Projects, goats, chicken radio and Big Horn sheep

We've been working hard this week...Richard on various unfinished projects, and me on my continuous hunt for a place to relocate the farm.

We've almost finished the pallet fence in the upper garden. I think it looks nice. The boards that rise above the fence will be for the electric wire...to keep the deer out (I hope).

And from the outside...I like it too. Below is the view from the road.

 

We've also been working on our parking area with all of the dirt and gravel we've loaded into the truck by bucket fulls and dumped in our yard. Free cycle again!

Before long it will be finished and we will have a nice place for visitors to park. A lot of these landscape timbers came off of Free cycle too.

This week we sold, and delivered, Penny and Yvette to a family outside of Colorado Springs who raises Gypsy Horses and was looking for some more milk goats. They have a huge old barn that is in desperate need of renovation, but having only just bought the place, they are working nonstop to catch up on their projects too. The barn makes me nervous, but I think they will give our girls a good home and I hope they will send photos when the girls kid.

Penny and Yvette, on the way to their new home

And Cinnamon, my little girl goat, is about to kid...any day now. We check on her every few hours and I put one of my old baby monitors in the barn to listen for goat screams (the sounds of labor), but so far all I get are the chickens, singing their chicken songs. Richard calls it chicken radio..."I'm on a chicken radio..." Not quite the version by the Wall of Voodoo, but catchy. 

In the early morning hours, after the chickens are let out to run and play, the little song birds hang out by the barn and I can hear them, like the birdsong on the "soothing sounds" of the alarm clocks meant to lull you to sleep. It makes me happy. I wasn't aware of the variation of birdsong on our small property. When we were out working on the parking area, there were the prettiest sounds coming from a bird perched on the top of one of the Junipers. Very unusual. Richard thought it might be a Mocking bird. Do we have those here? It was too far away to see well enough to look up in my bird book.

So, I'm listening to the birds and listening for a goat in labor and looking for land on the internet. We took a drive yesterday up to Westcliffe because there is some cheap land up there, and I wanted to see how it "felt."

It was not right either. Too high, too cold, too windy, and too far away, although the thing that bugs me the most is that all of the roads into this mountain town are horrendous...winding and steep...giving me mini anxiety attacks as I look out over the edge of the mountain. It seems the older I get, the larger my fear of heights gets.

But, I was rewarded with an amazing glimpse of a herd of Big Horn Sheep as we headed towards Wetmore and the flat lands. The sheep were still in the twisty mountain valley, and my camera is still lacking a good zoom, but here's what I got:

Big Horn Sheep herd outside Westcliffe, Colorado

The best zoom my camera gets...not good enough.

They are amazing, breathtaking creatures, and I am fascinated every time I see them, which is not very often. I have yet to see a mountain goat, and I've been looking. Wouldn't it be cool to see one of those?

Anyway, the search for affordable land is on. It seems we might have to have at least 35 acres (the magical number) to be able to get a well that we can use for our home and for our gardens and livestock. Crazy water laws here in Colorado. Can we find 35 acres for less than 30K that is not desert hard pan? The challenge is on.

The Earthship thing...probably not, but I haven't entirely ruled it out, and we met a really cool man who's bringing his lady over for dinner on Friday. It seems we have a lot in common and even more to talk about. And yes, he lived in an old converted school bus while he built his homestead. Livin' the dream!

One day I'll land in the place I am meant to be...or maybe that's right where I am now. Who knows? I only know I have to keep on seeking out adventure because it keeps my heart beating and keeps my spirit singing. Live the life you are given to the best and fullest of your ability. That's all anyone can do.

March 6 chicken class is full

Believe it or not, we filled up our Chicken Basics Class for this Sunday!  But, there has been so much interest that we may offer another class next week. Let us know if you want to come and we will set it up.

Also listed the two big goats on Craigslist and have been fielding e-mails about that. Who knew two pregnant dairy goats would be so easy to sell? They aren't gone yet, but we are hopeful our first callers will come through, but if not, then the second family definitely gets them. And by the way, that second family needs affordable dairy goats for their little girl in a bad way. They are so far out in the country (near Trinidad) and the little one is allergic to everything but the goats milk, so if anyone wants to sell a couple of nannies in milk or about to kid, let me know...there's a family who needs them.

Today we went to Pueblo to get more pallets for our fence project. Hey, the midden in the upper garden is almost hidden from the street now. The neighbors should be pleased...if it wasn't for that damned pallet fence.

Going to do a seed starting class next Sunday, and as soon as I get the details together, I will post them. Feel free to register early.

After the press, covenant police

Ah, so now it comes...the people against sustainable living. "Not in my backyard." While I was doing my Wii fit exercises, there was a pounding on the door, followed by high barking of two watch dog chihuahuas. Richard's at work, the children are running a muck, sick with colds caught at the Pediatricians (of course), and I look my best in cut off sweats and old T-shirt. But who should be knock, knock, knocking at my door, the developer of the subdivision herself, waving some paper at me..."We have covenants here."

"Yeah, I'm aware," I reply.

She told me her phone had been ringing off the hook with complaints from the people who live here. Something about the newspaper and a barn, tires, animals and pallet fences.

Huh, all in one swoop. "So what exactly is the problem?" I ask.

No permit for this barn.

Don't need one. The barn is under the required size for a permit. Am I sure? You bet, we did that intentionally.

She went on to ask me if the barn would look like the house. Yeah, same color with a red roof, like the house trim, I said. Too many animals. The covenants tell me we can have two large animals on our lot. I count the llamas, although they are "miniature" and the two of them together might weigh as much as one horse. Too many goats? Yeah, probably. We want to see how they all milk and keep a couple of the best milkers. The town said we could have chickens and that's not in the covenants anyway. All of our buildings are within the required setbacks, and the town told us we didn't need permits for Ag buildings.

"Barbed wire."

"What about it?" Complaints...but the only barbed wire we have is on a roll, wrapped in plastic, waiting to be placed in between earthbags to hold them in place, eventually covered by more earthbags and stucco. The covenants say we cannot fence the main road line of our property with barbed wire fence. That's the only mention of it. We could technically fence the rest of our property with barbed wire, and one of our neighbors does indeed have his property fenced in barbed wire, even on the main road side. And I like my pallet fence, I told her. It doesn't look that different from the wooden privacy panels you buy at the big orange store. She agreed. There's nothing in the covenants about pallet fences.

She just wanted to give us a copy of the covenants, she said, in case we never got them. I asked her why people move to the country and then try to turn it into suburbia? I asked her why it wasn't expected for a family to move to the country and put in a garden and raise some chickens and even supply natural, raw, fresh milk for their kids? She thought that was okay. I told her I'd love to share our farm fresh eggs with our neighbors, and vegetables too, but the covenants do say we can't run a business out of the home. She didn't think there was anything wrong with selling eggs to the neighbors. Hmmm...

I told her I'd love to put in a huge, ugly metal garage like my neighbors, but I didn't have that kind of money, and in this economy, I had a right to live as sustainably as I could. I told her we don't have money for fancy fences or siding for our barn right now (I want to stucco it too...mostly we don't have enough time, but there is the money issue). I told her I'd love to bring in some fully grown trees to block my view of the neighbors, but that wasn't possible. I told her we planted tress, 200 of them last year, and that in twenty years, maybe the neighbors wouldn't be able to see us anymore.

She told me if we were abiding by the covenants there was no problem, but that she would check with the town on Monday to see about that permit thing. (Isn't she on the zoning committee?)

In the end, I think I had her seeing some of my points, realizing maybe we weren't doing anything wrong. Or, maybe she, like so many others talks out of two sides of her mouth. She (or her deceased husband) wrote the covenants for this subdivision.

So, what's the problem? Richard came out of his office to see what the commotion was, and offered to talk to anyone about their concerns over the earthbag barn. I told her we'd even hold a town meeting if they wanted. Did I set us up for a lynching?

As far as I know we are within our rights, not breaking any laws, rules or covenants, but it sure is a big pain in my butt. I wish our neighbors would man up and come and talk with us about what is going on, maybe they'd learn a thing or two. Maybe, they'd appreciate that someone in the town and community is going to be growing some clean, local, natural food.

All said and done, I think this woman is a nice enough person, and I don't hold anything against her. I hope she doesn't show up with the "petitions" she mentioned the neighbors talking about, but I'm not sure what they could petition, since we aren't violating anything. I told her with our "neighbors" driving fifty up the road in front of my house, I needed a fence to keep my little kids safe. She said they were working on that problem, but there wasn't much they could do. Can't enforce the speed limit, but can harass property owners because the neighbors are afraid of what they don't understand? Bring down property values? Sure, the neighbors we do know have told us their houses aren't worth the mortgages, just  like the rest of the country. Whatever.

Maybe I need to circulate a petition that bans airborne pesticides and herbicides from straying onto my property and presenting a health risk to my family and animals, and garden.

So, what's gong on here? Who knows. Maybe they don't like Richard's long hair, but ironically enough, he's about as straight edged as someone could ever be. Oh man, give me Taos and the weird New Mexico world any day. I'd love to have neighbors with dreadlocks and tattoos and piercings....if they were environmentally and spiritually aware, doing their part to change the world. Isn't it funny that most of the time they are? It is the black sheep, the lunatic fringe who will save the world, or die trying.

We need a real farm and lots of land...with no covenants...in the southwest, with enough moisture that we can garden, and not too high that nothing will grow, and cheap enough we could buy it, and put up a tent while we build a house made of earth that does no harm to the environment.

Why would a building that is so environmentally responsible offend people? Here's what it will look like, sort of. It's the building at the top of the page, in the header. Imagine it more closed, a pale beige color, with the buttresses turned a bit different to protect the door, and with a metal red roof. Is that offensive? I guess we could make it square, if that's what they want.

Not sure what to do with this. Keep on marching forward I guess. Honk if you support the farm!

Pretty pallet fence...re-using other people's garbage

Oh, we are having such fun with fences! When last we drove to Pueblo, on turkey processing day at Wren's Nest ( http://www.awrensnest.com/ )  we stopped by a company in town that gives away pallets. We got this information from Paul at Wren's Nest, who built his front fence out of pallets. In fact, many of his neighbors also had pallet fences. Painted white, without looking closely, one would never know they were made from recycled pallets. What a fabulous idea.

I love re-using, and we couldn't pass this up. We already collect pallets that Richard turns into compost bins, and if they are free, even better. So off we went with truck and trailer to bring home the treasure of free wood.

mountain of pallets

There was a mountain of pallets of various sizes, and we picked through them until we found enough to match that we felt would make a good looking fence. We filled the truck and the trailer and ended up with a large assortment.

truck o' pallets

I was excited. Free fence! We had been trying to figure out how to fence our property since we bought it, Fence is not cheap by any means. This seemed workable. All we had to do was buy and install some posts to hang the fence on. And... make it look like a fence, passable in our little rural suburbia.

Richard makes a panel

So, Richard began connecting the pallets together to make panels, and they looked just like the privacy fence panels you can buy at Home Depot. except, these were free, and had boards on both sides, which makes them stronger, even if they are only five feet tall instead of six.

pallet panel, ready to hang

First pallet panel

And we carried them down to our fence line and hooked them to the poles. They look great! I don't think anyone can complain. I'm really pleased with how well this is turning out, and I don't think we have to paint them.


So it has been a few days, but now, as of today we are down to the corner of our property and working along the north side. This will enclose a garden space which I hope to turn into a small fruit orchard that the chickens can free range through.

And around the corner

  
We also plan on putting in some parking spaces for our trailers and anyone who comes to visit. It is coming along nicely, a little bit at a time. I'm going to plant the yucca seeds I collected in front of the fence, along the road. I'd like to keep some natural plants along the border of the property and incorporated here and there. I will also try to get our wild sunflowers established along the fence, and maybe a vine of some sort.


It's looking great. Thank you Richard. And thank you Paul for the information on free pallets.

Nice pallet fence

It seems if we let the world know, or at least our community, that we are looking for specific items, the things show up. It is amazing how many free materials we are finding. All you have to do is ask.

Our little farm is a work in progress, an experiment in sustainability, and it is that much more wonderful when we find reusable materials that other people are throwing away (pallets, leaves, manure, old wood) that we can use on our farm.

Use local resources for everything you can. Recycle, re-use and keep it environmentally friendly and you can't go wrong.

Now, in addition to our many composting projects and pallet wood fence, we are trying to find--locally--some earth bags...or woven polypropylene bags that could be used to build an earth shelter for the llamas in their new paddock and to build a root cellar and an addition on the goat barn.

I was emptying out my cat food bag and noticed this bag was exactly the material that the earth bags were made from. And many of the grains from the feed store come in these bags too. Hmmm...if we could get people to save their bags and donate them to our farm, we would have our material to build with (we still need dirt), and it would cost a whole lot less than the earth bags we found on the internet. (We suffer from never having enough capital to invest in farm improvements and live, so we have to get creative.)

Richard put a note on the bulletin board at one of the local feed stores, offering to buy the used bags for 10 cents a bag. That sounds fair. All people have to do is bring them back to the feed store when they come to buy more feed. Perfect. So far we haven't had any takers, but I am hopeful. I'd like to see another material that normally goes to the landfill incorporated into a sustainable project.

Earth bag building...that's another story and another project. I'll keep you posted. Anyone local with plastic feed bags, I'll take them. And we are still looking for locally produced bio-diesel.

Stay tuned. Next week I want to turn some of my saved tin cans into a tin can man to hang in the garden to scare away the deer and the birds. So many things to do. A creative life is one worth living for sure!