around the homestead-shed/coop cleaning

 Yesterday was spent cleaning the chicken coop  and today was the day for goat shed cleaning and maintenance.  I would normally break the two jobs up by at least a few days but since we are in a dry spell as well  as a break in planting chores we just decided to getter done and be through with  it until fall. My ol arms are a bit rubbery and oh my back is aching but we finished covering all the beds and got the compost  pile restarted with a fair amount of partially decomposed bedding.

 When we clean pens out we also check  for any repairs that may need  doing. The chicken coop yesterday was pretty much fine  since it was all  rebuilt in January  but the goat shed had  what could have been a very major issue. The front 4x4 beam holding the roof up had broke and was dipping way down and nothing was supporting the front portion of the roof.  The roof had also slid back several inches and had to be moved back into place after jacking up and bracing the broken beam in the front.  How this happened we have no clue, the only thing I could possible think of was the  minor earth quake  from a few months ago. I know that sounds far fetched but keep in mind this is just a loafing shed not a big old barn  type structure.  We also have a tree near the fence line that needs to come down as it is coming out of the ground by its roots and leaning. Before we let the goats out to pasture regularly for the summer months it will need to be taken care of.

when the oak leaves are the size of a lambs ear

An old wive's tale that we actually use in planting our gardens is  "plant your garden when the leaves on the oak trees are the size of  a lambs ear." This picture was taken   yesterday so you know what I have been doing.

While we do use the oak leaves as a main indicator of planting time and it is pretty darn reliable, we also realize our last frost date is still well over two weeks away.  We  also looked at out 15 day outlook and there is no weather forecast under 43 degrees and we have not had a frost in about  5 weeks now so the chance of a hard frost that we would be unable to protect the few things I planted  is almost null.We have had temps in the mid to high 70s for over 2 weeks now and the weather really had me wanting to plant a bit and take a chance.


I only planted  a few things that are not frost hardy so if needed we could protect things. I planted 7 tomato plants and  a few dozen  corn seeds along with a couple zucchini, cucumber, summer squash  and a big ol pile of mixed beans in my woodland garden experiment. If something happens and the seeds don't germinate we only lost a few seeds that I had plenty of. If things go well we will be eating all those veggies a couple weeks  earlier than if  we had waited until our last frost date to plant. A chance I was certainly willing to  take.

around the homestead-lawn maintenance

Although we have near 15 acres here  we don't have much lawn area. A small patch out front that the dogs are intent upon digging holes all over in and a couple  small areas down near the greenhouse and chickens but even those areas are between beds and around things. The rest of our non wooded land is either garden beds, goat pasture, extreme hill or the sides of the driveway. The driveway and extreme hill areas only get taken care of about three times a year while the other small areas need tending every week or two depending on weather conditions.

While we do have a ragtag, old, no frills, push mower a few years ago we gave up using it because our flattest areas were no longer wide enough to get a mower through.  For the remainder of it, push mowing was more trouble than it was worth so we began using the weed eater for all our lawn maintenance needs.

I actually prefer the weed eater for a couple reasons.  It gets good gas mileage,  is much easier to control on  our terrain  and it has  a blade attachment that makes cutting  back the woods and briers much easier. 2 cups of gas or so will cut  the regular maintained parts of the land here, 3 cups will do all of it. Getting a mower into most of our mowed area is difficult if not down right dangerous or altogether impossible. A weed wacker allows us the ability to move about and pretend we are mountain goats with a bit more safety. It is much easier to run with a weed eater away from a yellow jacket nest than it is to run up hill pulling a mower.

The best reason for using the weed eater though is that it leaves the grasses in larger pieces. It makes raking it up and feeding it to the bunnies, chickens or goats much easier than trying to rake up the mulch like goo that comes from a lawn mower. All but the chickens seem to like the larger cuts better and for them  I tend to hand pick the greens so that I can make them smaller.  Over the course of the summer months when we have extras grasses, I have been known to rake it all up and  treat  it like a hay field, dry it and pack it away for the winter months for nest boxes or for the bunnies  to nibble on.

Of course when gas goes  to four bucks a gallon we will  cut back on the weed whacking and only use it for the worst places and only when it absolutely needs it. The rest will be allowed to grow and be cut with the sling blade or  be allowed to be wild and we will simply have paths  through out the property. One day that is  actually a goal of mine anyway is no upkeep. Care taking this property in my 70s is not  something  I exactly look forward too. It has enough obstacles for me in my 30s so  self maintaining is something we  do slowly work toward each year, it is just a long process