A couple of major projects took some steps to fruition today and so far this evening with roughly 30% of the polling stations reporting the Missouri Constitutional Amendments votes seem to be going the way I had hoped.
We rolled the old square baler out of the shed it's been rotting in for almost two decades today. All the initial parts we knew we needed are now in and the tire rims are repaired. We began putting some teeth back on the old girl and made sure all the fittings were grease filled and still operable. If everything goes as planned we should be square baling once again next week.
The line of grapes really started to take off the last few weeks and a couple of them have even almost made it to the top of the trellis so I can begin training them along the top. This will form the limbs of second year growth which the fruit will form off of next year. I was really starting to worry they weren't going to take hold or that the wind had damaged them too much but they have really grown fast recently.
The cutting crew is almost completely done with the original section I put them on to clear for me. They have even started eating that damned prairie grass crap that grows like something you would see in a jungle with sharp pointy leaves. It's called Blue stem grass and was suppose to be the dominant grass along the old prairies. Or so they say.
Whatever the case at some point around here the State and county started spreading it's seed around on the road edges instead of the good old Crown vetch that the bees like so much. Of course now it is making it's way into the hay field. Ya know there was reason the old farmers got rid of the stuff MoDot. I know the sheep will eat the stuff but it certainly isn't their first choice let me tell you. They have pretty much cropped everything else down to the ground now and finally started in on the prairie grass a bit. Another few days and I am going to open the entire section behind the barn up to them. They are not going to know what to do then.
In fact this entire sheep mowing experiment has proven so successful I am looking into putting fence wire around a couple of fruit trees to protect them and extending their range for next year.
At this point I have only three more major projects to finish to attain my complete sufficiency goal. Getting the chicken side of things up and going, which requires me to finish cleaning out the old burn pile area. I almost had that finished this Winter but then got busy with other things. Figuring out how much and what type of animal feed grains I need to grow and harvest each year for the sheep. Finally the last two phases of the water storage. Between my barrels, cistern and hand pump set up I can take care of human and garden needs even during drought like conditions however the 1400 gallon capacity will not cover the live stock or grain irrigation if it came to that. The entire barn area needs to have a catchment plan designed and installed and the farm pond needs repaired.
Once the last couple of projects are finished the Small-Hold should be about as self sufficient as any one place on earth could ever be. Of course we will never have an oil field, mines of any type and will always be dependent on any number of things for convenience sake, but in a pinch we should also be able to do without those things and produce by hand if we had to. Of course that would cut into time for other things.
Now if we just had a salt mine. I haven't figured out how to get around that one yet.
Keep Prepping Everyone!!!
At lest you have a plan. How many outside of our blog circle that do?? I'm behind, but ahead of most.
ReplyDeleteRob - Ya I guess. The problem is I cannot keep two or three of everything. I mean I can get to the point that the entire place operates more or less as a closed circle but will always be dependent on fuel, spare parts, and other manufactured items. For instance baling twine. There is just no way I will ever be able to afford to keep spares of everything. Now if say the tractor breaks down or the baler I can cut the hay by hand but that will cost man hours of work so something else will have to be abandoned. If fuel becomes totally unavailable well things will become a lot more complicated.
DeleteNot to burst your bubble but you will need alot more than 1400 gallons of water during a drought. My only source of water (besides neighbors) is a rain water tank of 2500 gallons. I barely scrape by till the first rains in Sept. I am very conservative with the water. I use the water for drinking, washing pans and basic sanitation (Paper plates during the summer), and very quick showers. And no the toilet doesn't get flushed everytime. It is just myself, a dog, and 2 cats. The garden is between my property and the neighbors and we use his water. This much water will last about 2 to 2 1/2 months. Thank God for the neighbor sharing garden space with me or I wouldn't be able to do it without getting water hauled in. I'm saving now to buy another tank or build a cistern, not sure yet, but I just wanted to give you a little heads-up on how far my water supply goes.
ReplyDeleteAnon - Well the 1400 gallons connected to the house gutters has yet to go dry. Of course if we had a three year drought anything would go dry so in the end you never can be certain but with our annual rainfall and the 1400 gallon reserve I am not too worried about the house or garden water. The barn and livestock is another matter but all I need there is to design the system because my barn covers a huge surface area for collection. Eventually I plan on getting the old well re-drilled and putting a hand pump on it too but at 650 feet it's gonna cost.
DeleteYou are lucky, to drill a well around here it's 3500 feet +. Most are on wells that were drilled when it was still affordable. My bid for a well was $35,000-$55,000, hence the rain water collection.
DeleteAnon - From your perspective I can see your point. Around here though most wells are under 300 feet and a few miles South they fall to under 200 feet easy. The guy who originally drilled this old well still claims it was the deepest one he ever put in.
Delete3500 feet huh. Where the hell do you live? roughly speaking anyway :)
On a hunk of granite in Idaho 3300 feet in the air, people have lived on this land since the 1800's (excluding the Indians). There are quite a few one room cabins up here from that time, some still in decent conditon, but apart from collecting rain water and a spring about a mile away, I have no idea how they survived on such a limited water supply. I have asked some of the old timers around here, but I think that knowledge might be lost. I'm sure the Indians would of just pulled up stakes and headed down to the river, or most likely wouldn't of lived up here at all, lol.
DeleteThat is interesting. I just figured all those mountain cabins had to be close to a stream or something. I wonder what they did do? Long trips carryign water everyday maybe?
DeleteSounds like you are working in the right direction, if only you had about a dozen like minded farms around you who could help each other. I can tell you that it is so hard to try and do it alone with chemical farmers buying deeper and deeper into the government plan. Get that old baler going, it should be easy to sell those bales if you need to.
ReplyDeleteSf - Well I am surrounded by Chemical fields no doubt about that. Only one small field actually drains into my property though so that is one plus for filling my farm pond if I ever get it fixed.
DeleteYa when I finally get rid of the useless nags and have a hay surplus selling them will be easy. As it is I have random people just dropping by from about December to March each year asking if I have hay to sell. Most of them want square bales too.
We need to work on water storage. Our family, the animals, and gardens would all be screwed if we didn't have city water :/
ReplyDeleteKelly - Yep water and feed for the live stock are the areas I think most people don't really think through to the end. You are way ahead of the game to notice it now.
DeletePP,
ReplyDeleteWe have a large rain barrel we use to collect water. We need to add more barrels to the homestead. We have a 5 gallon filtration system we created for the humans but need to have more water captured for the garden, and animals.
Sandy - I am down to one rain barrel now since my other one cracked. I am looking into going steel this next time around so I don't have to worry about freezing as much. The cistern water has to be pumped out by hand (which is how I want it) but the water from the rain barrel actually gravity feeds to the entire garden area and I use that almost exclusively unless we go months without rain like we are seeing now. When that happens I can either pump the cistern water out for the garden if we are ina grid down situation or use the county water. I tested the system last year and it worked but ya just never know.
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