move the cows to a grassier area, of course that meant we needed to build new fence. There is not much mooing now so that's good. Lot's of grass in this area for them. Part of the fence is two strands of electric with one strand none electric in the middle since the calf is small enough to duck between strands in places. It seems to be working very well.

Jake actually helped in herding T-Bone to the new pasture when she strayed from the planned path. She doesn't follow her mother very well any more!

Now it's back to cold and rain. Tomorrow I take the day off and will be going to visit a worm ranch with a friend. I may get a supply of worms to crank up the worm bin I've had for a couple of years but no worms! Also picking up rabbits along the way and dropping off some tomatoes and basil.

[bee_pipes]

4/25
Today we started on refurbishing the chicken pen. The old chicken wire was rusted, and the dogs managed to tear a hole in it. The original pen was covered with 1 inch wire. We left the old wire up and covered it with 2 inch wire. The 2 inch wire was almost half of the price of 1 inch wire. By itself it might not be small enough, but with the old 1 inch behind it, it makes a secure fence. We stapled the new fence onto the timbers, and then tied it to the old fence with j-clips. Karen and I were quite impressed with the results, remembering the saggy-roller-coasters we got the first time we tried fencing. She managed to whap her thumb a good one with the hammer, but only once. I managed to catch mine a few times. Fencing staples are little tiny devils and it’s hard to get one started and keep your fingers out of the way at the same time. We had no idea how large the pen is, but we picked up a 150 foot roll and it looks like we’ll have enough to redo the entire coop. Our main concern was the sides of the pen shared by the dog pen.

The swarm looks like it’s going to stay. There’s a lot of activity around the feeder, but I haven’t noticed any foragers bringing back pollen.

4/26
Today we started working on replacement gates for the dog pen. The last time we tried to be cheap and make small gates using some untreated lumber that was already in bad shape. This time we’re using treated lumber and making the gates big and beefy. They will be as tall as the fence and each pair will be made up of one large gate, for moving equipment or materials into the pen, and a smaller (narrower) gate for people and animals. I knew they would be large and heavy, but when we finished the first one we could barely carry it over to the pen. We are going to have to get some barn hinges to hold them up, and a latch that can handle a 70 lb dog throwing himself at them. We are doing the best we can with this building in hopes that the gates will out-live us and we will never have to replace them.

4/28
Rain was in the forecast for yesterday, but we got a small amount – not the day long torrents predicted. Counties east of us seem to have gotten that. The next two nights have lows in the 30’s – above freezing, but might be close enough for a frost. The plants in the garden seem to be hanging in there, though not growing wildly. Beans and peas are beginning to sprout, a very encouraging sight. The tomatoes, peppers and gourds are hanging in there, some of them showing small pieces of new growth. We have a pile of gallon milk jugs. I am reluctant to throw these useful containers away. This quirk will pay off tonight as we use them for covers for the garden plants. Fortunately the plants are short enough to be covered by a milk jug with the bottom cut out. We may also wrap fruit trees and grape vines to be safe. Beans can be mulched with straw, but the gourds are problematic – most are sprawled on the ground, but two or more of them have begun climbing the fence already.

Today we go to the coop and pick up hinges and a latch for our new gates. It will be nice to get them mounted and complete that job. I was jotting down things to get completed today and the list is getting longer the more I think about it. Aside from cold weather preparations for the garden and work on the gates, we have a riding mower that is in need of repair. The transmission seems to be giving out. I have a replacement drive belt and hope that will fix the problem. If it’s an internal problem to the rear end we may have to replace the mower. That would be a shame, aside from the cost of replacement. The mower has some miles on it, but is serviceable with the exception of the transmission, but the cost of replacement parts can often exceed the worth of the entire unit. This has pulled double duty as a small tractor also. We may have shortened the life of the mower by pulling heavy trailer loads of dirt and rock. If it does get replaced, we may need something with a little more power for pulling trailers.

Later that day…

We have been tracking the turkey hen’s laying habits. We’ve been letting her and the tom out while we work in the yard and began to notice she would hang around the hootch, wanting back in to lay. It seems that every day the time is an hour later than the day before until she eventually skips a day. The tom, with time on his hands, seems to be adding new routines to his mating performance. He makes a noise like a sneeze, immediately followed by a thrum that can be mistaken for an engine running off in the distance. Lately we have noticed he stomps his feet. The hen seems oblivious to it all, though we have seen them breed a few times. The hen has been laying steadily for some time now, and it would seem she is spending more time with each egg. This might be due to her internal clock telling her she has laid enough eggs that she should be going broody and sitting. Poor thing can’t count, we’ve been removing them for some time. Today she went in around 1PM to lay, roughly an hour later than yesterday. She remained on the egg until 5PM or later, about the time we start putting chickens up for the night and giving the birds scratch. Both turkeys are real chow hounds and will come running if they think there’s something to eat.

Work is progressing on the gates. We hit a snag with the first gate – there was just too much play in the latch. We had an old piece of steel rod lying around and managed to straighten it out and make a stake out of it for the traveling end on the largest panel in the gate. That seems to hold the works steady and improves the action of the latch. The gates are a little over 5 feet tall and very heavy. I think they’ll hold the dogs, but they need stops to limit their swing, otherwise the hinges could be damaged. Tomorrow we have one last panel to complete and the pen will be secure. Then we move on to making a shelter for the dogs. The trees are beginning to fill in, providing much needed shade, but we have had to bring the dogs in around noon to give them a break from the heat. Before now there hasn’t been a lick of shade in the pen. Plans for the house include a basic shelter for the winter and covered porch to keep them out of the rain. They will no doubt spend most of their time outside of the shelter so they can watch goings-on around the yard, and this covered space will give them a place to get off the ground and out of any bad weather. It will also provide a barrier between their pen and the chicken coop. We have a number of old pallets around the yard that we use to keep lumber off the ground and as portable work tables for projects. I think it would do a lot to reduce stress in the poultry to line the coop with these old pallets so they don’t have dogs constantly leering at them. It would also provide some break from wind and weather, plus reinforce the new chicken wire. The dogs are in a habit of jumping up on it and a 4 foot pallet would protect much of the wire. We have scrap 2x4 to make the pallets rigid and put most of the weight on the posts of the pen.
http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk217/patandkaren/gate_back.jpg
http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk217/patandkaren/gate_front.jpg

We were both beat after working on the gate, but the last job for the night was to protect the new plants in the garden. Milk jugs went down on tomato and pepper plants, straw was used to mulch the beans and gourds. We got done with our outdoor activities around 6 PM and called it a day.
http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk217/patandkaren/garden_frost_proof.jpg

One of the chickens died today – most peculiar. Tony has left a trailer here, loaded with timbers for us to use in banking the storm shelter. The trailer has made a dandy work bench for working on the gates. While I was working on a gate yesterday, I heard a ruckus under the trailer. One chicken ran out from under the trailer. I heard the noise again and looked underneath. There was a chicken lying on the ground flopping around. I thought the poor thing had knocked itself senseless on the bottom of the metal trailer. I took it out from under the trailer and placed it in a cage to keep the other birds from picking on it while in this helpless condition. Well, by the time we started rounding up the chickens it was cold and stiff. Karen’s guess was a snake. An fully feathered chicken is not the easiest thing to examine for puncture wounds and I found nothing obvious. We retired this casualty to the compost bin.

Regards,
Pat