Clifford Reinke

OK folks, the drama has ended and the goat has been returned (for now).

I was just pulling into our "Drive Through Feed" place and got a call from a lady who was house sitting her sisters place. The goat had escaped from her. Not only that, the sister was supposed to be babysitting the goat for a friend of hers!

We loaded up the goat and brought it to their place over a mile away! They were keeping it in the backyard surrounded by a three foot high fence. No wonder it left, no friends and a low fence, what could go wrong? LOL

Actually, it was a very nice goat. The only problem was he did not like to be alone, and somehow developed an attachment for me. he loved to hang around me wherever I went. He seemed to listen to males much better than females for some odd reason. Maybe he is like the rest of us males (LOL). When I went out to the feed store he decided to wait on the porch, and DW took a picture of him waiting for me on the porch.



I did learn that I will probably go with sheep if I put in a grazing system.

Thanks to all for the timely advice.

OK we got an unexpected guest last night, A large male goat. I happened to have an area fenced off with a shelter in it. So I put him in it for the night and started looking around for someone looking for a goat. No luck.

Put out "Found Goat" flyers this morning, still no luck.

So I guess I need to know if I have to buy food? So far he has eaten: clover, peach branches, comfrey, Nasturtium, Gumi branches, grass, potato chips (he stole them), maple leaves, and blackberry leaves. Is there anything I need to keep it from eating???

The ram is dehorned, but may need a hoof trim.

I have raised pigs, chickens, and turkeys. BUT never any thing like goats, sheep or cows. Some quick advice would be greatly appreciated.

Cliff

P.S. Yes I'm searching these threads right now.

Well, I got a call at 4:00 PM saying the bees would be there at 5:00 pm and I had to come in and pick them up. Of course it is an hour drive to the place. I get there at 5:30 PM and the bees had still not arrived. Finally pick them up at 6:00 and rush home to get them installed because it is raining tomorrow.

My wife got some pictures, but I sent her off for a smoker (Which I never used), and a knife (which I also did not use). The good news is my son took video with his new Go Pro.

It was not the prettiest install by a long shot! Hmmmm, seems the youtube upload is blurry.

Here are a few pics:

The bee space, never to be messed with by humans:


The NUC package. I expected 5 frames, but it was only four frames, so I needed to do some ad hoc adjustments.


My honey space:


And Finally the top.


In retrospect I should have had my hive tool handy plus the smoker going (I hate to use the smoker). I was losing sun and heat so I had to go more quickly than I had planned.

Now I just have to wait and see if it works.

Cj Verde wrote:Are the woodchips plain old pine or hard wood?

No pine around here. Mostly Doug Fir, Broad Leaf Maple, Alder and Cedar. The chips come from a tree service and could be anything, but pine would be way down on the list. Butchered another pig pig today with my son. I now have 150 pounds of pig in the freezer.



Minus a few chops.

Cj Verde wrote:

Clifford Reinke wrote:When I get the Nuc, we will document the install.

Cliff, when are your bees coming? I'm building a Peronne hive to fit a nuc so I'm really looking forward to seeing your install pics. I'm sure mine will arrive after yours. Probably the 1st week in May. I'm a total bee newb! I'm also building a Warre hive with movable frames but I may just leave it as a bait hive.

I'm expecting them soon. But I still have not been given a date. I will post when I install.

In the mean time, my practice swale (I made it when taking Geoff's PDC) that I lined with wood chips gave me an unexpected bonus:



Morel Mushrooms! They have bloomed along the entire swale. I'll be eating well.

Bought half a pig from a friend yesterday.

24 pounds of sausage, five slabs of bacon, 12 large pork chops, five pork roasts, two ham hox, and a side of ribs (which are cooking now), and we are done for the day. I found this great pig butchering video on You Tube, made it pretty easy.

How to butcher a pig.

I don't have a band saw, so I used my cordless saws-all instead.

I'm always amazed at how much you can learn from You Tube. What a great resource. It's open source education.

Very nice, What part of Germany do you live in? I lived three years in Hessich Oldendorf and my oldest was born in Hameln.

joby dorr wrote:hello,
im wondering if anyone has any knowledge of legally permitted earthbag homes in washington.
i did some poking around and could nothing legally permitted, but i dont want to keep saying im the first if thats not true!

its going to be a long slog either way but if there was another person who had gone down this road in washington already that could go a long way in establishing precedent with the permit office in pierce county where i plan to build.

on the other hand i have to admit there is some sense of ego satisfaction in being the first!

Joby,

Are you saying you actually got a permit from Pierce county to build an earthbag home??? I live on Key Peninsula, in Pierce county, and would be very interested in this.

Well it was a nice day outside so I thought I would take some pics of my Zone 1, garden on the last day of winter 2014.

First, I finally finished planting out my asparagus, all 170 of them on my experimental swale.



In addition to asparagus, there is also Sea Berry, LOTS of Kale, Figs, Gooseberry, bunching onions, Peach, mint, and daffodils. I'll probably spread a bunch of Pea seeds around soon.

Here are this years Onions:


I also have another bed I planted last fall. Total, I have around 600 in the ground. Hopefully We will be near self sufficient for onions this year.

Anyone need some Kale? So crisp and much sweeter than you get in the Supermarket.

Last year I had Lots of beans and cabage going on in there. Then the deer came...So I fenced it in. This year I am going to fence all of zone one in so this fence will go.

I've got some cabbage out and under cover:

The bed to the right of the covered bed are beets we planted last fall. Ready for harvest, but I'll wait till I'm ready to plant.

Volunteer potatoes:

I've decided to keep growing potatoes in the same two patches as an experiment. I also plan to graft a few tomato plants onto my potato plants.

My blueberry's seem to be happier with the addition of wood chips.

I use wood chips a lot in my Zone 1 Garden. It keeps the garden workable when its wet, and significantly reduces watering during our draughty summers.

Here is the future site of our Natural plunge pool.

Lots of stuff to do.

Finally, because this post is too long, looking due North.

My green house attached to my tool/storage shed at the top.

I built a Perone Hive last year hoping to catch a swarm for it.


Unfortunately it was not a good year for me. No swarms and at least three of my four hives died off this winter. The last one may or may not make it. Obviously I need a new plan. So I am taking down two of my four top bar hives, and I will move this Perone Hive in their place. I also ordered a Nuc to populate my Perone Hive. I've read using a package does not always take with a Perone. A Nuc has more bees and is better established.

Unfortunately a Nuc uses standard Langstrum Frames that are not compatable with my perone. So I modified the perone to take the NUC. Here is the piece I needed to modify:



And here is the Mod I made so I can hang the Nuc frames in my Perone Hive. The small peices of bar are not secured, once the Nuc frames are installed I will place the small pieces appropriately and the bees will glue it in place. The space below will be left to the bees and not disturbed by me.



Then comes my space. The bees will build comb and fill with honey, but the queen will not put brood there because the space is to small.



Then a place for the bees to attach comb.



and another set for my honey.



and one more with the bars incorporated into the lid.



Finished



I'm hoping with the larger colony size, I will have better success. The idea is to let the bees have the lower space for brood, and one night a year we harvest the honey from the three top boxes (Hopefully a 120 lbs or more). We will see. When I get the Nuc, we will document the install.