Progress and Summertime Fun
So, our garden has finally become a source of happiness instead of worry and disappointment. We have more straightneck and zucchini squash than we know what to do with and tons of green beans, too. We’ve also got pumpkins starting to turn orange, four different kinds of tomatoes, jalapenos, green onions, red onions, okra, watermelons, cataloupe, two different kinds of cucumbers and some lettuce that has survived the hot weather. Soon, I’ll be planting broccoli, cabbage, more radishes, carrots, cauliflower and brussels sprouts. Our corn was completely decimated by the sqirrels, so we’ll try that again next year. I don’t know what they did with the corn. There weren’t any ears yet, but they gnawed the corn stalks off about two inches off the ground. We started out with forty-five plants and ended up with four. I finally tried red pepper on the corn that was left, as I heard it might work. C said he said saw one of the squirrels running away from the corn squeaking and jumping in the air. We haven’t seen any squirrels in the garden since, so I guess it worked. We actually got a permit to shoot them from DNR, but they disappeared for the entire month that the permit was good for. A few days after it expired, they came and killed it all. Now, I’ve never shot an animal and I’m not sure I ever could, but I was so angry about the corn that I thought I might be able to. Even A, who wants to save all the animals in the world, was using a slingshot, trying to whack the squirrel that we had chased up a tree. I think we might have better luck next year. We just got a beautiful black lab puppy named Diesel. I don’t think he’ll mind chasing squirrels for us. Also, we need a fence next year. I had to replant green beans because the deer seem to find them irresistible and ate them down to nubby stems.
The kids are having a great summer, swimming at friends houses and playing manhunt (a nighttime version of hide and seek) almost every night. I feel bad for R. There aren’t any kids in the neighborhood that are even close to her age.
In chicken news, we have finished the coop, at least until we have to insulate it this fall. The chickens should be laying their first eggs around the beginning of August. I can’t wait!
That’s all for now!
Filed under Chickens, Dogs, Fun Stuff, Gardening, Homestead, Shooting Sports | Comment (0)Yay for John Deere!
We’re getting a small tractor on Tuesday! It will have a scoop and a backhoe and we’ll be getting a chipper a few days later. I cannot explain my happiness. If you’ve ever tried to clear land with a chain saw, shovel, various rakes, pruning shears and a wheelbarrow and felt like you were washing dishes with a q-tip, you know EXACTLY how I feel. I’m turning very country bumpkin, since I now daydream of tools and sheds instead of other insignificant ways to waste our money.
Filed under Gardening, Homestead, Tool Joy! | Comment (0)Progress, minus pictures
So, we’ve acquired more animals and still have tons of work to do. We now have an adorable bunny named Sheila, because Rowan names everything Sheila. We also have five baby chicks that are about a week old. I have come to the realization that we won’t be able to go anywhere overnight unless we have someone to take care of our chickens, which is a definite downside for me since I NEED to go places and experience different things. Camping is especially crucial for my sanity during the nicer months, but I’ll just have to live with it. We have so much outdoor stuff to do, hopefully I won’t think too much about wanting to do something else.
We need big equipment to clear our garden area faster. We’re contemplating buying a small tractor that has multiple attachments because we need a frontloader, a chipper, a backhoe, a tiller, a grader and I’m sure there are other things we need that we haven’t thought of yet. As fun as it is to have lots of room, it’s a lot of work to clear a sixth of an acre or so…by hand. We want to have a large garden and become more self sufficient, especially with the cost of produce so high and possible looming food shortages. With a large garden, we can grow enough to eat fresh during the summer and fall and hopefully grow enough to freeze and can for the winter and spring. I know this is the first year, but I have such high hopes.
We also need to finish the chicken coop. We need to put the floor on and build a run. We also need to put screens over the windows, cut out a chicken sized door, add nesting boxes (later when the chickens are ready to start laying so they don’t use them for other grody things) and roosts. It feels like it will never be finished, but I’m sure it will. It has to be in about two months! One thing at a time.
I need to figure out how to tame our wild berry bushes. We have blackberries and wineberries intermingled in a thicket near our house, but I’m a little concerned about going out to pick in late summer because we had a copperhead in our woods last year. If we clear around the bushes and keep a path open through the middle, maybe it won’t be so bad.
I think we now have enough firewood for the entire next winter. The oaks we cut down were huge and we’re still not done cutting them into rounds and stacking them to be split later. Some rounds are so large that we can’t lift them. It will be nice to not pay for wood next fall. We should save several hundred over the next year. AND now that the trees are down, we have HD TV and we have plenty of sunny space on the roof for solar panels when we’re ready for them. I would love to be self sufficient when it comes to electrity and it will make us completely self sufficient when it comes to our water, because even though we have a well, we have an electric pump to bring the water to the house. We may even be able to create a set up for heating our hot water with the sun. So many possibilities!
When I remember how to do it (actually, find the directions John gave me for how to do it), I’ll add some pics of the clearing that’s going on and the chicks and bunny. For now, I’ll leave it to your imagination. 