If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate.

Friday, May 31, 2013

Omelettes anyone?

So...last time we visited you saw a short video which was as exciting as that one you were forced to suffer through in your health class in junior high school.  Yeah that one.  I was going to do another one (mostly because I love to torture you) but the mosquitoes have driven me into the confines of my domicile.
That's OK really because the AC is on and it feels great!

All day long we have been on the verge of T-storms.  The air is soaked with moisture and it feels like at any moment it could let go.  The can of bug spray says sweat proof but I imagine that is for people who are standing idle or somewhere near the arctic circle in January.  I sweat it right off.  I must have applied 7-8 times today.  Those little buggers are so adept at finding that one spot you missed and they just hammer the hell out of it.  Enough blah blahing.  Lets talk chicken.  I love chicken.  Fried, grilled, baked, broiled any way you can cook it.  But this topic is concerned so much with eating the actual chicken but(t) what the bird produces.  Eggs.  Pretty simple.  We here at Bushman's Farm (formerly known as Bushman's acre) are going to raise a few chickens for egg production.  This is a very small operation.  Minuscule in fact. 
I used to take care of my ex landlords chickens.  Every year he would raise about 50 "meat" chickens and he had on ongoing flock of "layers" numbering in the twenties and at one time close to thirty.

Problem was when you have that many birds in one spot it gets real nasty, real fast.  The romance of chicken farming is lost in the first few weeks.  These particular birds were kept in a coop measuring roughly 8'x15'.  50 meat birds.  It was disgusting.  They are bred to grow super fast and most can't even walk because their weight has surpassed the growth of their legs.  Horrible thing to witness.  I could never eat the meat from those birds either.  Just the pic in my head was enough.  I know the ones from the supermarket are the same but I haven't seen those. Makes a difference (to me anyway).

So the opportunity came up to have a few chickens.  My daughter Kaitlin's AP-Bio class hatched some from eggs and they are free for the taking provided you have a good home and a place to keep them.
I didn't want a coop.  I don't want to have to clean a coop.  Coops are gross.  Get it?  Thought so.
So they have these things called chicken tractors which basically are mobile pens.  You move them around your yard and the chicken "debris" is dispersed into the lawn (free fertilizer) and the chickens are happily outside eating bugs and grass in their pen.  I decided to combine the coop and the tractor.

I started with framing in the lower half.  This will be the outdoor part

Then I put a roof/floor on it

Then I added some walls

Notice below that there is an empty spot on the side of the wall.  This will be for holding some potted flowers.  Want it to look pretty ya know!


Then I finished the walls and the doors and put the roof on and painted. 
The open door is where the nests will be.  Just pop the door open and take out the eggs right from under the chickens.


Then I took the wheels off an old push mower and bolted them on.  Added some flowers.  On the back side is a large door that opens for cleaning and feeding and watering.  I will be adding a 8x10 window to that door so the interior will get some light.  Tomorrow I will cut a hole in the floor and install a ramp so the birds can go up and down and then the last step is to cover the lower half in chicken wire and move it outside and the chickens will be coming sometime next week.  Just two hens.  Two is more than enough eggs for my family.



It's been a fun project.  Almost everything you see was free.  Either scavenged from work or I had it laying around the garage.  Every bit of wood cam from work.  The 4x4s came from a large box that contained a turret for one of the military vehicles we build on our campus at work  All the plywood is from the packaging that they ship our firetruck radiators with.  The white trim is from that same turret box just ripped on the table saw and cut to size.  Even most of the screws came from pallets at work that I took the time to unscrew the 2x4s from and saved both the 2x4s and the screws.  The wheels are from the old lawn mower.  The red and white paint are leftover from the house painting.  The large threaded rods that hold the wheels on were pieces from work that were to short to use and were being discarded.  I've been holding onto  them for a few years now.
The only things we purchased were the chicken wire $11, a gallon of mis-tinted green paint for $5, the roofing $20, and 4 hinges $6.  The flowers were even on sale at .99 cents each.
Roughly $45 dollars.  I see these on Craig's List selling for $400-$800.
I may not always build chicken tractors but when I do I prefer to do it cheap!

More to come stay tuned
Buck, Buck, Buck
-Bushman

Monday, May 20, 2013

Something New

Well I thought I would try something a little different now that I am up to date with technology.....well at least the option is there anyways.  We'll see how well it goes.  Just a quick glimpse into Bushman Land.  A storm was moving in and cut me short.  The first video was two minutes long....or should have been if I would push the right button.  I just walked around talking to my phone for a few minutes.  Luckily no one can see me.  Enjoy and if you do leave a comment let me know if the video opens and plays ok or if you have troubles so I can fix it.


Friday, May 17, 2013

The garden has died!

Happy Friday Folks!

Just a quick update before I head outside to the garden.

We had a major freeze Monday morning and even though I had the garden covered up it was just too cold.  Everything died.  12 tomatoes, 6 cucumber, a zucchini and a squash.
I learned a valuable lesson when it comes to cold frames or hoop covers.
We had an all day rain on Friday and the hoops were open.  The raised beds soaked up all the moisture.  I knew it was going to freeze so I wanted to trap as much heat in  my hoops as possible to help protect the tender veggies.  Saturday and Sunday the sun was in and out and I put the hoops up to trap the heat.
Problem was it also condensates like crazy.  The inside of the hoops was like a tropical rain forest.  It was warm and incredibly humid.  I didn't think anything of it.  Well, when it got down to 27 degrees around 3am Monday morning all of that humidity froze inside of the hoops.  That humidity had also clung to the plants.  They froze as well.  I should have pulled off the covers on Sat and Sun to let the hoops dry out.  That may have helped.  Ah, the joys of gardening.

So today, thanks to my stock of seed grown plants, I will replant them all.  I lost about 2 weeks of grow time but oh well.  I also decided to mulch in between the rows instead of grow grass.  It will be easier to move mulch when (not if) I decide to move things around in the garden.  LOL

Last weekend I did a little more work in the garden.  I planted my asparagus.  2 rows 20 foot long.  It was hard work because you have to dig a big trench and mix up all  the existing soil with fresh topsoil and soak the roots in water and plant each one a certain way.  Now I have to wait 2 years to get a good harvestable crop but its worth it.  I love asparagus!  Here is one of the trenches

I also planted my sugar snap peas on the chain link trellis and the area that was downsized in the garden was re-incorporated.  I filled this with watermelons, pumpkins and sunflowers.


Each hole has the seeds of either a watermelon or a pumpkin in it.  Then I also tossed in a couple sunflower seeds in every hole.  There should be a ton of sunflowers all over the "patch".

I found this snake dead in the garden as well.  Don't know what killed it but it is a milk snake and they are pretty beneficial when it comes to eating bad critters.  Too bad he died.

I also started work on a sign to hang by my tomato plants
The top board will say Tomato and the bottom will say Town!



I also started building one of the gates in the fence.  Just a couple 4x4 posts for now.  Once I get everything settled I'll attach a hinged panel to them that will swing out and I can access the garden with my tractor if need be.  This gate is on the back side by the "patch"  The other gate will be in the front of the garden and will be an arbor with a swinging gate attached to it. 


That's all for now.  Be back later to catch up!
-Bushman

Friday, May 10, 2013

A to Z reflections and more gardening

Oh sheesh!
Apparently I'm supposed to do a reflections post on my A to Z chronicles!

I had fun!

There that's out of the way.....oh you mean be serious?

OK fine.  I'll admit I didn't try to read 11,000 blogs in a month.  I didn't leave many comments.  I did read quite a bit.  A lot of crap I wasn't the slightest bit interested in.  I only call it crap because it doesn't make me tick.  Stuff needs to make me tick or I just don't have a use for it.  It's not really crap because someone else loves it, it's just the way I categorize things.  (selfish prick)

I have my favorites.  Al, Jenny, Dani on whom I never missed a post.  I would call them blog family.
Ornery's wife was a frequent new visitor!  Love the name!

I didn't join the A to Z challenge to make new friends or acquire new followers.  I did it because I knew it would make me write.  As you can tell from the posts I am waaaay out of practice.  If you want to be a good writer you have to write.  Doesn't have to be good just do it.  In time things work out.

I'll probably join next year as well.  I'm a sucker for last minute commitments.

So with that said lets move on to some new crap (as seen from someone who doesn't like this sort of thing, works both ways ya know).

After 14 or 15 weeks of overtime I finally have a Friday off work.  It's raining!  Go figure.

I have made some significant strides in the garden since the last post.  In between work, soccer and mosquitoes I have managed to finish planting the tomatoes, sowed the sweet corn, bush beans and planted the onion sets.  Also set up the cucumber table and the squash and zucchini box.

I still have a lot of irrigation work to do as well as mulching and finally planting the grass but it's getting there. 

I planted my onions in the 3 section box.  Yellows and reds.  I plant them close and when they are a few inches tall I'll pull every other one for yummy table onions!  That leaves the others room to grow into bulbs.




You can see the sweet corn rows in the middle. (black lines)

I'm still waiting on the peppers to get big enough to transfer to the garden.  Probably a good thing they are not ready.  Expecting a freeze on Sunday.

The cucumber table is something new I'm trying this year.  I raised a big box high off the ground and will let the cucumber vines dangle over the edge and make their way to the ground.  Something new and different.  Might work, might not.



I still need to plant the sugar snap peas on the fence/trellis in the background and I also picked up a huge shopping bag full of asparagus roots.  Need to plant them.
I had downsized the garden by this much.



Now I need to take some space back for all this asparagus.  The leftover area I was going to plant grass back in it but just for S&G I am going to fill it with watermelons and pumpkins and then scatter sunflower seeds throughout it.  Should be pretty interesting.  If I plant them close enough, the leaves from the watermelon and pumpkins should crowd out any weed growth and the sunflowers will have already grown through the large leaf canopy of the growing and spreading vines.

I got Archer propped back up and he is ever vigilant in his observations of the garden.  He has a new hat for now.  (dollar store trip in order).  We hung out last night and had a beer together.



I did a small burn off in anticipation of some more back property line landscaping this summer.  Still working on getting that under control.





Eventually I'll have it cleared out.  This is the view behind all the scrub brush.  I'd like to see it from my side that's why I'm clearing it.  It is a small alfalfa field and its always full of deer and turkeys.



I located a few nice piles of rocks off the edges of farm fields that I have been collecting and bringing home to help landscape around the trees that are to be left when I'm done clearing the brush.


One at a time.  Pick em up, load em in the truck, haul em home and unload em.
My misery knows no bounds. (if its free I'll work my arse off)



If you open this pic up you can see how I put rocks around the groups of trees and then filled them with wood chips.  This is how the rest of the line will look.  Eventually!


Well it's off to work I go.  Need to do some up-potting of pepper plants and clean my garage.  What  a mess.
Have a great weekend!

-Bushman

Sunday, May 5, 2013

A Beautiful Day for Gardening!

Hello there!
What a gorgeous day we had here.  Around 70 with a nice breeze and full sunshine.
I spent the whole day outside.

Well most of it.  I started out with a trip to Lowe's for some irrigation parts and then I went grocery shopping and returned some movies and then I came home and made breakfast. 

Then I went outside!

My last post gave you an insight into how I built my boxes.  Today I will show you how I get them planted and irrigated!

I start off by standing all the boxes on their sides and dig a trench that will run just inside the edge of the box.



Then I lay my 1/4" line in the trench.  At the middle of each box I cut the line and insert  T fitting.  I connect a short run of line to the T and it will run up into the box.  The end of the line just runs up into the last box.  No need for a T fitting.




Then I fill in the trench and flip the boxes over.  I fill them up with topsoil.  The covers are designed so that I can roll them up and have access to the plants.



Then I cover them with landscape fabric.  I went with the heavy duty fabric because these are permanent.  I use a staple gun to staple it to the inside edge of the box.



You can see the irrigation tubing laying on top of the fabric.  The pink line is just a string.  I use it to make sure my boxes are perfectly in line with each other.  They are spaced 22.5 inches apart.  That is the exact dimension of the wheels on my push mower.  I am planting grass seed in between all the boxes.  No more weeding in between.



Tomato Town is up and running!

Of course I also cut my lawn!  This was all on Saturday!  Sunday I did even more but you'll have to wait for the next post.  It's time for a beer and then dinner!



Cheers!
-Bushman

PS. I have a new I phone now and it takes sweet pics so feel free to click on them and blow them up for more detail.

Friday, May 3, 2013

Garden update

Just wanted to pop in real quick and update the progress of the garden.  I've been a busy little bee trying to get all these garden things done and working my real job (the crappy one). 
It's Friday night about a quarter to 9.  We just wolfed down a quick dinner of BLTs.  Kaitlin had a soccer game tonight so we headed to that right after work.  After that we went to the Sprint store because we were eligible for free upgrades.  I now have an Apple I Phone 4 which is much better than my old rotary dial cell phone.

I have about 15 minutes to post this, move my veggies that have been outside all day basking in the sunshine and get my arse in bed.  I have to work tomorrow as well.  On a Saturday at that. 50 hours already and counting.  I'm tired.

I've spent the week working on my planting boxes.
I started building new raised beds this year out of wood I salvaged from work.  Free of course (I'll always be a tightwad with money)

They are about 42 inches each side.



So I made a bunch of them over the last few weeks.
I placed them in the garden



Then I built cold frames to cover the top. 
I started with 1/2" pvc and some 1'' black tubing.
I screwed the black tubing to the inside corners of the boxes and bent the pvc into hoops and inserted them into the black tubing.




I put one on each end and then put three supports across the middle joining the two end hoops.  Then I covered them with clear plastic.  Making a mini green house of sorts.




I also had a load of topsoil blended with compost delivered yesterday.  Here is the truck getting ready to pull in the drive.



The boys really wanted to climb on the pile!



This weekend I plan on getting a bunch of veggies planted.  I will keep you posted!

-Bushman