That lucky old sun

We’re getting there.  Soon it will always be light when we go to work and light when we come home.

A couple of weekends back, we had an unlikely cloudy period with a spot of snow.

Katie's unlce Colin dropped by this crisp Saturday to use his welding skills to fix my busted compost bin. Don't look directly at the flames!

This one captures our closeness to the mountains. Always beautiful. Also, our portion of the house is the addition on the right with the bay windows.

Having bought the supplies one week ago, this Saturday I built a 10×3 raised bed, upside down.  I did it this way because the ground is pretty hard even when it’s not frozen, which is the case currently. In a month or two, I will plop this bugger in the ground.

This one makes the yard look big! See the chicken shed and covered garden in the back.

This weekend we received our special order of SunGro germination mix #3 and Katie began the first round of seeding (homey photos of seed trays to come).  JP and I also got to work expanding chicken penthouse’s interior.  Now it will accommodate more layers, which we are trying to buy mature as we have 11 (1 died) able bodied birds ready to peck the crap out of little ones.  Get outside. The winter will end soon. Even in Boulder, Colorado winter is too long for me.

- Andrew

Animal Holiday

Well, today Max (the dog) and I were resting when I decided I should post something on the ol’ blog.

Worth noting: In Boulder, people are called the "guardians" of animals, not the owners or masters.

Over Christmas, Katie and I visited Carrie and Cheryl’s farms while we were in Washington.

This is Bruester. He's the ram at Carrie's farm that wants all the ladies - sheep or goat.

And as it was a good day for mating, Gunther (middle) the pee-stained beard goat (so gross!) had them lining up.

It was a beautiful day. I remember last winter at this time I was feeding the sheep, goats, rabbits, turkeys, and chickens, digging ditches and building make-shift shelters for the animals in the pouring rain. I seriously miss this farm and the time with the animals.

It was also picturesque (and muddy) at Cheryl's farm.

Sometimes everybody needs a nap in the sun.

Details

I want to use my resources well, have a successful chicken raising, and ensure that this project allows us to remain balanced.  That’s why planning is so important. Below is a list of things I need to think about/fill out in the coming weeks as I prepare for spring chickens. But first, a Joel Salatin quote about the wonders of process.

“Too many people want to get the bigger thing before they’ve proven faithfulness in the little things.”

Chicken plans for the spring and summer with an eye for the future

1. Bird numbers:  Meat birds 10-30, Maintain current 12 layers, other non-chicken meat bird(s)____________________?
2. Bird types:
3. Bird sellers:
4. Build something for meat chickens by February (Options)

• permanent – w/ entrance to current shed and roost space for night
• permanent (w/ chicken door to attach to moveable unit) + a daytime moveable unit w/  weatherproof section and optional nest boxes for layer use
• Permanent + DAYLIGHT FREE RANGE – fence patching, garden bed fencing – Dog & predator issues
• movable chicken mobile for the meat birds, permanent structure for non-chicken meat birds
• Something else for non-chicken meat bird(s)

* Having  the extra permanent coop with be helpful even just to give the current pen a chance to sanitize in the sun.  This isn’t a good enough reason to build, but a long term benefit.

5.  Cut back on feed costs – Grow a cover crop and vegetable patches   for the chickens

• Daylight Free Range – might make chicken garden unnecessary, might encourage planting near coop to keep chickens nearby
• greens:
• cover crops:
• yard areas:
• daily scraps from kitchen & from the soup kitchen/pantry

Well, looks like I’ve got some options and some research to do.  Good thing we’re making beer too.

What we’re eating

Sorry for the lack of pictures in this post. We’re tired.

Winter makes for good meals.

Potato & celeriac soup

Squash soup

Roasted lamb with mustard/honey glaze and roasted potatoes

Roasted beets

Ciabatta with roasted tomatoes from the freezer

Hamburgers and beer from the Mountain Sun – we can’t get enough.

Dumplings – pan-fried, soy-dipping sauce, very satisfying

Stir-fry with winter squash, pork and cabbage

A post in pictures

20 degrees outside. Hmm... We must really like beer. Hunter's a champ.

Digging holes and having relatives.

We’re just waiting out the snow. Its been in the single digits, teens and twenties for more than a week here, and snowing off and on.  Andrew dug nine holes for our spring project just before the temperature plummeted.  We hope to house 2-3 rounds of 10-15 meat birds (chickens for meat, not eggs) in the coming addition of Chickenopolis.

Digging holes might sound mundane, but really, it was quite triumphant! Chicken anyone?

And then, there’s our cute nephews we can’t wait to see again in a few weeks.

Phineas is getting BIG!

Owen recently wanted to leave his train set out to show me because I was coming really soon (6 weeks).

Sauerkraut and calzones

And yep, we made some sauerkraut and calzones.  And of course, I had to look up how to spell sauerkraut.

We used some of these free cabbages.

And beat the hell out of them in bowls while adding a bit of salt here and there.

It kind of hurts the fist at first, but a remarkable amount of water gets mashed out of those hard leaves.

And now they're hanging out in the garage with water weights on top.

Then, the calzones. Our friend Sarah made them with Katie.

And that’s it. That’s all we did. And we worked about a million hours to teach the children and feed the world.

 

 

Second snow

We had our second snow the week of Halloween – just about two feet.  After 3 or 4 days it was almost gone, sunny and 65. That’s what I’m talking about!

JP got to use his new toy! Very handy for this much snow.

The chicken coop got quite a bit!

Then Dave flew out to visit.

We went up to Nederland reservoir. Very windy at 8,000+ feet up.

Katie made us sushi!

And of course this sushi had to be dressed with...

2 feet of snow was a bit much for our fence hoops (now reinforced), but everything came through it perfectly fine!

This one’s for Noah!

Well, my “Brew-boy” career has risen to new heights.  Hunter has the gear (and the skill) and I have fun (and good looks).  We’ll have beer ready by the new year, and cider in the spring.

The beer and cider (minus 15 gallons in the next room) hanging out on the garage floor. We made around 30 gallons of cider a week ago and 10 of beer yesterday.

Of course, all these home made beverages took a lot of sacrifice…

Hunter, very high up in a tree over an irrigation ditch. He cut himself up a bit, and hardly any apples to show for it! It was a test of manhood.

Clinging on for life while I called the fire department... ha!

That last caption is unfortunately fictional.

And now Noah, for the cool tech part.  Below is my sacrifice.

I had to hold this copper box. It was heavy! It cooled the hot hot beer with cool water running by it from the hose. It works remarkably well.

And I should end with this nice picture of Long’s Peak (I think) from the farm at Lyons.

The Front Range and the peaks have all been snow-capped and gorgeous for a few weeks.

Friends came over and we put them to work: GARLIC!

Our friends Erin and Ben were staying with us last weekend and we put them to work in the garden.  We planted my beloved and well-prepped garlic bed with over 300 heads of garlic, plus some walking onions. I’m excited for July. They’re just going to be hiding out in the ground until then.

Labeling is always an important, but hard to get to part of farming. What the heck is this plant!?

And bed prepping... I've only spent about a jillion hours on this soil - I needed Ben's help to do it one more time!!!

We used JP's handy screen filter to get all the weeds that have been sliding through the loose soil since I first prepped it more than a month ago. It might be overkill, but I want this to WORK!

And here’s the happy couple!

TOUGH Farm-stock Coloradans.

I forgot to take a picture of the signs in the ground. But our models do a good job of displaying the craftsmanship.

Little woman, big compost.