Scenic Sunday

Here are a few scenes from here on the hill this week.

Icicles as snow melted last Sunday

Amazing harvest of bright lights chard

after cutting the chard---it's STILL pretty

Honeybees were everywhere

mixed kale seedlings - awesome colors

lots and lots of baby lettuce -just waiting to go in the hoophouse

Yes, Spring is on its way!

more honeybees

Keeping an eye on the weather...again!

            Happy Sunday!

Farming Equations

The very fact that today is Pi Day appeals to my very truly nerdy self.  Not only is it Pi day…it’s also Albert Einstein’s birthday…AND the date is 3-14-13, which is Pi backward and forward. A numerical palindrome, if you will.  How cool is that?

Pie ARE square!  (oh come on....laugh!)

Einstein and his theory of relativity and the idea that “Pi are square” got me thinking about all the equations that we count on in our day to day work here on the hill.  Yeah, we need to compute distances, square feet and sometimes even cubic feet, but we also need to know that certain combinations always equal the same results. There are good equations and bad equations and most of the time we know far in advance what the results will be.

For instance, here is a GOOD equation:

Ram 

PLUS

       EWES

 Equals lots and lots of lambchops!

                        AWESOME!

Whereas, this one…

BIG snow PLUS

Over an inch of rain

a bunch of sheep

    or a bunch of chickens...

Equals MUD

LOTS and LOTS of MUD!

Now, that's just gross!

But, the equation that perhaps has the biggest effect on all of the inhabitants here on the hill is this one…

Big Snow plus

a couple of warm, sunny days

Equals the beginning of something wonderful...

Lush re-growth in all the paddocks

FRESH GRASS!

While it doesn’t look like much now, give this a couple of weeks of warmth, a little more rain and LOTS of sunshine…the animals will be back on pasture and we’ll be looking forward to HAY season! 

AWESOME!

…and since it’s Thursday…I must say…I am thankful that we can depend on all these equations. 

Scenic Sunday

Snow was the big story around here this week.  We listened to the forecast grow more dire with every repetition and made our plans accordingly.

Then, we waited.

We watched a skein of geese flying AWAY from the weather.

...and then it arrived and took our electricity with it.  This is the front yard at 3am as the Boss checks the powerline for damage.

By morning chore time between 6:30 and 7am, there was at least a foot of snow covering everything.  It was beautiful, but made feeding the animals very difficult.

The sheep feeders were full of snow.

The henhouse was buried in a big drift.

Waylon came bellowing through the snow for his feed. 

The Boss started snowblowing...

...and then we shoveled...

Ellie Mae and Jed wore themselves out by frolicking in the snow.

Hard to believe that the gardens are out there...somewhere...

Traditionally, potatoes are planted on March 17 (St. Patrick's day)
TEN days from now.

After three days in the barn, the sheep were finally able to make it outside.

However, not without incident.  The smaller lambs got stuck repeatedly.

There is still a lot of snow...and ice...even after days of melting...

But, there are only 10 days 'til Spring!  

  

Happy Sunday!

Short and Sweet: A Thankful Thursday

This week, I will be succinct (well…relatively...).

A snow in March in this part of the world is wet and heavy and quite often disastrous. 



















As we watched the forecast get more and more significant, we did all we could to prepare…and then we watched, waited and prayed.

The snow started Tuesday evening and by 2:30am on Wednesday, we had NO electricity and knew that we were in for some serious “issues”.



With the memories of “post-Derecho-Mbrook” in  mind, we began to make plans for an extended outage. Before it was over, there were approximately 20 inches of the white stuff covering every inch of the farm.

But, by Thursday afternoon, the amazing snowstorm had indeed stopped and begun to melt, the power outage had been resolved…and most importantly…there were NO casualties here on the hill.  There was absolutely no loss of life (or sanity) and the clean-up will be minimal. WOW!

Of course, there are stories to tell and pictures to share…however, for now…we just want to say,

“Thank you, Lord” for getting us through another one of those situations that either make you or break you.

We also need to give thanks to our friends who prayed us through it all. ...and to the power company crews who worked through the night...we say...

                     THANK YOU!

Special Consideration

When you have a bunch of these…

And the weather forecast looks like this…

You had better review your options.

Last week our local TSC began their “chick days”.

Since it was the plan to get going ASAP on the whole broiler project for the season, I picked up a bunch on my way home from the feedstore/bank/grocery run.  That was a LOUD trip back from town.  Maybe all those chicks thought they were singing with the radio…but, boy, did they make a lot of noise!

The plan was to put them in a big tub in the shop, complete with lights and feed and water, for a day or so until we got the brooder all spiffed up for them.

The brooder building needed a little re-furbishing.  Time has not been kind, and there were some major gaps along the edges.  Not only would these gaps allow cold air to penetrate, they were large enough to allow small creatures access to the building.  Rats will eat small chicks…and we couldn’t have that.

you could see daylight at the floor line of the brooder

However, the weather forecast was not looking cooperative at all.  The temperatures have been unseasonably cool for some time now, but suddenly we were looking at 10 to 20 degrees below normal.  For the chicks, this could spell disaster.  

But, having the chicks in a tub in the shop wasn’t the solution either.  All those little guys were making a very BIG mess.  They needed to move…and move soon!

Small chicks need to be kept very warm. Heat lamps in the brooder provide a good deal of warmth, but warm air rises.  That means that the cold air would force itself down on the chicks while the roofline of the brooder stayed nice and toasty.  Of course, that wouldn’t do. Ordinarily, we don’t worry about the weather getting COLDER this time of year.  We are usually looking at a steady increase in temperatures as we get closer to Spring.

As always, the Boss had a plan.  Apparently, he had had this plan for quite some time, although I was completely unaware of it.

He said he was going to use an old galvanized tub that had sprung a leak to build a hover.   **a hover is a device suspended above the lights…holding the heat down near the chicks…much like a hen would gather her chicks under her feathers**

After cutting a hole in the bottom of the tub, he attached some legs…making the top the bottom, or vice versa…and modified a heat lamp to fit. Voila!  The "ultimate homesteader hover"! How's that for re-purposing? 

wood shavings are used for bedding in the brooder

Boards were cut to fill the gaps.  Bedding was added to the brooder.  The new hover was installed.  Feed and water were supplied and our “containment ring” was put in place.  The containment ring is used for the first few days in the brooder so that the little chicks will be kept close to the warmth as they acclimate to their new surroundings.  By the time they are a week old, they need more room and the ring is removed.

The chicks were captured and put back in their little boxes (just to make transport to the brooder a little easier).  Once in the brooder, they began to explore their new surroundings.  The hover provided a perfectly warm and toasty environment despite the plummeting temperatures.

Now, about that big snowstorm they are predicting…