Bee~ Journal of then...

[Beekissed]

Bee, it sounds like you have some great plans!! I can't wait to hear how it all works out for you so I can follow in your foot steps!

Heck, PP, don't do that! You'll have every mod on the forums hunting you down!

Hey, guys, I think I got a better job! Won't be doing hospice nursing anymore, but I will still be doing home health nursing, so will be working closely with the patients still. More money, better hours, nicer people and medical benefits.....

AND, I just found out that I will be getting back a good income tax return, despite making an extremely low yearly income this year....thank God for earned income credits, y'all! I so needed some financial breathing room for some much needed items, that I really need to make this place pay for itself.....like a refrigerator and a rear-tine tiller(used, of course).

 

[2dream]

Welcome back Bee. Sure did miss you. Sounds like you had a great time while gone and some big plans coming up.

Now down (no pun intended) to business: Are you still considering getting geese?
I have been doing some research but I know not as extensive so far as your research so I want to pick your brain.

Tell me where you found most of your information on hand harvesting down from geese. I have read some horror stories and some good positive things. Still trying to sort it all out but since you were the one who planted the idea in my head thought I would ask.

Also, have you heard of harvesting milk weed flower buds and using it like you would goose down? The best part of all that is you don't have to feed milk weed, plus you can find it free on most roadsides.

 

[freemotion]

You have a longer season than I do, you might be able to start the mangels in a small area, then transplant them in July after your lettuce, etc is done. They are supposed to be very high yield.

I think I'm gonna try the smaller blue hubbard for my animals, as it is supposed to be the best keeper, so if I feed the pumpkins early and the hubbards later, I should get throught the winter ok. This is pumpkin-land here, so I really can grow pumpkins if I can resolve the groundhog issue! My stash in the cellar consists of about 75 grapefruit-sized pumpkins that volunteered all over my neighbor's burn piles. I got 'em all. They are hard as a rock, so they go in a stock pot on the wood stove and everyone gets some. Even the dog likes to steal a few pieces as I am throwing them over the fence!

We have lots of oak trees, wish I could get a pig, it would cost me next to nothing to feed it!

 

[keljonma]

Bee have you read All Flesh is Grass: Pleasures & Promises of Pasture Farming by Gene Logsdon ?

I got some great ideas from this book.

 

[freemotion]

Also, have you heard of harvesting milk weed flower buds and using it like you would goose down? The best part of all that is you don't have to feed milk weed, plus you can find it free on most roadsides.

Oh, that reminds me of the cat beds I made when I was a teenager in Northern Maine, where the temperature stays well below zero for weeks on end, and the barn cats....brrrr.....

I used grape crates and made cushions with sides from scraps from the blanket-sleeper factory (in the days before "fleece") and stuffed them with cattail down.....worked great! Another crate on top, and they lasted for years. The cats loved 'em. And free!

Another use for milkweed silk....I once saw a beautiful framed "picture" using pressed flowers and plants and the milkweed silk, seeds removed, was used as the background, it was gorgeous. It made a nuetral silky-swirly background that added a lot of interest. Beautiful art for the price of the frame!

 

[Beekissed]

Bee have you read All Flesh is Grass: Pleasures & Promises of Pasture Farming by Gene Logsdon ?

I got some great ideas from this book.

I haven't, but I found his blog site last night! Funny, huh? I will see if my library has it but I doubt it! The only book on sheep the two local libraries had was the Modern Book of Raising Sheep~copy written in 1978!!!!! Sad, huh? And I'm in the middle of sheep country!

Where I got hooked on the pasture managment thingy was through reading Joel Salatin and he does a great job of explaining how grass grows and when to harvest it, etc. But I need MORE! So thanks for the reference, as I will be using some of my income tax return for purchasing some much-needed used books on Amazon!

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

OK I'm going to have to check out this Joel dude....

 

[Beekissed]

Welcome back Bee. Sure did miss you. Sounds like you had a great time while gone and some big plans coming up.

Now down (no pun intended) to business: Are you still considering getting geese?
I have been doing some research but I know not as extensive so far as your research so I want to pick your brain.

Tell me where you found most of your information on hand harvesting down from geese. I have read some horror stories and some good positive things. Still trying to sort it all out but since you were the one who planted the idea in my head thought I would ask.

Also, have you heard of harvesting milk weed flower buds and using it like you would goose down? The best part of all that is you don't have to feed milk weed, plus you can find it free on most roadsides.

I've heard of that, 2dream, and I don't see how it would be any different than the very costly and very hard to get eider down. If one could start cultivating milk weed on one's property, it would have a two fold benefit~a food source for the monarch butterfly larvae and down collection. I don't know if it would have the same insulating abilities of down, as the feathers/hairs are formed in such a way as to pocket air~so I don't know~but if you have plenty of milk weed you could do an experiment for us!

I still want to get geese and have found that I will have to order 10 geese to get an order sent!!!! I don't really want ten geese but I could always cull and eat some....but I don't want to have to pay for 10 geese!!!!

I may have my weird and not too bright sis, who collects poor unfortunate animals, hatch me some from her flock of geese. They would be mixed but still of the breeds I want for down production. If I snatched them away at a day or two old, they may not get any mites or diseases from her poor unfortunate flock of birds!

I know that sounds mean, but I have begun to believe that her farm is where animals who have been bad in a former life are sent to spend their "hell" sentence!

 

[MorelCabin]

Gotta love sisters, no matter what Bee...mine gives hell sentences to her man...poor guy.
You really make me want to buy a farm...I have been begging Dh about it for a while now but he is too happy where he is. I really want a barn! And some goats and more chickens and rabbits!
I have an acre of bush up behind the house but it is on very rocky terrain and no good for any kind of fencing. I am seriuosly thinking of expanding up there but he will kill me, and so will the township here...we have all those 'waterfront rules'
Your sheep idea sounds so interesting, you have alot of great ideas to help your property take care of you!

 

[keljonma]

I took this one of my local library, but didn't make any other notes on it, so can't remember many specifics. Book has since disappeared from our library's shelves; never checked out.

Herbal Handbook for Farm & Stable by Juliette de Bairacli-Levy. A guide for those concerned about the overuse of pharmaceuticals, herbicides, and insecticides; poultry, bees, goats, horses, cows, sheep, and sheepdogs.

Another Gene Logsdon gem if you are interested in grains. It covers corn, wheat, sorghum, oats, soybeans, rye, barley, buckwheat, millet, rice, and other small grains, such as triticale, spelt, beans, flax, and sunflowers. Small-Scale Grain Raising

Living at Nature's Pace: Farming & the American Dream also by Gene Logsdon. A collection of essays written over a 12 year timeframe. Just a very good read.