cedarlili Hatfield

I wanted to share our farm blog. I haven't really started talking about permaculture per se, but Dad and I both pursue it in our planning and planting. Dad's been a fan of Mollison's for over 20 years, and I found this forum last year when I was still thinking my fiance and I would move to Oregon and build a permaculture homestead. Now we know we're staying in NH for the foreseeable future, so we're making Dad's farm into what it should be! Let me know what you think.

http://sanborntonfarm.com

Cheers!
Cedar

I just wanted to say thank you to all of you that have posted on this. Unfortunately, I do think this whole flock has the bad habits. I'll keep them separate from the new flock I'm starting this year, and I'd already planned to do them in this fall. They are between 3-4 years old, so I won't overwinter them, the new hens should be laying by then. My kids have been picking the eggs at least twice a day (more frequently on the weekends). I'm going to take a couple pieces of scrap wood and build the slanting nest boxes and see if that helps, but until we get these guys out of the greenhouse I am afraid their world is a bit boring (except for the kids coming out and talking to them. My 5 year-old son thinks they are his pets).

Here in NH we are zone 4b and I have several butternuts growing on our land, one of them is a monster with a huge trunk. That said, I've never managed to beat the squirrels to the nuts!

Hello, to my dismay we figured out today that the flock of chickens we had acquired is eating their own eggs. They are currently in two small coops and will be until the 3 feet of snow goes off the ground, then they will be in chicken tractors, and will be moved daily, yes, but we cannot paddock them as we have a ton of predators in the area (took pictures of bobcat tracks a 100 feet from the coops yesterday). Sooo…

Does anyone know how to prevent them from eating their eggs? I'd hoped to keep these girls for another year while I rear a flock from chicks. These birds are 3-4 years old and I got them from a guy who has younger birds in their place. My Dad though maybe we could make nest boxes that would cause their eggs to roll to safety outside the coop. Any thoughts on how to build that?

Paul, I would most definitely appreciate you doing that. I don't think I'll ever get to meet you in person, but the nice thing about podcasting is that all us out here in the rest of the world get to hear your thoughts...

I normally use iTunes to find and download my podcasts onto my iPod. I don't know much about the production of them, I should probably find out... it would be cool to start a regular permie one. If I could get my Dad talking about keeping bees it would be fun.

Well, I am excited to start our Hugelkultur this year. Just learned I need to put down roots here in NH as we won't be moving to OR anytime soon. So we have 14 acres, 6 in fallow pasture (read, BIG berry patches!) and the rest in woodlot. Needless to say, I have a lot of fallen rotted wood to play with. We still have 2-3 foot of snow on the ground and more will come before it all goes. I will definitely do a photo log of this... I have been with Dad's hightunnel, too.

My question is... I'd like to do some hugel beds up on the house level, as our focus will be in zones 1-2 this year. but I don't want them to look untidy. How best to make them look like nice high raised beds? we have tons (literally) of rocks, but not necessarily the manpower to hoick them all over the place.

Not sure if this is the right forum, but...

After listening to Paul Wheaton's appearance on a podcast earlier today, I was wondering if there are any other regular or semi-regular podcasts that deal with permaculture or related topics? I listen to podcasts and music almost all day at work, so I'd love to add some variety.

Thanks!
Cedar

The reason not everyone can digest them is that the starch in them, inulin, is indigestible. It is being researched for Diabetics because it would be a starch that does not convert to a sugar in the human system. The studies are inconclusive (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7667959), but as my fiance is diabetic, I am very interested in it.

Just keep in mind that where you put them... you will always have them! I have the dang things in a front garden bed and they get 8' tall every year and block the south windows to the house... and I can't grow anything else in that bed because they crowd it out. But then, they are eatable. I've dug and double-dug, and sieved and still miss just enough tubers that they come back.

Thanks for everyone's Input (and Mom!).

We are looking at four counties, Douglas, Coos, Josephine, and Curry. They seem to have the climate we are looking for and land relatively inexpensive. Because we have a pretty good budget we aren't too worried. I'm looking for 5+ acres, for less than $100K, planning to build for about the same amount.