Spring is in the Air!

Busy days at the little farm. After a fall and winter without the beef cows across the way we are excited to see the return of a new herd of about 30 black and red Angus cows. I suspect some of the previous herd is in freezers across NC.  As  usual the days have been busy around here as we continue to work at revitalizing the old buildings and getting the garden started.

We have gotten the new metal roof on the garage and replaced the two front support posts that were rotten and termite ridden. That job was hired out, as we just can't do it all. Though I think we could have if we had the time. This fall I am hoping to get it resided. The framing is actually pretty sound. I dream of adding rain a water collection system at the back which would probably catch enough water to water the garden. There are two "lean too"  sections behind the main "garage buildings.

Friend Andrew tilling new plot

Karen working the Broad fork

The garden plots are all prepped for what we will plant this spring and summer. That was one of the most laborious and time consuming tasks so far. The ground was hard as a rock(almost) and after the tiller broke up the top inch or two of sod, the rest of the deep soil loosening was done by hand, and foot. The broad fork is my new favorite hand tool. With some effort it will loosen the most compacted soil to about 12 inches deep. It took about 6-7 hours of work to prep each 5 x20 foot bed. We have 10 beds...

Tomato and peppers heading to garden

Our tomatoes,  not a vineyard...

 We have the tomatoes and peppers  in and a raised bed of various salad greens that will soon be harvest-able.  We had to cover them up a couple nights this past week after a cold front brought some frost this week. It looks like we dodged that bullet. I lost a little sleep over that. After raising the plants from seed, and planting over 40 of them it would have been a tremendous loss. Hopefully no more temps in the 30's at night.  When it warms up a little more we will plant the beans, summer squashes, cukes, and melons. Strawberries are ripe and and Karen and the kids picked several small pails and we have been eating them all weekend. Karen and Ethan also made some jam to enjoy over the rest of the year.



After the garden is in, the next big project is going to be laying the five tons of flagstone for our walkway from the garage to the house, about 115 feet. Surely that will be a piece of cake! :)  I think we are looking at several weekends of hard labor there.On a brighter note, our new chicks(45) to replenish and build our laying flock arrived in the mail this morning just as scheduled. We will keep about 20 and sell the rest to friends and neighbors. I forgot to get a picture of them. Next time.





 And last but not least an introduction to the newest member of our family... just arrived last Friday, semi spontaneously, and we have yet to come up with a name that suits him. He is part American bulldog, part shepherd, and only God knows what else, but we like the final package. If I do say so myself I have never seen a cuter puppy! 

                                                             As the kids say...OMG!




                                              Until next time....the view from the back four.....

Spring Projects....

So the spring weather has really opened up the opportunity to get more things done around the farmstead. Our biggest priority right now is getting the garden ready for planting. Before we can even contemplate doing that we needed to put up a deer fence. This took about two weekends to erect the posts and then get up the actual fencing. Although the post hole auger was a help we still had to drive the metal posts(13 of them) almost two feet into the ground by hand and sledge hammer. Hard labor pretty much sums up that job! Thanks to Ross "the deer hunter" we got them all in in the ground in a few hours. Ethan was the inspector.

The only reason we are smiling is because we are done!

The following weekend we were on our own to erect the actual 7.5 foot high fencing. The garden space is 78 x 78 feet. It will take me two to three years to use all the space as planned.

This past weekend I had a couple friends from work come over to help do some barn restoration. Primarily replacing some dry rot and post termite ridden framing. I had the place carbon dated and it dates back to the early 1900's...just kidding, but probably close.

Hard to appreciate from the photo but this pole was dry rotted pretty much from bottom to top.




Look at this picture slowly as we were very proud of our work... and it took the good part of the day for three of us to complete. You can't appreciate some of the inside work we had to do at the top of that corner post. I was a bit worried thebarn would cave in when I cut out the bottom section, but it did not budge. The rest of the framing is decent, a few more 2x 4 to replace inside the front and it will be ready for the siding to go up.

This a view of the garden from by the front of the barn. You can see a few of my garden beds...almost a weeks worth of work there..but that is another story.