We are blessed, really. Even though we intentionally had a down-sized bounty under the tree this year, we were overwhelmed with the generosity of friends and family. I don’t want to disparage any of the amazing and thoughtful gifts we received this Christmas, but I would like to highlight some of the creative homemade ones. [...]
Posts Tagged ‘homestead’
18 Nov
Another Rock in the Wall
With the unseasonably warm days we had in the beginning of November, we put some of our other work (including some of the kids’ studies) aside and got to work improving our rear pasture. The rear pasture is about 1.25 acres and “rough” to say the least. Based on the size of the poisonous pin cherries [...]
11 Nov
Changing Seasons at The Flying T
This is the first cut of a video I’m putting together of the change of seasons at our ranch. This is approximately .5 seconds per day fom Sep to Nov. I plan to put the whole year on the final version.
4 Oct
Orchardgrass
Though the most common grass used for hay in New England might be Timothy, another very common component of baled forage around here is Orchardgrass (Dactylis glomerata). Unlike Timothy, which takes a bit of care to get established, Orchardgrass often finds its own way into pastures and hayfields. Propogating both by seeds and by tillers that spread from its dense, [...]
22 Sep
Fruits and Veggies
Our past posts have dealt primarily with our animals and the work associated with them, but another blessing we’ve got here is what we’ve been provided with in the way of fruits and vegetables. We had a late start to the garden itself as we were pretty busy with all the projects that came from [...]
20 Sep
Battling the Varmint Cong
(Warning/spoiler – the last pic in this post has a dead animal in it) It was mid-summer. With all the moving, unpacking, and other projects, we’d gotten the garden in entirely too late. To boot, I’d mixed too much compost into the soil, so the plants were on a nitrogen high, shoots and leaves out [...]
17 Sep
On bonfires, boy scouts, and tractors…
When I was a Boy Scout, like many of my comrades, I liked to poke around the fire. In survival school, we called the fire the “Survival Television” – throw a branch in or rearrange the logs, and you’ve changed the channel. My wife said today that a bonfire on a crisp Fall day is [...]
16 Sep
Why Boer Goats?
The most recent additions to our farm were our Boer Goats, Gracie and Jessie. They are both full-blood Boer doelings, and our hope is to use them as the foundation of our herd. Boers are relatively new to the US (introduced in the mid-90s), and meat goats in general aren’t nearly as common in New [...]
14 Sep
NATO Peacekeeping, Family Harmony, and Automatic Chicken Doors
I spent 10 years in NATO assignments, so I’m pretty acquainted with the challenges of trying to accommodate seemingly incompatible desires. Hey, if I could somehow deal diplomatically with both sides of the Aegean Sea dispute between Turkey and Greece, I should be able to figure out a farm, right? Right. OK, we’re not talking [...]
12 Sep
On Gadgets
It’s a little known fact that the managers at the local Tractor Supply Co and Home Depot franchises have recently seen the same specialist to cure the same problem. It seems their salivary glands go hyperactive anytime they see me roll into the parking lot. If you have a small farm, you know that there [...]
A Joyful Birth
