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.
Last week we re-vamped the first flush diverter on the South side of the barn, and added an outlet for the rainwater tank. It worked amazingly! So much easier than the factory configuration. As set up in the kit there is a small nipple that threads on that is supposed to drip and empty the… Continue reading Odd Jobs
Cows like to scratch. They will scratch themselves on anything available. If the only thing available is their mobile shade/shelter, they will scratch themselves on that. It that shelter is covered with a light duty tarp that hangs over the edge of the frame, they will eventually wear through tarp and shred it. Like this.… Continue reading Re-tarping the Shade Mobile
We are a little behind on blogging. Holy Week and the Triduum were busy, plus the kids decided to start a little Strepidemic running through the house. So what can we say, it's been an off week. Happy cows are tasty cows! The willow and witch hazel in the pasture are starting to leaf out.… Continue reading Catch Up
Tuesday was the easiest day of putting up gutters I have ever experienced. This was true for three reasons: The weather was gorgeous, warm but not hot, with no wind. This side of the roof is low enough I can reach it from the ground. This makes moving back and forth much faster, since I… Continue reading Finishing the Gutters
Saturday was a brief spell of good weather between two rainy stretches. I took advantage of it to replace one of the frost-free hydrants. Taking off the old hydrant is easy. Just pin the elbow on the bottom and twist it off. I took the extra step of cutting the poly pipe and installing a… Continue reading Closing up part of the ditch
We dug a ditch yesterday. Why? Because we are the dwarfs. And therefore we are digging a hole. (Diggy diggy hole, diggy diggy hoooooooole!) Actually, there is more to it than that. Last year we knew that we had some leaks in the water line somewhere so we spent a good chunk of the autumn… Continue reading More Plumbing
It is ironic, but one of the biggest challenges on our farm has been water. We receive 41 inches of rainfall annually, yet water is one of the biggest limiting factors to our productivity, because most of that rain falls between September and May and correspond to cloudy weather, while the periods of greatest sunshine… Continue reading Cold Weather
Coldest morning of the year this morning. 25 degrees when I got to the farm at 5:30, so of course all the water troughs were frozen. This picture is from about 6:45, not 5:30. We've been having issues with this particular frost-free hydrant, one of the oldest ones I think, that the previous owner put… Continue reading Disappointment
Quick project just to make watering the sheep and cows easier. And by easier, I mean automatic, nine months out of the year.
Little Farm in the Big City 