Author Archives: Grumpy Old Farmer

Greenhouse?

After having to absolutely berate the guys building our greenhouse I got a commitment to have the thing here at the end of March (with an added 8 feet to the length).  Thats about a week from now.  Hoping it will be here so we can build it in April.  The plants will have to have someplace to go in May so they had better be on schedule.  I am still very excited about its arrival but this has been the worst purchasing experience I’ve been through in a long time.  He will be getting an email from me tomorrow explaining that the 30 tons of top soil and 30 tons of compost arrive TOMORROW and the raised bed boxes have been built.  If he can’t deliver as promised I have an attorney who has volunteered to call to scare the crap out of him.  We expected this by January 1st.  We ordered it two weeks before Thanksgiving 2014.  No more nice.  Get it here or get sued.

Indoor 200- 2:2015 Seedlings 2015 IMG_0011 Greenhouse

Barn Stars

After months of them sitting in the living room we put up our barn stars.  They are 40 inches across and looked pretty big.  Of course taking them into the big out of doors, the fence swallowed em.  I think they still look pretty nice though!

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Pigs On Hold

The poor piggies!  There is a virus of some sort that has come in from China (figures) that is decimating hogs here in the US.  It causes some sort of diarrhea which causes the pigs to become dehydrated and die.  We had assumed, wrongly, that it was mostly confined to industrial CAFO production.  It turns out that it is very pervasive.  Homestead flocks are getting wiped out as well.  The breeder we were going to use for our 3 little pigs had a litter of eleven and they all died.  Most of the Craig’s List breeders don’t have any either.  Even the pigs being bred for show that 4H kids buy are dropping like flies.  I have several messages in to some potential suppliers but it will be a crap shoot.  So we have the waterers, the feeders, the electric fence, the pen built and the shelter that damn near killed me, but no pigs.  Not a big problem as it has made the spring work a bit less than anticipated.  We will just take them as we can get them.  But for now, hopefully the vets can get a handle on this thing.  If I haven’t mentioned it before, Globalization sucks m’kay.

IMG_3893 Pig pen

My Own Private Dancer

Sitting out on the deck last week I got entertained by a stunt plane.  It flew over our back field and proceeded to do loops, stalls and rolls.  I managed to get this shot as it had just come through a loop.  If you look to the lower left following the smoke around you can make out the dot that is the plane itself.

Stunt plane

Spring Is Springing!

The flock is outside, the meadowlarks are singing, the roosters are crowing, and the new wheat field is in.  The grain said to plant the Spring Wheat as early in the spring as possible.  Dunno what that means but since its been in the mid-70s I figured what the hell.  Plowed it all up, tilled it, planted it and now am attempting to keep it watered.  Half of it is wheat and half is alfalfa to help build the soil quality.  It will be interesting to see if it grows.  I need to plow up one more plot for the hard corn but I have some time before that needs to be done!

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The Newest Go Outside!

Now we can clean and dust the basement.  The new chicks have gone out to the big coop today.  As with our meat birds last year we cordoned off the barn and run for them to have their own space.  For about the next week there will be two flocks.  The big girls and roosters will be able to see the newbies and vice versa.  Once they have gotten a little bit bigger then we will take the babies, put them in dog crates and bring them over to the adults.  This is done at night.  When chickens are asleep they become practically comatose.  By introducing new birds at night they will all wake up the next morning and not remember that they were once separated.  There will be about a week or so of rebuilding the pecking order but then all will become what normalized.  While it wasn’t such an inconvenience to have them in the basement through the cold snap, they did start to make the place quite dusty.  They don’t really make very good indoor pets.

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The Indoor Polar Vortex Make Shift Chicken Coop

So winter has returned to the JAZ Farm.  We have been sub-zero temperatures at night which has put a damper on the building projects for awhile.  We are still waiting for the greenhouse folks to deliver and it is making me looney.  For those of you who know me, incompetence makes me crazy.  Don’t tell me you are going to deliver in 7 weeks and make me wait 16 and not tell me why.  In my job I have messed up on only a few trades in my 26 year career and had my butt reamed each and every time.  This guy has the nerve to act surprised about why I am annoyed.  Anyway.  Enough ranting.  If he gets it here by our new agreed upon deadline all is forgiven.  If not…. guess I’ll be going down to see what Austin, Texas looks like.

The babies are feathered out but can’t handle the zero and sub zero weather we are now experiencing. Two weeks ago it was 70. We use a 6 foot diameter water tank for the newly hatched chicks. At 5 weeks they were a tad over crowded. This morning we wrapped the seedling tables with chicken wire, sealed the escape routes, caught all the screaming teenagers and they all now seem to think the new digs are pretty awesome. Now they have enough room to grow until spring weather arrives and they can go outside and join the big girls. What a couple of red neck hicks. Chickens in the basement. Guess that is no worse than having calves in the kitchen when I was working in ranch country!

Indoor 200- 2:2015      Indoor coop 2 2 2015

Indoor coop 2 2:2015      Indoor coop 4 2 2015

The Hotel Pigafornia

It SNOWED this past Tuesday.  Yesterday and today has been over 70!  Its FEBRUARY.

We took the opportunity today to get the pig shelter moved into place and then measure out, dig the holes and cement in the posts for the last wall of the pen itself.  We ordered the waterers and it looks like our local feed store has a feeder for sale.

We have decided that we will likely get 3 pigs to raise.  We inquired about organic feed and in order for us to be able to get it at all locally (within 100 miles) we have to buy 2000 lbs of it.  2 pigs will go through about 750 lbs of feed to get them to between 220 and 250 lbs.  If we only got 2 we would end up wasting 500 lbs of feed.  A dressed out hog will evidently yield 150 lbs of meat.  3 is then 450 lbs!!

So what we are planning to do is raise and process the three.  1 1/2 of those pigs we will keep, vacuum seal, and freeze for ourselves.  The other 1 1/2 will go to friends who want to help us offset costs.  We are figuring around $6.00 lb.

The fence will be easy to complete.  We also are stringing a hot wire around the base of the fence to keep them from rooting around and tearing up our fences.

So between the laying hens (which we now have 21 new ones to go with the other ladies in the coop), chickens being raised for meat and the new additions of “Ham, Sausage, and Chop” in our new pig lot, I would surmise we will have more than enough meat for this “Mostly-Terian” family.

Check out the sexy overalls!  I still gots it!

Pig shelter 3 Pig shelter 2 PIg shelter 1

Hey you Greenhouse Pros!! We’re still waiting!!

I hate poor customer service. Especially when one tries to not buy from big monopolies. This is evidently being built in Colorado and is the same one we ordered. Ordered it mid November. Said 5-7 weeks. Going on 10. Hope I didn’t flush a bunch of cash. If I exhibited such poor customer service I’d be living under an overpass.

This is sure would look nice at OUR place.

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A Great Quote

From:  The Joy of Hobby Farming, Grow Food, Raise Animals, and Enjoy A Sustainable Life, by Michael and Audrey Levatino

“Quality of Life:

The most important element of all is your happiness.  Why live and work on a farm if you’re not loving almost every minute of it?  Weigh all new farm venture ideas against how it will affect your life and relationships.  Take the time to enjoy what’s been created for you and what you’ve accomplished yourself.”

Good advice no matter what you want to accomplish in life.