Archive | August 2016

Happening on the Ridge – August 2016

Aug20

Summer is coming to a close, but things on the Ridge go on.

The garden finally got a break from intense dry heat to constant rain.  The tomatoes  made the best come back.


That was until these guys showed up


Yup tomato hornworms.  Now the top of all my tomatoes look like this


Nothing really to do except go out each morning and pick them manually and stomp the juicy little suckers!

Lily pads in the gold fish pond are blooming


Then there are the bees


This one hive beards ever evening regardless of the weather, have all summer.

So as the days grow shorter, there is still plenty to do.  Hunting season quickly approaches so we have a tree stand to build. Fall crops of lettuce, carrots, and cucumbers have been planted.   There are chicken eggs in the incubator to raise our layers for next season.

I will leave you with this picture of the trail to the river bottom.

Garden Hack Summit Weekend Replay – Review

Aug5

Last week I viewed the Garden Hack Summit. Stacey Murphy put together a great list of speakers and garden topics. There were great videos on building soil (by Greg Peterson of urbanfarm.org), hugelkultur (by Paul Wheaton of permies.com), closed loop aquaponics (by Yemi Amu of okofarms.com), electric poultry netting (by Justin Rhodes of http://abundantpermaculture.com/), and others.

This weekend (8/5-8/7) they are running a free replay – so head on over and check out this great information at this link “Garden Hack Summit 2016” This is not an affiliate link and I get nothing for this recommendation, just good information I wanted to share.

I particularly enjoyed the talk on aqauponics by Yemi Amu. My plan it to implement the same system on a much smaller scale in my 10X12 greenhouse as soon as we get it installed this fall.

5 homestead projects in our near future

Aug2

Got a couple of things rolling around in my head that we want to do on the Ridge in the next 6-12 months. I thought I would share them here and see if there is any feedback, good or bad, that people have had doing these projects themselves.

1) Deer stand
While we have already built a ground blind on a hill side over looking the river bottom, that location is right next to the neighbor’s property and I have actually waved to him in his stand while hunting. Not a good location. My son and I have scouted a place near the middle of the property that seems to be a natural corridor for all types of wildlife. The trail cam I placed there has shots of several deer of all ages. Raccoons, possums, armadillos, and a fox who is a great hunter. The fox is never on camera without a mouth full of something fresh he (she?) has just hunted. We decided his (her?) den must be close to the location. Anyway, back to the deer stand. In the past we have had great luck with a high tree stand (platform) that gets us above the deer line of sight and probably smell. So we have a group of three trees and a 10 foot 4X6 post that will be used to build the platform on. That is happening in August to get it done ahead of bow season which starts Sept 15th here in Missouri.

2) Greenhouse
We secured a free 10X12 greenhouse from some friends who acquired it with a new home purchase, but didn’t want it. They said if we removed it we could have it. So the pile of clear plastic panels has been sitting in the woods all summer. The next step is to have the son-in-law bring over his bobcat and clear/level the location we want to install it. We are questioning a few things with this item. First I think we should have a dirt floor that we can either plant directly into or maybe start a covered worm bin into later. It would save the cost of installing a full concrete foundation, but we still need to secure it to the ground somehow. We are thinking we might be able to anchor it to 6X6 or 8X8 timbers. Then there is the direction to set it up. Our plan is the face the door west with the long (12 foot) sides running east/west and facing south/north.

3) Perone Bee Hive
I discovered this hive design over the past winter and it has really intrigued me. Mostly because it boast of having little to no management needed. While we have 22 acres and currently 3 hives on the Ridge, we also have access to 100 acres about 40 miles away. I would like to setup hives on this other property, but dont expect to be driving 80 miles round trip very often to check on the hives, so low maintenance is required. While this hive was created in a much warmer southern climate, there have been mixed reviews on its success in the states. Honestly, most of the failures I have read about were due to too much beekeeper interaction in my opinion. The plan is to build one this winter and install it early next spring with some swarm lure. The hive’s designer says it does best with an early season primary swarm, so that is what we are going to try and capture straight into the new hive.

4) Farm building
The only building on the property was the house with a two car garage and now the chicken coop we built last winter. We need a proper building for storage and work space. This will be next Spring at the earliest and looking at something like a 30X50. It needs to have a place to work on cars/trucks – hopefully with a lift. Since we are looking at getting goats in the future, we would also like it to have some over hang area to store hay. It will have electricity and I would like to add a water well and plumbing since it wont be close to the house. Any one else setup a new building and have thoughts on other things we need to consider?

5) Pool
Ok, while this might not be the most homesteady of projects, we really want one. We had a 21 foot above ground pool at our last house and there is nothing like jumping in to cool off after a day of splitting wood or working on the car in the heat, etc. The long term plan would be to get a very nice in-ground pool installed, but due to our rocky, hilly location that is a current budget buster. Short-term while the son-in-law is clearing a spot for the greenhouse, we hope he will be willing to clear/level another area for an above ground pool. That is for late spring/early summer next year.

How about you? What big build projects do you have planned in the next 12 months?

Barn Quilt – Working Together

Aug1

My Lovely Wife (LW) is the best partner I could ask for here on the Ridge. She will suit up and go into an angry bee hive with me, process meat chickens, and pretty much go along with any crazy idea I am willing to try myself. The other side of that coin is I have to be willing to work with her when she decides to do something.

In this example, I wanted chickens and not only did she go along with it but she chipped in and help me build the coop. Of course that meant it was a much fancier coop than I first envisioned, but in the end it turned out great and workable for me and the birds. So now the other shoe drops. She has been going on about and pointing out barn quilts. If you dont know it is a quilt design that is usually painted on the top front of a barn for decoration purposes best I can tell.

So two weeks ago when my youngest daughter was visiting, they both got out the craft paints and made a barn quilt with the expectation it would be placed on the chicken coop. While I wasn’t 100% against it, I really didn’t want to climb a ladder to hang it in the 100 degree July heat. Yup, lost that one too. So here for your enjoyment is the end result.

Chicken Coop Barn Quilt

Chicken Coop Barn Quilt


The chickens couldn’t be prouder!