Again, another month has flown by in what seems like just one long, deep breath. I am guilty of wishing away the remains of winter and dreaming daily of the promise of green. We are lucky in that we have enough exposure that the sun has melted away a good portion of the snow around our house and we've been seeing the beginnings of my *shhhhhh* spring flowers.
Although living in northern Vermont means you have to have quite a bit of patience and a BIG sense of humor. Sure, the calendar says its spring but we're due to get another Nor'easter this weekend. Whoever coined the phrase about March with it's lions and lambs surely didn't live in Vermont. Not that this is much of a surprise, last year there was quite a storm up here on Mothers Day. You just never know.
Things here on the homestead have been idling since the addition of our daughter. But plans are always in the backs of our minds and soon enough we'll be jumping into action again. We are beginning to recognize that although we have the best intentions, sometimes we jump a little too hard with our ideas. So this year we plan on focusing on the motto: small but successful. This translates into smaller gardens that we can rely on to AT LEAST provide us with the staples to make Isabel's baby food when she begins solids later this summer/fall. We're still planning on raising chickens and pigs to feed our family but this year we're planning on three pigs instead of four and a few smaller batches of meat birds instead of one big lot of them that would all need to be processed at about the same time.
We're toying with the idea of stepping back from the dairy goats for now as well. We'll see how milking goes this spring/summer, but at the present they are relatively expensive pets.
We have some plans for better broiler production. Last year, we kept them with our laying hens and about half of them jumped the fence into the pigs' pasture, becoming supplemental protein. This was a major disappointment so this year we're planning on making some inexpensive chicken tractors similar to Joel Salatin's (approximately 10'x12'x2') so we can keep them on the lower pasture where they will get plenty of grass yet still be safe from predators (both domestic and feral).
Speaking of which, we had a major loss last month. Some unfamiliar dogs paid us a visit and much to our dismay they killed off half of our laying hens. Then, thanks to the pile of dead chickens that we probably should have just processed and turned into dog food, we attracted a fox and some weasels. We lost another two or three chickens and are now down to just over a dozen. To top it all off we have at least one weasel living IN our barn. We see it every time we go out to feed the goats and the chickens. Needless to say, we have pulled out the .22 and are going to borrow a livetrap from my brother and sister-in-law.
So, that is where we're at. I'm going to be pulling out the leftover seeds from last year so we can take stock and see what needs to be purchased for this year. I'm hoping to get some of our seeds started this weekend. But, in an up coming post I am hoping to detail our plans for food production in a little bit more detail. Thanks for sticking with me folks!
We drove into the city last night for a lovely dinner in Burlington for my sister-in-law's birthday. Its always nice going out with family. The way home felt long, though; I was exhausted and lingered somewhere between sleep and gazing, dazed, out the window. Kyle and I were discussing the next big home renovation now that the guest room and upstairs bathroom were finished and sometimes its just a bit overwelming when there is so much to do. But we arrived home and there was a sweet, mild breeze in the air that greeted us. I went out to the barn to shut in the goats and chickens for the night while Kyle checked on the pigs, who had been moved back under the trees next to the house.
We scheduled a date with the meat processor for July 16th, a mere month away, and we wanted to try to get them to eat the greenery and till up the soil there before they left us. They were happily running around, like the pig races you see at the fair, and we watched them for a little while before heading inside. As I was getting into bed half an hour later the dogs started barking wildly. I looked out the front windows to see a neighbor's friend leaving our front yard- he must have been at our door a minute ago. I mentioned it to Kyle as I looked out the back window- the pigs were out.
I hastily threw my jeans on again as I watched Freddy make a bee-line for our freshly planted garden, the other three were ahead of him in the tall grasses. I ran downstairs to grab my boots hoping that the novelty of being loose would keep Freddy from exploring the soft soil in our garden beds. Sure enough, by the time I rounded the corner to the back of the house they had moved on and were headed for the road. I freaked at the realization that they really were loose and not contently eating grass in our backyard like they had done the few times they escaped before.
As I called them from the top of the hill, carefully picking my way down along the edge of the drop-off, Kyle arrived with a bucket of grain. As soon as they saw him they forgot all about their adventure and trailed along back to the barn. We're lucky the neighbor stopped by, if we had gone to bed with the pigs loose, who knows where they would have ended up, or the damage they could have done. Once they were safely back in their fenced-in pasture we surveyed the electric-net fence that we hastily put up over the weekend. Brick Top must have been chasing one of them because it appeared that one of the pigs had gone straight through the fence, leaving a nice hole in the netting. I'll have to fix that so we can resume using it for the goats and chickens.
So, now the task is to get a better fence up out there for the next few weeks so they can continue eating the grass and ferns. Kyle has the next two weeks off so he'll have plenty of time to work on fencing. But I'll say it again, I'm ready for some bacon. Pigs.
Well last weekend we moved our pigs into their new area where they could get fresh grass and more shade from the surrounding trees. We dug down into the ground where there was already a bit of a ledge to make them a cave-like shelter. Using only a couple piers, 2x4s, and more of our salvaged metal roofing we attached a roof and called it good. It was pretty awesome if you ask me. It took the pigs some time to get used to it but you could tell they loved all the fresh, tall grass in their new enclosure. We had been using the new electronetting that we got from Premier 1 Supplies that was originally intended to move the goats around our land. It was looking like it was going to work pretty well, but we all get delusional at times, right?
The electronetting is not a good idea for pigs that can root into the ground. Pretty much our boys would root away right next to the fence so much that it would get buried enough to short out the energizer. So multiple times we found Boris or Freddy loose in the yard. Luckily they never would go far and were easy to get back into their enclosure but it was starting to make me nervous. We have neighbors and the last thing I want is for one of our animals to do damage to someone's property.
So last night was the last straw. After eating dinner we went out to check on the goats and the chickens and saw Freddy down by our garden eating away at the clover. I unplugged the energizer for the fence and we pulled up some of the stakes and corralled them back into their original pasture. I'm wicked disappointed because we wanted them to tear up the land under those trees and get rid of the pricker bushes. Also, we had wanted to plant some root vegetables in their old enclosure to feed the pigs later this summer.
We'll stop at Johnson Farm and Garden tonight to pick up some fiberglass posts, insulators, and more electrical fence tape to divide up their pasture so we can hopefully get something planted and growing out there soon.
I can only imagine how long Freddy had been out, though. On our way back in from the barn we saw some hoofprints on our driveway and they certainly didn't belong to either of the goats! So it looks like he had a nice little after-dinner stroll.
As soon as we finished the rain began and the wind started picking up- perfect timing. We retreated to the comfort of the house and I started dinner while Kyle hopped down the road to pick us up a bottle of wine. I took a chunk of the dough I had made almost a week ago and began stretching it out to make a pizza. I have seriously fallen in love with the no-knead dough that I found in Mother Earth News months ago. All week we've enjoyed fresh-baked bread with dinner and lunch the following day.
I wasn't sure how the pizza crust would turn out, I mean, how can one dough be so versatile? But I spread it out on a cookie sheet (my favorite; Williams Sonoma Goldtouch nonstick brand...NOTHING sticks to this sucker) and covered it with a bit of sauce, some mushrooms, peppers, sun-dried tomatos, and some great chevre (we like to switch it up from the same old mozzarella) that is made locally. Hopefully next summer we'll be making our own chevre when May starts milking.
After just a few minutes in the 500 degree oven we slid the pizza off the cookie sheet and onto the wooden cutting board. The crust was perfect; thin and crispy. We ate the entire pizza that night and I still could have had more- I love chevre pizza.
Sunday was our official apple cider day! We had two huge boxes of apples that had been sitting on our porch from weeks ago and it had taken on a lovely caramel-apple smell but it was time for them to go. We had borrowed a home-made cider press from Kyle's employer and it made quick work of the apples. I, personally, love the look of old-style cider presses but let me tell you they take forever to make much cider. This loud, metal monstrosity took away alot of the romance...but produced fast and delicious results.
Shortly before our wedding we installed a new wire dog-fence because our dogs loved to visit the neighbors. Our neighbor across the street always has a buffet of two week old garbage hanging around their back door so, since Shyla is such a garbage hound (and part beagle so, therefore, a wanderer), we figured we'd be better off by setting up some sort of fencing. We didn't really like the idea of the shock collar but had few options as we couldn't afford to fence in our entire yard and both of our dogs need lots of exercise so we couldn't just make a small yard for them. So, we gritted our teeth and gave it a try.
It worked gloriously for the first few months. It only took one or two corrections before they got the idea and they stayed in our yard without incedent. But, much to our dismay, the town came mowing along the roads a few months ago. This wouldn't ordinarily be a problem as this wire is typically buried. Well, notice I say "ordinarily" and "typically". Yeah, we hadn't buried the wire yet, just tucked it deep into the long grasses until we could rent a ditch-witch to make the task a little quicker. So, as you can imagine, the mower did a nice job of tearing up a section of our wire and at some point the dogs realized that they were free to go where they pleased.
A few weeks ago I walked into our family room and asked Kyle where Shyla was. He was busily scanning Craigslist for anything and everything as he muttered something along of the lines of- oh she's still outside. It was a cold and drizzly morning and this dog doesn't normally like to be outside on a good day. Ollie was happily chewing on his new stuffed animal- a bunny whose eyes and nose had recently been removed- so I knew they weren't out playing in the back yard. I went to the front yard and there she was, nawing away at something undoubtedly stolen from the neighbor's trash. Great. Later that day Kyle got a reminder for why we don't like letting the dogs get into trash...all over the living room floor. That spurred the current project that has been occupying our time for the past few weeks.
We immediately went out to patch the line where the town's mower had taken its toll and walked back up to the house to turn the receiver on, not even thinking that it might still not work. Well, much to our disappointment, it just wasn't going to be that easy. We walked the line, looking for more breaks but found nothing. Last week Kyle decided he was going to pull it all up and re-do it all. Great idea, that is what I was thinking. But still, not that easy. Apparently some of the wire was so hopelessly tangled (I didn't ask HOW) that he had to cut the wire, which just created more possibilities for bad connections. Sure enough, when he re-ran the wire the loop indicator on the receiver was still screaming at us that it wasn't happy.
Now, we could spend $60 on a boundary wire break-locator, but that didn't really make me all that excited. Confucius said "When you have faults, do not fear to abandon them." So today I have decided to abandon our crappy wire and re-ordered another 1,000 feet of wire (for less than the cost of the break-locator) so we can just re-do it. And I can tell you, THIS time we are going to do it correctly.
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