We are making the best use of every summer day that is dry between some really intense thunderstorms, I heard on the radio that in the past month we’ve had 94mm of rain which is far too much really. Despite all the wet ground, our farm projects are cruising along and being fairly productive.
Maia has almost shed her winter coat
Currently the main focus is to get all the livestock housing and pens squared away before winter approaches. This winter is going to be different since we have no intentions of turning our natural gas back on since we had it shut off in early spring. It’s a first big step towards getting off the grid, and we decided we’d had quite enough of the entirely unreasonable charges from the gas company. Next year, we’ll work on getting rid of grid electricity, but one utility at a time to make things simpler. Already we have our own well and septic, with some upgrades planned there too.
Our baby goats in June
For the house heat, we have our woodstove and we plan to be creative and install several duct fans and a heat exchanger or two and get the warmth from the stove re-directed into our existing ductwork. Basically it’s a lovely upgrade to the original forced-air system, doing what we can with what we already have for almost no budget what-so-ever. We’re looking at various hot-water on demand systems to install, and replacing our hotwater tank with something far more efficient. We have also discovered some great power generation gadgets that function off of lost heat from one’s woodstove and chimney so we’ll be using the heat we generate twice, to warm us and to charge a battery bank for lighting and appliances. Down the road a bit, we’ll install a heat recovery unit up in the attic to capture as much heat as possible to heat our hot water in the house as well.
The barn/shop is going to be a challenge because the building is large and only partially insulated. We will finish repairing the walls and then insulate them as much as we can. Then the plan is to creatively stack our winter supply of square strawbales up next to the walls to provide an added layer of insulation while they are stored and slowly used over the winter. Since the barn is divided into several floors and bays, we’ll be closing all the big sliding bay doors and selectively heat each room only to what it needs to be – a compartmentalization strategy. With the rabbits in there, they need to be kept fairly warm so they don’t die and will continue breeding over the winter, so the rabbit room #1 will get a thermostatic electric heater this year, and the large bay the rest of the rabbits are in will have the strawbales in it and several large tanks of heated water (which is also their drinking water). The other parts of the barn like the woodshop will only be heated when I’m needing to be in it building things, and as it’s in the middle (roughly) it may not need as much upgrading to the walls to hold temperature. The storage areas in the barn on the upper floors will not be heated at all for now, and remain a project for another year to complete.
13 week old 3/4 New Zealand litter born beginning of May
Our poultry is being moved out of the barn into their own outdoor coop area, after the discovery that they create insane amounts of dust. Their coop will be insulated inside it’s walls as well as completely covered in strawbales for more insulation. We’ll be running automatic lighting and water heating inside the coop which should keep the chickens laying all winter and toasty warm combined with their body heat. The lighting will be upgraded next year with each coop we end up with having it’s own solar panel to take care of it’s power needs. We’ll be building windbreaks all around their pens too and covering them with a mesh to keep the snow out so they can still go outside and be relatively comfy in all but the worst weather.
Kara our newest Flemish Giant about 4 months old
Our larger livestock are all getting huts and windbreaks built (the goats, sheep, llama, and soon to be milk cow), and every hut will be covered/surrounded in small bales of straw to keep them warmer in the weather. Maia and Hobo have their shed which needs to be surrounded in large round bales of straw since it’s a much bigger shed.
Peepers the llama resting in the shade
If we have time and kind weather for the rest of the season, we’re going to build a solar shower stall, which will be expanded next year to become an entire washroom with a composting toilet attached to our future hot tub hut.
Today I finished the detailed project write-ups for 16 of our most pressing things to get done around the farm as the point-form list is staggeringly long. I’d say nothing in any of the projects is really complicated, just so many man-hours of getting it done are needed.
Akna & Dagda's June litter
The Rabbitry: I’m really happy with how our rabbitry is growing and it looks like we’re at the beginning of the steep part of the logarithmic curve of family food production. We’ve saved all of the does born this spring so far and the february babies are nearing breeding age now, so we’ve gone from 4 does to somewhere around 30 in that time. We’re going to cap it there and see how well we can do at markets next summer before we decide on any more growth. I’ve calculated to supply our family’s needs plus our 4 dogs we need to produce in the neighbourhood of 12-1400 lbs of meat to cover a whole year of usage. I will be really glad once I have all the needed hutches completed since it will make my days less busy.
Uzume & Luke's June litter
Looking back at the period between when we bought the farm and now (which has been a year and 10 months), we have accomplished a great deal on the road to turning this place into a functioning, self-sustaining homestead. In short to review: We acquired small and large livestock; Produce our own milk, eggs, and meat; Taken the first steps to getting off the grid, shutting down one utility & utilizing an alternative system; Got 2/3′s of the new cross fence posts in & began to staple fencing to them & moved a shed; Cut down our gasoline consumption by moving to different more fuel efficient vehicles, combining errands & cutting down unnecessary outings; Built some furniture for the house; Began energy-saving upgrades to house and barn;
There’s a lot more to go, but it’s been a really good start especially considering we are down to a single income and there have been a few long trips back to BC in the intervening time.
Peepers the llama resting in the shade
