May
2009
Our homestead pics: 2005 and 2009
May 17th, 2009 at 07:30 pm by Shari Thomas in Around the Farm, gardenAs promised here is a short photo blog of pictures from when Bev and Cindy first got here, compared with pictures I took today.
Front yard Sept 2005
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Raised gardens with garlic, spinach, peas and lettuce.
Under the trees, rhubarb, strawberries and currents.
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That gives you a quick idea of the changes we’ve made so far.
Also today, we put another new cover on the greenhouse. That makes three covers in three years. This one doesn’t look good. The fabric has several flaws which we’ve documented.
Tomorrow, Cindy and I will begin digging out the south side of the front walk, hoping to have that completed in two days.
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May
2009
More yard work, setting up the patios
May 16th, 2009 at 07:25 pm by Shari Thomas in Around the Farm, New Life, WeatherToday, we moved closer to our “summer living” with still more yard work and the setting up of our summer patios. Yes, that’s two patios.
I promise, tomorrow I’ll get pictures. Today we had a stiff breeze from nearly sunrise, so we concentrated entirely on the tasks before us.
We did more work on the major project, the rebuilding of the front walkway by adding railroad ties to the area between the yard and the future planting area for our entry hedge. We also added a nice top-dressing of compost.
Next week we’ll do the other side of the walk way. All the gravel is being added to the circular drive. That cuts the bill a bit for more gravel out there.
We also used the Mantis in “edger mode” to trim back the grass from all the concrete “dividers”. That’s a project that has been on our radar for over two years.
The glass tables and chairs emerged from the garage and were set up at our kitchen door patio, and also at our “lower patio”. That one is under the elm trees and overlooks the big garden, the chicken coop, the sheep, the cows, and the horses.
We think there was some kind of a shop that was torn down, as we’ve moved more than enough shingles, old wood, electrical wire, and even car parts from the area. This is all on a big concrete pad, approximately 30 x 15.
What’s really nice, is now we can walk around in the garage again, something Mom really appreciates.
Ok, tomorrow, I promise a gallery of what we looked like in Aug 2005 when Bev and Cindy first got here. Remember they bought this place “sight unseen”. Bev’s cousins had seen it and they’re first comments were, “If we were 20 years younger, you wouldn’t get to buy this. It would be ours.”
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Apr
2009
Planted peas, spinach and chives today
April 30th, 2009 at 07:44 pm by Shari Thomas in Weather, gardenUnder the watchful eyes of our long-eared owl family, I planted the very first of our crops today.
Earlier we built another set of garden boxes in our front lawn. That doubles the boxes to four 4×6 and two 2×5. Eventually, we’ll add four more 4×6 boxes and that will complete one half of our front yard.
I know, it’s hard to visualize, so I’ll get some pictures tomorrow. Gotta do it then, or wait until Monday, as there’s a storm headed our way. I expect that by tomorrow noon, we’ll be back into high wind advisories, and then thunderstorms and rain on Saturday into Sunday.
We have to be very careful about planting things here as our last frost doesn’t come until the middle of June… yep, we could have frost the night before we have summer!
We’ve got the garden plots prepped, and the first of the drip irrigation systems is laid out waiting to be drilled. I’ve been pretty insistent about waiting until our seeds arrive, and we’ve bought the necessary plants to actually drill the drip holes into the PVC.
Hopefully, we’ll have a quiet day next week so we can put the new cover on the greenhouse. This is our third cover in as many years. Sure glad we bought a greenhouse with a long guarantee on the covers.
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Apr
2009
Summer, winter, spring in just 3 days!
April 27th, 2009 at 07:22 pm by Shari Thomas in Around the Farm, Chickens, WeatherThat’s the way it’s been here for the past couple of weeks. We’ve seen highs in the low 80’s followed by snow/sleet and lows below freezing. We’ve even had over an inch of rain this past week.
Oh, and you can’t forget the winds. Generally the wind begins about noon, but lately it’s been blowing nearly 24/7 thanks to the way the storms are passing to the north of us.
We’ve had to nail plywood back onto the stable, and rebuild a corner on the sheep shelter, as well as come up with another tarp to cover the cow manger. Thankfully, we’ve removed the tarps from the alfalfa stacks as they were completely shredded.
On the summer day, we quickly built three new raised boxes, and then waited for another time with little to no wind to fill them with sand and compost. We’ll plant peas and various lettuces in those boxes.
We’ve also added extra compost to the corn patch, and laid out the new drip irrigation system for our big garden.
Our garlic is doing very well in two of the three locations, something we were told would be the case. The rhubarb is growing nicely, and even Cindy’s strawberries are showing life. We’ll leave the berries alone until mid June.
The very last thing we’ve done was to remove the bird netting from the top of the chicken coop. A late, heavy, wet snow took it down and really made a mess of it. We also raked all the old bones, corn cobs, and other garbage the chickens have scratched up in their pen. We have a few young hens who like to fly out of the pen, so every once in a while we’re surprised by a hen going on walkabout.
Hopefully, we’ll get the new addition to the coop roughed out this weekend. Remember, we took a barn down for the wood, and part of that will become the new coop addition.
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Sep
2008
It’s fall, time to count our successes
September 22nd, 2008 at 06:43 pm by Shari Thomas in Around the Farm, Chickens, Family Cow, Horses, Sheep, WeatherI love this time of year!
It’s that time when we take a minute (or an hour) to just sit and watch the sheep, the cow, the chickens we’re now letting truly free-range, and all the other wildlife.
Our little garden patches yielded goodies this year for the first time in three years. We’ve been enjoying ripe tomatoes, fresh potatoes, broccoli, carrots, lettuce, onions and garlic. Our corn may not make it in time, and the eggplant is questionable.
Once again, we planted winter squash (spaghetti, acorn and butternut) in hopes we’ll get not only enough for ourselves, but also enough to take to market.
Ever the optimist, Cindy planted watermelon, the small seedless variety in hopes of getting at least one ripe melon. We’ve been covering them, as well as the squash, every night since our first frost Sept 1.
Over Labor Day weekend, we rented a tractor (they call them skip loaders in this area) with a bucket and a grading box so we could rearrange some of our sand and clean out part of the sheep pen. We had to go to St George to pick it up on Friday afternoon, but were able to keep it until the following Tuesday morning. For the weekend, we could use it 8 hours. Additional hours cost extra… no problem!
What follows is a snapshot of what was and now, what is.
We smoothed off a lot of “dunes and tumbleweeds” around the horse corral as well as made “homes” for each stack of hay (72 bale stacks… that’s a little over 4 tons per stack).
Before…
After…
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Aug
2008
This past month has been a blur…
August 25th, 2008 at 03:45 pm by Shari Thomas in Around the Farm, Chickens, Exploring Utah, Family Cow, SheepFor the first time in three years, we’ve successfully raised some veggies!
That had us “looking at our options”, since canning or freezing much isn’t really part of Mom’s plan. She is happy to put up a small amount (if she’s in the mood and feeling well enough) of things like jam, pickled beets, etc. Only one problem. We didn’t raise any fruit or beets.
We have successfully raised shallots; garlic; white, yellow and red onions; potatoes; a few tomatoes; broccoli, and soon we’ll have loads of squash.
Our neighbor, Jill, who’s a life-long resident here got us interested in the Cedar City Farmers’ Market. It’s an informal affair on Saturday mornings. Held in a local business’ parking lot, we all set up our tables and wait for the crowds… and they do arrive.
I’ve been selling our sheep fleeces as “garden mulch”. Ok, it’s not what you would normally think of… but think this way… awesome moisture retention, great insulation, and a long-term nitrogen source, as well as a good “soil conditioner”.
We’ve been taking several dozen eggs from “Mom’s Hen House” and never, ever come home with any. Of course, we keep her money separate and make sure she get’s it. Oh, also this past month, I had another article published in Small Town Living. This time, it was “Mom’s Hen House”!
With four lambs left, I’ve made up some flyers and hopefully will sell them privately (at the market) for custom butchering. If not, they go to auction the first Thursday in September. They’re about 80 lbs now, and that’s perfect for really tender, tasty lamb.
Besides that, I need their space.
Meet our new addition… who’s about to bring us another addition. We picked her up yesterday afternoon. We’ve been told she’s due anytime between now and the end of the first week of September.
Her original name is “Cowgirl”, but as soon as Mom settles on a new name, it will officially change. I’ve been calling her “Sweetie Pie”.
She’s a 2 1/2 year old Corriente/Texas Longhorn cross and is bred to a big ol’ Herford. “Curly”, the daddy weighs about 2000 lbs. Sure hope she doesn’t have any issues with calving… we’re really rookies on this one.
The plan is to raise her calf (assuming it’s a bull calf) for meat. We’ll re-breed her in a month, so we can get a “summer calf”. If we get a heifer, we’ll probably not re-breed her, rather take her to auction when we can. I’m not sure if we want to bottle-feed a baby as we head into winter, here.
Mom said today, our farm is now complete. She has no desire for pigs, ducks, turkeys, peacocks, guinea fowl, or cats. As for me, I still want a donkey to guard the sheep.
On a sad note, this past Thursday, we lost a ewe lamb to apparent bloat. She was fine in the evening, and I think I saw her early in the morning, but found her in the shelter, still warm, but very dead. That means we’ll go into breeding season with four full ewes being bred and possibly three ewe lambs. It’s always questionable whether or not a ewe lamb will breed before she turns one year old (next April).
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Jul
2008
More major projects time… building round pens!
July 19th, 2008 at 04:09 pm by Shari Thomas in Around the Farm, HorsesThis past week has been a very busy one, for sure.
First, we teamed up with “neighbor Clyde” again to dig 23 post holes. His old tractor and 12 inch auger got a real workout. The first two posts were done up front where we’re replacing a fence with a gate. More about that later.
The next major project was 21 post holes for our “desert-style” round pen.
We’re making this one with cedar posts and some kind of fencing. It is a 50′ pen, just like the “real cowboy type” steel pen. The major differences… it’s a lot cheaper, you can’t climb on it, and it’s not portable. A mere 2 hours 45 minutes later, with lot’s of sweat equity (literally) the holes were all dug.
Oh, we also bought our new steel round pen, having returned the borrowed one several months ago. At nearly $1300, that was a major expense for this year. Now we have plenty of room to work the horses.
The garden is coming along nicely. In fact just today, we harvested our first broccoli.
Shortly we’ll have onions and shallots. The rhubarb was cut a couple weeks ago, and has been a nice addition to our table.
This year, maybe… just maybe, we’ll have fresh tomatoes. By putting them in the greenhouse, we’ve been able to keep them alive, and even have gotten them to polinate.
We all make the habit of giving the little blossoms a shake-shake each time we water. Yes, there are many green tomatoes right now… time for them to start ripening!
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