holy batman! I just bought a farm!!

[uforgot]

I am flying to Beaverton on Tuesday. Is that close? By the way, I live 5 miles from Bland, Mo. Could be a sister city with Boring!

[smilingcat]

I am flying to Beaverton on Tuesday. Is that close? By the way, I live 5 miles from Bland, Mo. Could be a sister city with Boring!

It's about 40 minutes from Beaverton. It went into escrow about 4 days ago. So its not officially mine for another 26 days or so. Yes its a 30 day escrow.

[smilingcat]

OMG!!!

I was talking to the neighbor today. And she informs me that we have elk herd nearby. Well sort of knew that with elk trampling down about an acre of my field about a week ago. She said there are whole lot of bunnies. What are you going to do with them? I don't have a heart to kill'em. But I can string up portable electric fence and few other things to keep them out. Also have my Great Pyrenees, Holly Spirit Bear and an Australian Shepherd named Austin. Austin is still a pup of only 4 month or so. They can keep the bunnies out without killing them.

Then the coyotes and down the line she went. Last one was bit out of order. She said, we have a neighborhood BLACK BEAR!!! AHHH WHAATTTT!!??? You must be joking??

Nope. The big paw prints much bigger than my hand must belong to the bear and not a cougar. Well that's going to put a wrinkle into having an apiary and a redesign of a chicken coop. Also need to bear proof my trash cans.

Honestly, my farm isn't located in middle of nowhere land. It's less than hour from downtown Portland Or. We have municiple water for the house. Natural gas and not LP in the back yard...

But the most devastating thing I found so far have been Brown Marmorated stink bug. Found literally hundreds of them around my farm house!! http://www.stopbmsb.org/

So why did I decided to farm?

[OakLeaf]

Ugh, what a litany of pests! I didn't even realize the stinkbugs had crossed the Mississippi yet, let alone made it that far west. We only really started having a problem with them in Ohio last year (and last year's very cold winter actually cut this year's population).

I'm thinking you'll want permanent electric fence with all those big critters around ... bigger investment and more work to begin with, but a lot less work in the long run. (OTOH, rabbits will go right underneath electric fence ... you'd have to put the bottom strand so low that you wouldn't have time for anything but weedwacking, and then two more strands super close on top of that ... nothing but chicken wire keeps them out of my garden, but your dogs should be enough to keep the rabbits out as long as you can keep the large predators away from your dogs.)

Sorry you're having to deal with all this stuff right off the bat. But then on the other hand, if it's dealt with right off the bat you're less likely to have big crop destruction one after another after another ... Keeping my fingers and toes crossed for you!

[lph]

What are stinkbugs? Still love reading this stuff, Smilingcat!

[OakLeaf]

Click on the link for the full rundown ... BMSBs are a species of Hemiptera (true bugs) that stink when squished - we have a number of native stinkbug species that can be moderately destructive when there's an infestation, but the BMSBs are an Asian invasive that are devastating fruit and vegetable crops, I thought it was only in the eastern USA, but they've spread very fast. Even more fun, like the Asian ladybugs but more stinkier, they like to come into people's houses for the winter.

[lph]

Urk. :-(

[smilingcat]

fun with the tractor and the hydraulics.

first was a delivery of two pallets each weighing 2000 pounds each (around 900Kg each). That went without too much hitch. beginner's luck.

Second delivery was a pallet loaded with the green house I had ordered. A 20' by 48' by 12' high green house. It's small as green houses go. And the whole thing came on an eight feet long by about four feet wide and about a foot thick. Freight guy pushed the pallet to the back of the truck for my tractor to pick up. Forks on my tractor are not eight feet, maybe four feet wide. Tried to pick up and it doesn't want to balance on the fork. We dragged it out onto the truck lift and lowered it on the ground. Got to the side and everything was fine. Not as smooth as the first delivery of ground rock mineral in the two pallets.

It's been about a week now and only now am I willing to write about it. It was a delivery of a brand new wood chipper. Chipper capabler of grinding and chipping a tree up to about eight inches in diameter (20cm or so). Again the freight guy pushed the pallet to the back of the truck for my fork lift to pick it up. That was easy. Got off to make sure it was securely and well balanced on the fork. My dismay, Forks have lifted the pallet on the side that had two big stickers that said "DO NOT LIFT ON THIS SIDE"... too late.

Drove the tractor with the chipper on the fork into the pole barn where it will stay dry. Lowered it onto the ground and realized that if I unpack it there, there is no way I can get it out. The attachment to the tractor is on the wrong side. Besides, I picked up the pallet on the wrong side.

Back out the tractor and the chipper on the pallet. Lowered on the ground, continue backing up and the back side of the fork catches on the ground and causes the fork to pitch up and my chipper on the pallet goes THUMP onto its side. And its pouring rain now!!!

Righted up the pallet with rope attached to the chipper and the tractor and rest went without a hitch. Pouring rain puddled on the vinyl seat of my tractor for which my pants were more than eager to soak up all the rain. YUCK!! Soaking wet bottom for my pants. Rest of me is wet from the down pour but nothing like my bottom...

Drove the tractor back to its normal storage place away from the rain. Normally I back it in but not this day. I had more than enough frustration. BTW I didn't mention that I also managed to bend to exhaust pipe that sticks vertically out of the tractor. Now its got that racey swept back look. I was backing the tractor into a car port. I was worried about clearing the roll bar on the tractor, worried about clearing the 6 foot tiller on the back but forgot to check to see the exhaust pipe clearing the rafters. It didn't so when I drove out from the car port space, the pipe got bent back wards.

[Pax]

Farming is so fun! Where else to you get to work 16 hours a day, and smell like poop!

Seriously though, a good friend of mine runs a small sheep and grain operation nearby, she works harder than anyone I know, but is also happier than anyone I know.

[lph]

Aw, I feel for you! Sounds like our remodeling epics, writ large.

[smilingcat]

Things sometimes go BUMP.

Upgrading the electrical on the farm. That means running over 300feet (100meter) of 220V 100amp circuit to the barn and to the free standing garage/carport/tack room. My electrician had contacted all the pertinent companies, power, natural gas (amazing natural gas pipe for the farm instead of propane), water (wow city water too!!), electrical, telephone and cable (OMG!! even a cable. must be in the city!!) to spray paint and mark out where they are burried. So I see colored lines on the ground. Looks good.

But in process of trenching to lay the power, we almost had an accident. There is already 120V 20amp circuit going to the freestanding gararge and the barn. They were digging and I asked the workers if the circuit was shut off. OOPS. Took us a while to figure out which circuit breaker needed to be turned off. All was good. They did cut into the 120V20amp circuit later in the day with the powered trencher.

That wasn't too bad.

Further trenching and they managed to slice through the water line feeding one of many spigots on the farm. Shut the main valve in the house and we still have a geyser. Water company says go to the street and you will find the meter and you can shut it off there. but which one? there are three meters there. The one where the meter is running wild. Oh... Then I remembered, I have burried all over on the property a shut off valve for the spigots in the field. Where are they?? Mostly marked with 4 to 6 inch black round steel plate. Under it down two feet is the valve. Its freezing outside!! Running all over the field looking for the darn thing. I knew where two of them were but they are not IT. Water is still gushing. run around the house looking for it and one of the electrician found a broken slab of concrete perched bit above the ground. Under it was a pipe and at a bottom was a shut off valve. Good thing he had an arm like an Orangatan. I couldn't reach it. He shut it off and geyser stopped. Trench is partially filled with water. Geez I wonder what my water bill is going to look like?

Water line was bad enough...

I did say that the property has natural gas service didn't I?

There are two gas lines!? Oh oh... One was marked. Who would ever guessed that there was a second one. I was away from the farm and when I returned there is a natural gas company truck there. not a good sign. Don't anyone smoke!! A plumber showed up shortly there after and the gas company guy and the plumber made a partial fix so that the house would have gas for the water heater and central heating. But I've got no gas into the greenhouse. Greenhouse is not setup with solar heating yet and I've got pepper plants and ginger and other warm/heat loving plants that will die in the cold. The strong artic storm brought ice and extreme cold to my area so I really need to have the heat in the greenhouse. Not happening.

So I carried about 50 big pots maybe more into the warm house and found a place for them. Talk about a work out.

Today the plumber came out on Saturday morning first thing and patched up the natural gas pipe. It's a yellow plastic pipe of all things. Gas is back in the greenhouse. And I moved all the plants back into the greenhouse. Looked at the temperature record and the greenhouse temperature had dropped to 18F (-8C) last night.

Electricians are going to dig the rest of the trench manually with shovel. Electricians are having to pay for the plumber and the gas company for their service. I feel bad for them even though they broke it. I want them to make money too.

Tomorrow, setting up the germination table in the solarium that is attached to the house. Already have 600 seedlings started and they have germinated. My home made soil blocker worked pretty well. Each time I can pop out 50 seeded soil blocks.

People I know says that I look happy. I'm not so sure.

[DebSP]

Wow you are a really hard worker! In a world where I see so many people wanting everything to be easy and almost instant it is so good to see someone working hard and problem solving and staying positive while overcoming obstacles. Good for you. I am sure you are happy. I always think nothing is better for the soul than getting things done on your own. A real sense of accomplishment!

[OakLeaf]

Yikes smilingcat! Sounds like it's coming together in spite of the bumps ...

There's definitely a satisfaction that comes from doing work with concrete results. Way to go getting it done.

[smilingcat]

Oh my... I'm on a steep learning curve with running a farm.

So I've learned to patch the broken water line. Water line that was cut when the electrical line was being laid down.

No leaks and have water back in the green house.

Day before yesterday, I noticed the explosion of aphids so I've searched high and low for organic approved (OMRI) insecticide at this time of the year. Home Depot of all places have thing called Organocide in stock so off I went. Followed the instruction... 2 to 4 TBS per gallon of water about 75ml of insecticide to 4 litre of water. Sprayed the stuff. Actually, drenched the pepper plants, and some cabbage plants. To be on safe side, sprayed the underside of Kale, chard, lettuce.

All is good except it smells like dead fish inside the green house. Label says contains sesamme oil, not too bad, FISH OIL yewww... No wonder.. I think I'll mix up my own conccoction of ghost pepper oil spray.

I just hope that my lettuce, kale and chards don't have the dead fish smell or taste...

So how can I kill the dead fish smell. This is almost as bad as opening a can of surströmming, fermented nearly rotten fish. blach...

[smilingcat]

dead fish smell is gone from my green house. I bought some Neem based pesticide OMRI approved to use next time. Now I've got ants in my kitchen. I wonder if I can use the Neem stuff in my kitchen?

Also spent last week morning till night figuring out what seeds to plant/buy and how many. Scary!! Maybe I'm making it far more difficult than it should be. Figuring on where to order to try minimizing the cost. I started to reach a point of diminishing return to save $$. So I've thrown in the towel. Just placed an order with one of the seed companies.

Size of my field, scheduling of sucession planting and how much I want to make $$ tells me how much to order and what. That in turn tells me how big of germination table I need and how many flats. OH BOY... What have I gotten my self into?? help

kale chard lettuce money maker. cabbage broccoli parsnip almost money loser.