Wednesday, April 14, 2021
A good morning, full of progress!
First thing after work, I took my friend his eggs that he bought from a fellow homesteady type lady we found at work. She and her husband have a flock of 30 laying hens and sell their extra eggs at $4 a dozen. I can't wait til our chickens are laying again, that'll be a huge hit to our grocery bill if we start eating a lot of eggs.
Pig holder inner
Next up was a trip to the feed store for a hog panel and a box of fence Staples. I was going to make a proper cage for the pigs on the ride home, but that seemed an awful lot of resources for one single use, so I made the pig gate and will use it as a top for the truck bed. I'll probably add cross braces when it's time to put it up as a gate, but for the first purpose, this works great. For the life of me, I can't move it when it's ratcheted down, and it only leaves about three inches of so on either side, a smaller gap than the holes in the wire. I'm driving it to and from work until I leave for Oklahoma Friday morning just to make sure it's good on the road.
I didn't realize til just now how close it is to Friday morning. We've got plans ironed out for me to head up to Oklahoma and work Friday, then stay the night and work part of Saturday before getting home in time to get the pigs put up before dark. That way I won't have to miss church, and I'll get in a couple days of learning about pigs and helping out a friend. I get learning and pigs, he gets help and money. I hope he doesn't feel gypped, cause I feel like I'm getting a helluva deal.
Pig holder inner
Some garden walking presented an excellent opportunity to test my mettle... In the nettles patch. @riverflows, I no longer fear your nettle slaps. I have endured the fire and come out tempered from pain.
Nettle sting
Nettle sting
After a touch of reading the other day, I decided I had gone long enough without nettle root tincture. Another one of those relatively few herbal medicines that's been studied by modern medical science and had proven results. Not that I put a lot of stock in modern medical science, but it's cool to see the anecdotal reports affirmed in a widely accepted way.
Nettle root tincture has shown effective in reducing BPH, and helping keep the body from converting free testosterone into estrogen. Yet another way that increasing cooperation with the natural world can increase physical health.
Nettle roots
So I braved the thicket for a court handfuls of roots to make a quart of tincture. A good wrap for the productive bit of the day. The value-added production anyways. The rest was watering and waling in the garden. Not physically productive, but emotionally I don't think there's anything better for clearing the mind than gardening. The meditation and flow state when pulling weeds, and the minor elation at every seedling or with every caterpillar the chickens eat.
Nettle roots
My friend Sam is going to bring his drone over someday. We talked about it at work the other day, and he's gonna help take some aerial photos of the place. Real professional pretty stuff, not likely to be useful for actual mapping since the trees won't allow anything that high up. But I'm hoping for some really awesome shots and angles I've never seen.
Walnut tree!
I was excited today to see the corn coming up so well in the mulched corn rows. I don't know why it's so exciting and unexpected for seeds to actually grow, but it makes me so happy. For the next few weeks, I'll probably be diverting all the rabbit poop over to this area. Since corn is such a heavy feeder and I'd like to get a good crop this year, the rabbits will come in really handy. Later in the year, I'll be trying my hand at making blood meal from any animals we harvest. This takes a bit of planning and mindfulness to get the setup situated right, but I'm confident we can do it. No new rabbit litters were born this morning, so at the moment we're looking at around 23 animals to harvest. In addition to the blanket material and roughly 200 servings of meat, I wonder how much high quality natural fertilizer we'll be able to harvest, making full use of the lives of these animals... That closed nutrient loop is an awesome force to consider. I wonder if rabbits will eat corn and bean stalks...
Corn in the corn rows
Well, not a bad Wednesday! When I get off work Thursday morning, the first project is going to be setting up the footer for the pig gate. I've got a couple of old railroad ties that I'm gonna bury in the pig pen to help shield against escapes. That's my main concern right now, and I'm really hoping it's an overstated risk. After that but is done, everything will be operational! I'm starting to get excited to learn a new animal and have a new food and compost source here! This property may actually be worth the mortgage payment soon!
Calling it a day with that note. I doubt I'll post this weekend, maybe not even Thursday night. We'll see how it works out.
Thanks for reading, thanks for the support, more to come this weekend!
Love from Texas
Nate 💚
Use the rest of the nettle. The greens boil up, and lose their sting; resulting in one of the most nutritious pot greens ever. Dried, nettle make an herbal tea, that I drink every day. It is Very good for lung health!
Your pig escape problem is like my dachshund escape problem, I finally solved it with an electric fence. There are a lot of parallels, the dachshunds are short legged piggies....
My Brother in law in Texas, told me the best thing coming out of Texas is I-35 North...I haven't verified that, LOL! Hollar if you get up Tulsa way. I hope you have a good trip!
You ought to consider giant quail. They mature in 6 to 8 weeks, and begin laying eggs. I get a dozen eggs a day from ten hens, and that is breakfast for my wife and I. I got them to eat ticks, but they are showing good egg and meat production. I plan to increase the flock to 30 hens when we get out on the homestead. That will allow me to begin releasing a dozen birds a month, to build a wild population. It will also allow me to can a pressure cooker load every other month. These eggs are about a half to a third the size of regular eggs, and they taste good!
Good luck on your chicken eggs.
♡♡♡♡Thanks, I'll let you know if I get up that way!
I've been thinking about quail, they're kind of a cross between chickens and rabbits. I want to see some setups in person, I just haven't made time to do so. Perhaps this summer after spring planting is done. I've got many friends in my local communities that have quail and speak wonders of them for both eggs and lean meat production. I like your idea of building a feral population too...
There is always something that must be done, LOL! I'm adding a storage container, and have to remove a tree to prepare the pad.
Quail are impressive, and tasty; you will be pleased. I got them for the tick control, they are quieter than guinea hens so they don't attract preditors. Releasing them will fill this vital link. There are so many deer here, that ticks are a problem.
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