Category Archives: Uncategorized

Pre-Lunch and Pre-Dinner Have Arrived

Wouldn’t you know it – Mother’s Day weekend – which is supposed to be our “average” last frost date, was met with a spring blizzard.  The mountains got up to 3 feet of snow and the lower elevations around 5000- 6500 feet got around 5 inches to a foot!  At the same time, I received a text message from our hatchery that our roasting chicks had shipped!  Great.  Anticipating warmer weather (because it was in the 80’s the previous week) we set the brooder up in the barn.  Now… in the sloppy wet rain and snow it had to be taken down and the 300 gallon watering trough we use as the brooder had to be rolled around to the back of the house and into the basement.  It froze my fingers as the tank is made out of steel.  Now the brooder is set up in our exercise room.  Oh goodie!

I got a call from the post office at 8 am today (Monday) saying the chicks had arrived.  I got up there and got the cheeping box of fuzz balls in the rain and sleet.  I gave a little boy a thrill though.  He was about 3 years old and I let him look into the box before I left.  “Look Mommy!  CHEEKINZ!”  Everyone in line at the post office had a chuckle.

The little puff balls made it to the farm with no trouble and they are now happily eating, drinking, pooping and sleeping in their new 3 – 4 week condo stay.   After that they go out into the big coop for 4 – 5 more weeks.  It looks like mid-July will be chicken harvesting week. (It came in handy that the truck has heated seats.  I had them on the passenger seat and it kept them nice and toasty).

I read a quote once that said, “If you have an animal and it has a name, its a pet.  If you have animals and they have no names, they are food.”  These ones have no names; except for humorously saying that half are named lunch and the other half, dinner.  Aaron said we should name all of them Nuggets.

Now, between the layers in the big coop and the broiler chicks in the brooder we have over 60 birds.  Taking care of them will give us something to do until the garden dries out and we can get out to till and plant.

 

Dinner

Lunch

Why We NEED To Get Past Our Last Frost Date!

This is why we need to get the plants outside.  They are taking over the house!  Anyone who doesn’t believe that plants don’t help to regulate moisture need only come visit the grow room in my basement.  When I arrived today after the house being closed for two days, every window in the place was dripping condensation.  The basement could be a sauna with all of the moisture the plants are wicking into the air!  It was so moist that the stack of envelopes I keep down there for work had all sealed themselves!  It is a pleasant environment but we are once again to the stage in the gardening where the plants now need to go live in the real world!  Hopefully mid-week next week I can get the tasks done to make that happen and MAYBE the weather will cooperate!

 

Jalapenos

Basil, Serrano Peppers, Jalapeño Peppers, Acorn and Butternut Squash 

Maters

Cherry Tomatoes, Amish Paste, German Giant Tomatoes, Tomatillos and Eggplant

Onions

3 kinds of onions, celery, Marjoram

Peppers

Purple and Red Peppers.

In boxes and envelopes:  3 kinds of potatoes, Strawberries, Asparagus Crowns, Sweet Corn, Sweet Potatoes, Black and Kidney beans, Green feed corn, Green beans,  Carrots, Melons, Beets, Kale, Herbs, Amaranth, Millet, Sunflowers….. At the city garden:  Kale, Spinach, Peas, Garlic, Green Onions, Roma Tomatoes, Green Beans, Zucchini, Yellow Squash, Cucumbers, Broccoli, Cauliflower, and grape vines.   AND…. THIRTY CHICKS ARRIVE NEXT WEDNESDAY!!

It is time for this polar vortex idiocy to move on to someone else’s house!

Wind Break Progress

The fence is up and the JAZ Farm has a windbreak on the south side!  I put up 400 pickets yesterday and in the past two days have screwed in 2000 screws.  Even with a screw driver attached to a drill my shoulder is aching pretty good.

The next step is to put braces along the back.  We get a good wind and that fence will be laying on the ground.  The braces are pretty simple;  Just 2×4’s attached to the frame and a small sono-tube footer for it to cement into.  We had some 30 mph winds while I was putting up the pickets and you could tell that the garden was being sheltered from it.  Good thing to.  9o feet long plus a second section 35 feet long.  It is high time these construction projects were done so we can get to planting!

We have decided that above all else…. We love our JAZ Farm!!

fence 1 fence 2

Why To Build Fences

Bun Rabbits abound in the wheat field.  Standing out on the deck after spotting the antelope we noticed that the “tumbleweeds” up closer to the house not only moved but had ears.  Jack Rabbits!

They may be cute but they don’t get my termaters!  A 12 gauge may be in order.

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A Different Sort Of Critter Down On The Farm

Zina was washing dishes this evening and looked out into the wheat field and thought she saw our dog.  She couldn’t figure out why she would be so far away from the house when she almost never ventures too far away.  She got out the spotting scope and asked me if it could be a deer.  Close.  Antelope.  We get them with fair frequency out here.  He/she was just out for some evening snacking.  From our deck, it didn’t even care if we existed.

This is about an eighth of a mile away.

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Will There Ever Again Be A Time In My Life When I’m Not Building Fences?

From talking with people in the know, and from having experienced the weather out here now that we’ve been here a year, it was advised that in order to have a garden that actually produces vegetables, that we build windbreaks around the beds.  Oh goodie!  More fences!!  This, on top of actually wanting to PLANT the garden this spring.  So once again, sit and stare at it.  Let one’s brain get ahold of it.  Put together a plan, go to the Home Despot and load another 800 lbs of lumber and concrete into the truck.

Word to anyone following this blog with the eye to wanting to do it yourself:  If you have the dough, buy a farm with the infrastructure already in.  Otherwise you will spend a year and a half on the business end of any power tool you can imagine, sore, exhausted, pissed, elated, and a true believer in gravity.  Why gravity?  Because everything…. and I mean EVERYTHING (including the tools themselves) are HEAVY!!  The post hole digger you see on the back of the tractor below is a hernia maker.  It weighs over about 70 pounds and there is no easy way to mount it on the tractor.  You better have a LOT of holes to dig before you slap that puppy on the PTO.  We had 17.

So Zina and I got to it and put in 130 feet of fence framing in the past three days.  She did the chicken coop spring cleaning while I dug the posts and cemented them in, and today, we put up the framing.  Next week the pickets go on and the south, east and west and part of the north breaks will be in.  There is still about 80 feet of fence that needs to go on the north side, but in the summer, the worst of the wind comes from the south east.  It can be done a bit more slowly.

On a happy note, I am not the cripple I thought I was.  I have been suffering from the worst sciatica imaginable.  It is truly disabling.  The muscles in my lower left back and hip would clamp down and make it almost impossible to stand upright.  It is the worst, awful pain when you are trying to stay motivated to get this place built.  With daily stretching and some serious juicing to get some of the hulk status reduced, I have been working today pain free!  YAY!  I feel like marathon man I have so much energy.  That might all disappear tomorrow when all the physical exertion catches back up to me.  For now!  It is so nice not to have chronic pain!

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Zen In The Art of Soil Testing

I went out to the new beds today fearing for the worst regarding the soil quality out here.  With all of the work involved building the farm’s infrastructure there hasn’t been a lot of time to get soil amended and ready for planting.  My self-imposed deadline was to have the garden planted this spring and I have been feeling pressed pretty hard to get that done.  My worry, because of how hard the water is here, would be that the soil would be too alkaline and that I would need to bring in sulphur to help make it more acidic.  My PH tester came this past week, so just like going to the doctor for tests not really wanting to know if anything is wrong, out we went.

Finally!  A positive surprise!!  My choice to use the old horse corral worked!  It is indeed the most fertile and  best soil on the farm.  The meter, when first stuck in the ground pegs WAY to the alkaline side of the scale (the green).  Exactly what one doesn’t want to see.  I stayed patient and stuck to the directions that said it would stabilize to a true reading in 2 to 3 minutes.  On all six sampled sites, the soil was a PERFECT 6.6!!!  Woohoo!!  Thank you horse crap!

We won’t need to do an awful lot to the soil so that gets me back on track.  After the windbreaks are built, the tiller comes out and the drippers get installed, then it is almost time to plant!  Thank goodness because the tomatoes in the grow room are already over a foot tall!

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Transplanting Tomatoes

Our big concern was what to do with the plants when they got too big for the grow tables.  In the city we have a grow room with big lamps powered by solar panels.  Unfortunately it isn’t big enough to handle all the plants for both places.  It is our plan to make a greenhouse out of reclaimed house windows but that doesn’t help things this year.  I broke down and bought another 1000 watt metal halide grow lamp for the farm.  It will broadcast a light foot print of 10 X 10 feet of useable light.  We will need to rotate the plants around every week or so to keep the ones on the outside edges from getting leggy but this seemed to be the best answer.  I am not feeling too guilty about it as it will only be on about 8 weeks per year.  It is our goal to go wind and solar at the farm as well.

I transplanted 55 of the 150 tomato plants into larger pots today; then, of course, I ran out of potting soil with the nearest nursery a two hour round trip drive.  Oh well, something to do next week to keep me busy!  The peppers and egg plants will get repotted as well but they will be put under my T5 light banks.  They put out a ton of light and aren’t terribly hot.  All in all everything appears to be doing well.  Outdoor planting will commence with the cool weather crops in the city in about two weeks.  I have to get out and repair some of the hoop huts from the gale force winds we had this winter.  The rest, mid – May.  In the meantime, I am building wind-breaks in the garden area.  Some tips from the folks in town here indicate that the high winds here can desiccate a garden in no time so the more wind breaks the better.  I am probably going to be using drift fencing attached to steel T-Posts along the garden paths.  I suspect that mid-summer I will be needing shading cloth for the tomatoes too.  What a fun experience but such a challenge at the same time.  Will it work?  Stay tuned, we haven’t written that chapter yet!

Happy Spring!IMG_3216 IMG_3217 IMG_3218 IMG_3219 IMG_3220