SHAYTARDS garden issue....

so I was watching the Shaytards youtube vlog, and they had found tomatoes stuck up in high branches. Actually it was really funny to actually see that on film!! But here's my suggestion on the matter of squirrels getting into your garden. First you could build a floating row cover. By using pvc pipe and bending it like a half circle, and placing several over the row. Then cover that with a bird netting. Second (which this is what I think the Shaytards should try out) you could build a small primitive structure. About 6' high x 6' wide x 6' long. By placing wood posts in the ground around your garden, and cross posts over the top. You can staple chicken wire to the structure. One one of the sides, use posts and make square and attach only one side to the frame with some bits of wire or twine, for the door. You veggies will be safe from all the critters!!

new goats

Someone gave us two new goats!! They are both male, and super stinky...lol they are slightly smaller than blondie & blackie with huge wide horns and a beard. I think we have decided to sell one for a profit, and keep the other to stud our females. But as soon as we know they are bred, we are moving that thing as far away from the house as possible! Musky goat smells slightly like a dirty men's locker room.

hummmmmm...

Chillaxin outside, i hear what i think is a killer bee swarming me. But luckily it wasn't, but it WAS a beautiful little hummingbird. I do see them out here often. I wish i had a camera with a fast enough shutter speed to catch one of these butes in flight. Sometimes they get caught in the garage, and i try to take a photo, but it just looks like a black smudge on the ceiling. So just trust me, they are super cute :)

a leaf blew in

fall is officially here! We had a gorgeous harvest moon the other night, the weather is perfect, and leaves are starting to fall off the trees. Fall is my favorite season, and I'm really enjoying it for the first time on the farm! It's really great... I can't wait for the kids to jump and play in a huge pile of leaves!

The First Episode in my NEW VLOG!!!! Check it out!

Check it out & become a follower!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJ8BLCemUbE

Donkey the llama

a beautiful black llama is the new addition to the farm!! My son named it "donkey" ... But you have to say it with a strong Scottish accent...lol we put it in with the cows, and it's eating up all the weeds already. We roped it and rode it! Lol... Ok, so we just sat on it, but it was really funny watching my hubby run after it with a rope. And the best news... No one was spit on!!!

no impact man

just watched "no impact man" last night. Although a little extreme I hope more people out there feel the need to better our earth. I definitely feel like I make efforts in preserving nature. Recycling has been a huge part of my life for many years. Also buying used is one of my favorite things to do!! If you have never been to a thrift store before, you are totally missing out on all the fabulous things out there. Buying local produce or growing your own has great benefits on the environment as well as the increased nutritional value! Finding ways to organically fertilize and pesticide are easier and cheaper than stuff you buy in the store. You can see in my blog that some things work great, while others... Well don't, but I figure it's trial and error. I would say the areas in my life that need improvement are... Juice and milk containers, although recycled, I would like to cut them out of my buying altogether. Any ideas? I want to plant an orchard with many fruits to juice myself, but trees are expensive and it may be a while before that dream is a reality. Also, as soon as my goats kid, it will open opportunity to milk them. So I guess I'm on the right path, but for now... I may switch to frozen juice to reduce packaging and look for a local dairy to buy milk from.

organic pesticide success!

so after spraying the bulls with vinegar/water/soap mixture everyday for a week. They showed less and less horn flies everyday, until they weren't present over a 48 hour period of no spray! I'll just continue to spray them every day, and we shouldn't have any more problems. I have read that horn flies can effect the beef growth up to 20 lbs. Plus, I keep joking my beef will be pre- marinated with all the spraying...lol

the sweet life...

I'm sitting here watching the goats nap under a big oak tree. Scratching their backs on the lush green grass. They snack on the fallen leaves they are using as a pillow. Then it struck me. If I was a goat, it would be like sleeping on a bed of marshmallows, walking on a candy coated ground. Kinda like willy wonka's factory. So I guess goats have it pretty good, I wouldn't mind hanging out in an eatable world!!

soil

many people are asking "how much should I water?" but the main concern should be the soil. The type of soil you have dictates the amount of watering you should do. If your soil is 100% sand you won't be able to water enough. If your soil is clay, well you should dig it up...lol Clay does not give your soil the proper drainage. If you are using a bagged soil you won't have to water very much, because for the most part it is dense and hard for the water to drain fast enough. From my experience the best possible combination is about 50% sand (good fine sand) and 50% other. Your plants love water, but they hate to sit in it. You want the kind of soil that water just sits there for a bit, then drains through. If your plants sit in water the will get root rot and be susceptible to fungus disease. I think I've lost more plant from those two things. Don't have the right soil, that's ok, you can fix it! Compost is a great way to amend any type of soil. It can be as easy as turning your beds over. Meaning when the planting season is over you just till up everything, letting the vines and stems naturally decompose and become dirt again. (this is the method I used this year, mostly because we are new here, and I planted where it looked like a garden once was.) Another solution is top your soil with about 2" of compost and turn all that under. If you have clay, sadly you are going to have to dig up as much of that as possible and replace with your own special mixture, your plants will surly get root rot. So moral of the story... Let your soil decide how much you water.

corn harvest

we picked about 1/2 our corn today. Every corn had at least one worm in it! We trimmed off the good parts and composted the rest. I decobbed the remainder (with a handy pampered chef tool) and ended up with about 1/3 gallon of kernels. Not too bad for our first try.
corn from the garden to the freezer in about an hour.

flies

the bulls have had flies on them for the past few days. Yesterday I hosed them down, the flies just hopped back on. So I shampooed them off ... Seemed to work for a bit. Then this morning the flies were back, not quite as bad, but still very bothersome to the boys. So I made a homemade spray of 3 parts water, 1 part vinegar, and a squirt of blue dawn. I hope it works, the boys were mad at me and ran away to the barn...lol. Hoping this homemade concoction works!

hot calf

so snookie died suddenly today. Definitely the sad part of farm life. She was fine for her afternoon feeding, then we found her on her side later gasping for air and a lifeless body. I've read that sometimes cows can be born "hot" and have no chance for survival. Cows are meant to eat grass, but many cows are fed grain. Grain is hard on a cows tummy, kinda like us eating pepperoni pizza everyday. The lining for their stomach becomes weak and loses all it's good bacteria, causing the cattle to get sick easily. Hints the reason for antibiotics in all our beef. While a full grown cow can live like that, a calf in the womb can not form correctly, and is born with many internal defects. I came to this conclusion with snookie because she had whitish spots on her eyes. At first I thought she might be blind, but then I realised she had more symptoms. Bleeding gums and slept curled up in fetal position. Pretty much all the symptoms of a hot calf. Could have been the reason her mom rejected her. She also never got the colostrum milk, so that can cause serious problems, but I don't think it would have saved her. She was doomed from the start. RIP snookie the cow.

green thumb ....????

OK, so I hear all the time how green my thumb is, which to me is pretty laughable! So when I was 16, I got a job as a floral clerk, which turned into a career as a floral designer. I learned loads about cut flowers ,and Part of my job was taking care of the plants in the shop.... Oh my I can't count how many plants I've killed in my lifetime, but it sparked my interest in gardening. When we bought our first house, I focused on landscape gardening mostly, planting a few tomatoes in pots on the back patio. Being that we were pretty much on zero lot lines, I didn't have too much room to work with. As the years went by, I learned alot about growing veggies through square foot gardening. Be aware I was still killing much more than I was growing. Now that we've moved to the farm, my gardening hobby has exploded into a journey of self sufficiency. Years and years of trial and error, I am getting loads of fresh fruit and veggies.... But I'm still killing plants too. So moral of the story.... Once your thumb is so black it's about to fall off... It will start turning green!! RIP to all the millions of plants I've killed over the years..lol

snookie has arrived

the cattle ranch that surrounds our property called my husband today, and one of their cows had rejected her calf. They don't really have the time to take care of it, so they gave her to us!! That's right, it's a girl!! She doesn't look so good right now. But I'm going to make a bovine colostrum replacement using the milk replacement, a raw egg, some honey, and maybe some fish oil supplement if I have some up in the cabinet. Although she will not be receiving the antibodies. I'll work it out.... Just going to take it one day at a time with her. But really I'm super excited!!

solar turd

so my daughter isn't a huge fan of tomatoes. So like a good mom I say to her, " it's good and from the earth." My husband, who's in the other room thinks I say, "it's good and a solar turd." lol... I guess it is, in a weird silly way.

free as a goat

the goats are doing great! We have let them free range all day, all week. They are staying close to home, and come running when I shake a little food in a bucket. They are climbing on everything! I have seen them up on the storm shelter, lounging on the lawn chairs, and even up on the picnic table. I catch Blondie from time to time sharpening a horn on the cinder block well house. I probably should figure out how to trim those before she makes it all sharp and pointy. They aren't getting quite as big as I thought they would, but their udders look pretty good for a goat that has never kidded before.

visitors

we had some visitors at the farm today. It was cool to share the joys of a farm with our "city" friends. And a much needed break from all the projects we have going here. FUN TIMES! If you would like a day at the farm too, make a comment and we can schedule the date.

ready for eggs

my husband pieced together some reclaimed material and built a nesting box for our chickens. We painted it electric blue and I wrote "fresh eggs" across the front. It may be a month or so before the chicken's start laying, but we wanted to be prepared. I also took out the old store fixture and redid the roosts with some pipe and slid it through the chicken wire. The coop looks really fantastic!!

ear worms .... Yuck!

ear worms sure does sound like a creepy medical condition. But really they are attacking my corn!! It's really no wonder people just spray pesticides all over their food, cause all the bugs eating my crops is enough for a woman to go insane! I'm going to try my best to save my corn in an organic like manner, but the outlook is grim for my corn crop this year.