June 2018

 One project for Linc this month was to finally get around to finishing the inside of our cabin greenhouse.  This involved taking everything out, leveling the floor, tiling with slate, installing waste & vent plumbing (hot & cold for shower later), tiling with slate, installing a clawfoot tub, and moving everything back in.

Another was a repainting project at a rental.  Plus continuing to prep and plant garden beds, irrigate, fix the tractor, mower and baler, cut, bale and stack hay, buy, haul and stack more hay, milk goats, process milk, etcetera.

 With that done, time for some mountain biking, so Linc went on a somewhat crazy 30 or so mile backcountry ride (with nice views, above) with some friends - The Raggeds Trail from McClure Pass to Erickson Springs Campground and back to the highway.  Fun day!  Then, Jeanne and Linc got away for a nice day hike together, bushwacking from Dollar Lake to Beckwith Pass, with wildflowers in bloom (below).

Gosh, it's good to get out in the wilds once in awhile.  Can you tell that Jeanne is having a good time?

Around the middle of the month, our neighbor and good friend, Jean, was knocked down by her horse while out on a walk and broke her shoulder.  Jean's in her 80's.  Luckily, she had her cell phone with her at the time and was able to reach us and tell her where she was (out along the canal 1/2 mile away).  Jeanne took her to ER, surgery, doctor visits, coordinated home care with friends, neighbors and medical professionals.   It was a busy month for her, and that's normal.

May 2018

With no one yet living in the tiny house that could take care of the farm while we go backpacking together, we decided to at least start getting out together as often as possible for day hikes between morning and evening chores.  The photos above and below are from a day hike in Dominquez Canyon, a beautiful canyon full of riparian habitat, and many signs of ancient habitation (petroglyphs).  These shorter trips remind us of how much beauty there is within a 1 hr drive from home.

 Jeanne decided that we were ready to try having a closed herd again (this is a herd with its own breeding buck).  An open herd involves bringing the does to a buck elsewhere when it is breeding time, and can result in contamination with caprine diseases that may be present on the other farm and not your own.  The last time we tried this, we had to keep the buck separate from the does (so that does that weren't really ready to be bred didn't get impregnated).  But that involved separate housing and a buddy (fixed male) for the breeding buck, so more hay, more time, etc.  But now, we've learned about anti-breeding aprons for bucks, which allow the buck to run with the does without risk of impregnating.  Plus, she's always wanted more Nubian blood and more color (spots, etc), so she arranged for a Nubian spotted buckling from Wyoming to be delivered to us.  Meet Sage!  He was a little weak from the trip, so started out living in our cabin for the first day or so while he got his legs back under him and was introduced gradually to the herd. 

Sage is a bottle baby (bottle babies are hand fed doe milk from a bottle since birth instead of nursing directly, which makes him easier to sell at an early age (because he doesn't need to be weaned), and also results in a goat that is super friendly around people).  Not that goats aren't friendly, they are super curious, friendly, attention seeking, intelligent friends (except when they are attempting to butt you), it's just that bottle fed goats are even more friendly, if that's possible.

Meanwhile, because Tulip had been sick, Jeanne had started bottle feeding Tulip's kids while Tulip got her strength back, and found that trying to bottle feed one kid while the others were trying to get milk too was a handful.  She learned online about using bike water bottle cages as milk bottle holders.  As you can see, it worked pretty well!

The rest of the month was a blur of garden bed prep and planting (April/May/June are peak effort months for the garden), a few hikes, and work related to our home renovation/rental business, plus interviewing tiny house barter folks.

April 2018

 New goat kids, 2 doelings and a buckling (Cinammon, Nutmeg and Alder) from Tulip this month.  Jeanne bottle feeding Alder in photo above.  A fairly easy delivery, Jeanne had to assist a bit, by pulling front legs forward, but much easier than some have been.  Surprisingly, a day after delivery, Tulip suddenly stopped eating and grew lethargic.  We scrambled to figure out what was wrong, using the internet and books, and after a few missteps and some dosing with electrolytes and shots of vitamin B (and allowing her a goat's dream - unfettered access to the garden to eat whatever she wanted), she came around, but it was a close call (milk fever, then rickets).  At one point we thought we might need epinephrine for anaphylactic shock, put the word out and another goat herd owner in the valley (who we hadn't even met yet!) came driving right over in his pickup with an Epipen for us.  What an amazing community.

 This blog seems to often describe projects Linc is working on, and not so much Jeanne's.  The pattern we've evolved for the past year or so has been one where Jeanne takes care of the goats and poultry, and processing the dairy, eggs and much of the garden produce, while Linc runs the garden, pastures, trees, and watering.  On a daily basis, the animals and birds take a lot more time than the garden, on average anyway.  The result is that, while the garden can be a handful to get established, and picking and processing produce does too, Linc has more time to take on homestead projects.  Like the one in photo above - a new broody coop enclosure with netting on the roof so that ravens, hawks and Magpies can't grab the young chicks.  This month involved a lot of garden prep, much of it with the help of our friend and neighbor, Aaron, who helped in the garden in a work exchange for the LLC that owns the land.

Our neighbors, Marian and Huckleberry, visited with Tulip's kids on a nice April day.

 The field work continued, marking furrows for flood irrigation.

 Always good to see new goat kids in the spring - incredible cuteness is a nice thing to have around the farm every April.

Lastly, we finally found the right person for the tiny house barter, or she found us.  It was easier to interview her, as she was a friend who lives in the valley.  She took to the goats right away, learned quickly, and was nearly ready to take over for a few days while we went backpacking, when Jasmine (the one who started butting Linc last month), decided to start butting her too.  That didn't work for our friend, so she moved back home, and we started interviewing again.  Someday, we'll be able to go backpacking together!

March 2018

I know, you're wondering what in heck these pictures are showing, right?  Well, the one above and below are the first prototype of Jeanne's homemade GOAT BRA.  That's right, she made a bra for goat udders (modeled in photos by our goat, Jasmine).  Basically, the udder bra is for latching kids.  What does that mean?  Well, goat kids will nurse for about a year after they are born, if allowed to.  Mother's milk is much better for their development than formula, so we want them to nurse at least half of each day.  But, once their rumens are developed, they can meet most of their nutritional needs through grazing, browsing and hay.  Plus, we want some of the doe's milk too!  And, as kids get older, they, especially the bucklings, can be very hard on the mother's udder, damaging it if allowed unfettered access.  So, we put the bra on whenever we either want milk in a few hours, or want to help an udder heal from a toothy buckling's nursing habits.  The bra allows the mother and kids to be together, but the kids can't get any milk, until we want them to.  Ingenious!  Jeanne wasn't the originator of the idea, but only one company makes and sells goat bras that we could find, and they are pretty pricey.  Jeanne made this one from an old t-shirt and some nylon webbing and buckles.

 We spent a lot of time this month interviewing respondents to our tiny house barter offer.  One or two made it through the first interview to spend a day or two at the farm.  It's turning out to be hard to find someone that can meet all of our criteria.

We also started preparing the garden for spring planting, cleaning up last year's debris and letting the chickens, turkeys, guineas and ducks continue to spend their days in there, scratching, breaking down last year's mulch and plant debris, eating insect larvae, and adding fertilizer.  

Linc undertook a major (for him) mechanical project, replacing four of the hydraulic hoses on the old Case backhoe boom.  These four were ones that he always thought would be pretty much impossible to replace, because they snaked through parts of the hoe that were completely inaccessible, but they were leaking badly.  Luckily, the job went well, and after a few hours and $400 in new hoses, we had a working backhoe again, and perhaps saved a few hundred dollars on shop labor, which was worth it given our frugal lifestyle.

As early spring rolled around, Linc started pining for a chance to mountain bike the slickrock canyons and high desert around Moab, Utah.  Happens to him every year since his first visit there back in 1992 or so.  With no one to care for the farm yet in our combined absence, Jeanne one day got tired of him pining (which basically involved being a PIA because he couldn't go) and suggested (for her own sanity) that Linc go on a solo mtn bike sabbatical for a few days while she took care of the homestead.  Within a matter of hours, Linc had the car packed and headed for the desert, where he spent 2 nights sleeping in the Prius and biking each day until his legs wouldn't move any more.  Wonderful stuff, with the desert just emerging from winter, sculpted multi-hued rock formations, plants and trees with new green leaves and buds, muddy rivers at the start of spring snowmelt runoff, blue skies and snow capped mountains, and hundreds (thousands?) of miles of trails to explore, plus old favorites to return to, like the sandstone dunes of the Slickrock Bike Trail in photos below, with the Colorado River and La Sal mountains in background. Thanks to Jeanne.

February 2018

A VERY dry winter so far.  We got out a bit, jogging the canal towpath instead of skiing it like we normally would in February.  Linc did some biking (photo above from ebiking up Steven's Gulch Road to see whether there was enough snow yet to ski - not yet!)

And finally, finding enough snow up on McClure Pass, 35 miles and 3000' higher than home, to climb up Huntsman Ridge for some tele turns.  Nice to get out!  Back on the farm, Linc had finished the tiny house on wheels, and started advertising it nationally as a work/housing barter offer (home in exchange for taking over our farm chores 8 days/month).  Immediately we started getting responses, and the interviews started.  Everyone we spoke with was sure that they were a perfect fit, and we, in turn, were sure that they weren't after talking with each.

This was the month that one of our largest goats, (maybe 175 lbs, and definitely the largest with horns), Jasmine, got a wild hair and decided to kill Linc.  That's probably not what she was intending really.  Goats have a hierarchy, and the herd queen is at the top.  All the goats know Jeanne is herd queen and rarely, if ever, offer her the slightest challenge.  Linc, however, doesn't spend that much time with the goats, and I guess Jasmine decided to find out where he fit in the herd's pecking order.  One day, while he had the goats out on a browse walk, she suddenly began charging and knocking him down.  This went on for a matter of weeks, and became even more concerning because we were looking for someone to take over farm chores (the tiny house barter) and having a goat that liked to knock people over wouldn't help the new person learn about goats (besides, it hurts!).  Gradually, (this took several months to finally calm her down) the situation resolved, through a combination of positive reinforcement (clicker) training, along with physical restraint techniques (grabbing Jasmine firmly by the horns and holding her while explaining that bashing humans was not acceptable, etc).

We also finally had to process Jasmine's buckling for food.  We'd been unable to find a good home for him, and when that happens, we prefer to process bucklings ourselves as the best way to honor and respect the gift of the goat's body for food with the least stress for the animal in the process.  It's never easy, but it was quick (for him), and a huge relief to get it done.  And, yes, we do feel very thankful for the gift he provided us.  Quoting from the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address, Greetings to the Natural World;

"The Animals - We gather our minds together to send greetings and thanks to all the Animal life in the world.  They have many things to teach us as people.  We are honored by them when they give up their lives so we may use their bodies as food for our people.  We see them near our homes and in the deep forests.  We are glad they are still here and we hope that it will always be so.  Now are minds are one"

 Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address 

January 2018

January consisted of a lot of the usual winter farm chores, plus some hikes, bike rides and a bit of skiing.  Linc continued working on getting the tiny house on wheels ready for someone to live in full time, modifying the kitchen cabinets, the solar electric system, and also worked with a friend to get the common land field (field area outside of our fenced pastures) planted with some perennial drought tolerant grasses and legumes.  That mostly involved riding around the 25 acre field on a grain drill towed behind Mike's tractor, keeping the seed flowing and watching for mechanical issues.

Here's a couple photos of the tiny house, finally pretty much ready!

The main floor, from door looking towards kitchen (bathroom hidden on left across from kitchen).  The stainless steel cylinder is a high efficiency wood burning stove (with a Coleman campstove oven sitting on top for baking).  The ladder gets moved around as needed.  Loft is above at the end.

Looking from top of ladder into loft.  There are windows on the 3 exterior walls, and a wall mount TV/DVD unit out of site around the right corner.

December 2017

December brought potlucks, Christmas parties, and more of day hikes between AM & PM chores.

Linc continued working on the tiny house on wheels, upgrading the solar electric system with more panels, more batteries, circuit breakers and fuses, modifying the chimney to get the stove drawing better, bought a used storage shed to go with it, had it moved in and started renovating that too.

The photos are a little washed out due to some cloudy weather, but we had some nice hikes.  One to Green Mountain overlooking the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, one down to Morrow Point Reservoir on the Hermits Rest Trail, also in the Black Canyon National Park, and another snowy day hike to the hammock at high point on the Paonia Jumbo Mountain hiking/mountain biking trails.

View from Inspiration Point, Black Canyon NP

Hermits Rest Trail, overlooking Morrow Point Reservoir

Morrow Point Reservoir, Black Canyon NP

Jeanne in the Hammock on Jumbo Mountain, overlooking Paonia

And that wraps up our year.  Kind of a mostly work year, but with some spectacular adventures on occasion, ending with a sense of being slightly better off financially, even if we'd still be considered poverty level for income.  We have everything we need, live in a beautiful spot in a great community, enjoy some great friendships, and have lots of freedom (except for chores twice/day, but we love our animal and bird friends so it's nice to spend time with them and acknowledge how thankful we are for the gifts they provide us).  The longer we do it, the more we like and appreciate this homesteading lifestyle.

In closing, I'll list a few numbers from the garden harvest totals, plus goat dairy and poultry.  It was definitely not our best garden year due to the June frost, July hailstorm, and general neglect due to our other obligations this year, but it is still a serious endeavor that enables us to manage without working "normal" jobs.  This isn't comprehensive:

Goats milk - 514 gallons

Chicken, duck and turkey eggs - 236 dozen
Asparagus - 26 lbs

 Cabbage - 67 lbs

Broccoli - 34 lbs

Corn - 165 ears

Garlic - 350 bulbs

Cooking greens - 160 lbs

Salad greens - 90 lbs

Onions and leeks - 101 lbs

Melons - 38 lbs

Parsnips - 155 lbs

Potatoes - 410 lbs

Pumpkins - 121 lbs

Winter squash - 335 lbs

Tomatoes - 285 lbs (something like 151 lbs of them "green", but about half of those did ripen on the shelf)

Zucchini - 65 lbs

Total value of food from farm - $16,971

Time to start planning this year's garden!