Well it's finally final! We're finally home owners. We started looking at this place I'm sitting in right now way back in March. We believed we would be moving in beginning June, but things kept getting in the way, and I'm very happy to say that we are HOME!! Well it doesn't quite feel like home just yet-- our chickens and Maremma and rabbits are still at the old place, as well as tools and things in the storage sheds. And I've only got the kitchen set up and the clothes put away-- still many many things to do before we can have a house-warming soiree.
We bought a place on three acres overlooking Kachemak Bay and Mount Iliamna. It has good western exposure, with some flat grassy areas to the south of the house. There is a new shop on the property and.... a barn!!! Of good size too. I've moved the goats here in order to keep a closer eye on Belta, as I believe she will be kidding here very soon. I think she might be on gestation day 142, but I never actually saw the coitus happen. I love that word. Coitus.
The dang camera is still packed up somewhere in this woodpecker's boardinghouse. I should have dug it out yesterday, but instead I foolishly believed that the sun was going to stick around a day or so. Not so. Today, nothing but rain. Anyways, pictures to come.
This parcel has never been cultivated, save a few cottonwoods transplanted in the yard. I'm super excited to layout the new garden, but not too enthused to actually do the work of clearing what is there. Right now, it's just a bunch or fireweed where I plan to have the kitchen garden, and I thought the goats could help me out on that front. HOWEVER, both times I've let them escape the barn, they've gone the opposite way straight up the driveway toward the road where a big husky lives two plots up. Fearing the worst, both excursions have ended shortly after this by tying the buck up in the barn and luring the does in with grain. It takes a lot of coaxing, let me tell you. I've had the girls for almost a year now, and they're still just about as flighty and wild. I think I'll just wait and enjoy the fireweed bloom, them pick it and feed it to the goats in order to clear the garden plot.
Then the layering begins. Maybe. I'll probably have to terrace a bit. That'll be good anyways to see what the soil consists of. But layering. I'm excited to try this no-dig stuff. Well, I'll dig salmon carcasses into the soil about a foot, so that and the terracing are hopefully the extent of my garden groundbreaking. No till, baby. No turning over. Leave that soil structure alone once it's in place. So back to the layering, the building of this beautiful soil structure. Salmon one foot deep. Thick cardboard to keep the weeds down. All that bedding in the old barn now. Everything in my compost heap at the old place. All the vegetable harvest stuff the animals won't touch. Kelp deposited on the beach by late summer, early fall storms. Then the pile of old bedding that has been piled up outside the old barn all summer. Then, alder leaf fall right before the snow flies.
So, I think I just about have the barn ready to bring home the cluckers. I'm going to try a bit of a different layout than I was using at the old place. Instead of having completely separate areas dedicated to each animal, I'm just going to make the chicken feed area inaccessible to the goats. For the time being, I think I'll just toss the goat's hay onto their platforms twice a day instead of using a hay rack. The reason being that I am still not looking forward to picking all that hay out of Olga Petunia's fleece from this spring!! (I had the rack hung too high.) Also, at the old place the hens started laying eggs in the hay rack this summer, and I can't get them to go back to laying in their nesting boxes. I'm sure I'll end up tweaking this set-up quite a bit as the winter progresses, but one of the main draws to it is that I'll only need one pop-door for all the animals, and fewer interior walls makes for quicker cleaning. I'll eventually have the feed storage area fenced off, as well as a milking parlor, but right now I'm not even sure I'll be able to get my hands on my soon-to-be-milker's teats without wreaking havoc and pandemonium.
As for the rabbits, well I butchered all but two of them, and I only plan on keeping one of them to continue my breeding program. A friend in town bought some Flemish Giants this spring and I'm hoping to get a doe from her to start breeding this fall. From what I've read, the Flemish Giant isn't usually considered a very good meat breed because the bone to meat ratio is high, but I think if I cross bred with the satin I have, I may get a good product. Something I learned from cross-breeding goats of differing size is to always be sure that the doe is the bigger breed of the two, otherwise there may be tremendous birthing complications. Note to self: brush up on sexing rabbits and confirm the gender of each before throwing them together to go at it.
This spring I built a tractor hutch, and was planning on building another one so that I can house one doe in each and also have a separate hutch for the buck. I designed the hutch so that in the summer it can be a tractor in the yard, and in the winter it can hang on the wall in the barn. I'm also exploring vermiculture bins beneath the hutches for composting what kitchen scraps the animals won't eat, possibly chicken manure, and of course the rabbit droppings.
As it is right now, I don't have fencing up anywhere, so that's another project I need to start thinking about very soon. I'm sure Tufo the LGD will grow to be a wonderful protector, but those goats wandering up toward the road worries me so much that I'm not sure I should even let them out again until I have some kind of fencing up, even temporary. As for (semi)permanent fencing, I'm thinking about working on a wattle fence. I've got a large hillside covered in alders, and I think this would make a fairly impenetrable fence. I've also got access to electric fencing, but I know that takes quite a watchful eye (perimeter walks) to keep the current from grounding out on new growth. For the time being, I can borrow some 6'X6' chain link panels to at least let them out to get air and light. Currently, there are no windows in the building. Add that on to the honey-do list!
So for any of you folks reading this out there, I'd be interested in your take on a few topics:
Has anyone done the no-till gardening method long term? Does anyone know how long sheet composting takes to break down?
For anyone who has chickens and goats, do you house them together? What is your layout and how does it work out for you?
Livestock fencing: what works best for you?
Hope your summer has been bountiful and beautiful!
