Our last big snow completely melted away but this was a photo of the greenhouse. We cannot start seeds in it. I pot in it because it's rather toasty on a day when the sunshines but without power and our cold nights, it does not stay warm enough. We have a shelving unit in the kitchen by the window that works well for starting seeds. With any luck, I can hopefully move all the flats into the greenhouse mid-March. At the rate we're going though, maybe mid-July! 

My favorite tree on the property- a Cottonwood. (and the chicken coop and pig's shelter in the background)

The sow is living in one of the loafing sheds with her piglets. In this cold, they must have a heat lamp and this is the only loafing shed that has electricity. It allows us much closer one on one contact with them though.

We're gearing up for another big cold storm this weekend. I am very weary of it. I am weary of the snow and I am especially weary of the cold, this one promises to pack windchill's well below negative with potential for record setting lows. Imagine that, our coldest recorded low was -24 in 2011. WE WERE HERE FOR THAT! Only the tiniest tips of green grass are starting to emerge. Normally I would feel we're on the upswing to spring but with that huge ice storm in April last year and snow in May, it's hard to be excited.

We have a couple does due today. It's going to be an exponentially long weekend making sure everyone is as warm as possible, new kids will have to be brought in to keep ears from freezing. Our youngest are 10 days old, they should be OK but anyone born in it would, at the very least, have frostbitten ears though it's very likely they would freeze to death if born with windchills that low.
Then there's still milking and now bottle feeding. We lost one of our older does Wednesday. To what I don't know but with this warm again cold again weather, it's very likely it was fast moving pneumonia and there was little I could do. She left 2 kids behind. I have sold off the buck kid and now have the doe kid. That, coupled with 2 piglets who are lagging behind, and I am bottling a few animals around here. The dogs are separated currently and the only way to do that successfully is to keep one in the garage and the other out in the barnyard. They switch places every 12 hours and neither one is very happy. They miss each other but Snow needs a break from pregnancy and a trail separation is the only form of 100% positive birth control.

 I don't like bucketing warm water but sometimes it's necessary. So, there's my weekend plans- surviving. The cold and snow is exhausting. I don't like to complain but few who have to get out in it don't get it. I could get rid of all of the animals for sure, that would leave me little to complain about, I guess. But, that would also take away much joy too, that's what you call a catch 22...a conundrum.

It's 3 AM. I am out to do a barn check. The wind is howling but this isn't near the worst of it. This cold is manageable. Tonight, tomorrow and tomorrow night will be a different story. Jeremiah is leaving early to pick up the trailer from the shop this morning. He's done some modifications to it and the alternator was kaput. We're having friends over for a soup supper tonight. I'll be running the oven part of today for bread. I'm cooking a ham tomorrow.

Bottle Porker

10 piglets are happy and healthy but 2 aren't looking as plump as the others. I took it upon myself to try to supplement those girls. The info on hand rearing pigs hasn't been good. "It's difficult. They're stubborn. You loose them 50% of the time." Eegads, it doesn't sound like I am going to be too successful! But, I gotta try.

These 2 girls don't look much bigger than they did when they were born- which is usually nothing but skin and bones! So, I brought 'em in and tried feeding them with an eye dropper, by golly the one little girl looked like she wanted to suck so I decided to try the beer bottle and "lamb" nipple I use on the goats and wouldn't you know, that pig took to it like a fish to water! Dumb luck? I don't so. #2 girl took to it like a fish to water too and so now I am bottle supplementing all the ones who are looking a little less plump than some of the others and no one seems to have an issue taking the bottle at all! I think it has to be in the nipple! What's funny? I can't even get the goat kids to take it as easy as these pigs!!

They need to be fed often when they are this young and for that reason, I am leaving them with the sow for the most part. They seem to take to her just fine too but boy when they see me, I think they know the real chow wagon has arrived! I'm not real sure how this will all play out. My hope is that I can train them to a pan fairly soon. By the time they are about 10 days old they start to nibble on regular hog feed so it shouldn't be much time at all before I can start getting them milk through alternative means other than a bottle. I would imagine if a momma sow wasn't available, it would be a very time consuming proposition! They're getting goat's milk, by the way. Goat's milk is a well known universal supplement for so many animals because it's so easy to digest - cows (some dairies will even give their replacement heifer calves goat's milk instead of cow's milk as a preventative of disease transferable through milk or as a means of keeping their cow's milk for sale...seems almost silly but that's entirely another thing), puppies, kittens, foals, crias (baby alpaca), piglets, etc.

Pigs really are funny things. So smart and really very friendly once they know who to take a liking to. I'll tell you the same thing I tell the kids, "Don't get attached!" Everything has a purpose and her purpose is to make bacon.

The weather has been super nice up until this morning. I think it was 72 on Tuesday (!) and yesterday I had clothes hanging on the line. Last night wind picked up, the temp dropped this morning and about 7:45 when I went out to do chores, it was hailing and windy as all get out. The hail turned to snow shortly thereafter and now it appears it's all blown through and today's high is supposed to reach 51. Go figure!

I think the building construction class is about done with our milk barn. I thought it was supposed to be done by now as today marks the end of the 2nd trimester. I don't know what else is left to do seeing as how we're putting on the rood and side walls and pretty much the only thing they were to do is floor and framing and rafters/roof joists. They didn't want to do the metal siding and rooding which is fine, that goes up quick enough.

This last trimester another class is making our bee hives. I need to go in and speak to the instructor about what I want and give him some blueprints. Our bee colonies are reserved and will be ready for pick up come late April I think.

One of the does was bred earlier than I figured she was, as in, I had no idea! We had a couple buck escapes at different times which I wrote down and there have been no surprises as of late...except this doe. We have some round bales of hay out in the pasture the girls free eat off of and Tuesday when I went out mid-day to water the sow here she came walking up with 2 kids in tow - a boy and a girl. We're up to 7 kids now (4 boys & 3 girls) and one of the buck kids has gone on to his new home already.

Goat prices are up at the sale barn. I am not sure if it's because of the time of year (ethnic buyers) or because beef is scarce and more expensive (doubt it) or an influx of local ethnic groups (???) but anyway, we made quite a good price off of the whethers we took on Sat. It's not my favorite thing to do and we try to avoid taking animals there but it is what it is.

We ran out of wood, ran clean out, last week...when the temps were in the teens during the day! Not a stick left. That's a little frightening when propane is sky high ($3.64 locally a gallon and reports of up to $5.15 a little father up north). We paid $1.64 I believe last Oct. when we filled up. Granted, that was last Oct. and well before these polar vortexes and cold storms dumping lots of snow everywhere but sheesh, if that don't make you want to go out and find some wood, I don't know what will!

After some unusually above average temps at the end of last week, the snow as pretty much gone by Saturday. Last spring when we rented a dumpster to clear some brush from the front of the property we separated good burnable wood from junk brush. We barely made a dent in what's all out there but the burnable limbs sure came in handy! We loaded them into the truck, backed up to the garage and had a field day cutting up the 4-6" limbs with the miter saw. That miter saw is the way to go for quick firewood cuttin', I tell you what.

Additionally, Jeremiah is yet again modifying the log splitter. Nevermind I have been asking all along why we have to have a cylinder wedge driven splitter. It seems so dang slow! One night he was "You Tubing" log splitters and saw one with a cylinder driven plate that drove the log against a splitter shaped like a all-in-one pie slicer. That's the way to go! Split all your slices all at one instead of one at a time! Some day we'll have something that saves us time!

This winter has seemed long, but then, they all do. I am sure we're still a ways off from spring but the warm temps every now and again are a nice reprieve. The weekend after next we're supposed to be plunged into cold again just in time for March to come in like a lion.

I suppose it's better than a perpetual beach day, more interesting anyway =). Have a great day.

Cock and bull story

Here's something to crow about. Mother Hen was feeling a little empty nest syndrome having neither chick nor child and hatched an idea. She now maintains a strict pecking order. Hey, you gotta find some way to scratch out a living and we wouldn't want to put all of our eggs in one basket, right? She may be walking on eggs shells however, the sow really rules the roost around here. Mother Hen probably thinks she signed up for a pig in a poke with this job. She doesn't have time to brood over it though and may want to make herself as scarce as hens teeth before she ruffles the sow's tail feathers and her chickens come home to roost! The sow doesn't play chicken, she'd be all over her like a banty on a Junebug! Well if that don't beat a pig a pecking! This story is all a little bird brained but I hope it left you sunny side up.

February Snow

 

 

 

We're gettin' bees

We've wanted to add bees to to farm since we moved in. After attending the Mother Earth News Fair last Oct. in Lawrence and getting a little bit more in depth about the whole process, I came home and set to work finding out more about food sources in our area and care and housing, etc. Jeremiah asked of one of the building construction instructors at school about building hives and they were on board!

I contated a few local people about obtaining some "nuc" (nucleus) colonies. Bee colonies are split in the spring. The hives should be ready to go just before we're ready to pick up the bees which will be just before the black locust trees bloom and that should give them a perfect start to the year. After October's seminars I wondered if would have a good enough food source for them. Country settings aren't always ideal as much of what grows are grasses and grasses don't flower. However, I remembered that a good majority of the trees around here are black locust and those DO bloom, a lot. Just once a year (when late ice storms don't zap them) and there are good years and better years for pollen production but that should be a good source. I found out a bee's radius for foraging is about 1.5 miles. I plan to take a drive as best we can on mostly perfectly grid-squared roads as the crow flies and see what's in that radius. I know there are alfalfa fields and we have some clover, fruit trees, etc. What we grow wouldn't be enough to sustain a colony I wouldn't think but the thought of feeding bees opens up a new world as far as what could be beneficial to plant in addition to what's regularly in the garden.

We'll have the school build the langstroth hives (traditional white box hives that are stacked) and Jeremiah and I will tackle some "top bar hives". Top bar hives are  like wooden v-shaped troughs. I'd like a few of each to see which we'll like working with the best. I also hope some friends who live in town wouldn't mind us placing some baited bee hives to catch a swarm or two. Cities are actually supposed to be great places to bait in swarms. Bees swarm usually when the colony gets to be too big, they choose a second queen and the (soon to be queen) takes off with her new entourage. I imagine most people who keep bees (apiaries) aren't too happy when their swarms take off and they do things to ensure they don't but anyway, it's not uncommon to catch bee swarms and that's why swarm removers exist, often times the swarm removers are bee keepers themselves.

Anyhow, I'll post more on that as time progresses and we've made progress there. It was important to find someone to sell us nuc colonies as nuc colonies aren't normally shipped. Packaged bees can be shipped. Rachel asked what a package of bees was. I told her it was like taking a lot of different people from a lot of different families (and in a package of bees they throw in a newly mated queen that was not chosen by the hive members), throwing them together and telling them to figure it out. Eventually they usually do but die affects numbers before the newly mated queen is ready lay eggs and then there' time for the eggs to hatch and yadda yadda yadda. It takes a lot longer for a hive to learn to work together, expand, etc. A nuc colony is a colony that has lived together, worked together, chosen their own queen and there is little stress in shipment because the bees aren't going far, etc. And because bees are such a wanted/needed commodity, getting on a waiting list for a spring colony is vital to whether or not one will have bees for that year. I contacted a lot of people that said the waiting list for last year spilt over to this year so I would be on a waiting list for the waiting list.


It's all very exciting and the whole bee life has really been very interesting to read up on. Busy week ahead. Have a great Tuesday.

Freezers, floods and spelling bees

This weekend's chore was to get more wood split and fix the greenhouse. It didn't weather a spring storm so well. We went to Lowes and ran some other errands Saturday and by the time we got home around noon we were done. Sears in Hutchinson is closing its doors so everything is 10-40% off. We nearly came home with a new fridge but I found it online from a Sears outlet cheaper including shipping for a new floor model. So, if and when we decide there's a budget for a new fridge, we'll look there. Ours still works, it's just massively obese for our small mouse-sized kitchen.

Saturday the high was 50 something and it rained Friday night, couple all that with the snow melt and there's a small lake in front of the greenhouse on the way out to the barn. It collects there unfortunately and there hasn't been a plan yet on what to do to fix it so working on the greenhouse was out of the question as was splitting wood because that was still covered in snow so, we spent the rest of the afternoon doing odd jobs like cleaning the house!

Sunday we got the 2x4's ripped for the greenhouse door and it's a mighty nice door! Friends of ours helped put up a high tunnel (hoop style greenhouse) over Christmas break in another state and showed us the plans. I don't intend to need anything that large but I did take some queues as to what to do about attaching the plastic to the frame. They used thin molding strips (we used ripped 2x4's) and folded the plastic around it and then attached the strips to the frame. it looks really really nice and hopefully the stress the wind creates on the plastic will better hold with a whole strip of wood than just staples every so often.

Last year I didn't have a window on the west side. It was sort of framed for one so I decided while we were ripping boards and a nice door, a nice window might be in order too so I build the window...well, I cut all the boards for the window, even figured out how to miter the diagonal brace board and at what angles.

I have some serious spring fever with this weather we've been having but I am sure it is short lived...the weather that is, not spring the spring fever. Athough, it is almost time to get ready to start seeds. I am thinking about expanding the garden to put corn and melons elsewhere which should give more room in the main garden for the main crops.

I am also thinking about doing a little straw bale gardening up by the house. If you'd like to read up on straw bale gardening, go here: http://strawbalegardens.com/ . A friend planted all of her 'taters in straw bales which made harvesting them a cinch! She just busted open the bales and there her huge crop of taters were then she had the straw for compost. It's hard for me to get the early crops in the garden because the the ground isn't always workable when the cabbage and things are ready to go in so I am thinking the straw bales may be a better option. The new wheat harvest (and subsequent straw) won't be ready to pick up until June or so which will be too late for this years garden but I have a good source for inexpensive straw. I keep saying I'll stock up when the new harvest comes in and bales can be had for something like $1 a bale! Anyway...

The pigs have done a good job rooting up their pasture area they are on and I was looking at the location next to the orchard yesterday for corn and melons. I'd have to do something about keeping the chickens out but we've also talked about fencing them in too. There is a netting product that is moveable and electrified so I could put them on new ground every week or so. I am tired of loosing them to foxes and we have a REALLY nice group of hens this year. I hatched out a good crop last Sept. and plan to put another batch in the incubator in a couple days and they'll be ready by mid-summer to lay.

We expect another litter of piglets in mid-Feb. I hope the weather is decent. The first goat babies are due in a couple of weeks and we'll be kidding until May.

We have 2 chest freezers that needed to be washed out well. We bought a new (to us) upright that's in the house now and have no need for the ones in the garage. We never did get to splitting the wood but the temps have been nice and look like they will continue to be at least until next weekend so we won't go through as much so what we have will last.

Rachel's birthday is Thursday. Wednesday evening she and I are meeting up with some friend for cocoa and coffee. She wants potato soup for dinner and home made bread Thursday evening and I think we'll try to fit in a movie next weekend. Jeremiah will be in Mo. for a competition on the weekend of the 25th of Jan. and mentioned maybe being out of town Valentine's Day weekend for a competition and then he'll be gone for training the week of St. Patrick's Day to Cleveland. Over the summer a robotic welder was purchased for the shop and it requires training to operate it. It's been sitting there since it was delivered because the 2 other people who are potential operators haven't been able to all schedule a time to be away to do the training. Jeremiah has also picked up a Tuesday evening teaching class for the college. He'll be teaching Machining 1&2 from tomorrow until some time in May when the semester is over.

It seems hard to believe but the kids only have 3.5 months of school left. They are out early again this year on April 30th where other districts are out some time toward the end of May. I don't know how much further the new school's progress has come but as of Oct. it was said to still be sitting as an empty lot so who knows if it will be ready in time. I know I am tired of the extended days. This year it's even longer going from 7:50 to 3:25. Last year it was 7:50 to 3:20. The kids don't get home until after 4 on the bus, though lately I have been picking them up. Jeremiah drops them off on his way to work.

Snoozing Snow

King

I'll end for now. Have a great week. Oh, and last minute last week (it seemed) there was a spelling bee at school for the 4-6th graders. Of the 6 students who participated (2 from each grade all against  one another), Rachel was 2nd behind a 6th grader. We were very pleased. She finished her last Harry Potter book last night of the entire series. She says she's going on to Percy Jackson books next. She'll run out of books at the school's library if she stays there for many more grades =).  

Ann Curry (left) & Earl of Sandwich (right)

 

Moab & chickens

New Year's Eve and the roads were super quiet. We blasted through Salt Lake after getting diesel and, oddly enough, a PIZZA of all things and headed south. I don't know why we thought taking I70 would be the better option but we figured if we could drive for another hour or so, going south toward Grand Junction would give us more hotel options than going toward Park City, Utah and No-mans-land Wyoming. As it turns out, conditions were good, the road was still quiet (with all the traffic out of Salt Lake going toward Nevada to gamble I assume) and then south of Salt Lake traffic was flowing in. So, we practically had the road to ourselves all the way to Price. On the way, however, I thought it might be kind of fun to take a detour and go SEE something for a change. Not that we don't see a lot while traveling, we see a lot! But, to take a break and head off the beaten path route might be kind of fun. Not to mention doing something with the family would be a great way to start the new year.

So, we high tailed it through price, made it down to I70 and headed to Moab where we'd slide in to town just before midnight to watch the fireworks going off over the city. After a good night's rest, we got up early to hike in Arches National Park. I never would have thought that being there in temperatures below freezing with snow on the ground would be an ideal time to visit, but it really was!

We spent the better part of the morning hiking. "Delicate Arch" was (said) a 1.5 mile hike but given the terrain it was more like 3 Jeremiah said. I only went part of the way. The kids wore jackets, I happily designated myself to take them back when it got to about 40 degrees out and chances are it wouldn't have been too much further that I would have tucked tail and run anyway as Jeremiah said "the height and sheer wall cliffs along the trail" would have finished it for me. I am deathly afraid of them, beautiful view or not. He and the kids went though, I went back to the truck and took an hour snooze in the sunshine.  
   
   

Last fall when we butchered our broiler chickens 6 were spared freezer camp. We wanted to see how they'd do as layers. We got home to find SUPER large eggs from these birds! Three of them made a nice omelet perfect for sharing.

 

It's back to the old grind- laundry, chores and cleaning. We spend a day going through old paperwork. I am organizing, cleaning and finishing long over due to be done sewing projects in the sewing room. The Christmas tree has been taken down and ornaments put away. There's too much snow to bother taking out the tree to the pile so it's sitting on the ground, someone threw it off the porch.

Yesterday the temp was over 40 so there was a lot of melting snow. Friday we're supposed to get rain and freezing rain and this weekend looks like it will be in the 50's which we are really looking forward to!

Our "polar vortex" was experienced, it seemed, a day before anyone elses. Sunday felt so much worse than Monday by far even though the still temp on Monday was below zero degrees. Sunday's wind however was just awful. The animals are just fine, plenty of extra bedding and feed and no one seems worse for the wear. I don't know what the final reading was Monday morning but it was something like -17 to -20 with windchill. It honestly didn't feel that bad but then again, there was hardly any wind.

We need to get on wood splitting this weekend and it should be a dandy time for it...unless everything is covered in ice that is! We're working out way through the wood quick but on that note, Sunday night with the cold temps, the wood stove did well! I didn't set the thermostat or turn on the furnace. I wanted to see how the stove did with as cold a night as it was. We stocked it well before going to bed. The rest of the house was sitting at about 68 in the hall -with the living room being much warmer of course- and by 6 AM it had fallen to 58 (which is about where I have the furnace kick on). So, even with the bitterly cold outside, the stove is a fine job keeping the house reasonably comfortable for sleeping, for us. It took a while to warm it back up Monday but our old stove would have failed pretty miserably unless stocked several times in the night.

Time to get out and do chores. Happy Wednesday.