Garden on Corliss Homestead Journal

Found some time this afternoon to finally work on my compost sifter. It has been put together but I need to seal it with something. I have plenty of boiled linseed oil so I figure I can do several coats. My work area is a bit cluttered, something I need to take care of, but I had enough space to get the first coat on so it can cure overnight.

I'm pleased I got in my second waterer in time. We are getting some good freezes overnight and my current waterer has mounted feet so my heating plate doesn't really work. This one has a higher capacity and will bet in contact with the heating plate. I am going to get some bricks/pavers underneath the heater plate to keep it from so much ground contact and we will have it under the coop to protect it from direct snow contact. That is the plan at least!

Mmm... I might have created myself a situation through my introverted tendencies.

Ever sense the 'Ick' came through, there has been an increase in grocery stores to offer pickup services. One of my local ones offer it for 'free' if you spend a certain amount of money. I much MUCH much rather assembly my grocery list online from the comfort of my home without any outside pressures to throw me off my game. My local grocery getters are solid with what they pick and what they sub out. The situation comes from the large amount of paper bags that I now have on hand. I believe that papermakers need to go on vacation too so I don't mind consuming paper bags. The default usage of these are a brown for composting but my current process requires quite a bit of labor to tear them up to sufficient size to mix into my compost. I either need to create a better process or find other uses. I also utilize them as a compostable container to gather up my compost scraps in the house with good success but that is utilizing maybe one a week?

Little personal victories, my water heater setup is working like a charm and my chooks have water available to them even in freezing temps. I lifted it up with some spare pavers I had laying around and the connection point of the plug is reinforced with an extension cord cover that so far has been working like a charm. Extension Cord Plug Cover I also have been able to tuck the cord connection point under the coop to hold back the majority of the weather from coming in contact. This is all plugged into a GCFI so it is as safe as I can have it while having the convienance of unfrozen water.

The chickens are not afraid of us, but they are afraid of three falcons that were circling above today. I noticed they all went quiet as half snuck away under or into the coop. I was impressed how alert they were because I sure wasn't.

We made deviled eggs for Thanksgiving and I had all the shells left over. I popped them into the oven for some time before grinding them with my mortar and pestle. It is not a whole lot of material but it will benefit my potting mix by introducing some calcium into the equation. A lot of times eggshells end up going into my compost pile and I figured I would try something different.

After the shells, I got the third coat of linseed oil onto the sifter and it has darkened to a degree. I might go for a few additional coats but I am going to let it 'rest' and cure up a bit. This will be used for finished compost sifting, I have a heavier duty homemade sifter for removing rocks and debris from soil.

Mondays are for the birds. Seven to three complete and a nagging reoccurring thought kept coming back throughout the day.

Why are my chickens feet so dirty?

I'd sit out there with the girls and talk to them as if they could understand me and Betty will take the opportunity to perch on me. Every time she did though, I had mud on me. I thought to myself "Well this can't be good". The horrors of reading of bumblefoot came to mind and I had to nip that in the bud.

After reading up on all sorts of coop run bedding, I needed something simple and fast. Tractor supply run and some pelletized pine was purchased with a coupon that essentially let me pay a couple bucks for two bags.

I brought them into the run and poured them out. I was hoping the girls would scratch into the piles but it seems they want to taste test the pine. I eventually got a rake and spread it out as well as placing some large flake down on spots that I didn't cover with two bags. I eventually want to transition to arborist chip but I did not have any on hand and wasn't going to wait for my buddy to come and dump a load off for it to sit under snow all winter. I wouldn't mind so much but I have to consider people in the household that do not view mountains of rotting chip as fondly as I do.

Chicken thighs are sitting in some buttermilk, working on trying to figure out a starch. These early sun downs are not my favorite but I can appreciate them while I work in my warm house. It is the little things in life that bring me joy. It just takes a few moments to notice them!

Cast Iron is spoke about here, and I sure am glad for it.

I love my cast iron. I do not have enough space for the amount of cast iron that I truly would want so I make the most use of what I can reasonably have.

I fried up some boneless chicken thighs for dinner with some long white rice and some corn on the side.

It was a good dinner tonight.

Evening Permies,

Got home to a bit of a surprise, we had a windy day and operantly enough to wind to take out some branches.

Luckily, nothing is broken! That is a win in my book.

I got groceries, fed the chickens the scraps from the fridge as I made room, and I ended up filtering the cooking oil for future reuse. I have not kept oil over one time use and that seems incredibly wasteful. I figured with some cheesecloth to take out the solids, I might get a few uses out of it. Into the fridge with the jar!

Sandwiches tonight, nice an peaceful.

Man, I really like cast iron. It is a problem.

I decided to post up a project that I got done a few months ago. My partner and I were tired of stacking up pots on a back burner and pulling what we needed for the dinner that night. I don't like the idea of just dropping cast iron in a drawer and risking breaking the slides. I am really happy how this turned out, I made sure to mount to studs before I added the hooks. All in all, a success! Something had to be done with the wall and the house sorely lacks any kind of storage.

Evening Permies.

I decided to try something new, and I decided to winter sow some flower seeds and see what happens.

Seeds
Three different varieties of Lupine
Red Poppys
Blue Flax
Purple Echinacea
Irish Bells
Borage

I think I forgot perhaps one or two other kinds of flowers... but they are out there!

I placed them in the hard to reach parts of my beds, some of them in the asparagus beds that are smaller, as well as putting the echinaceas into an existing perennial garden.

Now all I do is wait and see what happens.

This is my second year going this route.

My partner and I have decided to go with a living potted Christmas tree this year. I sourced a White Spruce in a three gallon nursery pot that looks incredible to me. This might sound crazy, but I got it on Amazon!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XT6KWJM?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details&th=1

I figure I normally would spend more than $50 on a cut tree, I could transfer it to something that I can eventually plant out on the property. We had one last year, but we made mistakes when we unpotted the tree and lost it but lessons were learned.

We plan on decorating it this weekend, and have decided on color lights. (Very important to the fiancé haha)

Pardon the bucket, I needed something to keep the nursery pot from leaking everywhere.

A reasonably busy morning, and a successful one at that.

Managed to help my grandfather and mother get their wills drafted up and established today. Getting all the people at the right place at the right time can be challenging but this was perfect. After that we picked up three good sized pumpkins from my family that were Halloweens decorations. Now they will go to the chickens! I just got a heads up from more family that they have a bunch of pumpkins that can go to the chooks so I will be able to supplement their feed for a bit here. I think it is a great!

I think its funny that it might be weird to ask for biomass (Pumpkins and the sort) just to compost them, but everyone is almost eager to donate them when it comes to having poultry that you keep. One way or another, it is going to turn into compost for the gardens and capture some organic material on my homestead.

I'm starting to muse getting mineral dirt delivered to my house. My raised beds are almost totally organic material that I have started supplementing some mineral dirt into but nothing in large quantity. I think it will also help level them off a bit because I dropped almost two and a half inches this year in all my beds. I know it is nutrients being chewed up for plants but dang!

Winter is going to be a long one, but at least I can get my ideas straight before the work begins in spring.