Wednesday, October 27, 2021

Preparing for projects

As fall moves inexorably toward winter, one of the things we're trying to do is anticipate spring projects and acquire the necessary materials to bring those projects to fruition when the time comes. Among the highest-priority projects are livestock and a garden.

I miss having cows. I miss their daily care. I miss milking. I miss the warm camaraderie of the beautiful Jerseys we had at our old place. I miss the lovely manure they produced that enriches everything we grow. I miss making butter, cheese, and yogurt.

Our goal, come spring, is to get two Jerseys and a feeder calf we can raise for beef. We have plenty of neighbors raising beef animals, so getting a feeder calf will be easy. We've done some preliminary searches for Jersey cows and have seen plenty of them on the market, so we don't anticipate problems obtaining two ladies when we have everything ready.

Similarly, I miss gardening. I miss weeding (for some reason, I really enjoy weeding). I miss witnessing the daily growth and production of food plants. And of course, I miss the bounteous harvest that comes with an expansive garden.

In short, we miss having a self-sufficient homestead. We have the bones of one, but we're not there yet.

So what we've been doing is pulling together the materials we'll need to work on these projects in the spring. We're also monitoring alternative sources for things such as the nearest town's Facebook buy-and-sell page, the newspaper ads, etc.

Once in a while we come across what we call "a screamin' good deal." You might remember one such deal in the form of a huge number of 2x6x18s we got last March:

Another screamin' good deal we found last March was a series of horse panels being sold by some wealthy horse breeders who were upgrading to the next best model. We walked away with seventeen 12-foot panels, twelve 10-foot panels, and two 10-foot panels with 6-foot built-in gates – all six feet in height and with a total run of 344 linear feet, for an unbelievably low price. Score!

Every time we come across a screamin' good deal, we snap it up. But those deals are few and far between. For many of the things we need, we simply bite the bullet and buy. Sometimes it's painful (financially), but we're consoled that most things are a one-time cost.

Take the garden, for instance. After some thought, we decided on building raised beds again. One of the biggest advantages of raised beds is ease of weeding. I can sit on a crate and weed for hours without physical discomfort to my knees or back.

We won't, however, build another tire garden. Tractor tires aren't as easily available near our new home, so that resource is harder to come by. However what we do have is a large stack of sheet metal left behind by the previous owners.

These can become the siding for raised beds.

The garden's placement will be a bit odd. Because our property is mostly sloped, we had to look at one of the few flat spots we have available; namely, the driveway/parking area in front of the house. Not only is it beautifully flat, but it's also conveniently covered with heavy weed cloth and fine pea gravel. In short, built-in weed control.

Our property has two driveways (one in front of the house, a second driveway leading directly to the barn in back). We graveled a parking area in the back and so we seldom park in front of the house any more, in part because we're reserving it for a future garden.

The garden beds will be three feet wide and about 12 feet long. We'll build as many as will fit in the driveway. We'll be modeling their construction on these photos from the latest issue of Backwoods Home Magazine:

To this end, we purchased a quantity of pressure-treated 2x4s. Don can rip them in half to create the framing for the metal siding.

After some searching, we also found a source for topsoil and had two dump truck loads delivered. In theory this is all we need to fill about 24 beds, but it wouldn't surprise me if we needed another truck's worth. We'll also be talking to a horse-keeping neighbor and asking for a dump truck of his manure.

Needless to say, however, building a garden would be a futile undertaking if we didn't make sure it was deer-proof. Last spring, after a bit of research, we purchased some heavy-duty plastic netting strong enough to keep deer (and elk) out.

This stuff is light-weight and flexible, but very strong. It has an added advantage that, once it's in place, it's not visually annoying.

Each roll is 7.5 feet in height. One roll will fence in the entire perimeter of the garden; the second roll will be cut in half to supplement the height of the first roll, for a total fence height of over 10 feet. Nuclear fencing, baby! We're not taking chances of deer invading the garden.

Speaking of fencing, we're also getting the amount of field fence we need to secure our pastures when it comes time to get cows. Currently our property is "fenced" – I use the term loosely – with three strands of barbed wire. We know from experience it may as well not be fenced at all.

But yowza, have you checked the price of field fence lately? Last December, even before we moved, we ordered some farm supplies, including four 330' rolls of 47" field fence, to be delivered to our new place. At the time, those rolls were something like $130/roll.

Earlier this week I called the same local distributor we used before and found field fence had skyrocketed to $260/roll double the price in 10 months!! Yikes!!

After calling every other local distributor, I found it was cheaper (relatively speaking) to drive two hours to the nearest North40 Outfitters, pay $180/roll, and drive two hours home. So I did. We wanted to get the field fence we needed before prices doubled again.

We bought six rolls. Coupled with the four rolls we purchased last December, this should be enough to fence what needs fencing.

While most of the work for these various projects will have to wait until spring, we're feeling a sense of urgency to get all the materials we'll need to implement these projects now. It already cost an arm and a leg to purchase these six rolls of fencing. Would it cost both arms and both legs if we waited until spring to buy them? Or would we be able to buy them at all?

Most of our expenditures this first year in our new home have involved infrastructure improvements and planning for future products. We're getting what we can while we can still afford it.

17 comments:

  1. Buy what you can as soon as you can. I am afraid that the price of everything! is going higher. I miss your gardening trials and tribulations.

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  2. I love this post! I've missed the planning and projects and the way you describe everything. Thanks for sharing with us!

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  3. Are you planning an orchard with peach trees?

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    1. We already have so many fruit trees (mostly apple and plum) scattered about that we won't have a stand-alone orchard per se. However we did plant four peach trees earlier. Hopefully they'll produce.

      - Patrice

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  4. We've been feeling a bit anxious about the food supply. We have most bases covered except for some pork and beef. Just found two 4-mmonth old angus steers from a neighbor for $400 each (cow fed-no bottle). Snatched them up to put them on a new pasture we put in last year. Seeing weaner pigs on line and might have to get a couple-our favorite meat. Glad we "accidently" got a rooster with last years batch of layers. He's been taking care of business so if we must we can have chicks next spring. Missed having cattle the past three years.

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  5. My first raised bed was almost a disaster. My weed block did not block Bermuda grass. Only tomatoes successfully fought the grass. So, rebuild this winter. Noticed the dimensions on on your planned beds. But how tall? How much dirt do I need? Julia in Texas

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    1. Volume is calculated by length x width x height. Keep in mind dirt will naturally compress as it settles, so you may have to refresh the beds with additional dirt after a few months.

      - Patrice

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  6. Patrice, you wrote, "We'll also be talking to a horse-keeping neighbor and asking for a dump truck of his manure." Maybe it's just me but I found that sentence amusingly ambiguous.

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  7. Lets try this again. This will be the 5th time I ask this, and hopefully wont screw it up yet again lol

    Mind if I ask where you search for Jersey cows at?

    Thanks

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    1. Try Craig's List. Don't limit yourself to the nearest Craig's List; you may have to go further afield. Also, there are Jersey associations with regional breeders. You can find lists online.

      - Patrice

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  8. We spent the spring and summer preparing our 5 acre "infrastructure". New orchard, new chicken coop and yard, greenhouse gutters and rain barrels, painting front porch and deck, extra paint for repainting our house next spring (we repaint one side per year, and keep doing this so that the house never gets shabby), etc. With prices going sky high and sketchy availability, it makes sense to try to get everything we are going to need now. Also, it may cost an arm and a leg, but we won't be able to eat greenbacks no matter how many are out there!

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  9. Thanks for quoting those fence prices. I passed on purchasing what I need of that this past spring in favor of other needful stuff. Now I'm cringing at your quotes because what I saw and passed up was much less than half for 5 foot hundred foot rolls. You may think me terrible for this, but I'm praying that it's less in our region. Gotta go get it.
    Part of my decision was because I have to hire help to do projects, and help since co-vid is not available. I even asked a neighbor who is also old and had a man helping some every week and he's stuck too. His helper died of that cursed virus.
    I've always been project oriented, not just now. I always buy materials and find help to hire. So, without intention, like you, materials are stacking up. And tasks are being broken down and slowly, very slowly, accomplished toward various projects.
    Thank you for this post.

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    1. The fencing I wanted has doubled in price.

      About slopes. Hill people have been terracing slopes, hills, Indians even terraced mountains, forever. My next raised bed in the works is on a slope with one wall, count it, one, on the lower side, of old tin. My compost pile this year was at the high end and is teeming with earthworms.My plan is to just pull the compost down toward the back wall and voila, level bed. Sides of odd rocks found walking. May add more height as time goes on, but am really liking this project.

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  10. We used horse manure and it ruined our garden for years. The owner fed his horses a feed that contained an herbicide chemical that poisons soil so that it is no good for growing vegetables. I think it is called graze-on. Please, check into this and save yourself a lot of heartache.

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  11. I second Unknown's concern about herbicide-containing horse manure. It has been such a problem in my area that I don't use *any* manure except for my sheep, rabbits, and chickens.

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  12. We took in the neighbors horse manure. No chemicals but it was loaded with goat head seeds. After 5 years of getting the goat head plants off our property they are back wherever we put the manure...berry plants, flower beds, orchard, etc. Ugh! Free isn't always free.

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  13. I totally agree with you and Don. If things go the way we are thinking, there is a necessity to put in inventory now. We have done the same as you, with putting the material in place for future projects. I look at it as an investment into our future, and the payoff is better than bank interest now, anyway! Great post, Patrice!

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