What a day!

March 12, 2016

Spring has finally arrived. Even though it was s mild winter, we still ran through 6 cords of wood. And as usual, I am behind on getting it cured for next winter! Oh well one year I will be ahead. But today was magnificent! Sun and warm temperatures. It felt great to make some vitamin d.

I checked on the progress of the tree nursery and the humidity is dipping as it warms up and dries out. I really need to get on top of that. But with no rain expected all week and lots of sun forecast, I need to work on alternatives to buckets and rain catchment.

I have installed several new sites for the hazelnuts expected this spring. They are going to form a dual purpose actually tri-purpose role for me here on the farm. Number one they will act as a snow fence that I will not have to maintain, repair, take up, and put down each year. Secondly, they will act as a windbreak to my bees and also serve as a potential spot for them to rest, or collect pollen. Thirdly we will generate a nut harvest in three to five years. This eventually will be to feed hogs, or for sale. So you can see that when you layer and stack functions it's an absolutely fantastic way to prepare your farm for a future. This process can be applied to almost anything in life, if you find something that serves more than one purpose I feel you've doubled its value. I'm trying to look at things more from that angle as I move into the world of permaculture and intelligent design.

For example the manure from my horses was always a source of irritation for me; cleaning out the stalls. Now I see it almost joyfully as a source of nutrients. We buy hay from other farmers as well as take some off of our property here. That function is actually a nutrient input into the farm. Eventually I want to have the fields managed with cattle and intensive daily rotation type system as outlined by Mark Sheppard Allen Savoy and many others. That is a long way off as cattle are very expensive and require much more in the way of infrastructure.

The manure actually acts as a nutrient bank for the farm currently. I am piling it very high into a hot composting method to generate an enormous amount of usable compost for my gardens this summer, and into the fall.

Additionally, the manure can be placed as a winter mulch over your gardens. It breaks down slowly over time and the worms, grubs, insects, microorganisms and all the other flora and fauna start to decompose the manure and deconstruct into its basic minerals and compounds. That is another benefit. The only problem with this is weed seeds. Horse manure is not processed very long in the stomach of equine animals. Therefore you need to do something to germinate those seeds and get them to pop out of dormancy early so that you can clear them out and plant your annuals later. More on that in another post later.

Lastly the manure is also used when combined with wood chips from the farm and other places, into a woodpile that was generating heat for my Greenhouse; recycling the heat out of the pile into my Greenhouse using PVC tubing. It was marginally successful as the temperatures do tend to drop off rather quickly after about a month. The initial heat it produces is quite astounding as the pile was over a hundred and sixty degrees Fahrenheit for at least 30 days. This kind of heat is unfathomable. It is enough to heat your hot water tank and actually require the temperature to be dropped somewhat as that is too hot for humans to have on their skin.

So by finding multiple uses for the same product you really do increase your value of each item.

Have a great day and Bee Stoic!