Far Better Farmstead

It finally dried out enough by Saturday to plant some things in the garden. Now, believe it or not, there is a frost watch. Our frost free date is normally the middle of April. But then again it has been very cool this spring. We borrowed some buckets from my dad to cover the tomatoes and peppers with. We also moved the laying hens over next to the potato patch because we are going to plant corn where they were. This patch is mowed, so the hens don't like it as well. In this dry spell, I also got the potatoes heeled up. The frost should hurt them too badly. Mother's day was spent at church and with our mothers. All-in-all a very good weekend.

It has rained here - a lot. I mean more than I can describe. The exact area we live gets about 65 inches per year but in the last 2 weeks we have received over 14 inches of rain. That doesn't even sound right. Even 10 miles away, they didn't get half of that. People look at us funny when we tell it. Needless to say, the garden is on hold, I am glad to still have a semblance of a driveway, and I feel something like a fish. We did manage to get our potatoes planted on the Friday before Resurrection Day (I know some of you call it "Good Friday", but I'm not crazy about that term). Anyway, the rain washed through them and uncovered a bunch, but we covered them back up. They are up fine now. We also planted 275 strawberry plants and 25 raspberry canes. We fenced the berry patch to keep out critters. As far as anything else, we haven't planted it yet (not even cabbage, broccoli, or peas). Oh well, every year is different - maybe I can grow them as fall crops. ...

I love our new electric poultry net. We struggled with major losses from our first crop of broilers this spring. The raccoons had a feast. I have been planning on getting some of this fence, and finally did it. I am really glad we did. It sets up very quickly and the two sections (@164 feet each) fence in a very large area. We are using the farm truck as our redneck fence charger for now. We moved the fence once and if you follow the directions, it works great. We got our fence from  Kencove   - they ship really fast and their prices are cheaper than Amazon for the same fence. I would buy it again any day (and no, we weren't compensated at all for the endorsement) Portable fence set up with our chicken tractor inside Redneck fence charger setup. I crank the truck every week or so.   Of  course I use the truck during the day on Saturdays, but the fence is for night time predators anyway.

We purchased 20 Cornish Rock Cross chicks at our local Tractor Supply 4 weeks ago. They have been in the brooder but it is time for them to go out into the portable coop. The only disadvantage I see of buying TSC chicks is that they only sell straight run. I used to keep an electric light (powered with a really long extension cord) in the pen to discourage predators. At Christmas, I found a set of solar lights and added them to the pen. So now our pastured poultry pen is officially "off-grid"! In about 4 weeks, we will harvest these chickens.  If you haven't watched our chicken plucker video from last year, see it below. We hope to be plucking this first batch of 2013 really soon!

Yes, it's that time again. The weather has been very cool and wet here. I didn't get my cabbage and broccoli started as early as I'd hoped, but it seems like Spring is waiting on me to catch up! I turned the garden spots weekend before last: The tractor is a M-F 270 with Howse rototiller. They both belong to my dad. I used to have an old Ford 600 with plow and disc, but I sold them when he got the big diesel. Mom and Dad live just a few hundred yards away and across the road from us. No, I we aren't "Back-to-Edeners", or even "Organic" (trademark, copyright, rights reserved by big Ag Inc.)  We have been using a modified version of the Mittleider Method for the last 12 years or so and we use no pesticides. I have found that when plants get all their minerals that they are much healthier and pests are not as apt to bother them. I do add back all of the chicken and bunny poop that I can as well as some of the animal bedding. Check out the Mittl...

I drove the new/old farm truck to Tractor Supply in Brevard today. It's a funny thing - when I HAVE to drive a clunker and it is all I have, it's not very much fun. But when I am driving a clunker on purpose, joy fills my heart! It was also very funny to be seen by some old friends - I could tell they were feeling sorry for me and thinking I was probably in pretty bad shape for driving a rusty old truck. I just drove on and grinned. I have been so blessed!

Yes! It is possible to make maple syrup down here in the southern mountains! We are so excited and blessed because we didn't think it would work. Anyway, we will post some more pictures later, but here is our sap take from Saturday: Our gathering system is as simple as stainless spiles from ebay, and buckets from the dollar tree: We boiled down about 4 gallons of sap and made 1/2 pint of awesome maple syrup. For Sunday supper we had pancakes with homemade syrup, wild boar sausage, and our own goat's milk!