Spring Update

Breakin' Wind

We put (nearly) the finishing touches on the windbreak today. The latest additions include a row of Rocky Mountain Juniper (which weren't available last year when we put our order into the seedling nursery), and a handful of replacement Ponderosa Pines and Doug Firs that didn't make it through the winter. For the most part, though, it looks like well over 90% of our shrubs and trees are budding out and looking great! There are a few more unfilled holes waiting for trees, but we got the bulk of the work done and are super happy about it. We now have 400-ish trees/shrubs in the ground. Tonight: Aleve and early to bed.

Rocky Mountain Juniper

Big Blacks

Soon to come to the Blue Cloud farm are two "little" pigs. We're switching over from pink Hampshire hogs to a heritage breed called Large Blacks.  The hogs are appealing as they are meant to graze. Apparently, they are very docile, in part to their large floppy ears that block their vision. We'll train them to a hot wire, so that we can easily rotate their pasture, and see how they do. We will be getting our two black piglets from a breeding farm (Cranky Carl's) up north in Eureka, MT, within the next few weeks. This year is a test run. Hopefully, if it all goes smoothly, and if the bacon is up to par, we'll look into breeders next year.

In with the Black....

...out with the Pink.

July

Just a few updates from the farm...

The Great Scape

Who knew that garlic scapes were so delicious? Bill and I had no idea that the curly green tops (scapes) of garlic were meant to be harvested and enjoyed as a Fourth of July delicacy from the garden. This is our first year of growing garlic, so we were clueless as to the joys of scapes until our neighbor pointed out that we should "cut those tops off."  A little oil, salt and pepper, and onto a hot grill, and they were something like a marriage of asparagus and greenbean, with a good kick garlic. Next year, more garlic scapes!

The Grill Master testing his scapes. 

"Well, that's a big coyote......waitaminute. That's not a coy..." 

We had our first wolf sighting at Blue Cloud: a big Gray, about 200 yards in front of our property. He didn't seem too afraid of us....just stared us down for nearly a minute then loped up and over the hill.

Piggie Tales

The pigs are getting huge; they have at least doubled in size in the past month. They've developed a liking for the tennis balls that Stewie incessantly carries around and sometimes drops into their area. I caught one playing with the ball by dunking it repeatedly in the water tank. Sometimes, they just carry them around in their mouths.

This is "Blue Eyes", who squeals when you scratch his ears or back.
He's running toward me for a good ear scratching.

Nothing like a good, stiff draught on a hot sunny day.

Hoggin' the feeding trough.

Dry and Drier

Despite the hot temp and life-sucking winds, our baby windbreak is green and growing. Bill put in well over 2000 feet of watering hose (PVC pipe and dripper tubes) with drippers that deliver 1 gallon per hour.  We have well over 90% survival rate since the planting.

It's an extremely dry year, and, already, there's been a significant fire (the Corral Fire) in Helena that burned down four homes. For the Fourth, the county banned all private fireworks. Local firework stands, apparently, were feeling the heat when the county issued the ban. One fine, upstanding TNT-booth owner implied that the ban was violating the Helena-area "people's freedom". I believe he was referring to that amendment about having the right to burn down our homes, as well as those of our neighbors. Anyway, it is hot, windy, and looking like it's going to be a big Montana fire year.

The Elizabethan Collar, a Stewie Staple

Stewie is, again, in the collar of shame, recovering from a leg laceration. Total vet bills to date are: well, too many to count. But this is his fourth go round in his plastic halo. I can't believe we're actually considering pet insurance for this dude. If Baxter could roll his eyes, he would.

The Hot House

Using 2 cattle panels, bent and attached to two 3x6 foot raised beds, and covered with plastic sheeting, we created a small tomato and pepper growing house. It's our newest addition to the garden project.

Wild West

My little sister is getting married, so a little Montana-style celebrating was in order. All the best of western Montana: Chico Hot Springs, the Mint Bar, Big Dorothy's (brothel turned restaurant/bar), and Last Chance Gulch, added some good juju to her bachelorette bash.

Mom of the Bride, The Bride, and Bride's Big Sis

Now, Hurry Up and Grow

The Tree Team: Dad, Jo, Bill and Me 

As I'm sitting down to type this, it is down-pouring outside and the thunder is rumbling. Rain couldn't have come at a better time. Over the past four days, "The Tree Team ," Bill, myself, my dad and my step-mom Jolynn, planted over 300 trees into our rocky, cement-like front yard. It was, admittedly, exhausting work, and we all ended up with some aches and blisters, but we are pretty proud of those beautiful rows of new little plants...that are now soaking up all that wonderful rain!

We moved efficiently; but those concrete-like clods and ever present melon-sized rocks were something to reckon with. We didn't add any supplements to our soil as we planted, only a few scoops of "topsoil" from a local sand and gravel company (which looked a lot more like organic-starved fill dirt) when we sometimes needed something finer to work with alongside all those clumps and rocks. My dad was a machine, and the farmer in him came busting out, ready to tackle anything and to keep us all moving our shovels.

A Doug Fir, bright green and ready
to grow!

The trees and shrubs came mostly bare-root from DNRC's nursery in Missoula. As I mentioned in the earlier blog, the windbreak consists of 7 rows:




Outside row: Caragana
6th row: Juniper and Honeysuckle
4th and 5th rows: Ponderosa Pine and various shrubs
3rd row: Douglas Fir and Nanking Cherry
2nd row: Green Ash and Snowberries
Inner row: Serviceberries

We pre-dug the holes with the mini-ex a few weeks ago (see last blog post), so the holes were extremely dry and hard to work. Bill and I hadn't planned to put up any deer-fencing, as it truly is rare to see deer (mostly Muleys) hanging around by our place. However, after working to get those trees into the ground, we decided we'd rather not risk it, and we plan to put up an electric fence shortly, in hopes to deter whatever deer are in search of some yummy new growth.

The watering system is not yet in place, but will consist of a series of PVC, black plastic water hose, and emitters for a drip irrigation system.

Other updates: 

We finally conquered the relocation of the hen house! It took some scheming, but Bill figured it out.

The Hen House on rollers.

How to move a shed with an 18V cordless drive...
...oh, and a winch!

We rolled it about 100 feet south, away from our generator and sewage drain field, to a flatter pasture area. Using a 2-ton car jack, we elevated it and stabilized it on two 4x4's.  Then we lifted it again, high enough to slide in sections of 2x4 track and several 5"  "roller" logs. With the roller logs sandwiched between the 4x4's and the 2x4's, we pulled the house forward using a hand winch attached to the back of the truck, leap-frogging the track and rollers as we moved the house along.  Easy peasy!  Thank you YouTube!
We even managed to turn the thing 90 degrees by slowly shifting the angles of the logs and pulling from one corner.




The main reason for the shed move was to accommodate our newest farm addition: pigs!

After the building was in place, we put up fencing to enclose about 1000 square feet of pasture. We opted for cattle panels instead of hog panels to save a few bucks; the hole spacing is a little wider, but it's small enough to contain our 50lb "piglets".  We used some recycled house logs for the corner posts and some left over t-posts to break up the 16-ft panels. To help build the fence we finally bought an iron tamp bar, which made all the difference in digging rocky areas and securing posts. Should have had that in hand when we first moved in.Bill framed in a wall/door to split up the hen house, to accommodate the pigs as well.

Building fence around the "new" hog/chicken house.

We brought our  little piggies to Blue Cloud late last night. They weren't too pleased about the bumpy truck ride to our house and squealed to let us know it, but they seem to be getting along nicely now in their grassy pasture. All we need to do now is build a feeder, and we're set.

We purchased the pigs from a Hutterite colony near Choteau.  I guess the price of pork has gone up drastically since last year, increased from 1 to nearly 2 dollars per pound for wiener pig. But we're sure happy to have them on the farm. After we unloaded them late last night (a tricky affair from the back of our pickup truck), Bill and I stood at the fence panel, awe-struck that we finally did it, and smiling to hear their little grunts as they munched on the grass. Butchering time should be around August. Yum, bacon!

 

The Blue Cloud Bunch

Tractor Week....you dig?

A boy and his toy. 

We've been pretty quiet on the blog front for a while.  I guess we've been too busy with projects to write about any of them.  Unseasonably warm weather brought on a bad case of spring fever.  We've been outside working in and around the garden for the past few weeks.    The trees are budding, the tulips and daffodils are up, the asparagus is popping, and most of our cold-hardy seeds are in the ground.

Last week we jumped in with both feet and rented a mini-excavator.  The main motivation for the rental was the 400 bare-root trees we have coming in mid-May, for use in a wind break.  Just the thought of digging 400 18" holes by hand made our backs hurt.

The break will be made up of 7 rows of of trees and shrubs formed in an arc around the northwest of our house.  We purchased the trees, mostly bareroot, from DNRC Conservation Nursery in Missoula. Our intent is to introduce enough variety to protect us from infestation wipe-out in a particular variety (ie: pine beetles, bark beetles), to attract various wildlife, and to provide various color and beauty to the landscape throughout the year. The holes are now dug (thanks to Bill's skills on the mini-X), and the plants will be collected from the nursery shortly.

Putting in the water line to the garden.

Here's the game plan:
First row: Serviceberries
Second Row: Green Ash, alternated with Snowberries
Third Row: Doug Fir, alternated with Nanking Cherry
Fourth Row: Ponderosa Pine, alternated with Honeysuckle
Fifth Row: Ponderosa Pine, alternated with Snowberries
Sixth Row: Juniper, alternated with Honeysuckle
Seventh Row: Caragana

While we had the mini-X at our disposal (for a one week rental), we also put in a permanent extra water line to the garden, as well as some seasonal water lines to run to the orchard and to our eventual pig pen. (The piglets should be here in a couple of weeks!)

Attempting to move the chicken coop. 

Also, while we were feeling invincible with the tractor, we did attempt to move our existing chicken coop to a new location nearer the garden. We were able to get the coop up onto a sled, of sorts, but we attempted on the eleventh hour on the last day of rental and just didn't have the time or energy to get it set up properly for relocation. We'll try that again when we have more energy.

Blondie back in action with the rest of the gang!

Other spring updates: we had our first exposure to a full-blown broody chicken. "Blondie", our only Buff Orpington, was really determined to hatch those unfertilized eggs, and she would not willingly get out of the egg box to eat, drink, or even poop. It took locking her in the dog kennel for three days to "break her". Now she's happily pecking with the other chickens and looks to be her normal, happy self. The physiology behind "broodinees" lies in the increase of day-light hours, and the associated increase of prolactin in a chicken's blood stream. A broody chicken's body temp increases, and she is determined to bring baby chicks into the world, even it means bringing about her own death through starvation...and even if those eggs will never, ever hatch. Anyway, what a relief to see her back. In our research of how to "cure" her, I came across an old fashioned method of dunking the chicken in ice-water to bring down core body temperature. Luckily, we didn't have to resort to that.

Stewie in the Collar of Shame.

Other animal woes...Stewie gave himself a gigantic corneal ulcer, probably brought about by running down a tennis ball through thick grass and shrubs and getting whacked in the eye. He's improving, but slowly. He's back in the collar of shame to keep him from scratching at his eye, but seems to be maneuvering with it much more patiently than when he was a freshly neutered, crazy-with-energy pup.

Gooseberry Bush!

The garden is in full swing. The peas, onions, leeks, spinach, kale, and lettuce have been put in. The strawberries and tulips are blooming. We've plumped up the orchard by adding a pear tree (Chadwick Pear, which is actually a newly-named cultivar discovered growing native in the Helena valley) and a gooseberry bush! This bush, the Hinnonmaki Red, came highly recommended from Chadwick Nursery. It's a total flashback to childhood...picking berries off the volunteer bush in Grandma Cox's back yard.