Our Farm-2 Years Ago to Now

[baymule]

Because the house had been vandalized while we were in the financing process, after it was ours, we wanted to secure it. Thieves had broken in, stolen the furnace, the outside AC unit, Crawled under the house and cut out all the copper wiring they could yank out and ripped out the breaker box and all associated wiring. It cost us $10,000 to repair it all.

We weren't in a hurry to move, I wanted to redo the inside of the house before we moved in. But the first thing was to put a gate up across the driveway. So on one of my first trips up there, I stopped and got a gate. I got creative tying it down.

Our son in law helped me dig and set the posts. It was October 4, 2014. I know that for a lot of you, October is cool if not downright cold, but this is Texas and it was HOT. Plus it hadn't rained so it was HOT and DRY. Digging those 4 holes like to have worn both of us out. The ground was hard and we had the long handled post hole diggers. We even put water in the holes. We used a shovel as well. Finally, victory! First post in the ground!

We worked our tails off for almost the whole day to get the posts set, H brace, and hang the gate. I was proud of our hard work. Check out the back ground in these pictures. It doesn't look like that anymore!

 

[baymule]

Now for the garden. This picture was taken October 3, 2014. It is hard to believe how far we have come in just 2 years. We closed in September of 2014, but didn't move in until February 14, 2015 our 19th anniversary, spent packing up and U-Hauling it to our new home. I spent the time from closing to moving, painting and doing the floors in the house. Now back to the garden.

So we moved February 14, 2015, this picture was taken February 25, 2015.

Scarcely a few weeks later, we were working on the garden area. But we had to stop for a little fun too. See the tractor on the right? Mowing down the brush and weeds. On some of our first passes, our son in law walked ahead of me in the neck tall weeds, looking for garbage, but I still ran over a bed spring unit with the bush hog. We wound up finding 5 bed spring units! The two oak trees by the side of the driveway are where we sit in the shade, drinking iced tea, taking a break from our hard work.

After mowing, we started digging. There were lots of green briars! We made piles of them and burned them. The next two pictures were taken March 19, 2015.

Finally after weeks of hard work, The garden was disced up and ready for planting. This picture was taken March 25, 2015. We were so proud of our smooth, pretty dirt!

By April 12, 2015 tiny green sprouts were beginning to show, we put up the green plastic fence to keep the dogs big feet out and I had a fancy pallet gate. I was thrilled. My first year garden. I carefully tended it, it was an abysmal failure, everything either did poorly or gave up all together and died

 

[baymule]

The 2015 garden was a total bust. But there is a horse event center 10 miles from us on Interstate 20, so I called.....Yes! We could have all the stall clean out horse poop-pine shavings we wanted! So we hitched the trailer! These two pictures were taken 8-15-2015.

Our daughter even wanted to come help. This I had to get a picture of--our girlie girl, college professor, non-dirty daughter shoveling horse sh!t!

We made a couple of trips that day, thrilled with our treasure. Our friend and neighbor Robert helped and we made a load for him too.

My husband had gone for tests because he needed knee replacement surgery. He flunked his stress test, so he was sent for heart catheterization and flunked that too. Some people will do anything to get out of work! He had a triple bypass 8-21-2015

Good thing he had those tests run. He was a walking heart attack. Thank God it was found in time and he got all fixed up. The next couple of months were tough on him because he had to watch me on the tractor. But he finally got back in the swing of things and we got back to working on the garden. We went back for more pine shavings/horse manure from the horse event center, but this time we used a dump trailer! Oh yeah! We were stylin' fer shure! Robert went with my husband to "help" (really he did all of the work and DH drove the truck). Workers at the horse event center scooped the poop with a front end loader and dumped it in the trailer. While they went back for another load, I spread it with the tractor. We made many loads for ourselves and for Robert. Both of us have beach sand for soil, so the shavings added humus to the sand. This picture was taken October 2, 2015.

We decided to put up a permanent fence around the garden. Robert helped me with most of it while I fussed at my husband to keep him from doing too much. We got a 12' gate hung.

We made a lot more loads from the horse event center.

We started rolling wire.

My husband did a lot of supervising and holding wire out of the way while Robert pounded T-posts. I came along behind them, clipping the T-posts. Picture taken on October 17, 2015

We finished the fence, built a Hawg Hut and brought 3 pigs home to live in the garden for the winter. Picture taken November 3, 2015

Pig soup. Reckon they knew?

 

[baymule]

The pigs had a date with freezer camp. I sure didn't want to chase pigs all over the place to load them in the trailer, so we backed the trailer in the garden, blocked it off so they couldn't chew the wiring and put their food and water in there.

They loaded themselves.

My husband pulled the trailer out and I went to work on the moon craters they dug. I dragged the disc around and around, criss-crossed, dig figure 8's and moved some dirt. A couple hours later, it was pretty smooth. Picture taken 3-17-2016

We love a good pork roast!

Bring on the 2016 garden!! DH helped me build tomato cages, basically cow panels 18" apart. So if one row would be good, why not put up another and make 2 rows? I prepared the ground with sheep manure, laid cardboard over it and we put up the cow panels. Then I scooched down the rows, cutting holes in the cardboard with a machete, scooping out dirt and planting tomatoes. Picture taken 5-1-2016

Painted Mountain Corn. It did ok. The fertility just wasn't there for it, but it sure beat the ZERO I had in 2015.

2016 garden sure beat the nothing I got in 2015. Half of what I planted didn't come up or died shortly thereafter. Half of what came up didn't do diddly-squat. The other half produced well. We got over 240 yellow squash, got 3 zucchini. I picked enough peas for us to enjoy and put some in the freezer. Same with butterbeans. My green beans did ok. The tomatoes did great, we ate lots of fresh, I dehydrated and canned them. Then it got hot. As in I don't give a durn about pulling weeds hot. The weeds had a field day, so we turned the sheep in to clean it up. They sure enjoyed it and did a great job.

2017 will be an even better garden year!

 

[MoonShadows]

I got so engrossed in looking at all these new pics and reading the captions it was like watching a homesteading show on PBS. Wow! Looks like a whole different place from when you moved in. You've done so much work that I was tired when I got to the end of this installment.

 

[Mini Horses]

GREAT JOB!!

So, what?? Is it over now?? More episodes to follow??

I absolutely love to see people work.... Are the new piggies in the old piggies field for now? Or have you begun a 2017 garden there?

One thing I would like to ask.......did you share the shoveling picture of your daughter with her co-workers ?

OK. You take a break for a couple of days, then get back to it. I still have more snacks to consume while I look & enjoy.

 

[sumi]

More please

 

[baymule]

1-8-2015 Our place was a HUD repo. Not only did the former owners not make their payments, then never had garbage service and threw out everything they ever consumed on the property. We hauled off truckloads of garbage bags full of trash and crap we picked up. One Sunday, we hired two day laborers and they criss-crossed the front, picking up garbage. They dragged out not one but THREE sofas! There was so much metal that the laborers loaded up their truck with scrap metal, when they left the back bumper was about a foot off the ground. You name it, it was in there. They used bedspring units as sideboards and filled it up. They got paid to pick it up, we gave them $20 for gas to haul it off and they got to sell it and keep the money. There was over 1700 pounds. They were delighted with their good fortune. DH and I were slapping each other on the back, congratulating each other that WE didn't have to haul it off.

Redneck Landscaping.

What do you do with crapped out old sofas? Being as we had other things to do, we ignored them. Or maybe we proudly displayed them because they were right by the driveway--you couldn't miss them.

But then our Demolition Dogs decided to pitch in.....

 

[baymule]

1-24-2015 One night, while I was home and not at out new place getting it ready for us to move into, I was looking at Great Pyrenees rescue sites. My husband asked why and I told him that after we moved and got sheep, we'd need another GP. My husband continued to work for several months after we bought our home, while I ran back and forth. The very next day after we had a conversation about getting another Great Pyrenees, a man walked into DH's place of work with a 3 month old GP puppy. My husband bought him, gave the man our address and the man brought him to me. We named him Trip.

It was not the most perfect timing for a puppy, but opportunity presented and we were delighted with him. He was adorable. He fit right in with our other two dogs, Parker and Polly. Our Great Pyrenees Paris, just wanted to eat him.

Because of me being gone for several days at a time, poor Trip had to stay in the chicken run for 3 weeks. DH got him out every evening when he got home and played with him. Moving couldn't come fast enough! The day we moved, we had to leave Trip and Paris, plus the chickens because we just didn't have room for them. We moved on February 14, unloaded the next day on the 15th, and went back for dogs, chickens and more stuff the next day.

I took my car, DH took his truck and we loaded both up. It was raining, 38 degrees and nasty cold. I took Trip and DH got the chickens and Paris. Both dogs were blowing their coats, the inside of our vehicles looked like an explosion in a polyester fiber factory. We had to run the AIR CONDITIONERS for the dogs!

We had to put Trip on a chain until we got a pen built for him. We took him off the chain all we could when we were outside and brought him in at night so coyotes didn't eat him. We never let the other two dogs out without us being with them. Paris had the backyard and she didn't share. It was a huge relief when we finally got the front fenced! But Trip took to farm living like he was born on one.

One day I was walking to the chicken coop and the dogs ran up behind me. They didn't stop and plowed right into me. Down I went and I found out what "dogpile" really meant. They piled on me, delighted that I wanted to play with them. They licked me, stepped all over me and I couldn't get up. DH was no help, he was laughing too hard. I finally got up, spitting dirt.

Trip loved to play with our grand daughter.

I got more chickens and Trip got chicken lessons.

We got 4 bred ewes in November of 2015......Trip was not ready for them! He wanted to play.

 

[baymule]

It took a lot of time and patience to train Trip (and Paris too) to the sheep, but both are the best LGD's anyone could ever want now.

Our daughter and son in law gifted us with 2 more grand daughters and Trip adores them. They are 2 years and 6 months old. Our first grand daughter is 9 years old. When I walk outside holding the baby, Trip presses up against my legs, "protecting" the baby.

We love Trip and can't imagine our farm without him.