Stocked Up On Hay

Hi all! Fall is upon us. Our trees here in Southern Ohio are covered in beautiful shades of red, orange, yellow, green, and brown. It is quite a sight to behold, and fall is my favorite season. I love the way the leaves smell and the smell in the air. I love the "crunch" of dry leaves under foot. I love the fanfare of Halloween. I love apple cider, hooded sweatshirts, pumpkin flavored food and drinks, Indian corn, fall foliage, and the sound of leaves rustling in trees during a light breeze. Ahhhh... I told you it was my favorite!

Unfortunately, we all know that fall is also the harbinger of winter. We all know that once the splendor of fall is over, Jack Frost will be nipping at our noses. For procrastinators like me, fall also means that you're quickly running out of time to make those oh so important winter preparations.

I'm also the type that tends to put the cart before the horse. It doesn't make sense and it usually results in hurried preparation (I do not recommend this behavior, but I'm thinking it's more of a disease for me! :D ), but all the same it is what it is. This "illness" caused me to buy some very cute little goats without much forethought into winter prep. Heck it was spring when we brought these guys home, so winter was quickly becoming a bad dream. Well, uh-hmm, it's a reality now. And as vampires say, reality bites.

Among the many activities we must partake in to prepare for winter, is buying and storing hay for our goats. Like most ruminants, the goat requires daily hay in its diet. This is partly for nutrition, but mostly for fiber/roughage to aid in digestion.

Our two goats consume roughly one bale of hay every 2 weeks. Sometimes they will eat one in one week. Keep in mind my goats are small. At any rate, it is an essential part of their diet and it is important to try to stock up on hay when feeding any hay eating animal during cold weather months. For this time around we purchased 20 bales of hay.  It is a timothy, clover, orchard grass mix. It smells so nice and it still has plenty of nice green pieces in it. We are hoping this will get us through until people begin cutting hay again next year. We may buy 5-10 more in December based on our useage rate of our current stockpile. This hay is a bit loosely baled compared to what we normally get, which may mean we will go through it faster.

We have it stored in our garage right now (which is less than ideal because hay is messy!), but we are hoping to get it better situated once we complete a barn. (Ha ha)

At any rate, wish us luck this winter! We'll do the same for you! Thanks for reading!

Pallet Goat Stand

Hi all! We're not as busy here on the farm as we were during growing/hatching season, but that doesn't mean work is at a standstill. In fact, the cooler weather means fewer hours at Mitch's job. He prefers to work on our projects during these months. Since he's our primary project builder, (let's face it, I scare myself with power tools!) it is game on during the fall and winter.

It is time to be preparing our home, barn and garage, and animals for winter. One of the tasks on our list is hoof trimming for our goats. I may elaborate on this maintenance chore in another post, but for now suffice it to say it is something we must do. This chore is made easier with the use of a goat stand with a head latch. While varieties of stands are available for purchase, we chose a simple DIY construction project. We chose this option due to cost and efficiency. Our goats are dwarf size and most options available are for standard sized animals.

We began with a few pallets Mitch can get free from work and a couple of 2"x4" boards we had leftover from a previous project. A couple of screws, nuts, bolts, and a screen door latch made the project complete.

The base of the stand is a skid cut down to approximately 3' wide and 4' long (standard pallet length). Mitch pryed boards from a separate pallet to fill in the gaps. This was done with a pry bar, a claw hammer, and patience. You have to be careful when ripping off the boards since they are prone to breaking and splitting.

Mitch managed to hammer the nails in the reverse direction so that he could reuse most of them. This is also a delicate procedure as the nails like to bend. But, it helped us use less materials because recycling is fun!

We cut a 2x4 down to about 18" for legs. (Make 4) This makes the stand low enough for the goats to hop up and down to get on and off, but still high enough to adequately allow me to milk and perform maintenance duties on the goats. Since the stand was still pretty wobbly at this point, Mitch added a brace to each long (4') side. He accomplished this by prying up 2 more skid boards and screwing them into the legs. You wouldn't believe the difference it made. The front of the stand has additional braces to stabilize the head latch. These connect the front legs to the body under the stand.

The head latch is a frame made of 3 2x4 boards screwed to the base in a rectangular formation. Additional 2x4s are sandwiched in the frame to form the latch. This is done with 1x1 boards and 2x4s. The frame is also braced with 2x4s on each side, securing it further to the base.

One of the 2x4s sandwiched in the frame moves somewhat freely to open and close the latch. This is made to secure the goat's head to keep it steady.  We still have to add something in the front to attach a feeder to so the goats can happily munch while we work on them. Mitch added a bolt to the top of the moving latch board as a handle.

If everything goes as planned, our doe will be successfully bred by this winter and we'll be having a goat kid next spring. This stand will come in pretty handy when I'm using it everyday to milk with.

The goats can't wait to see the new stand. 

If anyone would like to know specific stand dimensions or has any questions, please feel free to ask. I'll do my best to answer them. 

Thanks for reading!

2013 Growing Season Summary

Hi all! I know it's been a long time. I'll be the first to admit I'm not so great at long term consistency, but I'm trying! I tend to tire of things quickly, but seeing as how this journey is important and dear to my heart, I want to try to continue documenting it. Try to be patient with me as I usually make all my posts with nothing more than my cell phone!

We've put the garden to bed for the year and it is time for me to write up a summary of our attempts. To summarize our first real attempt at growing a garden, I want to begin by saying that it was a real pleasure. Despite our joy, there were some things we weren't too impressed with, but we're sure we can improve with time and practice.

Good Garden Turnouts
1. Most of our plants grew very well and produced nicely.
2. Our sweet corn was stellar and we even had crossing of our two corn varieties, resulting in a lovely bi-color corn.
3. Our green beans were so productive, we were begging people to come and pick some for themselves!
4. Our peppers really put out the fruit at the end of the season, something we did not anticipate at all.
5. Our first attempt at growing potatoes was very pleasing with small, but plentiful and delicious potatoes. 
6. I realized how truly hardy brassicas can be!
7. We were so impressed with how the compost improved our soil and our plants.

Some Things We Wish To Improve
1. Weeding was so tedious and occupied much of our time early on. We will be trying a few new things next year to improve this.
2. Our corn rows were spaced too far apart to provide ample protection and support from winds and rains.
3. We didn't plant enough of anything (except beans!) to allow me to can or pickle properly.
4. Our biggest mistake was not planting early enough. Hopefully with having the established beds and our knowledge gained this year, we will be getting things out to follow the Farmer's Almanac.
5. We may have over fertilized some of our plants. Too much of a good thing and all.
6. We're going to improve our seed starting capabilities so that we can save money, have a better growing season, and have more heirloom plants.
7. We are going to try to save more seed of our own next year.
8. We are going to support our plants with better techniques and more attentiveness.
9. I'm waging war on cabbage moths next year. Dedpite the hardiness of our brassicas, I know they did not reach their full potential because of the cabbage moths/worms.
10. I want to be more prepared for the fruit and veggie harvests next year with more canning/freezing supplies on hand.

These are our main gripes for our first year. I'm positive we'll always have something to learn, but I'm hopeful the list won't be so dramatic and long in the coming years. In January of 2014 I want to compile a list of goals for our 2014 homestead endeavors. I've got a long list, but I think any homesteader will tell you there's always work to be done on the farm.

Thanks for reading!