Its starting to look like a farm!

The last week or so has been a bit hectic cause i've been traveling back to Wilmington to work monday through wednesday with my old crew plus Mikey who is going to have some big shoes to fill, but things have been going good especially when the Guinea Keats finally arrived after being shipped to the wrong address and all of household worried to death over their fate even though it all worked out fine cause we have not lost one yet which is pretty incredible since they were shipped when they were a day old. 

The chickens grew so much when i was gone those 3 days last week that i barely recognized them, and we have moved them twice now and they seem to be doing a darn good job at pecking up all the grass and leaving behind golden treasured.

There is also a new addition to the farm that we are still trying to finish the goat Ms.

Floretta's living quarters, which has been at slow pace cause she can be tethered out to keep the grass nice and trim. The dogs and her are finally getting to the point of respect to which they will leave one another alone unless they both are interested in some sniffing or headbutting action.

Last thursday Noel and i started to summon the vibes of the field that we were going to start the hugokulture beds on first which consisted of marking out our rows with the flow of  the field, then digging out 6 inches of the topsoil and inserting dead and rotten wood from the edge of the forest, then putting the topsoil back grass down and putting compost on top of that to put the first crops on. When i was first offered this experience i was told no digging or tilling gardening but this type of beds last any where from 25-50 years with little water and great benefits to the soil and other beds adjacent to them, so the digging was well worth it. Mike Slaton who has been helping out on some our various projects sure knows how to find the best rotten wood,  we don't have it completely finished yet, but we both left it to come to Wilmington so it will be done the day i get back with much hope.

We started to build a fence to house Floretta like a week before she was set to arrive and it has yet to be finished, granted it is the first fence anyone here had put up and when your dealing with cedar post that you foraged out of the woods it can become quite difficult for novices like ourselves. We only had enough 5 ft square fencing to get around half of the field and had to figure out how to make the 3ft fencing we had seem daunting for the goat to hurdle, and we finally came to the conclusion to utilize the bamboo we have and make horizontal posts between the cedar posts which only came to us after two failed attempts at other methods. But hopefully after a couple more days of working on the fence for a couple hours a day cause that is all we can stand Floretta will have a home to graze on and finally stop baaing while being tied up.

Chicken Hysteria at Circle Acres

Well last week i started on a chicken sled that was going to house the first of 5 Bard Rock chickens we were set to receive, i finished the sled on saturday and the chickens arrived just two days ago. As Noel and i talked about the finishing touches and completed the sled yesterday the chickens were ready to venture into their new home.

They have yet venture outside in to the yard a handful of times so that is what i am really waiting to enjoy, brother has already jumped on the chicken wire once when one of the chickens came out into the yard so they might be scared now but i hope not. He has redeemed himself by catching, killing and eating his first field mouse which i was very proud cause 80 and him are constantly hunting in the tall grass for them, as of now it is 1-1 in the mouse game that we know of.

These chickens are going to be the backbone of fertilizing and scratching up our fields as we move the sled around the property, but we still cant help going over and checking/playing with them every hour of so cause they are so cute and fluffy and i really cant wait till they start producing some eggs for us to feast on. There are also some one-day old chicks that will be arriving in the next couple of weeks, and we will hopefully be ready and prepared for them.

I also have been sprucing up the ol'e living situation by add a rock patio in front of the door so that we do not track in so much mud when we come and go, i will be extending it in the future when i can find some more flat rocks and time. Well in the next couple of days we should be getting some seeds planted and put in to the greenhouse to start our first crops by next week, so wish us luck.

The first couple of days at Circle Acres

When Noel arrived Monday night i was more than ready to start working even though the sun was setting on the day and i had already done a small amount of work during the day by myself, but none the less i was excited to get started the next morning after Noel filled me in on what we would be trying to accomplish in the next couple of days to get the farm ready for some animals and some quick crops. We awoke on Tuesday morning to some snow that had fallen during the night so we did not get out of the wolves den till around 10:30 cause it was to cold to put together a metal greenhouse, when we finally trudged outside it was right to work on putting together a small greenhouse that Danielle's parents had given them and it was all going well until we started to put the paneling and weather stripping on which was the final step and our hands were cold so it got quite irritating but in the end it got done.

With the greenhouse up and 15-20 degrees warmer than it was outside it was time to start working on the worm box that would house all of the Red wigglers Noel had brought from his old house, even though my carpentry skills were quite rusty we put together a modest worm box that had a forward tilt so that any of the runoff from the worm castings could be caught and used appropriately, we also put a door on the top so that we could play with the worms whenever we wanted to. It was then off to rake leaves in a wooded path onto a piece of black plastic to be put over the ground where the first crops will go to kill the grass and weed growth on the ground, we will also use the leaves for many other sources like composting, layering beds, and to possibly make our own potting soil. Well it looks like the starter crops have been picked and hopefully soon we will have some starting in the greenhouse and then out to the fields to get some crops coming up. 

Everyday more and more i am feeling like i could do this for the rest of my life even though its only been a week but maybe that's just my gut talking, but we will see.

First Crop Mob experience

I was pretty excited on Sunday morning when i woke up extra early to fix my self a big breakfast cause i was going to be participating in my first Crop Mob at Wells Branch farm which is two local farms who have joined together, a Crop Mob main goal is to allow people who want to be involved in farming a chance to live out their dreams of helping around a farm if only for a few hours and gives other local farmers a chance to see the different farm operations around town while meeting new and interesting people. When Mike, Trace and I first arrived there were not to many Mobber's and we got started by picking some rocks in a garden which the pigs had tilled up since the last harvest, then it was off on the tour of the over 450 acre grass feed Red Devon cows which are from New Zealand.  

After the tour we all split up into different groups cause there was a mountain of work to be done and over 50 people to help out Trace and I both choose the fencing group cause that will need to be going up soon at the farm for the goats and other animals that will be coming soon, so after cleaning up an open shed and picking up the rest of the rocks it was off to eat a delicious lunch with meat from all the pigs and cows. I just decided to wait on eating meat at this particular time and stuck with the yams w/ pecans, collard, grilled vegetables and my favorite Corn bread, so after two big helpings and a full belly we were off to learn how to set up a high tension wire fence. Even though this isn't the type of fencing that we will be utilizing it is good to know where to use bracing and how long to run your wire before using a post was very informational but also pretty boring if you had to fence some 450 acres.

So after all of the fencing fun we could all handle we rode back to the house where everyone had been jamming at since after we finished lunch, they also had some home brew beer that went down right nice after hard day of work and a little bit of standing around in muddy clay which is quite hard to walk in.