Chicks have Arrived!

The chicks have arrived, and so begins my small-time poultry enterprise! Forty chirping, day-old, chicks arrived at Echo Valley Nursery in Auburn on Thursday morning. For our first flock we chose a Cornish cross, a fast growing bird used by 98% percent of the poultry industry. They are ridiculously efficient feed converters, putting on a pound of weight per pound of feed. These birds will reach slaughter weight in 7 weeks, while most other chickens take 12-15 weeks to reach the same weight. You can see why large poultry operations choose to raise such birds--they are cheap! We have come to learn, however, that these birds may be very lazy grazers because they prefer the readily available feed to searching for bugs and seed in the grass. These birds will be a great barometer for our future flocks, which will most likely be a heritage breed well adapted to life on the range. I'll keep you posted on how our birds do.

Because I had work all day, Heather picked them up on her way home from her Roseville practice. Unfortunately, by the time I got to Green Acres one of the chicks had died for unknown reasons. Apparently the chick was on its way out before Heather got to Echo Valley because they only charged us for 39 chicks. While we should expect a few losses in the first week, it was still hard for this perfectionist to accept a loss before the enterprise even began.

There is one universal truth that homesteaders must come to terms with early on: Anything that can go wrong, will. Heather has a sign hanging on the shed outside the barn that says, "Some goats die". I see it whenever I drive up to do farm chores and now its finally hit home; some chicks die too. Admittedly, the loss of one day-old chick is a much easier loss to swallow than, say, losing Charlotte to a predator or sickness.

Thankfully, when a life is lost another is born. Soon we should have a clutch of eggs hatched by one of Heather's broody hens. This hen has been craving motherhood for quite a while, so Heather got a clutch of fertile eggs from a friend to give to the feathered mama. Little "Rosie" (that's what I've taken to calling her because of her beautiful redish-gold plumage) has dutifully sat on the eggs for nearly 2 weeks. Hopefully she will succeed and have a fine bunch of chicks to care for. I'm crossing my fingers for a clutch with a high percentage of girls...roosters are of no use to us right now. Sorry boys.

The Market Haul

Well yesterday was a success! The grower's market is located at the North Star House property in Grass Valley, a dilapidated estate tucked into the local cattle fields and farmland. The grower's market just moved to North Star House this year and from what the vendors said, it is a welcome change. Aside from a NSH being a beautiful site, the vendors don't need to worry the location being moved when other events role into town like when the market was held at the fairgrounds.

The North Star House is in the middle of a renovation. Soon there will be wine and cheese tasting in the house on market Saturdays.

Yesterday dawned cold, but sunny. There were not as many vendors, about 9 less than usual, on this particular Saturday because of the unseasonably chilly weather. Many of the absent vendors are still waiting for their warm weather crops to come in. Once June and July hit there will be more vegetable and fruit vendors (I'm hoping for fresh pears for sauce and dehydrating) and meat vendors (chicken, pork, lamb, and beef). Although I will have my own free-range chicken come late July, it will be nice to buy some local meat until then.

After all was said and done I spent $32 on produce and bit of cheese. Most of the money ($18) went to a flat of strawberries that Justin's mom is help me make into jam. Half of the flat went into the dehydrator for easy to eat snacks and as topping on my morning oatmeal. I also picked up 1/2 lb of mixed greens, 4 onions, 1/4 lb of snow peas, 5 large peaches, and a wedge of amazing moldy cheese from raw cow milk for Justin who is my cheese lover.

My produce in the beautiful recycled pine box Justin made for me.

I cannot wait until next Saturday!

Grass Valley Growers Market

Today I am going to the Saturday-morning Grass Valley Growers Market at the fairgrounds. A place where local farmers can sell their products, and saps like me can freeze our butts off for some fresh strawberries. It usually starts at the beginning of May and lasts until November. I cannot tell you how excited I am to walk the rows of fresh vegetables, beeswax, meat, and fruit(hopefully?). Spring is a wonderful time of the year in most towns and cities because it means the start of the farmers markets. Coming from San Luis Obispo, I took for granted the famous and year-round Farmer's Market on Hiquera Street; treating it as an after-thought like a spoiled teenager treats allowance, unappreciative of its constant existence. The central coast, with its Mediterranean-esqe climate is also a wonderful growing place, full of fertile farmland and orchards so the market was always packed with vendors of fruits and veggies mostly unavailable in other parts of the country. Auburn, by comparison, has been very "seasony" which has taken a lot for me to accept. For example, we are quickly approaching June and have yet to break a low of 50 degrees. Needless to say, my pumpkins and tomatoes are not very happy right now. Last night the low was 30 degrees! Yikes! We will be putting paper grocery bags over the plants at night to retain the heat (or semblance of such). So I am going to the grower's market this morning before work to bring home some local faire grown by people who have more know-how or equipment in the gardening department (or both). I am also excited to see the faces of the people who are providing me with the flavorful produce and thank them whole-heartedly for their work. With pristine and well-lit supermarkets everywhere these days, we've created a disconnect from the people who actually brought the food to our plate and in doing so are hurting them by reducing their profit margins. Buy local or bust is my new credo!

Sorry if I got a little excited there, I am in the middle of listening to Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. It's a great book about a family that makes a pact to make everything they eat from scratch and/or buy locally. A person who eats only local fare is known, fashionably, as a locavore. While the romanticism of this movement has swept me up a bit, I don't have the cooking skills quite yet (or the support of my fast-food loving boyfriend) to take the plunge. Don't get me wrong, Justin loves his fresh produce and meat, but he will always be a fan of the dollar menu. However, I am going to conscientiously do my part for the local economy and buy all of my produce from local farmers. One thing I am very sad about is bananas. There are definitely none of those growing around here at this time of year...if ever. Those who know me well know that I don't like most fruit, except for bananas. But, I'll make it work.

On another note, on Monday and Wednesday I spent a good amount of time digging beds in the garden. It's slow work especially for this perfectionist. When Justin gets back from working at his ranch in the Sierras on Sunday I will tell him, emphatically that when we have our own farm I want him to build me beautiful, permanent raised beds! I can just imagine it now: sanded wood boards, about 3' tall holding in dark, rich soil. A place where I don't have to dig another damned ditch between beds ever again! Paradise.

Don't get me wrong, there is a wonderful freedom in not having permanent beds. You can reconfigure the beds and change sizes whenever you want. Ask me in July when the garden is going gang, busters how I feel about the beds.

Now, I must drink copious amounts of coffee to prepare myself for the drive out to the fairgrounds. I'll let you know about the haul later! Anyone have recipe ideas?

Gluten-Free Bread and Dixie

Meet Dixie

Don't worry everyone, she isn't mine. I have not officially lost my mind and added another dog to the menagerie. Puppies are definitely not my thing right now, although Dixie is an amazing puppy so far.

Dixie is Gaby's promised birthday gift and the first official Green Acres mutt. She is a 8 week old Border Collie/Lab mix and boy is she smart! She's already met my dogs and they could simply care less of her, which is better than them disliking her. So far Dixie is a great addition to Green Acres. Since she has border collie in her, we don't want her using her instincts to run the herd. So, the plan is to have her sleep out in the barn with Charlotte and Rose so that she will see herself as part of the herd.

Makin' Bread Baby!

So I recently finished Jenna Woginrich's book, Made from Scratch. For those of you who are not too sure about getting into homesteading, but are still interested in living a sustainable life this is a great read. I finished it in a day easily, which is a lot to say because I am slow reader. She uses fun anecdotes in each section and has a great sense of humor. One of the sections in the book is about cooking. She describes an easy bread recipe that even a novice like me could handle, so I decided to take on the challenge yesterday while it rained.

Making bread is a time consuming task, but a very rewarding one. Justin's mom kept saying, "You'll want a breadmaker after this!" My arms certainly felt the burn from kneading the damn dough for 15 minutes straight, but I felt like I needed to earn this loaf. Let me tell you one thing about making bread from gluten-free flour that I didn't know before: it does not come out light and fluffy like the traditional bread that we are used to eating. I would describe the texture and taste more to that of a bagel or a warm pretzel, which is nice but very filling.

Mix the dough...mix the dough!

Kneading the dough.

Next time I will make traditional bread. Justin really like sourdough, so I am going to try to find a simple recipe to make that next week. My goal is to try to make a new bread every weekend until I am an expert at it. If anyone has any ideas for yummy bread to make let me know. You can be certain that come October and November I will be making some amazing pumpkin bread. YUM!

The pull apart bread. Great for dipping into balsamic and oil.

Meat chickens are on the way!

Today I put in an order for 40 Cornish Cross fast-growing meat birds. These guys should get to market size in about 2-3 months. Heather and I are going to split the birds and freeze them for delicious Autumn BBQs and roasts. We have found some great resources online about how to build a proper chicken tractor for them out of PVC pipe, chicken wire, and tarp. More importantly, we will need to build a poultry plucker to assist in the processing we'll need to do in 2-3 months...YIKES. For anyone interested, I would be happy to sell a whole bird to you for $15 (they go for $16-20 for a whole free-range chicken at the Briar Patch Co-op Grass Valley). You can be sure that your bird will be raised healthy and happy on a beautiful property and processed in the cleanest conditions. I am very excited about all this. More to follow!

A similar tractor to the one we will build for the chickens. They will start the first month in here before we let them out on pasture.

The Weather is Conspiring Against Me!

Well, this is the third weekend in a row that it is going to rain. Yes...I know..."we need the rain", but it is really hard not to take it personally. Four days out of the week I spend indoors at the shop, so when Monday roles around I am absolutely chomping on the proverbial bit to get outside and work in the garden at Green Acres. I've made plans to finish making raised beds and get the drip system online, but of course it rains on Monday....again! That also means that I will not be able to mess with the soil until Wednesday when the soil dries out enough.

After much complaint I've come to terms with my predicament and made a plan for indoor activity.

1. I am going to finish working on the garden plan I'm drawing. Basically a picture of garden with beds labeled with numbers that coincide with a list of each plant and when it was put in the ground. The goal is to have this for next year so we can know what grew where and how well it did.

2. Bake bread! For those of you who know me well you know how bad I am at cooking and baking. I figured that if I am going to do this homestead thing I really need to improve me domestic kitchen skills. I know bread is a big step, but Jenna Woginrich's book, Made from Scratch, gave me the confidence to try. Updates tomorrow.

3. While the bread is rising I will wash Ayden, my very stinky mutt.

4. Draw out a plan for the chicken tractor Justin and Louie are going to build for Heather and I so we have a place to house the flock of meat chickens we will be getting soon. More info on that later.

Of course, although it will be raining, at 1 pm I have to head over to Green Acres to feed Charlotte and Rose. While I am there I will be treating Athena, the dairy goat, for bloat with a concoction of olive oil and baking soda. I am not sure how wrestling with a 150+ lb goat is going to go, but I'll update you on that later.

There is always something interesting happening on the farm.

I've got worms, dude!

On my 23rd birthday my wonderful father gave me the best gifts this burgeoning homesteader could receive: a composter and a worm bin. For a year I have had great success with both, but today I want to share a little information about vermicomposting.

For those unfamiliar with the term, vermicomposting is process of using various types of worms to create a rich mixture of decomposing food waste, bedding, and vermicast (worm poo). Vermicompost is a nutrient-dense organic fertilizer, soil conditioner, and even a great organic insecticide when sprayed on foliage.

If you have commitment issues, worms are the easiest and quietest pets you can have. They require even less care than a gold fish and can actually make you money if you sold the by-product of their waste (which is much more than I can say my furry pets). The initial investment is less than half of the cost of buying a new iPod and you can be sure it won't crap out after a few years of hard use (unlike most iPods I've owned). In fact, I have not needed to replace my worms and add any to mix since my dad gave me the first batch.

Here's the skinny (and I mean REAL skinny) on the worm situation:

The Composter: My dad bought me the Worm Factory, but there are many types out there. The one I have came with 3 stacking trays to add as your compost grows. The worms travel upward toward the food and you remove the lowest level of compost to use for fertilizer or compost tea. The Worm Factory goes for about $100.

The whole composter. Right now I only have the first try on. As I add more waste and bedding I will add another tray to the top.

Worms: Don't go digging around your yard for just any worm. A worm composter requires a special species affectionately known as Red Wigglers. You can get a pound of worms for about $25 from a bait store, a respectable nursery, or even online.

Bedding: Appropriate bedding for the worm bin can be shredded newspaper (black and white only), paper bags, computer paper (with black ink is acceptable), shredded coconut hulls, shredded leaves, aged manure, peat moss, etc. The point of the bedding is to add bulk that allows air through the compost. It must also be moist. That is a big mistake that I just learned I was making. What I do now is soak the bedding in water for 2-12 hours and then ring out the excess water. Worms need their bedding to be moist!! You can also add a handful of sand or dirt to help the worms digest their feed a little easier.

Photo of the beautiful vermicast mixed with new paper bag bedding

Feeding: So this shouldn't be stressful at all. I simply cut up any left over vegetables, grains, bread, or fruit and mix it in with the bedding. I try to avoid adding meat or fat because the scent of those compounds breaking down is just awful and I want to enjoy the presence of my worms not hate it. The scent of rotting meat and fat will also attract all kinds of unwanted pests to your bin that you do not want to deal with (trust me).

I feed the worms only as much as I think they can handle in a week or so. When you first get started that won't be a whole lot, but as your worm community grows in size you can start adding more food to the bin. I try to have a method in the burial of the waste. I will start in one corner of the bin and bury the day's or week's waste. Next time I will move the spot over to the left or right of the previous burial site, and so on.

A gourmet worm meal: left over black beans (a safe way to add protein to the bin) and artichoke leaves.

Harvest time!

Like I said, with the composter I have I will simply remove one tray at a time and use that compost. Most of the worms should have moved up toward the new food, so you shouldn't find too many (if any) worms in the lower trays. If you choose to build your own composter without trays you will need to dump the compost and hand sort out the worms if you want to keep them, or you can put them in the soil with the compost and buy new worms. That is totally up to you. Treat the vermicast as compost and mix it into the top soil rather than using it as straight potting soil.

You can make compost tea by adding two tablespoons of vermicast to a liter of water and let it sit for a day, then you can water your plant with it or strain and dilute the mixture more and add it to a spray bottle for an insecticide/foliar fertilizer. (Note: I've recently read that legumes do not take well to the foliar style feeding with worm tea, so just stick to feeding the roots instead.)

For more in depth information on the subject you can order this fabulous book on Amazon for cheap!

Worm's Eat My Garbage: How to Set Up and Maintain a Worm Composting System by Mary Appelhof

The Dream and Paying the Bills

I'm a full-time employee working at a fabulous and popular boutique and at the moment that's what pays the bills. It's so easy to get wrapped up in the dream of watching rolling hills dotted with white sheep grazing on lush pasture whilst my man and I sit on the front porch drinking ice cold home brew (probably an IPA because Justin is such a beer snob) as our dogs sleep by our sides. After slapping myself back to reality many times I realized that I need to focus on taking the next step in front of me and ask myself: what do I have control over right now and what can I fit into the budget to get me a tiny bit closer to my dream? Right now that is raising Charlotte , propagating a booming organic garden, and renting a portion of a homestead, which is actually quite a lot of work when you really think about it.

I am slowly getting in touch with the long lost farmer in me. To know where my food came from and take pride in the fact that my work put it on my plate is rewarding because it makes me feel more in control of my life.

Here's a quote from the introduction of Jenna Woginrich's book Made from Scratch. She writes a blog called Cold Antler Farm that I have been following. She helps me keep my farm lust in check, while getting me appropriately excited about living a self-sufficient life:

"Accepting where you are today and working toward what's ahead, is the best you can do. But the starting point is to take control of what you can and smile with how things are. Find your happiness and dance with it."

My Goat Drinks Chocolate Milk

About 2 months ago my first legitimate livestock came to Green Acres. She is a spotted Nubian dairy goat and I call her Charlotte. When Charlotte and her sister, dubbed Rainbow Rose by Gaby, came to Green Acres they were tiny, only a week old and still learning to suckle on a bottle. Since Green Acres is already home to a small mixed herd of goats, the kids seemed like easy additions. I say seemed because I did not fully comprehend all the time and energy the kids required. In the beginning Heather and I had to find a way to feed the goats 4 times a day (6 am, 11 pm, 4 pm, and 9 pm). Since I don't live at Green Acres yet, I had to drive over there during any of the feeding times I could fit into my schedule. On work days that meant 6 am and/or 9 pm. Heather took over the feedings she could and then some wonderful friends and family helped with the times we couldn't cover. (Note: Under normal circumstances we would have preferred to let the kids nurse on their mother, but the doe developed an infection in one teat and since she dropped quadruplets there was no way the mother could nurse four kids on one teat.)

At two and a half months old the kids are now down to eating 3 times per day (6 am, 1 pm, and 7 pm). Thank goodness! Unfortunately, we ran out of the kid formula we were feeding and could not locate a single place in town that had it in stock. I had to special order the feed, but we ran out 2 days before it arrived at the feed store. A helpful neighbor gave us a left over bag of his own and we had to feed that to the girls, but it was not the same formula as the one we had been feeding. The sudden change in their diet caused poor Rose to develop scours (i.e. goat diarrhea). In extreme cases scours can lead to death because of dehydration and shock, but little Rose was acting like her normal bouncy self.

To help combat the scours Heather and I found this recipe in a book about goats. Since we are trying to treat any issues with the goats hollistically, we chose this recipe instead of buying medication. Here's the recipe:

1 c. buttermilk

1 raw egg

1/2 tsp. cocoa

1/4 tsp. baking soda

Feed 1/4 of the mixture by bottle 2-3 times per day until symptoms clear

I am pleased to report that after only one full day of this treatment Rose has nearly made a full recovery. We are now only adding a small amount of probiotics to her formula to help reintroduce good bacteria to her stomach since the scours likely wiped out most of them.

Lesson learned: When it comes to feed stores, don't count on them having what you need when you need it. Plan to buy more feed before you are close to being out of your current sack. If you and changing feed for any animal do it slowly by mixing the new feed and the old feed together. Start at a small ratio of new feed to old feed and then slowly increase the percentage of new feed until you have completely weaned the animal off of the old feed. If you don't then you will find yourself cleaning poopy goat butt until the symptoms clear. No fun for anyone!

NOTE: Do not use the formula for scours on any animal than a ruminant animal. Carnivores or other non-ruminant animals may not be able to handle the cocoa in the mixture!

My Passion

Welcome to the Greenhorn Homesteader blog! This is a place where I will record the trials, tribulations, and successes of my journey to becoming a competent self-sufficient homesteader.

After graduating with a B.S. degree in Animal Science from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo I felt quite lost. Aside from my love for my menagerie of house pets and my wonderful boyfriend, Justin, I was passionless. I am surrounded by people who are lucky to have found their ultimate passion in life. For example, Justin LOVES rock climbing. He can spend all day outdoors with boulders and beautiful sheer faces and not be satiated in his desire to climb. To me, that is passion and that's what I craved until I discovered my own passion...self-sufficient homesteading.

Justin and I moved to Auburn, California from the central coast to save money and pay off debt fast. Justin's parents introduced us to their close friend Heather and Louie Roseburg, who live on a little slice of heaven called Green Acres. Green Acres is picturesque to say the least. Here, the Rosenburg's keep 14 laying hens, 9 goats, 4 crazy sheep, and a resident pair of Canadian Geese. Heather is a licensed chiropractor and naturopath who craves the self-sufficient life with a fervor you cannot believe. She is my friend and mentor. Louie is a wonderfully boisterous, gregarious type of guy who anyone would like upon first meeting. Then there is their daughter Gaby, who loves to drink goat milk and eat pickled okra for dinner. She is a little farm girl through and through and I love her for it.

This September Justin, the menagerie, and I will move into a little trailer on Green Acres and become full-time residents! For me, September cannot come soon enough. September means not having to drive 5 minutes to the homestead at 5:30 in the morning to milk the goats, it means walking out the door of the trailer to the garden to pick my vegetables for dinner, but most importantly it means immersing myself in the lifestyle I crave the most.

This is will be a place for all farm-related posts and updates on my homesteading education. Thank you for taking the time to check in on the farm. Check in often!