2016 Accomplishments

At the beginning of the year I sat out a list of things we were going to try to get done. You can find that here.

As I write this I recognize that I completely and utterly failed on getting gutters installed. Along with cisterns, ponds, and tree planting - though I did order in all the supplies and seeds, so we'll try that again in the spring. I was pretty pissed at what I didn't done until I sat down and wrote out what we did get finished. Overall we moved the ball forward quite a bit this year.

Here's a list of what we did get accomplished:

1. Moved Andrea and the Reds to Texas with possessions and Pug dog intact. A special thank you to Bill and Diane who were gracious enough to drive the Reds to a memorial service for their great grandparents in Michigan, and then on down to Texas.
2. Bill built two spa benches after arriving in Texas.
3. Built Andrea a Farm Table and bought the wood working tools to go with it as a Mother's Day/Birthday Present.
4. Built a kitchen island that turned out awesome.
5. Got a great deal on two top bar beehives and will try to add bees come spring.
6. Found a really good looking registerable, full blooded Belted Galloway Bull.
7. Went in halfsies on a shorthorn steer that will be in the freezer next fall.
8. Bought a Red Wattle barrow and a Red Wattle/Duroc cross barrow. Sold 2 halves and put the rest in the freezer.
9. Got 6 paddocks set up and working.
10. Figured out how to better ground the electric fence and had 0 breakouts this year.
11. 20+ broiler chickens put up.
12. 25+ laying hens raised and should start laying in March 2016
13. Bought and installed a pellet stove to keep the house Africa hot for Andrea during the winter.
14. Bought a large smoker.
15. Bought a tractor, shredder, disk, hay fork, blade, and plow.
16. Bought a cattle trailer.
17. Bought a car hauler to haul our vehicles as they age and inevitably break down. :-)
18. Bought a four wheeler.
19. Picked up a aerator, sprayer, and seed spreader from a generous co-worker.
20. Bought organically grown hay from two neighbors and put up 18 bales for winter.
21. Bought several new farms tools, pull ax, pitchfork, etc.
22. Andrea picked up a used washer and dryer.
23. Let a buddy use my Seqouia and got a small deep freeze in exchange.
24. Worm bin.
25. Put in a clothesline for Andrea.
26. Composted a ton of grass clippings.
27. Picked up a large deep freeze and filled it with meat we raised.
28. Added two additional garden beds for the 2017 garden.
29. Found a compost supplier locally and brought in and spread 8 inches of compost on all the beds.
30. Raised 2 hogs successfully and have greatly enjoyed reading them.

2017 Goals will go up soon.

Thoughts on Propane Tractors

So, I had the question posed tonight about my thoughts on Liquid Propane tractors from a "doomsday prepper" standpoint. For the record, I'm not much for the whole doomsday prepper movement. Self-reliance I'm all about, but trying to prepare for ever worst case scenario will leave you alienated, overwhelmed, and broke. I'm firmly in the modern survivalist camp that Jack Spirko has done much to define this way: doing things help you thrive if times get tough, or even if they don't. 

But I digress. For LP to make sense you already need to have one or more large LP tanks (500+ gallons) on your farm. You also have to be willing to not have all the horse power that you would get from the same model tractor in either gas or diesel. On the plus side LP is the cleanest burning fuel out there, and your engine will most likely last longer than the same gas or diesel model. 

Gas made the most sense to me, as I keep at least 60 gallons of gas on hand. My tractor doesn't see real frequent use, so gas makes more sense than diesel based on ease of starting after sitting for long stretches. LP is also easy starting due to how clean it is. Parts availability would be the next thing I'd think about for any tractor. Does the local NAPA carry all your parts or are you limited to 1-3 online retailers. 

In the event of mass disruptions of fuel to most of America, we'll have bigger things to worry about than how long you can get your tractor to run for. :-) As a wise man once said, after 3 days without food the thin veneer of civilization starts to peel off pretty quick.

Prepping the Spring Garden Beds

You thought your job was crappy....

Part of homesteading for me has been simply returning to natural rhythms. The farm revolves around the seasons, not arbitrary dates on the calendar. I put down grass seed after a rain, not on a certain day. There's a lot of work, there's always 10 projects that I'd like to have done, but the beauty of the farm is things can also wait. 

On Veteran's Day I had to work in the morning, but took the afternoon to go pick-up a load of compost. The joy of finally finding a compost supplier is beyond words! Compost, loads of really high quality compost, are what have really been missing the last two years in the garden. Due to the recent rains, I only brought home about half of what I could have, I didn't want to get stuck! A full trailer will grace the trees next February, if not sooner.

Saturday we spent down in Waco watching the Baylor Women's Volleyball team dominate West Virginia, followed by dinner with some great friends at Catfish Plantation over in Waxahachie. It was amazing, if you ever get close, you have to eat there. Split a cajun plate with someone you love.

This also meant that the compost didn't get touched. Strangely enough it was still waiting for me.

Sunday morning I finished cleaning out the grass clippings that I'd used as deep litter bedding in the chicken coops. I put it on top of cardboard (the theory being that it'll help kill the grass underneath, yet break down by next spring). I spent the rest of Sunday, with the trusty scoop shovel pictured above, putting down about six inches of horse manure on top of the 3 inches or so of chicken manure composted with grass clippings and nitrogen rich feathers. 

We're going to double the size of the garden space for next year, and I'm hoping that the addition of the compost will help increase our yields. I'm also really excited for the asparagus beds. Next year marks the third year they've been in, and will also mark our first harvest.

It was well after dark before I finished, but I'm sure I'll post the final product along with my vermiculture experiment soon. 

A Calf Named Smore

It's been almost a week now since we welcomed Smore into the world, only to see her almost slip away. I was terrified she was going to die on our floor. Then I was sure that her mom wasn't go to take her back. I fully expected after she walked into the night with her mom, that I'd find her lifeless body the next morning.

Each day has been a joy to see her alive and growing. Her mom doesn't have a large udder, or a lot of motherly instinct, but she's trying.

I learn something everyday, be it at work or here on our little homestead. The Reds amaze me everyday, especially when I don't think they're listening, they'll pull a line of wisdom I thought they'd ignored and use it at the appropriate time. I don't understand why or even how my wife loves me so unconditionally, but everyday I fall a little more in love with that woman.

The farm has taught me to love deeper, to know that it's not me in control but that what I do matters, it's the doing that really matters. Do I work hard at work? Do Iove the people I work with? Do I put my wife and family first? Do I continue to hope and dream? Those things matter.

Honestly I think I have a half dozen friends reading this blog, and I hope you all know how much you each mean to me. Thanks for being a part of this journey.

A Chicken in the Oven is Better Than Two in the Coop!

I'm not ashamed to admit that I was nervous about how the Cornish we raised would taste. Anything that's new always has a little apprehension involved, right? I can now say we will definitely be raising the Cornish Cross again. It tasted great, the Reds loved it. and Andrea was happy with it. We also had enough chicken left over to feed us for the week.

I have to build a tractor to move them twice a day next time, and I have to track down a place that we can buy organic non-soy, non-GMO feed in bulk as well. We may also try finishing them on spent brewer's grain as well, and see how that works out. Another proof of concept here on the farm, and moving forward we'll look to move the price per pound down as much as we can.

Same, Same. But Different

We cut the cord for satellite TV a few months ago. I spent a week TDY and had a TV in my room, and thought I'd enjoy watching ESPN again. I love sports, and spent almost 20 years of my life either playing a sport or coaching, but the politicization of sport is crazy to me because sport, at it's foundation is a meritocracy.

My wife and I were talking last night about a the amount of grief high school coaches put up with (Andrea played 4 years of college basketball, and was a varsity coach after that for a while). In 8 seasons I attended or watched well over 1,000 high school games. I may have seen 120 kids that could start at the JuCo level or NAIA level or higher. The rest of those kids? I hope they were learning lessons of how to COMPETE, because that's what life is.

You're going to compete for a mate, for a job, for advancement, for your kids attention and respect. Every day you have to put on your boots and charge once more into the fray. You're not owed a single thing, but if you work your guts out each day. encourage those on your team/tribe/family to keep going you'll be amazed at what can happen.

How do we compete with ourselves though? By trying to be a better version, if not the best version of ourselves. Set goals for each week, month, and year of things you want to get done. They can be projects around the house, the yard, working out learning how to change your oil, etc. A big to do list. Leave it up, as you check those things off a sense of accomplishment in getting stuff done will start to be a habit.

How does getting rid of $70 a month in TV bills equate to this post. It's a habit, paying for something that we didn't really need that we broke. A few months later I don't miss it and wonder why we didn't do it sooner. The house is more peaceful. I'm reading more, I'm doing more around the house. In self reliance, everything comes back to how we spend our time.

Why Homestead?

I've been at this homesteading, self-reliance, modern survivalist thing now that I see a more people making a conscious decision to do the same.

As I've said before, this self-reliance thing is hard. It's early mornings, late nights, praying for rain, and praying for rain to stop. It's the heartbreak of losing animals, crops, and time invested in both, balanced by the joy of a newborn calf, frying up an egg still warm from recently being laid, and the juice of a tree ripened peach running down your chin.

For my friends that realize, somethings not right, many of them say they can just feel it. It's not that they know the total amount of American debt, or even what a derivative is, but they know somethings coming. I remember the feeling of going down more and more rabbit holes, realizing how precarious our situation was in 2008, but here I am 8 years later as testament to you that anyone can do this. Here's my attempt to help you on your way.

1. Breathe. It's going to be OK. Empires fall, Markets fail. As King Solomon said 3,000 years ago, there is nothing new under the sun.

2. Debt. It's a soul crushing burden. Here's the Dave Ramsey plan in a nutshell. Make a budget. Cut up your credit cards. Sell everything you have of value, Pay off the smallest to the largest of your remaining debt each month. Pay cash, on payday put it into envelopes for rent, gas, etc (or debit cards as cash is harder and harder to use). Get a second job. You aren't owed feeling good, spoiling yourself, pampering, etc. until you're doing it with your money and not the bank's at 24% interest.

3. Skills. Once these two things are handled I see so many men rush into the firearms world and blow a ton of money there.
   a. Learn to grow a garden, there are so many great resources out there to help you. Ask me if you want!
   b. Plant fruit trees, there's not better ROI on the planet than a healthy productive fruit tree. Think about it $25 investment, some vermiculture compost, and for the next 3 to 50 years you'll get hundreds of percent return in fresh fruit.
   c. Learn how to change your own oil. For less than $25 and 30 minutes of my time I keep full synthetic oil and a high mileage filter in my vehicles every 5000 miles. Your car will last longer, run better, and you'll get to know your vehicle.
    d. Preserving food. Learn how to can and dehydrate and your garden and fruit trees will start to save you money.
     e. Learn how to cook. It's a skill, find recipes you like and make them once a week until you understand them. After you're out of debt by a KitchenAid mixer and large high quality food processor. You can feed a family a high quality inexpensive meal and the more products that you produce the more self reliant you're becoming.

It's a marathon, not a sprint. Do all you can do today, sit down on the couch exhausted, love on your family, go to bed and do it again tomorrow. You'll feel like you're swimming in concrete for a while, but eventually you'll look back and realize how far you've come.

A Texas Welcome to the Wife

Towards the end of May I was finally able to move my wife down to Texas. I wanted so much to impress her with a thriving, squared away homestead. Complete with a clutter free home and a swept out barn. Alas, reality once again kicked me in the twig and berries.

That said, after two hard days driving across the Rockies dragging a trailer and an elderly pug dog (not in Christmas Vacation style, mind you) it was really, really good to be home. The house still looked like a gypsy safe house, and the barn was worse. We settled in for the night happy to finally be in the same place together.

Around dawn the next morning Katniss started barking. Katniss only had two reasons she ever barked, the postman was dropping off something from Amazon at the door, or there were other dogs on the property. Eliminating FedEx making a pre-dawn drop off, I grabbed a rifle and headed out the door. The sound of squawking hens and barking dogs filled my ears, and I was sprinting out to the barn.

The four feral dogs, a bigger problem than you’d think, came tearing out of the barn. I missed both shots I took, made the rifle safe and went back to sprinting after the dogs. In the heat of the chase, and low light of the morning I forgot about the electric fence I’d started the week prior. So there I am, clad in boxer shorts, muck boots, and a rifle slung over me running full speed when I went ass over elbows in to knee high, chigger infested grass.

Two chickens had been more or less eaten and already dead. While another two were chewed up, both of whom would later succumb to their injuries. It was a tough day on the homestead. The two surviving Production Reds have thrived since, and started laying shortly afterwards, blessing us with around a dozen eggs a week since.

For those of you who wonder why the chickens aren't penned it comes back to two reasons one, the economics of how much less feed free range chickens require from me, and two how much healthier free range is for the chickens, minus of course the occasional feral dog attacks. :-)

Rangeland Management for Fun and Profit

Eventually I'll get a picture of the plan for the paddocks for the rest of the pasture. As it stands we have 6 paddocks that are very irregular in size. I was expecting to see better grass in those paddocks, but I've been really surprised by how evident the improvement is. After a couple of rotations through I'm convinced it'll be the best thing we can do for the rest of the pasture.

For the back part of the pasture we're going to put a main line straight down the middle of the pasture and probably start with another 8 paddocks in the back. They'll be much bigger than the ones in the front, and with the number of cattle we have now each paddock will probably see two weeks of grazing each. This will also give us enough time to over seed half the pasture at a time keeping the cattle off of it for 3 months when you figure in another month for the front paddocks.

The plan now, after learning a lot is to run 1/2" irrigation hose the length of the middle of the field. We'll run a 1/4" hose off to a water trough that can be easily dumped and moved as we shift the cattle. The 50 gallon Rubbermaid set on 2 pallets has worked really well for us. The pallets came into play because without them the Belties were using the trough as a wading pool. The plus side to this is I can still empty the trough easily when it's time to move it. The down side is that when something malfunctions, there's a lot less water there for the cows until I discover the empty trough.

The Zareba electric fencing has been fantastic to work with, but only time will tell how it holds up in the harsh Texas sun. As we get this stuff figured out, we'll try to make it more attractive versus the Redneck Special Needs paddocks that we're rocking right now.

Homesteading is hard.

Yes, you heard that right. Homesteading is hard. Mother nature is a cold hearted wench. She, along with nature, will conspire to kill you, your family members, your livestock, your crops, tear down your fences, and wreck your equipment.

My heart breaks with each animal we lose, be they family pets or humble chickens. No matter how many hours I spend after work or on the weekends working on the homestead, there always seems to be another dozen projects that needed to get done. I get up at 4:15 the days I work so I can feed before I go to work. I feed again after I get home, and set up to speed up my work the next morning.

So why do we keep doing it?

Because it's real.

Because we know exactly how our food is raised.

Because there's no better way to raise your children than on a farm. Especially if you want them to make their own way in the world. A farm is a PhD level course in problem solving, empathy, and effort.

Because for Millennia, our forefathers had this struggle, they made it and that same blood flows through our veins.

We've accepted the challenge. I'll do my best to share our triumphs, tragedies, lessons learned, to hopefully make your journey a little easier.

Ideal 236 Chickens

On July 28^th we had 55 chickens show up at the local post office. 30 were Cornish Cross and 25 were the Ideal Nursery’s 236. The 236 is a proprietary breed that Ideal has been selling since the 60’s, apparently involving a Leghorn crossed with a couple of other chickens. The 236 chickens will become the foundation of our laying endeavor.

The 236’s on the other hand were all fully feathered by the end of week three. Zero have died of natural causes, and even though their coop isn’t 100% snake proof, I haven’t lost any of them to snakes since week 3 due to their ability to fly and roost as high as they can. The FrankenChickens on the other hand have had 2 succumb to snakes over the last 3 weeks, in part, I think, due to their inability to fly and/or roost above ground level. The other thing I’ve been impressed with since I started letting them free range during the day is how little feed they’re consuming.

We won’t know until they actually start laying how truly efficient their egg production is. That’s the real baseline I’m concerned with is how close can I come to breaking even on my feed costs through selling the excess eggs. They love going outside to forage and as it starts to get dark they head back into the coop without too much prodding. They all sleep off the ground, roosting like chickens should.

Overall, I couldn’t be any happier with the 236 chickens. They have been easy to raise and vigorous growers. 

We’re 5 weeks in and what a difference in the 236 chickens from the FrankenChickens. They’ve been vibrant, active, curious, and healthy. They were the same size as the Cornish Cross when they arrived, and while the Cornish are now roughly 4 times bigger the Cornish look rough, and are nowhere near being completely feathered out.  Yesterday I found one of the Cornish who looked as though he’d just gone to sleep and didn’t wake up. No abuse from his buddies, just dead.