Posts from — July 2010

Worked from 4:00 to 10:00 last night, came home and milked the goats and then was up until around midnight.  For those of you who know me, you know that’s way, way, way, way past my bedtime.  Even though I went to bed so late, I was still up at 6:00 AM.  Running on six hours of sleep is not good.  I feel quite fried and I have to do it again today and tomorrow.  I’m off Sunday, then back to work on Monday.  My feet and back are sore from standing.  I guess in time, I’ll adjust and I’m taking it easy on myself until I do.

Oh well, it’s a job and there’s the possibility of full-time hours which includes benefits.  Not sure how I feel about working full-time at Walgreen’s, but it’s a job and in this economy, jobs are hard to come by so I feel lucky that I have it.  It’s a shame that I’m wasting 25 years of paralegal training.  The atmosphere is a lot more positive than Wal-Mart ever was and you can cross train for anything you want so at least it will be somewhat challenging.

This Sunday, we hope to get two more beds dug and built in the main garden in preparation for fall planting.  We also need to get the back field cross-fenced, but that may need to wait another week as the hay hasn’t been baled yet.  The goats are starting to do well with staying out in the side and front pasture and I noticed yesterday that their milk is taking on a creamier color which is indicative of their consumption of browse rather than hay.

Gwen is doing well in her new digs.  The plan is to put the small (10 x 10) ShelterLogic building down in the area that we she is now residing, starting to feed her in there and then when she freshens, milk her in there.  Originally, I wanted to be able to milk her in the same building that I milk the goats in, but moving her back and forth with a calf may not be feasible.  I really only have to carry a bucket and a wash bucket down to where she is and that shouldn’t be too difficult.  There’s no reason to make her do any more walking than she has to.  She’s been spending a good deal of time in the woods and I assume she’s taking advantage of the huge variety of vegetation available to her.  She’s in good condition and already starting to bag up.

I have to go and get in the shower and get ready to leave for work.  It will be good when the paycheck comes.

Until later …

Headed out to drive to Hickory to do some shopping and Yoda wouldn’t start!!!  Seems his battery is dead.  Great.  I’ll have to wait until Wally gets home to see about jumping him and then I guess we’ll be buying a battery.  We just got through with getting a battery and new tires for Wally’s truck.  Expenses just keep rolling in.

Oh well, I’ve been spending the time working on a web site for the farm.  A lot of work still needs to be done on it, but it’s live now.

I’m busting my tailbone sitting on a wooden chair at the computer.

Saw a news clip this morning that said that people who have a sit-down job live shorter lives.  Maybe I don’t want to go back to being a paralegal!

Until later …

it’s raining, a wonderful, steady shower and I start work tomorrow.

The goats are out in the side pasture and I’m sure they are not at all happy about it raining.  They won’t die and there’s plenty of shelter out there for them: then just need to leave the fence line to find it.

Off to buy a pair of the required solid white sneakers.

Until later …

We got the air conditioning fixed yesterday afternoon.  Damned, I hate that we rely so much on it, but it was heaven finally being cool in the house.  I hadn’t taken a shower during the day, it hardly seemed worth it.  As hot as it was in the house, the minute you get out of the shower, you are sweating again.  I took one around 6:00 and it felt wonderful to be clean and cool, at least until I went back out to milk and care for the animals at which point I was sweaty and gross again.

It rained a little bit last night and we are supposed to get more rain today … hoping for rain, lots of rain, lots and lots of rain.  It’s so dry here.

We walked down into the back pasture and walked off the width of it to see how much fence we’d need to cross fence it: about 300 feet.  I think for now, we’ll use the ElectroNet, but eventually, we’ll fence it with rebar posts and three strands of electric rope or wire, which will be a lot less maintenance.

I spent a good deal of time yesterday working on a web page for www.spellcastfarm.com.  It overworked my under worked brain.  I haven’t worked with html or stylesheets in some time.  It looks good so far, but it still needs a lot of work.  Hopefully I can put some time into it today and then I need to harass my service provider to get him to point the domain name to the right place.  Primary goal today is getting some house cleaning done.

Ticks have made a reappearance.  I think it’s because Gel has been going down into the back fields with us quite a bit lately.  Perhaps with the hay being cut, it will help.  I hate ticks, especially those little seed-sized ones.  Agh!  Vacuuming would help … Another problem with going out into the back fields is that I’ve got patches of poison ivy rash on various parts of my body.  Agh!

Off to milk.

Until later …

I just got in from watering.  I have an interesting method for watering.  We have a several hoses connected together for a total length of 300 feet.  You can imagine how heavy it is so I drag it (carefully) with the ATV.  First I watered the newly sprouted carrots.  Then I dragged the house (brain fried from the heat) hose down to the main garden to water the newly planted zucchini and green beans.  Then off to water the horses and Gwen.  After that, back up to the goat pasture to water the goats, calf and chickens.  Finally, I drag the house (Wally wouldn’t like to know that I dragged the house with the ATV) hose up to the pig pen and let it run in the pen until they have a mud puddle to wallow in during the day.

After I finished watering, I got a plastic tub and headed back down into the garden to gather the pile of weeds and dead tomato plants that I pulled yesterday afternoon.  I must be getting acclimated to the heat because I was out working in the garden around 4:00; something I haven’t done even with the A/C available.  If all goes well, we’ll construct one or two more raised beds this weekend.

Rosemoon wrote on Facebook asking how people without A/C dealt with this heat.  We don’t exactly not have A/C, we have the window unit in the bedroom, but it doesn’t do a whole lot to make this house bearable.  It’s hard to keep a cardboard house that sits smack-dab in the middle of an open field with no shade cool.  Yesterday afternoon, we had mega fans running.  The house was all but shaking from the vibration and the noise was deafening.  All they were really doing was moving hot air around, but it was better than no air circulation.

I wrote several days ago about adapting my cooking to be more in line with the season.  Life without A/C made sure of that.  I haven’t turned the stove on in days.  On Friday, I picked a huge basket of tomatoes with the intention of canning them, but they got fed to the pigs.  No way was the stove going on to can.  I found a wonderful recipe for tomato pie and I really want to make it (I bought what ingredients I didn’t have on hand); but again, no way is the oven going on.  Maybe once the A/C is fixed I’ll make it.

Well, I best get out there and milk.

Until later …

Most of this weekend was delegated to fencing, well, I shouldn’t say that, a lot of the weekend was spent trying to stay cool.  It’s been rough.  Yesterday was particularly bad.  I think today, I just resigned myself to being hot and it didn’t seem so bad.  A neighbor let us borrower a window air conditioner which we put in the bedroom.  Last night, I brought the television and DVD player into the bedroom (usually a taboo) and we watched a movie and ate a cold supper on the bed.  Tonight, we “roughed it” and stayed in the main part of the house, again eating a cold supper.  As I write this, I’m in the bedroom with the window A/C and two fans going and it’s barely cool enough to have the lap top on my lap.  Hopefully tomorrow the central air will be fixed.

This weekend has made me realize we need to rely a lot less on artificial heating and cooling and becoming more off-grid.

I have to say, Wally did most of the fencing work.  Not only did we get the back pasture fenced, but we also got the rear part of the property where the house sits on fenced for Gwen.  We used rebar posts and a single strand of electric rope.  In addition to the paddock, we ran a line along the horse paddock to keep a certain gray shithead from leaning over the fence.  You should have seen the two of them running after we installed the electric line.  We sat on the front steps, drank beer and watched the show, which show included a bit of lightening, the puppies playing, chickens catching June bugs, etc.

It is interesting watching the interactions between Mica and his sister Bella, and the differences between the two.  Bella has become so “citified.”  While we were working on the electric fence this evening, Bella was in the paddock with Gwen a few times.  She looked at her, as if to say, “hello, what are you?” and kept on walking.  Her goal in life while she’s here is to schmooze with the cats.  Mica, on the other hand, has this predatory look in his eyes and posture when he’s near stock. Bella seems to enjoy getting dirty and fighting with her brother over food, but I don’t think she’d cut it as a farm dog.

I had intended on writing a lot more, but I’m beat.  This has been an eventful, growing and busy weekend.

Until later …

Good news: fencing is done.  It almost killed us, but it’s done.

BAD NEWS:  Air conditioning went out last night and it won’t be able to be fixed this weekend.  It’s going to be pretty ugly here for a few days.  Luckily, the landlords are out of town and their cabin has A/C.  We’ll be camping out down there.

Sweating already.

Until later …

I went to an interview yesterday at a local Walgreens for a part-time job in the photo department.  I got hired on the spot!!!!  Whoo hooo!  Sure, it’s a low-paying job, but it ought to be more challenging and rewarding than working at Wal-Mart.  I’d go and live under a rock before I took another job at Wal-Mart.  I like the manager and got on well with her so maybe this will turn into something.  Apparently it takes a good amount of computer skill to do this job so maybe if I liked it, it would work into more of a department manager or supervisory role, especially with a new Walgreens opening up here in Lincolnton.  It’s only 20 hours a week, which is great because it will enable me to get back into the habit of working on a smaller scale.

The fencing job on the ten acre pasture in the back is almost done!!!  That wonderful, fabulous man of mine took both Thursday and Friday off to get it done.  If all goes well (meaning if we can tolerate the heat long enough) it will be done today.

In addition to the fencing being almost complete, finally, the pasture is going to be mowed and baled later today which will mean we’ll be able to set the cross fence so I can put the goats and calf down there during the day.

Bad news: it’s bloody, freaking hot here, as it is in a lot of places.  As I write this, Wally is down back pulling the fence.  I am still in the house because I put turkey breast in the oven to roast.  I’ll use the meat for salads, etc.  Around lunch time, we need to drive to Hickory so I can get a drug test done, deliver milk and eggs and maybe get another load of sawdust.  When we get back from Hickory, we’ll hole up in the house for the rest of the day.  It’s too hot outside to do anything else.  I put the goats and calf out in the front pasture yesterday and I expect they were miserable the whole day.  I’ll probably relent and leave them up today.  You know it’s hot when the air conditioning is already on at 7:45 AM.

Next year, or maybe as early as late summer and fall, I’d like to expand out my milk and cheese offerings to include organic, heirloom vegetables. I was thinking about doing an e-mail with link to an on-line form with the offerings I have available. A local farm is doing a similar form which is where I got the idea. Along with the e-mail, I thought I’d add links and photos to recipes using the ingredients I had available. Wally said that would take a lot of time, and I agree, but if I did some of the leg work now, when I have the time, it would be all set and ready to go for next year. I know what vegetables I’m going to plant next year so I can start to accumulate recipes and get it all set up so I can send it out. Heck, I could start it on a small scale now with what I have available now (tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes) and what I plan to plant for the fall.

I ordered more heirloom seeds for the fall.  I so excited about trellising vegetable plants, I thought I’d try to start a couple of heirloom zucchini plants so I ordered Cocozella Di Napoli and Zucchino Rampicante, both Italian heirloom varieties.  I know the Zucchino Rampicante will trellis well and can be used as a winter squash as it’s more cold tolerant than other types of summer squash.  I love, love, love Cocozella Di Napoli squash.  Formerly, I was not a fan of zucchini, but the Cocozella Di Napoli changed my mind.

Lots of things to think about; lots of good things going on.

Until later …

When I went out to pick some cucumbers and tomatoes for my lunch, I brought the camera along with me.  About time I got these photos taken.  The raised beds have been a very rewarding project.

The photo below shows the two raised beds we’ve installed in the main garden.  The bed in the foreground is minimally planted.  I’ll be putting in beets and other fall vegetables in the next month or so.  The bed in the background is well planted.  There are dwarf (supposedly) sunflowers planted on the right (north side) and trellised cucumbers on the right.  Also in the garden is rosemary, sage and green beans.

Here is a close-up of the minimally planted bed.  We are experimenting with using a piece of cattle panel to hold the tomato plants up.  These are young plants which will hopefully bear fruit in another month.  Beside the bed are tomato plants in field fence cages, a very bad idea as harvesting the tomatoes is difficult, at best.

Volunteer, trellised butternut squash, wilting in the heat.

Trellised cucumbers:

Think I need to pick tomatoes?

The two raised beds near the house.  The one in the foreground has sweet potatoes and carrots planted.  The one in the background is reserved for lettuce.  Both of these beds will be covered by plastic when it gets cold and utilized all winter.  If all goes well, I’ll start tomato seedlings in the lower garden, in beds under plastic as well.

Every year I learn more about gardening.  Next year, I’ll stagger tomato plants so I don’t have a huge crop all at once.  I’m on the fence about canning them.  I canned almost 50 quarts of tomatoes last year and we ate them all winter, we’re still eating them.  Canning uses a tremendous amount of electricity, especially when I bake the tomatoes to make sauce to can.  Perhaps this year I’ll raw pack them … I’m going to have to do something with all of the tomatoes that are in the garden right now.

Trellising cucumbers worked excellent, except next year I’ll plant the cucumber plants closer to where I’m going to install the cattle panel.  I can’t wait to finish the rest of the beds in the main garden.  It will make the garden so much easier to manage.

I’ll plant the sunflowers along the fence of the north side of the garden.