harvest

It’s fall y’all

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I’m sitting at my desk in my chilly “office” aware of the alternating downpour/drizzle rain against my window. It’s 45 degrees F out..not super cold and there is no snow on the ground – garden bed soil might just be cool enough to plant garlic and onions now.

In the meantime, I’ve developed a list of sorts. Typically, I’m one to make mental lists and sometimes jot them down (only to lose them,) but recent developments insist I have written a list to follow, because the chores have increased. Which is a good thing.

  1. Our luffa plants absolutely took off this year. We have more than we can use, and unfortunately some will go to the compost bin. This is a little concerning because those seeds…wow..they’re prolific. The immature squash is, apparently, tasty to eat. We didn’t get that experience in. The beauty about the luffa is in it’s growing season.
    • You plant.
    • Let it grow.
    • Let it die and get brown,
    • Harvest.
    • Peel, shake out seeds.
    • DIY sponge things to use in bathrooms, kitchens etc.
  2. When the first frost came it killed all the vines so we harvested the remainder. Fortunately, these are approved to give to the cattle – in moderation. We have plenty dried sponges to gift!

2. Clean up all spent plants. Time to dig up the scraggly peppers, the droopy sunflowers, the shriveled peas you never had time for.

3. Amend the soil. Test it with you local ag or get a soil test from a seed store or local nursery. Amend with whatever it calls for.

4. We harvested our sweet potatoes, too. A keen observation: if you leave them in the ground too long, you may be harvesting spuds bigger than your head. (We had to let the harvesting go a little longer than recommended because on of us was recovering from spine surgery. Not me, this time.)

4. Time to plant onions and garlic. Here in N East Texas it is recommended to plant these when it’s colder and the soil is colder, too. Right now would be a good time, but I’m not into planting in the rain.

5. After putting the garden or raised beds (as is our case,) it is recommended to cover the beds with mulch.

6. We do a deep clean of the poultry houses twice, maybe three times, a year. This time of year, we completely clean the old shavings out and put a nice couple of inches in to offer more insulation. We try to not use heat lamps because a) the chickens are little heat machines and b) the heat lamps have, on occasion fallen and caught the coops on fire. It’s curious that at this chilly time of year, the chickens are also molting and the usual layer of warm and protection is temporarily gone, so all the more reason for added warmth. The benefit of adding some kind of artificial light is to promote egg laying as they lay off this time of year. But, some of our girls are older and maybe they need a rest….

7. This is also the time of year we harvest the turkeys. We’re conflicted about what to actually grow here on BaldwinAcres. One of us wants fast growing and a meaty harvest – usually means Broad Breasted Whites. The downfall is they cannot naturally reproduce and sometimes get heavy too fast often resulting in respiratory issues. The other person on the farm enjoys heritage breeds. They are sometimes endangered and/or close to being so, but they grow slow, and although they’re tasty, it can take a season or two and the resulting meat is not – absolutely not – the same as the more commercial BBW. It’s an ongoing discussion.

8. Now is the time, too, that the pastures go dormant and the hay is set out.

9. This year, for the first time, we were able to sell our spring calves. And, a great friend lent us his black angus bull (who came to us nameless but was quickly dubbed – Buckley. His owner and my husband refer to him as the bull…boring. So Buckley’s been with us for a month or so. Folks charge big bucks to lease the bulls so we are every thankful for this gift!

10. Special attention must be paid to the external water sources to prevent freezing and damage. We add trough warmers but haven’t dug deep enough to pay for expensive heated hoses.

11. Final clean up of grasses/pastures/driveways/acorns takes place.

12. Previous to the cold wet weather, we’ve already prepared a sizeable wood pile for the fireplace. One of us is forever chilled and so happy to have fireplace weather arrive.

13. Sometime in this time frame, we’ll put Christmas up. One grandchild makes sure to come put and get the Christmas tree and other things out from the shed and we put it up as our time allows.

14. We made the mistake of putting up a polyurethane greenhouse. It’s too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. We tried putting the evaporative cooler in for the summer and a space heater for the winter, but that drove electricity up too high. Putting solar in is also cost prohibitive. We ended up cutting away some lower sections for the summer and putting them back up in the fall along with some greenhouse bubble wrap. We have a slatted wood floor which we cover with cardboard we’ve saved up during the year. This seems to make it useable, but not ideal.

On very sunny days during this time we might enjoy the hot tub, or sitting by the firepit, but honestly that takes effort, so most days are spent inside, by the fire, reading, researching, seed drooling, planning and just being thankful.

The hardest part of living a hobby farm homestead life.

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When Tumnus first came to us, we considered him a rescue goat. We were asked to home him and a female Kinder goat and two Jacob sheep from a family who thought they could have livestock even though their neighborhood covenants said no.

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We pretty much didn’t know what we were doing when we bought them. Except we were helping someone out. Tumnus was described to us as a wether. A wether is a goat who has been castrated. Goats and sheep are herd animals, and oftentimes people will have a wether to keep the other animals company.

Tumnus, whose name always seemed too big for him. was particularly endeared to me and I to him. I shortened his name to T man or Mr. T. He would rub his head against me whenever we were in close proximity. He always responded with a low bleat when I called his name.

But, T always seemed a bit off. His hooves seemed misshapen and needed more attention than the other members of the flerd. When he had been dis-budded, they had missed a small portion that sometimes doesn’t show up until the goat is older and he developed scurs. Which means although dis-budded, a little portion still grew into his head. They say you can re-do the dis-budding process but we have no iron or experience. And, honestly, I didn’t know this was the problem with his horns until a recent research project.

One day, after we homed him, T stood off and peed on his face. As I mentioned, we had no experience with livestock before this, including reproduction, or social behavior. So, when he urinated on his face, peeled his upper lip back as if the odor was  magnificent, then stuck his tongue out and wiggled it, I told Lance I thought T might have a mental issue. After researching it however, T’s mannerisms were the exact way goats woo the ladies. Which brings up another issue.

T was supposed to be castrated. There would be no reason for him to do any sort of mating ritual. No peeing on his face, or bellowing, or sniffing the femailes. After a cursory investigation, we discovered T still had a testicle. So, he either had three, or they missed one.  Sadly, this one testicle was enough to keep him in a continual state of mating desire.

When the males get like this, not only do they pee on themselves and snort and stick out their tongues, they vocalize their desire. When our granddaughter had to describe the word,’bellow,” her descriptor was Tumnus, and the picture she drew was of T opened mouthed, neck stretched out towards our female goat’s rear.

The first time we heard his too human hollering was late at night. The pasture is just outside of our second story bedroom. We sleep with the window open. I heard, ‘Hey,’ in a what I thought was a man’s voice. “Heeey,” again. I woke Lance up and told him there was a man in our yard. he listened for a minute and again, “Heeeyyyy”, was said. So Lance ran outside while I tried to light up the pasture from the bedroom window with the flashlight. “Heyyyy”. Then Lance called from the shadows, “You’re not going to believe this.” He laughed. “It’s, Tumnus!” What we didn’t know was this behavior would go on indefinitely.

In the spring, our wether Jacob sheep with his immature but sharp horns, our Nubian goat with his big horns and our male Jacob sheep with his magnificent horns, and T with these horrible looking nubby areas, would engage in rutting. There were many bouts of ramming each other in the heads. Poor T got the brunt of the battles. With just enough testosterone to embolden him, he readily engaged in every challenge and his head would bleed. Eventually his body became dotted with bloody holes, as if he’d been stabbed with round spears.

We don’t have enough acreage to separate him from the others, and if we did, he would be alone, which we were told to not do. Finally, with severely bad front hooves, holes down the back of his neck from rutting, his constant state of heightened arousal and the bashing his head was taking, we decided it would be better for him to remove him from the flerd. Permanently.

This is still troubling for me to discuss. I know people eat goat, even my people in Jamaica consider the goat as we do cows. Goat meat is used in dog food,  goat hooves, goat horns all are used by some.  I have eaten goat only once. And, I’ve never used goat for anything else. The idea is still rather foreign to me. Some people might wonder why we didn’t take him to the vet, but understand, in this homesteading venture, we live on a tight budget. There’s not a lot of room for extras. If an animal is not producing we’re going to cull it. We did the same with some turkeys this year,too.

One reason we raise our own poultry and pigs is to have healthy food. Food we know what has been fed, how it’s been raised and will be good meat for our family. But, still it’s hard to say good bye to my friend.

Thus the reason I wrote this. Even if no one reads about T-man, I do tribute him with love, respect, apologize for his tough life and thank him for the meat which did nourish our dog and barn cats and a little bit to human consumption.

T-Man, you were loved.