I’ve been negligent in the extreme the last few weeks. Lots of things going on around the farm. We have had at least 6 lambs born – I’ve lost count. The greenhouse is filled with spring transplants, the chicken palace is within a few days of having residents, and Carnation is giving us enough milk so that we are able to sell a fair bit of it. 
There have been several changes with our cadre of young men. After 3-1/2 years, we have said “Goodbye” to Dewey, who is striking out on his own. Christopher and Dillon have both found jobs, which hopefully will fund vehicles and eventually their own place. Or, at least that’s the plan. In the meantime, we are keeping them busy with work here on the farm.
I wanted to have more accomplished on the solar installation by this time, but it has been raining a lot, which highlighted the fact that the barn roof still leaks along the valleys and I’d like to get those attended to before mounting a lot of panels up there. But the project is moving along.
Chris and Erin have come up with some class schedules and a Gala date. 2011 is under way!
A week has passed since the last post and much has happened in the last week. The household has “officially” added a new member, Dillon, a friend of grandson Chris, who needs a family and a place to live for the time being. Dillon has been staying on a day-to-day basis, but we have decided to admit the obvious and let him have some stability for a few months. Projects have been moving along as well.
This is a view of the reinforced barn roof, a prerequisite for the solar panel installation. The job is finished except for restoring all the wiring and closing up the boxes, etc. 
We also had two lambs born last week, conveniently, the night after we managed to round the sheep up and get them penned. I am astounded that we (a) managed to get the sheep penned (b) the lambs were dropped inside under cover instead of out in the wettest, muddiest part of the pasture in the middle of an ice storm and subsequently eaten by predators or harassed by our mule.
Farm-related problems that have had to be solved this week are: firewood – we’re running low, and the barn water supply quit Saturday night sometime. Turned out to be a blown fuse, but I am suspicious that that was just a symptom. Pete says the expansion tank is waterlogged and needs to be drained, which we’ll tackle this week.
Cold day today with schools canceled and nobody interested in doing much outside work – but we did get the milk-house wired and completed. Kathryn is happily milking Red while Carnation is waiting for her treat (she will calve any day now).
Chris and I spent much of the afternoon on farm admin – me, interviewing for the Breeze Mentor Farmer position, Chris following up on getting a high-tunnel grant from the USDA. Our experience so far with the USDA grants has been pretty dismal, but we continue to hope. It is a good idea to have Chris applying for these grants because she is so much nicer than I am about it.
The boys got all the wood spit and under cover so we won’t be trying to burn wet icy wood if we get the ice storm. Not much work on the solar barn-reinforcement work because of impending storm. Oh well, we are warm, the generator is set to go, and we have plenty of food if it comes.
Very Cold the last two days, so working inside has been our choice whenever possible. We are being warned about an ice storm, so I cranked up the generator to make sure it works if the power goes out.
I have been working on YE bookkeeping for farm, business, and our personal accounts to get ready for taxes. Without taking into account depreciation, the farm took in $22.5K in income, and had a net profit of $2.3K, which may be our best year yet, amazingly. Bulk beef sales were a big part of that, as well as farm services, but the bottom line is that we made money, at least on paper.
Chris is still starting seeds – we are going to have to keep them all inside until the greenhouse is a little warmer.
The milking parlor is not quite finished, but it is in use. Katherine has been glad to be out of the wind.
That’s it for the farm, today.
This will have to be a combined post for Thursday and Friday. Thursday was a red-letter day around here. The milking parlor is nearing completion and we had both Red and Carny come in, use the stanchion, get a little grain, and walk out. Only the lights and some fixtures need to be completed. Also, Dewey received an acceptance letter from Carolina for the Fall 2011 term! Congratulations Dewey! There is lots yet to be accomplished on the road to graduation, but any great accomplishment is a comprised of a series of small steps, and this is an important milestone. But in a surfeit of blessings, we finally gave up on the idea of finding a cheap replacement for Dewey’s Saturn, and with Steve W.’s encouragement, decided to try to fix it with a used engine. I found one at a local junkyard, bought it, and Steve, Dewey, and Christopher worked until 12:30AM this morning to install it, and Dewey drove it home. A miracle. Let’s hope it lasts.
Work on reinforcing the barn for the solar installation is moving along slowly but inexorably. It should be finished early next week and I can start installing panels. It is quite a project.
No progress on the chicken palace other than to buy tin roofing for the 1st cage yesterday, but it is almost ready for that.
Moving forward to Friday, Christopher finished mulching and spreading manure on the garden. It smells, ahem, wonderful! So pungent! So nutritious! It ought to grow stuff like mad.
Among my accomplishments: Install step-rungs in the elf-tree
so that little elves can climb to the top for a look around. I also fixed the starter cord for the wood splitter so that it can be started. Also spent untold hours working on books, letters, etc. Chris is hard at work getting seeds started for the various gardens. That’s it.
Obviously, since it has been about a year since I made my last post, nothing has happened on the farm. But, it has been a busy week around here so I will try to be more current. And disciplined. OK.
Major happenings at Woodcrest are:
Dairy happenings: Little Red had a heifer calf on 12/26, and is now a real, live milking Dexter. Carnation has succeeded Elderberry (who is no more, alas) and should be calving soon. We will soon have two cows in milk, and the milkhouse is finally getting finished. Pictures, maybe, to follow.
Work on the solar project is coming along – lots of prep work to do on supports, rafters, and headers to take the weight of the array. This is an expensive but necessary (I believe) pre-requisite.
Work on the chicken palace is nearing completion. Pete Seidel has been working steadily on it; he rust proofed it today.
I attended my first meeting of the OC Parks and Recreation Committee (PARC). Should be interesting.
And, I finally ran to the ground and solved the database problem that has been preventing me from making posts to this blog.
For the moment, our Woodcrest Boot Camp seems to be working. Christopher has been exercising, studying, and working on schedule and per contract. This obviously needs explanation, but it would turn this post into a book.
I didn’t do much farming this morning – as a good friend put it, “I had a date with a garden hose”. Crude, but descriptive, and that’s all I’m going to say about that. The remainder of the day, I worked on admin work some more, primarily formalizing our planting plans and getting the greenhouse ready. We have made plans for both acreage at the Breeze farm, as well as our own. For posterity, I am including links to both plot plans.
Woodcrest Garden Plot Plan
Breeze Farm Plan
Most of today was spent in necessary administration, not a bad choice since it is still unseasonably cold. I am reasonably close to closing out the books for 2009 and it wasn’t a bad year. Not profitable, but we showed real growth.
Jason showed up late morning and the two of us went out to the Breeze farm for a few hours to finalize the plans for the cooler and equipment shed extensions. Back at the ranch, I worked on revising drawings, did some forge work on Nii Lamote’s cross, and in the evening continued to work on plot plans for the garden. Chris has us planting beginning March 15th, which means that we have to have seeds started this week. The following sketch shows the proposed shed extension Jason and I would build.
The 2009 Thanksgiving sale has ended. This morning we sold COLD turkeys from our new, working cooler, loaded a bunch into the truck for the final drop-off, and wrapped it up. Nancy has been working non-stop since last Friday, I think, and will hopefully get a well-earned rest over the next few days. On the Woodcrest side, we sold quite a few hams, a fair amount of beef, and some sausage. Every little bit helps.
The rest of the afternoon I fooled around in the forge trying to get a good horseshoe hoof-pick process. I think I have the head figured out, but I burned up two in the process of making the other end.
Erin made us smoked turkey legs which were absolutely delicious. I am revising my opinion of smoking.
Dan and Liza arrived with Amy around 7:00, and surprise! Carlisle showed up! That means we will see Jen, Amy, David, Tim, Ben, Carlisle and Dan this weekend – a pretty nice group, if I do say so myself.
This is a two-day post covering the last 48 hours at the farm. Our saga begins Monday morning with Nancy arriving around 9:00 to load her trailer with the plastic tubs we washed on Saturday. In the middle of that, Katherine asked if she could borrow the truck to get a load of shavings because Elderberry apparently has mastitis (an udder infection). We decided to call Kenny Kirk for some expert advice, and Katherine went off to implement that plan. Chores done, I worked on various projects (like fixing water pressure) while Nancy took off to Penske truck rental to get the refrigerated truck she had reserved and then to pick up the turkeys. Early in the afternoon she called to say that the reservation had been ignored and the truck had been rented. The best that Penske could do was to provide a standard truck – no refrigeration. My mission became to come up with some alternative to keep turkeys refrigerated through Wed. afternoon.
I called a rental company to see if they had any portable refrigeration units. I called all the truck rental companies, all the beer distributors, several refrigeration companies, and Pete. No solutions. I called a dry ice dealer, who would have been glad to sell me the dry ice, but warned me that enough dry ice to refrigerate our truck would present a safety hazard. Finally, I called Scott Hicks, the person whose walk-in cooler we were considering buying a few months ago. Yes, it was still available, still on its trailer, and Scott would deliver it Monday evening. The cooler arrived at about the same time as the Oller family last evening. So we now own a cooler.
But, the Troubler wasn’t finished with us yet. The cooler didn’t seem to be cooling very well last night, so we didn’t put any turkeys in it. That was a good thing because this morning it was still wasn’t working. In a panic, I called Scott Hicks, and when he didn’t answer after 4 or 5 calls, I stopped payment on the check and went back to the drawing boards. I was still trying to decide about a dry-ice solution when Scott called me back and said he would be here to fix it this evening. With that faint hope, we sold turkeys here at the farm all morning. Around 11:00 AM our peripatetic sausage arrived as promised via UPS ground, and we packed up everything and took it to Duke and sold turkeys all afternoon. By the time I got home, Scott had fixed the cooler and was waiting for his money. So, all is well and hopefully, that chapter is closed.
Meanwhile, we are enjoying grandchildren and trying to get back to normal, or as normal as things can be at Woodcrest Farm on Thanksgiving.
