Re-cap fall and winter 2015

Well, obviously, I have been so enthralled with the ease of posting on Instagram that I've ignored my good ol' blog. So, for those of you who don't follow me on Instagram, here's a recap of the last months of 2015.

My time was taken up by continuing the development of the native and edible plant gardens through the rest of the summer. (I enjoyed the "fruits" of my labor A LOT)

Our raspberry hedge was a big producer and picking was enjoyed by all of us.

Aronia berry scones. The Aronia (chokeberry) bushes were also producing in their first year and are super-easy to grow.
We were happy to discover that, when cooked, they taste just like blueberries.

I also expanded the chicken coop to aid in amiable chicken relationships through the winter. Our two roosters and 12 hens seem to be making it work in their new space. But Donny, our head rooster, developed a very protective attitude while we were away on our late summer trip to Italy (yes, it was a blast!).

Construction of the coop addition required a rooster barricade!

Brent devised a portable solar charging station that houses the inverter, charge controller and battery. We are still working on right-sizing our systems. But it will certainly be handy for keeping water thawed in the winter and running the small pumps for the cisterns in the summer.

Portable solar battery charging system. Notice the expanded coop in the background.

The biggest accomplishment: The Greenhouse! It's done :-)

Figuring out the windows/framing walls

Brent on the roof matching up the peaks/creating flashing

All closed up!

Of course, there was a TON more to it than these pictures show. Brent worked every spare minute and even took time off of his full-time day job to make sure the space was done before the cold set in. And I couldn't be more pleased to have this invaluable part of our farm infrastructure functioning. It's been an awesome place to work.

My own big accomplishment last fall was the establishment of the first of our vegetable plots. It's a small space, as market gardens go, but I didn't want to bite off too much more than I could handle for our first year.

Two feet deep mulch to start our no-till garden system. My hands are still recovering from all the raking!

I also readied a space using the same deep mulch system for the 20'X40' high tunnel that we will erect prior to fall 2016.

There's so much more that's happened. Hopefully, this little recap gives you a taste of where we ended the season last year.

Next up, the beginnings of our first season farming!

Buffalo grass lawn

Closeup of buffalo grass

Many of my days this spring and summer have been spent working on our lawn. Last fall we seeded buffalo grass and covered it with huge rolls of erosion control blankets. Those plastic netting and straw blankets helped the dirt and seeds stay put. But they weren't perfectly successful and they didn't control the weeds.

There is one big challenge with starting buffalo grass: it's a warm season grass. That means it sprouts late allowing the weeds to get a head start. So pulling weeds has been my job. And I pulled A LOT.

This rainy summer has been both a blessing and a curse for our new lawn. Buffalo grass is drought tolerant, giving it a resilience that helps in it's competition with weeds. This summer the rain gave the weeds all the water they needed :-( ...that's the curse. The blessing was in the ease with which I could pull the weeds :-) But, still, I have developed arthritis in my hands. So it's a good thing I don't have to pull as many weeds now.

Once the buffalo grass was freed of the weed competition it took over quickly. It spreads like crabgrass sending runners all over the place. And it holds tight to the soil so that most weeds pull out of the soil without pulling up the buffalo grass.

I haven't mowed our new lawn, so it doesn't look manicured like most lawns yet. The grass is 5 or 6 inches tall right now and in the thickest places totally smothers any weeds that try to grow. It has a very fine texture and is incredibly soft to walk through. Jeremy says it looks so soft that it makes him want to lay down on it. (He doesn't do that, though, because it's pretty buggy!)

We are looking forward to enjoying the benefits of this special grass next season. Hopefully, its naturally short stature and drought tolerance will mean very little mowing and no watering. And all those hours pulling weeds this year will not be repeated!

More chickens...and eggs!

So we've added a few new characters to our little menagerie - 7 more hens.

Some of the new hens on their first day at our farm.

We discovered, for sure, that two of our seven little chicks are roosters. We knew that Donny (formerly Dott) was a rooster. He's been crowing for a month already. But Thistle, even though he looked like a rooster to me, had never crowed. Never, that is, until August 2nd.

Unfortunately, two roosters will need more than five hens. That means we either needed to get rid of one of our roosters, which would break my heart, or find more hens. And, if we got more hens, we needed more coop - and fast!

Lucky for me, I got an email from a nearby farmer needing to sell some of his older, less productive laying hens. Perfect! So I started building onto the coop, adding 10 more square feet of floor space and another next box. And by August 6th we had 7 more hens. All of that was a lot harder than you might think. I generally do not move that fast ;-)

And this was our first egg the next morning.

 Our new, mature hens are too old to lay an egg a day. We're happy with that, though, because we couldn't eat a dozen eggs every day! They are doing just fine and have added a lot of fun and goofy chicken stories to our days as they have gradually found their place with our younger chickens. Finding an egg or 3 everyday when I open the next boxes is nothing short of delightful. I absolutely love having chickens - and I am so glad we could keep both roosters.

Aren't these pretty?! Those bluish eggs are from
the two new (mature) Americauna hens: Heidi and Snow

Greenhouse progress

Remember "Backhoe Brent"? Well, he has been working hard to build a sturdy greenhouse for the farm. The project has come a long way since the last post about it! And, thankfully, Brent had some help to move things along.

Blaine and all the boys helped build the foundation.

Brent and all the boys helped move those cinder blocks Brent salvaged from the old house. It took a lot of those to build the foundation walls. They also dug an additional trench that serves to drain water from around that foundation. Gravel has been added to the bottom to support and level the cinder blocks.

Brent's brother Bryan helped install the post brackets
and bolts that will hold the framing.

Brent used mortar to hold the cinder blocks together. Then, with help from his brother Bryan, he installed brackets and bolts set with concrete that will hold the posts and framing. In addition, rebar was passed down through the blocks to the ground and held in place with cement. This will insure the walls resist bowing (unlike the walls of the old garage which are bowed terribly).

Here's a photo of the "finished" foundation.

Outside of the foundation walls Brent added perforated pipe and covered that with gravel. He also filled inside the walls with gravel, making sure there was a good amount in the corner near that drainage trench. He left a couple of small gaps in the cinder blocks in that corner so that, should a significant amount of water get inside the structure, it will have a place to drain.

Next, the dirt inside the greenhouse needed to be leveled out to see if we would need more fill. But, as you can see in the photo below, it looks like we already have the perfect amount inside the structure.

My handsome husband surveying the greenhouse "floor"

The next step is framing the walls. It will start to take shape quickly now!

What a big project! And this is what he does to relax on the weekends.

Improved terraces for the blueberries

Ok, so I know it's been quite a while since I wrote the post about the torrential rain. But shortly after the rainstorm just about washed away the blueberry bushes, I improved the terracing.

I've added rock to the original terrace and built a
second terrace above the plants to stop water washing onto the plants.

The new terrace is finished with mulch and gravel.

The second terrace is intended to allow water to seep, rather than flow. The line of gravel that you see in the lower photo will help the water flow across the upper terrace. That should help distribute the water more evenly to all six plants.

Yesterday, which is several weeks after those photos were taken, I decided to create a gravel lined drain. I noticed that dirt was still washing onto the mulch surrounding the two plants closest to the house. So I've dug a "ditch" to extend the gravel in front of those two plants. Then the ditch switches back to travel up the hill ending just below the lip of the rain garden.

We'll need to check things out tomorrow morning to see how well that new feature held up to the 2.5" of rain we got today. Of course, it's not very pretty since it's just dirt and gravel. But, if that held, we will know we've solved the issue. I'll make sure to take a picture :-)

Bad storm - tested our erosion control

It was a relative success, but the small terraces I built were not adequate.

Early last week we had tornado sirens, high winds and 5 inches of rain - all in a few hours! Jeremy and I watched literal waterfalls pour over the retaining wall near the front porch. And the "dry" creek bed was a fast-running, full creek.

All of that water ran right into the rain garden in the front yard. I had recognized a need to shore up the edge of the rain garden and had purchased and placed new rock on the lower perimeter. This excessive amount of water exposed the low spots in my effort. In two spots there were rivers of water cutting through to run down the hill.

I had also created a terrace below the blueberry bushes with the new rock. This torrent of rain succeeded in tumbling one of the rocks down the hill. And I felt lucky that none of the actual bushes were washed out.

Below the blueberry hedge the water washed dirt all the way across our gravel drive.

The force of the water was amazing to watch and the damage to the gravel road that we live on was significant. There were several deep gullies cut along and into the edges of the road, including this wash out in front of our South entrance.

The good news is that this gully exposed a couple of nice compass plants! They have a tremendous taproot. So this made digging them out of the gravel pretty easy. Now these plants, rather than being destroyed by the truck that came to grade the road, are struggling to adapt to their new home in our garden :-)

We had more rain through the week. So, after purchasing more rocks, I made some emergency repairs to the rain garden edge, the blueberry bush terrace, and one area on the East part of the driveway. But it was too wet to get a gravel truck onto our property.

Next week - more gravel and Dingo work! And, this time, I will focus on repairing the washed areas of the driveway and the dirt that's washed away from the barn.

This storm was a good test of our swales and terraces. It was an extreme amount of water and, although we had some washout, the damage was relatively minor.

I'm beginning to think a gravel quarry might be a good investment :-P

More alpaca mowing and one lesson learned

So far, we haven't mowed anything with our mower. Okay, maybe we did mow over a path that I'd cut with my scythe. But that was just to test the mower.

We are still trying to figure out how to create an easy to move temporary fence for the alpacas. They are pretty good at mowing and it seems a shame to waste all this food - alpaca food, that is.

Our latest attempt uses fiberglass, step-in posts and plastic snow fence.

The boys enjoying a morning munch of fresh grass.

As you can see in the photo it's a little floppy. For the most part, it worked. Until Loki discovered clover on the other side of the fence. He must have found a low spot and then reached over. And, before we knew it, his neck had pushed the fence low enough that he just hopped over. I'm still hopeful that we can use this to divide the larger pasture and rotate them onto new grass. It's pretty light and easier to move. But for areas where they could be loose, like the front yard, this won't be secure enough. :-(

So the real lesson that we learned was in regard to the chickens - and it has nothing to do with fences, really. Remember how I mentioned that Doogle (our beagle) might not be safe around chickens?

A mouthful of feathers - Doogle's mouth.

Our free-ranging chickens came up close to the house one morning. And Sunny, being a little slower than the rest, was relieved of a few beautiful tail feathers by our sweet dog.

Whew! That was close and, for me, relatively painless. Not sure how Sunny feels about it.

So, really, we learned two lessons and, luckily, neither one cost us much.