They will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit.
It rained all day yesterday so we spent most of the day indoors. Getting over to the farm to do chores yesterday about 2:45 in the afternoon. About the time we got there so did a torrential downpour and as we pulled in the driveway, the rain turned into hail. Didn’t last very long, but… Continue reading Lovely weather
Our rainwater catchment system has three parts, in the simplest analysis. Collection, storage, and retrieval. Phase one, and by far the most expensive part, was setting the the storage system, that is, the big 5,000 gallon tank. Phase two we knock out last weekend, setting up the collection portion of the system. This is the… Continue reading Rainwater Catchment System, Phase II
Right now the process is too time consuming. We are going at look at ways to improve the process so it only takes a few minutes. At the beginning of the week last week we found that the sheep were beginning to test the fence. Their side of the fence was eaten down pretty low,… Continue reading Setting up a new paddock
Well, it's not pretty, but it will do. Two 8-foot gates closing a 16 foot gap at the end of the laneway. They are only fastened by two relatively light chains with extremely light clips, but there is a pile of rocks (yes, I know, but I was in a hurry) behind the middle section… Continue reading Opening up the lane… by closing it off!
Last Saturday, after the bull calves casually walked through our (somewhat) electrified netting for no apparent reason, Mommy and Daddy went on a date. I record that here because we made a resolution at the beginning of the year that we were going to do one date per month, and so far so good! Of… Continue reading It never goes smoothly…
A week ago I did a bit of "fancy" fencing to get a gap closed. However, despite how fancy the chiseled notches looked (not that fancy), at the end of the day it was only tied in place with one bail twine and one wire tie. So yesterday we ended up having to go to… Continue reading Fancy Fencing, Part 2
Saturday we spent most of the afternoon racing to get the rest of our orchard order into the ground. Bare-root trees have a limited time before their roots dry out and they die. We picked up the order on Thursday, and it was well packed in wet mulch and newspapers, but we didn't want to… Continue reading More Orchard Planting
After the bull pasture fiasco (which took up most of the morning) Daddy and Uncle and Seppi and Edmund got busy planting our new orchard trees and bushes. As we mentioned before, our orchard is not so much a single discrete area as it is a network of fruit trees, vines and bushes scattered around… Continue reading Food Hedge Planting
The ultimate goal of having cows is for them to eat our grass and turn it into meat and milk. Accordingly, we want to get our bulls out on pasture as quickly as possible to take advantage of the Spring flush. (I say "bulls" and not "steers" because, despite the fact that they have been… Continue reading Bulls on Pasture
Little Farm in the Big City 