Worm harvester 2.0

Back in August we made a worm harvester to make the job of separating our earthworms from the wonderful fertilizer they produce a lot easier. It worked pretty well, but there were some issues, like it was kind of shaky. So we remade it (a couple of times actually) to get a better version.

It now makes very easy work of the chore and is smooth and fast.

We'll be putting the how-to article here on the site within the week - just need to finish editing it. For photos, click here.

A day in the Life of Leo

I've had a few complaints from family about not doing any updates on Leo recently, so here's one for the grandparents - be warned, it's kind of long. I'm afraid we haven't taken many photos or videos recently, but I will try and amend that over the next week. For this month's photos (both the ones we have and will take), click here.

A typical day for Leo begins at about 6am. He wakes up, grabs his water and the toys I place by his bed after he falls asleep at night, and comes into our room. He clambers up into our bed and will either snuggle up and fall asleep for another hour or play with his toys on our heads and bodies. The toys in question are his favorites of the moment, the ones he falls asleep clutching. Right now, they consist a small elephant, pig and truck.

We all go downstairs and have breakfast. Of course, the elephant and pig have to eat some of whatever he is eating, and they seem to especially like submerging themselves in milk. Every once in a while, one of them will fart (the sound having been faked by little lord Leo), and Leo will then exclaim "Oh, oink!" and then laugh heartily with his father.

While we do a few morning chores, Leo watches one of his movies on the laptop. It is really a credit to some of the movies out there that we can see them OVER AND OVER again and still find them entertaining (examples: Cars, Horton Hears a Who, Sesame Street videos, Shrek, Jungle Book).

We go outside and play with the dogs and rabbits. It's amazing what both will put up with from the two year old terror.

Abe and I then take it turns to work and watch Leo. Work currently involves prepping for building the cistern, planting, digging trenches, and other rain season jobs.

Leo spends a lot of time outside and we encourage him to "help" us with as many of our chores as possible (dishes, laundry, planting, making rock swales, feeding, watering, etc.). He loves to go hiking, especially if a water feature is included. We'll often hike over a mile each way. He runs half the way there, over pretty steep hills, and walks the other half. However he usually wants to be carried a lot of the way back.

Inside play involves hide-and-seek, running like a madman all over the place, tipping out all his toys and then putting them back again (minus one or two "chosen ones"), shapes, alphabet jigsaw, number cards, jumping and somersaulting on the bed, jumping and somersaulting on us, looking at books, talking to his talking Elmo. The list goes on.

He has a nap after lunch. Every once in a while he won't take a nap, but that usually leaves him super grumpy in the evening.

And grumpy also usually rears its ugly little head during the day too. He's only had one tantrum so far, which we're thankful for. However, he does whine or cry some when he doesn't get what he wants. Listening is pretty selective, which is normal I guess, for a male of the species. When he doesn't listen on something important (like don't go near the electric fence without us), he gets a smack or harsh words, at which point he gets very upset and wants to be cuddled.

Language is helping with the frustration he must feel. His extent of comprehension, both in English and Spanish, is impressive, and very recently he is starting to say a lot more words. After talking very little up til now, he is suddenly taking off. He's also putting up to three words together for more complex desires. For example, "Car, wa-wa, shoes" means "let's get in the car, drive down to the river where you can put my water shoes on and we'll get in!". However, the flip side of that is that even though he can make his wishes much clearer, we still sometimes refuse to give him what he wants - so he'll just repeat it over and over, looking at us as though we are deaf or stupid.

In the evening we go feed the animals, and here comes his favorite chore. He gets to help us pick worms out of the worm bin, and it is then his job to feed them to the chickens. He LOVES this. He especially likes to hold the worms out of reach, so the chickens have to jump to get them, and believe me, they will jump HIGH for worms.

We have dinner. He eats great overall. He is a little tricky to feed, as he loves something one meal and won't touch it on the next. He also tends to snack a lot in between meals - fruit, yogurt, nuts. All in all, if you can't get him to eat what it is we happen to be eating, he will always eat meat then fruit (pretty efficient way to get your requirements I suppose).

In the evening, we'll often watch a movie. When it's not one he's interested in, he contents himself with climbing all over you and running around. We usually have to watch a movie 3 or 4 times before we have seen it all.

He falls asleep in my arms between 9 and 10. You know he's asleep when he finally releases his elephant, pig and truck, which he has had in his hands throughout the day. I am sure to put them by his bed once he's asleep, as they are the first thing he looks for when he wakes up.

Odd Jobs

We've been doing lots of odd jobs around the place.

Our small worm farm has grown so much that we had to make them a new worm bin. We cleaned out the old one and split the worms between the two bins. Both of us had handfuls and handfuls of worms, like spaghetti. Now that our original two small tubs have grown so much, we will soon be setting up a proper system for them, which separates the poop (which goes on the garden) and the worms (which help compost scraps and feed the chickens).

I finished the toilet's sawdust container.

Abe planted 10 more apple trees, given free by the local council. All the ones we planted before (cherries, apricots, plum) are now leafed out and pretty. The only one that hasn't is the pecan, but it is certainly very healthy.

We're making a movable hen house and pen. We have lost too many to coyotes free-ranching them, so we are now going to do a chicken tractor system, where you just move their pen so they can continue to graze grass. The house will be on bike wheels, so we can just push it to a new location.

We're also working on the garden. We have a bunch of plants outside now, and another 132 soil blocks started inside. It is now super warm (no more socks or sweaters, windows open, etc.), and no more chance of freezes.

Another super exciting addition to the family is a beehive. Abe was asked to remove a hive from someone's house, and we got to keep the bees and honey. Stay tuned for Abe's account of that episode!

Gardens/chickens/worms

This year has mainly been dedicated to building, so we have not had as much time as we would have liked to work on the food systems. Next year we plan to mainly focus on this, with the additions of fish ponds, rabbit tractors, and planting trees, as well as increasing our gardens.

However, we did still plant our garden once the rains started. The soil is so much richer than when we first started – it has grown from clumpy clay to a rich, dark, crumbly soil, all through the addition of compost and mulch. So far we have been eating squash, green beans, collards, cabbage, herbs. We have turnips, beans, corn, beets and various other things growing. (more photos)

We have also started a worm bin. At the moment we are feeding them and letting their population increase. Once we have a lot more, we will start adding them to the garden, the humanure pile and feeding them to the chickens.

We did have some chicks this year, but disaster struck. The mama hen had made her nest outside of the coop, so we did not put her up at night with the other chickens. She hatched her eggs, but was then killed by a predator. We saved two of the chicks. Abe built them a chicken tractor. This is a movable pen, so that they get to graze one area, and then before they do any damage we move the pen. They seem very happy in there and we hope to buy some more chicks to keep them company. (more photos)