Author: Jeanne at No Rhyme or Reason Farm

March – My “Extended” Garden

Jeanne at No Rhyme or Reason Farm After, Before, Chester County, Farm, Garden, Greenhouse, Homestead, Uncategorized

I’m extending my garden 8 feet x 8 feet.  It’s not that big of an extension – but it’s a big deal.  This expansion comes with a door, a thermostat, a fan – and glass!

My 8 x 8 greenhouse should arrive next week.  We decided it should go adjacent to the garden.  It’s a relatively flat spot with bright sunlight and close enough to take plants back and forth between the two.  We bought some 4×4 landscape ties so we will have a frame upon which to place the greenhouse when they deliver it.  Chris got busy with the shovel and the level.  The problem is, it isn’t really level at all.  In fact, it’s very NOT level.  It took several attempts and a 2nd trip back to Home Depot to get more 4×4 landscape ties – and now it’s level!

I love my garden and I never can wait until the appropriate time to start planting it.  I’ll confess to having to replant things every year because I jump the gun, heel-in the tomatoes and basil, and come out the next morning to find them DOA.

So, not only am I expanding my garden size… I’m expanding my growing season.  Now I can start those plants early and keep them toasty in the greenhouse.  And just think of the advantages when fall creeps in.  I can probably keep basil growing at least until Thanksgiving!  And maybe some containers of lettuce and spinach too!

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It slopes more than we thought.
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Squared up and getting tilled.

March – A turn, a twist and a plunge

Jeanne at No Rhyme or Reason Farm Uncategorized

There is a fairly sharp turn in the road just before you get to our farm.  It’s not that big of a deal, but it’s a good idea to slow down a little when you go around the curve – especially when there is a snow squall blowing through.  That advice is a day late and a dollar short for some poor kid who took the turn too fast, spun 180⁰ and then slid backwards across our yard, narrowly missed the telephone pole, and plunked squarely into the stream.

Chris was home at the time, thought he heard a thud, but didn’t really think much of it until the police and 3 tow trucks showed up.

It’s amazing the things we find in the front yard. Typically it’s just trash, beer cans, Snapple bottles and the like.  Once Chris found a cane and a pack of Viagra (belonging to the same person?), and who knows why it was in our front yard.  But to find a car in the stream was a bit unexpected.

No harm done.  The kid was fine.  The yard only has a few ruts.  My only regret was that he didn’t take out the one ugly bush-tree-briar thing that we haven’t taken the time to cut down yet.  Maybe next time.

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How it ended up that far across the yard and in the stream — I don’t know.
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Getting it hitched up…
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and pulled out. I guess he’ll go slower around the curve the next time.

March — Apparently to BEE

Jeanne at No Rhyme or Reason Farm Beekeeping, Chester County, Farm, Homestead, Uncategorized

Against my better judgment, the bees are ordered; they’ll arrive April 1.  But we can’t have the bees arriving without a place to put them.  Chris leveled out our chosen spot – far enough away from the house, but close enough to keep an eye on them, and adjacent to our blueberries, raspberries and soon to be fruit orchard – just to make sure they get the right idea about what they are expected to pollinate.

Chris learned about a local place, an Amish farm with a woodworking shop, where they make – of all things – beekeeping equipment.  Not only do they make it, but they will build it AND paint it.  Having built more than my fair share of bee hives in the past, this sounded like a fine option.  So, we drove out to Forest Hill Beekeeping Supplies in… of all places… Paradise, PA and loaded the truck.  Yes, that darn truck does come in handy sometimes.

The hives are in place, the extra supers (hive boxes) are stacked in the garage – and I’m tempted to go walk barefoot (even though there is now snow on the ground) – just because I can!  Before the bees get here.

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Our local bee equipment store.
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Loaded in the truck.
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Getting ready for the hives.
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The base of the hives are in place.
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Seems like a sturdy enough spot.
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Ready for April 1.
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And far enough away from the house to keep me happy.

 

 

February — To Bee or Not to Bee

Jeanne at No Rhyme or Reason Farm After, Beekeeping, Before, Chester County, Farm, Homestead, Uncategorized

That is definitely a question that I would answer – not to bee.  But Chris has a bee in his bonnet, and thinks this will be a good idea.  I do love that our farm produces “things” – vegetables, eggs, and maybe – honey.    I don’t love the idea of getting stung.

I’m not unfamiliar with the idea.  My family used to keep bees.  I can build bee equipment, and I know how to extract honey.  It’s the stuff in between – actually tending to the bees – that I have no idea about, nor do I want to.  So Chris is now attends the Chester County Beekeepers Association and he is also enrolled in a beekeeping class to get an overview of the ins and outs of a hive.

He came home with a collection of beekeeping catalogs and a Beekeeping for Dummies book.  I’ll leave it at that…

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Coffee Table reading on the farm lately.
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Stay tuned…

February – Feather Fixer

Jeanne at No Rhyme or Reason Farm Chester County, chickens, Farm, Uncategorized

I confess, I’m a fair weather friend.  When it’s cold outside, I’m not usually the one schlepping to the chicken coop or feeding the horses.  Last week we had an unusually warm day; I bundled up and ventured to the coop to collect the eggs and say hello to the girls.

They looked horrible!  Their feathers were half falling out, they looked like they have the mange AND they haven’t been laying as many eggs.  I was convinced they were about to die.  I asked Chris how long they’ve looked like that.  He said, “Like what?”

So, I Googled half-dead chickens and found that they are molting.  Apparently it happens every winter, but not until they are about 15 months old, so I guess they missed the molt last year.  They need a special diet high in protein to help them develop healthy, pretty feathers.

We made an emergency run to Tractor Supply, and guess what – they sell food called Feather Fixer, especially for chickens while they are molting.  That’s easy enough.  Feather Fixer, combined with some lovely blocks of mealy worms for extra protein and our little ladies should be sprouting feathers all over the place in a couple of weeks.

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We didn’t want to shock their systems with changing their food all at once so we mixed the first “dose” with their regular food.
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Who knew there is Feather Fixer food.
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They look horrible.
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Is this the equivalent to a bad hair day — bad feather day?

January – Adding Space

Jeanne at No Rhyme or Reason Farm Chester County, Farm, Homestead, Renovations, Storage, Uncategorized

I love to watch those tiny house shows on TV.  Our house isn’t really tiny; but it isn’t big either.  So, I’m always on the look-out for creative storage solutions to expand our space.

With the onslaught of Christmas baking and cooking for company, I realized how much I hated the cabinet where the spices were stored.  I had them on one of those cute little stepped-up shelves so I could see all of the containers, but invariably, whatever I needed was toward the back and retrieving it meant either pulling out everything in front of it, or if I was lazy, reaching in and delicately retrieving the one spice jar I needed — and knocking everything else out of the cabinet anyway.  So I was on a quest for a better storage system.

I found some organizers at Home Depot and convinced Chris it would be an easy project.  Several hours later, we had a masterpiece!  It’s so organized now, I can find what I want without dumping everything onto the floor and it looks so nice I sometimes leave the pantry door open just to admire our new-found space.

Now that the holidays are over and everything has been put away, I’m on a search to find a better way/place to store all that Christmas gift wrap. The basement can get damp, the attic is dreary, and the house — is full.  I’m still looking for a solution to that puzzle.

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An “easy” project adding storage to our pantry door.
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It’s awesome — I can find everything now.

January 2017 – A Pot Crane

Jeanne at No Rhyme or Reason Farm Chester County, Farm, Fireplace, Homestead, Pot Crane

What the heck is a pot crane, you might ask.  I didn’t know either, except that I had these two round brackets in the fireplace where something used to be.  After scanning the Historic Housefitters website for other accoutrements for the house, I saw the pot crane and realized we just have to have one.  If for no rhyme or reason other than to sit in the brackets that were already embedded in the stone walls of the fireplace, just waiting for something to fit there.

It was a bit of a process.  Historic Housefitters has ready made pot cranes in standard sizes.  Who knew there could be such an unfulfilled need that they come in standard sizes.  But not much in this house comes in a standard size.  So I called the company, explained my dilemma and got  a lesson in pot crane lingo at the same time.  The round brackets in my fireplace are called gudgeons, and the pot crane, would be made with a 30″ swing arm attached to a riveted post joined by mortise and tenon.

We measured and re-measured and looked at the scaled drawings that Historic Housefitters created.  Finally, we said “yes.”  I waited impatiently for the package to arrive, holding my breath, wondering if it would fit.

A triangular looking packaged showed up at the door, looking much smaller than what I had envisioned.  We opened it up and I continued to hold by breath while Chris raised the top tenon into the the top gudgeon, aligned the bottom tenon with the bottom gudgeon and let it fall in to place.  A perfect fit!

Then it needed something to hang from the pot crane — like a pot.  I have an old copper pot, not of cooking quality, but attractive none-the-less.  It makes the fireplace look like we’re ready to stir up a pot of stew.  The next step will be getting a cast iron Lodge pot that we can actually use, hanging it from the crane and stoking up a fire.

In the meantime, the wrought iron pot crane and shiny copper pot add a little colonial bling (if there is such a thing), to our awesome fireplace.

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It took some time for the design to be just right.
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It slipped into those gudgeons like it was made for it.
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Now we need to strike a match and make a stew or a pot of soup.

 

 

January 2017 — What happened to Rudolph?

Jeanne at No Rhyme or Reason Farm Uncategorized

Now that Christmas is over, I can voice my concern.  I wasn’t sure what happened to Rudolph.

We love watching Santa’s reindeer wander through on a regular basis.  We’ve named our herd, of course — Dancer, Prancer, Comet, Cupid…, you get the picture.  But when it comes to the most famous reindeer of all — well, we found an unsettling sight the week before Christmas.

We can sometimes hear antlers scraping on the trees somewhere in the distance on the deer trails.  We decided to set out for a “hike” in our overgrown, nearly impassable couple of acres to see if we could find any antlers.  We got caught in briars, crawled under thick brush and got slapped in the face with branches.  I had all but given up in despair, “when what to my wondering eyes did appear,” but a big rack laying on the ground — attached to a skull.  It had been there for a while, thankfully there were no remnants of fur or meat or blood or guts — just dried bones.

This isn’t the first time we’ve discovered skeletons on this property, but this was definitely the biggest skeleton.  We brought the rack and skull back to the house, filled a huge bucket with water and bleach, and set it to soak.  When it came out all squeaky clean a day later, we could tell the skeleton looked a little worse for wear.  Something had gnawed at it’s antlers, and … it’s nose!   Poor Rudolph!

But, maybe it wasn’t Rudolph because Santa had no trouble finding our house this year.  Whoever he was, he’s guarding our woodpile now.

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Out looking for antlers and we stumbled upon these.
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A bit startling.
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We turned “Rudolph” into a Christmas decoration.
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Now he’s guarding our wood shed.

December — Christmas Cookies

Jeanne at No Rhyme or Reason Farm Uncategorized

If there is one thing that defines Christmas around here, it’s cookies.  We bake lots of cookies.  Sometimes I start in October and make cookie dough balls and put them in the freezer so they can be baked in December.  I didn’t do that this year.

So instead, I called for all hands on deck — a great big Christmas cookie baking day!  Even Chippy the Elf got in on the act (though he wasn’t much help).

I wish I could share Christmas cookies with all of you — but we’ll send our wishes for a very MERRY CHRISTMAS.

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Chippy the Elf made a bit of a mess, but he tried to help.
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We made a bit of a mess too — but look how much help I had!
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Cutting and decorating — her favorite kind of cookies
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And snow balls.
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Merry Christmas!

December – Horse Traders

Jeanne at No Rhyme or Reason Farm Chester County, Homestead, Horses

Disa has been a resident of our farm for quite a while now, but we traded her for something smaller.  Well, it wasn’t quite like that.

Disa eats a lot, and that’s hard on our pasture.  We cordoned off part of the pasture so it could recuperate and grow, but it’s winter and the grass isn’t growing much anyway.  So it made sense to swap out Disa for Lollipop.  Disa moved to Becky’s other pasture and brought Arianna’s pony here instead.

Lollipop seems to like her new home.  Pono was a little skittish right after Disa left.  He wouldn’t come near us for fear of being snatched and taken away in that horse trailer into the dark night, never to be seen again.  But he seems to have calmed down now that it’s apparent that he’s staying.  And Fiona?  She’s still here, and probably always will be because no one can catch her (except maybe Chris).

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Meet Lollipop.
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Disa got traded, and she’s been replaced by this little thing.
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Pono’s not so sure what to think about the swap.
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Pono definitely has his winter sweater on.