Starting a farm co-op

A co-op:  An autonomous association of persons who voluntarily  cooperate for their mutual social, economic, and cultural benefit.

I attended an organizational meeting of a new local food coop  getting set up in our area.

It got my wheels turning  (again)

Why not start my own mini farm-coop?

First project : raise free range chickens

I floated the  idea on face-book a couple of weeks ago.

I have been thinking I would like to raise (20) to (25) free range chickens this Summer  and wondered out loud if anyone else in our area would be interested in going into partnership with us.

I had (4)  families jump @ the opportunity…..

All were young families with children living inside city limits so it was not something they could do on their own, even if they wanted to.

We live on 4 and 1/2 acres so there is lots of room to experiment.

It is just about as easy to take care of 100 as it is 25.

The chickens will arrive April 12

We will let them mature into sometime late August..and when they are ready, we’ll have an old fashioned “chicken butchering party” …just like your grandpa used to do.

We will share the costs equally and all pitch in on butchering day.

One of the young mothers had obviously been thinking about this for a while….

I’m guessing she’ s been looking forward to the day when they had a place of their own in the country.

She asked if I would consider getting some Heritage breeds, and using Organic feed to supplement their free range foraging.

(Chickens only get 3% of their caloric intake from foraging so you have to supplement their diet with something)

“Why not?” I said.

We ended up picking (3) different breeds…

I can’t wait to take pictures  as they mature!!!!

(the pictures below are some I found on the Internet so I would know what they will look like)

Black Australorp’s

Silver laced Wynadotte

Rhode Island Red

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It’s too late this time around to be a part of this adventure, but let me know if you’d like to be a part of something like this next year.

Even if you’re coming from a distance, (I live in Iowa)  there’s nothing to say you couldn’t schedule a trip here the weekend we butcher.

Please don’t leave any nasty comments on how cruel I am, etc. etc. etc….

I’ll just delete them.

I do believe I will answer for how I treat the animals in my  care….

and I  also believe there is a reason my teeth are designed to eat meat as well as vegetables.

Well, it’s been a long day.

I filled (7) raised garden beds full of dirt,  planted  (5) apple trees, (450) hills of russet  potatoes

….and a 400 sq foot patch of grain.

I’m beat.  g-nite. DM

Row of seed potatoes before they were covered up

Wheel barrow full of seed potatoes

More chickens.

I’m thinking about getting some more chickens.   

Right now we have 5….4 hens and a rooster.

The following story comes to mind every time I think about our little flock….

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Not Even Chickens by Robert Fulghum

      With all the recent seaside development, it is easy to forget that Crete and Cretans are fundamentally about the mountains – the steep places, the high and isolated villages that breed independent, self-sufficient people who have always been a rule unto themselves.  They still are.  The Mountain Cretans say they fear nothing and nobody, and would look at God, Himself, with hat on and eyes open.  Thus they look upon strangers with interest, not suspicion.

     One afternoon I parked my car and walked a narrow road that connects several small villages along a high mountain ridge.  A voice called out from the porch of a whitewashed house:

     “Ehla, ehlah, kahtheeseh!” (Come come, sit!)  An old man beckoned to me, pointing to the chair beside him.

      I went.  I sat.  On a small table were almonds, raisins, olives, and a bottle of tsikoudia (tsee-koo-di-ah)  the Cretan equivalent of white-lightening or grappa- the proffered sign of hospitality and welcome to a Cretan home.  He was expecting company -and anybody would do.

     “tho-kee-maseh” (Drink this, eat this!)  he said, handing me a glass of tsikoudia and filling a small plate with almonds, raisins, and olives.

      “Lee-pon.  Germanos?” (Well, then, are you German?)

       I was touched to know that the hospitality came first, even though I might be German- from a country that had brutalized Crete in WW II.

     “Oshee, Americanos.”  (No, American.)

       “Americanos!  Americanos!  He shouted into the house, and a younger man appeared.  They spoke high-gear Greek with a Cretan accent.  The look on my face tells them I cannot follow, so the younger man says in fine English, “My father is excited to meet you.  He has never met an American.  He hears that in America they have everything.  He would like to ask you some questions.”

     Fine.  With his son translating, the examination began.  How old was I?  How many children?  How much money do I make?  Very Cretan inquiries.  Then a harder question that led to even tougher scrutiny: “How often do you dance and sing and recite poetry?

      “Not very often.”

       The old man looked at me with narrowed eyes.

      “How many sheep and goats do you have?”

     “None.”

      The old man looked puzzled.

       “How many olive trees do you have and how much oil put away?”

      “None.”
    

      The old man frowned.

      ” How many vines do you have and how much wine put away?”

     “None.”

      The old man was nonplussed.  He raised his eyebrows.

      “Do you have any chickens?”

     “No.”

     The old man looked mildly outraged and fell into high-gear Greek again with his son.  The son was apologetic.  “Pardon me, but my father says that it is a lie that Americans have everything.  You have no sheep, no goats, no trees, no oil, no vines, no wine, not even chickens.  He asks,” What kind of life is that?  He says, “No wonder you don’t sing or dance or recite poetry very often.”  He is dismayed.”

     The old man peered at me with pity bordering on contempt.

      Shaking his head in disgust, he mumbles in English, as he rose and limped out into his garden, dismissing me from his mind:

“Nothing.  Not even chickens….”

How to: Garden without weeds…The Three Sisters Method

     Wife and I have been on a healthy eating kick the past 12 months.  I shed 36 pounds  in 6 months when I went from highly processed foods to eating more fruits, vegetables, nuts and no white breads.  Simple as that, cut out the highly processed sugar and the pounds started coming off.

    That’s why the article on homemade bread caught my eye as I was strolling past the magazine rack @ Walmart last week:

    That’s not what I wanted to talk about right now, but it does give  you a sense of where my brain has been the past 12 months.

 In the  January 2011 issue of Mother Earth News  was also a story on  Floriani Red Flint.  

(It’s an heirloom variety of corn)

I want to grow some now….

talk about the power of the printed page.

     I told my buddy Steve a week ago to help me design me a garden plot   I didn’t have to weed this year.  

     Steve and I  get together on occasion over lots of coffee to  chew the fat on everything from heirloom  tomatoes,  seed saving,   politics,  the underground railroad in Iowa, war,  current events…you name it..all topics are fair game and while he and I are in different camps  politically and spiritually, mutual  respect underpins  our discourse, so I always come away mentally stimulated.    

    Steve had mentioned something called a “sisters garden” in passing a few weeks ago, but I didn’t get it.,

Thursday I saw another reference to “The Three Sisters Gardening” philosophy and I finally I got it…really got it.

     In simple terms,  you plant 3 companion crops in the same area….corn, beans and  squash.    The beans add nitrogen to the soil, which the corn uses and vise versa.  The Squash (I’m going to plant an heirloom pumpkin) vines out and shades between the rows effectively shading out the weeds.  The corn acts as a natural trellis for the beans (you need to plant the pole bean variety)   so the beans climb the corn.

        Here’s a diagram of what a 10 ft by 10 ft plot would look like:

 The “three sisters” garden has been around for 1000′s of years 

Why have I never heard of it before this week?

Have you?

     “According to Iroquois legend, corn, beans, and squash are three inseparable sisters who only grow and thrive together. This tradition of interplanting corn, beans and squash in the same mounds, widespread among Native American farming societies, is a sophisticated, sustainable system that provided long-term soil fertility and a healthy diet to generations….

There is definitely a life  lesson in this gardening model

3 different crops with different nutritional needs living in  the same garden plot, producing different types of fruit. 

   Come to think about it,  Steve and my relationship is a little like this gardening model.  We each come to the table with different life experiences, different world views, etc.  yet we can benefit from the others insight.  

     The next time you meet someone   you know has a  different take on a current event, instead of looking @ them as a nut job who obviously doesn’t understand real life because they don’t see things as you do,  stick a cork in it.

      Instead of launching into an attack mode,   we really do need  change the tone of our social discourse.  And what better place to begin than with you? (and me)   ;-)

  “According to Three Sisters legends corn must grow in community with other crops rather than on its own – it needs the beneficial company and aide of its companions.”

Our new Aviary

Last Sunday we went to visit  Helen.  She   lives in the Shady Rest retirement center. 

 As wife was  catching up  on the latest with Helen,  I wandered over to a large glass cabinet –  full of  cute little birds.

I think they were finches.

 Beautiful,  fine featured,  and varied…

Full of nervous energy.

Against the back wall of the cabinet   was a dozen  little straw nests 

 Many of the openings  had little heads peeking out.

An elderly lady wandered over to look at the birds with me.

“See that one over there?  He likes to slide down the wire.”

I stood there 5 minutes waiting for him to slide but he never did. 

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 Monday morning , both of  our chicken waterer’s were  frozen solid. 

 That did not bode well for the family budget. 

I  thought  to myself, if I  plug-in the electric  water heater, that will add  $30.00 a month to the electric bill, which makes  for some pretty pricey eggs.

Tuesday morning same thing-  frozen waterers….at that point  an idea began to  take shape  in my mind 

 Ideas often come to me in the morning. 

Why not build an aviary here on the farm?

instead of filling it with finches, I could  fill it with chickens!

We have a 140 yr old barn that would work perfectly!

Here are some pictures  of the final result .

It is a  green passive solar chicken aviary.

green as in, built with all used construction material. 

 Talk about being on the cutting edge of culture 

Exterior View of our new Aviary

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 View from the inside.   

Today the thermometer was reading 24 F.  Inside the aviary it was pushing 40 F

Here’s  Lori, Joy, Emily, one unnamed hen   and The Colonel in the middle.

 Nothing beats farm fresh eggs. 

 I’m talking real fresh 

 I usually get mine  right out of the nest….

I don’t want to bore you with construction details, but if you want to talk shop, feel free to drop me a note.   I did take into consideration things  like thermal mass, ventilation, insulating w/ bales of hay, lighting, etc

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update 11-28-2010  here’s a picture of Mrs DM checking out our birds….

The Food Routines Of My life

 The urge to  lay up locally  grown food  has gripped me like a mad squirrel this Fall.

  Dehydrating heirloom  tomatoes…

 blanching fresh green beans:

(those are little potatoes from our garden and onions from the farmers market  I mixed with the beans )

And picking apples….

 bushels and bushels of apples

2010 basket of Cortland

picture of our son helping  pick the Cortland

Ever heard of the term Locavore?   

Me neither…until this year.

 (be sure to check out that link/ lots of great information)

Well, I”m a new convert 

      Quoting now…

“ Locavores  are people who pay attention to where their food comes from and commit to eating local food as much as possible. The great thing about eating local is that it’s not an all-or-nothing venture. Any small step you take helps the environment, protects your family’s health and supports small farmers in your area.”
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I need to back up just a little….

This past March, I realized I was the heaviest I’ve ever been.  I don’t really take too much stock in  those ideal body weight charts.   At my height, if I were to  follow their recommendations, I would look like a stick man. 

   Having said that,  I knew I needed to lose about 35 pounds to get down to what I consider my ideal weight.     I talked with my baby sister who is an RN, and  has managed to stay  fit for several years and is not obsessive about it.  The last thing I wanted to do was go on some fad diet that lasted for a spell, then  wind up fatter than before once the motivation wore off. 

That sort of thing happens all-the-time.

 I was looking for a routine that was long-term and simple.   One that  didn’t have me counting calories, buying expensive foods or taking supplements.   

Well,  I found what I was looking for.

 I am not kidding.  It is so simple a 6 yr old can do it and it works.

  You don’t hear a lot about it because 

A….  it cuts out the middle man who wants to sell you “something”

and B….It’s so simple, you’re tempted to think  you’ve missed something. 

  Why  isn’t everybody doing it????? 

My thought exactly

Here in layman’s terms  are two new routines we’ve been doing with food that has enabled me to keep shedding weight after I lost  the first 10 pounds:
 Suggestion#1 

Cut out  95% of the junk food out of my diet.- biggest help with this was  to  go through our  cupboards and remove the temptations…

    (Like my sister told me,” You don’t have to be anal about it..when we  get together and mom offers you a piece of pecan pie- you don’t have to be rude..eat it. )

Suggestion # 2 

The less processed  the better it is. 

The closer it looks to how God made it when you eat it the better.  This is where becoming a Locavore comes into play as well.

For example,  instead of eating delicious crunchy potato chips for break, I’ve switched to eating english walnuts…right out of the shell.  

Our bodies  crave   fat.  

 Certain foods will satisfy that craving while others don’t. 

 I could eat a whole bag of carrots, still feel hungry, still crave  fat, and say the heck with it, or  eat a small handful of walnuts  that  calms the beast.

Stay away as much as possible from white sugar and white breads.   Those food types  are highly addictive, and  create within us  the craving to eat more of the same.  And sugar morphs   into the fat I’m   trying to shed.

 final story.

     I did a  remodel job for young family recently.   Both of them work like dogs. Later that day, I saw the wife walking  3 miles from home.    She told me she does this just about every day, walks 5 miles  but  is not able to lose  the weight.  She just couldn’t understand it.     The last thing I was going to do was talk to her about loosing weight, but since this is my blog and nobody is forcing you to read this I’m going to tell you what I wished I could have told her…. I know she loves to bake.    Baking for her family is one of the ways she expresses her love …and I am certainly not going to diss that.    But it is a two-pronged effort..physical activity and what we eat.  Until you and I are willing to look @ the foods we eat without getting all defensive we probably won’t experience any significant  changes, unless you get a tape worm   I hear they keep the pounds off.

What I  eat and how much I weigh  is such a personal topic.  It ranks right up there with how I spend my money, sex, and politics.

  I’d love to hear your thoughts….

Brandywine

 

Picture of  my first Brandywine

 We are in the thick of  the tomato harvest. 

Do you want to hear something funny? 

I don’t even like tomatoes all that much.

What I do like is  all of the stuff that goes on behind the scene to produce this tomato…..

Building raised  4 ft by 4 ft garden beds.

Filling the raised beds with  black Iowa topsoil. 

The smell of  damp earth after a long Iowa Winter.

Mapping out the  raised beds into 1 ft squares

Discovering  the mystery of composting.  Watching those early  grass clippings, watermelon scraps,and coffee grounds slowly break down into  organic  black gold.

Enjoying the company of my eldest granddaughter Addy as together we  work in the garden.

This week I decided to save some of the  seed from a Brandywine  tomato.  I want to participate in the whole life cycle of a tomato. 

 Now that  their  fist sized fruit have formed, I want  some of their seeds.

  I already have an LED grow light sitting in the box just waiting……

but that’s another story for another day.  

 As you can probably tell, it doesn’t take much to  entertain me.

Back to the present.  Saving tomato seeds…

You don’t just dig them out and put them away for safekeeping. Oh no, they would just rot.  The little tomato seeds are encased in a jelly like sack:

Cross view of Brandywine.  Seed sack is on the right

 After you dig them out, you mix the seeds with a little water (about 1/4 cup to the pulp of this one tomato)  then  cover the container with a paper towel.:

Adding water to the seeds

 Allow this brew to ferment and mold for 3 to 6 days, depending on  conditions:

Mold forming on top of the “brew”

After the mold forms, (in 3 to 6 days)   skim it off with a fork,  add more water (about 1/4 to 1/2 cup) . 

 The viable  seeds will settle  to the bottom of the glass in  a couple of minutes

Drain off the  water. 

 Do it again.  

Trust me- It feels  just like you are  panning for gold. 

I  set the seeds on a paper towel to blot off the excess water, then transferred them to a kitchen plate. where they continued  to  dry  for 4 days. 

 After the first day, I did   move them around so they wouldn’t stick to the plate.

Here’s what they looked like when I was done:

Closeup of the Brandywine seeds after they’d dried.

I never would have  guessed I could squeeze so much pleasure out of  just one tomato.

“ Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.”

                                                                                    Robert  Brault

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As always, thanks for reading my stuff…and even better if you decide to leave a comment     DM

Conversation with a Prepper

     

  I (DM) came across the following  article today on a Prepper website.  What’s a Prepper?  I never heard of the term before today.  If you have a minute-  check out the blogger links @ the bottom of this post  and let me know what you think. Thanks. DM

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“Recently I was in a verbal argument with another woman. I politely listened to her spew foul language, in an attempt to get her point across. As I attempted to counter point a few of the reasonable things she said, and was constantly interrupted, I politely pointed out that this conversation was going nowhere and that I was happy for her that she was so committed to believe in half truths, and then excused myself.

Then the calls of Punk b***h and coward rang out after me. I was tempted to turn around and tell her exactly how I felt. But I knew that this was not going to be a situation that I was going to be able to win with words. I knew that if I persisted to acknowledge this woman, that she would more than likely haul off and hit me. Of course then it would be on, but there were children in our presence and I decided to be the bigger man or woman in my case.

I was on the not so popular view side of the conversation. But I did have facts to back up my views. She too had facts, but the ones she brought forth were outdated, and at times, unintelligible.

We are not all spokesmen. We have not been trained to gracefully argue our points. We get frustrated and angry. We can cause ourselves to sound uneducated and ill-informed. When arguments get heated, we tend to forget our legitimate points, and fall to the side of name calling. We forget that we should be “the bigger man.” There is no shame to walk away from a verbal assault. You are not a punk b***h, you are the victor of morals.

Of course, I could be saying all of this to justify my walking away. And that is a valid point. But not one I am arguing here.

We need to carefully watch our words as we speak. Our defense should be laid out carefully and without raising our voices. Why? Because those that are witnessing the arguments will ultimately be the judge. If you want to sway people to your side of things, litter your views with humor and calmly laid out facts. People are more willing to listen to some one that can keep their cool, that can debate without getting personal, that can walk away when the other person has gone off the deep end. Your job isn’t to convince the person you are disagreeing with, your job is to convince those that are listening outside of the conversation.

Many people have forgotten what it means to take the high road. Many now see that to be the bigger person means that you hit harder. This is not what I wish to teach my children. Being polite in an argument doesn’t make you come across as arrogant, only to the losing side does it feel that way. We should all remember that currently as preppers, we are not on the popular side of the argument. We need to remember that our views differ greatly from the world at large and that it doesn’t bring more people around to our way of thinking when we scream, or curse or be the bigger man with physical confrontation. Even in this group, we don’t all agree in our views, but we have found a way to argue our personal points without bashing each other over the head. Just remember that the next time an anonymous person, or an acquaintance tries to push you down, not to stoop to their level. Be the bigger man, and defend yourself, using your words.

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http://thesurvivalmom.com/

http://www.prepper.org/Whats_A_Prepper.asp

How to grow Free Range Pork in Iowa

    

One of our free range pigs

 Imagine a pig raised on apples, mulberries, clover, shelled corn and pasture, That would make  for a tasty pig

        Pigs are foragers.  They love to  turn up the soil with their snouts   digging for roots,  and grubs.  It’s called  the ‘free range” method of pork production. 

      Nobody does it for lots of reasons-

     They take forever to get to market weight.

       It takes a lot more space per pig.

      They will tear up a field unless you put rings in their noses, which prevents them from digging, which some have suggested causes them to get depressed (and @ this point I would have to agree)

      Pigs are highly intelligent animals- right up there with chimps, dolphins, and elephants.

       I was working on a hog confinement set up this past June.  The farmer offered to give me  all of his runt pigs  for nothing.   He raises 5000 head of baby pigs  a year.   His buyers aren’t interested in the runts-  they just get destroyed.

         In my mind, a free pig is a free pig, plus we have an acre of pasture behind our barn just sitting there so  I said I would LOVE to take those runts off his hands.

      I sent an e-mail out to several  people asking if they’d be interested in me raising  a free range pig for them.   I told them right up front, they might only get to 120  pounds by the time  we needed to butcher. (once the pasture ran out for the year, that was it.

      I  had 20 people tell me “Yes! Count me in!!!!” 

         It’s four months later and time for an update.    We’re closing in our the time to butcher.    The  local newspaper is putting together  their  annual “pork”  edition and e-mailed me this week to see if I’d sit down with them and talk about  our free range pigs.  I had to laugh because  in my mind the jury is still out on the success of this experiment

         Here’s some of what I learned so far: 

      #1  I would start out with healthy, normal baby  pigs instead of “free” runts.  The runts  do not convert their food to body mass as quickly and you end up dumping more feed in them as a result.

      #2  I would give them more supplemental  feed each week.    I was trying to do this  without sticking a bunch of $ in them, but in the end, they just weren’t growing so I did start supplementing their  diet with shelled corn .  They have finally started putting on some size.

      #3  I would need to charge a lot more $ to make this financially worth my while. 

      # 4 Instead of trying to raise 7 pigs on an acre of  pasture I would only do 4.  It didn’t take long for these 7  pigs to dig up that  acre of pasture.

      #5  I would ask for more money up front from whomever was interested.  I ended up having to purchase a watering tank ($150)  2 sections of electric woven fence (another $ 200) and  $250 worth of corn. and it’s not over yet.

      If you stumble across this blog post, and you’re seriously interested in  some free range pork in 2010  leave me a comment. We’ll  probably grow  3   for sale.   A  150 pound pig (live weight) will run you about $300- $400 depending on  the cost of feed. 

Footnote- for those of you that are regulars..no I am not planning to eat Winston.

Pictorial highlights of my week

  “In the best of times, our days are numbered anyway.  So it would be a crime against nature for any generation to take the world crisis so solemnly, that it put off enjoying those things for which we were designed in the first place:  the opportunity to do good work, to enjoy friends, to fall in love, to hit a ball and bounce a baby.”    Alistair Cook

    Photo of Grandson and I.  He and his sister were feeling under the weather this week. His mama (my eldest) came for a week to visit her mama  (my wife) as she celebrated her 50th birthday.  It was great having them around.

       Tuesday morning I met w/ Matt to firm up details for the Bear River Concert series we are putting together this Summer.  Here’s the logo for the series.  Some of you have already seen it on face book:

       Eldest daughter showed me this  Pixar  clip .  It  is right @ the top of my list for this weeks highlights.  I’ve watched it at least a dozen times.  Don’t let the fact that it is an animation fool you.  There is a profound life changing principle woven into its  4 minutes and 42 seconds:

 

 

      The orchard is stirring with new life.  If the buds on the trees are any indication, it looks to be a bumper crop.  Here is a photo of  a Liberty apple tree.  Keep in mind, every flower is potentially an apple:

 

 

     Wednesday night, I was invited to watch Master Gardener Laura L. demonstrate some basic grafting techniques.  As our orchard gets established, I would like to start doing some of this for fun:

Daughter number 3 and I worked around the property this week .  Here is a photo of us just after we finished assembling her shiny new wheel barrow:

     Saturday was weather perfect.  I had staked out a new area for a garden, discovered the topsoil was gone,  even though the location is perfect, so I went to plan B, build and fill some raised garden beds.    We have acres of black topsoil behind the  barn, so I grabbed daughter #3′s shiny new wheelbarrow, mixed topsoil, sheep dung, and some of that white stuff you see in potting soil together to create (4)  4 ft by 4 ft square foot raised  garden beds.  My long  term goal is to add  4 inches each year, until the beds are 2 to 3 ft high.  That way, when I’m old and feeble, I won’t have to bend down so far.  What do you think?  BTW, the wood is non-toxic 2 by 4′s which will eventually rot but as Michael  cautioned me on face book, the green wood can be toxic and leach into the soil. Here’s a picture of my handiwork from Saturday:

   Here’s a recent photo of Winston the pig .   Last night I went to check on her, and after a couple of minutes scratching her head, she laid on her side and wanted me to rub her belly.  I’ve never had a 300 pound pet pig before. A farmer told me this week, she may reach  800- 900 pounds.  I cut back on the grain now that she’s in the pasture :

  So what were some of your highlights from the past week?

Back To Basic Country Living Skills- Introduction To A New Series

“You can take the boy off the farm, but you can’t take the farm out of the boy”

      I caught a hint of Spring last week in the air.  The smell is unmistakable here in rural Iowa.  It immediately took me back to 1967,   I was 9 years old.  We moved to the farm that March from a town of 3250. 

      My formative years were spent on the farm-  from 9 till after I  graduated high school.  At the time I didn’t think much of it, but on looking back, I am  thankful for the many life lessons that were planted in the soil of my life.   

     My brother and I were  responsible for milking 18  cows morning and night, 365 days a year, twice a day.  Our farm was small by todays standards, just 120 acres, although dad did rent another 100 from the neighbor. 

    When you’re a  farmer, you’re a vet,  a master gardener,  a businessman, a mechanic, a welder, a butcher, a chemist,  a weatherman, you’re familiar with genetics, GPS crop management,

       You learn about death early, whether it’s seeing what a tomcat can do to a new litter  of baby kittens, having to pick up the family dog  off the road who refused to stop chasing  cars, or having to put down your pet calf who is too sick to recover.

       In 1995 my wife and I moved back to the country onto an old acreage.   The place needed a lot of TLC.  House  hadn’t been painted in 50 years.  All of the out buildings, looked tired.  The first thing I looked at was the foundation of the house, and it was solid.  

       So here I sit, 14 years later, gearing up for another growing season.  We’re hoping to put in a garden.  I’ve been reading up and think we’re going to do a combination “Stout” mulching/ sq ft gardening method.

      The chicken bug has also bit- we’re going to get  some baby chicks.  I  talked with our neighbor Renee  about it yesterday

…(Hi Renee you lurker you   )

   We’re going to get some hens and a couple of roosters…they will come to us as day old chicks so we’ll get to watch them go from cute little chicks to ugly chickens.    I’m already working on a “Chicken tractor”- stay tuned if you’re interested, I hope to write briefly about each of these things.

      One of the things I’ve realized lately is we’ve not passed on to the next generation basic country living skills- if you’re living in a city, why would you need to know how to butcher a live chicken right?  Well,  if this sort of thing interests you, be sure to stop back.  This will be the first in a series of short articles on basic country living skills.

      There is usually more than one effective way to do something.  When it comes to framing a house for example , there are at least 3 different approaches.  I’ve taken tricks from each method and I’m still open to learning.  Well, when it comes to country living skills the same thing applies.  There really  is more than one way to do something.

     Feel free to ask  questions, share your ideas, etc. That way we can learn from each other.