Our
Farm
Our house overlooks
the Klamath River in Northern California. It was built in 1951
and was remodeled in part in 1997. The land is steep and is
situated on the side of a hill. The area gets plenty of
precipitation in the late fall, winter, and early spring, but is
devoid of rain in the summer and becomes arid in that season. We
have a natural spring 'seep' that we use for our house and barn
water.
There are one and a third acres, of which about one third is the
house, garden, and outbuildings.
The animals are utilitarian for the most part. They will supply
us with meat, dairy products, and eggs as well as byproducts
such as manure for the garden and fur. That isn't to say we
don't care about our animals because we do and some will become
beloved pets. But their main purpose is to supply us with what
we need.
The Goats
The
goat barn is a small building, (started as an old chicken coop) in the goat yard, that houses
Nigerian Dwarf goats.
My foundation stock is one doe and a buck.
Nigerians are small
goats, two equal about the same as one full size goat and the
milk output of two Nigies is about equal to one full size goat.
They have an area of about three-fourths of an acre. The pasture
is now divided in two - one side for the buck and one
side for the does. The barn is divided so there is four stalls
with one being a storage area. One of the stalls is for the kids to be
separated from the does at night and at weaning time. It it is
also for when we need to separate the other goats for any
reason. There is a smallish fenced enclosure so the weaning kids
can get out and run and play during the day. The does will be
bred once a year in October for a March kidding.
A Nigerian Dwarf doe will produce about
two quarts or more of milk a day at her peak. It will slow down
to one, to one and half quarts later in her lactation. I used a
homemade pump milker
to milk my does in the beginning, but now milk by hand. You can view a tutorial on how I milk
here.
On the 25th of January (2010), I purchased a tiny Nubian bottle doeling. I intend to breed her to my Nigerian buck and produce MiniNubian
goats. It will take years to establish a MiniNubian herd, but the prospect is exciting!
Chickens & Rabbits
I plan on having some chickens by the end
of 2009 or sometime in 2010. These preferably will be
the
Orpington breed. These will be in the garden housed in a chicken
tractor on top of a single bed. At some point in this endeavor,
rabbits will be added on top of the chicken tractor and their
droppings will fall onto the bed below. The chickens will then
scratch them into the bedding and soil of the bed. The rabbits
will be a dual purpose breed and will more than likely be either
Californians or New Zealand rabbits. The meat will be used for
the table of course, but the fur will be tanned and made into
useful items and sold in my online shop.
The
Garden
The garden consists of the regular house crops, and will also
grow much of what the animals eat a year. Right now, it is an
area of about 28' x 63'. The garden is enclosed and has eight
100 square foot beds. In the future it will be enlarge to
include eight more beds for a total of sixteen 100 square foot
beds. The garden is on a knoll and so the garden beds are
basically terraced with one side almost level with the path and
the other side elevated above the path. Eventually, we will be
using a
chicken/rabbit tractor
to house the chickens and rabbits in the garden.
To supply
water to irrigate the garden and pastures, we use river water
brought up by an irrigation pump. The water is full of nutrient
rich algae as well as other by-products from the animals that
live there.
The Fodder Crops
These will consist of pasture grass (herbal lea) grown on a
garden scale. The crops also include root vegetables, peas and
beans, and grain to be fed to the livestock. Right now I buy dry
COB (corn, oats, barley) and mix this with cracked pinto beans
(or any other type of dry bean except soy) for the goats. I do
this because those four things - corn, oats (or wheat), barley
and dried beans are products that I, eventually, can grow myself
on our homestead.
The
Rental Cabin
This is a charming 2 room cabin equipped with a sofa bed, bed
and bath linens, microwave, washer and dryer, wireless Internet
and more. It has an awesome view of the river and surrounding
areas. There is plenty of outdoor recreation; rafting, fishing,
hunting, mining and more. There is also an abundance of
wildlife such as bobcat, bear, fox, deer, otter, and more.
Fishing is good here as well. Its world class fishing on the
Klamath River! It is rented by the day, week, or month
Cottage Industry
As
well as the rental cabin, I make
items to sell
from discarded natural wood, bone, stone and fur as a cottage
industry. These consist of hair sticks, crochet hooks, knitting
needles, spoons, soaps, small chests, and fur items. I also
sell goats
when we have them available.
Schedule
For
me, because there is so much to do on a homestead, it is a must
that a schedule be implemented and basically followed. I try to
spend 8 hours a day working at either homestead projects or
income projects, dividing these into 4 hour segments so that I
spend 4 hours on each daily. I got this idea from the writings
of
Helen and Scott Nearing...
Out of necessity there will be a
'winter' and a 'summer' schedule. In summer, there is a need to
switch the homestead projects and the income projects around so
work is done indoors for income projects where it is
cooler and the homestead/outdoor projects outside while
it is cooler... and of course winter is just the opposite
spending time doing outdoor homestead projects after it has
warmed up some in the afternoon.
