A Long Year

It's been a long year since I left Texas. Wow, a whole year already. I don't miss it a bit.

Ok, maybe I miss two friends a bit, but I talk to one on the phone every couple of days. And I miss good Mexican food, the kind that will clog your arteries without the slightest remorse.

But other than that, I am in love with my new world. Of course, as I look out the window on this dark February night, I see it's snowing. Again.

Oh, good farm news. The rest of my seeds will come next week. The rest until I order more, of course, because I now know twice as much as I did when I ordered the first batch (which is to say, I still don't know very much).

And tomorrow is TRACTOR FRIDAY!

You Can Fill A Book, A Lot of Books, With Things I Don't Know

First, the good things. I got eight eggs from my lovely hens today. That's a big deal because it means that one of my young Australorp pullets is laying. The Australorps, all three of them, were younger than the Rhode Island Reds by a month. So if one of them is coming online, it means the other two are not far behind and then all ten of the hens will be in production. And not a moment too soon.

I have started phasing some of my more sensitive dogs off of store-bought poultry. My Pharaoh Hound was just not the same after the possible bleach incident. So now she gets cooked eggs, rice, egg shells and vitamins. And the Dachshund who just had surgery and is on antibiotics is also on cooked eggs right now. Remind me sometime to rant about how vets don't understand the role of diets in overall health.

But anyway, I need all the eggs I can get so I am happy that the younger hens are finally maturing.

Also, the tractor was reserved today. I am refinancing the farm on Friday (yay for low low rates!), so I am loathe to put money down, but they are holding it for me on their word (I love small towns). Which means that President's Day is also going to be.... TRACTOR MONDAY!!!!

Finally, I've been reading all the gardening books I ordered and, it turns out, there's lots of good information in them. Good information that I wish I knew before I ordered seeds. Like there's cold weather and warm weather strains of veggies and you can have a succession harvest if you plant the right one at the appropriate time. D'uh, it seems so obvious, except if you're a complete neophyte such as myself.

But no matter, I can order more seeds. I am particularly interested in the information in Eliot Coleman's Four Season Harvest. Mr. Coleman lives in Maine which just might be colder than where I am, and he has fresh greens for salad every day of the year. There is a man to emulate. So I am much inspired.

I am also pouring over this great chicken website Funder provided. It has some fascinating information about growing your own chicken feed, which fits in well with the sustainable theme I am working on here. It also has information about breeding your sustainable flock. So I think I am adding "chicken food harvest" to my five year goals sometime in phase 3.

Things are picking up. In four short weeks I will have a tractor, a green house erected, and seeds started. I will be finalizing my garden plan and rotation log and when that is done, I will post it for all the smart people who read my blog to critique and enhance. I am counting on the collective here to get me through this year!

Farm Planning Scene

You can tell a lot about people by the stuff they leave around.

You can tell almost everything there is to know about me by this picture, but I will fill in some details.

After a brief fantasy of considering Brego fit for plow work, I decided to get a tractor. My neighbor has a New Holland and I am going to get one similar to his so I can mooch off his implements. Ahhh, sweet mooching...

Also, we got the first of our seeds in the mail today from a little place over in Vermont. The greenhouse has been selected and ordered. We're going for a cheapo model ($500) that will probably only last a few seasons but we will now much more about what we need and we can upgrade. We are getting the 12' x 20' model. And I can do the grading for the greenhouse with my new tractor!!!

Anyway, I've been getting some really good advice on gardening from some special readers, you know who you are, and I have been investigating as much of the NH Coop Extension as I can stand. Everything is coming together!

(Nerd alert: Yes, that's my MacBook Pro. And yes, that's some java code. And yes, that is LOTR playing on my comp while I code while I surf BackYardChickens.com. I am person of uncompromising depth.)