Recently my grandmother came to visit and she said at one point after surveying our little homestead, "Who would have thought you'd be a farmer after all those years at the university?". Haha! It's extra funny to me because she is a pure European, through and through, and loves living in crowded little cities and using public transportation and all of that. My life couldn't be more different than hers.
It dawned on me that it might seem to some that after I married Michael he turned me into some country bumpkin. But this is not so! The truth is I had been a country girl at heart for a long time- I just didn't have the vehicle to live out my dreams! I long thought that I would want to raise kids in a place where they would have wide open spaces to explore and animals to take care of and chores to do to teach them how to work. I knew from the time that I left for college, probably after my first summer living in Jackson Hole, that I wanted to live a rural life one day, out in the country and away from all the madness. I just couldn't accomplish that dream alone. So I very deliberately went about spending time in more rural settings and looking for a country boy that could help make all my dreams come true. Actually right before I met Michael I was working with a dating coach who was helping me to get clear on what it was I wanted in my future and future spouse. She still to this day tells her clients about me who, when asked what I wanted in my future, I responded immediately "baby goats". And so here I am, living the dream.
Now don't get me wrong, I love modern conveniences as much as anyone else. I'm not about to build an outhouse or give up shopping at the grocery store. But in some ways I think we've become unhealthily dependent on modern conveniences. What if you couldn't get to a store for a couple weeks? What if a natural disaster interrupted power and water supplies for a couple weeks? Most of us are utterly dependent on others to provide the basic necessities of life for us, and if they fail it's an emergency. But our modern emergency was the pioneers every day life. I love being able to have the knowledge to live off the land, and carve out an existence for ourselves, while still enjoying modern conveniences when they serve us well. It provides a great sense of security. We have independent sources of water, power for electricity, gas for appliances, organic grass-fed beef to last us till the cows come home (see what I did there), chickens to lay eggs (and eat if needed), a large garden that produces enough vegetables to last through the year, and now even fruit trees! Soon little Nigerian Dwarf goats that we'll be able to milk and make all sorts of fun stuff! I love it!!
Ok so our recent additions this year:
Chickens
We replaced our flock of chickens this year with 12 little chicks. Since our dogs found a way into their coop last year and playfully killed all of them, (which totally devastated to me, by the way. I'm still sad about it) I've been looking forward to getting new chicks to start again. Our dogs are now nowhere near the coop and the coop has been reinforced so even if they are near it they shouldn't be able to get in. But I guess that's one of the risks you take when you have lots of animals. They don't all necessarily get along.
I just really like chickens. They are so social and docile, and serve so many purposes. Their poop is high in nitrogen so it's great for fertilizing the lawn or garden (although I don't particularly like stepping in it, so we've relegated them just to the garden). They till and clear soil well. They eat scraps. They provide one of the most perfect proteins known to men. And in a pinch you could use them for meat. I love having fresh eggs to eat for breakfast in the morning, and I love being able to give eggs away to family and friends. It's a perfect gift. Who doesn't like a dozen farm-fresh eggs?
So this year we decided we wanted brown and green eggs. So we got 4 Americaunas (Easter Egg layers), 2 Rhode Island Reds, 2 Buff Orpintons, 2 Barred Rocks, and a Well-Summer and a Silver Laced Wyondotte. Well, we thought we had 2 Barred Rocks, but it became clear very early on that one of the chicks was not like her sister and we continued to watch our mystery chick, wondering what breed we got. Well recently said chick grew a large red comb and waddle and began practicing crowing in the morning, so I had my suspicions. And then said chicken began mounting other chickens so that pretty much confirmed the unfortunate fact that we have unwittingly brought a rooster into our flock. I still haven't decided what to do with him. Michael keeps joking we should just eat him. Roosters are such a pain. But I have to admit it's kind of cute to hear him learning how to crow in his little adolescent voice. It's like watching a teenager when his voice changes. So awkward and endearing.
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| The babies |
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| The Adolescents |
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| Full Grown |
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| The dang rooster |
But if all goes well, we should start getting about a dozen eggs a day by August. Yay!
Bees
So honeybees are something I've been fascinated by for a long time and when our friends got some last year and didn't die, I figured we could probably figure it out too! The more research I did, the more fascinated I was by how complex and intelligent these creatures are! I started attending a bee keeping club in Roosevelt and even did a presentation to our homesteading group here to learn as much as I could about them. We ordered them from IFA- Italian bees, which are what 95% of beekeepers have- very docile bees. They came about 2 weeks ago and I'm still working out the nerves to be around their hive box!
They are very fragile creatures and you have to inspect the hive, especially at first, to make sure the queen is alive and laying, that they aren't preparing to swarm and find a new home, that they're getting enough pollen and nectar, that they have found a water source, etc. I have a whole bee suit and veil and a smoker canister and all, but I've still only opened the hive a couple of times. I'm sure that as I get more used to them I'll feel more confident handling them. I'm looking forward to seeing how much honey we get in the fall! We've had them for about 3 weeks now and they seem to be happily settling into their new home so so far so good!
We've planted some wildflowers in our back 5 acres that they seem to like, plus we have a lot of stray clover growing on our grounds from when they were hayfields. Bees love clover. We also have about 10 lilac bushes planted around the house that are just starting to blossom and they love those too. I'm not worried about them getting enough pollen and nectar since they go up to 2.5 miles foraging for food and we are surrounded by farmers. But it's fun to see them flying around our own flowers and trees and knowing we'll get better fruits and vegetables as a result.
Kittens!
No spring at the homestead is complete without a few batches of kittens. We've probably been through about 25 cats since living here- including kittens that were born and given away. We've officially purchased 4 cats. The first 2 were boys- Shadow and Mellow and they kept me great company, but they both went to sow their wild seeds that fall and never came back. Mellow wasn't particularly bright so we're sure he was outwitted by a coyote or something. And Shadow came back once after being gone for weeks, but then disappeared forever after that. Who knows if he was run over or found better accommodations. Or more likely, killed by coyotes. Winters are particularly hard on the cats as they become prey to hungrier and hungrier coyotes. If they stay within the fence they have shelter and protection, but if they choose to wander out, it's just a matter of time before they disappear. Feels like a deep spiritual analogy should be inserted here. All we can do is offer food and protection but it's up to them to stay within the fence.
The second set of kittens we purchased were both females, short hair, and we had them both declawed, intending for them to live inside. But then the hair. And the litter box. And just animals in the house. Couldn't handle it. So we moved them both outside after Levi was born, and they both adapted really well. (We have sheds and dog houses with blankets and heated spaces for them to be in so they have a pretty good life.) We named them Lily and Squeaks. They both got pregnant that spring, Squeaks twice, although she lost all but 1 kitten from her first litter because she didn't know what she was doing yet (sure glad I wasn't that bad of a mother! At least my kids are still alive!!). The one kitten that survived lost its tail to frostbite so we called her Stubs. She was a warrior and we decided to keep her. Plus she's all black and nobody likes all black cats, especially if they're missing tails. We ended up having a total of 15 kittens last year to give away! That's a lot of kittens. But we ended up giving all but 3 of them away- Stubs, and two toms, one from each cat. So we went into last winter with 5 cats, which is a good number if you want to come out on the other side with at least 2.
Of course early in January all the ladies went into heat and all 3 got pregnant- Squeaks, Lily and Stubs. But sadly, only one of our pregnant cats made it through to spring. I still have no idea where Squeaks or her daughter Stubbs went. But that's how it goes around here. They just kind of disappear and you're not sure if they're gone for a day or forever. So it's a good thing to have a few cats around to replenish the population. Once someone asked me if I needed help fixing my cats. I thought that was funny because it's not like we don't know how or don't have the ability. It's that we love kittens! I love the joy that comes to people's lives when they get a free kitten. It's pretty great. And cats serve a functional purpose out here. They really do keep the mice down. And we're lucky if they last 2 years since they tend to wander off so often and disappear so we need to keep replenishing the population. Maybe once we have cats that live longer than 2 years we'll consider fixing them. :)
So here's Lily, the last remaining survivor from the original bunch, with her new batch of kittens. She's a great mom, and always gives birth to 6 or 7 kittens. This spring we got 6 little cuties. Once she had them we realized one of the feral toms had impregnated her- which is better than her son or nephew I guess. But it means that they are all mostly black, which are hard to give away. And we had to hide them from our other two toms (Smokey and Stripes), since they were sired by a foreign tom, and their scent cues their hunting instinct. But now they're big enough to be out of danger and socialize and they all cuddle in this dog house together when it's chilly. And Stripes (one of the toms and one of Lily's first generation) sneaks in a sip or two of mamma's milk when he can. It's pretty funny to see a full grown cat nursing on a smaller cat.
I think having 2 toms (to fight off other toms) and 1 mamma cat is probably just about right. But we'll see how long they stick around.
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| Anybody want a free kitten? |
Fruit Trees!
We decided to start our orchard this year. This wasn't exactly planned for this year, but I did some research on the fruit that was the hardiest and would do the best, and when the fruit trees I wanted came in to the one nursery and no where else, I decided to take the plunge. We decided to get 2 apple trees (one Honey Crisp and one Honey Crisp intertwined with a Sweet Sixteen so they pollinate themselves), 1 pear tree, one flowering Crabapple tree for the bees, 2 cherry trees, and 2 peach trees.
Fruit trees are really hard to grow out here. We live at about 5,000 feet in an arid and cold climate and winters are hard on them. But we have some really amazing guys at the nursery we went to (Allred's) that gave us some great tips on where to plant them, how to keep them alive, and the ones that typically do best in this area. Plus our neighbors got fruit trees last year, that actually produced peaches in the first year that were amazing, and they lived through the winter. So I think we can do it if we baby them enough. And then the bees will be super happy with some flowering trees to pollinate.
Speaking of trees, I just have to give an update on our other trees. Last year we planted about 15 Poplars, the 10 Lilac plants and 2 years ago a cottonless cottonwood and I'm happy to say all are coming along well! The rabbits chewed on a few branches throughout the winter, but we put chicken wire around the bases of most of them and I think that helped. We also pounded in fertilizer stakes before the winter that I think helped to feed them all winter long, not to mention the massive snow fall we had that helped.
Also, our lawns are doing well too! We have lawn from 3 different plantings so it's interesting to see how they all come together. We first planted half of our backyard with bluegrass one year. Second year we seeded a Fescue bluegrass mix once we got the entire sprinkler system put in. And then we put bluegrass sod in the front. Of course the sod looked the best, but the Fescue mix seems to grow the best and green up the fastest. It's not as nice to walk on as bluegrass but it looks great.
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| To the left is the bluegrass we seeded 3 years ago. You can kind of see the divide where the greener Fescue grass starts |
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| This is the Fescue Mix, and this is it's second year |
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| Sod in the front and the tulips |
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| The tulips in front blooming at the first signs of spring |
Goats!
Ok so we don't have them yet, because they are still not weaned but I am so excited!!! These are the super cute jumpy kinds with the little waggy tails that make YouTube videos go viral. I am so excited!! We're getting 2 little does so that we can breed them later and also get milk eventually. We've been told that Nigerian Dwarf milk is the creamiest and has the highest fat content, even more than cows milk. In fact that's why you can't separate it and make butter and get the cream, etc. The fat molecules are smaller and are more infused in the entire milk. So we'll probably just drink the milk and make goat's milk soap. And turn them into little pets and weed eating machines to do our edging for us around the fence. :)
So that's all for this year. Michael is still working on building corrals for horses sometime in the near future. And eventually I think we'll get a miniature jersey cow for milking, but those both are quite the commitment in time and energy so we want to make sure we're ready for that. With the small animals we have now, we can stock up food and water and leave them for a few days to go out of town and ask the neighbors to check on them without too much fuss. It's a little bit different when you have a milk cow. But that's what kids are for right? Manual labor on the farm. If only Levi would grow as fast as the speed that we acquire new animals. :)
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| Levi and his newly acquired (stolen from the neighbors) lawnmower |
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| Alida trying to enjoy being outside |
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| Levi in his special chair that's just like dad's |
I am so happy for you!
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