Raising Wood

Over the past year we have celebrated using goats and cattle to manage brush and grass. It’s a running joke that we could either spend 10k on a depreciating asset (tractor) and do extra work or half that on an appreciating asset (livestock) and let them celebrate doing the work.

Over the winter, we noticed the pastures cut for hay did better at growing new grass to stockpile for winter. Our property is small and doesn’t come out very economically to pay a profitable rate to hay balers. How could we cut down old growth to make room for fall growth when the livestock can’t keep up with summer growth? For sure, the push mower was off the table.

Then I get a note from my Dad:

Now the cost benefit starts to look better: it won’t loose any value, maintenance costs are low because parts are widely available, and the hard work of restoration has already been done by a trusted party.

Life lesson: it is worth listening to other people’s experience. If you asked me to consider something older then many museum exhibits last year, I would have laughed. I like history but I don’t work history. But a friend talked about restoring an Old Ford 8n (similar tractor) and getting a lot of utility from it on his land in Georgia in a passing conversation. I didn’t do anything with that data except mentally file it away. That planted a seed that these really could be a viable option. (Thanks Dave!)

So I put a new battery in and learned how to drive it.

Next up, every good tractor needs some implements, and this needs some maintenance checking when the manual comes in the mail. Updates to come!

Hey guys, it’s 71’f at the farm and you know what that means? Cattle flee from the sun.

Looks like a shade mobile needs to move higher up my list of get-dones.

A good friend in the mini farming trade gave my wife and I some good council. “Sometimes you fight to save these animals, and you do. Sometimes you try and you do lose some. Sometimes they just die and you never know why.

We pulled this lady goat out of the herd. Her FMCHA scores indicated a storm of parasites running riot in her system. After some treatments, we found her unable to stand and consistently holding her head backwards. This was new and needed more research.

Jenny drilled down and discovered Listeriosis. It’s a bacteria in a goat system that takes advantage when the body is weak, and it attacks the brain stem. You can try to treat this condition with penicillin injections, and we tried that every six hours for the next 3 days and nights, along with hand feeding and watering. It didn’t work.

Sometimes you do lose some.

Safety signage is an important part of any shared working space. When it’s just me in the shop, I know how to use tools safely and I don’t need to put signs up. The moment it becomes a shared workspace, safety and organization requirements change.

Recently the boys have started working in the shop to build and design (glue and glue and glue) As they continue to develop and sharpen their skills, they’ll take a bigger footprint and use more tools.

The big challenge is getting my co workers to clean up after themselves. Maybe I’ll get some of the signs for that later. But first…

Keep your eyes open and be aware of your surroundings. The mystery of nature must never be underappreciated.

Hat tip to Accuform for quality signage.

Last year was our first venture into livestock. It’s been a learning experience and I encourage everyone to at least try it at some point. We were blessed by our first goat purchase being out of someone’s backyard, they were very helpful and informative about what is healthy and what is not, and yes, theirs were healthy.

We’ve bought other goats from commercial operations, turns out we bought some problems but nothing debilitating. We’ve bought from other midrange production farms that took hours to get to but provided quality doelings (not yet bred girls) at a reasonable price.

This recent experience was different. Text the guy from Craigslist, he confirms most of our questions. Good price and good deal. So we load up the kids, drive the hour out there. Find we find out the seller doesn’t live here, he just bases his sales here because it’s close to Fort Worth and brings his stock down from Oklahoma.

Friendly guy, very happy to talk about his animals and his extensive experience and credentials with livestock. Hail-fellow-well-met approach to selling.

But as we listen, we hear about his problems with his herd. How the worms are always there and no one can get rid of them. How this pathogen is always there too, but these ones are healed up…nope, nope, nope.

When you run your own operation, you are responsible for what comes on the property. The easiest way to prevent pestilence in the pasture is to never bring it onsite. After watching the final doeling emit a bloody stool, we said no, thank you and left.

It’s a good word, the word No. I hope my son’s and daughters learn it early. Better to make a round trip and pickup pizza (when did a large pizza get so small??) on the way home then bring hours of problems and death back to the home.

You have that moment when you look at your phone while it is ringing. You don’t know the number calling and it’s a neighboring area code. Me, I hit the screen call button and move on. Maybe you answer it to talk to Emily about your car warranty expiring.

The next instant after the caller hangs up, a Signal note comes through from one of our wonderful neighbors: “hey I gave your number to a tree service looking to dump mulch they may be calling you soon.”

As fast as possible I call that number back, and sure enough, Bright Tree Service answers and is happy to drop a dump truck of mulch. They are six minutes away.

Where are we going to put a dump truck of mulch??

It’s a lot of mulch. I figure 3-4 hay bales worth of volume. Restoration agriculture takes advantage of bio mass from outside sources, particularly when it’s low cost. Free is very low cost. This saves on fuel consumption, landfill waste, and squandered natural resources. Here at the farm it will help preserve water, build soil, and provide hours of high quality exercise while we move it about.

We had planned on buying $140 worth of mulch this month to use in the garden. Not only did a tree service dropping it off save the cash, it saved three hours worth of travel and unloading time.

In the fall last year we put a lot of work into pulling the shingle roof off the house. Insurance wouldn’t cover it and it was just waiting for a storm to destroy it.

I installed a metal roof with a radiant barrier underlayment. I am looking forward to seeing how the energy savings stack up this summer. If nothing else it’s nice to not worry about a roof for the next 50 years.

The project was to install gutters on the roof top capture the water running off the roof, rather then water carving deep channels under the foundation. The plan is to harvest the water into a rainwater collection system and use the sweet, sweet rainwater for the garden and livestock applications.

First line of gutters installed and…nope. Not going to work. The water coming off the rooftop is moving so fast is just zips right over the top of the gutters.

The next phase of this project will be building out the eves with wood to increase our installation surface area, and then moving the gutters up closer to the actual rooftop.

Winter passed and spring is come…and of course we’re scrambling to get the garden prepared.

There are some really incredible gardens and gardeners out there. We see them on the YouTube and talk to them when they are our neighbors… we’re still on the front side of the learning curve.

If you are too, now is the time! Muck up some dirt, throw down some lettuce seeds and embrace the beauty of managing creation. God put Adam in the garden first for a reason.

Previously we talked about Hay bales representing a great store of value over the winter and bragged about how much hay was in the barn. Since that time all the goats have decided the green spring grass is no good and they want to tear up all the unauthorized Hay bales. It’s great fun.

Wood is pricey right now and we have stacks of pallets bought cheap on Craigslist last year. Time to put them to work.

This was one of the good days in life. Kids played, all the materials were on hand, clear objectives and smooth work flow. Finished the whole side of the barn by lunch.

After that we hung gates on the two ends of the barn to finish isolating it.

Momma Marbles has successfully accepted our bottle buckling and has turned out to be the most nurturing momma we’ve worked with. After putting them together in their bonding pen, we held her still for a bit and helped little guy get busy. It worked and then kept working, and now they’re just free ranging the back yard and nursing freely.

Those pallets behind them will turn out to be useful for the next project… fencing in the pole barn from nefarious and untimely hay consumption. Pallets are cheap and lumber is really expensive right now!