Self-Sufficiency Skills

How many of the following skills do you have? I think these are necessary for those who wish to be more self-sufficient.

1. Food - can you grow your own food, including maintaining strong soils and seed saving? can you preserve foods in root cellars, freezers, pickling and canning? can you cook good foods? do you know about nutrition to create a diet that sustains your body? can you raise and process animals for meat, if you are a meat-eater?


2. Shelter - can you do repairs - to your home's plumbing, electric, roof, and structure? can you paint and maintain the surfaces to keep your home structurely sound? can you use and maintain tools for building and farming?


3. Energy - can you use a chain saw, split and dry wood, build a fire and maintain a wood stove? can you use passive and active systems to generate energy for your home and farm?


4. Clothing - can you make repairs? Can you sew, knit, quilt, weave, or crochet to make clothing, re-cover furniture or create your own bedding?

What else am I forgetting? Relationships? Aren't caring for your soul and for your heart important too? Do we all pay enough attention to that area of self-reliance - the part where we care for others and allow them to care for us too? We can't be self sufficient alone, please remember.

an almost vacation week

2 meetings today - but after those and a hike, I have some more serious living to do -

1. get out into the garden before it rains
2. get the fan into the meat bird coop to blow away the humidity
3. start building a new chicken tractor with son
4. set up my oilpaints and soak in the beauty of Vermont in June and apply paints to canvas

summer chores - on a almost vacation week

I think we might keep Scooter and raise him as a bull. We don't want to keep paying for fees for breeding and there isn't Dexter semen available for AI around here. Little Ton will probably be sold this year though. She's a sweet and spirited long legged calf.

I have a long list today -

1. weed the collective garden, figure out what people owe, and make sure everyone is coming for chicken processing this sunday
2. weed my own vegetable garden, plant more beans and lettuce and stake the tomatoes
3. find out what the contractor's fee is going to be to clean up the paddock mud
4. plant dahlias in my front flower beds and hope it isn't too late, weed there too
5. move the laying hens' chicken tractor
6. finish painting the kitchen and move on to the living room

You'd think all this rain would make the grass grow enough to allow the cows to graze without bellowing for hay. But nooooo. This morning I was trying to sleep in for the first time in months and months, and they were hollaring for hay. We went out and fed them and I looked around the field. Do we need warm weather and rain for the field grass to grow? When is summer coming anyway?

You can have a farm on limited acreage, but if you plan to raise large animals, expect to buy hay year round. Hay is $4.50 a bale here and each of the adult cows eat a bale a day. Right now, we are raising two cows for milking and calves, and one for meat, and we have the two new calves. We'll have a bull staying here in a month, but before that the beefer will be processed and the calves moved or sold. I don't think it is safe to have calves here when the bull is here, and if I don't wean the calves at 3 months, I don't get to milk the cows.

Even with 3 adult cows our fields are full. Five acres isn't enough. We have 22 total, but much of it is covered with a maple wood lot, our sugar woods. We need to create more meadow, or have less cows, or get more out of the use of those woods!

I love watching the calves play. I know I should be making arrangements for August - when the calves will go off and the bull will come, and I can start milking -- but I love this time of year when we don't have as much work with the cows, and can just watch them play.

We have several days of rain forecast. I'm hoping that our contractor gets back to me quickly with the cost for doing the paddock. It is so muddy and wet in there.

In the house, I've been working a lot and getting things straightened up. I want to start every list of things to do with the words SIMPLIFY, SIMPLIFY, SIMPLIFY! at the top. I need more margin in my life for the ocassional run away calf or absconding chicken. Life right now seems too complicated. Summer is so planned out now it seems like it will be over very quickly. I need to start saying no, when I have the impulse to volunteer myself.

chickens -

Our meat chickens are thriving. We bought 26 birds on May 23, and each was 3 weeks old. We paid $3.25 each for them. We could have had day old chicks and fussed with keeping the temperature at a steady +90 degreesF, but decided to pay a little more and buy older birds. In the past some of the baby chicks died, so I think this is just as economical.

We'll process these birds on June 28, when they are 8 weeks old. The collective has signed on to help with that work, and each family will take some birds home in exchange for cash for expenses and their labor doing this messy job.

We'll probably do a couple more flocks so that we'll have 50 birds in our freezer for this fall and winter. We like to have at least one chicken a week - we roast it, then boil the carcass for a few days of soup from vegetables in the root cellar - potato, carrot, onion, squash soups - together or separately. I just found out that my sister also freezes okra, like I do, so she can make our Dad a pot of gumbo once in awhile. Who else in the world freezes gumbo, north of the Mason-Dixon line anyway?

We're working on a plan for the 30'x60'muddy cow paddock -

first - we have to keep the water from emptying from the field to the paddock - the ring of hills surrounding the field dump tons of water into the highest traffic area - a great recipe for deep mud. So - just before the paddock and the front of the field, we'll build a higher hill to allow water to pool in the center of the field, and not flow over the existing small hill, into the backyard. We'll also keep one area from being grazed, so water that makes it over the hill can pool there temporarily in the long grass.

We'll leave the paddock with a high spot and low spot, and dump 4 inches of 1 1/2 inch gravel in the low spot. We'll cover the paddock with 1 roll of 15x300 geotextile (road fabric). I think we're buying a product called Cow Carpet. then we'll cover the fabric with 6 inches of 1/2 inch gravel with fines, and put 3 inches of pea gravel on top. We'll scoop the manure out as necessary, and I'm sure some of the pea gravel will end up in the manure sometimes, but that's no big deal.

Doing it this way will stop the flooding - but will stop the mud from working up to the surface too. We need the paddock to be dry and not smelly - for us and the cows.

I'm still working on all the costs but the fabric is $600, drop shipped. The gravel is going to be about $1000 total, but not delivered. We'll have to get our guy who can spread the gravel to also pick it up - and his cost will be the highest part. So - the whole thing may cost $2000. The trick now is to figure out if it will all really work - and if that's the true cost.

This was our menu for the graduation party - for 50 people

Shrimp cocktail, local camembert and crackers, homemade black bean salsa and chips

Bosky Dell Farm hamburgers - our very own
Local kielbasa on the grill
Tofu - sliced and marinated in 4 T soy sauce, 3T rice vinegar, 2T canola oil, and 1tsp chili sesame oil - then grilled

Tortellini - with our own pesto - 4 cups basil leaves, 8oz parmesan, 4 garlic cloves, 1 tsp kosher salt, 1/2 cup pine nuts, 1 1/2 cups olive oil - in the foodprocessor
Broccoli salad - parboiled broccoli, cubed cheddar, red onion, cherry tomatoes, raisins - with a dressing of 1 c mayo, 2T rice vinegar, 1/4 cup sugar, salt and pepper
Caprese Salad - slices of local mozzarella, local tomatoes, basil, drizzled with olive oil, salt and pepper
Karen's salad - with blueberries, shredded mozzarella, strawberries, lettuce and other goodies with a sweet vinaigrette

Carrot cake cupcakes with cream cheese icing, Coconut cupcakes, Faye's fudge and chocolate iced brownies, and Marie's and Claire's chocolate dipped strawberries.

some of the things we've been doing lately -

1. figuring out how to overcome the mud in the paddock - I'm researching using geotextiles, a layer of gravel, then a layer of pea stone on top of the mud in the paddock.
2. chasing 2 new calves in the woods and shoring up the external cow fence to keep them in
3. discovering the first calf, Ton, is a heifer, not a bull - and renaming her Antoniette!
4. feeding 3 coops of chickens and watering them once a day - and figuring out how to install drip waterers
5. finishing planting the vegetable and flower gardens with dahlia tubers, more beans, and more lettuces
6. entertaining visiting family and hiking up mountains and exploring cave quarries with nieces and our brother in law.
7. enjoying the celebration of a daughter's high school graduation. she is smart, charming, and beautiful. She achieved a lot in high school - in sports, academics, and in making many friends. We couldn't be prouder of our dear daughter.

new calf

Another new calf born this morning. I went out to check on the cows and noticed one of them was not eating the hay. Blue was up on the hill by herself. She was laying down.

I walked up and she didn't stand up, which is unusual. And there, on the other side of one of the internal fences was a little calf. As I stood there and took the scene in I noticed the birth sac lying on the ground near them. I opened the gate to the other field and the little calf stood up as I approached. Another bull calf! I scooted him back under the fence and his mama stood up and started mooing to him in that low mother voice, licking him, as he walked around and 'round her trying to get to her dripping teats.

After he was fully washed by her tongue, she let him start suckling. He's long legged and beautiful - a dark brown color, and quite healthy and vigorous. The other calf is three weeks older and he ran circles around the two.

Happy day - that the mama had her baby successfully - this calf is the 6th we've seen born on our farm in 3 years of having cows. The first year we had two heifer calves, the second year one of each, and this was the year, statistically, to have 2 bull calves.

Anyone want to buy a Dexter bull calf in Vermont?

Wow - i'm almost done with spring chores.

Today we planted broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, jalapenos, tomatoes, parsley, tarragon, yellow squash, zucchini, cucumbers, and staked the pole beans and snow peas. Tomorrow I'll plant the swiss chard, more lettuce, more provider beans.

I love this time of year. I'm working hard at work, walking regularly to get ready for our fall mountain climb, and somehow we're taking care the farm and gardens too. I don't know how there are enough hours in the day - but I have a huge amount of energy and am ready for anything! I love spring!

The biggest nastiest spring chore still lays ahead - the barn stall. Sunday - I have a date with Bob to clean up the barn. We're going to a nice hike too.