Reclaiming my farm

[Chicken lady]

I spent over six hours today working in my yard.

I am sore, but basically happy.

looking back over my 40’s, it seems like every year has been an exception. The years my grandparents died, the years my kids graduated, the year I had a horrible illness decimate the goat herd, the year the raccoons ate almost all the chickens, the years we built a house, the years my kids got married. The year poison ivy ate my garden. There is overlap. I lost ground and gained ground and lost ground, and exceptions became the new normal.

i am gaining ground.

the last college graduation is in May. No one is getting married this year, no one seems in danger of dying, the house is close to finished and the big project - the floor - is mostly dh’s

so, maybe this year, I will get to September and feel like The farm had a good year.

i am going to post my progress here. Hopefully every day.

today - cleared the big weeds out of 1/4 of the fenced garden, cut all the trees out of the fence that could be removed without a saw, hacked my way through overgrowth to find two raised beds that are intended for strawberries, rescued a wind chime from honeysuckle vines.

[rosarugosa]

That sounds like amazing progress! I got to spend a couple of hours in the garden today cleaning leaves left over from fall. What state do you live in CL?

[Chicken lady]

Zone 5 ;)

[danna]

Yes, they say we are Zone 6 here in south western Ontario....lol...that is what the maps say.
Not doing anything in the garden yet! But, the robins and Canadian Geese are back so that is a good sign.
No snow left and it is rainy, windy and cold. Everything looks dirty and grey on this Easter weekend.
I am so looking forward to getting out and sweeping, raking etc. and being in the sunshine!

[danna]

Chicken Lady...Hope your year continues to let you reclaim your farm I am
sure it will feel amazing!

[Teacher Terry]

Our weather has been in the 70's which is unusual so early so we have been working in our yard. Although, with astro-turf there is a lot less to do. We have 3 big trees that are always dumping leaves and the neighbors 2 big trees get their leaves blown to our house and then stop. WE also have a small garden and outside plants and berry bushes. Great progress CL!

[catherine]

Zone 6 here (moving to Zone 5!)

I definitely have some work to do in my yard. I don't have a farm, though. I just have a regular suburban plot, but it's weedy. I never cut back the catmint or some of the other perennials because the fall just flew by. I pruned my crape myrtle yesterday, and started to clean up some of the front garden. Our forsythia is just starting to bloom, and I see the peony buds just starting to pop out.

Funny story.. I was talking to one of my Master Gardener classmates and we were on a "field trip" in the greenhouse. We were in the succulent section and I proudly told my classmate about the succulents I planted last summer. She looked at me quizzically and asked, so you have them in pots? And I said, "No, they're planted in the front garden." She said, "In the snow??? How are they doing?"

And this is how bad a gardener I am. It never occurred to me that desert plants MIGHT NOT do well in the snow. I instantly felt so stupid. So when I got home I examined my Hens and Chicks, and guess what--they're still fine! I think my ice plants are fine, too--I do recall they survived the previous winter. I think I lost another variety, but at least I feel vindicated that I wasn't totally clueless. AND I might be able to teach my MG friend something! You CAN plant some succulents in the NE that will overwinter.

Anyway, I do have to clean up my succulent garden as well as some of the others. I'll be planting in VT, though, not NJ this year.

[Mrs. Hermit]

Catherine, hens-and-chicks are succulents on steroids. They took over one of my flower beds in northern lower MI! They were not bothered by snow or cold. I had prickly pear cactus that overwintered there just fine too.

[Chicken lady]

I have some kind of succulent dh calls “live forever” it came from his mom. It puts up stalks with pink tansy shaped flower clusters. It is not chicken resistant, but the scattered bits tend to root.

today I cleared the trees that required a saw and put them on the brush pile. Then I made six wheels of mozzarella cheese and three pints of ice cream (technically frozen custard) with my eggs and milk.

dh says he is going to make dinner, so I might spend half an hour or so on the strawberry bed.

[catherine]

Catherine, hens-and-chicks are succulents are steroids. They took over one of my flower beds in northern lower MI! They were not bothered by snow or cold. I had prickly pear cactus that overwintered there just fine too.

Cool! Thanks!

[SteveinMN]

Catherine, hens-and-chicks are succulents on steroids. They took over one of my flower beds in northern lower MI! They were not bothered by snow or cold.
+1. One of our houses here in Zone 3 featured an ever-spreading hens-and-chicks which was a little hard to contain. They overwinter fine.

We're expecting somewhere between 3 and 10 inches of snow here over the next couple of days. Not a gardening/landscaping thought in mind... :(

[Chicken lady]

I did not do any additional farm work yesterday. I somehow (?) without noticing injured my dominant hand at the base of the little finger on Sunday. (Dh thinks something bit me, but I see no sign of a bite on the skin) the knuckle is very sore and stiff and the swelling extends up, down, and across the palm of my hand. Milking is difficult and somewhat painful.

There were still things I could have done yesterday, but the discomfort and difficulty had worn me down by the time I could do them in the evening.

[Tybee]

Steve, we had more snow in Northern Michigan. Very hard to get cheerful about the garden at this rate.
On other hand, my Christmas cactus is blooming again.

[iris lilies]

I have tried Hens and
chicks a coule of times, but they dont take. I saw a big patch of Ice Plant in a neighbor’s yard years ago, but it is no longer there, must have died out. It is pretty unusual here. there. These are interesting plants. We are also zone 6.

There is some kind of pricky pear type cactus that lives through our winters, and DH has some of it in his section of yard. i hate it, ugly and prickly as it is. But it is Interesting, thats for sure.

[KayLR]

It's amazing what cleaning up an area in the yard can do for one's spirits. Last weekend I cleaned up a flowerbed in front; it's probably only about 2x6---and it made such a huge difference looking at the yard from the street when I pull up home from work. It only took me about 15 mins.

Oh, and sedum Autumn Joy---it can't be killed either. Mine have endured both drought and killing frosts, many snows--they just keep coming back even better each year. I do nothing to them.

[goldensmom]

Steve, we had more snow in Northern Michigan. Very hard to get cheerful about the garden at this rate.
On other hand, my Christmas cactus is blooming again.

No garden work yet but I got the lawns de-thatched and raked into piles Saturday before the snow. When I attempted to pick up the piles they were mostly ice! Felt good, however, to get something spring like accomplished. More winter today.

[Chicken lady]

Today it poured rain all day. I made more ice cream. I now have 4 flavors.

i also admired the effectiveness of the new ditch I dug in March.

[nswef]

Yay for the ditch Chicken Lady, along with all the rest that you are doing. It's great when hard labor results in something effective and lasting (hopefully).

[Chicken lady]

I am not making very much progress, but then, I am not losing very much ground.

i went to a 4h sponsored goat clinic today. Heard a good talk by a young vet on latest practices for preventing and treating some common problems. Realized how much skill we as a community have lost (deaths, retirements, relocations, loss of interest) when I knelt down and palpated a goat’s uterus to confirm her pregnancy (yes) and was treated as if I had just performed some sort of magic trick. The owners had been hoping there would be ultrasounds available as we often have them at the fall clinic.

then I came home and Maggie the Nubian goat promptly presented me with girl and boy twins. Nice easy birth for a first fresher and I may have mentioned how much I love twins from a management standpoint? They have already demonstrated the use of both teats for me. The girl is beautiful. The boy is adequate. I generally keep two jr. bucks. The first has already been chosen and this new fellow is now in the running for second. I have one more goat to kid the first week of July. then a two month break and breeding season starts up again.

[nswef]

Sure sounds as if you are making huge progress CL. Twins! clinics!

[Chicken lady]

Well, putting information in my head doesn’t have much direct effect on the farm. I have to actually use it. And twins and the breeding arrangements I was discussing just make more work. I did watch a demo of some new clippers that I am now coveting for when I get fiber goats again. They are expensive, but what a difference in time and effort! (Wasn’t even an ad for the clippers, it was a shearing demo by a 15 y.o. girl - accidental product placement)

dh cleared some brush and moved some dirt while I was gone. - visible progress. Today it is supposed to rain all day.

[nswef]

I LOVE visible progress. I just went out to plant some sweet peas before it rains. I worked on the hardest flower bed yesterday and it looks significantly better. We have lots of blown corn husks to remove from every flower bed. Only every other year is there corn from the field across the street. I love soybean years! I'd buy that shearer if I were you. Time is worth a LOT.

[Chicken lady]

I definitely want the clippers, but I have to save up for them. They are more than my car payment. They will cost me three days of substituting pay - so there is a very clear time trade off. And with three goats (my 2 year plan), it will take 4 years of shearings to recover the time spent subbing. - after 4 years, the time spent driving to and from work and subbing to buy them = the time saved on shearing three goats.

[Tybee]

CL, what do you do with the bucklings? This has given me pause when I think of having goats or sheep. Can you sell them to others? I was horrified to read the Melissa Coleman (thank you, Catherine) biography of her family life when she said Eliot Coleman drowned the bucklings.
and yes, I know this is the central problem for any vegetarian farmer, but I am curious. I wonder how to get around this problem, although it may not be a problem for you, I am the one using the word problem here.

[Chicken lady]

It is a problem. It is stressful every year. Ugly truth - bucklings are far more fragile than doelings and more prone to genetic illness. The first sign of a parasite problem is often a sick buckling (and on the list of initial presentation symptoms of parasites in young kids yesterday, one was “death” as in, the first sign that you have a problem can be a six week old kid who drops dead for no apparent reason) so, some of them just die. 4 this year. 3 of them within 24 hours of birth.

but I do sell the ones that live. So far, I have been lucky and never had to sell one for meat. I have promised dh that I will take the extras to the livestock auction if the herd gets too big. But so far I am supplying 4h human kids with goat kids for pack and cart classes. I did keep one last year as a companion for my buck, but my herd was under 16 - which is a good winter limit. I am going to try to sell him after fair this year since I will have a second buck to keep the first company, and my count is currently 21, with two fiber goats waiting to move in whenever I am ready.

[Tybee]

It is a problem. It is stressful every year. Ugly truth - bucklings are far more fragile than doelings and more prone to genetic illness. The first sign of a parasite problem is often a sick buckling (and on the list of initial presentation symptoms of parasites in young kids yesterday, one was “death” as in, the first sign that you have a problem can be a six week old kid who drops dead for no apparent reason) so, some of them just die. 4 this year. 3 of them within 24 hours of birth.

but I do sell the ones that live. So far, I have been lucky and never had to sell one for meat. I have promised dh that I will take the extras to the livestock auction if the herd gets too big. But so far I am supplying 4h human kids with goat kids for pack and cart classes. I did keep one last year as a companion for my buck, but my herd was under 16 - which is a good winter limit. I am going to try to sell him after fair this year since I will have a second buck to keep the first company, and my count is currently 21, with two fiber goats waiting to move in whenever I am ready.

this is encouraging--we want to try sheep, thank you!