High 61 Low 45  Drizzly but warm. ( Our seedlings are loving this!)

Farm Camp

http://songcroft.com/index.php/farm-camp/

This month has been busy with all of the usually Spring chores of getting the cover crops turned in, garden planted, pullets out to forage, hens in their Spring/Summer home, goat kids birthed and settled in, does milked, cheese made, rabbits bred and the post-construction landscaping started, all the while enjoying the flush of green that has taken over our land.

Although these things have me excited, it’s Farm Camp that has been on my mind. In August we will be opening SongCroft up to those who would like to live and learn about how to run a family farm. This is so exciting that I am finding it hard to concentrate on other projects. We’re going to have a lot of fun!

You’ll experience instruction on dairy goats, chickens, ducks and rabbits as well as growing your produce year-round and preserving the harvest. Mushroom logs, the basics of permaculture, food forests, alternative energy and home arts are all part of the program. It’s great to read books and dream about living a more self-reliant lifestyle but it’s a rare opportunity to be welcomed on to a farm where you are able to learn and try things out for yourself!

Checked out the Farm Camp page. Tell us what you think, what you would most like to learn and if you intend to enroll don’t wait because space is limited.

High 47 Low 36 It’s grey and misty today.

This is some healthy rhubarb!

After straining my wrist a couple weeks ago, things have been a bit harder to keep up with but where there a will there’s a way. Typing in particular was difficult.

Nonetheless, it was a busy couple of weeks here on Songcroft. I taught two classes for Sky Valley Community Schools. (This is similar to a larger towns Parks and Rec.) It was really great to introduce the basics of permaculture to folks who were so new to the concept that they came because the description made sense and intrigued them. The second class I taught was Winter Gardening. I think folks from the class will feel more confidant to give growing year-round a go this year.

Brian did a fabulous job finishing the summer chicken yard roof. It is part clear polycarbonate and part fishing net. I saw the fishing net in the driveway of some folks in town. It sat tin the driveway for quite some time. I asked them if they wanted it hauled off and they were delighted. They were seniors that needed some help so I did some small chores in their yard. It was a win-win for all, including the landfill.

After completing the summer chicken yard I began to landscape around it. I planted a grape that’s been in a pot for at least three years, a honeysuckle, two columnar apples, borage and some wormwood around the edges. It will look nice as well as serving multiple purposes. This is what we refer to as “stacking our functions.”

On one of the really rainy days I worked inside the greenhouse installing the drip irrigation on one side. I will have apprentices help the other side so they get some hands-on experience.

I reorganized my mini barn. Our barn is actually a long narrow building made from huge shipping crate panels and hollow core doors. It was great way to use salvaged materials. What is lacks in size, it makes up for in character but yes, I definitely have barn envy when I look at some large barns out there.

Organizing the barn was no small task as I was mostly one-handed and had to take most everything out to install shelving and hooks so things were in better order. It is now about as organized as it can get for being a small space that is expected to contain more than it’s fair share of gear.

Another thing we did was fill the West side of our land. Usually, it wouldn’t be necessary to fill in a slope on our land as we can take advantage of slopes but this is an area that we have our drain-field in and it needed to have more soil above it. So we spent the better part of this weekend filling and leveling the land so that paths are not so difficult for our many visitors and the drain-field is safely tucked away.

Next we will install some woodchips paths and seed the open areas with meadow mix that our chickens can forage on. This is another way to “stack our functions”. The meadow mix will be beautiful, protect our drain-field, keep mud from being tracked all over and be a source of nutritional forage for our chickens. We try to use the principle of “stacking functions” in all of our designs here on Songcroft. It just makes sense.

Well, it’s time to get busy. It’s soap making day and there’s lots to do!

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High 56             Low 45                 Warm afternoon breeze

Spring ahead? Not us, we’re taking giant leaps! There’s been a ton of stuff happening at SongCroft this week. Where can I begin…?

Over the course of the week we brought in a bit more hay to get us through until it is haying time here in the area. With a couple extra goats this past Winter, we went through more hay than usual so our estimate in August was a bit off. But no worries, I hauled the bails across our land. It is rugged terrain as we haven’t filled that side of the property yet and it is very uneven. It is hard to keep a bale on a hand-truck since they all want to fall downhill. Then I had to stack them under cover. At eighty pounds a bale, this job takes that take all by 5’4” frame has to offer. To keep the goats from leaning from their stall over in to the hay storage area, I installed a wooden barrier. Now they can only look at it longingly instead of gorging themselves until they look like someone ought to tie a line to a hoof so they don’t float away as giant goat balloons.

We also got almost all of the fencing around the vegetable and forest garden done. We just need to install a few gates. This means even if the goats do get out, they wont be eating my cabbages and strawberries!

The Winter rabbitry was converted in to a brooding house for the 17 pullets and 6 ducklings we are raising. We also have a hen on a nest in there. It is a good use of a small space. I will post photos and a video later.

All but the vegetable garden beds got compost on them. I will make another go at it over the coming week. The goats ate part of the garden in front of the house, that’s what happens when the kids leave the gate unlocked, so I put the compost down there first hoping it would help the poor plants survive. Even our big horse trough full of bamboo looks like Giant Panda’s attacked it!

Rhubarb and asparagus were planted. Only a few more years until we get our first harvest. (That was sarcasm incase you didn’t notice)

We cleared out an area so that we can bring in soil to level the land on the side of our house. This will make getting to the hay a lot easier. This is going to be major work.

We taught both our first year and second year courses from Saturday through Monday. We covered soils science, composting, fertilization and pruning. It was really busy and a lot of fun. Folks learned to do soil samples, test for ph and how to make compost. We mixed bedding and goat poo with a beautiful combination of scrap vegetables and juice bar compost. The colors were amazing and the results will be powerful. We also made a worm bin and were able to send it one with one of the student’s family. I truly love being with all of the course participants and am blessed to live such an amazing life.

Sometimes the songs here are the chirpings of birds and others times they are the grunts made while heaving bales of hay but it all makes for a beautiful rhythm that we love to live in.

High 56             Low 34

It was a beautiful clear day.

It’s hard to believe that it is February in Washington. In all my years, I have never seen it so warm this time of year. We have peas sprouting in the garden  and it feels like May.

During this early warm-spell, we have been able to get a lot done. Brian has been setting fence posts and I have been cleaning up the fallen branches from winter storms.

I have cleaned the goat stalls in anticipation of kids being born over the next few months and even installed a new automatic watering system. With two less goats, we sold two kids, there is a bit more room. Our buck will be leaving us soon. We will just have three does. Milking time is coming on fast and I relish the mornings where I still get to sleep in.

The winter rabbitry has been cleaned out and made ready to become a brooder for the broilers that will arrive soon. We hope to keep a few from this flock to use as breeders so we can sell them locally. If we have time to prepare their home, we will also raise a few heritage breed turkeys. The heritage breeds are beginning to disappear since they are not as breasty and fast growing as the more common commercially raised turkeys. These turkeys haven’t had the turkey bred out of them.

The henhouse and yard were also cleaned and given fresh straw. We have hens and ducks sitting on eggs and the kids are raising another 13 chicks in the house. We hear the “cheep-cheep” of little ones and it brings smiles to our faces. These chicks will grow to be part of our egg layers. We sell a fare amount of eggs from our flock and occasionally need to raise new girls to replace older girls who stop laying.

Today, our daughter took the goats out for a long walk in the sun. They were all leaping and jumping as they happily went looking for fresh browse. On the way back, they took a diversion and caused some havoc in the garden. Brian is trying to get the fence up as fast as he can. I can only laugh at the thought of the goats biting things as they run off knowing darn well they are not suppose to be there.

It’s only February and the nettle is up, the winter wren is still singing and the frogs have been in chorus. Another song has been written on our croft.

High 42 Low 39       Light sprinkling of rain in the early evening

I Can Hardly Wait!

A currant ready to burst!

Okay, I know it’s only February but I can hardly wait for Spring! There are tulips up on my front porch and the current buds are swelling so big, I swear I’ll hear them when they burst!

This time last year we still had at least a solid three feet of snow!

Earlier today the children, goats and dogs were all out on the land running, browsing and playing. It was fun to watch them together, all one herd–Human kids and goat kids all umping, bouncing and calling to their mamas.

The latter part of the day was spent measuring parts of our land with Sofie. As I measured, I explained to her what I was doing and why. I sometimes asked her to tell me why I would want to know the distance from this to that.  Mapping and surveying were part of our homeschooling today. She is a bright girl who catches on to things quickly.

We plan to move a few things around (Isn’t that what gardeners do?) and finish some projects as soon as Spring blesses us with warmer weather.

I relocated a few currants and a young cherry tree. I drew plans for new plantings and perused plant catalogs to find a few hard-to-get items.

While in the garden, Sofie rolled a log over and we marveled at the many earthworms that were squirming around in the rich soil. Flipping things over in our garden is almost like looking for crabs under rocks at the beach. No matter how many times you see them, they are still always fascinating.

Tonight I will put my measurements to graph paper and create a more detailed design. I will tell myself to be patient as the sun begins to rise higher each day until Spring and I will dream of hyacinth and flowering currants.

High Temp 52 Low 40
Early shower and clear afternoon

Brian giving apprentices a tour

It’s a beautiful day here on SongCroft. The January sun is bright against the blue sky. It is a sky of optimism after a great start to the 2010 Self-Sufficiency Apprenticeship program.

This past weekend we had a group of excited people here to learn more about how to live more self-sufficiently. We talked about how local dependence and community  are a large part of the equation. The weekends all have themes. We spent one day this weekend going over sustainable housing options. We toured SongCroft and explained the methods and reasoning behind the way we built our home. Cob, strawbale, structural insulated panels, passive solar designs, radiant floor heating, solar arrays and plenty more were included. We showed a slide show of projects we have worked on and places we have visited. Within the month, our apprentices will have garden plans ready for fine tuning and will be returning with lists of what they want to grow.

We are blessed to have an interesting mix of people with a variety of experiences, including three yoga instructors and two teens in our course. This means break times begin with stretches and moments of connection. Does it get better than that?

I cannot express enough how deeply fortunate we feel to have the opportunity to share our knowledge and skills with others. We are also thankful to be on this journey and to have recognized it when it called.

Apprentices touring the land