Spring is here!

Lookie there, it's our first egg! Finally! That batch of chicks I bought back in October... the ones that were picked off one by one by weasels and raccoons... they're finally being productive. Of that batch, we have 4 hens and one rooster left that we're keeping, so it's really great to not only hear that rooster crow each morning, but actually see an egg finally. Of course, we have that second batch of chicks from the end of January that are on their way to becoming chickens themselves, but they still have a long way to go. And most of those will be freezer jockeys soon anyway

The weather has been amazing this week, and I'm always in much higher spirits when I can leave the windows open all day and all night. Of course, with these old drafty doors and windows, that means we're dealing with some wasps in the house as they scramble to find the best nesting areas for the spring, but we're staying on top of that.

I've also started a little make-shift greenhouse in the pump house for the vegetable seeds I got from Gurney's last month. I've been saving yogurt containers all winter and am planting a few seeds in each to get them started for planting the ground in a week or two. Planting season doesn't officially start until mid April here, but I'm trying to get myself ready. Of course I still have to till the ground in the new garden area, but I'm hoping to do that this Sunday. Along with finishing the chicken coop and installing a new back door.

Yep! I'm almost done with a new chicken coop I'm building within one of the larger rooms of the barn, and it will be using the old back door we have on the house now. Instead of buying a new one for the coop, I figured I'd buy a new one for the house, instead. It sure can use it.

Sarah and I are also discussing our summer plans more practically, considering I work 80-ish hours a week and watch the baby 11 hours a day while she's gone. It makes farm projects only possible for about a 7-hour window on Sundays, and we know that trying to set up a milking schedule for the goats would just not be possible. So we're going to let these baby goats drink all the milk they can from their momma and eventually sell them and buy some unrelated does once we have a plan in place for our busy work situation. There's a plan A, B, and C, but it depends on a few factors that should be playing out in the next few months. We'd like to eventually make farming our job, reduce our bills and live more off the land, but in the mean time, we're willing to do all we can to save up some money and get ourselves established and learning how to do this effectively.

So that's it for now!

February's over? Really?

So it's been a crazy month since I last posted. I'm holding a newly 3-month-old baby in my arms as I type this, so I'll make it short and sweet.

We got a new puppy! He's a Great Pyrenees named Smokey. He should be a great addition to the farm, guarding the livestock from predators... once he grows into his paws a bit.

We got new bunnies! After 3 unsuccessful attempts with one female rabbit, I finally bought another female from a local flea market and bred her right away. She gave birth to 7 babies, and we processed the unproductive female, who now lives snuggly in our freezer.

The baby chicks are growing up quickly, and we haven't lost one yet (which is a record for me and chickens after a month). Most of them are Cornish Rocks or Cornish X, and let me tell you... those birds are jerks. I've heard it so many times before (and I've raised Cornish before, but forgot), but once these meat birds get to proper weight, you just can't wait to get them out of your flock and into your freezer. They're messy, lazy, aggressive, and greedy.

And probably the best news of the month: we have new baby goats! Vanilla (our white Pygmy) gave birth to 2 kids on February 23rd. Both kids are doing great, and if that wasn't enough... Coco is literally in labor as I write this! She's been struggling since last night, so I hope all is well, but she should be giving birth any time today.

As for the rest of the month, I also built a milking stand, sided the pig house with metal roofing, and began the new chicken coop I'm building inside the barn.

I'll *try* not to wait another month before posting again, but, well, you know how it goes.

And then there were more chickens

Yep! We got more chickens. I got the call from the local post office this morning, rushed over and picked them up, and they're currently basking in the red glow of the heat lamp while eating more than their fair share of starter crumbles.

This time, I got the Meat and Egg combo from McMurray, so there are 15 Cornish Rocks (meat birds that grow quickly) and 10 brown egg-layers in there. Hopefully I can do a bit better with these than the last batch (of which only 7 survived after a few bad predator attacks).

You know what this means, right? It means I have a few months until I'll need to build a bigger chicken coop. It's a good thing I love projects, though.

New goat day!

So today we got some goats. I've been waiting to say that for a long time! One of my favorite animals at the farm I worked at was goats, and we've been researching them ever since.

Through our research and discussions, Sarah and I decided that the best thing for us is Pygmy goats. Since goats are herd animals, it only makes sense to get smaller ones that make less milk, so we can still have several goats. If we had larger, more traditional milk goats, we'd still need to get 2 or 3, but we'd have more milk than we'd ever know what to do with. Plus, if we ever need more with Pygmies, we just get more Pygmies!

So a few days ago we found a local farmer who was selling most of her flock because she wanted to get meat goats instead. She was selling 2 females and 1 male, and the kicker is that both females are pregnant! So that pretty much takes care of a few things at once. The price wasn't a steal, but they look healthy and well taken care of, so that's worth more to me.

We haven't named them all yet, but Sarah picked Roy for the billy (it's a name she's wanted for a goat for a long time) and I'm letting each daughter pick out a name for each of the nannies. I get to name the first baby, though. Depending on how well everything goes, we may keep the first few babies, if they're female.

So far they seem happy in the pasture, but it may take a while for them to get comfortable around us after what I imagine was a fairly stressful truck ride to our house over those bumpy country roads.

So without further delay, I present to you, Roy and the girls:

(I'll get better pics soon!)

Fun with electric fencing

My first electric fence project didn't turn out too bad (so far), but I have some concerns.

In the manual for the charger (that I couldn't read until I opened the darn thing), it gives some very detailed instructions on wire placement for different animals, soil types, and general tips for making your electric fence work most efficiently. But if the "best results" checklist was a test, I'd have failed.

First off, they say electric fences perform poorly in sandy soil. Sandy soil, check. Electric fences work poorly in dry soil. Right now our soil is way oversaturated, but from June to August it rains probably 3-4 times total, so it will be dry then. Check.

Stringing the line wasn't too bad, and I made gate handles on each end. I opted not to string wires along the existing fence (yet), so the electrified sections are just 2 of the 4 fence lines; the other two sides have 6' field fence and barbed wire every foot, so they should be fine.

I'm hoping we can actually get pigs this weekend since I'm all set up now. We head down to the Collinsville Trade Day flea market once every few months, and they should start getting more animals in since the weather's warming up.

Some tips I learned about electric fencing:

• Don't buy anything until you have a detailed plan worked out for what you're going to electrify. For instance, if you're going to electrify existing field fence, you need the extended plastic insulators so they don't touch the existing metal.
• Watch the type of insulators you buy. I bought closed loop ones for my corner posts without realizing that the only way to get wire into a closed loop is to cut it off of the spool first. Go with the type of insulator that lets you work it in without needing an end to feed through a closed loop.
• Don't buy an electrifier box for the exact space you have. If you have 2 miles of wire to electrify, buy a 5-mile box to get better power and assure that the electricity will reach all the way to the furthest point.
• If you buy an AC-powered box, make sure you have an outdoor AC outlet nearby. The solar ones are nice, but they're way way more expensive. Weigh the pros and cons of solar vs. AC (or DC, but charging and maintaining a battery is no fun for anyone).
• Make sure your t-posts are all facing the right way! I had a problem with existing fencing having t-posts that faced outward, while the rest of my inner fence had inside-facing t-posts. Inner-facing is to keep animals in, and outer-facing is to keep animals out, but just make sure it's consistent either way.

I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting, but that'll have to do for now.

Before I go, I leave you with this picture. Seems ole Shelby found a friend:

Winter projects: Compost bin and hog house

As the weather continues to flirt with freezing temperatures at night, I'm chugging right along with my winter project list.

This month, I can check off two more: the 3-section compost bin and the hog house.

Compost Bin
This one was originally going to be made of free pallets, but I decided to make it right because it has to be around for a long, long time. As I often do, I find plans for projects that others have done and modify it to my liking. On this particular one, I kept the 3-section idea that almost everyone does, so I can rotate compost every three years. When the first section is filled up, I move on to the next one, and so on. When the third one is filled, I take the compost from the first one and apply it to the garden.

The whole thing measures 12' x 4' x 4' and is made entirely of 2x4s and 1" chicken wire. I built doors on the front of each section that open from the bottom, so I can fully open them to shovel out the compost when it's ready. There's no top currently, but I wanted to see if or why that would ever be needed. The air flow and rain actually helps the composting process, so I didn't want to cover the material too much. It might look messy, but that's the beauty of not really having neighbors!

So far I'm throwing in kitchen scraps, rough cardboard (nothing shiny at all), soiled chicken bedding mixed with hay, rabbit droppings, and donkey manure. I aim to fill a bin each year, but at the rate I'm already going, that first one will be filled in a few months!

Hog House
Once again, I looked at a few hog house plans online and in books, mixed in a fencing plan I saw online, threw in a few of my own ideas, and viola! One cheap and sturdy hog house.

The hardest part of this one was finding pallets to use, as I live pretty far from any warehouses or anything that would use pallets. Most places I went (like the local feed store) told me that they trade their pallets back in at the end of each month. If you get pallets, make sure to ask the store first, as many give them away, but for many stores, you'd actually be stealing from them. Also check the 'free stuff' section of Craigslist. I find pallet giveaways all the time on there.

The most expensive part of this project was the t-posts. I bought 2 for each pallet, for a total of 12. Since pallets are about 4 feet tall standing up, I bought 5.5' t-posts to allow about 6 inches to stick up (while 1' would be in the ground). This 6-inch bit actually fits into the pallets used for the roof, securing it even further. After I built this hog house, we had a windstorm at 35mph with 45mph gusts, and the house didn't even budge.

To assemble the house, start on one corner and install a t-post with a fence post pounder. Measure and install the next t-post so you can slip the pallet over the top of both posts. Repeat this all the way around until you have the shape and size you want. On mine, I decided to make it three pallets long and one pallet deep. I also put a pallet in the front center, to allow a bit more of a wind break and shade, while keeping the inside open. This also helps secure the roof, as well.

For the roof I used three pallets connected with two scrap pieces of 2x4x10 going straight across the bottom. When they replaced my roof in November, I had them save the old metal for me, so I used that for the top. I was going to go with cheap spare screws, but decided to buy good roofing screws for this because I don't want it blowing away (and also I have a barn to re-roof soon!)

Eventually, if I get more than one or two hogs, I may go to two pallets deep, but that's the beauty of this house: it's expandable, mobile and cheap! Each year, when I rotate the gardens and hog pasture, I can pull up this pallet house and move it to wherever I want in only an hour or so. I may also cover the walls with the old metal roofing, keeping them separate on each pallet for mobility, but we'll see how it works as it is, first. The only part you'll need two people for is lifting the roof. It's heavy!

Is it scary for me to get this excited over a meat cleaver?

This past week, my family and I made the 10-hour trek up to Indiana to visit our families. There was snow, it was cold, and there were no mountains, but I always enjoy visiting relatives.

When they were down here last time, we went to a flea market and saw some old meat cleavers for $50-$60. I showed interest, but there's no way I have that much money for a meat cleaver. I love the fact that they're old and built well (those new stainless steel knives and hatchets can't be sharpened), so my dad told me next time I'm up in Indiana, he'll give me one of his old ones (he's a meat-cutter).

Lo and behold, this old meat cleaver he gave me is way cooler than I expected. This picture doesn't do it justice, but it's about a foot long, 8-10 lbs, and probably 40 years old. It was made by Chicago Cutlery and he says it was one of his first ones he used since he started meat-cutting out of high school, so to me it's like a family heirloom. Some people get jewelry, I get a meat cleaver. But that's a good thing! I'd much rather have this than a ring or something.