The GOAT goat thread (Lizard blogs their farming adventure)

PNW home gang unite

 

Took a break to be sick and then deal with the holidays, but now we have a new video up! Looooots of stuff to do on the cabin before it's move-in ready but solstice is out of the way which means we'll be gaining daylight from here! Unfortunately i also means we're more and more likely to get snow between now and March. Last year was clear right up until the end of February and then BAM it dumped about two feet and that didn't melt until late March. Hoping the same won't happen this year.

 

New week, new video :3

 

idk why the thumbnail for the last video does not want to show up in link previews, it's very odd. That will teach me for trying to rely on Youtube to pick the thumbnail I guess.

This one is good tho, I like. Also featuring: cheekuns.

 

I've been falling down the dual hyper fixation holes of beekeeping and mead brewing. The beekeeping is something I've looked into off and on, so I'm not jumping into it totally ignorant, but now I'm doing deep dives and planning exactly when (spring) where (back dude of the property) and how (swarm traps for local feral bees, horizontal Langstroth hives so no heavy lifting) as well as the legality of things (unincorporated Spokane county the regulations are mostly to do with setbacks from public right of ways or shared spaces).

Mead is kind of straight forward as far as brewing goes. I think I'm going to take cuttings for the cherry tree with us and start making melomels with red wine yeast. Selling anything alcoholic is less straight forward. Or well I guess it's still straight forward but there's a lot of licencing; business licence, federal and state liquor licencing, tax reporting. I'm going to need lawyer and a CPA when we get to the point of selling but that's to be expected. What I have learned though, is that home brewers can do. A lot. Without really much regulation. No sales, but we can transport and serve up to 20 gallons of home brew for events, charities, judging contests, gifts parties.... really as long as it's not being sold we can bring some home brew along and have people sample it! Which will be good for really dialing in our recipes.

In other news: I got paid for getting an article published in Community Chickens! $50 ain't a lot but it sure beats a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

 

I love bees so much tho. They make me so happy just thinking about these sweet, hard working fuzzy ladies. I well legit cry when I get my bees.

 

Okay so. Bad news time is that my computer went pthththb and it's probably the motherboard, and fixing it would be more money than I currently have. So if anyone has been thinking about joining my Patreon, now would be a very opportune time to do so and is super appreciated.

Good news is I found a decent-ish mobile app for video editing so. Yay?

 

This one also edited on mobile! Like half a week late because I keep forgetting to share these over here on Kintsugi blah. If you actually like these videos I'd suggest subscribing just because I keep missing different social media postings so none of them are reliable. I'm also going to be posting most of the aquarium trip to Patreon later on this week as bonus footage so if that interests you then consider joining the Patreon :D.

In other news I uh. Quit my job. So there's that!

 

I did it! The chicks + goslings are ordered. Was really torn for a while if I should wait and order chicks in the fall instead, but I wanted to get the geese with them and goslings are only available in the spring. So they're ordered, and we will have baby peepers come the first of April! Excited!

 

New video is up!



In other news, Eris found an injured bee that Nepeta caught on Friday. Good girl went and mixed up a sugar water solution and fed the bee until she was recovered enough to fly off. I love my daughter so much aaaaaa. This also means that the bees in the area are starting to get active so I need to get my swarm traps and hives built!!!

 

Bee supplies came!!

 

On order:
6 cider apple trees, each a different variety, and 15 raspberry canes (I already have about a half dozen in the perennial beds that I'm going to dig up and take with me so this will put us up to around 20 give or take)
30 chicks and 10 goslings

Arriving tomorrow: the pack of 100 unassembled hive frames and 10 already drawn comb frames.

Currently have: most of the rest of the bee keeping equipment. Just need to build the hives and swarm traps.
TOOLS. We bought an impact driver and a circular saw to go with the drill and reciprocating saw, got a pickax, a second spade nose shovel and a trenching shovel.
a bunch of new plastic pots and some rooting hormone. Going to trim some scion wood from our cherry and apple trees and cross my fingers.
DIRT. Spouse got bags of dirt so he can put in some raised flower beds.
And we have a ton of wild flower seeds. I want to get more there's like a whole pound bag of seeds over at the feed store for like $40.

Things I want: Every time we're at Home Depot I gravitate toward the blueberry bushes. They also have hardy kiwi and pomegranate there..... the Hardy kiwi is fine but the pomegranate is for like, growing zones 7 - 10 so I'd have to find someplace to plant it that really pushes those micro climates or else build it a green house. But still, I yearn.
Need to get some nitrogen fixers. I think some autumn olive and black or honey locust.

 

Okay email from the nursery said they're expecting to be shipping the plants early to mid April due to weather (understandable) so I have roughly a month to prep. Which is good because I've decided to put in a hugelkultur bed at the bottom of a hill with a swale behind it. Basically this:



The water coming down off the hill will fill the swale then soak into the hugelkultur bed which will act as a sponge and hold it there, where it will then wick up to the plant roots. In theory it will lead to not having to irrigate (or irrigate sparingly) which will be a huge resource saver on water. Which is super important since right now we're harvesting rain water.

 

This week's video is cloning new cherry trees by rooting cuttings because plant s are awesome and kind of weird and you can just make them do that!

 

We're trying to gauge what kind of content our audience would like to see more of, so I posted a poll on Patreon. This is open to everyone, not just patrons or subscribers, so please take a second to give it a couple quick clicks if you can.

 

It kept taking me to the login page when I tried to select an answer (not just for "other please comment" which feels obvious since it says login to comment.) I don't know if you can have a patreon account without uh patroning anyone, and I don't really want to fiddle with finding that out right now, sorry.

 

You can def sign up! And you don't have to be a patron either I follow several artists and writers whom I can't contribute to yet but who still release content for everyone in addition to their patron exclusive content.

 

We got new kitties!!

 

congrats on kitties! they're adorable pls tell them I love them

 

I have told. They gave me squinty eyes so I think that means they love you too.