Check out this Giveaway on Pioneer Harvest Women

At the risk of more people being able to get in on this, I am posting this giveaway.  This is a beautiful custom kitchen aid mixer that I am drooling over this morning.  I have been reading Pioneer Harvest Woman's blog for about 6 months now.  She is in Oklahoma, so that makes us neighbors right?  I find her blog very interesting.  She was from New York, met a cowboy and the rest is in her book...Black Heels to Tractor Wheels.   I saw the book the other day at the store also and thought of getting it and probably will sometime in the next two weeks or so.
Here is the link, go ahead and enter to win, its easy:
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2011/02/special-edition/

Fence, fence and more fence

So I marked out the fence area this morning.  So far, I have learned that I am out of shape.  I trasped through 4000 feet of snow.  Snow is worse than sand and I got my monthly work out marking off the fence.  Next we need 4000 feet of fence for this project.  I am hoping that this is good enough for 3 goats and 1 horse.  We will still leave the current two paddocks that are already set up, so we can feed the goats and horses seperate.  This will also allow us a pen for the billy goat once he is older.  This also will allow us to use the square footage in the back of the barn for shelter instead of our current 3 sided shelter set up.  Im sure this will make the goats happy during the winter and even once its hot in the spring.  It will also make it a bit easier for me to feed all around in the winter time cause I will not have to go out in the snow to feed and water.  I will have the hose set up to reach both the horse and the goats water inside with just a change in the hoses. 

As far as the pricing of the fence here it goes:

Goat field fence                 $240 a 660 ft roll, need 6 rolls                                       Total  $1440
Fence Post                       Treated 8ft landscape timbers $3 267 post                     Total    $801
Line Insulators for 2 strands of hotwire                                                                   Total   $150
Corner post                     3 per corner,  36 post (for gate too)                                Total $288
One 16 ft gate                                                                                                       Total $70
One 4 Ft Gate                                                                                                       Total $50

We have poly rope for the hot wire.  We will need horseshoe nails also and I don't have the price on those.

                                                                              Total Project estimate    $2800

That should be the end of the fence ordeal once we get it put in.  We may also buy a auger to put the post in.  We will be putting other wooden fence around the house for the kids to have fence.  It will be more decorative.  The plan is to make a wood plank 4 ft fence around the house. 

The fence will be unpainted wood but set up like this.  We may also put some rabbit fence on the back side of it.  We have a problem with neighborhood dogs coming into the yard.  We have a dog also and although I seriously doubt the 110 lb Malamute/Husky mix will get through the plank setup, I still would like to keep the littler neighborhood dogs out.   To build this fence (at a later date) we would need the following:

8ftx1inx4in planks

Landscape timber post

Driveway gate x2 

               

Global warming???

Im not complaining cause today was b-e-a-utiful.  We were able to let Cheyanne out and she was frisky.  She worried me running through the snow the way she did.  At one point she ran, slid and rolled all at once.  Talk about giving a person a heart attack, I don't know what I would have done if she hadn't jumped right up.  So she was able to hang out in the paddock.  I personally would not let her run in a pasture right now, I could see her falling and hurting herself jsut cause she is young and silly. 

Next we let our buckling out with the girls.  Although he doesn't like to be in the pasture with them.  He is so funny, more like a dog than a goat.  He whined the whole time he was out there and stood by the fence waiting on me.  He is only 5 months old, so I guess that is why.  He is still a baby.

While they were both out of the stalls, I took the time to clean up.  It was great only having to wear gloves and a sweatshirt.  Took me less time to clean out the stalls, so that is nice.

We also got our seed cataloge today.  Picked out all the veggies that we want to order and also seed starter kits.  Hopefully we will be able to make our order here in the next week or so.  I plan on starting them in the extra room in the house.  Maybe even make a little green house or warm box.  Im still researching the options, but I have the space either way.

Tomorrow, we hope to be able to get Cheyanne back out.  We plan on getting the farrier out also to work on her feet.  I know many people work on their horse hoofs themself, but I have no clue and she can tell that.  We also plan to finish up the stall to have better doors as soon as the weather turns more springy. 

I know I am totally getting my hopes up that the snow is gone for the Spring, but I know that isn't the case.  I know it can snow til March and be yucky for quite some time.  But I am hoping that within the next 6 weeks it is done.

Have a great weekend.

Homesteading

Homsteading, is the art of using your home, - farm, small-holding, house or flat - as a resource, to make and save you money.

It is a self sufficient, self reliant, organic, green and sustainable lifestyle that allows you to decide what your future will be.

The basic principles can be applied in any home, anywhere.

The goal is to achieve a measure of freedom from dependence on others, and can be as simple as growing a few organic vegetables and being more frugal, to complete freedom from bills, credit, and a regular 9-5 job.

After living completelly relient on resources of the city for the past few years, we decided when we moved home to become as self sufficient as possible for our family.  Currently for our family, this means Goats for milk and meat plus chickens for eggs and meat.  First thing I have learned, if you get a goat that is already in milk do not stop milking her.  Although my doe had a doeling that was still weaning, I am sure that her milk has dried completely up.  So now we have to wait til she has another baby to get milk from them again.  Although this is fine at this time, milk prices keep going up and at almost $5.00 a gallon that is a bit steep for my budget.  So we try to keep milk purchases to a minimum.  Our does ran with a buckling for a few weeks, but I am pretty sure that he did not mate with any of them.  So we may trade someone for a doe that is in milk or sell our doe to get one that is in milk once spring comes.  I currently have 2 alpine nubian cross does and one is only a year old. 



One of our does checking out the fresh bedding.

The second thing I learned, if you order chickens from the hatchery at a couple dollars a piece, it cost as much as finding full grown chickens in the long run.  So I thought it was a great idea to get 25 chicks in the fall and raise them up.  They cost $2 something a piece, then food to start out was $12 something every two weeks.  Well a couple months in food is $13 a week and still no eggs.  So now they are not paying for themselves still.  So if you take into consideration of $56 in chicken feed a month for 5 months, that averages the cost of each chicken to be about $15.  Well at the small animal swaps you can get a full grown chicken for $10.  I know there are pros and cons to this as well.  You may not know what conditions the chicken lived in before or there temporment.  For meat chickens the hatchery works fine cause you have them at the most 12 weeks, then they go to freezer camp.  But for layers which is the most sufficiant way to get your chickens?  Our chickens should start laying finally mid march by that time I will have put roughly $300 into my chickens.  I am also down to 22 chickens vice the original order of 25 due to predators and lack of knowing what I was doing.  So 22 chickens, if half those chickens lay one egg a day it would take some time to recoop my expenses plus further cost of feed.   I would have to get a minimum of 4 dozen eggs a month to justify having the chickens.  That is without selling the eggs and just using them for our family.  If I choose to sell the eggs at $2.00 a dozen, then 4 dozen eggs would cover feed cost.  I am hoping that the egg production of these 22 chickens is more than 4 dozen a month, which is what we would want just for us.  Any extra would be sold.  We also have to take into account loss of eggs due to dropping, stepping on and pecking from the chickens. 

So all in all, coming into this whole homesteading thing, I jumped right in both feet and might have made some minor mistakes but we hope to have it figured out come spring so we are just a bit self-sufficiant.

My goal for next fall is to have canned veggies from our garden, milk, cheese and eggs.  I currently am working on bread recipes also.  We will also have some meat in the freezer and the ability to only stock the pantry of dry goods such as flour, sugar, salt, and spices.  The rest of the items we will attempt on our own.