The world really is round! These photos are a from the end of November, when my brother and sister-in-law and nephew came for a pie and coffee Thanksgiving campfire, and brought their drone. Shane let me watch the screen on his phone so I could see what the drone sees, and make screen shots. Can you believe Brandon cut all that grass! Not just our fields, but our good neighbors field, and even his neighbor, so everything green you can see in the photo.
That bright red tree in the front yard is the small volunteer Brandford pear, and that pile of wood is the cut up trunk of our old shade tree. Those small brown circles in the front lawn are little soil hummocks made by the mole, who is Brandon's nemisis. Brandon recently said the best thing about Sienna, our new dog, is that she loves to kill moles. I think she makes a bigger mess than the mole during her excavations, but Brandon thinks it's worth it to reduce the mole population. She doesn't eat them, so we find frozen mole-sicles by the front door regularly. They do not have eyes, I checked.
The pool is covered for the winter, and the garden looks just as messy from above as it does from the ground. Last summer four helicopters flew low over us while we were skinny dipping in the pool. I tried to shield myself with the wall of the pool and told myself they couldn't really see much. Ha! You can see everything from up there!
The donkeys have turned their little paddock into dirt. They enjoying rolling in the dust, and the light tan spots in the field are places they roll and kick up clouds of dirt. Now that's it winter, it's mud. We're discussing pouring a concrete pad so they have a place to stand at the food trough with their feet out of the mud. The farrier trimmed their hooves last week and didn't report any foot problems, but I would hate to stand in the mud for meals, and everytime I move the trough they trample the surrounding area into mud. I don't have to worry about Ernest overeating grass. I wonder...if all the green things in world were edible to you, and you had a big appetite, would it be terrible to look out over the fence at all that green while you chewed your hay? Like eating a dry salad in land made of hamburgers?
In the south facing view you can see the little forest I'm encouraging on the east side of the house. That bright green shrub in the forground is bush honeysuckle. I can't wait to cut that down and feed it to the goats!
I got to spend several weeks out in the woods at night, catching bats. The photo above is a federally endangered gray bat. Despite their endangered status, in certain parts of Kentucky and Tennessee where there are lots of caves, we regularly catch gray bats. In this photo you can see the little metal bracelet that I put on his forearm. This tag has a number that will be entered into a database, and if anyone in the future finds this bat hanging in a cave, or tangled in their mist-net, they will report the number and we will learn about how far this bat travels. I think the bats get used the bracelet pretty quick, but I always feel a little guilty about making them wear one.
Despite being very busy with travel for work, things have been happening back at the farm. We have sheep! This is our new ewe, named Lamb Chop. How did we get into the sheep business? Our experience butchering one of our goats taught us two things. One, we can definitely butcher an animal and make meat, and two, it would be more worth the effort if the animal was meatier. Katahdin sheep were recommended by our vet because they shed their wool, usually give birth out on the field with no problems, and aren't prone to parasite problems. Plus they are little butterballs and make good meat.
This is our ram, Pistol Pete. He's a big boy already, at only five months old. He and Lamb Chop are hopefully the foundation of our flock.
I have always been the driving force behind the goats. Brandon is tolerant and supportive - building fences and shelter and taking care of them while I'm gone, but he has never thought they were worth the effort if it wasn't for my enjoyment of having them. The sheep are different. Brandon has an enthusiasm for these sheep that he never had for the goats. He made all the arrangement for getting them, subdivided the pasture with electric fencing so he can rotate their grazing, buys and mixes grain to supplement their feed, and checks on them daily. He's the shepherd and I'm the goatherd.
We've been hiking every chance we can get. We're practicing for some serious overnight hikes we plan to take every month starting in January. Since June, we've hiked approximately 47 miles.
It's been so nice to have something to do with our friends that is outside, where we can keep our distance from each other.
Kentucky has so many great hiking trails. Some of them have pretty stone arches.
And mushrooms! Hiking with mushroom hunting enthusiasts means we get to see lots of pretty fungi.
Chicken of the woods.
Cauliflower mushroom.
Trails near swimming holes are perfect during the summer. Laurel Lake always feels like home to me.
Although hiking in my bathing suit resulted in poison ivy on my leg. Between the time spent outside for work, hiking in the forests on the weekends, and fighting through the weeds in the garden, my skin has been itchy from bug bites or poison ivy all summer!
This year was the first zucchini and spaghetti squash harvest since we've been at the farm. The weeds and the squash vine borers have taken their tole, but not before I was able to get a harvest. There are green beans on the vine, waiting to be picked.
We sold some of the goats, including Little Buck. It was hardest to part with him, but I needed to reduce the herd size and I didn't like making little inbred babies. Little Buck was purchased by a local man who is starting a herd and was grateful to find a nice buck. Donnie is now my only buck, and he is with Peaches and Little Buck's daughter, Newnoo, so they can make more kids. I still have the River Brothers too. Brandon was amazed that anyone wanted to buy the goats he put on craigslist. They sold within the day, especially Peaches' little bucklings, that were only two months old. After making enough money selling the goats to buy his new ram lamb, Brandon was suddenly more enthusiastic about the goats too!
The goats have been relocated to the new fence down in the woods. Brandon built them a small shelter. Five goats is easier for me to manage on walks. With my set up, the goats stay healthiest if I let them out of their small pasture regularly so they can browse.
The new goat pasture is full of honeysuckle vines and shrubs, and they are quickly eating every leaf. When I let them out for their daily walk, they eat my green bean vines. Doh!
Ernest, our recently adopted mini donkey, has very shaggy bangs that shade his eyes. Unlike Rufus, who is grey with a buff colored nose and belly, Ernest is chocolate brown with long white belly fur and white felt around his eyes and nose. When he's upside down rolling in the dust, his white belly fur really stands out. When he asks for pets and scratches, he hangs his head low, like Eeyore, and doesn't understand why I want to raise his chin and kiss his nose. Ernest usually has a big lump of half chewed hay in his jaw, which feels strange when I pet his face, and can't be good for his teeth. Why does he do that?
My horse owning friend is doubtful that Ernest will ever slim down, but Brandon and I think he may have already lost some of his extra padding. Or maybe we've gotten used to his lumps and don't notice them as much now. He's nice to pet on his chest and neck because his hair is so lush and his flesh is squishy. Yesterday, he let me rub herbal fly repellent on his legs without making a fuss, which was not the case with Rufus, who gets suspicious any time I approach his back legs.
I have four big round hay bales left over from last year, and we just finished putting away the first cutting of square bales from the whole farm. Whew! The big field in front of the house produced about sixty-three bales, and the long field on the side of the driveway made another twenty-two. That's one hundred and twenty bales for the whole farm! If we can get that many again, later this summer, I should have plenty to last the year.
You mean we have to do all that work again?!
Although I think he was looking forward to putting the hay making equipment away for a few months, Brandon volunteered to cut and bale some of our good neighbors fields. He didn't get very far when the pto shaft on the cutter broke, so he's back in the shop trying to solve another frustrating mechanical problem. He doesn't seem to find it helpful when I suggest we go old school, and get a scythe. But, Brandon, just imagine the abdominal strength that would come from all that twisting and slashing! We could have hay plus rock hard abs!
Its easy for me to make jokes, because I had the easy job of driving the jeep through the field while Brandon walked from bale to bale and loaded them on the wagon. I did help unload them from the wagon to the hoop barn. They are heavy and scratchy! But they smell wonderful!
The hay bales from the front of the farm were much dryer and lighter than our first batch, from the zip line field. This made us nervous about the moisture content of the first batch, and we found a few bales that were starting to mold and feel warm to the touch. Hay fires are a real thing, so we un-stacked all the heavy moist bales and set them singly on pallets and boards with space between each bale so they can dry out and hopefully not have enough mass for combustion.
That hay from the zip line field was really thick grass stems and hairy vetch (Vicia villosa) vines, so it didn't dry very fast. The hay from the front of the farm was full of yellow field clover (Trifolium campestre). The yellow field clover dried fast, and made light fluffy bales of fine material. Both the vetch and the clover are nitrogen fixing plants, so I think they mean good things for soil quality. Hopefully the mean good things for goat nutrition too. All the animals think it's very tasty! Ernest has to stay on his diet, so I'm feeding the donkeys the left over hay from last year, which was cut late, and is stalky and has less nutrition. Not fair!
The pool is open, and the grass is tall - it's hay season! The field behind the swimming pool is the one dubbed the zip line field. All the hay fields in our neighborhood were mowed over the weekend, but our gear still wasn't ready, so we started late, with rain in the forecast for today. Hurry, Brandon!
This year, we have our very own big tractor, a borrowed rake and baler, and an old sickle bar cutter that Brandon bought from Craigslist and repaired. That long jagged blade on the back of the tractor is the sickle bar cutter. It's scary.
Folks these days use a different kind of cutter that is covered, and not as dangerous looking as this seven foot long bar with a series of jagged blades. As the pto on the tractor turns, these blades jerk back and forth really fast, and cut the grass against those metal spikes. It's dangerous to animals because although they can see the tractor coming, they don't realize that there's a blade under the grass and against the ground that sticks way out to the side of the tractor. We were careful to keep the dog away.
Here's a little clip of the cutter in action. Poor Brandon spent an eleven hour day in the sun replacing the blades and reassembling this cutter. He even had to take a part of it to the local welder and have it repaired. But, he finally managed to cut some grass on Monday afternoon! Whew! Everything to do with this hay making project was stressful. Not only did we have to figure out how to purchase, repair, and use this older technology, but we have the constant question of the weather hanging over us. You've got to make hay while the sun shines, and you know how rainy it's been lately. Every day we watched the neighbors make progress with their hay and we knew we were days behind. Hurry!
Once the hay was cut, it was time to turn our attention to the baler machine. It's pretty old too - although Brandon reminded me that it's only a year older than him, and he still works pretty good!
We had the manual for this machine. Whomever wrote it, bless their hearts, must have assumed all readers would have a basic understanding of the machine, because we struggled to interpret despite all the drawings and photos. There were about twenty places that needed lubrication, so we patiently scrubbed off the crud and used the grease gun. Joe told us the last time the baler was used was five years ago, but it worked then, so we were hopeful that it would work for us too.
Our next step, after cutting the hay and letting it dry, was to use the hay rake to make long wind rows. Since we don't have a tedder, which stirs up the hay to help it dry, Brandon raked the hay a bit during the early part of the day. Once I was home from work and we were ready to bale, he piled the hay into long rows.
Here's a little clip of the rake in action. It's pretty cool - it doesn't require the pto to turn it, instead, as the wheels roll on the ground, they activate a gear which turns the series of round rakes. Brandon used the little tractor for the rake, and then the battery died in the little tractor and it was stuck out in the hay field while it charged up again. Nothing like a dead battery to amplify the stress level. It's going to rain in the morning - hurry, Brandon!
We debated the dryness of the hay, and worried that it was still damp, but decided to try out the baler on at least one field and see how it goes. We expected a learning curve, but oh boy, was that an adventure. This machine is loud, strong, and seems particularly scary when your loved one is perched near it while it spins, thumps, and pounds. It has two "needles," which are several feet long and curved, and has a very particular order in which it must be threaded. After our fourth hour and multiple attempts to thread it, we finally managed to get it to tie a bale!
Here's a little clip of the baler in action. Little rakes on the bottom pull the hay into the machine. The pto on the tractor spins a giant auger which pushes the hay to one side, where a big plunger pushes it into a square hole. As the hay passes through the hole and onto a chute, those giant needles stab through it and a complicated mechanism ties the string around the bales. That tying mechanism was what caused us so much grief. We were warned that the first few bales probably wouldn't tie, so we tried over and over making bales that didn't tie, kicking them back apart, and trying them again. Finally, after pinching our fingers, and banging our heads, we got the tension right on the strings, and made hay bales!
The zip line field yielded eleven big bales, and by the time we got them stored out of the weather it was well past dark. We were exhausted, but so happy that we managed to make that equipment do it's job.
Today, Brandon finished baling the other two fields that were cut, and got the bales put away right before the rain fell. We have thirty bales, already. Now we just have to hope we didn't bale it when it was too damp. If it's too damp it will mold, or worse, catch on fire!
Rufus has such a good kissy face! I have some photos to share, of recent things.
We harvested green beans. Lots and lots of green beans. My parents came, and we gathered round the bean harvest, and picked all the little beans from their shells so we can save them to plant next year. The focus of the 2019 summer garden was green beans and sweet potatoes. I did my best to harvest and eat the beans as they ripened, so by the time the last of the beans were ready to save for seeds, we were glad to take a break from stringing! If I plant all those seeds next year, we will be covered up in green beans.
Would you like to admire Turkey? She's grown into a giant bird, who coos softly, and squeaks loudly for food. She's a champion pear eater, and sleeps on the top perch with the chickens.
Brandon and I dressed as our future selves for our Halloween costume this year. We sprayed our hair white and grey, emphasized our wrinkles, and added age spots. We also nearly caused a fender bender while taking selfies in the car!
We joked that the best part of going to a party at the age of one hundred and three is that we could wear our most comfortable sweaters and no one thinks it's unacceptable to take a nap during the party!
Somehow, despite his busy schedule, Brandon managed to squeeze in enough moments to build an addition to our barn.
It's a an extension of the roof line, that perfectly shelters the tractor. I was happy to move the tractor out of the hay hoop barn, to make room for my hay bales. Now the tractor is nearer the electricity, which is good in case we need to plug it in to warm up, should we need to use it this winter.
Wendigo was galloping around and hurt her knee. Her good knee. So now she has one bad-ish knee, and one pretty bad knee, and she hobbles. It's no wonder I tweaked my back trying to lift her into the car for a visit to the vet - she weighed in at one hundred and three pounds! The vet took scans and said that her hips are a little bad, which probably puts pressure on her knees. She likely has tears in her ACL tendons. Wendigo's only consolation for her limited mobility is that the pain medicine goes down easiest when embedded in hot dogs. She doesn't mind a twice daily dose of hot dog one bit.
The main route away from home was flooded one day last week. I turned around to try the other route...
and it was flooded too! It's an odd feeling to be trapped at home, but nice to have an excuse to stay home from work.
It was past time to harvest the sweet potatoes. The vines were so pretty all summer, but I was unconvinced there would be real potatoes under the ground. I was wrong!
It took me about five digging sessions, but I finally made my way through the entire bed. I didn't have to dig too deep, as most of the potatoes were in the top layer of loose organic garden soil, and not into the clay subsoil. Even still, it was a lot of work and I couldn't help but dream of the giant bin of organic sweet potatoes at the grocery, all clean of dirt and harvested by someone else! Especially when I would carefully excavate a giant whopper of a potato only to turn it over and find that some type of rodent had gnawed all the way through it! Grrrr!
Even though we shared about a third of the harvest with the voles, the other two thirds make an impressive display on the dining room table.
My root cellaring book says to cure the potatoes for ten to fourteen days at eighty-five degrees and ninety percent humidity. Yeah, right. Who has a sauna fit for potato curing? To store them after they are cured, the book says they need a relatively warm and dry root cellar, or they do well wrapped in newspaper and stored in an unheated room. All the potatoes in the bowl have chewed places, or were damaged during harvest. I've been cleaning them up and baking them.
Brandon prefers that I cut off the chew marks from the voles. So picky! Ha! Even uncured, they are delicious. Maybe they were worth all that effort to dig, after all.
We did all that stuff, bean harvesting, Halloween partying, barn building, dog toting, flooding, and potato digging, and then it snowed. Nice.
A journal of creating a home in an old blue school bus, as well as a do-it-yourself farm house renovation, living with backyard chickens, learning to farm, gardening, preserving food, and other projects.
