Author Archives: Grumpy Old Farmer

The Garden Continues Despite our Neglect

With all the rain this year, plants that have laid dormant have now exploded to life… much to our chagrin.  Most are weeds.  Anyone who has not had to contend with goat heads count yourself fortunate – they are proof positive that nature cares not a wit for you and me.  It has been our best intention to weed and tend 3 beds a day while we are out here.  That will keep the weeds down and cover the whole garden every 6 days.  Best laid plans I guess.  However, the garden produce appears to be coming along nicely despite our seemingly life consuming, never ending projects.  Farmer Juan has declared that his days of non-stop construction are done once the greenhouse is completed.  We have the infrastructure now to produce virtually everything we eat.  My commitment to myself is to use next year’s season to grow and tend, not get bogged down on the business end of another friggin’ power drill!  Yes there will always be projects, but it is now time to let them be of secondary importance and enjoy the reason for all of the construction in the first place.  Yes we will be adding grazing livestock which will mean fencing and a barn; but the barn is going to involve someone else’s back and tools and frustrations… not mine.  Fences are easy.  My first love is growing stuff.  We have grown a lot, but it has had to take a back seat to 3 years of building. THREE YEARS!!  No wonder I’m so sore all the time.

We are going to have a bumper crop of carrots, onions, kidney beans, potatoes and beets. The Butternut and Acorn Squash are looking pretty good and we are experimenting with melons for the first time.  The melons are forming, it will just be interesting to see if they actually have any taste to them. The tomatoes simply haven’t recovered from the freezes they were subjected to because of the infuriating conflict with the greenhouse company.  Good thing we had a big crop last year.  It will get us through a lot of the winter. I did our annual trek to the local organic farm and got our sweet corn for the year and we now have 50 lbs of corn in the freezer. As cheaply as they produce it and how well the ears are formed, it makes no sense to waste my time planting our own. We are awaiting the tomatillos for salsa, the peppers are being put up and I’ve canned 10 pints of pickled Jalapeños.  We will be starting broccoli and cauliflower, spinach and lettuce downstairs in anticipation of growing in the greenhouse this fall.  I can’t believe I can now say that with some confidence.

Our newest addition.  We call her Happy Feet.  Can’t for the life of me figure out those feathered legs.  She was a “surprise” bonus bird that came with the broilers this year.  Slowly she is being accepted into the flock but the disruption in the pecking order has been quite apparent.

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Our melons attempting to melon.

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Poblano and Cayenne peppers.  Don’t rub your eyes after cutting up Cayennes!!!

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We have grown dozens of Sunflowers this year.  Will be saving the seeds for the chickens.  This plant is six or seven feet tall!

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A Boy, A Dad, A Truck, Power Tools! How much cooler could that be?

Yesterday we got the roof two thirds of the way on.  Not a couple of hours later, Godzilla El Nino arrived with a vengeance and doesn’t look like it will go away in the next three days.  Today, Sunday, it is currently sunny but muddy as all get out from the grid killing thunderstorms we had yesterday afternoon.  We have pulled the truck under the new roof along with the tractor and put Zina’s car in the barn as we are expecting the possibility of tennis ball sized hail.  Hopefully that is the exception to the rule, but the forecast from Denver to Des Moines is for raucous and nerve wracking thunderstorms.   Best to be prepared. The pre-solar system, JAZ Farm off grid back up system, got put to the test last night.  The oil lanterns and candles lit the house.  The little generator was put to work keeping the freezers running and my marine battery/inverter gave us a little power for other things as well.  All I know is that when the power is out one comes face to face with the reality of how many stupid electrical things we rely on.  No one in our family today now doubts that the solar system with the battery backup is a bad idea.

So here are the latest construction pictures of dad and the kid.  Its been a lot of fun working with my son.  He has come a long way this year and I hope it continues.  Today we are cleaning and such indoors and then will be celebrating Zina’s birthday!

Saturday’s work:

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Saturday evening the sky put on quite a show.  We have only detected one drip in the roof so far.  Nothing a little caulking won’t cure!

El Nino 2015

And Now To Cover It!

Aaron and I have had fun working together to build the greenhouse.  It has been fun having some help for once and watching him be an independent young man.  Rarely have I had someone to stand and scratch my head with and wonder the best way to proceed.  It was interesting to see the 20 year old assert his opinion about how things ought to be as we tackled the logistics of putting up the plastic on the greenhouse roof peaks.  He took a year off of school and I got him a job working as a waterproofer on construction sites.  Because some of the greenhouse needs caulking to waterproof the roof he got the nod.  I debated some points with him and, of course – as a dad will – lost.  We needed to make sure it was done correctly because once the roof is on, there really isn’t any way to go back and fix it save taking off all the plastic panels…. which just ain’t happinen’!

We got our system down and got the most difficult part of the roof put on.  The very top peak panels need to be very straight so that the others all fall into place.  Of course this means being at the highest point on the ladder (I hate ladders!) and also trying to make sure everything is aligned.  I think we did pretty well!  It was HOT!! So after each row we went into the air-conditioned house and drank a quart of water.  A third of the roof today and a third Saturday and then Sunday and the roofing will be done.  After that we place and fill the beds, finish the plastic on the side walls, build the ends where the doors will be and get the new drip irrigation in place.  Hopefully we will have some cool weather crops in there for the fall!

“Look old man … I got this, just hold the flippin’ ladder.”

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The worst is over… the roof peak is on and straight!

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The first third of the roof is in place!  Not bad for a couple of rookies!  The wind made us stop.  The panels are 4 feet by 12 feet and turn into sails when the wind blows.  Considering we were up 12 feet it was time to start conceding that we just weren’t safe anymore.  As it is we probably violated every rule OSHA has ever written!

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Quite A Construction Weekend!

The greenhouse frame is up and all squared, anchored, and plumbed.  It is all ready for the roof plastic.  We had to keep the door walls off of each end because before we enclose it we have to place the raised beds and fill them up using the tractor – which won’t fit through the door.  Also, when we put on the roof, one person (me) will be on the tall ladder and the other (Aaron) will be in the back of the pick-up holding it in place while I screw it down.  Once the bed boxes are in and placed we will assemble and cover the doors, end walls and side walls.

This was a huge project that has been hanging over my head for a year!  While the dealings with the company were absolutely a nightmare, this is a very sturdy, well built structure.  I have a hunch it will do quite well during our spring storms.  Hopefully, we will be growing greens and cool weather crops during the three non-summer seasons and that the more delicate plants won’t get creamed during our Rocky Mountain runoff spring storms.  That will keep out of the grocery store a LOT!

Thanks to Aaron for all of his work.  Sorry it was so hot and humid and heavy.  The sunburn will heal!

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The Greenhouse Construction Has Commenced!

Of course during what has been one of the hottest weeks of the summer, we started constructing the greenhouse.  It is a pretty straight forward design.  Once we figured out which tab goes in what slot and how not to burn out one’s hammer drill driving self-tapping screws into 12 gauge steel, it just started to flow.  Aaron would disagree, of course, as he thought the trusses were pretty heavy (probably around 100 lbs. each I’m guessing).  They aren’t light, but the issue is more in them being awkward.  They like to wobble around a bit when trying to seat them in their appropriate ground rail pegs and we had a couple of them get away and crash to the ground thus making for good entertainment and freaked out looks!

As I write, it is over 90 degrees so we came in for awhile.  Now that the skeleton is up they all need to be screwed down and then the whole building needs to be squared.  After that we true all the trusses vertically and tie them in place with hat channel steel.  We should have the majority of the frame done by the end of the weekend.  Yet one more construction project getting under our belts!  Can’t wait to have the plants growing and the music playing out there this winter!

The length is 36 feet; width 24 feet; wall height 7 feet and roof peak 11 feet.  When the trusses were on the ground being built they were deceiving.  They looked much shorter than that really are.  This is a big beastie. You can kind of compare it to the height of the fifth wheel trailer in the background.  The trailer would just fit into it directly under the roof peaks.

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Zina and the 2015 Wheat Harvest

ITS THE WEEKEND!!  Off to do the chicken and pig chores!  One piece of entertainment is trying to get all of the chickens back in the coop after a day of free ranging.  We have a couple that we have described as Road Runners.  They are very slender and very flighty.  If they get scared they won’t go back into the fenced in run in the evening and you can spend some time going round and round trying to herd them up!

I have to apologize for a couple of the videos previously posted.  I linked them from Facebook.  If you don’t have a Facebook account you will not be able to make them play.  Also, because I HATE Facebook, I sometime suspend my account there to get away from the insanity of the ego that presents itself there.  When I do that they also won’t play.  My son has volunteered to help me learn how to post videos to You Tube.  Once I learn how to do that, then the videos we make of the place should play for everyone following along.  We may even make a JAZ Farm YouTube account and post things there as well….. don’t hold your breath though.

We are in the midst of everything growing (thanks to the wet year we have had – WEEDS TOO!)  We are learning slowly, because this is a “hobby” farm that we need to do a few hours every day and that helps us keep up without feeling like we are running around panicked.  Because we had to process chickens last weekend and because my clients somehow insist (the nerve) that my real job has to take precedence over the hobby, things can get away from us quickly.  We had the weeds in the garden pretty well caught up….. not any more!!!  We figure that of the 18 raised beds that if each of us do 3 a day on the weekend and if I do a couple during the week, we can keep up.

Zina came out today (Friday) immediately changed clothes and is out cutting down the rest of the wheat.  It actually looks like we will get back more than we planted.  For a first try at this it seems to be going quite well.  We will get several bushels of straw for the coop and grain for bread for the rest of the year.  Can’t ask for more than that.  The hard corn is another story.  I think the seed was bad and it isn’t doing what we hoped….. something to improve upon for next year.

I have laid out the ground framing for the greenhouse and I hope to have that up by the end of the Labor Day holiday weekend.  It will be such a relief to have that up and functioning finally.

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The chickens from last weekend put into the freezer!

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Piggies Rooting!

The pigs are getting to be ginormous!  Came in from the city the other day and they had managed to knock over their feed bin.  It was low on food and (as pigs are want to do) tried to simply muscle their way deeper in to it to get at the feed.

While they won’t get on a scale, I am estimating comparing them to our dog – who weighs about 100 lbs – that they are easily that large.  They love to be scratched (which is something akin to petting a muddy football) and when they come up and push into your legs wanting attention, there is no doubt about their size.  These critters are little tanks!

This video shows Bossy rooting around.  The pile she is on is a HUGE pile of composted horse manure that was here when we bought the place.  It is loaded with grubs and the three of them have been having a time turning the whole pile over with their snouts to get at them (of which I am most grateful!).

Bossy is up to her nose in Sh..!  Go Bossy go!

Wheat Harvest

Wow did we underestimate the labor involved with this project!  It is one thing to plant the wheat; its a whole ‘nuther thing to cut it, thresh it, and winnow it!

Next year we WILL have a scythe.  The field is 70 x 70 which is bigger than most suburbanite homes.  We are cutting the whole thing down with a hand sickle which means being bent over and cutting the stalks off at ground level.  We managed to get half down and then it started to rain.  So now we have to wait for the field to dry before we can do the other half.

Because we have yet to put up a barn for critters and hay and such (the barn we have right now being for equipment), the hay is stacked in our basement on tarps.  From there we thresh it (the removal of the wheat heads from the stalks) and then it will be winnowed (removing the “shells” of the wheat berries by letting wind carry them away), leaving us with the end result:  whole grain raised with no chemicals, no synthetic fertilizers, and no pesticides.

I planted the field with 25 lbs of red spring wheat.  It will be interesting to see after all is said and done, if we harvested more than what we sowed.

The wheat field:

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The harvested wheat:

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The farmer with his ass in the air!  HOT!

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The foot powered (treadle powered) thresher:

Zina hard at it:

Summer Is In Full Tilt!

We actually did what we said we should today. Got up early and worked outside before the inferno began. Of course we stayed out there well into the afternoon so the dehydration happened anyway! We hilled 250 row feet of potatoes, shoveled 4 yards of compost, weeded and did chicken chores. Because we old duffs need to get exercise (as if the farm isn’t enough), I took the tractor out and cut a mile and a quarter jogging path around the perimeter of the place. The weeds were super thick. In some places they were over 4 feet high. Tons of different kinds of wild flowers. It’s amazing to see that after only one year since we kicked the conventional wheat farmer off of our land how fast the wild things have rooted and retaken the place. They only choked the little tractor that could, once! Out in the way back we even have some new locust trees coming up and there is some native tall prairie grass trying to make a come back! The beans are beaning, the Potatoes are blooming, the Butternut and Acorn squash are squashing, the Carrots are carroting, the Onions are bulbing, the Tomatillos are growing their little lanterns, the Sunflowers are reaching toward space, and the Strawberries are running. Our peppers are coming on as well; the Jalapeños were the first but there are six more kinds starting to flower – even the Habaneros! After having a tussle with army cutworms, the cabbages appear to be thriving. The Beets are in desperate need of thinning and it looks like we actually may get Melons. A good looking year! Our wheat patch is ready to be cut, threshed and winnowed and the chickens are about a week away from the freezer. Piggies are now over 100 pounds and are rooting up their pen with vigor! They thought it great fun to come in after the tractor had scooped up a load of compost and bury their noses in it up to their eyes! On the conventional farms around us the wheat harvest has started in earnest. The trucks are backed up at the elevator. It looks like the American white processed flour addiction will continue unabated. The city garden is exploding as well. The usual gazillion Tomatoes, Lettuce, Kale, Cucumbers, Zuchs, and Green Onions. Green beans go in this week to replace the Garlic we just harvested. Now we are chillin’ Lovin the AC that will soon be solar powered! Zina is busy stripping a bushel of Thyme from its stems. I actually may begin greenhouse construction next week as well. Summer be in full tilt!

The Storms Here Are Pretty Entertaining!

Wow THAT was COOL!! A thunderstorm built up and is moving over us but the squal line is LITERALLY right across the road. It was raining like hell at the farm across the road but not a drop here! It has since started to rain some but for awhile it was raining right across the street and not here. See something new everyday!

>>> About 15 minutes later:

And after the storm, a complete double rainbow from end to end.  Pretty amazing!