Keith and I got bad colds this week, so he worked from home. I didn’t work much, I just fed chickens and then laid on the couch and watched movies. He is a better man than I.
saving the world, one line of code at a time
He even got all dressed up. And participated in conference calls on his Bluetooth and said important things like, “Can you hear me? Hello?! I have a comment to make…! Hello???”
And then he wrote code that included things like, “OPEN A SOCKET”. The sorts of things that you hear on tv shows like ‘24′. I think he might be working for Jack Bauer. We might have go to undercover for CTU and save Los Angeles from terrorist attacks.
Just my daily life with a Computer Engineer. I try to stay humble.
Keith and I dressed up as a cheerleader and Rosie the Riveter for Halloween this year. Come to think of it, those costumes pretty much sum up our personalities. As does this photo. Good times!
You know you’re a redneck when you own a couple of chicken coops on wheels that you refer to as the “Trailerhood”.
As in, “The trailerhood, the trailerhood, ain’t nobody doin’ what they should, way down yonder in the trailerhood…”
Josh Turner, anyone? Anyone? Tell me you’ve heard that man’s heart-melting baritone. Go buy the album. Now.
Josh Turner
Ok, back to the story.
The inherent redneck-ness of owning a Trailerhood becomes evident when necessity forces you to move the Trailerhood from one property to another.
just your everyday morning commute
Through town and down the highway. That’s right. We trucked those gleaming beauties full of chickens across town to a place where there is less mud and less chance of getting my pickup stuck while collecting eggs this winter.
good morning, Philomath!
That place is my backyard. My five acre backyard, as a matter of fact, which is a great place for chickens. I’m still not sure about the fact that the first sight out my bedroom window now is the Trailerhood. I used to see deer frolicking in the long grass every morning. Now I see chickens frolicking. This will take a little getting used to.
I owe special thanks to Tyler for lending us his incredible chicken-transporting skills. It’s a true friend that will help you move your Trailerhood at 7:30 in the morning.
Despite the often drizzly, dreary days that autumn brings to Western Oregon, I am always romanced by the glory of fall.
Nearly every year, I find myself surprised at the rapid onset of rain and with it, the changing colors of the deciduous trees. Wasn’t it jump-in-the-sprinkler, barbecue-a-burger summer just a few short minutes ago?
I attribute much of this confusion to my childhood on the Oregon Coast. I grew up smack-dab in the middle of a Douglas Fir forest, where the colors never varied from your standard, run of the mill evergreen. Aside from annually shedding a pile of fircones on the lawn, the trees just never really changed that much.
fog droplet
I remember driving Highway 20 to the Valley with my family, as a kid. In the fall, around the time we hit the metropolis of Eddyville, we would start exclaiming, “look at the trees! Check out that bright orange one up there on the hill!” Fall was a novelty to us.
This year, I’m particularly enjoying autumn. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m outdoors much more, or that I’ve moved to a new home resplendant with the bounty of the season.
I went on a little stroll around our new property the other day to share my view with you. Hope you enjoy the colors as much as I do.
Having recently moved to a new house on acreage with a tiny orchard, I’ve been newly inspired to preserve some of the autumn bounty.
I have zero experience in canning and until recently have had zero desire to try it.
That’s why God gives us friends.
Alicia & Bula the Gargoyle Dog
Alicia and I decided we’d tackle this intimidating canning thing together. So we made a list of 85 varieties of sauces, jams, chutneys and conserves that we wanted to make, and set to work harvesting and canning.
apple bounty
Rule number one of canning: have some good company because you’re going to be working all day. Alicia and I canned for 12 hours straight. I’ll be honest: we were a little nutty by the end of the night.
coring
I’m sure our great-grandmothers would have laughed to have seen us scrambling around the kitchen forgetting to set timers and figuring out how to use this thing. It was a circus.
heating lids
The applesauce tasted divine and our jars sealed properly, so I count the day as a success.
cooking apples
I would definitely do it again. I just need a few days break.
Besides…we’ve got 84 other kinds of preserves to make. We can’t stop now!
I feel like I just emerged from a whirlwind of activity. It’s been an exhilirating past couple of weeks mainly defined by a bunch of really hard work! I won’t lie – life lately has been very stressful but also incredibly satisfying. Allow me to take you along on a recap of our journey…
In the past three weeks we:
ripped the floors out of our trailers, and hired a friend to do some major cutting and welding. We welded expanded metal to the floors to allow waste to drop through as fertilizer for the pasture. Then we got busy with hammer and nails and framed the coops – a solid week of dawn til dusk work! I feel so empowered by this project…now I can build anything!
one wall up
all framed and ready to go
no electricity means sawing by hand
Put up corrugated metal siding and roofing
the fun part - swinging from the rafters
finished!
shining beauties
yeah i know the roofs are hokey. live and learn.
Got 320 chickens of diverse breeds. We have Silver-Laced Wyandottes, Barred Rocks, Buff Orpingtons, and Black Australorps. They all lay brown eggs…or will once they finish molting and start laying again. The chickens have a huge yard surrounded by electrified netting and we move them to a new location every 1-3 days. They eat chicken pellets as well as all the windfall apples, insects, grass, and forage they can find!
the girls
Heading inside to roost for the night
sleepy chicks
While all this was going down, we found a house on 5 acres to rent. So last week we packed up and moved. I’ll post pictures of our new place soon. It’s great and we have so much more space! No more farming from a duplex, as fun as that was.
I kid.
Last but not least, we named the farm! We are now called Provenance Farm. ‘Provenance’, from the French provenir, “to come from”, means the origin or the source of something. At the heart of the concept is the idea of farm to fork, or being able to trace your food back to its very place of origin. In a society that celebrates half-rate, highly-manufactured foodstuff, my desire is that our farm will encourage people to value the provenance of their meat and eggs. Our goal is to provide great food that brings health and happiness to your home. I’m so looking forward to getting it from the field to you!
Thank you for coming along with us on this journey. To all our friends and family – we are so thankful for your support. We could not do it without you!
It’s been all kinds of busy on the farm this week. Keith and I purchased all the lumber and supplies for building the chicken coops, and set to work cutting and framing.
It’s been so much fun! I like construction – it’s so satisfying to measure, cut and nail things together.
using the chop saw to cut lumber
It’s been an educational week. I’ve learned to draw up building plans, something Keith is really good at, being an Engineer and all. I figured out how to use a chop saw to cut the lumber down to size. Then, with the help of our good friends Brian and Rob, I learned to frame walls and roofs.
early morning framing
We’ve been getting up early and hitting the fields as soon as the sun comes up, so we can get a lot done before it gets too hot and before Keith has to go to work at his “real job”!
Firmware Engineer/Construction Worker Man
Almost done with the walls!
Soon we will be finished with some welding projects on the trailers and then the building will go up. I’ll be posting more pictures of our progress soon, so stay with me.
Remember when those trailers we drove to Eugene to pick up? You can read about them here. Well, they were a bit of a nightmare.
A simple little trip to pick up two trailers for chicken coops, turned out to be a lot more work than it appeared. This is where all those Physics 201 lectures came in handy. [See kids, even farmers need college educations.] Through the use of various levers, ramps, come-alongs, chains and brute force we managed to get the small trailer loaded on top of the big trailer.
Like so:
Three hours later...
Then we hauled the stinking things to Corvallis and deposited them in my field and said:
Good Riddance.
They look so innocuous
Only that wasn’t the end of it.
We still had to get them unstacked. Oh yeah, you think it looks easy. I’m here to tell you otherwise.
Towing the trailers apart
That little trailer did not want to roll off. In fact, it got completely tangled up on the frame of the one below it.
Through the use of various levers, ramps, come-alongs, chains and brute force we managed to get the small trailer unloaded off the big trailer. Friggin’ physics problems.
free at last
After finally getting trailers separated, I would like to tell you that I jumped for joy and hugged my hard-working husband. But I didn’t, not at first.
I burst out of the pickup cab and flew at the trailers and kicked them. And then I said a few choice words.
And then I felt better.
Trailer Conquerer
Just in case you’re wondering (Keith was), after all that, I do still want to farm. I just don’t want to re-enact that little trailer scenario again anytime soon, thank you very much.
The field I’m leasing has pretty crummy fences. Actually, they are more or less non-existent.
This photo shows one of the bestsections of fence, so it’s pretty clear that this fence ain’t keep the cows in.
old fence
This current state of affairs resulted in today’s project which was determining the perimeter length and estimating the cost of materials for a new fence.
So I borrowed one of these new-fangled contraptions and set to work.
measuring wheel
I think I picked the hottest day in the past month to walk around the back forty, but it sure was pretty out there. I brought my camera along so I could share the beauty with you.
long hike out to the back forty
Ok, well maybe I’m like a new mother who thinks her baby is the cutest baby everborn. So humor me in thinking my field is nice.
under the oak tree
In my wandering, I discovered that I have some sort of pear tree (Seckel pears?) growing in the hedgerow. The ripe, ping-pong ball sized pears were pretty yummy.
round pears
It turns out it takes a while to push a little measuring wheel around 45 acres. My field is really rutted in places, and the grass is long along the edges where the hay mower didn’t reach. It felt like I was trying to maneuver a doll stroller around the field. I’m glad I’m done with that little exercise, especially since it was over 90 degrees out.
After I measured the whole stinking field (minus the acres of blackberries, which I had to guess on) I flopped down in the shade of my trailers, put my feet up, and thought about how on earth we are going to get those trailers untangled from one another.
