Geek Acres

Ahh! .... AHHHH!

2011-06-26T07:22:00.001-05:00

I was weed eating a fence line I hadn't trimmed in a while. I was watching closely for some poison ivy I didn't want to trim and fling all over me when a mouse darted out of the brush and startled me. It was then immediately followed by a black snake striking and wrapping it up.

Over the hum of the trimmer engine I believe I sounded something like the title of the post!

Greenhouse is open

2011-04-25T22:59:00.000-05:00

The greenhouse is now open. Jennifer has partnered this year with a neighbor and friend of ours. Sherry wanted to learn about the greenhouse and how to raise plants. She's done a fine job and we've got over a dozen different varieties of heirloom tomato plants for sale along with some eggplant, artichoke, herbs, and even some ornamentals and flowers.

Unfortunately someone else liked our greenhouse sign at the end of the drive well enough that they just took it home... So we'll have to get another one to put out by the highway.

Run ahead of the pack

2011-04-25T22:50:00.001-05:00

Pictured here is our new tractor! We've been on the farm now for 5 years and have managed so far by begging and borrowing time from neighbors and friends when tractor work was needed. It's nice to have folks to help out but it's even better to be able to do things on your own.

The photo above is from right after it was unloaded. It's a DK40SE made by Kioti. I did my homework including my usual spreadsheet analysis and learned you get more features, more power, more weight, and more lifting capacity for the money than the other orange tractor brand (or any other compact utility tractor). Plus it comes with a 4 year/unlimited hour warranty, an important feature for a first time tractor owner. We had a very pleasurable sales experience through S&H Farm Supply and salesman Mark will be seeing us again the future for sure!

In the short few weeks we've already tackled several projects with the tractor. It's primary use most days is moving round bales as Jennifer is doing in the photo above. I do find it necessary to counterbalance the load on the front end loader (FEL) with the box blade on the rear.

The box blade too has been put through it's paces. I finally got the guts to work on the drive and I was very pleased with the results. I was timid at first as I thought I would make it worse, to which a neighbor replied that it couldn't possibly get worse (that's how badly rutted it was). I just took the advice of a more experienced neighbor and just went slow. It took several passes up and down the 1/4 mile drive but it's a huge improvement. I didn't even need to add additional material to get a nice smooth finish.

We've mowed the pasture with the rotary cutter and moved mulch with the FEL bucket. I've even used it to pull against to stretch some fence. I plan on welding some grab hooks on to the bucket to make it easier to lift things with a chain. All in all I'm very pleased with the tractor. It's been a long time coming and theres a huge list of projects that will be easier to complete now that we aren't burdening our neighbors for tractor time!

Spring!

2011-04-25T22:32:00.000-05:00

We had a beautiful run of weather a few days ago, now we're looking at flooding all around us. During the nice weather Jennifer and her band of WWOOFers took to doing some yardwork. I snapped this photo of Jennifer in one of the flower beds they weeded. Near her is our newest bottle baby (and current resident of the master bath tub) Gidget. Haley, Sue, and Gelleon aren't far either.

SNOMG!

2011-02-01T21:00:00.000-06:00

I was just saying how the Explorer seems to do quite well in the snow. It hadn't seen anything like this before though. Luckily I made it all the way home to the end of the drive before I became stuck. The photo above is the snow up over the bottom edge of the Explorer, I had to push snow out of the way to get out and immediately sunk up over my thighs in the drift that is our driveway.

I think a conservative estimate of our snow accumulation would be 18 to 20" with drifts well over 2 to 3 feet. The goats aren't going to get out in snow that deep so Jennifer and Kyle spent the day moving water tanks and heaters into their barns. Trudging around in this stuff is not easy, I had to stop three or four times to catch my breath on the 1/4 mile walk up the drive (hey, I was carrying a bag full of clothes in case I got stranded plus my laptop case and some paperwork). Moving from barn to barn carrying bales of hay or pales of water wasn't a picnic either.

I'll try to take some photos tomorrow. When you're not working it in or avoiding other cars on the road it's actually quite pretty.

Some new photos

2011-01-16T17:31:00.001-06:00

I hadn't taken any photos around the farm lately. I never seem to devote time to lugging the camera around and cell-phone camera images just don't cut it for me most of the time. I went out midday today and snapped a few shots:

Molly is one of our 4 LGDs (livestock guard dogs). She's getting a little face rubbing action in this photo.

I walked out to the front pasture and of course was greated by Bear. After some attention he went back to work. Here he is on the look-out.

Bulldog, one of our wethers from the 2010 fall kidding season, was curious about the camera I was carrying around. I finally got him to hold still long enough and stay far enough away that I could get a photo of him in focus. He's quite the little man and is destined for the show ring.

I moved to the Nubian pasture where Jack was on patrol. Good old reliable Jack-Jack keeps the dariy goats safe 24/7.

In the Nubian pasture everyone was crowding around to see, smell, or get a nibble of the curious device around my neck. I snapped this one shooting almost directly into the sun with Harmony between me and the sky. I rather like this shot.

Winter Update

2011-01-15T08:08:00.000-06:00

True to form, my lovely wife Jennifer, continues to diversify the farm "portfolio." We're raising seven feeder pigs that we purchased from a local Amish guy. We agreed we would raise one for ourselves to butcher and maybe one or two to raise and sell. Jennifer sent out a quick e-mail to people we thought might be interested and now we've got 7 little piggies.

I had no idea pigs were so strong! They're little power-packed balls of muscle. These little piggies did in fact "squeal all the way home" in goat tote in the back of the truck. They obviously were not handled extensively as they're quite excitable. I had read that it takes solid fence and some hot wire to contain them so we fixed up one of our smaller pens (about 1/4 acre maybe) as the new pig lot. It has good solid fence around it and now has one strand of electric fence about 4 inches off the ground all along the perimeter. Pigs like to root up things and can easily root right under a fence. And there's a reason that some rodeo's have a pig catching event: if you're not a participant it's hilarious to watch, because it's really hard to catch a loose piglet! I want no part of pig catching outside this pen...

The piggies picture above are going to town on some slop, quite a sight to see. They are finally getting to the point where they realize that we're not a threat. When we first got them the slightest sight of us would momentarily stop them in their tracks with a quick "snort" before they would bolt the opposite direction. Now they recognize and associate us with the slop bucket. Jennifer and our latest WWOOFER volunteer, Kyle, have a hesitation with the pigs coming so close to them when feeding. They're both, perhaps rightly so, nervous that the little piggies will start to nibble on them. I guess they won't be little piggies for very long. Kyle blames Jennifer for corrupting him with the idea that they might like to eat him.

Speaking of Kyle, he's been great to have on the farm. He and Jennifer have been very productive while I'm away at the day job. Our involvement with the WWOOFER has been nothing but positive so far. It's been great meeting new people from all over, making new friends, and sharing ideas all while working together on the farm towards a common goal. I highly recommend it.

Flickering lights, loose neutral, unbalanced power

2010-12-19T08:24:00.005-06:00

I post this in hopes that it's indexed into the interwebs by Google and the like and it might be found by someone else who needs the information.

Over the last several days the power in the house had been flickering when appliances came on. We had gotten used to the slight momentary dimming when the furnace or the fridge came on. On Friday it got much worse. The lights would get dim and really bright, sometimes rapidly for seconds at a time. At one point it was like the house lights were like a strobe light going dim then bright repeatedly for 10 seconds or so.

I did my best to test and debug. I did some research on the internet and dreamt of the problem all Friday night (when I actually could sleep). On Saturday I put a couple other projects to the side so I could concentrate on the power. I had to run to town to get a new volt meter, the last cheapy I bought stopped working. I was shutting off various circuits to see if I could isolate if a single appliance was causing the problem. I shut off the circuits to the water heater, the furnace, the refrigerator, the deep freeze, in various permutations but the problem continued.

I called a friend who has done some electrical work for us recently (that's another story, remember: cable rated for direct burial doesn't mean it's rated for rock), but he couldn't make it until Saturday afternoon. I went on with other projects having exhausted my knowledge.

When John did arrive, he did his best to test it all out. We were seeing unbalanced power in the breaker box of the house. We were expecting to see about 125 volts from each phase of the hot wire compared to the neutral, but we were seeing wide and changing ranges.

We moved to the main breaker under the meter on the pole. We opened it up and saw the neutral lug was literally glowing hot! We shut the power off immediately, the area around the lug had started to discolor and a mounting screw had welded it self to the fixture. We let it cool and shut off various circuits in the house and the barn to try and determine what was going on. During our testing we were seeing that there was 10 volts from the box to the neutral. You should expect to see no voltage between the box and the neutral. In laymens terms, the box it self had a charge and could shock you... not good.

John tested the voltage on each leg of the hot wires and saw that each phase was moving from at lowest 13 volts to 130 plus at the highest. Also not good. We consulted with his trade-school electrician teacher and some research I had done on the internet and it pointed to a loose neutral on the power company's side of the equation.

After about 3 hours of waiting in the dark with no heat the on-call line crew of Southwest Electric Co-op showed up and fixed the problem. They replaced the neutral from meter to the box and tightened everything down.

The lights no longer dim even when a space heater or the furnace is turned on.

Jennifer and I slept so much better last night.

Doc

2010-12-19T08:03:00.000-06:00

Doc died Friday. Words from our friend Carrie describe him and our feelings well:

I found out this morning that Doc, one of the dogs I got to know so well at Harmony Hill, was hit by a car today and killed.

Anyone who met him could immediately discern a few things about Doc. One, that despite his size, he was still a puppy, and still stupid from it. And two, that he didn't have a mean bone in his body, and that he really, truly, wanted to please you. Even if he couldn't pay attention long enough to make that happen.

He wasn't a good fit on the farm, because he really didn't listen well, he thought with his nose, and he was constantly getting into stuff, or running off, or chewing up things, or climbing on the bed, or racing circles around the yard. He reminded me of a three-year old boy - of my little brother, when he was small - in that the only time he was ever still was when he was asleep. He drove us up a wall, and got yelled at maybe more often than he strictly deserved, but underneath that he was really growing into a good dog. He would've been a perfect pet for a little kid - he loved kids.

He liked to chase cars, because they went fast and Doc was sure he could go faster ... and I guess a car finally caught him, today.

Damn. I kept going about my day, making cookies, reading, doing whatever, and then I'd think, "Shit. Doc." And things would get just a little grayer, and my heart would squeeze in my chest, and I'd find myself frowning.

No matter how I look at it, it just bloody well sucks.

But I tell myself that his spirit is free now, to chase all the rabbits and foxes and cars he wants, and free to eat chicken eggs to his heart's content with no one to complain about the resulting smells, and free to race the wind, as he so obviously was meant to do.

Rest in peace, Doc-amus. We'll miss you.

Aaron and I put him to rest in the field where he loved to romp and play.

Night night Doc Doc.

Tower O'Cute!

2010-11-14T22:30:00.000-06:00

Show line up

2010-09-28T23:24:00.000-05:00

This summer flew by. I have been taking snapshots throughout the summer with the intent on blogging about goings-on but more activities have been going on and cutting into the time and energy that's usually reserved for blogging. I'll be parsing through the photos over the next few days to catch everyone up and to try to get back into a routine of updating this thing.

The photo above was taken at the Ozark Empire Fair. The three goats on the left are ours and they took 3rd and 4th out of a class of 14, which we were very happy with. Princess (on the far left) placed 3rd. I got a laugh when watching the line up because she was the only goat chewing her cud. For the uninitiated, cud chewing is a sign of contentment and relaxation. All the other goats were more high strung and stimulated by the strange things going on around them. Not princess... she just stood there with this non-nonchalant "are we done yet" attitude. Apparently others noticed this as well as one guy said on the way out she was the only "bomb-proof" doe out there, and tried to buy her. Jennifer promptly responded there wasn't a check big enough to buy her. Princess is Jennifer's baby, in fact one of our first bottle babies we ever raised.

At the fair we had a chance to socialize with the other goat breeders and do a bit of networking which was pretty fun. We met some really great folks. That being said, we still thought it better to keep an eye out on the goats overnight so I decided to stay at the fair and slept on a cot in the goat/sheep barn. That was definitely a one of a kind experience for me. Mostly I remember how hot it was, even late into the night with box fans strategically placed around me.

In other news, we've had another WWOOF volunteer with us for the past few weeks and the next few more. It's been great having Carrie around and I think we're learning from her as much (if not more) than she is from us. Carrie is planning a trek cross-country and is taking a break from school where she studied like two dozen subjects she likes to boil down to just "history." She's extended her original plan to stay with us through part of our kidding season. We're all excited to see some new arrivals!

Still Kicking

2010-07-18T09:21:00.002-05:00

The summer has been a busy one, sorry for the lack of blogging updates. I recieved an update on the previously mentioned WWOOFers and link to their blog, WWOOFing Green Summer 2010. Ken and Amiee are pictured in the photo above.

The heat in our neck of the Ozarks has been stifling for the past few weeks. I felt like I had jumped in a warm lake with my clothes on just doing chores this morning, not exactly a challenging physical feat. What is a challenging physical feat, however, is cycling across the country. Our next set of WWOOFers and new friends Melissa and Brooke passed through our area last week on their way westward. Apparently our town of Walnut Grove is located near the TransAmerican trail for biking across the country. I always wondered why there were so many cyclist on Hwy BB, a very hilly and narrow road near our home.

In any case I think Brooke was ready to sell the bikes and take up goat ranching with us. In the end they decided to continue on their adventure across the country. They are chronicling their journey on their blog The Road Beneath Us. It's always funny to see people's reaction to goats for the first time as their is such a negative stereotype surrounding goats.

Jennifer is a “goat lady”. A self-proclaimed and awesome goat lady. When Melissa and I rolled our bikes up to Harmony Hill, she was in the pasture, with her goats. Immediately she began introducing us to “the ladies”. She pointed to one and said, “that’s Etsu. Come here, Etsu.” She just hithered a goat. I had my doubts. I’ve never been around goats and thought to myself, there is no way that goat is coming over here. And then it stood up, and waltzed it’s way over to Jennifer. All these goats know there names! They are smart and extremely lovable, too.

We're hoping they "land" some place cool when they finish their ride so we can for a visit. If not they can both return and lend a hand at milking. They both need a little practice though. :)

Bummer

2010-06-12T07:58:00.000-05:00

It was bound to happen. The plastic I used on the greenhouse I bought off craigslist. The guy said it was greenhouse plastic which is specifically designed to hold up to abuse it will take on a greenhouse, such as a UV protection, but I had my doubts. There were no brand names on the box, no logos on the plastic. One day this week Jennifer came home to find it had failed. It split along one of the creases from when it was folded and the wind did the rest. The good news is we had shut down the use of it for the summer so there were no losses of plants. I did have to quickly weatherize things as you can see the fan boxes have tarps secured to them and various other things have been sealed individually from the elements.

Now I need to take the old plastic off and replace it with the right stuff. This time I'll buy something with UV protection, a warranty, and enough to do a double layer for extra insulation. Since we don't plan on using it until late August I'm tempted to wait until then to make the purchase but it's a bit of an eyesore without the plastic on it, so it will probably happen relatively soon.

I spent a good part of this last week in Chicago attending the Internet Retailer Conference and Expo (for my day job). As I stood in the crowded airport waiting for my luggage on the way home I kept thinking about how nice it will be to get home, to peace and quiet. It's fun to travel occasionally, but it's good to be home.

Baby goats

2010-06-06T17:45:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I wish I could just hang out and nap like the little one's pictured here. We've had a ton going on lately. Most recently we hosted two WWOOFers for a couple of weeks. I've mentioned having WWOOF volunteers before, but for those that don't know it's a network of organic farmers (WWOOF host farms) and those interested in learning about organic farming (WWOOFers). The WWOOFers volunteer their time and energy in exchange for a learning opportunity as well as room and board. I understand we're on the luxurious end of the accommodations (we have an extra private bedroom and bath in our home) as some just provide tent space.

Ken and Amy, our WWOOFERS, are doing a summer of WWOOFing. They left yesterday after a two week stay. They helped us get a ton of little extra projects done. My lovely wife Jennifer said it best after a day of projects with the WWOOFers and my cousin Aaron helping out that we got more done that just the "have-tos" that we usually get done with a typical weekend. Some of the projects marked off the checklist include:

taking down the old barn tin
cleaning out the old barn
creating two large compost piles out of the bedding from the barn
rebuilding fence around that barn
tearing down an old compost bin and building a nicer one in a different spot
planting lots of ornamental plants and trees
mulching
building new raised beds
moving hay to the new barn
cleaning out the chicken house

I'm sure I'm forgetting some of the things we accomplished. The place looks great as a result and we learned a lot and had fun with our guests, I think they would say the same. Amy is a second year vet student and got a nice introduction into the world of goats. Jennifer and I laughed when she said her favorite goat was Etsu, because she's "so outrageous." Jennifer also arranged for Amy to meet our local vet and she spent three days riding and helping Dr. Mozier. Ken is a recent grad with a degree in history, he's looking to get into urban planning and I hope his experience on our little farm helps him along that journey. They plan on blogging their experience and I'm waiting for a URL to link to.

We have another set of WWOOFers scheduled for sometime in July, they're biking across the country. They only plan on staying for a few days and we're looking forward to their visit.

Lost dog

2010-05-11T20:48:00.001-05:00

It's been four days since we last saw Gelleon, and I'm starting to loose hope that he'll come back. He always had a bad habbit for sneaking off the farm, but he usually came home within a few hours. He's never met a stranger and anyone willing to acknowledge him was instantly his best friend.

I never knew exactly where he went or why, some of our neighbors had reported seeing him in the past but it was never that far away. This time though I'm afraid he has gone to far. I like to think that some family found him and decided to keep him since he's so friendly and love-able and he always managed to loose his collar but I'm sick to think what else could have happened to him.

Another neighbor told us that someone else recently lost a dog, that it was just gone one day. Someone else in the community told us a sickening rumor that some local punks were shooting "stray" dogs. If I ever learned who these future serial killers might be.... I'm not sure I would be able to contain my needs for justice.

I keep hoping that he'll return home. I miss my boy.

Update: Gelleon is home, safe, and healthy. The story of his absence and return is complicated and unpleasant, however. Thank you to everyone for the well wishes and positive thoughts!

Hay storage

2010-05-09T19:57:00.001-05:00

I counted wrong, and will have to make another trip to the big box hardware store for more 1x4s to complete the project pictured. Having goats and only 10 acres means handling hay, and since we don't own a tractor to move round bales easily (we do own a bale spike trailer, more on that in another blog post), we rely on "square" bales.

The bales aren't really square, technically, I guess they're a rectangular prism if I remember my elementary school geometry lesson. If done right they're about 1 1/2' by 1 1/2' by 3' in length. I say "right" because the length can vary based on the settings of the baler used. With the dimensions I mentioned as "right" they'll stack nicely in layers running 90 degrees to the layer below it and squarely fit on top of each other.

In any case, having square bales means a proper place to store them. What that has meant up until now is any dry location we could find (the old barn and the shop building) was game for storing hay. We would throw pallets down and devise a way to keep the animals out and use that for hay storage. The pallets served to keep the hay off the ground and allow some airflow under them. Unfortunately it made for inefficient stacking as the ground we placed the pallets on was never level and no matter how hard we tried to stack them it was always a little haphazard especially after you started pulling some off the stack.

That's where the project in the photo above comes in. I've constructed this in the south west corner of our new barn, I'm calling it the hay deck. It's positioned right next to the 10' wide door which should allow us to back the flat bed right in next to the hay deck for unloading and stacking. If you've ever hauled hay you know that it's a dirty dusty business that no one enjoys. In the past it would involve us throwing the bales off the trailer on the ground then picking them up and moving them to the stack. With this set up it should make it less of a chore. With a nice level surface we should be able to tightly stack 150 bales in this space.

I think the hay deck will work pretty well and as an added benefit I finally get the entire shop as actual workshop space when the hay has it's final home. I'm looking forward to that, as I've collected quite a set of tools (and the skills to use them) over the years. I remember 9 or 10 years ago buying my first cordless drill (when I bought my first home). I had no idea back then the path I would be on now. In today's project I made use of several of these tools including:

tool belt - I use this on every project, I just load it up with the hand tools I'll be using on the project and it's always right with me. I've blogged about my tool belt before.
hammer
3' level
line level
chalk line
cordless drill
air compressor - now that there is power in all the outbuildings, this is coming in real handy for:

air nailer - it makes quick work of fastening things together
impact driver - I used it to drive 1/2" by 6" long lag bolts through the ledger board into the 6x6 posts of the barn

tri-vise lumber lok - I got this today and thought I would try it out, it indeed made on person board cutting much safer and effective.

So far in the barn I've also wired up exterior lights but it still needs stalls, interior overhead lights, stall lights, and ultimately a concrete pad under a new feed room. There's always plenty to do on the weekends, and plenty of ways to use my toys, er, tools...

Less blogging, more doing

2010-05-02T22:39:00.000-05:00

When the weather gets nice it's hard for me to carve out time to write blog posts, but I know I'll be sorry if I don't attempt to document progress as we go along. I took this photo from the deck while I relaxed for a brief moment. The backfilling is complete though we still have a pile of excess sand. The guy that was doing our dirt work said sand is too expensive just to spread around and I should try to find a use for it. It just so happens I'll be building some walk way soon so I'll try to use it then.

You can see the completed green house in the photo, our new goose-neck trailer for hauling goats around, the F350 for pulling said trailer and other trailers, the new barn, our trusty explorer, the pedal car, and one of our portable goat barns (that is still half-painted).

The greenhouse is working great, we've sold quite a few heirloom tomato plants with an ad on craigslist. The only thing I'm not happy with in the greenhouse is the thermostat. It seems to turn the fans on at the right temperature but it will never shut them off even when the ambient temperature cools below the on point. I think the amount of current that I am drawing through the thermostat is too much. It's a simple attic-fan thermostat and it seems to be generating it's own heat which throws off the measurement. I need to find something better and soon.

The horse trailer was a recent acquisition. Jennifer did some trading and we got rid of a cargo trailer that we hadn't used for over a year. Now we have our own trailer to haul the goats around and don't have to bother the neighbors. The week Jennifer bought it she took 3 of our goats to a two-day goat show in Sedalia, MO. She won three second place ribbons and one first place ribbon. I hope to go with her in the near future to a show and help out.

The barn now has it's sand floor and I've already started on the inside. I wired up exterior lighting this weekend and this week (after work) I plan on sinking posts for the hay "deck." We will use one corner of the barn to store hay but I don't want to mess with pallets to store the hay on and keep it off the ground so I'll build a deck of sorts to have a nice level surface to tightly pack square bales. In another corner of the barn we'll pour a concrete pad for a feed room. I also plan on visiting the habitat for humanity "reStore" to see if I can find some inexpensive lights to put to use in the barn.

All and all there's quite a bit of progress shaping up. I was telling a friend the other day that we finally have the infrastructure in place to make chores fast and projects easier... Things like having power in all the outbuildings removes a huge psychological barrier for me such that I can get started and finish projects much quicker.

Farmer's markets

2010-04-25T10:35:00.000-05:00

I created a little calendar widget that lists farmer's markets near me (or somewhere close to my daily weekday commute). It looks like I can get fresh local food nearly every day of the week. Sunday and Monday don't have a local market scheduled but having one every other day of the week should cut down on my excuses for not buying locally grown veggies (when we don't have our own) and locally raised meat.

Food, Inc.

2010-04-21T22:19:00.003-05:00

Jennifer and I just caught the tail end of "Food, Inc" on PBS and she wanted (and I had already planned) to post about it. There are some graphic scenes and some definite food for thought (pun unintended) on the state of our country's food supply. Find this documentary and watch it.

A link to buy it from Amazon:

LGD Update

2010-04-19T22:30:00.002-05:00

The vote is unanimous: Jack is worth his weight in gold! He's surely kept the coyote's at bay each night by responding to their yipping with his low rumble of a bark. He's also chased off a fox on a couple different occasions. We've had to divide the herd into three different groups due to various feeding and breeding requirements. Unfortunately that means Jack's presence and protection of the herd is divided by gates.

His most recent action came this last weekend when we heard a ruckus with the chickens. I watched in shock as a fox scattered the flock of chickens in the pasture. The commotion did not go unnoticed by Jack, he was throwing a fit on the other side of the gate. I ran as fast as I could to let him through but by the time I landed off the deck Jack was already on the other side of the gate. I'm still not sure how he scaled it but he did and he gave quick chase to the fox.

We praised him for doing a good job, of course. It seemed like the chickens appreciated it as well, I swear they're usual "cluck cluck cluck" noises were interspersed with "Jack Jack Jack."

Creep feeding for goats

2010-04-16T06:36:00.000-05:00

Creep feeding your baby goats is important to get them growing well, for that you'll need a creep feeder of some sort. A creep is barrier that allows young animals in but keeps older ones out. The feeder is a way to deliver an free choice feed to the babies. Some time ago we bought two pig feeders off craigslist (for $10 each). They're made of galvanized metal and needed new skids put on them (in the form of treated 4x4 posts) but otherwise were in good working order. They work great for goat kid creep feeders and if you can find these cheaply, snatch them up!

I guess the "creep" part of the feeder is the wire panels that surround it that keep the bigger goats out of it. The 2x6's you see are set up so they sandwich the wire panel with nuts and bolts and large washers. The section between the boards is open (I just cut the panel with bolt cutters). This allows me to increase or decrease the size of the opening by loosening the bolts and moving the boards one way or another then tightening it back down. I actually had to change the configuration a bit since some of the bucklings were getting as big as some of our smaller yearling does and couldn't get in. I don't have a photo but now there's only pair of boards running horizontally but lowered so only the babies can crawl under it. Since then we've separated the bucklings into the weaning pen where they have access to the second feeder without the need for a creep since they are the only ones in the pen with the feeder.

In this photo (taken when the feeder was in another section of pasture where a carefully propped open gate acted as the creep) you can see why these hog feeders work so well for baby goats. The center area is where you pour the feed and it supplies a trough on each side of the feeder under the slopes. One of the biggest things you have to manage when you have goats is parasites. One of the fastest ways your babies can get a heavy parasite load is to let them get their feet in their feed, which they will if they can. Goats are very curious and love to climb things. If they can get their feet in it (whether it holds food or not) they will. With these pig feeders they can just barely get their heads to the feed and as they grow they have to get on their knees to get in there, preventing them from contaminating their feed supply with parasites from their feet. It works pretty well!

More recycled pallet goodness

2010-04-15T07:30:00.000-05:00

I winged together a table made from the 12' pallets I've mentioned before (first was kidding stalls from recycled pallets, then shelves out of recycled pallets for starting seeds). I have quite a few pallets left and access to more, I plan on lining most of the walls of our 48' greenhouse with these tables to keep the plants off the floor and provide working surfaces. I think the fact that they have slats will work well for draining away excess water.

As soon as it's all presentable I'll do a full write up on the greenhouse. It's been a long time coming. I mentioned acquiring the parts for the greenhouse in early 2008. The level pad for the greenhouse didn't get created until late 2008. In 2009 I talked a buddy into welding the greenhouse hoops to the posts I had driven. It's now approaching mid 2010 and I might actually call it complete. I guess I just really need to hang the door to call the structure done, but now all the fun of it's operation begins. It just shows that persistence pays off!

Goat feeding

2010-04-14T23:07:00.000-05:00

I mentioned before we are scheming a better way to feed the goats where the feeding person can stay on one side of a fence and have all the goats get access to the feed simultaneously. Why this is important is demonstrated in the following video. Before you watch, a couple things to keep in mind:

The barn in the background was the only barn close to usuable for animals when we bought the place. It was originally a shed style barn (closed on three sides open on one).
My wife has a proven history of buying animals first then giving me an extremely tight deadline in which to construct adequate shelter for them (usually before impending weather, etc). Other examples of hastily built things to solve animal related "challenges" include:

My post "fowl play" which led to, "Poultry Housing,"
Acquiring horses (which we have since sold) lead to modifying the previously mentioned barn with a hay bunk
Our first kidding season brought the need to close up the barn in the background (rapidly), I mentioned this need in a post titled "Kids!"

Frugality is a necessity on the farm; you make due with what you have.
This is on the "back side" of our property, and can't be seen from the road
I will be taking this hodge-podge of materials down and doing it "right" before this winter.

The point I'm trying to make is, I know the barn in the background is ugly, and someday soon I'll fix it right. For now it works. We try very hard to keep our place tidy and neat and I'm always embarrassed by the sight of this barn. I don't want to enforce the stereotype that goats, and people with goats, have to be dirty and have an unkempt place.

That said, enjoy the video of my feeding of the goats. Notice I start with a slight juke towards the far feeders before dumping in the near one and I've perfected the spin move out of traffic (twice in this feeding)! This was actually a pretty tame feeding. Jennifer and I have managed not to fall down (yet) during such a feeding, but I'd like to avoid it by building that system I mentioned before (if I can figure out how it was built).

It's all done but the cryin' (and the payin')

2010-04-12T23:27:00.000-05:00

The barn was officially completed today. And in conjunction, there is power to the greenhouse as well. I only have to hang the door and begin building benches and tables in the greenhouse. This last weekend Aaron and I finished mounting all the fans and louvers and wiring all up to a thermostat, it all worked on the first try, I was so proud!

There's a bit of backfill work left to do and in the barn, aka the goat palace/Taj Mahal, I will start work on building kidding stalls and wiring up circuits for heat lamps and a couple overhead lights. There will be some delay (as we gather the finances) before we pour a concrete pad for the feed room and milking area. In the interior of the barn against the wall that you see under the shed area will be the stalls. On the opposite wall will be hay storage and a future spot for a concrete pad to build a feed room and milking area. Under the shed area itself I am planning on building a feeding system I saw once in a video on the internet, I have since not been able to find it. It allowed the people to stay on one side while distributing the grain evenly into half a large PVC pipe rotated towards the person. The video demonstration show that when all the grain is ready the pipe is rotated towards the goats which allows them all simultaneous access. I'll explain why this important in a future post, but rest assured, how we do it now is organized chaos at best.

Heat wave

2010-04-07T22:52:00.000-05:00

Wow, our farm projects are dragging on but there's a solid chance the barn will be complete THIS weekend, and the greenhouse will be completely functional. There's still no doors on the greenhouse and it's getting over 100 degrees during the day, today the thermometer maxed out past the 120 degree mark. I'm not so sure about the accuracy of this thermometer, but it is indeed noticeably hotter in the greenhouse than the 80's we've been experiencing. At night, with the doors open it's been consitently 10 to 15 degrees warmer in the greenhouse. If I can get the exhaust fans going this weekend I think I can keep the temperature at a productive level. Before fall comes I can add the additional heat storage in the form of 55 gallon drums of water.

Today I had to leave work early to take care of some construction missteps. The first and most pressing was running new buried cable to the well house from the pole. Our dirt work guy accidentally cut one leg of the 220 volt line. It wasn't buried very deep by the previous homeowners and he was just doing some finish work for us on top of the soil, so I can't really blame him. Running water is a very important thing on a farm with animals, they simply cannot be without.

The second semi emergency was patching where some nicks were created in the new buried power lines going to the barn (and by this weekend, the greenhouse). We started this project back in January when the trenching was done. We laid in the power and water but had to quickly cover the water lines to avoid a freeze that was coming, which meant burying the cable, and the water before it was run to it's final destination. When we started the project back up they had to dig to find the water line and the cable, and in the process put some gashes in the heavy duty 100 amp cable. We're going to have the line buried for the last time in the next few days but we had to repair the gashes before then.