December 2019

Ah December.  In some ways, this is a difficult time.  In others, it's wonderful.  The days get shorter, things are brown at lower elevations.  It's cold.  There's kind of an emotional frenzy that happens around Thanksgiving, Winter Solstice, Christmas.  It's an emotional rollercoaster at times.  But where  there are valleys there are peaks, and there were several peak experiences this month 

One was Jeanne's birthday (Dec 4th) trip.  James took over goat/farm chores so we could get down to the San Juans for a couple days.  Jeanne picked what turned out to be a beautiful ski tour for the first day, from near Ridgway to Burn Hut near the foot of the Sneffels Range and back.  It was supposed to rain that day.  Instead, there were beautiful blue skies, and great snow throughout the 10 mile round trip, on a route we'd never traveled.  It was one of those days when you can't stop chattering about how beautiful everything is.  We gained about 1600 feet on the way up to the hut, and had a nice fast run out as sunset approached. 

After skiing, we headed over to Orvis Hot Springs, where we cooked dinner in the springs facility kitchen, and spent hours that evening, as well as the next morning soaking (slept in the Prius).  As usual, we migrated eventually each time to the Lobsterpot pool (110 F), and alternated back and forth between that and the adjacent cold plunge (60 F).  Orvis is becoming a favorite for us, partially because we love hot springs, but also because it is surrounded by some of the most beautiful mountains, hiking, biking and skiing trails, in Colorado.

Back home, there's finally enough snow to explore new ski routes in Gunnison National Forest, below.

 We were both deeply affected by the news that a younger former neighbor of ours passed away mid month after repeated bouts of colon cancer.  Jordan was one of a kind.  He made us, and everyone else he met (as noted in the many Facebook posts and notes on a fund raiser website for his wife and two young daughters), feel accepted and a friend from the moment you met him.  He was extremely creative (as a film maker, musician, a fellow music jam player with Linc), inquisitive, and so full of life.  His passing left a hole in the entire community that people are still coming to grips with. 

Christmas morning, we cross country skied up one of our favorite Gunnison NF routes, took a Christmas picture as the light snowfall turned into a blizzard and skied the 4 miles back down in a veritable whiteout, crashing a couple times at sharp turns looming up out of the blizzard at the bottom of some of the steeper pitches.  Fun!   Then off to a potluck, song circle and dance.

And now, we're catching up on Frugalbundance Farm Blog entries for the year, FIVE MONTHS ahead of when we managed to get to last year's update (May)!  If we're this far ahead, who knows what other things await?  There's still a bigger barn and a larger house to build.  We definitely won't run out of projects.

There is much to be thankful for in this life.  Linc continues to find inspiration in almost daily morning recitations of the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address, alone or with a friend, from the vantage point of a bench situated at a valley viewpoint on the path up the hill behind our cabin.  In the address, all things have instructions and roles to play in life, and all are greeted and thanked, in turn.  The humans are advised to "enjoy and appreciate life", and to "live in balance and harmony with each other and all living things".  Those two phrases sound so easy.  Personally, he finds that at times, embodying either can be quite difficult.  Aspiring to meet those challenges is part of what motivates him.

In our daily farm journal spreadsheet, we keep track of what is harvested each day.  In this blog, we usually list an annual sum of what we, the plants, animals and birds provided for the year as a whole for the year.  This was a really good year, with lots of irrigation water for a good portion of it due to record winter snowfall.  Here goes:

Farm Harvest

Chicken, duck and turkey Eggs - 210 dozen

Goat Milk - 490 gallons

Meat - 13 lbs

Asparagus - 15 lbs

Beets - 118 lbs

Broccoli - 8 lbs

Cabbage - 111 lbs

Carrots - 149 lbs

Corn - 232 ears

Garlic - 391 bulbs

Cooking greens - 228 lbs

Salad greens - 104 lbs

Onions - 122 lbs

Green onions - 31 bunches

Melons - 28 lbs

Parsnips - 206 lbs

Peas - 80 lbs

Peppers - 42 lbs

Potatoes - 91 lbs (blighted again, only planted 2 beds)

Winter Squash & pumpkins - 452 lbs

Tomatoes - 300 lbs

Turnips - 60 lbs

Zucchini - 354 lbs

Garden Apples - 0 lbs

Garden cherries - 4 lbs

Grapes - 0! lbs

Garden peaches - 133 lbs

Plums - 4 lb

Berries - only 4 lbs

Rhubarb - 9 lbs

Hay baled - 86 bales

Total farm product (not all shown above) - 8500 lbs, not counting hay

Market value of product - $23,380

So, maybe we should go back to Physical Therapy and Engineering for a living.  We're not going to get rich homesteading.  But, who knows, maybe someday, being able to grow most of your food will be a really important thing, and many of us will become agrarian homesteaders again.

Either way, may your new year be full of joy.  May you enjoy and appreciate life, and live in balance and harmony with each other and all living things.  We'll keep working on it too.

Have a great year!

November 2019

Well, just a really busy month.  More garden harvesting, root crops this time.  Carrots, parsnips, beets, turnips.  Prepped and planted garlic beds.  Picked a truckload of apples at a friend's orchard and, with James' help, pressed something like 10 gallons of cider.  James got a third of the apples and cider, and the two of us started about six gallons of cider turning into next year's supply of raw apple cider vinegar.  Linc moved the hoophouse to its west position over the beds planted with winter greens, carrots, and beets.  He also continued working on firewood cutting, splitting and stacking (that started in June).  A elderly neighbor friend had surgery and Jeanne spent a lot of time over there on a daily basis changing dressings, or driving her to various doctor appointments.  One of our rental homes had become empty and Linc spent a lot of time cleaning up after the last renters, making repairs, advertising, showing the home, screening applicants, etc.  We both got out for bike rides and short hikes and runs on the canal.

A little less than a third of the parsnip harvest.

And maybe two thirds of the carrot bed in this bin.

October 2019

Harvest harvest harvest.  Our first hard frost came on the 11th, and around the end of the month the night-time low dropped to 11 F.  It seemed to catch us by surprise this year, partially because there was just MORE of everything to harvest than usual.  Also, things ripened slower this year, possibly due to a cloudy cool wet spring that held up planting, then very hot weather in mid summer that delayed flower maturation into fruit.  Compounding the issue, the green growth had been enormous this year, and Linc thought there weren't many winter squash or pumpkins to harvest.  When we started to harvest them though, it turned out there was a bumper crop, just good at hiding in all that greenery (as had the raccoon that apparently had spent a week or so camping in a plant-cave near the sweet corn, feasting).  So, once we realized the extent of the harvest, and the sudden change of forecast to hard frost, we ran like mad all day long, and harvested the entire garden in a day.  Except for beets, carrots, turnips, and leeks, which we covered with row cover for a few weeks.  

 End of harvest day photos below.

Linc with a nice sized Blue Hubbard winter squash.

 More of everything.

 Our loft bedroom, turned into it's usual role as winter squash storage, ripening spot for a small portion of the green tomato harvest, pumpkins under the bed.

 Linc made three new compost bins, rodent proof this time.  That had been on the project list for a few years also.

Friends joined us for a nice hike on the Curecanti Creek Trail down to the Gunnison River at the bottom.

Canyon, sun, sky, jet trails, rocks!

The view from the overlook at the top of the Curecanti Creek Trail, down to the confluence of the creek and river.  Our lunch spot just out of sight below rim.

We also got out for a fall mountain foliage hike up into Buckskin Basin.  Photos of that area included in last year's blog, so none here other than a look across Beaver Lake in Marble towards Whitehouse Mountain.

September 2019

This month, we continued to harvest, process and store fruit, veggies and greens from the garden.  The garden was super abundant, so Linc made two more solar drying racks out of rough sawn lumber, screening and old sliding glass door windows to try to keep up with all the fruit and veggies we were wanting to sun dry.  Jeanne did a lot of lacto fermenting.

Our rental business required a lot of attention this month, so that kept us busy too.

Linc finished building a new pole shed, mostly built last month, to put our twelve 55 gallon grain storage bales, plus a few garden tools, in.  Some of the barrels have hard to diagnose leaks in the lids, and each year we would lose close to a barrel's worth due to mold and spoilage, so getting the barrels under a roof had been on the "projects" to-do list for awhile.  We built it of used metal roofing, leftover fence poles and shade cloth, and some fence posts leftover from fencing the paddocks.  Came out great!

With that done, he re-piped our cabin rainwater catchment system, and painted it and another storage tank to keep the sunlight from growing algae inside.  Also, some stone work to neaten up the cabin foundation a bit.  Then, some more earthen plaster work on the cabin exterior and inside our battery/fridge room.
A photo from part way through the rainwater project.

And the final result.

The garden, in it's jungle like harvest-time state.  Fun to look back at the June photo from same location for comparison.

Our friend Willow, who we backpacked with on a through hike of the Appalachian Trail in 2006, stopped by to visit while on a tour of as many National Parks (and visits with friends) as she could fit in during a vacation from her job at an outdoor equipment store.  We weren't able to join her at some of our favorite Utah spots, as Amber was in the process of moving at the time, so we took a day trip together to the north rim of The Black Canyon National Park where Jeanne belly crawled out to exclaim at Exclamation Point.  What exactly she exclaimed we had to edit out of this PG rated blog.

It was great to see Willow again.  We had some wonderful times on the AT, and have seen her I think only fairly briefly twice since, until this visit, so it was good to catch up on her life and adventures since we'd last spent any amount of time together.

As the weather slowly cooled into fall, Linc got in some more mountain biking over in Utah.  He joined a group of guys from Paonia and Fruita for a couple days of car camping and riding, culminating an all day adventure down the length of The Whole Enchilada bike route.  The route starts near the summit of the La Sal Mountains overlooking the Utah desert, and, after about 30 miles involving 1300' of climbing and 7800' of hair raising descent, ends at the Colorado River near the mouth of Grandstaff Canyon.

Here the group takes a snack break at one of the many viewpoints along Porcupine Rim, about halfway through the ride.

The group had some talented riders.  Here three of them launch themselves casually off a small cliff beside the trail.  It was somewhere around here that Linc decided it's time for a new mountain bike.  The 2004 Bianchi that he bought used off a fellow Paonian reached its limit on that trip.

Somewhere in there, Linc drove James over to Glenwood Springs so he could catch a bus to meet a client in Denver for a few days (James does web site design).  Linc brought his bike and climbed Red Mountain, overlooking Glenwood Springs and the lower Roaring Fork Valley.  At the top, he enjoyed watching three different pairs of paragliders (guide and client flying in tandem) launch themselves off the top for a 15 minute ride down to the valley bottom.  Linc likes adrenaline, but there are limits.  He happily biked back down the mountain on the Grandstaff Trail.

August 2019

By August, there's no more garden planting to do.  Still planting in the beds that the hoophouse will be rolled over for the winter, but that's only eight 3'x10' beds.  Instead, the homestead has moved into harvest and process mode, starting to store up for winter, especially things that can be dried or canned, as the root cellar is way too warm for long storage at this point.

Here's some kale, to be strung up in bunches from the hay garage frame, to dry for winter soups and to add to backpacking meals.

August was hot and dry. The goats are good at finding those shady spots to do some goat meditating (cud chewing).  Tulip, Jasmine, Amanita and Jewelweed.

Amber decided to keep Jasmine's two doelings, Amanita and Jewelweed, and with our barn at capacity, found a home for them across the valley.  That meant that she'd be busy with her own chores at the same time that ours would need to be done (goats get milked on a fairly tight schedule, partially because goats are routine oriented, and partially because altering it messes with their milk production).  So Amber let us know she'd be moving out of the tiny house in September, and another responder to our tiny house barter ad, James, agreed to pedal our way (long distance bicyclist) in October.

With Amber's help again, we left for another trip, this time backpacking (Jeanne's favorite outdoor activity) into Gunnison Lake (an alpine lake accessed via a somewhat obscure "route" that climbs about 4000' in about 4 miles) for two nights, and one night car camping in Crested Butte where we could indulge in Linc's favorite, mountain biking.

On this trip, we remembered the bug dope, but we use the non-DEET stuff, and the mosquitoes don't seem to really notice it that much.  Linc, enjoying hanging at the lake.

  

Jeanne tried jumping in the water to get away from the bugs, but given there was snow still melting into the water, her swims lasted about 10 seconds each.

And, it was beautiful, as always there.

The Trout could stay in the water a lot longer than we could, especially since we hadn't brought any fishing gear.

Backpacking is Jeanne's favorite outdoor activity, and she loves crocheting.  Here she's peakcrochetbaggging (crocheting on top of all the highest mountains).  We're thinking that she might be the only one doing this, so she might be the world champion!

It's best to crochet with a view.  Gunnison Lake below, during a day hike from our shore-side tent on the second day of the trip.

Looking towards west Beckwith and Mt. Marcelina.   The talus/conifer line gives the visual impression of mountains floating in a lake.

On the 3rd morning we hiked back down the mountain, drove to Crested Butte, and Linc biked Baxter Gulch Trail, a wonderful new single track hiking/biking option south of CB, while Jeanne did some shopping in town.  We found a great car camp site up Washington Gulch, and rode a nice loop from town the next day, Snodgrass, Lupine, Lower Loop - a little over 22 miles of wonderful aspen and mountain meadow single track, satisfying Linc's (and Jeanne's) mountain biking addiction for at least a few days.

Jeanne with Mount CB behind.

July 2019

Most days here are busy.  We keep a farm journal on an Excel Spreadsheet file on the laptop.  It helps us keep track of what we did when, what worked, what didn't, and if we wake up the next day and wonder, "What the heck did I do yesterday, anyway, I have no recollection!", it's written down.  It doesn't include most of the basic regular chores that we do.  For regular chores, Jeanne takes care of the regular goat chores, feeding, watering, cleaning and rebedding the barn, milking them, taking them on daily 1 hr long browse walks, processing and storing milk, morning dishes and evening meal cooking, and midday bird chores (more feed, water and collects eggs).  Linc cooks breakfast and makes salads for lunch, does garden/hoophouse harvesting and veggie processing, lets the birds out in the AM and feeds them, closes them up at night, and does the evening dishes.  Here's a somewhat typical summer farm day Journal entry (July 3rd).

Chores; J walked goats, cleaned, EM'd and rebedded barn, mid day chores, cleaned duckling tray, feeder, waterer and tub, trimmed hooves on Sage, Jasmine, Amanita and Jewelweed with L's help and some help from Amber, took a bath, ran town errands, made smoothies and goat breakfast, boiled, peeled and pickled a dozen chicken eggs, did some "clean up" from New Moon; one turkey hen & dark guinea spent night out, looks like they may have been at east side bottom of paddock 2, L restapled shade cloth tunnels in broody (first hen was getting in and pecking eggs of 2nd turkey hen), we've got a broody chicken hen in main coop, one duckling died (female brown), L having trouble getting Cu sulfate through fertigator, running tests on that, L emailed Elise Casselberry (Delta County Master Plan Coordinator), and left voicemail for her re: restrictions to additional residential units on one parcel), L transplanted winter squash & zuke SB into garden, watered them, transplanted a few tomatoes into hoophouse west, weeded all of hoophouse west, replanted beans in 3 beds in garden (chewed on by insects or something), Luke Reshke caled - about 3/4 CFS left of natural, I asked for just 45 gpm of Overland for now.  L helped w/goat hooves, then watered tree seedlings west of garden & thonwheels, spread dandelion seeds (gathered yesterday in mtns) on far west exp. plot, started watering that, took a bath, transplanted an Elderberry from GH into garden NW crnr, and a Carpathian Walnut from GH to tree strip west of Paddock 4, then transplanted 2 conetainer apples (grown from seed) into spot just west of cabin, then fixed 2 flats and changed tires on J's mtn bike, finished filling both upper cisterns (all cisterns now full) and put away pump/filter, fertigating pastures, moved gun sprinklers.

Gotta love those slow, lazy summer days! 😊
What's strange is, it's fun.  And, we both got to take hot baths in our solar heated tub that sits out in the trees overlooking the valley.

The goats eat a lot of the pasture grasses and forbs, but it was a good year and we still managed to cut and bale 75 bales of surplus.  Unfortunately, the hay from our pastures doesn't have enough legumes in it yet for the goats for winter feeding, so the hay we bale is used for garden mulch and barn bedding, and we purchase our winter alfalfa hay.  Either way, there's something nice feeling about a barn full of hay.  It's good to be thinking ahead to winter and starting to store up.

To get in shape for a planned 5 day backpacking trip, we went for a day hike on the Anthracite Creek Trail.  With all of the recent snowmelt, the wildflowers were stunning  Jeanne posing by a Monument Plant, or Green Gentian, which flowers only once in its 20 to 80 year lifespan.

 Colorado Columbine, Lupine, Yellow Sweet Clover perhaps?, and Jeanne's purple pack.

Lupine, a beaver pond, and peaks along the ridge north of Mount Owen.

Then we left for a planned leisurely five day backpack around a peak named Storm Ridge, off of the Kebler Pass Road.  Unfortunately, even though it was on our packing list, and we both talked about needing to stop by a store on the way to the trailhead for a bottle of bug dope, we completely forgot about it until we arrived at the trailhead.  With all of the meltwater from last winter's record snowfall, the mosquito population was tremendous.  Here's Jeanne at our first night's campsite.  No, it's not cold, in fact she's sweating like crazy, but it's preferable to being eaten alive.  Still, she's obviously happy to be out there.

To be able to hike, we had to strip down to shorts, sandals and t-shirts to avoid overheating, so we used a typical White Mountains of New Hampshire bug control strategy - evergreen frond swatters!

Swatters could be temporarily stowed away in the open areas where the wind put the skeeters at a disadvantage.

We ended up doing the loop in only 3 days, partially because it was hard to take it slow with all those mosquitoes.  We spent the last 2 days in Crested Butte, sightseeing and hiking to a small alpine lake (Green Lake) from town on the last day.  Still, the scenery on the backpacking trip was outstanding.

  

Elk Peak across a swampy meadow along the Castle Pass Trail.

More moose!

Jeanne, not one to blue blaze (short cut or bypass a section of official hiking trail), attempting to negotiate a snow tunnel.

Back home, the full moon rising over the summit of Mount Lamborn.

June 2019

Dandelion, the doe that wanted to lie down every time we tried to milk her, learned new ways to wiggle out of Linc's hands when he would lift her rear end twice a day so Jeanne could milk.  Plus, she's a heavy goat.  Linc learned too, and propped her butt on his knees once he had her lifted up.  So, Dandelion pooped on him.  Usually goat manure is dry little pellets, but when they're out on fresh, growing green pasture in spring and early summer, they often expel clumps of smelly green wet poop.  Dandelion won.  Temporarily.  Linc came up with what is shown in the video and photo below.  Dandelion, who's a really nice (skittish, but nice) goat, seemed to kind of like the sling.  At least, she tolerated it well, except for the first time we tried it with a homemade tripod out in the yard.  Linc let her down too much and she got some traction and bolted, pulling the whole 10' tall steel pipe tripod over onto her.  Gradually, she relaxed about it.  She'd let us put it on, and then dangle in it, seemingly contented.  Eventually, she did outgrow this, and as I write this months later, she has learned to jump up on the milk stand and, other than leaning against the wall, has become much more easy going about the whole process.

Here she is in the milk stand, just starting to put some weight on her legs instead of completely dangling.

 The June garden, as seen from roof of goat barn.  There'll be a photo in September to show how this orderly composition turns into a jungle by season's end.

 Those old sickle mowers work pretty well.  Mowing this paddock takes only about 30 minutes.  Getting the mower onto the tractor takes at least another 30, but Linc thinks if he tried mowing with the hand scythe (we have one, just haven't ever had the time/energy to try to mow a paddock with it), it would probably take him a full day to mow a 3/4 acre paddock and another full day to recover.

 

Amber spelled us for a long (5 day) stretch so that we could get up into the high country.  This is June, mind you, but it had snowed a lot last winter, so we brought some winter gear and skis, just because.  Here's a video of our summer picnic at Lake Irwin.  Not sure why our camera turns everything purple when we take movies.  Maybe because Linc bought it on Ebay for $15...

There was so much snow at Lake Irwin, near Crested Butte, that on our second day out, Linc wanted to go summer skiing.  As it turned out, it was kind of a long hike up in plastic boots for some marginal skiing, but the views were very nice.

Wanting to see spring instead of winter for awhile, we drove a few miles down off Kebler Pass to spend a night in Horse Ranch Park, maybe 1000' lower than where we'd been camping on the Lake Irwin Road.  There, we were surprised by a big bull moose who walked right through our campsite.  By the time Linc realized he wasn't going to charge us, and managed to find the camera and get a photo, the moose was a hundred yards away, but it's still a nice view of a Colorado moose, an event that has gotten much more common out here than it was 10 or 20 years ago.

Well, we weren't done with snow.  The last day, we hiked up towards Oh Be Joyful Pass on the Silver Basin Trail.  The higher we got, the more snow we ran into and the harder it got to stay on the trail.  Still it was solid snow, almost no post-holing, which was a good thing.  Here's Jeanne hiking along in her Keen Sandals.

On the way back, Linc took this video of Silver Basin.  All mountains seem to be like this in spring, everything feels so fresh and green and new, with the first wildflowers coming up right behind the melting snow, and the sound of running water everywhere.  Too bad the camera doesn't catch the smell of spring, but, it's the next best thing to being there.