Little Buck

I did what I said I wouldn't do - I got a buck.  Oh no!  He's just a little buckling right now, so he isn't smelly or weird like he will be when he's full grown.  Right now he's cute and cries like the thirteen week old baby that he is.  He's a Nubian like Peaches, and we've been calling him the Little Buck.  

Planning for pigs is what made me finally decide I needed to just bite the bullet, and get a goat buck.  Since our pig fence and shelter is complete, I spent a little time researching organic pig food, and realized that it just doesn't exist around here.  I want to raise my own bacon, but unless I can figure out a way to feed a pig with mostly organic foods, my bacon wouldn't be any different that the bacon I can buy from the store or from Farmer Joe, who raised pigs with non-GMO pig food and lots of pasture.  

There is a way to raise an organic pig, but it means I need to be able to feed the pig organic hay and pasture, vegetables from the garden, kitchen scraps, eggs from my chickens, and milk from my goat.  Peaches needs to have a baby in order to make milk, and I think I'm right to assume her chances of getting pregnant are much higher if we have a boy goat.  A real boy goat.  No offense to the River brothers, but they just don't have what it takes (snip snip) to make a baby.  

 

Don't worry Peaches, he will get taller! There were lots of male goats for sale on Craigslist, but most of the big impressive males that folks were selling for breeding purposes were very expensive, and quite intimidating.  I'm sure Peaches would appreciate a big manly goat with a proven breeding record, but I was more comfortable starting with a little guy that I can get to know before he's big enough to smash me with his hard head.  He's untested and who knows if he will make nice babies.  At this point, I think I've proven to myself that trying to read Peaches body language and work it out to quickly drive her a buck is not very practical for my skill level and schedule.  I'm just going to cross my fingers and hope they figure it out on their own.  

So far, Peaches and the River brothers pick on him constantly.  She bites his long floppy ears and the boys ram him with their heads.  He cries and runs away, but at night he's snuggled up in a pile with everyone else, so I think it's normal goat behavior.  The biggest problem with letting them all stay together is that I will not know the delivery date of the babies, should any be made.  Also, when he starts to have that male goat aroma that everyone likes to talk about, he will contaminate the other goats with his stink.  Will this be his forever home?  

Pig Fence, No Pigs

The pig fence is finally complete!  It has woven wire fence on four sides, posts, a shelter, a gate, and even a water bucket.  All we need now are the pigs, right?  Brandon worked hard to finish the fence, because we new he wouldn't be able to lift heavy things and tug on fencing for weeks after his gall bladder was removed.  Let me tell you, this homesteading thing we're trying to do requires more lifting and tugging than I even knew, and for a whole week now, I've been the primary lifter.  Poor Brandon is going stir crazy after only a week of reduced activity!     

The goats make pigs of themselves all the time, but they only get to borrow the pig fence for an hour or two at a time until we have acquired the piggies.  

We had a partial roll of goat fencing, which has small openings that a goat cannot fit it's head through, and thought we measured and planned our fence size to fit what we had.  Not for the first time, our math was off, and we ended up using a piece of horse fencing for the front side.  This fencing has small holes on the bottom and they get bigger toward the top.  The goats like that they can eat the plants growing on the outside of the fence too.  

Peaches and the Rivers were nervous to be left alone in the new pasture, and when it started to rain, they stood on the gate and cried for me to save them.  I walked with them to the little pig shed, and once I was inside they mustered their courage and finally got out of the rain.  

Once inside, they were pleased to find they could munch on grass growing on the floor.  Save some for the pigs!  This pig shelter is pretty far from the house, although the pigs will have a view of the back door.  

During a break in the clouds, the donkeys expressed their unhappiness with being left behind while the rest of us were enjoying the new fence.  Hattie brayed and Rufus pawed the ground and paced.  They weren't happy until they had a giant bundle of ragweed to chew on.   

While the animals were enjoying their dinner, I explored the garden and met a new bug living on the kale.  It's the harlequin bug, a type of stink bug, that eats garden plants.  The poor kale was attacked by cabbage loppers early on, then nearly destroyed by Japanese beetles.  Now that the beetles are mostly gone, the new leaves are becoming the home for these harlequin bugs.  In the photo above, you can see an immature bug and a row of eggs.  It looks like I need to grab my bucket of soapy water and spend some time trying to save the kale from this new infestation.  The poor kale deserves some attention.  The same few plants, despite their many enemies, have kept us supplied with all the kale we can stand to consume.  We mostly use it in our morning vegetable juice, so a few holes in the leaves are no big deal.  

What Weeds?

 I opened the greenhouse door for my guests, and heard, "Your greenhouse is... ah..."

"She won't let anyone cut down the weeds," was someone else's response.

To which I asked, "What weeds?"

I do believe they were referring to the soil amending regenerating mulch and green cover crop of native annual plants that colonized the greenhouse.  

During the spring and early summer I regularly used my trusty garden shears to trim pathways to the plants that I was harvesting and tending.  But, in the last few weeks, I've let the pathways have their way, and even without being watered or babied at all, they have grown to several feet tall and have dark green healthy leaves.  They haven't gone to seed yet, so I've begun to smother them with bedding taken from the goat shelter.  My theory is that they have added lots of organic matter by growing roots in the greenhouse soil, and once they are smothered under a thick layer of old hay and goat poo, their leaves and stems will add even more good stuff to my garden soil.  And I didn't even have to plant them - they grew there for free!

It rained on Sunday.  While the world was soaking up the much needed rain, I escaped the drizzle inside the greenhouse.  I stayed busy spreading the piles of goat bedding I had dumped just inside the door, and admiring the marigolds and tomato plants which are still holding their own amidst the jungle.  A little bird fluttered around inside, and slipped out through the chicken wire wall.  Spiders watched me work from their webs strung from the ceiling, and little moths and butterflies flitted among the leaves.  

I was well fed as I perused the isle of cherry tomatoes.  A thick layer of hay laid down when they were planted has kept them fairly weed free.  The tomato plants inside the greenhouse look much different than the giant green monsters growing outside.  These spindly plants with some yellow and spotty leaves starting making tomatoes very early, and are still producing.  I think they didn't get watered as often as the plants outside, and they have to deal with the extra heat even with the plastic up on both sides.  I didn't fertilize them with my manure tea concoction either.  

My favorite this year are these super sweet little orange tomatoes.

The lettuce plants that fed us salads all spring have gone to seed.  I think I could save these seeds, and have enough seeds to plant the greenhouse full next year.

Lettuce seeds look like tiny dandelions, with fluffy tops.  

The little red lettuce plants make pretty purple flower scales.  I have several different types of lettuce seeds now.  I think I'll mix them all together and next year it will be a surprise lettuce garden.

One of the permaculture books I read over the winter said that most gardens come into their own during the fifth year.  Although I was experimenting with the garden during our house renovation years, this is only the second summer that's I've been in attendance.  Each year, the boundaries get a little more clear, but now that I have so much organic matter from all my animal friends, I can see how I will make faster headway.  Maybe the greenhouse in 2020 will look more impressive to guests.  Although, I though the weeds were pretty impressive this year!  

Still Talking About Food

Brandon and I are well into our third week on the elimination diet.  It's been quite an adventure in eating.  We've had to let go of our old standby meals, and are learning a new way to cook and new foods to enjoy.  Instead of oatmeal and eggs for breakfast, we've started to look forward to quinoa and fruit, with some coconut oil and honey.  

Lunches are no longer sandwiches and soups, but things like salads, salmon, and sweet potato.  Luckily, we like lots of different foods, and we enjoys salads and vegetables, so eating the delicious foods we are allowed to have is not a challenge.  The challenge is planning for preparation of the foods.  It takes five minutes to throw together a sandwich, but it takes an hour to bake a sweet potato, make salad dressing, etc., so we can't wait until we are hungry or it's time to leave for work before we start to fix lunch.  We have to plan ahead.  Planning ahead is not my favorite thing, but I'm determined to do this.  

By the end of the second week of the diet, we were both feeling pretty good.  Our digestion was calm, the caffeine withdrawal symptoms had abated, and we both lost some weight, which feels good.  

We've been growing our own broccoli sprouts, and our good neighbor gave us bags of frozen fish that he caught while he was on vacation.

Our sweet tooth cravings have gone.  Actually, we don't crave anything really.  Sometimes I wish for cheese, of all things, but not in desperate way.  Brandon wants coffee in the afternoon, and I think it's the ritual of it that he misses more than the caffeine.

I made a variation on one of the desserts from the book.  The crust of these funny looking little green tarts is unsweetened coconut flakes, hemp seeds, dates, and salt mixed in the food processor, and the filling is avacado, coconut oil, honey, and lime juice blended.   The crust is smooshed into a cupcake paper, and then the filling is poured on, and it sets up in the freezer.  We really liked the crust, but the filling was just okay.  Still, it was nice to have a healthy dessert type snack waiting in the freezer for whenever we wanted one.  

We went to a cookout over the weekend, and it was our first foray into society with food restrictions.  We brought our own lamb burgers and salad, but couldn't enjoy the lovely barbecued pork ribs, home made cake, or even the special mixed drinks.  That was a bummer.  Also, we felt even more like weirdo's than we normally do, because you can't say no to all the food and drinks without some explanation.  Everyone seems like they are used to folks with food restrictions these days, but it does seem rude not to partake of the hosts food.  But, we don't want to miss out on the whole party, so we go, and we take our food, and we are those people.  At least for a few more weeks, anyway.        

Donkey Ding-Dong Secret

Please, donkeys, don't get up on my account.  I'm just here to clean up after you, feed you, and take care of all your needs, so don't bother getting up just for me.  Relax, would ya?  

The donkeys stand to attention when they see me coming with an armful of ragweed.  They love ragweed, and ragweed grows like weeds around here.  

The goats love it too.  Peaches eats the stalks and all!

There's a well kept secret about donkeys.  I say it's a secret because no one ever mentioned it until I got a donkey, but once Rufus came into my life, the secret was out of the bag.  Even the donkey book talks about the secret, and has diagrams!  

Recently, as I was puttering about the barn, like I do, I glanced at Rufus and heard... ding-dong!  If you saw Rufus when he is relaxed, and looks like he's grown a fifth leg, you might hear it too.  Rufus has a big ding-dong, which normally is tucked out of sight.  The secret about donkeys is, according to the book, the ding-dong should get regular cleaning.  Especially for castrated males, like Rufus.  The books says that the owner (me!) is supposed to wash it with warm soapy water, and remove a hard "bean" that accumulates near the tip.  I'm not joking!  After I read this, I had a few potentially awkward conversations with other donkey and horse owners, and this is true!  They don't talk about it, for obvious reasons, but they assure me that it's just part of the job.  What?!  

Well, Rufus has been with me for almost a year now, and other than some exploratory groping and blushing, just to see if he would even allow it if he needed it, I've been ignoring the secret, hoping it would go away.  I wasn't sure, but this time when I heard the ding-dong, I thought it looked a little... odd... and dirty.  Oh dear.  

Rufus got tethered, I got a bucket of warm soapy water and a wash cloth, and I attempted to be a good donkey owner.  He really didn't mind that much, although I'm not sure I was a thorough as the book would like.  Maybe with practice I'll perfect this new skill.  It's definitely one for the resume!

Since he was all tied up and in maintenance mode, I took the opportunity to brush some of his shedding hair.  I used the grooming rake type brush that I use on the dogs, and for the first time he didn't protest.  I watch the donkeys groom each other, and they use their teeth quite hard, and seem to like it.  I think the other brushes I've tried to use on Rufus were too soft, but this tool digs deep and scratches, in a good way.  Piles of hair came off. 

The donkeys got a new mineral block too.  One block lasted almost a year.  I never see the donkeys licking it, but the block gets wet with donkey slobber, and shrinks over time.  When I offered them a lick of the new block, they tried to bite it with their teeth.  

The donkeys got a package in the mail this week.  It's a bag of fly predators!  These tiny bugs, which look like gnats, come in their cocoons, mixed with saw dust.

In this photo, you can see the cocoons are dark brown, but the predator bugs are those tiny black spots.  Some of them hatched in the bag.  The instructions said to sprinkle them around areas that have damp vegetation, wet old hay, or manure, which is where flies lay their eggs.  These predator bugs kill the baby flies before they become adults.  It cost twenty dollars for a package.  I sprinkled them around the barns, hay piles, and compost heaps.  The donkeys seem to always have a few flies on their legs, which makes them stomp their feet to knock them off.  I'm hoping these predators will keep the fly numbers low.  We'll see.  

So It Goes With Gardening

My beautiful cabbage.  The cabbage I tended in the green house for months, handpicking the green caterpillars that wanted to devour it, then spraying regularly with Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) to protect it, then finally harvesting, slicing, and attempting to turn into sauerkraut.  

I say attempting to turn into sauerkraut, because something went wrong, and my vat of fermenting cabbage turned gray and moldy, and we were afraid to eat it, so I fed it to the compost.  Even the chickens didn't want it.  So it goes with gardening, right?  

This photo of the tomato plants is from a week or so ago, and already they are so much larger that there is no space to walk between the rows.  We thought we were so careful to give each plant enough room.  Ha.  Look at that monster sized plant in the row on the right!  It's twice as large as the other plants.  If it make more tomatoes that the other, I want to save it's seeds for next year.  

I was beginning to wonder if these tomatoes were going to be all leaf and no fruit, but when I look closely into the green jungle, there are green tomatoes in there.

These are the Rutgers type tomatoes that were requested by Brandon's brother.  Brandon ordered a pack of seeds online for a dollar, I started them in the greenhouse in plastic salad box planters, and the whole family worked together to plant them, mulch them, and create cages from fencing for each.  Brandon watered them daily while I was working out of town, and twice I watered them with compost and manure tea, and put down more hay mulch to hold back the weeds.  These are team tomatoes, and hopefully it won't be long before the team gets to pick and preserve them by the bushel.  

Inside my garden fence, behind the tall weeds, feral zinnias, and wildflowers, are two rows of green beans and corn plants.  This weekend I used my trusty garden shears to cut back the tall weeds so the corn and beans can get more sunlight, and used the trimmings to mulch around the plants.  I like that my garden generates it's own mulch.  Brandon entered the garden to help me install some tomato cages for the beans to climb up, since the corn is still so short, and when I kept reminding him to watch his step before he killed all the small sunflowers, he complained that my garden was impossible to work in.  He said no one else has a garden like mine, and he can't tell where to step.  I agree it's a challenge.  It takes balance (don't stumble, it's not level), strength (watch for the logs hidden in the grass), situational awareness (watch your feet - that's a plant!), plant identification skills (obviously, that's a sunflower, not a weed),  and courage (check for ticks).  I like to think it's a garden that promotes mindfulness.  Brandon is not convinced.  

I forked compost around the beans and corn, and hope to do the same for the sweet potato plants too.  The sweet potatoes were mulched with old hay and compost when they were planted, but they haven't gotten any other special care.  I was glad to see they are still alive.  I have several small pepper plants which are holding there own in the garden, but the egg plants have been devoured by flee beetles.  The Japanese beetles feasted on the kale after they finished eating all the leaves on the fruit trees.  Doh!  I've armed myself with some Neem oil spray.  Stupid beetles.

Speaking of Hay

I brought the goats out of their pasture for a short stroll and munch yesterday evening.  I've missed hanging out with the goats lately.  With all the out of town field work, holiday frivolity, and so much of my time and thought focused on our elimination diet experiment, the goats and I barely find time to say hello while I dish out their food and water each day.  It was nice to spend some time playing goat herd and practicing my goat photography.  

Nobody likes to have their picture taken when they are chewing a mouth full of food, and goats always have their mouths full!

I even made a movie of Light River eating a poison ivy vine.  He seemed to really like it.  Remind me not to pet the goats after they've rubbed their faces in poison ivy.

 

I think the goats look like they have a healthy weight, but sometimes I wonder if they get enough exercise.  They have lots of tall grass and weeds in their little pasture, and sometimes I see them out nibbling on plants, but mostly they like to lounge in the shade in their stall and cry for me to feed them more hay.  They love hay.  I'm not sure why the same vegetation that stands in their pasture is so much tastier when it's been cut and dried, but it is.  Plus, those lazy goats don't want to bother walking out and helping themselves, they would rather I bring it to them!  

I like hay too.  I like the way it smells, and they way it feels all fluffy and clean.  I even enjoy using my muscles to lift a pitchfork full, and I like the happy contented feeling that seems to come over the goats and donkeys when they are munching it.  I like spreading it around and making the chicken coops and area around the barn seem clean and nice to walk on.  I'm pretty sure Brandon enjoys riding his tractor and cutting the hay.  He likes the clean look of mowed fields.  I even think he enjoys using his home made hand baler, and the feeling of accomplishment we get when we pile up all those home made bales.  

Our hay making system has advanced this year.  Instead of raking all the cut hay by hand, like we did last summer, we borrowed a hay rake from Joe, and use the old jeep that my parents gave us to pull the rake around the field and pile the dried hay into rows.  The hay rake has wheels that turn the raking mechanism when it's pulled along, which is pretty cool.  We laugh when we see our neighbors slow their cars when they pass by and see the jeep out in the front field, raking up the hay.  Who needs a tractor when they have a jeep, right? 

We've piled our hay bales all the way the ceiling now, and we're talking about ways to store more hay in the dry.  Of the seven big giant round bales that we got last fall from the neighbors field, I have four left, but only one of them was covered by a tarp and kept dry.  Now that it's warm weather, three of them are getting moldy and brown from being rained on, and the goats won't eat it.  All fall and winter, I was generous with the hay, and the goats had plenty of extra to pile up and make a deep bed to lay on.  I used up three giant round bales for four animals.  It was full of blackberry brambles and broomsedge, but I heard no complaints.  I'm not sure how many homemade square bales of good hay make up one giant round bale of weedy hay, but I want to put up as much as I can, and hopefully I can get some more from the neighbors field too, before winter.  

Speaking of hay appreciation - even the chickens like the hay for their nests!