Greetings, readers!
As usual, the best laid plans of mice and men, when not backed up by good habits, gang aft agley.
So to get back on track, I thought I would post some highlights of homesteading thing-a-ma-jigs we have accomplished over the last couple of years.
Chicken infrastructure: For small numbers of chickens. I implemented Aart’s Hoop Coop, though with the mistake of using 1&1/4″ timber for the risers and frames. This is not recommended; such timber will easily bow. I also do not recommend getting any old timber from Lowe’s or Home Depot (or Mitre 10 or Bunnings, if we have any Antipodean readers. Sorry, I don’t know the home improvement chains in the UK or Europe.) Where available, you’ll do well to find a local timber merchant.
Chickens: Alas, not a good year on the chicken front. We got 108 eggs in February, of which 88 went on to hatch live (a good rate) but predation and suspected poisoning have reduced their numbers to somewhere between 10 and 20. Also, our egg production has gone way down.
Goat infrastructure: We built a milking stanchion from a mix of recycled, heat-treated timber that formed shipping crates for our move, and new timber for the planking. It’s missing a hobble and a squat preventer for stubborn goats, but those can be added. “Waste not, want not,” or, “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”? You be the judge.
Baby goat: One of our goats became a new mum with one kid (a boy). He was cute as a button. Now he’s nearly two months old and is quite sizeable. Also good at eluding us, the rascal!
Vegetables: We fenced in an area to use as a vegetable garden. Then we put the goats in to graze it down. The goats quickly figured out how to squirm under the fence, alas! Which means they’ll also be able to get in if there’s a desirable enough crop in there.
Foraging: Our land is rich in blackberries, and in goldenrod which has medicinal value. We’ve managed to harvest some of each as they grew.
Puppies: Our border collie x huntaway herding dog fell pregnant after our neighbours took in a stray dog that we suspect to have been a Clumber spaniel. (Unfortunately that dog, which repeatedly ran at large on our land, ended up menacing one of our children, so we spoke to the neighbour. He has now been disappeared.) We now have eight puppies, nearly two months old and pretty close to being weaned, who cause cuteness overload even in the (male) courier delivery driver. One of them followed me the three hundred metres from the house to the mailbox last night. Keeping that one (a boy) is not out of the realms of possibility.
Land improvement: At the front of the section were a derelict shed that looked like it had been used for canning (or even moonshine production), a camper shell for the back of a pickup truck, and a pole barn in fairly good nick. We’ve demolished the derelict shed, and plan to move the camper shell and the pole barn. The camper shell might make a good play hut for the kids, and the pole barn is needed to separate male and female goats.