Farm Goals '10
If
you read our
rundown on 2009's top ten goals, you may be asking --- what
are our major projects for 2010?
- Revisit the creek crossing.
Maybe build solid, higher stepping stones. Or a zip line.
Or a better bridge. Still pondering this one. The goal is
to get us across the creek during moderate to high water.
- Finish our homemade
storage building. Number two on our list, but number
one on our agenda.
- Experiment with ways to get
humanure to our fruit trees.
We're considering building a movable "outhouse" that will let us fill
pits with human waste interspersed with leaves and bones. My
goal
is to safely dispose of all of the wastes, but in such a way that
they'll rot down into fertilizer that the trees can grow their roots
into. We hope to develop a method which will ensure that we don't
have to handle the waste. Again, still pondering --- more on this
once I read the Humanure book that I skimmed last year.
Running water
in the trailer. Finishing up last year's waterline
burying expedition.
- Figure out chicken reproduction.
Yeah, yeah, I know all about the birds and the bees. But our
broody hen is a terrible mother, so we'd like to give our electric
incubator another try. But our house has too much temperature
variation for the incubator to work as is (we've tried), so Mark's
going to build an insulated brood box to keep the incubator at more of
a steady temperature. Hopefully we can raise enough chickens this
year to eat some. Whether we'll break down and take on a
free-loader rooster is still up in the air.
- Figure out a way to keep a
constant mulch cover over the entire garden.
This may mean buying a chipper or hunting down those utility line
trucks to get a mass of wood chips for longer term mulching (once they
rot down.) Or raking
more leaves. Or getting more serious
about grass
clippings (maybe with a riding mower so we can cover more
territory?) Probably some combination of the above. No
matter how we do it, I want to spend less time weeding so that we can
expand the garden in 2011 to grow some of our own grain. Right
now, we can't expand anything or I'll go nuts during weeding season!
- Figure out mushroom reproduction. As you've read in our mushroom lunchtime series, we're well on our way.
Find a
temporary caretaker to check on the farm when we're away. This
isn't essential right now but is a prerequisite for any potential dairy
animals.
- Start fencing or hedging
pasture areas for potential sheep/goats/pigs. Big
livestock are on our ten year plan, so we'd better get ready for them!
- Bathing room. Once
the storage building is in place, there'll be room in the trailer to
make a really nice bathtub with a view of the garden. Maybe I
could even have a supplemental bathing area outdoors for the summer
months too?
- Solidify the driveway with more
rocks. This mostly just means money to hire someone to
haul rip-rap for us. And tracking him down to do the
hauling. Then some rock spreading.
- Fix the fridge
root cellar.
Once again, my ability
to count to 10 is in serious doubt. But listing twelve top goals
gives me some wiggle room so that if we complete ten we'll still have
succeeded. It's clearly going to be another exciting year on the
farm!
Or explore more posts by date or by subject.
About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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That's a great list. I'm intrigued about the humanure. I got the book from the library but did not finish it but do get the concept. Do you use this inside or out? I understand it works very well and it makes a lot of sense. Do you have a gray water system for the other water? That bathing room sounds wonderful. What is it with girls and baths? It's my favorite thing and a view to go along with that would be amazing. Do you guys use propane to heat your water? I see some neat heaters online that are good for showers but I am not sure how they work on baths. I think solar heating would be really great.
We tried incubating eggs too, years ago, when we had our little place in the country. Only one egg (goose) made it and then the little fellow was killed by a skunk. I was pretty choked. We had another pair of Emden geese who were only about 6 months old. The books said (before the net) they only would have goslings at 2 years. They surprised us when, upon looking into their little insulated area, we saw 3 babies scurrying around under mummy. This was in February with temps -22 F. We found banties to be excellent brooders as well (cochin) and they sure are cute. Back then, we were pretty clueless and once, when the female goose was picking feathers out of the males neck, I made him a turtleneck to protect him, not realizing she was padding her nest.
I think the caretaker idea is good too. When we do this (move to country), I was thinking of having a little place for someone to help out with the work for free rent or something. But it could be tricky finding the right person.
I used to love using the ride-on at our acreage. This was a prairie and you had to keep the grass cut to prevent fires (so we were told). Where we hope to move, (bush area) they are really into cutting grass, which I am not sure is a good idea. I really like to see natural wildflowers and watch the bees at work. Maybe just cutting a bit is the way to go. Sorry for the length. Happy blogging.
The humanure book suggested using the bathroom indoors and carrying out your wastes, which seems a bit silly to me. We have no problem using the bathroom outside.
So far, the only water we use is for washing dishes and doing laundry, and in both cases we currently let the water sink into the ground, or get lapped up by Lucy. (We're quite a distance from the creek, so it doesn't have any way of running straight in.) This year, we're going to modify that by adding beds of mushrooms to clean the water.
I know what you mean about girls and baths! I get so obsessed with bathing facilities! Currently, we just heat up buckets of water on the stove, but I hope to get a point of use hot water heater when we set up our bathing room. And make a solar heater for the summer.
I'm glad to hear we're not the only ones who had problems with incubation. I felt like such a dunce!!! Especially after reading about how other people manage to incubate eggs in a warm towel or other makeshift incubators. I can only guess that the temperature extremes in our house are just too much for it to handle.
I think our cochin would have been a good mother if I'd put eggs from white chickens under her. Since she killed her babies, I've been reading that white hens will often kill black chicks and black hens white chicks. I guess they're smarter than I give them credit for!
We were totally into infrequent mowing...until I needed more mulch and found out how awesome grass clippings are. Some day I may have enough mulch, but as Mark's discovered, it takes an awful lot of mulch to sedate me. (Actually, when he wants to please me, he finds ways to make more mulch rather than bringing home flowers or jewelry.
I'm always glad to hear from you! Don't apologize for the length!