Water Update - 2016 January 11

Papa finally arrived last night around 10pm.  Upon getting to the well house, he found that the heat lamp bulb had burned out and a fuse had been blown. Since I've not been to the well house after he finished winter proofing it last fall, it is unlikely I would have been able to find the issue by myself. It was so great that he could come down and rescue me. The dog, Summer, enjoyed the trip and was pleased to see me.

When it was time to head back to the city this morning, Summer was not very happy. She loves it down here. She spent quite some time with her nose buried in the snow following some animal's trail through the yard. So she and Papa loaded up the truck and headed back to the city leaving me in the quiet.

A good part of the morning was spent looking for bargains on Ebay, Craigslist & Amazon without success. There are so many things we need before we can have animals here - fencing, water containers, food troughs, shelter. We are thinking seriously about getting some American Guinea Hogs this spring. They are a heritage breed that doesn't get very large - 250-300 #s. Not only would it be nice to raise our own meat and knowing what is used to grow it, but it's bacon. And sausage. And ham. And pork chops. And ribs. And pork tenderloin. And...Who can argue with that?





http://guineahogs.org/

We have multiple fields that need to be brought back to productivity. We had a local farmer over to see if they were interested in harvesting for us. They said they were too full of weeds. Their suggestion was to saturate it with Round Up and replant. They would be willing to do that for us and then share the hay. Papa thinks I'm crazy but that just can't be healthy. This is the hay we would use in our garden and to bed our animals in. So I've been researching better ways to get them back in shape.

One of the most interesting ones I've read about is to use your animals, pigs & fowl, to eat the weeds and root out the seeds and roots. It's so turned over by time they're done that the ground is ready for planting without even having to plow. I'd like to start with a part of the South field behind the house and see how quickly it would be cleared. Guinea Hogs are ready to butcher at about 18 months. If you get them at 6 - 8 weeks, that is still over a year to get them in the freezer. If we get 3-4, I wonder how much land they could clear in one spring/summer. We hope to contact a  farmer in a nearby town who raises them to get his take on doing this and to see if he'll have any piglets this spring.

The rest of the day was spent reading up on Organic Orcharding. I'm hoping to get a small one started yet this spring. So now I'm pulling out the Stark Bros and the seed catalogs. Some women want designer shoes and clothes. Some want to travel the world. Some want jewels and fancy cars. These days, I want seeds, bushes and trees. Lots of kinds of seeds. I want to see which ones are easy and which ones are hard to grow. I want to see what they look like in the yard and garden. I want to taste their produce to see which ones taste best. And at 3 - 5 dollars a package, I get to indulge myself. A lot. And I like that.