Sustainability at the Flying T Ranch

Our family mission is to glorify God in all ways.  We live this out at the Flying T Ranch as we raise, manage, and use His creation in a healthy, sustainable, humane, and respectful manner.

Over the past years, we have found the “sustainable” goal to be one of the most elusive.  Sustainable practices with our livestock began with the species and breeds we chose for the farm.  Some of these have been successful, and others not so much.

For example, our first few years with Muscovy ducks were very productive.  We chose them for their hardiness and reputation for being good at reproducing and raising young on their own.  However, when we later ran into significant problems with predators, we found that they didn’t do well at all under such pressure and when we penned them for protection, they weren’t nearly as happy, and thus not nearly as productive.

Likewise, our journey towards better stewardship of the natural resources involved in producing energy for electricity and heat has been rocky at times.  Some of our ventures have been less productive than others.  However, over the past few years, we have steadily improved in this area, primarily by reducing demand.  Much of what we have done has been relatively “low-budget”: improving our energy use practices, installing energy-efficient lighting, using timers and thermostats for heat lamps during the winter and kidding season, and servicing our heating systems for instance.  Others have cost more: programmable thermostats, installing better insulation and replacing some old leaky doors, and swapping out some appliances for more efficient ones.  These have all combined to reduce our demand significantly.

Recently, we took a step towards the supply side of sustainable energy, through the installation of a solar photovoltaic (PV) system.

We originally considered solar several years ago, but at that time, it simply wasn’t affordable, and the time for us to recoup our investment was almost beyond the life expectancy of the panels and inverters themselves.  Since then, the efficiency of panels has gone up significantly, while the cost per kw has gone down as well.  Though that ratio of performance-to-cost continues to climb, we had saved the money we needed and felt we were in a “sweet spot” this year to go forward.

We approached three companies who do business in New Hampshire to evaluate our needs and potential and to submit bids.  Each of these companies came up with similar project proposals, but with a significant difference in cost.  Two of the companies particularly impressed us with their organization, professionalism, and other aspects of their proposals, and after negotiations that brought the bid down considerably, we signed a contract with Tesla/SolarCity.

Because our energy use increases in the winter (and especially in late winter during kidding) while available solar energy decreases, the system we have installed will not supply all of our needs in the winter.  However, in the summer when our energy consumption decreases while solar energy increases, we should exceed it by quite a bit.  Over the course of the year, we should come close to providing all of our electricity needs, and as we continue to lower our consumption, we hope to have a net positive yield.

As part of the project, our utility company installed a “net meter” that keeps track of electricity we draw from the grid vs what we send back.  On months that we produce more than we consume, we will receive a credit in our bill for the excess.

The system has been in operation for just over a week at this time, the calculations in our project proposal forecasted our production to be roughly equal to our consumption in April.  Weather has been relatively typical, with intervals of sunny days and complete overcasts.  We have had a day of heavy rain and two of light snow.  And the results?

Here’s a snapshot of our best day this past week:

Now, granted, every day hasn’t been that sunny.  Our worst day was a low overcast where we only saw 7kWh of production, and the others have ranged from the 20s to the low 60s.

But, over the past week, the average has been more production than consumption, and her is what our meter looked like a couple days ago:

Yes, it’s rolling backwards from zero.  Our current meter reading is negative 111 kwh (and it’s dropped more in the past couple days).

If you’re looking to install solar (or to buy a Tesla vehicle), consider using our referral code: (https://ts.la/patrick34826).  Doing so through that link will qualify you for incentives from Tesla/SolarCity, which currently include a 5yr extended warranty for solar panels or free supercharging for certain Tesla vehicles.

Full disclosure: Doing so will give us a referral bonus (currently a credit towards our next project, which we hope to be a PowerWall battery system).

We continue working towards more sustainable and resilient practices at the Flying T Ranch, and we would love to hear from you.  What are you doing at your home and/or farm to increase efficiency, reduce consumption, and incorporate renewables?  Comment below!

2015 Boer Goat Kids for Sale

Well, our kidding season is over – 12 kids from 5 does! – and all are growing healthily.  At the Flying T, we prefer to allow these kids to nurse on their moms for a bit over two months ’till weaning, so we are taking deposits for June transfers.  All may be registered with ABGA either as Fullblood (100%) or American Purebred (at 99%).  You can check out more information (including contact info) on our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/TheFlyingTRanch or our website: http://www.flyingtnh.com

First is Phoenix, an all-red girl with dark highlights, born 3/25, offered at $350 obo.  Her sister, Chili (looking at the camera), is Reserved until after the Hopkinton Fair on Labor Day

 

Their brother, Turbo, is offered at $300.

Tweet, born 4/1, is a traditionally-marked female, offered at $325.  Her brother, Hercules, is our best buckling of the season and is offered at $350.  (UPDATE: SALE PENDING on Herc.  We are taking backup offers).

Raptor is a male born 4/9 with a half-blond face (hard to see in this pic).  He and his brother Orion (hooded) are offered at $300 each.  (UPDATE: SALE PENDING on Orion, Backup Offers are being taken).

Kiowa, born 4/9 is traditionally-marked American Purebred, offered at $300 (UPDATE: SALE PENDING, backup offers will be taken).

Her fellow triplets are brothers, Hawkeye (paint with spot on back) and Tomcat (Traditional), also offered for $300 each.

Piper and Dragonfly, born 4/13 are American Purebred females and are reserved until after the Hopkinton State Fair.

2015 Kids – Part 2

Our second of five pregnant does gave birth yesterday.  A traditional red-headed doeling followed by a similar buckling.  This is a bit unusual as more often than not, bucklings are born first.  Both were very-good sized, much bigger at birth than Jessie’s three surviving quadruplets.

Ruby is our “loudmouth” doe, and the doeling takes after her.  The human kids have decided to name her “Tweet,” after the T-37B trainer aircraft known as one of the loudest in the Air Force inventory (it was also known as the “6,000 dog whistle” and the “Converter” because it was the most efficient machine ever made for converting fuel into noise).

Tweet’s brother has been named “Hercules,” after the C-130.  Herc is a big boy, and once he dried off weighed 11 pounds and 12 ounces, more than a pound heavier than Tweet, who was on the heavy side for a doeling (10 lbs 6 ounces).

We still have three girls left to kid, and the barn is getting full and loud!

Finding Nemo

Winter storm Nemo is just starting to arrive.  The ducks don’t seem to mind.

Like Snow off a Duck’s Back

Well, one of them might mind a little bit…

Captions are welcome in the comments section below.

 

Mystery Chick Contest Update – 10 Days

The chicks are doing well for the most part.  We lost two barred rock chicks in the first few days, but the others are thriving.  We’ve already removed 2 sides of the smaller enclosure to allow the chicks a bit more room.  They grow pretty quickly, and for those of you participating (or desiring) to compete in the contest, here are some updated photos.  Feel free to change your answers at any time as the chicks become more recognizable.

Chick A – 10 days

Chick B – 10 days

Chick C – 10 days

Feel free to join in!  Just click here to read the details and submit an entry.

Contest: Identify the Mystery Chicks!

Our first contest…  Be the first to identify (correctly) the breeds and genders of our mystery chicks and win our grand prize!

As a surprise for David, we added 3 hatchery-choice “mystery chicks” to his order of Barred Rocks without his knowing it.   They are supposed to be 3 different breeds of brown egg layers.  The kids have made guesses on their breeds, and I think they’re definitely right on two of the three, but I’ll keep their guesses secret for now.

Rules:
1) To enter, simply post a comment with ONE guess for each chick’s identity.  Something like:

• Chick A: Pearl Guinea Fowl, female
• Chick B: Ruffed Grouse, male
• Chick C: Purple Tribble, hermaphrodite

2) We’ll keep the blog posted with pics as the chicks mature, and announce our findings when we’re really sure.
3) Any disagreements on the breed will be settled by Judy, “the Chicken Lady,” at Clark’s Grain Store.
4) Winner will be the first (based on the time/date stamp of the comment) with all three breeds and genders correctly identified.
5) Make sure there’s some way for me to get in touch with you – if your sign-in name doesn’t have a way to do that, you can shoot us an email (our contact info is on our farm website: http://www.flyingtnh.com).  Just make sure to identify yourself and your post.

The prize?  Public recognition on our blog, bragging rights, and (if you desire) a guest-post on your blog acknowledging your chicken identification expertise!

Three hints:
1) They should all be breeds that lay brown eggs.
2) They are supposed to be females.
3) Hatcheries make mistakes from time to time, so the above hints might not apply.

So, without further ado, I present the lineup of our dastardly suspects:

Chick A: Wanted for possession of an unlicensed peeper

Chick B: Accused of appearing in public with an indecent hairdo

Chick C: Wanted for grain rustling

A Christmas and New Year Message from Us at the Flying T

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” – Jeremiah 29:11-13

His plans, not ours…

It’s so tempting to believe we can plan our lives completely.  To decide what we will do and when we will do it, and to forget that our loving Creator has plans that are so much better.  Yet, “In his Heart, a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.” (Prov 16:9).   As we step into this next chapter, we know that the Lord has wonderful plans for us, and pray that we trust in His faithfulness and place our feet in the steps He has determined.

Hope and a future…

It’s not an empty hope we hold, but onebased on His demonstrated goodness, promises He has made and fulfilled in so many tangible ways, and especially through the birth, ministry, death, and resurrection of His Son.  And that hope includes our knowledge that our ultimate future is eternity with our loving Father.

Seek with all your heart.

Expectantly is how we are to seek.  Not knowing what lies around the corner, but excited that whatever it is, it is good and brings Him glory!

Here we are.  Send us!

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!” – Isaiah 6:8

All of us here at the Flying T wish you a very merry Christmas, and God’s continued blessings for you in the new year!

Yes, we’re alive!

It’s been a long time since we posted, simply because this Fall has been pretty overwhelmingly busy!  To give you an idea of some of the things going on these past couple months at the Flying T…

Fall was spectacular this year, and though we got a light dusting, we didn’t have a repeat of the Halloween snowstorm of 2011.  Here’s a pic of the Flying T in late fall from the air.

The beginning of Fall also brought some new additions to the Flying T.  One is “Rocky,” our new black labrador puppy.

He’s growing fast, and has made friends with just about everybody except the house cat.

Fall is a wonderful time of year in New Hampshire – the temperatures are perfect for us, and get us out and moving even more than in summer.  Here’s our son showing off some moves on his bike and a makeshift ramp he put together.

Our younger daughter had a “coming of age” milestone – reaching the age we have determined is the minimum to be allowed to operate the tractor solo.  She’s been very proud of her newfound freedom and ability to pitch in to some of the heavier-duty chores.

The ducks hatched their last clutches of the season.  They were much smaller than earlier in the year.  We believe this is due of the loss of our prime drake to a predator a bit before they started setting.

With the new arrivals, we also had a few departures.  Another duck to a predator, and a hen to a mishap.  And then another departure due to sheer meanness.  One of the roosters, “Big Daddy Rooster,” attacked the kids one too many times, so he is now at freezer camp.

Of course, the big news for the region was Hurricane Sandy.  We escaped most of its wrath, though we did lose power for long enough for us to get the PTO-driven generator running.  Our biggest need for power is to run the well – the horses alone go through about 30-40 gallons a day.

We found by running it only a few hours a day, we could replenish water supplies, get the family through the showers, and run a load of laundry.  Thanks to all the linesmen and emergency workers who got power back up and running so quickly!

The power company also did us a huge favor this summer by cutting down some of the trees that had been threatening the lines (and thus our road and driveway also), so we had little cleanup to do post-Hurricane.  However, since I was told to stay home from work, the chainsaw still got some work as we got back to clearing more of the back pasture.

I also ended up flying a few Hurricane response missions for FEMA with Civil Air Patrol.  You can take a look at some of the 175,000 damage assessment photos we took at this link:

http://fema.apps.esri.com/checkyourhome/ (Zoom in about 3 clicks until you start seeing green dots around the NYC area.  Each of those is a photo).

And so, as the fall winds up and the winter starts to move our way, we’re finishing up our preparations… just like this snapping turtle who two of our ducks escorted off the premises on her way to hibernation.

Hopefully it won’t be too long before we can post again!  Blessings to all of you as we approach this season of Thanksgiving (though every day ought to be a time to be thankful)!

Clearing the Land

When we bought the Flying T, we knew that one of our two pastures was “rough.”

OK, it’s really rough.  Half-forested, largely with poisonous [to livestock] pin cherry trees.  Not much growing in it but rocks and  goldenrod.  Fence falling down.  Steep slopes on a good portion of it.  Rutted with holes to the point that it was unsafe to let the horses loose.  Rough.

The book answer for a pasture that had been let go for that long would be to call in the bulldozer, then truckloads of loam, but that went against two principles we’re trying to follow on the Flying T: 1) go as natural as possible and 2) don’t go broke.

One of the principles I’ve learned from flying is that there are three competing characteristics in designing airplanes (or other machines, for that matter): light, cheap, and strong.  You can build something that has two of those characteristics, but it’s pretty much impossible to get all three.  So, you can make a wing that’s light and cheap, but it won’t be strong.  Light and strong? It won’t be cheap.  Cheap and strong? It won’t be light.

We’re finding similar principles at work in farming, one of which is the “natural, cheap, and fast” law.  So, when it comes to our pasture, while we’ve been doing OK with staying natural and cheap (relatively), it sure hasn’t been fast.  I’d been hoping to have the pasture cleared of trees by winter’s end – we got halfway there.

Burning slash from trees we cut in the back pasture.

We’ve moved a good passel of rocks from that half to the growing rock wall, but there’s still quite a bit to go.  The holes we filled with a mixture of dirt and composted manure.  Our attempt at strangling the weeds with a cover crop of Winter Rye has been partly successful (and partly not).

It’s all taken a lot longer than we’d hoped, and we still haven’t gotten around to the fence.

So now, we’re well-into the summer, and the weeds are starting to come back, competing against the Rye and other forage species we’ve planted here and there.  It’s time to release the goats on the pasture to get it eaten down, but goats without fence go feral almost as quickly as hogs.  The pasture is still too uneven to accept our portable electric net fence.

Then my wife says, “Well, when we lived in Greece, Dimitri [our local shepherd] just walked through the fields with them and didn’t have a problem.”  Well, that’s right.  He did.  And what’s more, we even have an official Greek shepherd’s cane in the house that we bought as a souvenir.

So, this evening after dinner, we played shepherd.  It was a bit of work getting them out to the pasture – goats don’t like new things – but once they were there, they seemed pretty happy!

Since they’ve been on a pretty well-grazed area for a while, we couldn’t leave them out too long the first day.  That’s an easy way to get into a bad case of bloat.  But, in the short time we did have them out, they got a pretty good start.

We even brought the horses out to graze with them for a while.  Zip and Jasper are pickier than goats and weren’t nearly as impressed with the available eats, but they found the largest stand of Rye acceptable.

What surprised us was how easy it was to get them back.  My oldest daughter just started back to the barn while I carried up the rear with the shepherd’s crook, and they followed her home.  I wish I’d gotten a clearer pic, but this is the best I could do as I jogged along.

Is this going to be a quick process?  Nope.  But it looks like it might be relatively natural and cheap!

NPIP – Exam Time for the Flock

Yesterday, at our request, a representative from the Department of Agriculture came out to visit and test our chickens in conjunction with the National Poultry Improvement Program.  NPIP is a voluntary program that provides testing for common ailments in home and commercial flocks.  NPIP helps us to ensure a safe food supply and avoid the transfer of disease through other means (after all, taking care of chickens is not a hands-off activity here at the Flying T).  In addition, it allows those who raise chickens to avoid unnecessary medicines and antibiotics.  Finally, by working exclusively with NPIP-certified hatcheries and home producers, we can reduce the chances that our healthy flock is infected by birds or chicks we purchase as replacement stock.

Some of the NPIP tests are required for 4H and other shows.

The actual process is quite simple for a relatively small flock like ours (23 birds)… or at least it should be.  First,  you need to make sure they’re contained.  To accomplish this, we simply turned off the coop’s automatic door after the chickens had gone to roost for the night.  Simple, right?

However, about an hour before the NPIP representative arrived, our son went to change the chickens’ water, and six of them slipped out the door.  The three kids and I had a heck of a time chasing them down.  Free range means no fences, and lots of places for them to hide, squeeze under, and run through.  It also means that trying to entice them back into the coop with grain doesn’t work well, because there are lots of other, more tasty things to sample out in the woods.  However, after a bit of running, diving, and even climbing the compost pile, we managed to get our escapees back into the coop.  Unfortunately, I hadn’t anticipated the exercise, and so I have no pictures to share.  They would’ve been worth sharing!

OK, it is a simple process, once you’ve got the chickens back in the coop!

We enlisted the kids to help, and they crammed into the grain room along with the NPIP tester, Tara.  One kid would go into the coop and pick up a chicken, then bring it out to Tara, who would start by banding their legs with a numbered tag (for our older chickens, this also required removing their previous NPIP tags).

Then, she turned them onto their backs, and plucked the feathers from a small area under the wing.

A quick scratch with a scalpel to draw blood, a few drops in a plastic vial, and the chickens were released to go .

Within about an hour and a half, the vials were filled and the process was complete.  Tara said that she recently did a flock of 250 birds, and that took all day (with several helpers).

The chickens were none the worse for wear (though they were a bit indignant).

We should get our NPIP renewal certificate in the mail in a few weeks!