Mulberries

There's an area in between the cabin, workshop, and rabbit barn that seems like a great place for a garden. Unfortunately, the soil isn't that good and there's a lot of shallow roots from the oak trees that shade it. So, we decided this would be the perfect spot to do a coppice garden.

Coppicing is when you can cut a tree or shrub way back and it will regrow, bushier than ever. The white mulberry tree is one that is excellent in this capacity and makes a great feed for our rabbits. We will also add rows of black locust trees at a later date.

We have planted 100 of the little trees, about two feet apart in rows that follow the contour. It's pretty hard to see them at the moment, as they are dormant (therefore have no leaves yet) and small, but they should become more visible in the Spring.

If they perform up to expectations, we should be able to coppice them every three months, and once they mature, each plant will produce about 5 lb of leaves per cutting. They are high protein, similar to the nutrient profile of alfalfa. This is a renewable and long-lived form of producing a high protein animal feed.

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Mulberries

Basketball

Although the boys had sports at their last school, they never got to compete. The schools in our rural area were so small that they only had one team each, which was usually selected out of the older grades.

Here, there are sports outside of school that you can sign your kids up for, and both Leo and Nick really wanted to do basketball. So, practices started a couple of weeks ago, and the first games were this Saturday.

They both had a blast. They lacked confidence at first, seeing as they had a lot less experience than the other kids, but they got into it and were doing really well by the end of it. The went on to spend the rest of the weekend practicing (we have two hoops set up in the workshop bay, one for each kid, at the height that they need). They are looking forward to practice tonight with the team and next Saturday's games!

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Basketball

Camry

We've been looking for a Toyota Camry for a while now, but they're pretty hard to find, mainly because the good ones get snapped up so fast! But this week, we found one we liked, and, miracle of miracles, it was still available.

It's a 2009, in good condition, and has relatively low miles. It drives great and is very comfortable, with a lot of space. We're all super happy with it.

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Camry

Water Tanks

At the moment, our house runs on well water. However, we plan to set up rain water catchment as soon as we can get around to it. We have a lot of catchment area, as we have the roofs of the house, shop, car ports and cabin. Plus it rains here throughout the year, so do not have to prepare for 9 months without rain. Those factors, coupled with the fact that the well water has a lot of rust in it and cannot be accessed in the event of a power outage, makes catchment a great option.

At our last place, we built cisterns. However, due to the amount of work we have to do, setting this place up, we decided to go with the quick and easy option - plastic tanks. We got a deal on three 5,000 gallon tanks, so we had them delivered. They looked pretty huge when they came on a trailer - 12 feet wide and 8 feet tall. At the moment, we have them on their sides, waiting to be set up. We'll put two on the catchment system, and one will go at the top of the property, to gravity feed the orchard.

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Water Tanks

John Muir

"How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains!" - John Muir

Puppies

When we moved from Mexico, we had planned to take our dogs, Sam and Sophie, with us. We hadn't even considered leaving them behind, although we did have some misgivings about moving them. The most important issue was that they were both used to running. There was nothing around our old place, and they had gotten into the habit of taking off, sometimes for a couple of days at a time. We knew that this would be a problem where we were going, as there are more people (and roads) around, and we had figured we would have to build some kind of pen for them until we could fence the whole property.

So, when one of the guys that had worked with us on our place told us he really wanted them, it set us to thinking. He had known them both since puppies and loved them, and would definitely take care of them, but were we prepared to go without them? After a couple of weeks of going back and forth, we decided to leave them, which was extremely sad, but probably best for everyone. We're still in touch with our friend, and he says that both dogs and his little kids are all very happy together.

So, after we had settled into to the new place, one of the first things we did was get new puppies. Each kid got to pick out a pup, and they made excellent choices.

Leo chose Chip, a rat Terrior. He's a character and a half, thinks he's human, and spends half his time walking on two legs! Nick chose Candy, a Catahoula. She's beautiful, extremely smart, fast, and a little wild! Both of them are going to make great dogs, and the kids especially adore them.

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Puppies

Marcus Aurelius

"That which is not good for the bee-hive cannot be good for the bees." - Marcus Aurelius

Cattle management

We've never much wanted to have cows ourselves, but it's been kind of interesting managing someone else's.

At the moment, we have them confined to just a couple of pastures, and are feeding them hay and some extra protein. However, in a few more weeks when the grass is growing again, we'll start rotating them through the other pastures as well. We normally move them every couple of days, so that they never graze the same grass for too long without a rest, and the grass is always lush by the time they get back to it.

We divide the pastures with electric fences, which the cows all respect now. When we need to move them, we just drop a fence and call them. They follow pretty easily.

There are 26 cows and 1 bull in all. They will probably start calving within the next month or so. Last year's calves did real well.

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Cattle management

Tree trimming

There are several extra jobs on our to-do list now that we live in the woods. One of them is trimming tree limbs, especially those over the house and around the chimney. The other is sweeping leaves off the roof and from the ground.

Although this results in a little extra work, it has also provided some valuable resources. Both leaves and wood chips are very useful in the garden, and of course we have an easy and plentiful source of firewood.

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Tree trimming

R. Buckminster Fuller

"There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly." - R. Buckminster Fuller

Insulation

The insulation in this house left a lot to be desired. Some of it had absolutely nothing (crazy, huh?), and the rest was just R13. So, to bring in the New Year, we decided it was high time we added an extra layer.

For those of you who have never had to crawl around in a small attic space, balancing on rafters, breathing in fiber glass and dust, you're lucky! It is one of the worst and most uncomfortable jobs. It took us three days to finish the whole house, but now that it's done we're happy.

We have between R32 and R38 over the whole space and it has made a big difference to the overall warmth of the house. We didn't get many photos of the task, as we had enough to contend with without a camera, so I just have one pic taken through the attic door.

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Insulation

Black Soldier Flies

For serious composters, Black Soldier Flies, hermetia illucensor, are a miracle insect. The BSF larvae (grubs) love putrid wastes, and are highly efficient at composting them. Grubs can reduce the mass of waste by 95%, leaving a fine compost behind, as well as a compost tea that, once diluted, is an excellent fertilizer for the garden. They don’t like competition, so they give off a distinctive odor to repel other flies. Adult BSF don't eat waste and so are not a pest in any way.

Once the grubs are ready to pupate, they climb out of the compost bin (as long as the ramp is 30-45 degrees), and drop themselves into a bucket, a meal fit for any number of small livestock, like chickens, fish, lizards, quail, and even pigs. They’ll convert 5 pounds of waste into 1 pound of high protein grubs, and they’ll do it faster than you would believe.

At the old place, we had tried repeatedly to raise BSF, but the lack of humidity had always made it very difficult. So, when we moved to the new place, we were delighted to find out that they were already present. We rigged up a small compost bin, and have been collecting BSF ever since.

 

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Black Soldier Flies

Snow

While winters are not particularly cold in this part of the world, we did get a little snow. It was gone by the afternoon and didn’t cause any problems, but while it lasted it was beautiful.

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Snow

Weather

Where we were, we had an average of 25” of rain annually, but it almost all fell over the rain season, between July and October. We therefore had a long dry season to contend with. Here, things seem a lot more balanced, with a couple of inches of rain each and every month. This is certainly better for the plants, but it will also be great when we set up rain water catchment, as we won’t have to have nearly as many storage tanks as an 8-9 months dry season requires.

We have already experienced some of the extremes of the area, as we arrived here a little before Hurricane Harvey did. In our old place, we had the Sierra Madre mountain range in between us and the hurricanes, so we got a very diluted effect. Harvey gave us 15” of rain in 2 days, but everything handled it very well.

Another thing that’s great here is that we’re pretty protected from the wind. The woods seem to absorb most of the currents, so we don’t seem to have the high gusts that we had before.

The one difference that’s not so desirable is the humidity. Dry heat is fairly easy to deal with - you just get in the shade, have something cool to drink, and maybe turn on a fan. Humidity is much harder to escape from. In July and August we had the air conditioning turned on a lot, which doubled our power usage. We may have to figure out some other form of cooling for next summer.

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Weather

Kurt Vonnegut

"If people think nature is their friend, then they sure don't need an enemy." - Kurt Vonnegut

School

The school they were at before was very small, 24 kids in total over 6 grades. This had some definite advantages, but we’re not unhappy about the move to the bigger institution, which has about 500 kids. At the very least, it offers them both a little more competition.

They now take a bus to and from school, which they like, but it does make for a longer day than they were used to. Leo especially was extremely tired at the beginning, but now seems to have found his stride.

We were worried that they would struggle at first, as all of their schooling had previously been in Spanish and about Mexican history and culture. However, they don’t seem to be at all fazed, with both of them averaging high 90s in all subjects, even spelling (let’s be honest folks, English is the worst language in the world to spell).

I do miss the intimacy of the previous school (I knew every single child at the school as well as their parents), but this one actually seems to be pretty good, and the kids are very happy.

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School

Fishing

There are three ponds that we have access to, one on our land and two on the land that we help to manage. One of these is stocked with Bass, Catfish, and Bluegill, and we stocked the other two with fish as well.

The boys especially love to go fishing. They mostly catch and release the Bluegill, but they have kept some of the bigger ones for eating. They can both now scale their victims, and we have had a couple of meals provided by their efforts.

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Fishing

Claude Monet

"I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers." - Claude Monet

Hunting

One of the greatest resources in our area is feral hogs. I know that most people consider these a bane on the landscape, but we’re actually kind of thrilled, especially as there is no restriction on the hunt season. We kept pigs for a long time and know exactly what is involved in keeping them fed, so the fact that there is a big herd here that we don’t have to tend to at all is great.

We have a hog trap, which we set periodically. We tend to go for the younger hogs, and we can now field-dress one in about 20 minutes.

Unlike people’s preconceptions, the meat is tender and very tasty (I’m sure old boar would be different, but we’ll avoid that unless desperate!). We make sure we cook it to the required temperature, to avoid any danger from parasites and the like. Slow cooked pork roast has become a staple in our household!

There are also plenty of deer and wild turkey on our land. We haven’t made use of these yet, but we might before the hunt season is over. The only problem with the deer is their grace and beauty; it has become a genuine pleasure to watch them grazing. Still, you don’t actually want to let the deer population get too numerous, so one day we may have to overcome our aesthetic sensibilities.

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Hunting