Around The Homestead

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.

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.

• Broken Road Farm
• The Adventures of Noodleville
• The Weekend Homesteader
• Little Red Homestead In The Woods
• Sand Holler Farm

Fort William. Dan made a little more progress on Fort William!

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.

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.

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....

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.

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."

Around The Homestead © June 2011 

by Leigh at http://my5acredream.blogspot.com/

The "Billy Boys"

I've recently given you an update on Jasmine, but figured goat blogging would be incomplete without updates on the twins, and Pygmies too! I have to say that when speaking of goats, I ordinarily disdain the all too common "nanny" and "billy." These are in common usage around here, but there just seems to be something unflattering about them. Female goats are does and male goats are bucks. That said, it may seem ironic that I've taken to the term "Billy Boys" when referring to our bucks.

McGruff AKA Gruffy

The Pygmies have adjusted beautifully, especially Gruffy. Compared to the small buck area he was used to, he now has close to a full acre of grass, bushes, and trees. He's one happy guy. He set to eating the moment he arrived, and hasn't stopped since, except for some occasional rest and rumination. He's friendly and loves to have his head and neck scratched.

Chipper has had it a little tougher in the adjustment department. He spent his first few days bleating pitifully to be let in with the does and twins. Being 3 months old, that is what he was used to, and he had no intention whatsoever, of following an "old" buck around. About day three though, he started to stick with Gruffy, the only problem being he had trouble keeping track of him. Seems McGruff didn't know he was supposed to answer when Chipper called him. Chipper would be hollering his heart out until we'd show him where Gruffy was, and then all would be well.

Chipper

Unlike Gruffy though, Chipper absolutely does not want to be petted or touched. Yet. The only time he allows it is when he's got his tablespoon or two of sweet feed in the evenings. He's so busy eating, that he doesn't seem to notice he's being petted.

We call Gruffy and Chipper our "big" Billy Boys, which is not exactly accurate in some ways. Although they're older than The Twins, they're not exactly bigger!

The Twins are growing well, and will be beautiful bucks I think.

Surprise & her bucklings

They were six weeks old last Sunday, so in two more weeks, will have to be separated from their mom. That's about the age they are capable of breeding, so obviously, we have to take measures to prevent that. At that time, they will go to live with the "Big Billy Boys," while I try to sell them.

They are good little guys. I've trained them not to jump up, to which they caught on quickly. Everytime they would jump up, I would raise my knee to prevent them. After all four feet were on the ground, I'd lean over, and scratch their necks, telling them they that good boys don't jump up and put their dirty hooves on people. Now they run up and stand there looking at me expectantly. I have to remember to give each of them a scratch to reinforce the not jumping behavior. They know the evening drill too, that after Jasmine's evening milking, they are put up in the kid stall until after morning milking. Everyone fussed about it at first, mom included. They would run to Surprise to get down those last gulps of milk before being put up. They caught on quickly though and now settle right down in their stall to munch on hay.

The Twins & Auntie Jasmine

At six weeks old they still love to nurse, but are becoming more interested in solid food. The other day I let Surprise in with them after her morning milking, but they were more interested in the handful of grain I tossed into the pan, rather than rushing her udder. It's amazing how quickly they grow up.

The "Billy Boys" © June 2011 

by Leigh at http://my5acredream.blogspot.com/

Wheat Harvest

On the 3rd of June, our pancake patch looked like this.....

We'd been keeping a close eye on it ever since it started to turn brown. According to Homegrown Whole Grains, wheat is ready to harvest when the berries were no longer soft and doughy when chewed, but hard and crunchy. In the ideal wheat world, this would have happened all at the same time. In our real world though, some was ready, some still too green, and some seed heads had already shattered (or had been eaten by birds). Most of it was perfect, so we decided to harvest.

It's a small, experimental patch, about 200 square feet, so we discussed various ways to harvest it. In the end, Dan took his scythe to it ...

The going was quick, but without a grain cradle, the cut wheat fell every which-away. A cradle is a scythe type tool which not only cuts, but enables the stalks to fall to the ground in an orderly fashion. Unlike cutting without it...

In the meanwhile I gathered it by armfuls and loaded it into the wheelbarrow....

We then dumped it unceremoniously onto our screened-in front porch. There, it will dry out further, until all the heads are brown and dry. Then we'll set about to thresh and winnow it.

It was a small plot, so I was able to gather up every last stalk with a head on it. The ancient Hebrews had a law that stated the gleanings were to be left for the poor. That way there was no waste, no heavy taxation to support welfare, and the less fortunate maintained the dignity of being somewhat able to provide for themselves. I thought about that as I worked.

My only lament is that I didn't weigh the amount of seed I planted. I was thinking in terms of dimensions, but I'm discovering that weight amounts of seed are so much easier to work with. The plan is to follow our field corn crop with a large planting of winter wheat. We don't have dates and timing figured out perfectly yet, but we will with experience.

Other things we'll have to work out for a larger planting are harvest and storage. A grain cradle certainly seems in order if we do it by hand. Field drying can work if the wheat can formed into sheaves and shocks. Threshing our current small amount will be relatively simple, but a quarter to half an acre will take more work.  The other issue will be storage. Wheat can be eaten by us, the goats, and the chickens, so I doubt we can grow too much of it.

Drying is supposed to be complete in about a week to ten days. In our humidity it may take longer. After that we'll thresh. More on that soon.

Wheat Harvest © June 2011 

by Leigh at http://my5acredream.blogspot.com/