Author Archives: Quail Run

Spring Eggs

After a long dark winter the girls are laying again!  Hens naturally stop laying as the daylight hours decrease, it is nature’s way of making sure the birds are using energy to keep warm and not on producing eggs that can’t be hatched or if they were to hatch would have a low survival rate in the winter.  To keep hens producing through the winter months some producers and back yard chicken keepers will supplement with lighting and heat.  Here at Quail Run Farm we don’t do that, we let the hens go through a period of rest, we believe this is healthier for our birds, keeping them in their natural rhythms as much as we can. It can be a little discouraging feeding birds all winter long and only getting a couple of eggs a day, but as stewards over these animals we take on the good and the bad that comes with each animal and give them the best care we can.

That being said, I did a cheer and fist pump when my little farm boy gathered his first dozen eggs this spring! We are now, again, producing enough eggs for our needs and will soon have enough to sell.

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Composting in Place

I have built and maintained compost pits and piles for many years now, when we bought our first home in 2002 one of the first things I did was mark out the garden plot and start a compost pile. I’ve long been a believer that we should use the things around us to their fullest capacity, while keeping in harmony with its order of creation. It never made sense to me to wrap kitchen scraps in plastic to rot in a landfill, or grind it up and send it down the drain. I feel that sending the leftovers of our fruits and vegetables back to the earth is honoring, and giving thanks to that which has been provided to us.

For a few years now I have flirted with the idea of composting in place.  The idea is that you don’t create a compost pile that needs to be watered and turned over and then eventually moved, you actually add the material to be composted in the place that you will eventually need it. I’ve never done it, I didn’t want to attract vermin, I worried that it would look horrible and that the organic matter wouldn’t break down fast enough. This year I decided I would give it a try. It’s a grand experiment. IMG_5900
I collected about a days worth of kitchen scraps, onions peels, banana peels, eggs shells and herbs used in infusions.  I didn’t add any meats or leftover cooked foods.
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For the first layer I lay down old newspapers and old homework papers, some egg cartons and left over bits of cardboard. A lot of organic farmers and backyard hobbyists won’t use certain types of paper or cardboard in their garden, saying that the glues and dyes are bad for the enviroment.  I don’t completely agree with that and I put all sorts of paper products in my garden and compost.  I think, with a few exceptions, that the earth is entirely capable of cleansing itself.  If you put concentrations of garbage and papers a central location, yes the ground will be poisoned, but that is not what I am doing, I am taking the bit that our family uses and facilitating the breakdown and cleansing.  They will be processed by microorganisms and turned into beneficial nutrients for plants.

After the layer of newspaper I spread out all the kitchen scraps, gross……
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And on top of that, straw, that will help absorb moisture and keep the mixture from getting too hot.
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Then on top of that, aged horse manure.
IMG_5904I got about two feet done in a fifty foot row….this might take a while….

Peas Please

This past weekend we were able to get the first seeds of the season in the ground.  As always the inaugural vegetable is our little lady The Pea. She is a fabulous little addition to the garden, her seeds can be planted very early and then they wait patiently for the right moment to germinate and send their crinkly green leaves into the early spring sunshine. She is happy to spread her roots in areas that aren’t the most fertile, creating green beauty, leaving more that she takes. Peas are a legume, they take nitrogen from the air and fix it into the soil, preparing the way for other, more delicate plants to make their home. Peas a great for crop rotation, they will travel the garden through the years making the ground better because of their presence.   IMG_5887 Because of the size of her seeds she is very easy for little fingers to sow. There is much excitement when the first blossoms and peas pods appear on her bushes, for the children know they had a part in their creation.  IMG_5882In the warmer days of May, when the summer heat starts flirting on the backs of our necks, we will be out picking our peas, giving thanks for the bounty and sharing it with others.

How Chickens Help the Farm

How Chickens Help the Farm
Guest Post By Emma Kieffer

I am going to tell you how our chickens benefit our farm. They lay colorful eggs for us.  They also give us meat.  They help us fertilize our gardens.

First I am going to tell you how they benefit our farm by laying eggs. Eggs make a delicious breakfast. Sometimes if we don’t gather the eggs they will hatch and a chick will come out. After we eat the eggs the shells go to the compost and make a great compost.

Next I am going to tell you how their meat benefits our farm. It makes a delicious Chicken Noddle Soup and Chicken Curry. We know that they are healthy and we feel more comfortable eating them because we know what they eat. After we eat the meat the bones are put in the compost. To me I like their meat more than store bought chicken.

Last but not least they help us fertilize our gardens. While they lay their eggs ,walk around and sleep they poo. Their poo is our fertilize. We first shovel out the chicken poo. Then we put the poo in the compost and let it sit, then we fill up Home Depot buckets and dump it on the flower beds.

All of these things are some ways chickens benefit our farm. They are so much fun to watch. I love to watch them free range, which means they eat whatever they want to.

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Making Home

When we bought the farm three years ago I had grand plans for the house, it was built in the early 2000’s and had been unkempt and unloved for many years, she looked a bit dated and shabby (along with other issues, but that’s another post). Of course life gets in the way and our little house got put on the back burner, but that’s looking like it is going to change some.

One of my favorite rooms in the house is the dining room. It has these huge windows that look to the north and west, beautiful views of the whole valley. For the last while we had a simple shade on the west widow to keep the setting sun out of our eyes during dinner, but nothing else.  The windows are quite drafty and after this winter I decided that we could wait no longer and had to get some sort of window covering that could be closed in the winter to help keep the cold out and heat in.IMG_5831

I love this view, it needed a beautiful frame!

I love this view, it needed a beautiful frame!

So after much searching I finally settled on a look I love.  I have always liked sheers and long floor to ceiling cutains, so for beauty I went with a long sheers under and on top a thick cotton that drapes beautifully and will help with the draft in the winter.  I think it is a lovely effect, and my favorite room just became even more dear to me.  As I finished up everything and set out a nice center piece on the table (something I always had before we moved here, but never here) Dadzoo commented that he liked that I was making the place pretty, it made it feel more like home.

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Bareroots

Saturdays in the springtime are very busy on the farm.  Building a no-till, permaculture, working farm, along with raising eight children and Dadzoo working a fulltime job takes a lot of time and work. Springtime has us doing a lot of clean up and building garden beds in a mad rush to be finished before planting time.  This past Saturday was no exception, we had everyone outside, some clearing old weeds, others picking up accumulated garbage that had blown in, another cleaning out the chicken coop after the long winter, and Dadzoo hauling load after load of manure from our neighbor’s horse ranch.

Towards the end of the afternoon, the FedEx truck arrived with two big long boxes.  My Starks Brother’s order had arrived ahead of schedule.  I was so excited.  I love getting my plant and seed orders in.  We have ordered from Starks Brother’s before and have been happy with their bareroot trees and shrubs, so naturally when looking to add to the orchard we went with them.

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One of the things I like about Starks Brothers is that not only do they carry your typical varieties of fruit trees, but they also carry heirloom and speciality varieties.  From a permaculture stand point, using different  varieties is important, it creates biodiversity, and biodiversity is healthy.  Also on our farm we will be able to produce and sell varieties of apple that no one can get in grocery stores or the big produce stands. I also like the feeling that I am helping  keep a once thriving variety of tree or bush from extinction.

Current and Elderberry bushes. These will provide food and medicinals for us and birds, shade, and biomass.

Current and Elderberry bushes. These will provide food and medicinals for us and birds, shade, and biomass.

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Five different varieties of apple tree: Granny Smith, Candy Crisp, Smokehouse, Cinnamon Spice and Wine Crisp. All different flavors and colors.

IMG_5878So that evening we made a quick run to our local hardware store and picked up potting soil, I don’t like to plant my bareroots right in the ground, I have found I have better success planting them first in pot and babying them for a few months, then they will go to their forever homes.

Ladies on a Stroll

I always enjoy watching the chickens in the springtime, they are much more adventurous after the long winter and tend to range much farther. Today they followed me as I wandered the Orchard Meadow, I was looking around, my usual springtime hunt for the first signs of green life, they settled under the Mother Tree, scratching around, enjoying a dust bath and early season bugs. IMG_5826IMG_5827

Piled High and Deep

Because the soil is so poor here we have to do a lot of amending to create enough fertility to grown anything successfully.  This may seem like a losing battle, who can realistically bring in tons of compost every single season?  That is why we are using no-till and permaculture methods, once we bring the compost and other amendments in and get the soil to produce, not tilling, mulching and leaving spent plants in place at the end of the year, fertility will naturally come year after year with little addition. But for now, we have to bring in composted manure, and a lot of it, and it was quite the dilemma at first, where to get it and how to afford it.

IMG_5872We were blessed to become acquainted with and soon friends with our neighbors across the road, they have been raising horses for many years and naturally horses produce a lot of manure and they have graciously allowed us many, many loads.  Dadzoo spent a good part of Saturday morning hauling load after load to our garden.  Beautiful black fertility.

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For some strange reason the kids aren’t quite as excited as I am over a huge pile of composted manure….

We will now be spending many evenings and Saturdays sheet mulching our garden beds preparing for summer planting and building a dynamic ecosystem of fertility.

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Chicken Tractor

The little sisters have out grown their brooder, things were getting squishy in there and squishy chickens get bored and ornery and start causing problems, like pecking and feather pulling. Along with that we like to get the new sisters out on real ground as soon as possible, it is much more natural and healthy for them, and our pasture benefits immensely from their scratching, pecking and pooping.

Dadzoo put together a new chicken tractor for our new little sisters, its very simple: a covered area for shelter and an open area, wired in, for fresh air and sunshine, the bottom stays open so they have free access to the ground, grass and bugs.

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IMG_5852Every morning, at chore time, the chicken tractor is moved to fresh ground, keeping the impact of the birds on the pasture at a minimum, while providing fresh grass for the chicks and spreading their manure around evenly.

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This crazy festooned lady is becoming a fast favorite.

This crazy festooned lady is becoming a fast favorite.

Even chickens, when properly managed, can be used for much more than meat and eggs.  They too have a purpose and job in maintaining  and restoring the land.

Big Blue make over

mike_tom_tractorOn the farm, we have our animals, and our human resources.  But we also have some heavy equipment that we use.  When we moved into our house we purchased a tractor.  It is a 1973 Ford 4500 industrial landscaping tractor.  It does not have a PTO, or anything fancy, it just has a really nice bucket on the front, and a custom made counter weight.  It has become a part of the family, and has been used to do a lot of heavy lifting.

12046603_10153704848916584_4759011426577120850_nThe neighbors now hear its noise and see it as background noise, like the noise of the rest of the farm.  It has been a silent partner in several photos.  Bottom line, this tractor has become part of the family.

During the course of its use, it has had some problems arise.   Like anything that is 40+ years old, it may need some help to get things done.  Big Blue has been a little under the weather.  It has been having a hard time getting up the power to do some tasks.  It works great for short hauls, lifting and digging, but does not like to drive long distances.  So I went to the internet, to see what may be the problem.  First thing suggested was to check all the fluids and change them all.  Lucky for me, big blue uses all the same type of fluid for transmission fluid, hydraulic fluid, and engine oil.  So I bought two 10 gallon buckets and started to change the fluids.  Well….  Big blue holds over 20 gallons of fluid.  So it took a little more time and a lot more fluid.  Big blue also does not like to tell you what his fluid levels are at.  No dip sticks for any of the levels besides the engine oil.  So both transmissions have to be filled, until a bolt you remove starts to leak, then you know it is full.

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Changing the fluids did not fix the problem, so then I went on to fuel lines.  So we changed the fuel filters.  This is the main point of this journal entry.  It would be quicker and easier for me to just hurry up and change the fuel filters myself, but I decided to take the time and teach Tom and Emma how to do it as well.  (Bear in mind, this is my first time as well, but I found a great video to show me how to do it.)

I can now tell you that my 9 Year old son and 11 year old daughter can change the fuel filter on a 1973 Ford tractor.  They know where all of the gaskets and O-rings fit.   It was one of those days that I will remember and I am sure they will remember as well.  We even had some help from the 4 year old as well.

IMG_5847 IMG_5845 IMG_5843 IMG_5842 IMG_5838 IMG_5837 IMG_5836I changed the first one to show them how to do it, then gave them the tools and let them do the second one.  The only part I had to help with was starting the bolts and tightening them.   I was amazed at how easily the little fingers could remove the old gaskets and fit the new ones.

I was impressed with how these two kids, who have never done anything like this, were willing to give it a try and had no reservations to get to work, get their hands dirty, and try something new.  I at times would not start projects like this, because I was afraid I would fail.  Neither of these kids had that hesitation.

As a side note, the fuel filter was not the problem.  But I discovered that if I backed up when it lost power and then went forward again, it would go for a little while then would have the problem again.  The solution I found was to put it in a higher gear, and leave it there.  Big blue now has a hard time backing up, but he keeps going for the distance.  I now think the problem is with the transmission, so we will probably just keep running big blue until big blue can’t run any longer.  We already have plans for putting big blue next to our barn (when we eventually get one) when he can’t work anymore.  Hopefully at some time we will have a son/daughter, or grandson/granddaughter that will want to get Big Blue working again.  Until that time, Big Blue will continue to haul manure, level ground, and move things around the farm.

Even with the bad transmission, Big Blue was able to haul 12 loads of manure from our neighbors back yard to our garden and our soon to be bamboo field.  I have a feeling that Big Blue will continue to serve the farm for years to come.