It's been awhile since I've done an "Around The Homestead" post.
The last one was in February. These are bullet posts of random updates, follow-ups, comments, and observations of various doings and goings on around the homestead. Seems most of my updates these days turn in to full blown posts, but I do have a few odds and ends to report on.
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| Thank you Eliza Faith & Sharon! |
Stylish Blogger Award. Ordinarily, this would deserve a post of it's own. I'm considering it an update however, because I won it
awhile back, but am honored that both Eliza Faith of
Girls PWN, and Sharon, of
Quilting the Farm, both have awarded it to me recently. I want to give you each a heartfelt thanks. The rules for this award say the recipient is to tell you 7 things about themselves that you might not know, and then to pass this award along to someone who deserves it. Rather than think up seven new things, I'm going to take the lazy way out and refer you to
my original post, here. There are a few blogs I'd like to pass it on to. These are new for me, discovered while responding to comments. They are excellent blogs, but as far as I can tell, don't have a huge readership. I hope ya'll will go and visit.
Fort William. Dan made a little more progress on
Fort William!
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| Chipper & Gruffy like their buck barn |
The "awning" is actually a window cover as well. It's hinged to be propped open in the summer to allow cooling breezes in, but can be closed in winter to protect from driving rains and bitter winds.
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Riley on fence post, washing a paw. |
Fox Sighting. While Dan was building on the bucks' shed, Riley would hang around to keep him company and patrol the woods behind Ft. William. One day while Dan was working on the roof, Riley took off like a bullet. Dan could see him chase something with a bushy red tail, and then heard all manner of caterwauling. Cat fight. A few days later, our neighbor told him he saw a fox run across the street and on to our property. Dan realized it wasn't another cat he saw, but that fox. Thankfully Riley came out without a scratch. We haven't seen any trace of the fox since, but knowing they kill chickens, we're on the alert.
HVAC. I'm going to include this as an update because after going through last summer without air conditioning, I am very thankful to have it this summer. Our typical summer temperatures are in the 90s and it's not uncommon to top 100 on occasion. Heat builds up in the house, and add to that the heat and humidity from canning, it was not fun. We try to use the AC sparingly, and I've worked out a system where I keep the thermostat set at 78 to 80, depending upon the humidity. We shut it off at night, and in the morning, the outside temp is usually in the high 60s or low 70s. I open the doors and windows until outside and inside temperatures are the same. I close everything up, and it stays that way for the rest of the day. The ouse stays fairly cool till mid-afternoon. When the house temp reaches the thermostat setting, I turn on the AC. If we think we need more, we turn on fans. I'm sure our house would feel warm to some, but we're okay with that.
Weeds. Like most gardeners, I seem to grow more of these than I want. Now that I've learned something about which
weeds are dynamic accumulators, I've started pulling and adding selected ones to my compost, especially plantain, which is a calcium accumulator.
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| Plantain, a calcium accumulator |
Amazingly they decompose pretty fast and I'm hoping in the long run to increase our soil calcium.
Compost Sifter. Speaking of compost....
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| My compost sifter |
... Dan made me a compost sifter from materials we had lying around. I'm very pleased with it.
Sourdough starter. After managing to keep my
sourdough starter alive for over a year, I lost it. It died the death of neglect. In a way this is surprising because I used it so often! I used it to replace any liquid called for in a baked good recipe. It worked beautifully with baking soda and my cakes, pancakes, muffins, etc., were always light and fluffy. I haven't started another one though, because lately I've been using whey in everything from quick breads to yeast breads. Whey works well, is always available, adds nutrition, and never needs to be fed. I do have some good
recipes for sourdough though, so I'll be making another starter someday soon.
Jasmine. The hardness in her udder is almost completely gone, shrunk to the size of a small lemon. In fact, she's looking extremely lopsided these days. I'm actually beginning to wonder if she really did have mastitis. I'm wondering if the problem isn't actually "congested udder." To diagnose properly for mastitis, the milk should be tested. She never produced milk on that side, so I'll never know.
Rooster Wars: There are two more roosters in the neighborhood. We know because we can hear them in the distance. One sounds like a Bantam, (such a cute little crow), the other I've dubbed "The Ghost Rooster." I call him that because by the time the sound waves get here, his crow is eerily ghost-like, but in a comical sort of way.
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| Lord Barred Holland & 6 of his 7 ladies |
The Ghost Rooster absolutely never stops crowing. Our neighbor across the street told Dan it's driving him crazy. Fortunately Lord B (who also crows quite a bit) doesn't bother them, I reckon because of the way sound travels. Initially Lord B got into some acoustic sparring with the Ghost Rooster, but apparently has figured out that no challenger is going to try to usurp his position. Lord B does do his share of crowing, and now with the three, I worry that someone will complain to the "authorities." We're outside town limits, but just barely. We'd hate to get into real rooster, or chicken wars with someone over our right to keep chickens.
As our economic situation and food supply become increasingly uncertain, it's not surprising others are starting to keep chickens. And as much as I don't like the feeling of being on display to passersby every time I work in the garden, I can only hope that perhaps they're looking at us and thinking, "Hey, we could do that too."
