Cheryl and I were talking the other day and she really wants to have goats for next summer (bring year one). The plan has them scheduled for year two. So this morning I spent more time then I should have and cleared around the first paddock, getting all the weeds and over-growth away from the old cattle fence (which is really just six strands of barbed-wire poultry nailed into anything in the way). I worked off and on all day on the fence. Also I found a cattle fence not far from the one that I was working on, it looks to be in good shape and is one of the 4x8 rectangle rolls of fence, it might just be enough to fence in the first paddock and then I'll just string the barbed-wire through it to tighten the openings a bit. There is still about three days of work left on the fence but I think it might be possible as long as I can grow what they need to eat for next year.
In getting ready to take down the barbed-wire fence I first had to remove the electrical fencing line that ran one side of the paddock. Nate wanted to help with this. It was a blast watching him try to walk through the long grass, in his little yellow rain boots (it has been rainy lately so the fields are a little soft). I was holding his hand and it seem more like dragging him then walking, but he was laughing the whole time and kept rambling about how it was like being on a skate board. When I had to stop and work on something all I had to do was give him my nettle noise to play with.
During one of the breaks I took from the fence work I tried to till were next years garden will be. The tiller had a flat and had not been run in about a year and a bit. Getting it started was easy, almost to easy. The flat, while I don't have a pump, so it is still flat and that means that I still have to till the garden and after being in the front paddock all morning, I might till it also and throw down some alfalfa to grow over winter maybe mix in some timothy also.
I now have just over a bush cord of wood in the basement, cut and split. When we bought the house the furnace couldn't be W.E.T. certified, so we had to buy a new one. This has been a hugh head ache, the place where we bought it doesn't install them themselves, but they do recommend a company to do it. Well, that company came out and took a look at the current set-up while we were waiting for the new furnace to be delivered. They left and didn't leave a business card phone number or name (Co.). So we waited and waited and then I was cutting one day and thought that I should call to find out what size logs would fit in the furnace and at the same time found out that the furnace was in. Longer story short the installers hadn't called and then when I continued to call they had some excuse that there are so many set-up types for the furnace that we bought that they didn't know how to price it because they didn't know what needed to be done. Well I'm not going to go into detail about that, but they were here they seen the set-up and they knew what needed to be done. That just doesn't make me feel to confident in there ability, not to mention the customer service aspect (having to basically call everyday to get them to return my call). So I have read the manual and I might just try to do it myself and then call someone once I hit something that trips me up. Tomorrow I'm going to take the existing furnace duct work apart and have a closer look. And for now the fireplace in the living room is doing just fine, I write this as I am sweating just sitting here.
Hopefully I will get the skids soon and I can start making plans for chicken tractors. But for now I will just keep working on cutting wood and fixing the paddock while the weather still holds.
God Bless
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Getting there
As the yard fills with leaves I finally finished cutting the felled trees in the back, about half is chopped the rest is stacked in rounds waiting for a sunny winters day to be chopped. After looking at the amount of wood that is there I can't help but remember the saying about wood "if you think you have enough, triple it and you might be ok". So I might drop a few more ash and cut them before the snow comes. Defiantly having the ATV and Paul's trailer has made cutting a lot easier, I can't imagine doing that work with a wheelbarrow.
My mother-in-law is still living here. It has come in handy a couple of times when I need to leave the kinds and just go do something on my own.
A couple weeks back Ryan help fell some trees in the front yard, well I have been trying to just burn through that wood. So once the fire is going I will throw a few of those logs on top of the stove and turn them every once and a while, then finally put them in the fire to burn. This has worked great with only few incidence until the other night. It started with the night before one of the logs on top had started to smoke only a short time after going on top. So, I just took it off and put it outside (around 5 or 6pm). At 3am the next morning I was up with the kids and then couldn't sleep due to a headache. I was downstairs watching "I still know what you did last summer" online (why do people still pay for cable?) when I thought that there was a tow truck next door or in our drive. Wrong! it was that piece of wood, it had caught the front porch on fire, four glasses of water extinguished it, but scary enough. It took about half an hour to pull and replace the floor boards that were damaged. And now there is the "No drying wood on the stove" rule.
Next on the list I need to till the second paddock on one side for the garden in the spring. I have asked my electrician friend to save the metal things that wire comes on so I can take down some barbed wire and relocate it to around the second paddock. Deer and Rabbit (food) might try to eat the garden in the spring. Which reminds me I really want to catch some of the rabbits that are hopping around here and try to breed it with a meat rabbit to see if we can get all the good characteristics of the wild (foraging) with the size of the meat rabbit. That will have to wait till spring and green pastures, because we don't won't to have to buy food for our food.
On the topic of wild animals, I was up the other morning because I couldn't sleep (again), and around 4am I could hear the coyotes going crazy. I opened the back door to get a better listen and they were no more then 400m from my back door, straight back (on my prop). They sounded like they had caught something, more then likely a deer by the sounds of their numbers, and they were having it out over who got what. I want to rig a few metal barrels up as traps to place around the prop to cut down on the amount that could potentially attack our animals (I have my license to do this). So, if you happen to have metal barrels that you want to give away, Please post a comment.
The pond is almost completely out, it is heavy work so I can only do a little at a time and pay for it dearly each time. Now I just have to move the remaining stones and back fill the rest of it with dirt.
I did just read in this months M.E.N. about Osage Orange. It is a living fence, I would love to use this I just need to find out about how much it is going to cost and if that is in the budget then I will start next spring.
Today I have to wire a trailer harness and then go pick up debris and do fall landscaping at the rentals.
Out for now,
My mother-in-law is still living here. It has come in handy a couple of times when I need to leave the kinds and just go do something on my own.
A couple weeks back Ryan help fell some trees in the front yard, well I have been trying to just burn through that wood. So once the fire is going I will throw a few of those logs on top of the stove and turn them every once and a while, then finally put them in the fire to burn. This has worked great with only few incidence until the other night. It started with the night before one of the logs on top had started to smoke only a short time after going on top. So, I just took it off and put it outside (around 5 or 6pm). At 3am the next morning I was up with the kids and then couldn't sleep due to a headache. I was downstairs watching "I still know what you did last summer" online (why do people still pay for cable?) when I thought that there was a tow truck next door or in our drive. Wrong! it was that piece of wood, it had caught the front porch on fire, four glasses of water extinguished it, but scary enough. It took about half an hour to pull and replace the floor boards that were damaged. And now there is the "No drying wood on the stove" rule.
Next on the list I need to till the second paddock on one side for the garden in the spring. I have asked my electrician friend to save the metal things that wire comes on so I can take down some barbed wire and relocate it to around the second paddock. Deer and Rabbit (food) might try to eat the garden in the spring. Which reminds me I really want to catch some of the rabbits that are hopping around here and try to breed it with a meat rabbit to see if we can get all the good characteristics of the wild (foraging) with the size of the meat rabbit. That will have to wait till spring and green pastures, because we don't won't to have to buy food for our food.
On the topic of wild animals, I was up the other morning because I couldn't sleep (again), and around 4am I could hear the coyotes going crazy. I opened the back door to get a better listen and they were no more then 400m from my back door, straight back (on my prop). They sounded like they had caught something, more then likely a deer by the sounds of their numbers, and they were having it out over who got what. I want to rig a few metal barrels up as traps to place around the prop to cut down on the amount that could potentially attack our animals (I have my license to do this). So, if you happen to have metal barrels that you want to give away, Please post a comment.
The pond is almost completely out, it is heavy work so I can only do a little at a time and pay for it dearly each time. Now I just have to move the remaining stones and back fill the rest of it with dirt.
I did just read in this months M.E.N. about Osage Orange. It is a living fence, I would love to use this I just need to find out about how much it is going to cost and if that is in the budget then I will start next spring.
Today I have to wire a trailer harness and then go pick up debris and do fall landscaping at the rentals.
Out for now,
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