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August – Flash Flood

Jeanne at No Rhyme or Reason Farm Uncategorized ,

This summer has done nothing but rain.   I haven’t watered the garden once this year – in fact, it is so water-logged that tomatoes fall off the vines still green, pepper plants are taller than I am yet refuse to set any peppers and the corn stalks are laying flat on the ground from having been beaten into submission by unrelenting torrents of rain.  Not having a bumper crop of corn this year is not a big deal — but not having a driveway — that’s a problem.

Last Monday morning brought 2.5 inches of rain in less than an hour on top of about six inches from the previous week.  Despite having a culvert and huge underground pipes installed to divert the water away from and underneath the driveway, this storm was too much for it to handle, and the driveway took off – down the driveway.

We’ve had small wash-outs before that Chris was always able to patch by hauling the run-away stone back up the driveway and tamping it into place.  But this time, we needed a dump truck full of stone, the front-end loader and the grader (yes, I begrudging admit – the tractor came in handy).  Chris is about half way through the process of spreading the stone, tamping it down and then grading it.  And guess what — today it is raining, AGAIN.  Fingers crossed that our driveway holds up and he can finish the fixing  driveway on Monday.

I think we need to install sandbags before the next deluge!  Otherwise, I might need a canoe to get to work.

Nothing was going to stop this river from running down our driveway.
The “river” from the drive way ran through the lower meadow until it met with the already swollen stream.
There was no stopping this!
Finally, the rain stopped – and this is what we were left with!
And it will take a dump truck full of stone to fix it.
Forty tons of stone. Good thing we have that tractor.
Chris spent the day filling in the gullies using the front-end loader to move the stone.
And tamping it into place and smoothing it out with the grader.

July – Have a Snappy Day

Jeanne at No Rhyme or Reason Farm Uncategorized

We’ve been having rain – LOTS of rain.  It has knocked down the corn in our garden, it has washed one of my zucchini plants right off it’s roots — and, apparently, it has disoriented the wildlife on our farm.

We woke to finding this “creature” trying to get into the pasture with the goats and the horse – headed in the wrong direction from the stream.  He was not happy when Chris came at him with a shovel to relocate him and latched on with the viciousness of a mouse trap.

Almost more than the shovel could bear, we got him turned around, gently set him in the creek pointed downstream and waved goodbye.  It was either that – or the stock pot.  And I don’t know how to make Snapper Soup.

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A hefty shovel-full, once we got him turned around and unlatched his jaw from the tip of the shovel.
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Back in the stream where he (or she) should be happy.
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Swimming off for parts unknown – I hope.

July – Honey as precious as Gold

Jeanne at No Rhyme or Reason Farm Beekeeping, Uncategorized ,

Beekeeping is an investment.

We started with two hives.  They died after the first winter.  We ordered more bees and started over.  The bees arrived late and we missed most of the spring honey flow.  One hive had six frames of capped honey, and given the investment we’ve made, and the fact that we’ve waited two years – we decided to extract so we could get SOME honey.

Chris took one honey super off the top of our 1st hive.  He used our leaf blower to blow any bees that were in the super (and between the frames) back towards the hive.  We set up our “extracting station.”  First we set up the uncapping bin.  We balanced a frame on the pin, used the uncapping knife and the capping scraper and took the top layer of wax off the frames.

The frames then went into our four frame electric extractor.  This contraption is a centrifuge.  The frames go in, opposite each other to keep it balanced.  It’s important to start the extractor slow, and then gradually increase the speed.  The honey flies out of the comb, hits the inside wall of the extractor tank and slides down to the bottom of the tank where it is drained off through a spigot.  It’s all very ingenious.

We did some serious scraping with a rubber spatula to make sure we got every last golden drop before putting the extractor outside for the bees to clean it out.  That is the ultimate in recycling.  They take their own honey back to the hive and put it back into a frame – nothing goes to waste!  When they were finished cleaning it out, we did use hot soapy water – because honey is – sticky!

Are six frames worth the effort and dirty-ing up the equipment?  Six pounds later (8 – 12 oz. jars) – we had our precious gold-colored honey.  But is it really as precious as gold?  If you add up all of the expenses – the bee hives, the bees, the extracting equipment, the jars and the labels and divide it by six measly pounds – it’s a LOT per pound.  But a pound of gold currently costs $17,927.  I guess our honey isn’t that precious after all.

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Setting up our extraction equipment.
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Turning on the extractor.
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The honey trickles into the strainer.
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Bottling every last drop.
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Is our honey as precious as gold?

July – How many goats does it take to build a picnic table?

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

It’s the 4th of July and we decided we need to build a picnic table.  Our new goats, Heidi and Peter, are rambunctious kids and they need something to climb on.  And we need something to sit on when we take our coffee up to the pasture after dinner to visit with them.  A picnic table seems to be the perfect solution.

We bought an unassembled one at Home Depot and Chris unpacked all the pieces and parts.  Heidi and Peter were full of curiosity.  I’m not sure how he managed to get it put together, what with all the help they were giving him!

They love jumping on it, sleeping on it and leaping from it.  And they aren’t the only ones enjoying it.

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Curious.
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Helpful.
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But not sure what to do with the power drill.
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Definitely fun to jump on and off.
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It puts the goats at eye level with the horse.
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It’s a pet picnic.
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And Hannah likes the table too.  Happy 4th of July!

 

June – The Ugly vs. The Beautiful

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

You never know what you’re going to find on this farm.  Sometimes it’s a pleasant surprise — something beautiful, or something useful – or maybe even both.  Sometimes, it’s disgusting, useless debris.  We’ve found some of both lately.

In anticipation of getting our goats, Heidi and Peter, we cleaned up a part of the pasture that is overgrown with brambles and shrubs.  Under the brambles we found some old construction debris – broken toilets, scrap metal and junk.  We worked most of the day pulling the stuff out and smoothing out the dirt so that it wouldn’t be dangerous for the goats.  Just as Chris thought we were done for the day, I saw a piece of ugly, green shag carpet sticking out of the dirt no bigger than a carpet square.  Four hundred and fifty pounds later, we had the back of the truck bed full of dirty, stinking, rotten carpet that necessitated a trip to the county dump.  Oh, and an old sewing machine that popped out with the carpet.

But, it was the same week that the violets were blooming all over the lawn – really beautiful, deep purple violets.  I picked a colander full, put them in jars with some white vinegar and created a violet flavored, slightly pink vinegar that has been a great dressing (with a little olive oil) on our home grown lettuce.

So you never know around here – dirty, stinky carpet or beautiful, purple violets.  It’s just another day around here.

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A lot of junk in the pasture
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More than we expected to dig up
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And a sewing machine
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We needed the front end loader to move 450 pounds of carpet to the pick-up truck
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The violets were much prettier than the rotten carpet
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A nice harvest
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After steeping in white vinegar it took on a beautiful pink hue

June – Happy Father’s Day

Jeanne at No Rhyme or Reason Farm Uncategorized

Chris was up at the crack of dawn this morning to spend Father’s Day with his two kids.  That may come as a surprise, since he has no children – but they showed up last evening, claiming to be his kids and moved right in.

Yep, moved right in to the barn where they are keeping company with Pono, the miniature horse.

Actually, we’ve been expecting them and had met them as newborns.  Chris had prepared for their arrival  by making sure the pasture fence was secure and building a small run-in shed inside the run-in shed where they could be a bit more protected from the elements – and from Pono – who is much bigger than they are.  Everything was in place — until it wasn’t.  About a half hour after everyone was safely tucked into their new home in the pasture, Chris went to check on them – and the kids had escaped!  They were down by the beehives, just exploring their new home.  It took some corralling, but we got them back in the pasture and hammered a board in place where there was a narrow four inch gap.

We named them Heidi and Peter, from the classic children’s story Heidi by Johanna Spyri.  It’s Arianna’s favorite book and we read it together all the time.  Heidi goes to live with her gruff grandfather in the mountains.  Peter is the young boy that lives down the mountain and is the goat-herder.  So our resident goat “kids” have been named after Heidi and Peter.

And already they are eating out of his hand.

Happy Father’s Day.

Two goat kids
Our new goats – Heidi (black) and Peter (brown)

 

 

 

Goats eating out of hand
Heidi and Peter eating out of Chris’ hand

 

Goats looking out the fence
No more escaping!

 

May – A Terraced Garden

Jeanne at No Rhyme or Reason Farm Uncategorized , ,

I’ve always wanted a terraced garden, and the sloping hillsides on No Rhyme or Reason Farm definitely need terracing.  A match made in heaven, I suppose, except for the sweating and sore muscles that came along with it.  My new fenced in space is now terraced for all the things that will permanently reside in the garden —  fruit trees, raspberry bushes, blueberry bushes, strawberries and asparagus.  And I have space left over in the lower part of the garden for potatoes and squash and whatever else I can shoe-horn in as the growing season gets going.

Now I just have to be patient and wait — and wait — and wait for the fruits of our labors.

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Fruit trees, raspberry bushes, blueberry bushes and strawberries.
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All sloping down hill in plain sight of the bee hives — I sure hope they know to come pollinate my garden.

 

May – MORE Chicken Drama

Jeanne at No Rhyme or Reason Farm Uncategorized , , ,

We moved those sweet little fluff-balls of baby chickens who had grown into noisy, smelly teen-aged chickens to the coop.  A friend had said our two remaining “old hens” would mother them.  Not so much.

The one hen was downright mean to them, and the teenagers cowered in the corner.  When we saw the mean “mother hen” pick one up and shake it by it’s wing, we knew we needed to do something.  We unrolled chicken wire inside of the chicken coop and divided the space so that the new residents have their own space, and the two crotchety, old hens have their own space.  At least for the time being.  We’re waiting for a week to ten days until we give them common space again.

In the meantime, we let the old hens out for their daily stroll where they scratch the dirt and eat the grubs and ticks and anything else they can find.  Except this time, something went wrong.  When we went to put them back in the coop – we only had one old hen.  The other disappeared.  There were no feathers, no note saying she ran away from home — nothing.  We waited until it got dark out, expecting her to return home and say she didn’t want to run away from home after all.  But she didn’t return.  It wouldn’t have been so bad if it was the mean one that went missing, but it was the other one — not that she was nice, but at least she wasn’t mean.

Then Saturday morning the chicken riddle was solved (no… not the age of old question of “why did the chicken cross the road?”, but our chicken riddle… where did the chicken go?).

We saw a FOX sitting in the yard eyeing the chicken coop, waiting for breakfast!  Now we only let our remaining hen out on supervised recess.  We’re down to getting just one egg a day until the teenagers get a bit older.

In the meantime, we took a look at our trail cam and found a good picture of our fox trotting past the bee hives.  Now that I have his picture, I think I’ll put up a “Wanted: Dead or Alive” poster for our chicken killer.

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The “teenagers” get their own section of the coop.
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Behind bars and separated from the mean hen.
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The hen out roaming in the yard — also known as Fox Food.
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The Fox – captured on our trail cam, wandering past the bee hives and looking for breakfast.

 

 

May – Teenage Chickens

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

Remember those cute little fluff balls — baby chicks that we brought home from Tractor Supply.  They were so cute and cuddly, how could you not fall in love with them.  And, they were no trouble at all living in a small box in our living room where we could keep a close eye on them.

But they are growing.  I think they’ve hit the teenage stage.  They’re big enough to be a pain, but not big enough to put them outside on their own yet.  They stink, they make a mess and they’re noisy.

But, there is a chill to the air today, it’s threatening to rain — and it’s Mother’s Day.  What kind of parents would we be to push our “teenagers” out of the house on Mother’s Day?  so we’ll wait until tomorrow — and then it’s off to the coop.

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So cute and cuddly.
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Not so cute and cuddly.
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Messy, stinky, noisy and time to move to the coop.

May – Raising a glass (or more)

Jeanne at No Rhyme or Reason Farm Uncategorized

I’m all in favor of raising a glass of my favorite beverage at the end of the day — but this farm gives new meaning to raising a glass.

Over the course of the winter, as the ground has frozen and thawed, frozen and thawed, the heaving has raised a glass — or pieces of glass.  And I assure you, “all that glitters is not gold.”  As I work in the garden, or crisscross the lawn, something will glitter and catch my eye; and it hasn’t been gold yet.  No, it’s been shards of glass, pieces of pottery and even daggers of a broken mirror.  It’s a never ending battle of me against the things that will cut my feet if I ever dare to walk barefoot around this farm.

My one day yield – slightly more than 1/2 a pound.  I’ll raise a glass to that.

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Just over half a pound of glass in one day!