Indoor Sun

The grow lights I threw together years ago (from Future House Farm blog) are still in use even though my kitchen is tiny and I have no other place to keep the seedlings even moderately warm. Happily they are working to give the seedlings at least part of what they need!

The chain attached to the shop lights are on a hook on the stands. so raising the height of the lights are easy and can even make for one side higher than another, to accommodate swiftly growing tomatoes.

Now I just need to get the cat to stop eating my squash plants. What a brat...

And just for fun, photo of the rooster, Georgie Porgie. He is a pretty bloke but still quite wary of me.

Black Gold

Mushroom farms have rows and rows of pasteurized, composted manure for growing the mushrooms.

The wheat straw is composted into the manure and the mushrooms are grown inside a building in a pile of the compost. 

After the mushrooms are harvested, the compost still has lots of usable nutrients, it's just not good for growing mushrooms. So they haul the compost outside. 

Then they sell it by the scoopful to hungry gardeners like me!

Now at home is the real work of shoveling the black gold into raised beds, pots, and the field garden spots (which are as yet untilled LOL). This stuff makes your garden grow like weeds! 

The Hard Part About Keeping Livestock

I have wanted to live on a farm ever since I can remember. I've wanted to raise livestock for a very, very long time. Before I started keeping chickens, I had no ideal about the realities of livestock ownership, like the bad parts. Sometimes the bad parts happen because, well, sometimes critters die of illness or old age or even a really determined predator. But sometimes, livestock can get injured because of bad judgement on the part of the stock keeper.

I've been keeping chickens since 2010. I lost 3 chickens in 5 years - Cheeks (unknown, just found her body in the pen), Wizard (unknown, I was laid up with a broken leg. Again, found her body in the pen), Paco (egg bound and euthanized). Now here at the farm, I've been here 5 months. In that time, I've lost 5 chickens:

Bossa Nova - died of old age, I suspect.
Ivy - killed by the roosters, I'm pretty sure.
Phoenix - killed by the dogs.
Spot the rooster - slaughtered by me, for meat (stringy but good rich stock)
Captain Crunch - Injured by the dogs, mercy killing by me.

Finally after 2 unnecessary deaths by dogs, I have fenced off the barn from the dog yard. I should have made that decision sooner. I should have never allowed the dogs access to the barn if the chickens were roosting all over in there (which they persisted in doing despite my attempts to keep them safely on the other side of the dog gate). I'm responsible for the suffering and death of two sweet and innocent hens, three if you count the hen harassed and killed by the roosters. My fault. All I can do is make sure I never allow that to happen again.

:(

The Real Story About Heating with a Wood Stove

I had such high hopes when deciding to install a wood stove instead of using the 18+-year-old propane-fueled 15-year-unused furnace (i.e., a veritable deathtrap) in my new home. So, either I'm not doing it right or I have wood that isn't seasoned enough or I have far too many small rooms...whichever, it doesn't heat much! We are utilizing spacer heaters pretty regularly now that the below 40 degree weather has set in. I don't mind starting a spacer heater in the bathroom for 10 or 15 minutes before I take a shower, and I don't mind a cold bedroom since I have a dog and lots of blankets, and I really don't mind keeping an endless eye on the wood in the firebox of the stove itself to see if it needs to be topped off (I feel like Laura from Little House on the Prairie!). And honestly, I don't usually mind a room that's warmer than the rest of the house, especially since I moved things about to have a chair set up RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF IT.

But.

Well.

The things I am finding disconcerting and embarrassingly unexpected yet tolerable (so far) include:

• Calling the guys who bring the wood and praying they will firstly answer the phone and secondly show up when they said they would with the wood.
• Worrying about whether we have enough wood. 
• Fetching wood daily (or more than daily) from the wood pile in the driveway. 
• Worrying about whether we have enough wood. 
• Keeping the wood outside dry.
• Worrying about whether we have enough wood.
• Keeping enough wood stocked in the house in case it rains and the wood gets wet anyway.
• Worrying about whether we have enough wood.
• Splitting the wood that is too big and then worrying about having enough big pieces to last over an hour at night when I try to sleep. 
• Worrying about whether we have enough wood.
• Several times a day sweeping up the inevitable bits of bark and shreds of wood and tiny but numerous patches of dirt and probably creepy crawlies that skitter away as soon as I show up with a broom.
• Worrying about whether we have enough wood.
• Stoking up the fire every time I wake in the middle of the night to pee (which when I calculate badly means pretty much restarting the fire from scratch in the dark when I'd rather be sleeping).
• And, of course, worrying about whether we have enough wood.

The most intolerable thing though, that is honestly starting to drive me a bit batty, is the accumulation of ash dust that is slowly, despite my attempts to sweep or brush or wipe it up, growing over the stove, the stove pipe, the stove mat that the stove sits on, the floor around the stove, the rest of the furnishings in the room, and inevitably my lungs every day as I crouch down on my knees to clean out yesterday's ashes in preparation to offer my new daily sacrifice to the fire god. 

The dust...The Dust!...THE DUST...DUSTY DUST MOTES FLOATING EVERYWHERE ALL OVER THE STOVE ALL OVER ME FILLING THE ROOM FILLING THE AIR AAAAARGH!!!

Well, it's probably still better than coal dust, in my lungs OR a miner's lungs. I need to keep remembering that. I do still think it's better than dumping a thousand years' worth of carbon into the atmosphere for a month's worth* of heat. So far, anyway. 

But hey maybe my Christmas tree will contribute to the warmth of the house for the next month! 

Happy holidays, anybody who stuck around long enough to catch this second post of the year!

*Okay, I didn't actually calculate the true carbon emission of coal-fueled electricity from
TVA into a month of small-house furnace operation. But I'm taking author's licence cause it rolled out sounding damn good. :)

A Farm at Last! The New Place :)

The argument....

Is it more responsible to use handkerchiefs or a kleenex-type tissue? And what about the disgust factor? It took me a while to get over the thought that using handkerchief was rubbing your face in a palmful of previously snorted germs. But now that I have been using them for years, I like them better. A lot better. I have a slightly runny nose for only a few hours most mornings, then it usually clears up. I could go through a great many boxes of tissue that way over a year. Instead, I have a stash of handkerchiefs ready for use that are softer yet more durable, and I can carry one in my purse without it disintegrating if I haven't needed to use if for a few weeks, unlike a small package of tissues. I can use 1 for a week with minimal, normal stuffiness, or 1 in an hour, if I'm sick. Then in the washbin it goes and I get a fresh, clean one. My nose doesn't get all red and scratchy and I don't have to put out the money to buy the increasingly expensive boxes that still manage to run out just when you REALLY need them. I originally switched because I thought it was more environmentally friendly, but according to this recent article, the effect might be minimal. But I'm a handkerchief user for life, now, no matter what!

V8 juice and sandwich rounds

These paleo sandwich rounds are great! They took me more than 3 minutes to make, but perhaps in time I will get quicker.

Also, finding something to sip on while out, when I'm tired of having water and didn't bring any tea, I found that V8 juice had the lowest carb and sugar content of anything in the convenience store. The next day I found an online recipe and made my own! Iadded finely chopped veg of whatever I had in the fridge, but still not 8 veggies....probably more like V6 ROFL! (celery, garlic, kale, tomato of course, carrot I believe, and parsley) Also, I tried filtering it, but I saw that I would have lost most of the mass of the concoction, so I changed plans and dumped it all back in the container and drank it like that. It's got some significant little crunchies to it, but it's just kind of a thicker version of store bought V8, really. Very filling and my creation has very little salt and no sugar except what occurs naturally in the fruit. I did add some lemon juice, extra Worcestershire, and a few spoonfuls of horseradish. I was going for a virgin Bloody Mary taste, and I got it! Along with the extra crunch! I was very glad in hindsight that I ran the food processor a LONG time. I will probably cook it a bit longer on the next batch, and maybe water it down next time I have some and see how that works out.

Having cooked meat and a big bowl of roasted veggie mix in the fridge is crucial to whipping up a quick meal. Liverwurst, cheese, and boiled and poached eggs also super convenient, along with a loaf of almond meal and ground flax seed bread. I am still motivated to keeping on track with this! I walked through Sam's Club the other day seeing so many delicious things I can't have and just kept saying in my head: "No....nope.......no can do........no, no, no......you look tasty but no......sorry, not right now.......oh yum, I might like you for my 1 free meal a week but not today......no.....nope......not gonna happen...." It was very good practice I think! Also turned down a free cup of ice cream. I mean, is it really worth it? I have so many clothes I want to fit into....and this bouncy belly I want to get rid of....so, no, it's not worth it. YEAH!