The November 2016 Sustainable Homestead Update is a split weekend update. By that I mean it covers projects from both the WV and MD homesteads.
November 2016 Sustainable Homestead Update
Groundhog Update
The groundhog is still trying to get under the deck. He has been digging and trying to get in his old holes about twice a month since I buried chicken wire back in August. He is now trying to chew through the chicken wire and just this week started trying to chew through the lattice work.
November 2016 Sustainable Homestead Update
Mowing the Fields
My goal was to mow the field behind the garden area as well as the field in front of the mobile home next door. Once complete the plan was to remove the mower from the tractor for the year and attach the hay spear so I could move some hay. Well, I finished mowing the field behind the garden, but I bent a blade when I was mowing the field in front of the mobile home next door. I think I did enough to say I’m done mowing for the year, but I need to replace the bent blade before I disconnect the mower, so the hay spear will have to wait.
Hay and Wood Chips
I had three round-bales of hay delivered a couple of weeks ago. They hay needs to be moved a little to make room for wood chips. I got a hold of a wood trimmer and he is going to be dropping wood chips off for the next couple of weeks. I have hopes of getting ten loads in the next couple of weeks. The hay and wood chips will be used for mulch and soil building in the food forest area.
Free Pallets
I was perusing through Craig’s list and found a post that offered up free pallets. So I took my trailer out and picked up 14 pallets and brought them out to the WV farm. I’m going to use the pallets for some mushroom logs in later winter or early spring. I will cut down some trees and cut the logs into manageable sizes. Then I will inoculate the logs with mushroom spores. Time to do a little mushroom farming.
November 2016 Sustainable Homestead Update
Cheap Firehose
I was doing a little more browsing on Craig’s list and found some trash pumps for sale. On the same page they had some firehose pretty cheap. So I went out and bought 700 foot of 2-1/2 inch fire hose and brought them out to the farm. I will buy the water pump sometime in the future. I will use the pump and the firehose to pump water from the stream into the ponds. The ponds have been quite low this year because of the drought.
Revamping the Garden
In preparation for moving to the farm and selling the MD residence, I am removing a lot of my garden beds. I will be digging up the herbs, strawberries, and some other plants and moving them to the WV location. I also dug up a lot of blackberry suckers this year and will take some to WV and sell some through the nursery. This weekend I did manage to get three of the beds cleaned up and ready to be removed.
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