It was a very busy week with many projects completed, despite the fact that we took a day off to pick up a very important package in Vermont: Tater, a 10-week-old Australian Shepherd. My adopted mom has been dog-less for the better part of a year, which is completely unheard of for her, so Tater is a long-awaited and highly-anticipated addition to the family.
He is a menace to society, as puppies tend to be. Wicked smart, very mouthy, barks whenever the Gator starts up. He’s ridiculously cute and is going to be a great dog. I am thoroughly enjoying Aunt-status, as I get to play with a puppy whenever I want with limited responsibility. My dog, Scotch Tape, is only a little bit jealous.
Food Production
I’m really feeling the effects of planting my garden so late. In my bones, I feel I should be overwhelmed by the bounty of zucchini and green beans… but both are still just flowers on the plants. I really can’t complain, though: I harvested the first of the red potatoes and some cucumbers, and the herb abundance continues.
I think I figured out why my carrots never ‘germinated’. To recap: I planted one big bed of carrots and had almost no germination, which I chalked up to overzealous weeding on my part. I then planted another small patch of carrots, which successfully germinated. The second patch was next to an area with picklebush cucumbers and lots of dill. All germinated happily and then suddenly disappeared.
My garden is a fortress – no woodchuck, mole, vole, rabbit, or deer has found its way in. A squirrel or chipmunk theoretically could, but I haven’t seen any other evidence of their presence. I have seen several determined robins digging for worms, which I welcomed – it is an ecosystem, after all, and I figured that a robin is unlikely to do serious damage. I may have been wrong.
Time is running out for a significant carrot harvest before winter. I selected a 65 day variety and planted seeds in and around established plants. I also replanted in the same patch as before, but used leftover fencing from the chicken run to create a small cage to hopefully encourage the birds to find a different food source.
I also planted the first of the fall peas, using a tomato cage for support. I need to pick up one more cattle panel for my fourth (and final) cattle panel trellis; once it is installed, I will use it to support the rest of the fall peas.
I have continued to spread wood chips in the pathways of the garden – for all the work I’ve done, this project is only halfway complete. I am also running out of wood chips, so I will need to place another ChipDrop request soon.
Resource Acquisition & Preparedness
On a rainy day, I spent a couple of hours in the barn splitting the firewood logs that I’ve brought in over the past month. It all tested at about 20% moisture, which means it will be in great shape to burn as soon as the evenings get cold. I still need quite a bit more firewood to feel at ease about the coming winter.
After the rain, the old ash tree trunk at the edge of the horse’s paddock flushed with pheasant’s back mushroom. I first identified it last year, but not before the bugs made their move. This time, I harvested a fair bit and dehydrated it for future mushroom stock.
Aesthetic Utility
I added some finishing touches to the chicken run. I installed motion-sensing lights to dissuade predators and installed a camera, all powered by their own solar panels. I spread wood chips around the run to cover the hardware cloth, filled the cinder blocks with compost, and planted about a dozen different types of herbs. We have fallen into a routine and the chicks have been a delight, although I do have one rooster that will need to be rehomed.
On one of the rainy days, I finally painted my kitchen. I patched nail holes in the kitchen last fall, but held off on painting a bit longer than I meant to. It’s not a colossal difference; the previous owners’ neutral was a peach color, and my neutral is Sherwin Williams ‘Rice Grain’ – a beige with the slightest sage green tint. I’m sure I’m the only one who has noticed that it wasn’t painted, but I am very relieved to have the job completed.
After re-hanging the kitchen art, I also installed a small rustic shelf that I had acquired from the free pile at a garage sale. I love using a small shelf to get my plants off of other surfaces. Most delightfully, I cut and dried lavender from the landscaping to put in a vase that I thrifted when I lived in Colorado that features the mountains and aspen trees.
I checked another big item off of my to-do list: I used my old kitchen sink to construct a potting table and vegetable washing station in the garden. In addition to the sink, it has two hardware cloth surfaces for drying and a shelf on the bottom for storing harvesting crates. I used scrap wood and wire from the chicken run as well as leftover screws, so it was entirely free! I did have to order a few plumbing parts; the water will be directed through a hose and out of the garden, potentially to a fruit tree in the future.
It turned out better than I expected, but as per usual, any actual woodworker would be appalled by my technique (or lack thereof).
Energy Independence
When I moved in, my oil tank was 75% full. Since I never turned the boiler on for heat and all of my other appliances (including my water heater) are electric, the only oil I’ve used has been when the boiler completes its automatic maintenance cycles; this amounted to approximately 50% of a tank of oil in my first 13 months of living here.
I had it filled for the first time this week. I spent $768 on 168 gallons ($4.55 per gallon). I used a local app to find the most competitive price. According to Google, the average home of my size fills up their oil tank 4-6 times per year if it were used as the primary source of heat.
Over the winter, I had the mini splits set at 60 degrees while using the wood stove to bring the living spaces up to a more comfortable temperature. The mini splits use electricity, and for the worst parts of winter my solar production was nonexistent due to snowpack on the panels. I paid $1,500 for electricity from October through April, which were the months that I was using the mini splits for heat. The average bill was about $200 and the highest was $460 (Jan-Feb). If I had filled up my oil tank four times, I would have spent nearly twice as much. Even at lower oil prices, it seems that my wood stove/mini split combo is a financially solvent approach to heating my homestead.
Moving Forward
I can’t help but feel like summer is coming to an end, even though there are still three weeks left before school starts. Building a small wood shed has moved up on the priority list. I am also trying to preserve at least a little bit each day for the month of August – mostly herbs, perhaps eventually some pickles and zucchini bread as things ripen. I will share more on that as the month continues.
KC