What does every farm need? That's right... a big honkin' tractor! In our case, a big honkin' tractor with a loader. Trouble is, tractors are expensive, and even more so with a loader. What we needed was a fixer-upper. And what better place to find a fixer-upper than eBay?!
Our tractor criteria was pretty simple: it must have a 3-point hitch, a loader, be within 100 miles of home, and be under $2,000 dollars. The search began.
4 months later (!) my eye caught a listing for the tractor in the photo above. It was the first one I'd seen that met all of our criteria. So I watched and waited. The starting bid was $1800, and I figured that it would soon ne out of our price range. A day passed with no bids. Another day passed with no bids. And another, and another. Finally the final day arrived, and I checked the listing every hour to see how high the bidding would go. Hour after hour, and still no bids. So, I figured that I was not the only sniper waiting for the last moments. Note: A sniper in eBay world is someone who waits until the last possible moment to place a bid, knowing that other bidders won't have time to react and re-bid. Sneaky? Maybe, but effective. Anyway, at last, with 60 seconds left and no other bidders, I placed my bid for $1801. By the time I clicked "Submit Bid" there was only 30 seconds left, not enough time to bid higher if another sniper bid $1802. On the edge of my seat I refreshed the screen every two seconds, fully expecting to be out bid. With the last refresh I saw the wondrous message "Congratulations, you have won this item!". Huzzah!! We had a tractor. Now we just had to get it home, and that is a story for another post.

Garden's Growing!

The garden is doing quite well! We're very happy that we aren't having too much of an insect or animal problem - which is really exciting considering we are growing completely organically - no nasty pesticides!

What About Bob?

Say hi to Bob.
When our son Danny learned that we had planted corn his response was "Well then we need a scarecrow." Now I'm personally not sure a scarecrow does anything other than give the crows a convenient place to perch after all their corn-eating. Nevertheless, I've always liked the idea of a scarecrow, so I immediately said "Okay!"
Our scarecrow's construction is very simple. First, we stuck a 7-foot long cedar post about a foot into the ground. Next we screwed a 3-foot wide board (the shoulders) across about a foot down from the top, making a cross. Next a 2-foot wide board was screwed across for some hips. An old pair of pants went around the hips and an old shirt (plaid, of course!) went around the shoulders. Two aluminum pie plates formed the head, an old ball cap was tacked on top, and some pieces of aluminum foil were folded and shaped into hands. The pie plates and hands really dance around in the wind, giving our new scarecrow some life.
When we finished I mentioned to Danny "Our new scarecrow needs a name." Without hesitating, Danny replied, "His name's Bob." Okay then.

The Girls are getting big!

The girls are starting to actually look like chickens! It's amazing how fast they grow. Here they are lounging about in their chicken run - eating bugs and grass...

Our other feathered friends

Here's a trivia question for you: What is tiny, territorial and can eat you out of house and home?

The answer, of course, is a hummingbird.

We saw hummingbirds when we first moved to the farm a year ago, so we assumed the previous owners must have had feeders for them. This spring, I promptly went to the farm store to get a feeder so they would stay this year. We had a beautiful, ruby-throated male adopt the feeder. Shortly after, some juvenile hummingbirds wanted to dine as well. However Ruby (our creatively named male) would have none of it! He shooed away all other birds. Ok, time to do some research. Sure enough we found out hummingbirds are extremely territorial. Luckily, I received a second feeder as a Mother's Day gift and hung it about 15 feet from the first. Nope, no good. That too, is apparently in Ruby's 'zone'. So it was moved to the other side of the house, outside of Ruby's view. Right? Wrong! Ruby now buzzed back and forth between the feeders running any intruding hummingbirds away. What a jerk! If he wants to play mean, fine, we'll play mean. I went back to the store for yet a third feeder. Let's see him try to monitor three feeders! He tried, but for the most part other hummingbirds get to drink now. Ruby tends to stick to the first one he found, the ladies mostly use the second and the juveniles like the third.

Everyone is happy and apparently very thirsty. I have a hard time understanding how such tiny little birds drink so much. Where does it go? I'm not sure, but I do know that we and especially Buddy enjoy having the little birds around.

The day I was blessed!

We are not full-time homesteaders. It would be pushing it to even say we are part-time homesteaders. We work regular 9-5 jobs and do all that we can around the property after work and on weekends. However, today my life just got a little bit easier.

I work for a major corporation. I know, I know, a lot of people don't like mega corporations and I don't always either. But mine happens to be awesome, with great benefits, including a new one! Today is my first day working remotely. That's right... I work everyday from home now. This is a huge time-saver in several aspects a) drive time -2 hours each day b) getting ready in the morning c) having dinner ready earlier so we have more daylight to work outside after dinner.

Don't get me wrong, I still work 8-hours a day, but it's a flexible 8 hours where I can go outside and pick some veggies for lunch, say 'hi' to the girls, water the plants, etc. The cats will LOVE it too. Hmm... I don't think I've mentioned that we have 2 cats. Buddy and Ivy. They are both the BEST cats ever!

I'm looking forward to my new lifestyle!

Tilling for corn

We have quite a few veggies in the ground. Peas are starting to grow. Now is time to till for our corn patch...

Chick's arrival

It's bright and early Sat morning and we're getting ready to head to our local farm store to pick up our chicks. We've got the shed near the house converted to a coop and have a fenced in area for the chicks to run around.

At the store, we look over all the different chicks, all about a week or two old. We try to pick some bigger chicks with the hopes that they will be healthier. We end up bringing home 2 Rhode Island reds, 2 New Hampshire red and 2 Black Sex Links. They are just too cute!

We refer to them as 'the girls'. We were told not to name farm animals like pets, but it's hard just calling them 'the black one' or 'the red one'. We decide we will name them, but not cute cuddly names. We decide that since at some point, after they stop laying, they will be dinner, we will name them after chicken dishes. Our 'girls' are: Blacky (short for Blackened), Nugget, Pollo, Kiev, Cordon Bleu, Coq au vin.

To cold frame or not, that is the question!

We read a great book by Gene Logston and were introduced into the world of cold frames. What a great idea! A mini greenhouse... we'll get veggies even sooner.

How to build one? Well, we have some left over square bails of hay. That will make a nice insulated 'frame'. When we bought the property, we replaced the basement all glass doors with something a little more secure. They'll be our cold frame 'lids'.

We proceeded to plant in our cold frames. Tomatoes, cukes, peppers, etc. Nights are still getting below freezing, but daytime temps into 50's and 60's. Easy enough, put the lids on at night take them off in the morning. Hmm... we have a quandry... today the temp is only going to get up to upper 30's. We'll play it safe and leave the lids on and head out to work. We decided to check the weather from work..... holy crap...... it's almost 60 out and we left the lids on!!! (which means it's probably at least 100 under the magnifying glass like lid.) Crap! Upon arrival home, we run to the cold frames yank the lids off. Little plants wilted and burned. Crap!

We'll have to get a handle on this cold frame thing.

A little too eager!

The 'beginning' of our homesteading and what we learned thus far. Well, mostly things not to do, but learning none-the-less.

1) Don't start cucumbers yet... it's way too early! (Not even in the cold frame.)

2) Start tomatoes in small containers, but don't move outside... transplant into larger container, then into larger and so on. When it's nice out take them outside to get used to the outdoor weather. Then once big and strong, into the ground they go. Don't bother with the cold frame, it's still too early.

3) Don't start lettuce or carrots indoors at all.

What's with all the cedars?!

Cedars, cedars, everywhere!
Alright, technically they're junipers, but they're commonly known as red cedars. And they are everywhere here on Thayer Farm. Of course, that's partly because most of this land is a stone-covered ridge. And it turns out that red cedars are one of the few trees that thrive on this type of soil.
My biggest problem with red cedars is that they are growing here like weeds. Seriously, you can't turn around here without bashing into one. And this means that as I'm clearing brush I'm also creating this colossal red cedar mound. Kind of like a great green pyramid that smells like the inside of your grandparents' closet.
Now about the time I'm contemplating this gowning green mountain, Michelle and I are also beginning to plan for fences. Lots of fences. Fences around the new chicken run, fences around the new garden, a very long fence to replace the so-called "fence" that lines the back of the property, etc. One of the more expensive parts of any fence is the fence posts, and we are going to need a gazillion of them. Suddenly one day a light bulb came on courtesy of my favorite farmer/writer/blogger Gene Logsdon. He posted a very interesting blog regarding red cedars and what great fence posts they make. Eureka! My red cedar and fence post problems have been solved.
"The Lord will provide." Amen!

Pics of the new farmstead!

Welcome to Thayer Farm!

This blog, in addition to being a way for us to share what is going on with friends and family, is also a way for us to remember do's and don't for the years to come. Our journal if you will.

Enjoy!