Homesteading: December Dreaming

by JG

Robert and Justine on a walk around the farm.

December has turned out to be a hectic month off the farm! But we are finally home now for the holidays and until January 5th. Then it off for an eight-day trip through four Hawaiian Islands to rally islanders against the coming vaccine mandates imposed by Gov. Newsom’s West Coast Health Alliance.

Truthfully, getting away from the Virginia farm chores in January isn’t a bad thing. However, the key to leaving the farm at that time of year is training our farm employees, preparation, and cross-training. One can’t leave such a complex system to run itself.

A couple of weeks ago, Quieta, our five-year-old mare, had a mild case of colic. Colic is the leading cause of death in horses, and is basically an impacted gut. Horses have a very primitive intestinal system, so this is an issue that can easily kill horses. This time of year, horses tend to not to want to drink cold water and so, one must keep a careful eye for gastric distress. Horse owners have lots of little tricks to keep colic at bay, such as adding extra salt and fat to their rations and keeping their water warm, but it can happen anyway. So travel gets a little stressful sometimes, particularly when animals get sick. We have to rely on our employees to keep a watchful eye and luckily, we have someone who is very well-trained and responsible.

The weather here has been perfectly horrid - the coldest November and December that I can remember in the mid-Atlantic region. I have been attempting to ride - and doing a much better job at getting my butt in the saddle than Robert has.

The truth is that, between catching a nasty cold, the holiday festivities and traveling to DC more than a few times, as well as WV, Atlanta, and who knows where else, it has been a very busy month.

Now, almost every animal on the farm has some sort of evening routine laid out for us. Horses need hay and water checks. Chickens usually get their scraps. The emus get a bit of dog food, and the dogs get scraps and their allotment of dog food.

A farm has it routines, and the nighttime ones are important.

But goose - she is the most persistent about her routines. Despite her moving headquarters from the barn to the emu pasture, she still has to sleep in a stall each night. This requires that she get us to walk her down to the barn - she won’t do it by herself, unless all other options are tried to tempt us into a walk-about. The truth is that it isn’t “us”, it is Robert who has to walk her down. I am the wrong gender and an inferior substitute for this daily ritual.

Emus be dammed - bedtime means a long walk with her human and then sleeping in a nicely bedded stall.

Now this isn’t something new - she has us well trained.

Here she is -last year…

This month has been pretty cold, as I wrote. With a lot of travel, festivities, and work (the kind that involves research) keeping us busy, so farmwork has been at a minimum. Plus, our brand-new tractor blew a hydraulic line and is now sitting in the front of the house, ready for Kubota to get back to work after the holidays and come down to our farm to fix it.

Between the cold and the broken tractor, Robert wasn’t thrilled when the line started leaking.

But last week, I finally got most of the last of the veg dug out of the raised beds and turned the soil over in last year’s gardens; a prerequisite for planting in the spring. I also managed to plant 20 pounds of daffodil bulbs in raised beds. I have five pounds left to plant - which will go into various pots to decorate around the farm.

This in turn, inspired Robert to order another 25 pounds of bulbs, which will be planted around the fruit trees, which are heavily mulched. The mulch should make digging the little hole for each bulb much easier. We have had a severe winter drought, so the farm’s unsupplemented, gravel-pocked soil is rock-hard right now. Planting out 250 bulbs is not as easy as it sounds! But this next set of bulbs is Robert’s responsibility, as I feel pretty “bulbed” out.

Basil stalks ready to go to the compost pile, daffodil bulbs, and the planted, raked, - raised bed.

The animals are doing well.

The two peacock brothers have rekindled their “bro” relationship, now that breeding season is over. Going with the Narnia theme, they are Prince Caspian (left) and Trumpkin (right). The lion is named Aslan.

Next year, we intend to incubate a lot more peacock eggs (last year, we ate most of them).

For me, the worst thing about a small homestead or farm is sales. Taking good photos, writing text, getting ads up, fielding texts and calls, and then having strangers come to the farm is time-consuming and stressful, as I am an introvert by nature.

So, I get tired of selling baby animals. It becomes particularly tedious to sell birds that aren’t worth much, such as peababies. Sales that have a lot of people knocking on the door. Having so many people come to the farm isn’t worth our while. So, I intend to sell the peachicks in lots of five for $200 or ten for $350. No single sales. This is a better option anyway, since peachicks need to be raised with other poultry.

Last week, during one of our walkabouts around the farm, we came across beaver activity.

Here is the dam they are building:

Unfortunately, this creek floods routinely, so that some years such dams don’t last. But I guess that is the life of a beaver. It is probably a good thing that we don’t have a colony, as they can be very destructive.

Beavers are plant eaters. So not spraying pesticides (herbicides, such as glyphosate, are classified as pesticides by the EPA) affects the wild animals, such as beavers, that live on the farm. Even if we don’t want too many, I am glad that they are here.

The benefits of living in a healthy ecosystem go hand-in-hand with the fact that Robert and I are eating our way through all the organic produce we grew last year. The 100 pounds of sweet potatoes that were harvested have been a blessing. I have made a number of excellent casseroles, as well as just eaten cooked (yeh, the microwave does a great job with whole sweet potatoes).

Of note, I like to cook sweet potatoes for the chickens in the winter, when there aren’t many greens to feed them - it is one of their favorite foods.

Sweet potatoes from this year's harvest

We are already dreaming of spring, and I have ordered a number of seed packets and bulbs.

I planted out kale, spinach, lettuce, cilantro, and parsley this fall, using up old seed packets. But unfortunately, even though I used a plastic tarp to trap the heat, I planted too late and didn’t get anything to come up, as a frost came early. There is a chance some of these seeds will sprout in the early spring, though.

In the meantime, I am perusing Etsy and will reorder the above seeds, as well as from various gardening catalogues. I did order some Musquee de Provence (heirloom/c. moschata) seeds, otherwise known as Fairy Tale pumpkins from Etsy. This pumpkin has an intense orange flesh, which is good for cooking.

This is a little aspirational, as I have about 150 pounds of pumpkin in my root cellar and have yet to use a single one yet this winter.

Sounds like I better get to cooking!

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