It’s Friday night and a lot has been going on here over the past few days and weeks.  Thought we’d use this time to update you on a few of the ongoing projects. Continue reading →

Sometimes we get caught up in things that we’re reading, written by those who are the “pioneers in the field”, or “fathers of Permaculture”, and we think that their beliefs or the techniques which they espouse are sacrosanct; not to be messed with, questioned, or contradicted. Then again, I don’t believe either of us are used to following anything blindly. The reason I’m on this train of thought is that Sue has been reading publications by Joel Salatin, who is – perhaps – most popularly known for his farm’s appearance in Michael Pollan’s very well received book entitled The Omnivore’s Dilemma; she has been closely studying Salatin’s book You Can Farm. In it, he attempts to provide a road map for those who are considering getting into farming; his title tag-line is “The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Start and Succeed in a Farming Enterprise.” Additionally, Sue purchased “The Salatin Semester,” a dvd series, and had been watching them to learn techniques and perspectives on farming for sustainability and for profit.

Salatin quotes and paraphrases taken from this book, published in 1998 by Polyface Inc., mostly from Chapter 5

HOWEVER, one of the things Salatin discusses is starting too late in your lifetime; he gives a warning to those over 45 that they really need to honestly assess their abilities.  He says, “As age increases, the following things happen: physical stamina lessons and emotional stamina lessens.” We all know these things to be true to some extent and – to be fair – he recommends working with some younger people who can help out with the physical tasks and provide needed support to help you roll with the punches. And also, at one point, says, “the only thing worse that getting a late start, is not starting at all.” We are trying not to get too locked in to the “you’re too old to be doing this” mind-set, and when Sue brings it up, I just have to counter with “I don’t believe that.”  And I truly do not. Farming truly is a life, and we hope to make it a business, there is no age limit on life! Nor, for that matter, on doing business.

Sue has so much stamina and “stick-to-it-iveness” that I believe she is the last person in the world who will let something as trivial as a number stand in her way of making her dreams come true. She’s already proven nay-sayers wrong for most of her adult career! There is something to be said about beginning an enterprise once you’ve retired.  She has a regular income already and we will be adding to that income soon by selling products raised here on the property.  The only way we can go is up~ as far as I see it.

There are others who are of this same mind set. One avid Homesteader, who Vlogs and Blogs under the moniker- Becky’s Homestead -has recently posted an encouraging word for those who wish to begin after 55, or even 65 – here’ the link, if you’re interested. AND, even the person who is considered the father of Permaculture, Bill Mollison, believed what we do in the NOW matters, regardless of the size of our endeavor. He says (and I have used this quote before), “The greatest change we need to make is from consumption to production, even if on a small scale, in our own gardens. If only 10% of us do this, there is enough for everyone.” That’s our over-arching goal, feed ourselves and feed others… we hope to make a profit along the way. I don’t believe that there is an age limit in doing this. We may want to add “internships” sometime along the way, or allow 4-H members to have their livestock on the property in exchange for some help; but all that goes a long way to completing the idea.  And Permaculture isn’t just about what we can do for today, or how we can get immediate returns; it’s about creating a future reserve, helping our immediate surroundings to provide for those that come after,  planting trees that will be “casting future shadows” – that’s Bill Mollison again.

So, if you read the blog on a regular basis and think “why the heck are they doing this at their age?” Please remember that, we understand we might not see the complete and total fruition (ha!) of the overall concept, but I am confident that we will be able to reap the benefits of the work: healthier, happier living gained by planning for the future, designing and creating our personal environment, and simply watching the dream grow. We continue to encourage our friends and family to visit us and see, first hand, what’s happening here on the ol’ homestead, and experiencing the progress that we’re making. Yes, experience it. It is an adventure every day!
Until then, as always~
Thanks for reading!

Today’s Weather: Well, as I finish this blog, it is after 11:00 p.m., at this late hour, it’s currently 58°. That’s quite a warm night for us. My phone says that the high was 78°, but I’m not very sure of the accuracy! I do know that is was a beautiful day and amazingly clear. Tomorrow’s high is only forecast at 64°, and we’ll be windy, with a low of 29°.  As you see, our weather varies day to day.

Hamburg Hen

Egg Report: If you follow us on FaceBook, you know that yesterday we celebrated the laying of the first Easter-Egg! It was a beautiful light green. The other two that day were pure white and we know those belong to two of The Three Sisters (they are  the Hamburgs that were raised together and always hang out together, thus – “The Three Sisters”).  I love the Hamburgs, they have little polka dots on their tails. Anyway, back to the report… three eggs yesterday. Today, we had three eggs as well, but I believe, one of them was from a Buff Orpington, (which may be a first there as well) because the egg was buff and it was larger than our other buff colored eggs which are usually laid by Maeve or Immen.

This is the first weekend that we actually made it to POWWOW. This is an amazing local program that helps get veggies out to people and helps prevent waste. For $10 you can pick up 60 lbs. of fresh nutritious produce. Our church is the distribution point for the Sierra Vista and Hereford area so we had an “in”, we didn’t need that though~ anyone can come and stand in line for the distribution. If you cannot afford the $10, you can have it for free.  This is a program that we really want to get behind, because it speaks to the part of us that wants to get good, quality food into the hands of people who might not easily afford it otherwise. Well, we can certainly afford it, and this month the shopping list was just great! You can click on the list below if you want to check out the website and learn more about the Borderlands Food Bank.

Sierra Vista United Methodist Church
this location open from 7:00am-10:00am
3225 St. Andrews Dr., Sierra Vista 85650

Tomatoes (12 roma, 8 round, 9 beef, 9 grape boxes, 9 cherry boxes), 2 acorn squash, 2 butternut squash, 3 yellow squash, 3lbs anaheim peppers, 3 eggplant, bell peppers (6 green, 6 red, 1 mini assorted bag) and 1 tung qwa

So, I didn’t go to see all this stuff, but Sue brought home a great assortment – everything but the Tung Qwa. I had to look it up; it’s a winter melon that is generally seen in Chinese cuisine, often used in soup. The vegetables change depending on the season, but they seem to always have tomatoes.

Chicken Veggie Feast

She also brought home 2 boxes of the “past their prime” veggies. Today we chopped them all up and made a veritible vegetable feast for the chickens! It looked so pretty on the chopping board. The acorn squash we’ll give them raw so they can return to it again and again. This is good to help beat the boredom of being stuck in the coop during the yucky winter weather, like we’ve been having. However, our chickens are very picky, we’ve found; they prefer their vegetables steamed a bit~ thank you very much. So, after chopping, we had two stock pots going at the same time. All those veggies smelled so good cooking!

Since we think this program is so great, we’re going to become more involved (Yes, Holly B., you heard it here first!). Next month, we’ll show up extra early to help prep and hand out the food.  I’m looking forward to it~ and we’ll be able to pick up some veggies each month.  Hmmmm, maybe I’ll have to learn to can food now!
Well, until that adventure~
As always,
Thanks for reading!

Today’s Weather: Tonight as I write this (7:28 PM), it’s 46°. High today was 51°, low tonight is forecast as 33°. This morning, when Sue looked at the temp around 6:30 AM, it was 39°. We had rain all night and snow on the mountains right above us. This morning we really couldn’t see because the clouds were so low, but in the afternoon the mountains were beautiful.  Tomorrow, the high is supposed to be 62°. We might go to Tombstone if the weather isn’t too bad.  We’ll see.

Egg Report: Today we had three, yesterday we had two… I think we’re working out a schedule here.  Some of the hens are using the nesting boxes now, but we still have those holdouts that are laying in the wall.  Darn! ~ but at least we know where to find them.

Bees!  One of my personal dreams for this homestead is to begin an apiary. Sue gave me  an amazing hive for Christmas and I can’t wait to begin using it. It’s from an Australian company called Flow that created a different type of hive that is less intrusive than a traditional hive when harvesting honey. Here’s a quote from their website “It all started because Cedar felt bad about bees being crushed during the honey harvest. He was also sick of being stung and having to spend a whole week harvesting his honey.” Their system simply cranks apart the cells and allows honey to flow out. “No mess, no fuss, no heavy lifting, and no expensive processing equipment. Through the clear end-frame view, you can see when the honey is ready without opening up the hive. The extraction process is so gentle, the bees barely notice at all.” I was so excited to receive this amazing present! Then Sue said, “You better research Bees in Arizona.  We might have a problem.” Continue reading →

I was so surprised by the number of people that were asking for an update (I mentioned this last night on the Facebook page)!  I had actually started the post the day of, we were ready to go and just waiting for the scalder to come up to temp, but then we got into the process and by the time we were finished (6pm) it was the last thing on my mind.

The Condemned

It was a process just getting ready to process!  Friday night we separated the roosters we planed to dispatch from the general population, and also brought the biggies around to join the littles. That is all better to do at night since everyone is so much more calm-  less chance of being pecked! We’ve talked about this before in an earlier post entitled “Night Moves”. We placed the condemned in cat and dog crates (we had to keep Ahmen away from the other roosters because he had just become so mean, he was attacking everyone) so they wouldn’t be eating or drinking through the night or early morning.  It’s best if you butcher them with an empty crop, much less mess and clean up involved. The separation created some consternation among those remaining on the other side of the coop –  Immen (the little black hen) is still looking for Ahmen, they were pretty tight – so I placed the beach towels over the top of the crate to keep the roosters calm and to help keep the others from panicking. Continue reading →

We have been gearing up to process about 7 of our roosters next Saturday. I’m not too terribly fond of the word process; I realize that it’s probably less offensive than perhaps butchering, and definitely a lot better than saying killing.  But, let’s face it, that’s what we’re going to be doing – killin’ chickens.  This is where the “prayer” part of Wing and a Prayer comes in.  We are both animal lovers, but we are also omnivores and if we’re going to be doing the full Permaculture lifestyle, a part of that is being self sufficient. We’re not raising these chickens simply as pets (we keep telling ourselves), but as part of our food supply.  So here we go, praying that we make it through the whole adventure and come out with a great tasting product at the end. Continue reading →

In California, everyone is always big into recycling… even Ramona has a really good recycling program, and a place where you can turn in your cans for $$ (took advantage of that often!)… but in Hereford, the town in which we now live, they disbanded their recycling program and we’ve turned to other options to take care of our plastics, cardboard and some other items that we’d normally recycle.  Like Christmas Trees!   Continue reading →

These are the chickens we refer to as “The Biggies”, even though they are actually smaller than those we refer to as “The Littles”.  We’ve recently tried calling them the Big Littles and the Little Bigs, but that gets a mite confusing. Anyway~ the roster that you see to the left of the photo is Dodo (he started out as Dolores, but then he turned into a Rooster, so I changed his name); he guards the hens very carefully, warning them when something  flying over looks predatory, and is quite solicitous with them in general. He keeps the other rooster, Ahmen – not pictured – from pestering them and us… he always calls his girls over when he finds a plump insect or some nice scratch.  He’s a feisty little Bantam and we really like him.  Back to the photo: it shows them enjoying a dirt bath together today in the late afternoon.  They are so happy because yesterday they were shut in all day to get them used to their new digs. What am I talking about? Well, as the title suggests, introductions are in order, and what I am refering to is, the process of introducing the Biggies into the permanent chicken coop with the Littles. We have fixed up the smaller brooding section of the coop into a temporary home for the Biggies, so they can interact with the Littles with a chicken wire separation between.  This way, in a week or so, when we orchestrate another night move and everyone wakes up together, they will already be somewhat familiar with each other. The shock won’t be so great!  Already, our littlest Biggie – Maeve – has taken quite a shine to some of our more shy Buff Orpingtons, especially the one we call “Little Buff.”  The Buffs are, in general, quite a calm and gentle breed of chicken. They are often recommended as pets for children. It’s cute that our smallest chicken has grown attached to the gentle giants. When the Littles were truly little, Maeve often hung out by their chicken tractor and clucked at them.  We think she’ll make a great brood hen one day.

More on the chicken introduction saga another day, until then ~ as always ~
Thanks for reading.

Today’s Weather: This morning, Sue says it was 37° when we got up at 5:30.  It warmed up really nicely tho’ and got all the way up to 63°.  Only a light breeze, wonderfully warm in the sun.  Low tonight is only going to be 43° with a high of 73°!  Reminiscent of Ramona.

Egg Production: Even with the upset of a move and being cooped up together all day yesterday, we collected two little eggs from our stalwart layers.  I think they’re doing great for the middle of winter.

Even though it was 76° when I came home today, we are in the midst of winter and the late nights and early mornings can still be quite frigid.  Sue told me that, when she went to feed the goats this morning, the whole back pastures were frosted over… that makes for a cold night!  The chicken-littles are still in the Chickshaw right now, that means that its mostly an open coop~ certainly open on the bottom ~we did staple wind barriers on the open sides because there were some ridiculously cold and gusty winds.  We think we lost one chicken due to exposure and we had to bring in one of the littler Buff Orpingtons who was having some difficulty eating due to the cold – we think.  So, we decided to take some winter feeding steps to make sure that none of the others had undue cold stress symptoms. Now, every night before it’s time to go in for the night, we create a FEEDING FRENZY by making up a hot chicken mash for them.  They completely devour the mash. What you can’t see is the black feed dish in the midst of that scrum of chickens.  Eating the warm mash helps to warm them up, fill up their crops for overnight digestion, giving them lots of fuel to keep their body temps up over night.  Then, we do it again in the morning when they get let out… giving them a boost for the cold mornings.  We’re hoping that the coop will be completed tomorrow and that we can work on moving the littles in over the weekend.  Stay tuned for that big adventure!
Until then,
as always,
Thanks for reading!

Today’s weather: Warm and beautiful!  The high according to the phone was 64° today!  But as stated earlier, it showed warmer than that on our indoor/outdoor thermometer at home.  Tomorrow the weather is supposed to be the same, nice and warm and sunny.  Sue reported that the wind in the morning was quite biting – otherwise it was a nice day.

Egg Report: 2 eggs today, we’ve been averaging 2 eggs every other day, on the “other” days we usually pick up 4.  I’m going to try to keep track of that, either here or on our FB Page… more for my information that yours, but I like sharing 🙂  Tootles.

Short post today, it’s been a long day for both Sue and I; actually, Sue is playing for the Vesper Service right now at church, so the day isn’t over quite yet for her.  I’m playing hooky because of my very early morning work day tomorrow.  Anyway… one of the neat things I like about this new venture is being able to grow some of our own vegetables and lots of fresh herbs! Sue’s not quite as ecstatic about it as I am, so I try to sneak vegetables in things all the time.  The photo on the right is our first small harvest of kale greens from the garden.  I love them when they’re just new like that, they’re so tender and sweet.  I chopped these up and added them to rice that I was steaming.  It looks pretty too, and Sue will eat her greens that way!  I’ll also add them to soups and stews that I make, especially if I’m going to be using the immersion blender to make a creamed soup.  She never knows! Well, that’s not really true.   But it tastes good!

Other things we still have growing in the garden are cabbages, spinach, and broccoli. Surprisingly, my cilantro is still doing really well, even though we’ve had some very, very cold days.  I’ve given my tender herbs like that their own little greenhouses and I think it’s helped quite a bit.  The one thing that did not survive was the dill.  The grasshoppers ate it down to nothing in one day.  ONE DAY!  Have to rethink that one; it might be an “on the porch herb” once we have it screened in.

Sorry this is so short and sweet. Maybe the next one will be better.
As always,
Thanks for reading!

Today’s Weather: I was inside at work all day, but Sue said it was a lot warmer.  According to the Weather on my phone, the high was 59° under an overcast sky, and it’s supposed to get down to 30° sometime tonight. Tomorrow it’s supposed to be sunny  but the high is predicted to be only 48°. We’ll see…..