This top bar is upside down so you can see the bee-covered comb
Here is my post about why I’ve decided to use foundationless and top bar hives for my treatment-free style of beehive management.
My 22" Drop Spreader works fine when things are dry
My soil test last summer showed acidic soil and low calcium to be our limiting factors to growing more grass. The recommendation we received was to apply agricultural lime at a rate of 500 lbs/acre, so I’ve been working on that.
The math was easy. I’ve got 3 acres of grass & pasture x 500 lbs/acre = 1500 lbs of lime. Of course the local feed store sells lime–they had three, 25# bags. Hmmmm…. I kept looking. It was the usual problem of being too big for the local feed store, and too small to buy from the commercial Ag distributors (although they would deliver a 10 ton truckload if I wanted them to). I ended up getting a pallet shipped up to me with thirty 50# bags at about $5/bag for powdered gardening lime. read more »
Sold as grass, looks like straw, and the animals won't eat it
Sometimes we paint ourselves into corners and then make mistakes when we try to get out.
Last week we found ourselves out of hay. Well, we did have half of a bale left, but I’d say we were plum out. I drove down to the local feed store before they closed on Friday evening and bought 3 bales at $15 each (ouch!), which would be enough to get us through the weekend when we could get more from our usual source of weed-rich prairie hay from Ellensburg, WA at $5/bale.
Friday night a friend called and asked if we would go in with her on buying 50 bales from a farmer in Kent, WA for $6/bale. We joined her and our 35 hay bales showed up the next afternoon.
We collected this soil sample at the very end of July, 2010. The charge was $30/analysis. We have a good relationship with our Vet, Dr. Paul Dettloff, so we chose to go with his usual lab & routine.
Sample #1: The grazing area is from a mixture of samples of the rich black soil that is in the south west corner of our property. It’s full of moisture & organic matter.
Sample #2: The Soccer Field is field is a mixture of samples from the flat area adjacent our shop & barn, and also some samples taken from the ground south and east of the big cedar tree below the house. Both of these areas have been graded. It’s just fill dirt from construction of the buildings, and had zero topsoil when we moved in.
Results show our need for Calcium, Sulfur, & Boron
There are about 8 oz of worms in a gallon of bedding
I’ve run a worm box for my kitchen scraps for about 10 years, and they work great. We usually generate between 2 and 10 lbs of scraps each day, too much for a single 2ft x 4ft worm box. I solved that problem by just building more worm boxes–I have 3 of them and they are wonderful!
In 2009, I introduced some of my red wriggler population to my manure pile. They did a great job. After about 6 months of increasing population I could tell that it was working because they had really filled up the heap. The compost was still composting at about the same rate, but my system had changed for the better. I now have a host of worms working through my compost.
I no longer create large heaps of hot compost, and I no longer have to turn the piles. read more »
On Tuesday, August 17th, the 4 kids and I joined several others in my Permaculture Design Class to tour the Bullock’s homestead on Orcas Island. We left early to catch the ferry from Anacortes and came home late, but there were enough “rests” during the day that it all came at a reasonable pace. (What else can you do when waiting at the ferry dock but pick blackberries and take a snooze?)
The Bullock homestead & nursery has been there for 30 years, and it is an excellent example of a “mature” permaculture system. The main area of the homestead is densely packed as a perennial “food forest”. The 3 hour tour started at 1 PM, and I could tell that we were just getting a taste of the thought, detail and purpose that was behind everything there.
Everything is carefully laid out, with all the details around fertility, water and waste flows thoroughly worked through. read more »
Buttercup has a scratched, sore nose, but is still alive
Some weeks are more eventful than others.
Here is my description of how two of our yearling goats were killed, and how I saved one of the does.
A chicken hard at work scratching up compacted bedding
A cow pie is money, and I like to get it back in the soil “bank” as soon as possible. Of course, I’d rather not spend my time following around the cow with a rake to spread the manure out as soon as it hits the ground. I’ve got chickens lined up to do that job for me.
It’s the permaculture principle of putting things where they ought to go, but I think of it as having the animals doing their own work.
We’ve moved our chicken tractors into the pasture areas, and we let them roam around during the day to forage in the grass. They are learning that there are bugs living in the older cow pies. It doesn’t take long for a chicken to scratch a load of manure up and spread it over the grass–that’s one of the things they do best.
This is a concept Joel Salatin has championed at Polyface farms in Virginia, and which is getting more popular elsewhere. For egg farmers, the idea is sometimes called an “eggmobile” because the chicken pen is mobile and comes into the pasture a few days after the cows have left. (See Natures Harmony Farm for an example) Since I only have a couple acres, and a small pasture, the chickens get to be mobile and the pen stays put. read more »
Squeeze grass juice onto the refractometer to measure Brix.
We’ve got a new tool on the farm–a refractometer! We aren’t checking grapes for wine harvest-ripeness, but rather the grass for “Total Dissolved Solids” or TDS (for short).
The refractometer gives readings in degrees Brix (°Bx), which corresponds to the % of sugar in the tested liquid (there’s more in there than just sugars, hence the “total dissolved solids” tag). The higher the number, the sweeter the juice. Our new instrument was purchased from a friend for $65. I did a quick test with filtered water and it showed an appropriate 0°, so Abigail and I spent some time Sunday afternoon out testing everything we could think of.
Dr. Dettloff demonstrated this for us during his seminar day, and Kathy and I were running all over the farm collecting samples of grass for testing. He carried a vise-grip specially modified with a stainless steel “beak” that collects and directs the drops of expelled sap to its tip for collection. He explained how a farm needs to get his pasture up to above 10° Brix, in order to keep his animals healthy and strong. read more »
Cow's milk with an inch of cream on top. Photo courtesy of www.alwayshungryny.com
We planned on letting the calf have all of the cow’s milk for the first three weeks, but life got a little busy, and we ended up giving it some extra days. Last Friday evening though, it was time for us to change the routine, and we penned “Abel” (a-bull) the bull calf up for the night.
Saturday morning came and Kathy woke up at 5:30 to the sound of Maureen and Abel calling to each other. She hopped out of bed and moved Maureen from her long pasture tether over to a short rope tied to a nearby alder tree. That tree is now her “milking stand”.
Kathy told me that Maureen did a bit of dancing that first day, but she learns routines fast and is now standing nicely. (Hooray for a smart cow!) The first milking was mostly for training, and yielded about 2 cups of milk.
We have a once-a-day milking routine at our place. The kid goats and the the calf get penned up at night and are given back to their moms after milking is finished in the morning. The milk production we lose is made up for by the health of the young animals, and an easier chore routine.
On Saturday we got a a key pointer from a cousin in New Mexico who has done this before. She suggested that we let the calf suckle for a short time to help the cow let down her milk. It does make a big difference with how fast the milk comes, and the “hind” milk the comes down is supposed to have a little more cream content. Perhaps most important is the Mo knows that her calf is OK, and settles in to chew her cud. Kathy has also learned to lean her shoulder into Mo, so the cow has a clear sense of Kathy’s location. This morning Kathy brought in a little over a quart of milk, and we expect that to continue to increase some as the routine gets established.
The milk itself is delicious, and it is a treat to have cream. Maureen is only getting the grass off the pasture right now–it’s a mix of colonial bentgrass & common velvet grass growing on mediocre soil. Neither of these grasses are really good forages, but it’s the best the soil can do at this point. These weak soils are one of the main reasons we chose to buy a Dexter cow–they can do well even with less than ideal forage. If the milk is good from this grass, I can’t wait until “Mo” is mowing our better soil!