Making it on small acreage

[emilosevich]

I think I helped check your stuff in. I know I checked off your paper for you The buff polish wasn't mine. I had the white polish on the second or third row who was all by himself. The thing belongs to DD who is 4 and had taken a shine to pecking. I kind of sleep walk through the weekend so I completely understand.
The guy who was bringing the alpacas in said he would be back with more once they were weaned from their parents. I think you'd get a better deal at the Mt. Hope exotic though because he likes to get a least a hundred out of them. :/ I got mine from a lady out in Navarre for $50. I didn't think that was to bad for an intact young male. He shore does make the cars stop and look as they are driving past. Kinda looks funny in a pasture full of goats.

 

[emilosevich]

Decided to give the inside dogs a flea bath today. What an experience. Did them one at a time. Definitely makes me think I need to get a hosed shower head. The are both butts to do. Trying to jump out and get me all wet. Not much going on outside right now, but I did get more raw wool listed online. Trying to get enough money together to get a Kromski Sonata. I also have been doing a deep cleaning on the living room. All of the stories of moving on here are motivating me to get into it.
Have a neighbor coming over tomorrow to take some of the kids old clothes. So happy to have them going and being used by someone I know. Kind of makes it worth it.
DH has been bringing in the milk from milking since I made the cheese. He gave it to the kids this morning for breakfast. We're beginning to think that DS has an allergy to cows milk. DH, sis#1 and mom all have it. Well don't you know DD drank 2 glasses and DS said it was yucky. DD was raised on goats milk and DS not so much. Guess we will have to start mixing it on him to get him switched over to it. Darn the luck and my laziness.

 

[ducks4you]

I know that I quoted this on an earlier post, but I wanted to give you some encouragement, and a few tips.

I have a small garden with tomatoes, peppers, cukes, onions, & lettuce. (The broccoli died, )

Replant. Check this out~
http://www.theeasygarden.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=29316

My biggest problem is our land is entirely CLAY (North Carolina, where nothing grows but tobacco & cotton), so we actally had to truck in decent soil & put it in a raise bed. How could I manage that on a larger scale...?

You can't without a small tractor. I have 5 acres, and the wheelbarrow thing doesn't cut it. Good thing I'm into exercise!!

I have 1 pear tree, which has about a dozen little pears on it right now, & 1 apple tree with NOTHING.

NEXT year you'll have a bumpercrop of apple blossoms. Thin out the fruit as it comes in, and you'll even out your tree's capacity to produce every year.

Oh, & a good share of the back yard is the septic system, so obviously I couldn't grow trees there.

But you CAN grow great grass THERE, which you can compost or use for mulch!

I would LOVE to grow more fruit, and have some nut trees. I've read they're hard to grow (nut trees). I would dearly love to grow strawberries, but also read they're hard to grow. Any suggestions there would be appreciated.

Buy your fruit and nut trees on clearance. Buy a really big (2 1/2 ft. tall or deep), plastic pot to replant each of them into. Wait to transplant until the late Fall. Keep them heavily watered.

So, how do I it??

Use every available space to garden, like they do in Europe, where space is limited.
http://landscapingideas.the-landscape-design-site.com/front-yard/
I don't put fences around my border gardens. I lay down bricks at ground level, so that I can run my mower all the way up to the edge, and I don't have to trim there.
Don't EVER give up!! You have lots more than you know!!

 

[emilosevich]

Went to the Farmers Market in Alliance and got some goat cheese for myself and a co-worker. I had to go and get it as that's what I was eating at the VBS program last night. It was really good. Now DH wants me to get all the cultures to make it which means a drive up to Akron this week. Luckily I'm going to Medina with K so Akron should be on the way or at least not to far off the beaten path.
I actually went up there to get Lima beans, but I guess they're not in yet so a couple more weeks.
Ok all garden farmers out there. When is an eggplant done growing. This is our first year growing egg plant and I don't know when it's done. Right now it's about 6in long or so and is the size of a balled fist. I really don't want it to go to waste by picking it to early or letting it go to late.

One of our muscovies hatched about 9 chicks. I can't get an exact count on them, but that's the quick count that I got yesterday afternoon. It was a chocolate hen, but I don't know which drake she was bred to there are 3 of them running around here right now. Looks like most of them will be black or black and white. Need to get rid of this batch though because we have to many all ready. They're running all over the place. Nice weeders, but just to many for this amount of acreage. May let them get to be more when we don't have the chickens and the appleyards free ranging. Starting to get things ready for the fair. It's hard to believe it's only a month away.

 

[emilosevich]

Smokey bacon chevre hanging to drain.

Milk warming up for the ricotta

The ricotta draining

 

[emilosevich]

Decided to go to a jewelry designs party last night. Didn't think I'd buy much, but hey it's a good excuse to get out of the house. My gosh the prices some women will pay for jewelry and to think my engagement ring came from the local Wal-Mart. Not that I'm complaining or anything. Love it to death fits me to a T. Looking at the prices kind of made me a little sick.
Have to say she was a very nice lady and put up with us poor old farm girls really well. We were all having a hoot trying to see what pretty earrings our dear goats would like to see every morning.
Had an eventful morning already. Got up to let the dogs out this morning and they took off like rockets after something. They were a growling and going to town. Poor neighbors new dog had gotten loose and decided to take refuge under my van. Got the pup back to his owner without much harm.
I think we've finished phase 2 of shocking the well. Here hoping. The house is stinking to high heaven of chlorine.
Finally got the muscovies to start hatching and wouldn't you know it's to late in the season. Most people don't want to deal with them this time of year. I think I'll list them on CL one more time before I ship them off to the auction. We've got baby peeps coming out too. I think we got about 14 hatched in 2 days. They're all still with mammas. Not like we need more chicks running around here, but it ain't worth the gas to try to get rid of them right now.

 

[emilosevich]

Well we got to take a trip to Eagles Nest Hatchery. What an awesome guy. He walked us around and showed us the setup. Where they work and hatch and such. It is truly amazing how many eggs their incubators will hold. Not to mention their hatchers. We also got to see where he's growing out next years geese and ducks and then to the farm where he's growing out replacement stock. Its so awesome to have a chance like that.
We got to stop at the Richland county fair on the way out and man wouldn't I love to have their poultry barn at our fair. so nice and big. Lots of room for both open and Jr. Fair. Plus they had the ducks and geese inside. I do have to say kudos to them. Wish we could have the same thing at our fair.

 

[Wifezilla]

This time of year is when I got my first ducks. I figured they wouldn't lay until Spring anyway, and if I waited until Spring and got babies, then I would be in to NEXT year before I got any eggs.

I just put a pair of WH up for sale. A guy I had sold hatching eggs to in Spring is coming over in an hour and is going to trade me 7 jumbo quail for them.

 

[emilosevich]

We sell the spring muscovy babies and then let one hen keep her young-uns in the fall to make replacements for the old stock. We only try to keep about 5 or so hens. Decided which ones to get rid of now. Kind of interesting chasing them around and trying to remember who is who.

On an up note. The hen duck that I thought the turtle ate just returned with 4 out of her 9 chicks. Yahooo!! That makes me so happy because she is the chocolate hen that I want to keep. I have no idea where she has been hiding them, but I'm just happy that she is safe and that many chicks have made it 2 weeks.

 

[FarmerDenise]

That is so exciting that your hen came back with the babies.