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Tag Archives: priorities

Spring is Finally Springing

01 Tuesday May 2018

Posted by danteskitcheninferno in cherry, chickens, construction projects, Gardening, honey bees, orchard, The Finger Lakes, tomatoes

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bloomfield ny, brooder, cherry trees, chicken coop, chickens, family farm, finger lakes, food, Gardening, honey bees, new farm, old barns, priorities, rochester ny, summer project, tomatoes

Spring has finally arrived, and it’s gonna go fast. This past week was again frustrating, it snowed again, it poured, the sun came out, rinse and repeat, yay Rochester! I spent most of my free time working on the chicken coop and I’m dying to move on to a new project, but – I am really happy with it. It has roosts, access to the spring water, a way to sweep the litter straight into a compost pile and as soon as I get some milk crates it will have a shelf full of nest boxes.

Good thing too because those chickens are growing fast! I knew they were starting to get crowded. I went out with some friends on Saturday night and received a text from Matt that simply said “they can get out.” Ha! Having severely underestimated the difficulty of acquiring a refrigerator box, I constructed a new brooder downstairs out of several boxes. It’s a little cool down there, but they seem much happier. It won’t be long before they can escape from this one as well, so I’ll have to cover it with some chicken wire soon. Those Rhode Island Reds are sorta camera hogs.

Back in January my lovely in-laws gave me a gift card to a garden store for my birthday. Having learned a lesson last year, I went very early this year and picked out the best cherry trees. I picked them up this week and walked up and down the hillside for the 50th time thinking of where to put them. I’m trying to imagine the overall finished area. When the trees first go in, it may look silly and random. But that is priority number 3, because…

This coming week’s adventures include the tomato patch and the bees. I’ve begun work on the tomato patch and started hardening off my tomato plants, which are huge as a result of the late spring. Usually I’d start putting them out sooner. Oh well. I have next to choose a location for my beehives and level the ground off. They are being extracted from the barn this weekend – I’m excited and nervous about this. I keep imagining being in a swarm of bees and restraining the impulse to swat. Stay tuned for the episode where I take my life in my hands with a beehive in an 80 square foot space.

The daffodils are up, the currants are budding, the fava beans are in the ground, the neighborhood is emerging from hibernation and I’m looking forward to an 80 degree Wednesday tomorrow. Yay, Rochester!

I’m Officially That Crazy Chicken Lady

24 Tuesday Apr 2018

Posted by danteskitcheninferno in chickens

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apple cider vinegar, black australop, bloomfield ny, brooder, cuckoo marans, family farm, finger lakes, hatchery, heat lamp, maple sap, new farm, organic chickens, priorities, Rhode Island Red, rochester ny, sloggers, summer project, Welp, Wyandotte

The post office called at 5:45am on Friday – yay! Our chicks are here! I loaded up the boys for an early morning drive. Our 25 chicks came in something the size of a box for a pair of heels. Yes, they send day old chicks in the mail. Ours look a couple of days to ship, so they were really about 3 days old when they arrived. We could not wait to get home and open them, and we were instantly in love. 5 days later, this is the story.

I took a recommendation for Welp hatchery. One of the unfortunate things about shopping hatcheries is the shipping costs. Many of them charge so much for shipping it ends up costing as much as the bird themselves. Having a $100 budget for chicks, I wasn’t anxious to spend half of that on transport. Welp rolls the cost of shipping into the cost of the chicks, making them a significantly less expensive option. While I was hoping for something closer, I couldn’t find all of the breeds that I wanted – Welp is in Iowa, but they have parters around the country. I felt bad when I realized that they had farmed out my order to somewhere in New Mexico. Can’t get much farther away from here! That said, I can’t complain about the product at all. They sent two extra chicks, but they all made it, they’re all in great shape, and all active and sparking!

So actually we have 27. I chose Black Australorps and Rhode Island Reds for their production, Silver Laced Wyandottes for their winter hardiness (and because they look cool), and Cuckoo Marans for their extra awesome eggs (pictured below in that order). I ordered all females with the exception of one straight run of 5 of Marans. I want at least one rooster so I can hatch that breed later. Looks like I got 3 boys in that straight run, so now begins the competition of who gets to stay. It’s not looking good for the one with perpetual pasty butt. I’ve had to clean him just about every day since he got here…think we’ll call him Soggy Bottom Boy. He’ll grow out of it, but the name… will stick – aaaaaaaah, haha, so punny. You’re never too old for poop jokes. (Pasty butt is basically what it sounds like. If you don’t keep it clean it pretty much turns into a cork, and you can imagine the rest.) Meryl down there, obviously does not struggle with this.

My brooder set-up includes an old trough I cleaned up and filled with pine shavings. I have a waterer on top of a seedling flat to keep the mess out of the water. My super water has garlic, apple cider vinegar and maple sap. The maple sap has tons of electrolytes, plus it’s organic and free so I’m using that rather than the little packs of powdered chicken Gatorade. They’re getting organic starter crumble food at the moment and occasionally some salad for a treat. I just mince up some lettuce or herbs and watch the tiny chicken riot. A lot of people feed them egg, but I just can’t stop thinking that it’s weird.

The heat source was a whole separate ordeal. I initially bought a regular heat lamp, but I saw so many fire stories that I got scared and bought a heat plate (the yellow thing in the picture). I put one of my seed starting heat mats next to it to expand the sleeping area a little and they seem content with this arrangement. They like the lamp, but this way I can turn it off at night or if we’re not home. I also learned the first night that I have to turn it off as the sun is going down or the sudden darkness scares the crap out of them! Oops… but now that this is the standard operating procedure, they cutely put themselves to bed when the sun goes down.

This morning I cleaned out their brooder (which they hated) and gave them a tiny mirror (which they love). Who knew chickens were so vain?! Also, my mother-in-law gave me chicken sloggers. Hilarious. So far, so good!

Disaster Recovery

15 Sunday Apr 2018

Posted by danteskitcheninferno in chickens, construction projects, The Finger Lakes

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

bloomfield ny, chicken coop, compost, family farm, finger lakes, ideas, new farm, old barns, priorities, rochester ny, summer project

Deep breaths, aaaaaand begin again. I rolled around in my thoughts for a full 24 hours. I was really anxious because this was supposed to be cheap, and now it would cost money. I finally settled on an entirety different approach. I was trying to put something together fast and cheap until I could build the tractor I really want. But I really want to stick to the principle of working with what I already have, so I decided to convert an area in the big barn…which is a mess.

Old cheese boxes, skis, bird nests, homemade creations, giant wooden spools, safety gasses, building materials, farming equipment that hasn’t occurred to you before, owl pellets, soup dispensers, tools, adopted stray cats, and vast quantities of petrified poop. A variable treasure trove of trinkets reflecting life from the very founding of our nation (this home was build by a Revolutionary War veteran) to this day. Fascinating. Now they will hold chickens again.

I chose a stall that was used to hold grain. It is covered in flour. Task number one is to empty the things people have been flinging in it over the years and clean it out. It was one of those jobs that once you complete, you tip toe straight to the laundry room to strip down, throw your clothes directly into the washer, and then march directly to the shower. I strategically completed this during the small one’s nap time, so it was ready for construction the next day.

The plan is to convert the entire north end of the ground level in phases. Phase one:

The construction of a wall with a door to enclose the inner stall

The rehabilitation of an aluminum storm door that was laying around in another barn

The installation of a cheap vinyl floor for easy clean-up

The running of hose through the floor to the spring spout

The construction of a shelf of bucket nest boxes

The installation of roosts

Phase two:

The removal of bees from the wall of the outside stall

The installation of a real window in the barn wall

Second verse same as the first to expand chicken housing down the road

Phase three:

The conversation of the space directly in front of these coops into an organized garden shed. I don’t have steps for this yet.

All I need to start with is phase one. While this will not be done in the leisurely pace I had imagined when I first started throwing the busted up outdoor coop together, I am well on my way to having it completed by the time the chickens are large enough to move out of the brooder. I’m happy with this outcome and even pleased that it’s given me a reason to get started on the large barn and get my gardening tools out of the basement.

I’ve also managed to get some compost bins together this week, which has been bugging me for months. I simply nail several pallets together in a stall formation and rotate their use. This is compost system number one – I’ll get into it more once the big gardens are in.

The only other thing I’ve have time to do this week is get started on the leftover weeds in the tomato patch. This is not an exciting job, but they can’t all be as glamorous as decomposing kitchen waste and cleaning poop out of a barn.

This Week on the Homestead

03 Tuesday Apr 2018

Posted by danteskitcheninferno in construction projects, Gardening, The Finger Lakes

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barn wood, bloomfield ny, cabbage, chicken coop, chickens, family farm, fava beans, finger lakes, Gardening, herb garden, historic house, new farm, old barns, priorities, salvage, seedlings, summer project, time

This cold spring is no fun. The fact that the sun hasn’t been out long enough to dry anything up means I can’t dig my new garden without getting the tractor stuck. There is more cold in the forecast later this week, so I dare not try to pry the wall back on my barn bees. In fact the bee shipment has been delayed due to the cold anyway. I’ve been building a chicken house in one hour increments because that’s how long my fingers can go without gloves on the nicer days. So this week I’m going to try my best not to get depressed, but to focus on parts of my plans that can be accomplished on the edge of spring. So this blog may not be terribly interesting, sorry, it’s more for my own benefit to help keep me motivated.

Side Note on Barn Demolition – over the one nice Saturday we had a barn razing. To the north of the house there is a small barn that actually pre-dates the house. The cool thing is the history of it, the down side is that it’s right in the view. Since the roof of this barn is beyond repair, and over the years other owners have covered it’s sides with sheet metal, and the groundhogs have completely undermined its foundation, we’ve decided to take it down and salvage the nicer wood. The beams are beautiful, and the main sliding door is perfect for a loft apartment somewhere. Most of the siding that hasn’t been destroyed is very thin, too thin to plain. We’ll save what we can for some wood shop projects. More on that later.

So here we go! It’s Monday and it’s freezing, but the sun is out so Im working on the chicken coop. I finished putting the metal on my chicken house roof. Since making money on eggs isn’t really a thing, I’m not investing much in this structure. I’ve spent a little on hardware, but mainly it’s constructed from a hodgepodge of materials the previous homeowner left behind in the barn.

Fava Experiment – at some point over the winter I read someone else’s method of starting fava beans indoors if you weren’t able to sow them direct the season before. I decided that I would give it a try but not take it too seriously. I used some older seeds and sure, they popped up healthy, but even a fava bean won’t like this weather and I left them in the tray longer than I knew to be good for them. They are tall, spindly and root bound, but I’ve hardened them off over the last few days and now the brief reprieve of sunshine gives me the opportunity to put them in the warm-ish ground, stake them up and drape them with a row cover. I’m not expecting much, but I’ll report back on that later.

My cabbages are ready to plant now, but I don’t have a place for them! I had plans to expand my kitchen garden anyway, so I’m going to go ahead and get started on that and use it to save my seedlings instead of waiting to plant herbs in it. The cabbage will be finished early enough to successively put herbs in. I can also use the tomato patch location for this. I’d rather use an alternate tomato location than lose the cabbage. So I’m going to go ahead and start hardening these plants off today. The snow is finally gone, so we can FINALLY start digging out the new garden this week.

Tomorrow, it’s supposed to be 38, rainy and super windy. Yuck. I’ll take care of the seedlings, start a few vines indoors and maybe give the dog a haircut.

Spring Fever

27 Tuesday Feb 2018

Posted by danteskitcheninferno in Food, Gardening, The Finger Lakes, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

broiler chickens, composting, eggs, family farm, Gardening, health, honeybees, irrigation, new farm, orchard, permaculture, priorities, raising chickens, self-sufficient, spring fever, time

The hibernation is almost over. It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything. When we first moved here, Matt and I agreed that we’d wait a year before doing anything drastic, so I haven’t made many changes besides putting in a small rock garden with a few currant bushes and a kitchen herb garden. Oh, but that year is up and now it’s on.

This house was built in 1803 by a doctor and his sons after serving in the Revolutionary War. He built it to align with the equinox, which makes one terribly conscious of how fast time goes by – now the sun is moving back across the hills, approaching the place where it lines up with my doors. In the morning when it rises, it pours so intensely through the windows that you feel a natural inclination to just walk outside in your pajamas.

I’ve spent my winter studying (or rather, annoying the crap out of Matt) – permaculture design, pastured poultry, groundwater, organic pest control methods, honeybees, hard cider recipes, ways to preserve green beans, composting systems, tomato varieties, oh my word I’m such a dork. But I’m super stoked for this summers to-do list.

First thing is to prepare new gardens. In order to first address my tomato obsession, we last year tilled a separate patch of ground closer to the house. This will become a little tomato wonderland, including other things commonly found with tomatoes such as garlic, basil, and a place to sit with a glass of wine and smell it all while talking with your hands.

There are honeybees in the barn wall. Many of them. So the plan is to get them out of the wall and start 2 hives. One, by taking some of the bees and introducing them to a new queen which I’ve ordered; the other, by either locating the existing queen and putting her in a new hive, or relocating comb with a queen they might be raising to the second hive. This may end in painful stinging tears since the hive is in a small room, but hopefully we’ll get to them before they’re quite active. I may have to actually vlog that one.

The beginnings of an orchard. There are already “antique” apples all over the place. We haven’t decided which to go with next – vote for peaches or cherries in the comments.

Painting the porch, but that’s not interesting.

Chickens! Yay, gotta have chickens, right? Dante has been helping me build a mobile coop a la Joel Saladin but we are going to wait to start any of that until after vacation with the fam. The plan is to begin both broilers and layers this year with the possibility of leaving the layers off until next. I’m finding it difficult to come up with a plan I like for the layers and I don’t want to rush them just to have them. I know that the first thing most people do is get a few laying hens, which does seem less complicated. But when I crunch the numbers, for a place like this, eggs are more for the pleasure of having them than for saving any money.

A project I’m expecting to be a sort of ongoing drama is my wishful irrigation/drainage system from the spring. There is sooooo much water here. Conveniently, the spring pops out at the top of the hill. I plan to direct it down to the tomato patch, then down to the chickens, then over to the gardens and past the raspberries, then away to the creek. In theory this will help reduce some of the spring sop, but still keep the water at hand if it’s dry. Challenge #1 is to create something that doesn’t make getting over it (mower, tractor, atv, electric poultry fence) terribly annoying. Eventually I’ll incorporate some rain barrels. There is a lot of run-off between the house and the barns.

Currently I am ripping the overgrown brush away from an old cattle fence next to my new big garden. This will become something for raspberry bushes to lean on. It is one of the handful of projects I can do while it’s still too wet to keep the tractor from getting stuck.

Whew. Those are the biggies. The seedlings are started, the beekeeping suit is here, the spring fever is in full effect.

If You Don’t Run Your Life, Someone Else Will Run It For You

28 Saturday Feb 2015

Posted by danteskitcheninferno in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

career change, family, food, health, life, new business, priorities, run your life, time, when to leave your job

I know I’m not the only person in America who hates their job.  I know I’m not the only person to feel like the Mom from the Incredibles.  I’m sure that lots of people are so busy that they constantly feel like they’re chasing their tales and turning into a scatterbrain.  I think my job is actually truly genuinely decreasing my cognitive abilities – how long can your brain honestly take work that is not challenging, having your ideas blown off, starting projects and never finishing them, completing projects that are never used, other people taking credit for your ideas, never receiving acknowledgment for work well done, and finally, when you work up the nerve to say something – having your concerns acknowledged and then never acted upon.  This tells me one thing and one thing only:  I am not important.

Several months ago I came to 2 important realizations: 1.) you should not live where you’re not loved, and 2.) if you don’t schedule the things that are important to you, you will be ruled by whatever lands in your email inbox. More on that later.  And when you’re ruled by whatever lands in your inbox, you wake up one morning 5 years later and realize that this is not what you had in mind for your life. Which leads me to the question – well, what do I want for my life?

That is the easy part.  I want to stop killing myself slowly by sitting at a desk all day.  I want to be able to actually raise my own son, and not be forced by life to leave him daycare.  I want to have the time to keep everything clean, and not feel anxiety over the state of the house after a 9 hour work day.  I want to put a hot healthy meal in front of my wonderful husband in the evening. I want to be in nature, I want to create, I want to use my brain, I want to stop answering to people who have no intention of actually hearing my answer and be my own boss.  I want to teach my boy problem solving, hard work and self-sufficiency.  I want time to give back – to pay attention to the people I love, to participate in my child’s education more, and to volunteer in my community.

The absolutely amazing thing about the paragraph above, is that there is nothing amazing about it.  So what I’ve realized, is that my current situation (similar the countless thousands of other people’s) is what is actually completely unreasonable, and this madness has become the normal.  I am consciously rejecting it!  It is normal for people to want to raise their own children (unless you live at Downton Abbey).  It is normal to want to eat a real meal with meat and vegetables.  It is normal to be discontent sitting at a desk all day because humans were not meant to sit at desks all day!

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that everyone should feel this way.  I think of the lovely person who built me the computer that I’m writing on for example, and I can hardly imagine him deciding that he needs to get up from his desk and become something else. His job suits him as long as he’s enjoying it and learning.  My sister is the perfect example of a serious career woman – shes not like me at all and shes exactly where she should be. What I’m saying is I’m not crazy for wanting something different – not even – something more simple, and I don’t think I’m alone. More on that later.

So welcome to my blog.  This will document my journey from miserable diabetes-inducing boredom to something else.  Things have got to change.

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