Tag Archives: Homestead

Cats, dogs, chickens, and other critters, Homestead

Finally, a recall

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Finally! Purveyors of chicken jerky treats for dogs are voluntarily recalling products based on antibiotic residue found in chicken jerky treats coming from China.

“Milo’s Kitchen® today announced that it is voluntarily recalling its Chicken Jerky and Chicken Grillers home-style dog treats from retailer shelves nationally. No other Milo’s Kitchen® products are affected. ”

“Nestle Purina PetCare Company and its wholly owned subsidiary Waggin’ Train, LLC today announced it is voluntarily withdrawing its Waggin’ Train and Canyon Creek Ranch brand dog treats sold in the United States until further notice. ”

Of course, at the ranch, we make our own, so we know what’s in them: chicken. No glycerol, no antibiotics, no anything else. Grind it, put it in the jerky gun my aunt Susi kindly gave me for xmas, and stuff them in a low oven to dry. The salmon jerky was way smellier, but they seemed to love the stuff, so another batch of that will be in the offing as well.

Bees and beekeeping, Cancer, Gardening, Homestead

Winter

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Such as it is – or isn’t. We had a couple of days of lows in the 20s, but that’s what passes for winter here. Today, we maxed out at 88 in the sun in the front garden. Each year is getting hotter than the last, and still people deny that global warming is an actual event, occurring in their lifetimes.

Much of my winter will be spent redoing the frames around the farm, to get rid of the wood that takes a beating and then warps or otherwise falls apart with roofing metal that will probably outlive me. This week, I spent two days redoing the herb garden frames after spending three days viciously ill with some kind of crap. After two days, the frames themselves are completed, and now need to be finished off by topping them with a good soil mix, relaying the irrigation lines, and bringing in some fresh mulch to freshen what’s there and cover the now bare spots left by the rearrangement. Oh, and putting some seed in, because while we may get a couple of random days of freeze between now and spring, it looks like it’s going to be more springlike than winterlike for us moving forward.

We had one hive of bees abscond, but the other two are well, for now. I’ve ordered up two new packages for the spring (to be delivered in May), and will need to build a new set of brood boxes for the second package since we have the now empty brood boxes for the other package. I burned the frames from the vanished hive as a precautionary measure. After the flames were out and I was scraping up the ash and pins from the frames, I saw some bees flying around the pools of solidified beeswax.

For now, I’m ill with what seems to be a relapse of whatever I had earlier in the week. I’ve had the flu vaccine because my doctor always bugs me about it – I’m now in the “at risk” group thanks to (fuck!) cancer and the effects of radiation and chemo – but it surely feels like the flu. Maybe I’m in that 35% where it turns out it isn’t effective. Whatever it is, it needs to go, because there’s a lot of work to be done, seeds to start, and a season to prepare for, even if the season appears to already be here.

Gardening, Homestead

Winter project

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Winter (or what passes for winter here) project: replacing all the remaining wooden frames with metal. That’s about 90 frames or so to redo. And fill with good soil mixed with cow poop. Yesterday we ordered a bunch of material for delivery from Home Depot, and picked up the miscellaneous other items we needed so we can plow through (so to speak) to have it all done by March when it will be time to start peas and beans. Bro #2 will be assisting by cutting the metal to size for me and also getting the supports cut down for bracing. Then yours truly will begin the laborious process of replacing the existing frames and topping them with the good, poopy dirt from an old dairy farm, which we will have delivered this week, most likely, so it can age out a bit. If anyone wants a bunch of 1″ x 6″ x 8′ boards, you’re welcome to them for free – but you have to come pick them up. There will also be some 1″ x 6″ x 4′ boards as well, although some of those are in only fair condition because they’ve been out the longest.

Cats, dogs, chickens, and other critters, Food, Gardening, Homestead

Another day at the ranch

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Morning thus far: retrieved the trash can and two days’ worth of mail, made another batch of syrup for the bees, checked the transplanted tomatoes (a few knocked out by the storm yesterday, but overall, not bad), checked the cuke progress (flowering!), watched a super league rugby playoff match from Sunday, fed and watered the dogs, and sliced a bunch of chicken into thin strips to make jerky. For the dogs – because I keep reading bad stories about chicken jerky treats from China, and the jerky at Costco? From China. We’ve not noticed any ill effects on our dogs from that, but making our own is easy enough (plus we know exactly what’s in it: chicken, no glycerin). Now eating and waiting for two new servers to show up so I can build those out and hustle them to the NOC. The day is young!

Cats, dogs, chickens, and other critters, Homestead, Life in general

Dealing

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Short of hiring a bunch of people to come out and get the property releveled and sloped appropriately to make up for my jerk of a neighbor raising the base of his property at my expense by trucking in huge amounts of dirt (and instead of my jerk of a neighbor doing the right thing and sloping everything to the pond he has at the back of his property), for now, every time we get dumped on, we have to deal with the flooding. We also have to deal with the animals – both chickens and dogs – getting into and drinking the water. All of the animals are happy enough to get ass deep in the water and drink from the lakes that form wherever they happen to have access, neither of which is pretty. Well, I take that back: it’s pretty disgusting, especially if it’s an area that has been shat upon by said animals. But when I look at the big picture and realize I can’t really do anything about it at this point except try to keep them out of those places until things dry out, life is much less stressful.

Bees and beekeeping, Homestead

Morning on the ranch

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Everyone was up and moving around earlier than usual this morning. Mom is off for a week for vacation in the Blue Ridge area, so we packed her up and saw her off (we meaning the dogs and me, along with assorted other critters). It was quite foggy this morning, but started burning off immediately, and it should be a gorgeous day at the ranch. No rain in the forecast, and it hasn’t rained the past couple of days. This is a good thing, as we are absolutely saturated here, and still have some good sized mini lakes scattered around the property. What we really need, and which I hope to be able to do today, is a good mowing, since the grass has taken full advantage of the daily rains we had over the past week and a half. This morning, though, was just for looking around and marveling at the sheer number of spider webs. ‘Tis the season for this sort of thing.

They were everywhere. From the branches of a pear tree in a bucket in the herb garden…

…to the fence around the rear garden…

…to a supremely ambitious, human-sized web by the barn…

…to those seeming to float from their anchors in other places.

The girls were also up and working hard. Eventually, they’ll earn their own keep instead of requiring us to feed them every day to keep them alive. Until there is a good sustained bloom, though, I change out their feeders every day (or every other day, depending on the weather and how much syrup they’re taking).

 

Cancer, Gardening, Homestead

A new season

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I’m aiming for another 40′ of cuke seed into one of the frames I converted previously from wood to steel. We’ve been having rain every day for the past four or five days. Not a ton, but anywhere from a quarter to a half inch each day. In and of itself: good. As it relates to already soaked ground that can’t keep up with absorption: not good. As it relates to mosquitoes having lots and lots of babies that grow up into adult bloodsuckers: worse. Luckily, the last visit to Home Depot I picked up more mosquito dunks so I can go toss those into the standing water areas to try to cut down on the wild mosquito sex parties going on out there.

The flats in the barn are still growing strong, and I’m hoping to plant those out in the first week of September. That will hopefully give us just enough time before things start getting dicey to get another harvest out. If I’d thought more about it, I would have put in another flat of jalapenos, to have more of those on hand for new batches of salsa (current inventory: zero). Unfortunately, I didn’t, and by the time I got them germinated and transplanted, it would probably be too late. Still, I could give it a go – what’s the worst that could happen? No harvest. There’s been plenty of that around here even in the regular season, and it is life on the farm, so perhaps tomorrow I’ll line up another flat for that.  It’s also time to check the peanuts out back and see if they’re ready to come out and be cured a bit before going into the freezer for future boiling. I also need to get some carrot, onion, and leek seed in. Overwintered onions and leeks do well here given that we have so few heavy, long-lasting freezes that can cause heaving. We finally found a couple of Haas avocado trees, and they are doing quite well, and we fully intend to baby them in the winter, even though they are supposed to be frost hardy into the 20s – handcart into the garage even though the whiskey barrels we have them in weigh a ton will probably wind up being the plan. In a month or so, we’ll be digging sweet potatoes from the back garden area, including the new growth from those we missed last year, which started popping up again. They’re a bit like peanuts and jerusalem artichokes in that regard, and which we also have found popping up from previous plantings: if you don’t get them all, you’ll find you have them regrowing in a space where you might have planted something else the next season. That can be a little annoying, but it does teach you some lessons about what is really hardy and grows without too much complaint down here.

I’ve also been weeding like a crazy person, beyond my two bag quota per day. I pulled up a bunch yesterday and thought I might skip today since my hands were a bit creaky from the marathon. But, it has to be done, so I got off my ass and pulled five bags worth of weeds today to add to the collection that will cause the yard waste guys to curse us (again) on Friday, with more to come because the weeds never stop.

Only two days to get the stitches out of my face from the tooth extraction. It’s a good thing I can’t move my tongue or I’d be playing with the annoying things all day long like a kid with a loose tooth.