Lets Build an Ark!

It’s really unfair.  We are getting sooooo much rain that we really don’t need.  At least not all at once.  And my friends in Texas are parched and dry and catching on fire.

The fires have consumed homes, barns, animals, vehicles, farm equipment, and more.

The earth is so dry in Texas that the heat from cars is starting fires.  Everything is starting fires.  And here in Virginia we are trying not to drown.

Alignment, it seems, is hard to find.  Hard to orchestrate.  Hard to get right.  Love is abundant in some, while not wanted in others.  Grass is so plentiful in some places that horses founder on it, where in others, the livestock is starving.

I have a knife, but it’s too small….a gun, but I don’t know how to use it.  I’m thin, but not in shape, I’ve an expensive haircut, but no time to make it right.

What I’m getting at…is nothing….it’s been this way forever.  Just now, people have the luxury of time to think about it.

My dream last night put me in a city with big apartments on a curved street, but I did not know where I was nor who I was going to visit.  Beauty, yes, what to do with it?  I had no idea.

Every where you turn, somebody has the answer for us…thing is…we really don’t know the question.

If this life were so easy, I’d already have an ark ready-made in my backyard, just beckoning me to board and wait out the storm.

Getting Rid of Snakes and Other Homesteading Advice

There are all sorts of old wives tales for keeping snakes away and scaring them away once they are on your property.  I’ve found that the best way to get rid of them is to corner them right after they have eaten a meal of chicks or eggs, when they are a little sluggish, and is the only time I see them anyway, and then catch them!

I can usually handle them just enough to get them into a feed bag and then tie the top up tight, after which they go into a five gallon bucket with a tight fitting lid, and then it’s into the back of the pick up and they are re-homed in an isolated area with no houses or chickens.  They will always manage to get out of the bag while in the bucket, so be prepared for that when removing the lid.  They won’t be happy either!

Don’t ever put a snake in a bag in your car without it being in a bucket with a lid…unless you really WANT to run your car off the road into a ditch.  There are better ways of turning snakes loose.

As far as other homesteading advice……

Always cover your outdoor-stored hay, even if the sun is shinning brightly when you leave in the morning.  If you don’t it will surely pour down rain before you get home in the afternoon.  On the other hand, if you WANT it to rain, leave your hay uncovered.  It worked nicely for us yesterday.  We probably got a good 3 inches before I got the hay bales covered.

If you stop on the way home at a fast food restaurant and eat, and then feel like you are suddenly covered with ticks from head to toe, don’t panic.  Calmly pull the car over to the side of the road and examine your itches.  My itches yesterday were simply a really bad case of hives…..caused by something I ate at an Arby’s restaurant I am assuming.  A Benadryl tablet and a nap cured them without incident.

If you have baby birds living in the pillars on your front porch, don’t stick your face up too close to try and see the babies.  You quite likely with have your face badoozled by a mad mother or father bird as they exit their nest in a panic.

Don’t try to fix your electric fence in a thunderstorm.

If the goats wake you up in the morning by knocking at your front door for milking, don’t make it a habit to give in to their manipulation or you will soon be milking them in your living room on THEIR schedule, which is probably more than twice a day, and those times will certainly be most inconvenient, like at  4am, or just as you’re getting ready to leave for work, or right after your evening shower, just as you are getting into bed…..no matter if they were milked just 2 hours ago. 

If it’s over 90 degrees outside, the inside air temperature in your house will likely rise about 20 degrees over that right after 4pm, so if you plan to spend a restful evening in your living room watching tv or reading, you really will need to put an air conditioner unit in….and preferrably BEFORE July or August rolls around…after that, the sheer effort of getting the thing in the window will cause you to sweat so much that you will likely short it out before it ever gets plugged in. 

Clothes hung on the line outdoors DO NOT dry quickly when the humidity is high. In fact, they often do not dry at all, and will begin to sour in a matter of hours.  However, the sourness does not bother black ants or other bugs which will quickly make homes in your line-dried clothing.

When getting rid of a wasp nest, the number of cans of spray you will need to do the job is directly related to the size of the nest.  I’d advise about 1 can of spray for every inch your nest is wide.  So, if you have a nest that measures approximately 10 inches wide, you will need about 10 cans of wasp spray.  And the spray will probably need to be repeated every night for 10 nights or so…after which either you or the wasps will be dead, and it doesn’t matter who goes first, without either one of you, the other party can live in peace.

All holes, tears, etc. in those big, long, orange, extension cords should be repaired immediately.  Don’t wait until you are using it, and get zapped when handling the thing.  It’s just not worth it. 

To get rid of ants…..well, I’m not sure the best way, we’ve tried all ways, but have settled on sevin dust sprinkled at the base of all the wall joints in the house.  It works, but I’m not sure how long we’ll live…..

And that’s about it for my homesteading advice for the day.  I’d love to hear your comments and if you have any advice I can include in a future post, please pass it along.

Meet Pearl, The Chicken Egg Setting Guinea Hen

I just got a new charger for my camera, so now I can take pictures again and the first thing I thought I’d do is introduce you to Pearl, our guinea hen that had been sitting on her clutch of unfertilized eggs for over 2 months, until one day she got off her nest and I decided to replace her dud eggs with a dozen fresh chicken eggs that had not yet found their way into refridgeration.

So far it’s been 11 days, and although she moved the nest about 10 inches from it’s original spot, she’s continued to set on the new eggs as if they were her own.  She’s got them in an old pickup canopy completely protected from the weather.  It’s under a stand of cedar trees so it’s nice and cool too.

This is Pearl. She was being visited by a couple of chickens, but stepped forward to say hi when I stuck my head in with the camera.

Pearl sitting on her chicken eggs. She's looking back to say "hi"!

This is Pearl under her canopy. She's got a good view with windows all around. She can see right out over the horse pasture. Course, the windows are little dirty...

Only 10 more days and we’ll know if the new clutch of eggs was a success or bust.  She really deserves these chicks, no matter that they’re chickens, I think she’ll love them just the same!

Related articles

• Guinea Hen Switcheroo Update (shantara.wordpress.com)
• The Old “Switcheroo” (shantara.wordpress.com)
• Today’s Homesteading Report (shantara.wordpress.com)

Southern Gardens

Since moving into a home we actually own and don’t plan to move away from any time soon, I’ve got the gardening bug a little more earnestly than in previous years….well, except the year before last when I actually had a neighbor with a tractor plow my garden, but unfortunately, it was taken over by bugs…and then last year CG spent an afternoon with a shovel, only to have a few turnips to show for it.

And they were for the goats!

We’ve got tomatoes this year.  Quite a few of them.  In red, yellow, plum, etc.  Not quiet the wide variety I’d envisioned, but the plants I planted are growing and actually thriving and DO have tomatoes on them!

We’ve also got some basil, thyme, pennyroyal and oregano, plus a really nice stand of highly fragranced lemon balm, which we accidentally rolled one of the water barrels over.  We were moving the water barrels from in front of the garage, to the garden area and decided we’d keep as much water in them as possible since they had filled up before we even put them in place.

A 50 gallon drum of water isn’t too easy to control, and we watched helplessly as our jumped off the dolly and smashed the loveliest patch of herb in the garden!

The whole garden smelled like lemon balm for quite a while, and even though it was crushed, it seems to have mended itself back together and is smiling in the sunshine just like before.

The thing I like about gardening in the south is that we have such a long season.  We’ve yet to plan our corn or cucumbers.  That was error on my part….not layering enough garden early enough to make suitable beds for either….there is ground ready now and we are about to plant it.

We’ve done the whole thing without tilling.  We’ve used tons of mulch and composted manure and rarely does it need water, except for the herbs and onions which were planted in hay on top of the ground. They get a little limpy now and then.

I was also hoping to avoid certain pests by making some planting later in the season.  Well, I didn’t initially plan it that way, but we’ll see if it works 🙂

Another thing about Southern Gardens is that you really do need to get in them either early in the morning or late in the evening unless you can stand sweating non-stop.  With little mid-day breeze and very high humidity, if you can survive your garden mid-day, you’re a whole lot tougher than me!

Zen In The Art of Homesteading

Have you ever wanted to get back to the land?

Have you ever attempted to follow the movement, jumped on the bicycle and pedaled straight as an arrow  into the homesteading headlights?

Have you at last  found yourself flat broke, destitute, without a hammer, a nail or a single live chicken?

Did that one last trip to the feed store break your bank and your  back, both at the same time?

Did you give up on the free and easy way of living and run, tail tucked between your legs, back to the city life, content to frequent farmers markets and road side fruit stands, never to complain again about the outrageous prices of non factory-farmed meats?

What a  glorious day I’m imagining that was for you.  No more manure to shovel, no ten thousand waiting mouths to feed morning and night, stuffed between a full time job and twice a day milkings….and who has time to make cheese or separate cream after all the “work’ is done?

After sweating a long month and then some to buy that beautiful saddle, finally, I’m just too tired to ride.

And after spending hours and hours removing label glue from recycled jugs with paint thinner so I can pour my home-made laundry soap into them to sell,  I realize that my profit will be a mere $32 dollars for all my labor, labels, measuring, stirring, mixing, and love.

I decide they are better suited to sit forever on my own laundry shelf.  A nice decoration for an otherwise dreary room.

About that time of an evening, any evening, just before the goats start to call and then impatiently jump the plastic electric fence, knocking it over again, and I find them waiting for me on the front porch for  milking, I realize that I can not find the Zen anywhere at all on my homestead.

It’s lost, and the peaceful, blissful, easily sustainable life I thought I’d found here goes flying out the open barn door.

And I become, for a moment, very sad.  But in the sunshine and country air, sadness does not last like it can in the city.  The dull ache of being surround by a million people who don’t give a whit about you, does not exist on shaded country roads, where your “neighbors” are ten miles away and everyone you meet on the road waves you by.

And all is not lost.  We’re still here, scratching our Zen life out in the dirt, bit by bit.  I’m determined the goats WILL stay in their fences without me having to rush madly to and fro to turn the electric fence box off and on.

And of a morning, any morning, right about the time the first rooster starts to crow,  the Zen I’d lost the night before comes wandering home again.  And the soft shades of a sleepy dawn remind me that I’m in charge of the Zen around here.  And if I say it stays, if I say WE stay, we and it and all of ours will stay right put.

And we will “plant our own garden and water our own soul” and insist on the life we want, and make it so.

Today’s Homesteading Report

You want to know what I think are just the cutest little things in the world?

Baby chicks and their mamas.

We’ve got them hatching out all over.

The hens, not being very bright at all, decided to set on eggs in the second story of the egg-laying boxes.  I didn’t know how they thought they might get their babies down from there,  so I moved them down to the first level where the chicks just have to step over the little front panel that holds the straw and eggs in the box.

Two of the hens are still there, but the one with the chicks that hatched out day before yesterday was gone when I went to check them early this morning.   She had abandoned the rest of the eggs which had not hatched yet, but luckily were taken over by another broody hen….who abandoned HER small clutch in favor of a bigger one whose eggs were pipping already.

I found the lost hen and her chicks in one of the goat yards later this morning, sunning themselves.  Luckily they chose the goat yard with only 2 lazy goats in it and not the yard with the woods pen attached that contains three bratty kids and a mean old doe.

They might have been in a lot of trouble then.

I’m hoping that out of about 400 eggs, I can get at least 20 chicks.  I never seem to have good luck with chicks raised by their mama’s around here.  They tend to drown in water buckets,  or just disappear, although  I can’t remember a single one ever getting stepped on by a goat or horse, even though they like to peck around the horse feet.

I think the horses like the chicks too and try to be careful of them.

I won’t comment on the goats, except to say that the chicks better WATCH OUT for them.

I’ve also got a guinea  setting on a clutch of eggs.  I don’t think that’s going to turn out very well.  She (or he, don’t know which it is)  has been seen inside the truck canopy under the cedar trees where the eggs were laid in a big nest, off and on, and finally she’s now mostly on.  The eggs would get warm, then freeze for awhile, then get warm again.

Plus, they’re  a mixture of guinea and chicken eggs.

Wasn’t a swan accidentally raised by a duck in the story of  “The Ugly Duckling”?  In this case the ugly duckling will be raising the swans.

Maybe it won’t turn out so bad.

The one good thing about it is that instead of roosting in the cedars above our outdoor-stored hay, she’s now setting on the eggs in the canopy all night.  One guinea can create a huge mess by morning, making morning feedings pretty gross sometimes.

I finally got jugs ordered for the laundry detergent I made in March.  It was a new recipe and I decided to let it cure for awhile before trying to use it.  I started using it yesterday and found that it dissolves wonderfully in water and leaves no residue on clothes.

If the jugs get here in the two days promised, I’ll have them available at the Lynchburg Market on Saturday.  I’m not sure of the price yet.  The jugs are just about $2.00 each with shipping.  I’ll be happy to refill your jug in the future with more laundry soap.

I also have powered laundry soap available but need to redo the packaging.  I just wasn’t very happy with it.

I’ve also got some liquid soap made, but it requires a 6-8 month cure time.  It should be ready in October.  Hopefully I can get some more made since the cure time is so long, but it also requires cooking over a low fire on a woodstove for 3 days….much to hot for that right now!

I got new herbs planted.  Basil, lemon balm, cilantro, thyme, oregano, and pennyroyal, plus some more tomatoes in orange, yellow and cherry.  I also moved some clumps of peppermint from the back of the house to the front.  Hopefully the move won’t kill them.

I’ve got tons more peppermint.  If you’d like some plants, let me know and I’ll dig some up for you.  I really have no idea if they are peppermint or spearmint and no clue on variety.  They were here when we moved in and smell wonderful.

There are tons of the stuff  in the goat pasture, but they don’t like them.  Good thing is, bugs don’t like them either and so they grow very well and are very healthy.

I’ve heard it takes a lot to kill peppermint.

And that’s just about it for today.

Happy farming and gardening!

Bigfoot….He’s in Your Backyard!

Someone I know has a Bigfoot.

It’s hard to believe, but true.

So, knowing that if there is one Bigfoot in the world, there are two, and where there are two, there are Bigfoot children and grandchildren, aunts, uncles and cousins.

I want a Bigfoot too.  My very own.

Or at least I think I do.

I did some research online, just to make sure it’s okay to have them around.

There is an awful lot of Bigfoot info, sightings, photos, and whatnot on the internet.  I’d almost say the internet invented Bigfoot, but since he’s been around since the dawn of humans, at least according to Indian cave paintings and legends,  I guess he can’t be an internet invention.

I learned that Bigfoots have a special affinity for horses.

Well, I have horses.

I read that they braid horse manes and tails.

I’ve become convinced that Bigfoot made a big mess out of both my mares manes, which took me two days and a bath to fix.   He not only braided them, but tied them in knots so tight I had to buy a special shampoo and a rat-tailed comb to untie them.

And he won’t stay out of their water troughs.  I constantly find pine cones, goat berries, walnuts, cedar bark, sticks, drowned bugs and baby chicks floating in the tanks, which are always half empty, and the ground is soaked like children have been playing in the water.

My horses hate getting their feet wet, and have never played in their water troughs. Ever.

So, based on my internet learnings, and my own observations, I decided to go looking in the forest for more evidence and to meet my Bigfoot, in case I have one.

I thought I’d offer him some goat cheese since I have so much of it right now.

I left the cheese in the woods on a plate.

I checked again 3 days later and not even the bugs had touched it.

Whatever.

Anyway, I found a chewed up foam mattress scattered all over the place, a few pots and pans around an old fire pit, lots of alcohol bottles and some ladies shoes.

If Bigfoot is an alcoholic I think I’ve got him made, but I doubt he wears shoes, even the girl Bigfoots, and I’ve not heard of them using fire.

But, they are probably on the evolutionary upswing, so it’s possible.

I didn’t get to see any of them in person though.  I was  thinking if they are nocturnal, maybe I’d run up on a pile of them sleeping in the woods during the day?

I’m still wondering what happened to that Bigfoot they showed on TV a couple years ago that they captured and put in a freezer.

Did they let him go?

While I was making observation notes, I remembered that last summer I found a dead rooster at the back of the goat pasture.  Based on my new knowledge I figure that Bigfoot caught the rooster, wrung his neck, and was getting ready to jump the fence and head back home with an easy dinner when our massive, white hairy, livestock guardian dog, Malachai woke up and startled the heck out of the Bigfoot who then dropped his rooster on the way out and never came back to get it.

All in a days work for Malachai, who has apparently become close friends with the Bigfoot since the rooster incident, and has been letting him braid his hair.

My advice is that if you have a dog with hair 5 inches long, you don’t let Bigfoot mess with it.  You’ll never be able to untangle the mess.  He likes to decorate his braids with briars and bits of pine bark and needles with lots of dirt thrown in.  He apparently eats the  fleas though as we haven’t been able to find a single flea or even a tick on either one of the dogs.

I guess that would be the only benefit to letting Bigfoot play with your dog.

Inconclusive as this may seem, I’m still set on finding our Bigfoot.  I’m going to try some eggs the next time for bait.  A few boiled and peeled as well as raw.  They are getting pretty hard to find  around here  since 5 of the 8 hens we have went broody and are setting on approximately 400 eggs.  I tried to set each one up with a dozen, but that wasn’t good enough, they kept on collecting more and more and are now having an egg-setting party.  The first chicks are hatching right now.

I don’t think even Bigfoot would dare cross one of those mean old hens to take one of her chicks.

And, since I haven’t been able to see Bigfoot in MY backyard, I’m assuming he must be in YOURS!

Have you seen him?  If so, please send him home.  I’d really like him to try my cheese.

Mary Oliver, You Elude Me

Yesterday, after doing a few horse feet, I was hungry and tired and decided to eat a sandwich at The Drugstore Grill  in Brookneal. (Va.)

I’d had one of their rib-eye sandwiches on Saturday, at the wine festival, and it was so good I was eager for another.

Only, they were closed.

So I went to another restaurant in town, The Golden Skillet, to which I had never been.  I  wanted to sit inside and read the paper, but I was out of quarters for the paper machine, so I picked up an Ophra Magazine off the little table just inside the door to read instead.

It was the April edition and it was Ophra’s  poetry edition, and Mary Oliver, the very famous nature poet, had  granted Maria Shriver an interview.

Mary Oliver rarely does interviews.

I was so inspired by Mary and her words that I immediately came home and searched for the one book of her poetry that I own thanks to my days at Randolf Macon Women’s College.

We had studied Mary at length and she was my favorite poet by far that year.

But, like any other disorganized farm-business woman, I, of course, could not find that very thing that I was looking for.

I did, however, find my tax forms, receipts, etc . from 2010 that I had stashed and lost and actually had to file an extension because of it.

And I found some lost hoof boots, a box of soap, $20 in change, three pillows, a book on Reiki and another book by Ray Bradbury about writing, and even found some music CD’s I thought I accidentally given to  Good Will.

I did not, however, find Mary Olivers book of poetry.

So I had to look up her poetry on line, just to joggle my memory of some of the beautiful things she’s written.

In her interview she told Maria about the walks she takes and how she always carries a notebook with her because thoughts are so fleeting.

My problem is that I can’t even remember to take the notebook with me.

I’ve hen-scratched just about every blank spot on every piece of paper in this whole house, but finding the particular hen scratch I want, when I want it, is just about impossible.  Whoever invented notebooks was a genius.  Of course, I cannot figure out a way to permanently attach a pen with ink in it to the notebook and writing with mud or blood has never worked out well for me.

Anyway, I plan to keep looking for Mary Oliver’s book of poems, and if you get the chance you should definitely buy the April Poetry Edition of O Magazine.  The whole thing is quite an inspiration, and not just for writers, but for anyone who has ever held a dream close to their heart.

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Related articles

• Maria Shriver Interviews Mary Oliver (beaconbroadside.com)
• Mary Oliver: Many Miles (beaconbroadside.com)

Growing Onions in Hay

I’m a wanna-be gardener.  Never really good at it, and I lack essential tools of that trade, like a garden tiller and such.

But, wanting to get into growing more of our own food, I came upon a cool idea whereby you layer paper and then mulches such as old hay, manure, compost, etc.  We’ve probably got more manure, old hay, paper feed bags, old boxes, etc. than anybody needs, so this type of gardening sounded just perfect for me.  Best of all, by layering, you do not need to till.

I started the layering a couple months ago and I will say that when I pulled the mulch and paper back, it was a wonderful planting medium underneath.  A couple weeks ago I decided to set my onions right in the hay and not go down to soil level.  The hay was old and wet and partially broken down.  I checked on the onions and they have all started popping up through the hay!  I did plant them a little close, but they should be far enough apart to grow a decent size onion.

When I planted the tomatoes I decided to go down to soil level and set the plants in the dirt.  Once that was done, and it only required digging back a  small amount of soft dirt, I then mounded wet and then dry hay around the plants, right up to the leaves.  They seem to be doing very well.

If I get out to the store today I will get a new manure fork.  The handle broke off my old one, and although I have two extra handles for it, no amount of W-D40 has been able to loosen that screw that needs to come out so I can put the handle in.  So…I’m buying a new one and have tons and tons of rotted manure that can go in the garden.  Some of it is in a pile, mixed with hay and is growing grass over top of it!

And my manure tea is still sitting in a bucket waiting to be sprayed…kinda scared of that big stinky bucket though.  I have to strain the stuff before I can put it in the sprayer…sounds like a disgusting job!  I’m not sqeamish at all, but some things are too much even for me.

Happy Gardening.

Spring Showers Bring….Mud

I get all happy when we go a few days without rain and the horse paddocks start drying up, but then we have thunderstorms, 1000 inches of rain and a dozen or so tornadoes, and then the mud problem  starts all over again.

We  graveled  in a new driveway that goes about 50 feet closer to the goat shed, but having a horse in the wooded lot between the goat shed and the driveway means a lot of mud and I still can’t get the truck down there to unload feed.  Yukko.

Since fencing is a priority right now, the footing will have to wait, but once the fencing goes up the horse will be out on the new pasture so hopefully putting up fencing will solve our mud problem.

I’ve noticed that some farms in some areas have sand as their basic dirt, rather than the red clay/mud soil we have here.  It’s interesting how the topography changes in just a few miles of travel.  I’m thinking I would rather have the sandier soil.  At least it dries out faster.

The good news about the mud is that if we ever need to build a mud hut, we’ll have plenty on hand, and plenty of 1000 pound mud-makers too.  The goats aren’t very good at making mud.  They are better at making milk, which tastes better than mud any day.

Dream news: I will admit to being attacked by my dreams early this morning.  I dreamt of watching twisted tornadoes coming straight out of the mountains and running up and down the road tearing up stuff.  I’ve always heard tornadoes don’t get going good in the mountains, but according to my dream, they actually originate there!

Who knew?

Oh, and did ever I mention that I finally bought a new coffee pot a couple weeks ago?  Since we no longer have the wood fire going, which is where I fixed my coffee in one of those old tin pots, and we have not yet replaced the kitchen stove…I’ve had to fix my coffee in the microwave.  That has been a mess to say the least.  I use regular coffee, not instant.  The microwave just was not designed for that.  But, my milk filters work great for getting coffee grounds out of my cup.

Stove news: We’ve been looking.  We found a $900 dollar stove at Lowes marked down to $600 because it had been taken out of the box, and almost bought it, but CG wanted to wait and see if we could get a better deal.  We had not planned to spend that much, so it was still a little over budget, but they will mark it down every week until sold.

We’ve tentatively decided on a gas stove.  I like the fact that the burners are infinitely adjustable with gas and that I can still cook and pasteurize milk, make soap, etc. if the power  goes off.  Yes, the wood stove also works for those things, but is much less predictable as far as the heat goes.

We’ll have to see.  On top of the stove being more expensive, we also have to pay to have it hooked up and then buy propane for it.  We’ve planned to put a propane heater back in that area anyway because the heat from the wood stove just doesn’t get back that far, so we need the hookup anyway.

And right now the goats need milking.

Related articles

• Country Chronicles: He’s back! (melissafeddersen.com)
• Mud (melissafeddersen.com)