White Bass and a Dirt Hole

I couldn't resist taking pictures of the fried bass fillets that we made from fish caught by our neighbor.  For the first time that I can remember, we made battered fish and managed to cook it perfectly crispy.  

Our good neighbor is always giving us food that he either grew or hunted. He's given us deer meat, jerky, corn on the cob, bell peppers, home made wine, and eggs. This is the first fish that he's given us, and it was so delicious that we were ready to learn to fish so we could have some more!  The package the frozen fish was in said it was white bass. We dipped it in egg and rolled it in a fish batter mix made by Wisenberger Mill, which is a family operated Kentucky grain mill that's been around for ever, and fried it in the iron skillet in coconut oil.  

I also put some sweet potatoes and bell peppers with onions, broccoli, and mushrooms in the oven to bake.  I could barely get a picture before Brandon was grabbing it for his plate. 

Hungry yet? 

I was hungry after working to dig up top soil for the garden from the dirt hole swimming pool location.  I hate it when I give myself math problems, but to occupy my mind and give my digging muscles a break I did some rough calculations, which are probably completely wrong (I even used pi!), and figured out that in order to have the dirt hole ready for the pool by the first of June, I need to move six wheel barrels of dirt a day, every day until then.  Whoa.  

Brandon likes to remind me that if I would select a level spot for the pool, then we could put it up any time.  So I remind him that if I did that, then the pool would be in the wrong place! Duh.  

So maybe the pool won't be ready by the first of June (this year), but the top soil I'm getting for the garden is looking pretty good, especially since the chickens are helping out by smoothing out the clumps.  How's this for a math problem -  How many friends want to go swimming equals X number of beers plus how many shovels?  Ha!

More Movies - Follow the Rooster, Cute Newt, and Mirror Dog

I've been entertaining myself by making short videos of the animals, and using the video editor app on my phone.  The app has about 25 free "songs" that I can pick from for background music, and there are several special effects I can select too.  The chickens and pigs are pretty good sports, and don't let me and my video making interfere with their business.  

Watching the flock eat is one of my favorite things.  It's fun to try to focus on an individual bird and see how long I can keep up with it before I get distracted by silly guineas, cute dogs, or when a pig runs and falls in a hole - ha!  Enjoy!

Newt is hard to capture in action because as soon as she realizes she's the star of the show, she can't resist playing up for the camera.  

What a flirt!

Puck gets a little camera shy when he's the focus of my attention.  Luckily, he's a natural star!

Things got a little weird with this one.  

Pig and Guinea Movies

I found out that my new piggy friends are named Miss Piggy (I guessed it!) and Bugger.  Bugger is not a very pretty name, but Bugger is not a classically pretty pig either, so it suits him.  He looks a little like a troll or a warthog around his eyes and nose, his lips stick out a bit from what I assume are tusks, and he drools when he eats.  Miss Piggy thinks he's swell.  

The neighbors have returned from their vacation, and came to collect their pigs who spent all day Sunday lounging around our place and eating lots of grass.  Having a few pigs around adds to the Green Acres ambiance of our place, so I'm going to miss them.  The neighbor offered to let me keep them permanently, since his kids have lost interest in them, but I told him I liked sharing them with him.  He can feed them and house them and I'll just take their pictures when they come over.  It's an equitable custody arrangement, right?  

My friend and her family came for a visit on Sunday to collect some of the young hens for their backyard flock, and I was worried that the pigs would wander off before her kids got to see them.  No worries though, the kids chased the pigs all around the yard and they never decided to leave.  I broke my own rule about not feeding the pigs and offered them some apple slices.  

You can see from this short video how much they appreciated my generosity.  These pigs are spoiled!   

Yesterday was another really windy day.  Puck and I took a walk down the driveway to get a good look at the hills of green pasture dotted with cows across the road.   

We had an entourage for our walk!  I've been cracking myself up by adding background music to my videos.  This one makes me giggle.  

Guineas are so weird.  I like that about them.  They like to be together, even when they take a bath!

The Pigs Come for a Visit

Look who came by for a visit!  I was sure that our neighbors pigs, who they released while they were on vacation, would make the short trip to our house while they had free reign.  I worried about it all week, really, expecting to come home to massive porkers chowing down on chicken food or rooting up the yard, or wondering what would happen if I stumbled upon a pig in the dark.    

I was in the kitchen when I noticed the cat staring intently at something through the window.  When I peaked to see what she was so interested in, I was excited to see it was the pigs!  I shouted at Puck "the pigs are here!" and hurried to grab my camera and pull on my boots.  Puck wasn't sure what I was so excited about, but he immediately started barking and dancing.  What happens when an excited corgi meets two little pigs?  

They love each other, that's what happens!  The pigs were a little stand-offish with me, but I wasn't sure I wouldn't have to chase them away so I didn't get too friendly.  Puck had no fear.  His little tail nub was wagging and he was happy sniffing piggy tails.  The pigs were snorting and wagging their little tails like mad.  Do pigs wag their tails when they are happy?  It seems like they do. 

Puck isn't a big dog, but he was bigger than the little pig.  Actually, now that I see Puck standing with pigs, I realize how many similarities they have!  The pigs were so small that I can't believe I was worried about what would happen if they came.  

Pigs grunting in the wind. 

They seemed mostly interested in chewing on the little pieces a cedar plank that were left in the yard after we used it for grilling salmon.  Otherwise, they just roamed around bumping into each other and grunting.  The little pig was favoring one of his back legs, but I couldn't see an injury.  When the cold wind would blow they would both shiver in the breeze.  Their hair was thin, so it didn't provide much warmth.  What they need are sweaters.  Adorable piggy sweaters!  

Wouldn't Miss Piggy look pretty in a sweater?  It would really bring out her long eyelashes.  I didn't tell her that Brandon said she looked like a giant gerbil.  

Goodbye, Rocket Mass Heater

Last weekend, we demolished the rocket mass stove. It felt good, really, despite the disappointment and the wasted effort of building it.  It's hard to love a giant stove made of dirt in the warm spring weather anyway, so remembering the struggles we had to use it without filling the house with smoke kept our spirits up as we lugged buckets of rubble from the house.   

Before we started I said I wanted to take one last picture and Brandon suggested I title the photo "Death of a Hippy Dream".  I'm sure the concept of the rocket mass stove is sound.  I've read enough stories from satisfied users to believe that it's real thing, not just an on-line conspiracy to trick hippies into a lot of exercise, but we did not pull it off.  Something, probably more than one thing, was wrong with our design.  As much as I hate to admit defeat, it defeated us.  It didn't break our spirits though.  

Busting up the cob was kind of fun.  We used a hammer and a chisel and it didn't take many strikes for it to crumble.  

We designated some buckets for the rocks and bits of rubble embedded in the cob, and others for the now dry cob, and hauled it all outside.  

 Hey Brandon, say "I love Rocket Mass Heaters!"  No?  

To celebrate the final moments of my rocket mass dreams, I tried a bottle of our newest brew while we worked, the Lucky Leap Year Beer, and I was very impressed with our brew skills, again.  We might not be good cob stove designers, but we can brew a good beer!  

We worked for several hours on Saturday and managed to deconstruct the entire bench up to the barrel.  Taking a cob stove apart is much faster than building one.  

Once again, this project has coated everything with dust.  My goodness, we used a lot of bricks!  My muscles are still sore from carrying those buckets of dirt and rocks.  

On Sunday morning, we were anxious to remove the last of the dirt from the house, and demolished the perlite and clay cylinder the surrounded the fire brick heat riser.  

We dumped all that perlite in one of the places that the chicken coop was parked so I can begin to work it into our clay soil for the garden.  Buying perlite was one of the expenses of this project, but it won't go to waste.  

We made piles of the block, brick, rocks, rubble, and cob.  The straw and the sand in the cob were materials we had to buy for the project, as was the metal duct work, but all the other stuff was gathered for free.  We should have plenty of material for an outdoor bread/pizza oven, and maybe even the wood fired hot tub I've been threatening Brandon with.  Doesn't a rocket stove hot tub sound like fun?  

Almost gone!  I can't believe it came apart so fast.  

Nothing left but a pile of dirt.  Goodbye, Rocket Mass Heater.  

Back Yard Beautification

I try to remind myself of the nearly ten years it took to get my old garden, in a small suburban yard, to achieve the complicated arrangement of flower beds, shrubs, trees, and garden spots that I so enjoyed.  Each little spot that became something, started out as plain old grass.  Just for the fun of it, I transformed it into something that kept me entertained and in motion in all seasons.   When I look at the back yard of the little farm house through my green tinted gardening glasses, I see another slate of grass waiting to be shaped and pruned into something different.  Something the gardener in me can love.  

When we could only come to the farm for long work days and weekend get aways, I managed to avoid some of the hard manual labor of the house renovation by taking time to transplant some perennials or plant fruit trees.  I smothered some grass, and took a stab at planting various herbs and flowers.  But I never really took the time to make these little spots presentable, or defined.  Weeds were left un-managed.  Now I'm finally getting a chance to reclaim some of the perennial plantings into established flower beds.  Weeds, be ware!

Of course, with the chickens busy scratching like this, a weed, or a flower, doesn't stand a chance!  

Now that the mud that plagued me all winter is dry, it's easy to see where our feet travel the most during our daily excursions around the farm.  In these trails (called "desire lines" in one of the permaculture design books I received as a Christmas gift), the grass has been smooshed and the soil compacted.  I desire flowers to admire along all my desire lines!  One of our most used trails is the short path to the hot tub, which is located next to the little building over the root cellar.  The old cedar post attached the building is the perfect place for a clematis vine, right? 

Since I do all my shopping at Tractor Supply these days when I go for chicken food, I couldn't resist buying a purple clematis like the one that grew on the post in my old garden.  The poor thing was desperate to get out of the little pot it was planted in, and it's roots were wrapped tightly.   Welcome to your new home!  Please grow.

Having all these chickens is particularly challenging for planting flowers.  Not that the chickens want to eat the flowers, but they really enjoy scratching in any dirt that's been loosened by planting or weeding.  For the bed nearest the hot tub, I'm experimenting with using rocks placed around the plants to keep the chickens from getting crazy with the scratching.  A friend of mine told me that she has a ring of big rocks around her strawberry patch, and each year, to make room for the new strawberry runners, she just flips the rocks over and makes the patch bigger.  Where the rocks were, is a bare place perfect for planting the runners.  Genius!

I bought an Alpine strawberry plant to include in this bed, thinking I could try her technique.  The strawberry was embedded in soil in a plastic bag and enclosed in a box.  This is what it looked like when I opened in when I got home.  Is this still alive?  It looks pitiful.  We'll see if it grows.  

I came home from work recently to find that the wind had blown the lid and tarp completely off the hot tub and the pieces were strewn around the yard.  The hot tub looks much more appealing without the ugly old brown tarp we have been using to hold the lid down.  Now that I'm taking a stab at beautifying the landscaping, it might be time to re-think the hot tub lid too.  

After the Storm

On my way home from work, an emergency broadcast interrupted the radio program to describe a big storm.  A storm that I was driving toward!  The broadcast went on to say that lightning was natures number one killer, and that if you could hear thunder, then you were close enough to be struck by lightning.  And also, we should expect damage from the heavy winds.  Thanks for the reassuring message!

Fortunately I got home before the storm, and was safely tucked in, alone, in our rickety old house on a hill during the worst of the wind.  

The after-storm sky was fantastic.  

Maybe it was the euphoria from surviving the storm, which really wasn't as bad as the emergency broadcast implied it was going to be, but I couldn't decide which part of the sky was more photogenic.  

Toward the east, the violet sky was streaked with pink clouds, moving fast, and changing shape before my eyes.  

To the west, the sun was sinking behind the horizon, but the clouds were casting dark shadows on themselves. 

Puck, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore.  

The chickens are funny to watch when the wind is stong, especially when proud Poncho's big tail blows inside out and he looses his footing, but I was glad that all the birds were smart enough to seek shelter during the storm. 

I never saw any lightning.  

We didn't come through completely unscathed though.  The door to the chicken coop was busted!  Brandon managed to tack it back together once he got home, but I'm afraid it will never be quite the same again.