Found My Thrill on Blueberry Hill

Saturday was a no-farm day because if the rain, hail and wind. We went to a friend's house for dinner in Bolivar that evening. The discussion was "what does each family have that can be shared as a group this year".... i.e., we hopefully will have organic vegies, others have eggs, chickens, cows, lamb.... We all plan to either trade or buy each others items to try to eat local instead of going to the store and buying the items which came from who knows where, and not sure what was sprayed on them or if they are GMO etc... The goal is to consume locally and know your grower.

Sunday was nice but the wood on the barn has to dry out from the rain so we planted our blueberry plants. This took all day..... I think we were more tired from planting the 25 blueberry plants than when we work on the barn. The main reason it took so long was the battery on the tractor is near death so we had to jump it about 15 times throughout the day. It will have a new battery next week.

The other problem was someone (Cris) forgot to bring the keys for the atv, tractor etc. He said the keys should be left in the truck at all times but I don't think so and I put them in the kitchen....which is where they were when we discovered we did not have them, one hour away from home at the farm. Alex went back in my car and picked them up (bless his heart). While he was gone, Cris was able to start the tractor with a screwdriver.... he's handy sometimes.

Even with all the rain we had, the ground is still pretty hard; it is a clay type dirt. Cris first plowed a strip, then used the harrow, then the box blade to flatten it. After that, he dug the holes while I planted. You can't buy all the same varities of blueberries because they need other types to pollenate them. So we have 4 varities planted; Rabbiteye Bluebelle, Rabbiteye Climax, Highbush Coville and Highbursh Jersey. We won't see any crop for at least a year, maybe two.

The blackberry bushes are growing nicely in their pots at home. We are going to plant those in the ground later in the year when we plant the vegetables. The vegies are growing nicely in the trays at our house but aren't ready to be planted in the ground yet.

Next week, weather permitting, we will finish the roof of the barn and start on the walls.

Busy and Productive Weekend

Alex - Prom 2010 - St. Benedict High School

Barn Project as of 4/18/2010

Cris working hard.

Working on the rafters

The weather could not have been more beautiful this weekend. High 60's, Low 70's, nice breeze and party cloudy so the sun was behind clouds off and on. Saturday morning Cris picked up a harrow that he found on Craigslist and then we headed out to the farm. We got about 2 hours work done on the farm before having to head home to get Alex ready for the prom.

After Alex left for the prom, we picked up 2 loads of mulch and mulched the flower beds in the front and back yard of the house and planted some flowers. It was nice to be home before dark on a weekend for a change.

Sunday we worked some more on the barn and Cris added more frames to the beehive because those bees are very productive. I can't wait to start harvesting some honey.

The dogs managed to find 3 frogs...we think Teddy may have ate one but the rest we rescued and threw in the woods.

Next weekend we plan to finish up the framing for the roof, add the metal roofing and then start on the outside walls. If all goes well, we should have a barn ready to be painted by the first weekend in May.

We did not have alot of time to work on the barn this Saturday because we had to be back home by 4pm to get Alex on the road for the prom. We did manage to put up 10 (5 on each side) rafters for the roof so we are halfway done with that. Tomorrow we will complete the rafters and supports and then work on the bottom some more to get ready for the floor.

Here is a photo of how far we are so far on the barn and also, a photo of Alex in his tux. Alex went with a group of friends to the prom. They all met at the Orpheum near Beale St. to get their pictures taken inside and then they ate dinner at the Spaghetti Factory. After the prom, a group of the kids are all going to Waffle House to eat. Nothing like being dressed to the nine and eating at the Waffle House!

GRANT WAS GRANTED

Cris and I met with the National Conservation Services at the farm today. They wanted to tour the farm and find out what we planned to do with the land. We were approved for two grants this year; the cover crop grant for 6 acres and the hoop house grant. The gov't will pay for 75-90 percent of the cost of these items. Next year we will apply for the fencing grant and the transition to pasture grant.

We should received the funds within the month and will order the hoop house then. The cover crop will wait until the Fall.

The guys we met were very helpful and we look forward to working with them in the future.

Barn Building day 3

Sunday was the 3rd official day we worked on the barn. Didn't get any pictures taken but got alot done. We are working on the roof and did alot of cutting while we had the generator rented from Home Depot. We started putting up the roof and by next weekend should be ready to put the metal roof on. Alex's prom is next Saturday so we can only work on the farm for a short time so we can get back to take pictures.

This past Saturday we spent the first half of the day at our friend Susan's farm for sheep shearing. There were about 50 sheep to be sheared and by the time we left at 12:30pm, about 16 had been done. Our job was to pick up the wool after it was sheared (it's like a big blanket), take off as much of the crud as possible and bag it. Each bag was marked as to the breed of sheep, sex of sheep, color, strength of wool and feel. I got to bottle feed one of the newborn lambs too. I can't wait to have sheep on our farm but I think we will start out with maybe 5 sheep. The goats are so cute too....one of the baby goats didn't make it but the other one was doing fine and running around the field.

Our two dogs had a busy day on the farm Sunday. Nugget (labradoodle) decided to stick his nose inside the bee hive and he paid the price. Apparently, rolling around in the dirt and rubbing your nose in the dirt helps to lesson the pain of a bee sting. He did it again later in the afternoon and this time, he jumped in the pond and stuck his head under the water to ease the pain of the sting. Poor Teddy had a bee get stuck in his thick leg hair and before we could dislodge the bee, it gave him a good sting.

The dogs also found a frog and played with it before it had a stroke or heart attack and died. I buried the frog to keep the dogs from eating it. They did lick it and came back with a bad taste in their mouth. Teddy also brought us a lovely dead baby skunk. Luckily the stink was all gone from it. We bagged it up and hopefully the Memphis trash truck is carrying it away today.

The bees seem very happy in their new hive. Cris checked the new racks we put in last week and the bees have already started putting alot of honey combs on them. They are really very busy bees. These bees seem very easy to work with. Cris just smokes them alittle and they don't bother him at all.

Tuesday we meet with the county extension agency to take a look at the farm and they will let us know what gov't grants we can get. I'm hoping for the hoop house grant, fencing grant, cover crop seed grant and the well grant.

BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ

This is how the "NUC" arrived. See all the bees. They had a long trip from Florida to Memphis and were a bit confused.

Cris opening the NUC box.

Placing the bees into their new hive. There were about 6 trays full of bees.

The lid to the NUC with bees all over it.

Their new home on our farm.

Well, as you can see, our bees arrived safely from Florida to their new home on our farm. We purchased them with a group of 40 other people from the Memphis Beekeepers Association. These are from Miksa Honey Farm in Groveland, Florida.

Cris only got stung one time and it was when he first picked up the box at the pick up location. He didn't have his suit on and lifted the lid to take a look at the box before loading it on the truck. I didn't wear a suit when we were at the farm and though I had a few bees checking me out, I did not get stung. Using the smoker really helps calm the bees down so you can work with them.

We left the bees with plenty of sugar water to help them adjust to their new home. We were not sure where the queen bee was, but Cris is going to check again Saturday to see if he can find her.

Forgot to add this photo of Cris using the tow-behind post hole digger.

ONE FISH, TWO FISH, MINNOW FISH, BLUE FISH

The dark little thing in the middle of the photo is one of the blue gill fish - there are 399 other ones swimming around the pond.

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What a busy weekend Easter Weekend was. Friday Cris and I both had off so we dug 15 3-4 ft. holes (thank you tow-behind post hole digger!!!), mixed 30 bags of quickcrete and installed 15 -12 foot high posts in the ground.

If rained like crazy last Friday night so Saturday we were unable to work on the barn. We did however pick up all the building materials we needed at the local lumber yard (which is cheaper, friendlier and more helpful than Lowes or Home Depot). We also picked up 400 blue gill fish and 10 pounds of minnows. The fish went into the pond Saturday, and Sunday we did not see any floaters so hopefully they will grow into big fish in the next 6 mos. I counted 7 turtles in the pond and numerous frogs too.

Easter Sunday was a beautiful so we packed up the dogs and headed to the farm. We were able to work on the top and bottom frame portion of the barn and got done everything we intended to do this weekend.

We still have a couple full weekends of building to do, but when it's complete, I think we will have ourselves a nice barn.

Barn Building Weekend

I made a temporary deck for our breaktime..notice the empty beer bottles...someone was drinking on the job.

OK - our first attempt with the tow-behind post hole digger was a disaster. We soon learned to lift up every few seconds to bring the dirt up so it is not so heavy by the time you get to 3-4 feet deep. We ended up having to dig the post hole digger out of the hole on this one. Our holes turned out much nicer than this mess. Teddy did enjoy digging in it though.

Sunday Barn Building

End of Sunday Barn Building - the left part will be our temporary camping building. It is 24x24. Eventually it will become Cris' workshop for his woodwork. The right side is also 24x24 and that will be the garage portion for storing the atv's and other farm equipment.