Chicks, Guinea Keats, Ducklings, Goslings and Muscovies are raised by their parents in a small mutli-species flock, with the friendly hogs on guard duty if geese are not. We sell a few young birds out into the community on a variable seasonal schedule. Poultry sales do not cover our grain bill for the smaller poultry species, but Nosenia subsidizes our purchase of 3/4 ton/yr. of certified organic Emmer oats from Dave Oulette in St. David, ME. with piglet sales. This winter I am sprouting these oats, to decrease reliance on supplementing with more expensive organic layer grain mixes, plus have completed new light housing for more poultry to join our geese in their fence moves on pasture this summer. 
Goldie and Solomon’s Buff Toulouse goslings are likely to be due the 2nd week of May. Gold goslings are female. I can sex grey goslings by August as young adults. These are calm, shy geese and though their large size scares hawks away from smaller poultry, white Emben geese would be a better choice if you want aggressive guards.
We have Muscovy ducks, thanks to Nick Jackson in Belmont. Welcome back to the area, Nick and Sarah! The Muskovies are getting along fine with our geese, and hatchlings are due in sync with the other brooding fowl, in May.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Below are copies of old emails to my CSA milk drinkers during the 2015 season. They appear chronologically backward, newest emails on top in blog form. (You can always start reading from the bottom!) Enjoy!
On 10/19/15, Shana Hanson <shanahanson@gmail.com> wrote:
Two things to add. I started milking just once/day.
yesterday -a seasonal landmark. The goats are still biting themselvesitchily, so I fetched out the comb and loop (magnifying glass), to
find....OOdles of every shape and size of SEED. They are seed
vectors, and the seeds have pokey ends, to assure that they'll get
itched and planted. At least that's my theory. We'll see if
full-grown seeable lice appear later. Meanwhile, we're most certainly
planting the clear cut.
On 10/19/15, Shana Hanson <shanahanson@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear fall Weanlings,
Would you like to come together to press and drink CIDER? My press is
mobile and takes up to about 10 bushels at a time, so if most of the
2015 Goat Lease Group members each brought a bushel of unsprayed
apples (drops are fine) you could all split 25 to 30 gallons of cider.
If anyone wants to get together a larger amount to press themself,
call me soon as it's wet from my pressing still and all set up in
Elissa's yard across the street with their electricity. It takes
either electricity of hard bicycling to grind the apples. I could
bring it to the cohousing, THis Sat. or Sun. for the group pressing.
CALL ME (don't e mail - new computer still with gliches).
After a second whole day of trials on live lice with magnifying glass
in September (tried Helebore roots from our streams, baking soda,
vinegar, boric acid, etc. ), I ended up giving the goats no less than
4 Dr. Bronner's soap baths, 1pt to 8 water ($50 of soap total), with
moves and changes of milkstand and location each time. I can't find
the lice; we'll know for sure in the spring whether it worked.
There was a spell before the rain when the goats completely usurped my
life, as the ground was too dry for fences to be at all electrical. I
was desperately imagining downsizing the herd, but was saved (weren't
we all) by the welcome rain.
I am tired. I'm still climbing, and carrying, now oaks and a few
quaking aspens still green. Apples are tremendously loaded and
waiting for goats and me to spend more whole days harvesting, to fill
the cellar. We're still sleeping half of every second night in the
clearcut - cherry is holding its leaves still there (well, we'll see
after last night). Hay is scarce and very expensive, leaving me a
total "profit" of $1,000 from your eleven contracts (toward my $2,600
property tax, now fully paid). We could survive without the hay, but
I would be a full-time climber. The hay is a gift to myself freeing
some time for less isolating pursuits. 100 bales will be delivered
all at once in about two weeks - not how I usually do it
-overwhelming, and help will be welcome. The goats will still have me
climb or fell for or do people's fruit tree work for about one half
their diet all winter. Well maybe less - we will cheat with lots of
apples? if i can continue to haul the heavy grain bags and apple
boxes without further exacerbating an old tailbone injury. I LOVE the
apple harvest - just going a bit slower.
Thanks for a great season. We really got the jar thing down the last
week! Please let me know soon if you already know whether you want to
return for milk in 2016, as I continue to navigate goat decisions re:
milk production and my work load.
On 7/24/15, Shana Hanson <shanahanson@gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear Patient Schedule Flexers,
>
> This computer is almost impossible for me to use, but I have to
> attempt a blog before blueberry harvest swallows me. I shopped for a
> computer, without resolution, as I can''t spend $400 right now, plus I
> don't want to cause manufacturing of the $400 toxic item, yet
> the used guy says used ones all take 69 watts (way too much) and don't
> dim nor have eco mode.
>
> I also studied our few hard-to-find goat lice for a whole day without
> resolution, trying tea tree essential oil/Dr. Bronner's soap/water
> solutions on them. The soapiest one took all the way until the next
> morning to come alive. They mostly looked dead for two hours, then
> recovered. So I just kept peering through my loop (magnifying glass
> you hold with your eye)at them, and taking notes of which solution,
> all day. For fun I tried the Pyganic, which failed on the goats this
> spring. That louse never even paused. Then I was terribly behind on
> pruning or felling trees for goats, and got really depressed, until I
> climbed up the next day and made up for lost time. I guess the lice
> in paralyzed shock had me hoping for awhile that something had worked.
> Next trial may be sulphur rock powder and quick lime, but probably not
> until after blueberry harvest. Turpentine would be more skin
> friendly, but isn't on the organic list (though an essential oil of a
> tree) (too cheap?). I'd like to test it anyway, but it took me two
> hours of combing to find those first 5 lice to torment. I am so
> chronically short on time that it is common for me to only have 4
> hours to sleep in bed, and no cooking of meals plus very rare to find
> time to pick a salad. Fruit and dairy luckily go well together;
> berries are present on goat walks.
>
> But I can't pick currants with goats because they eat the whole bush
> plus the apple trees, so Willow and Stephania helped. Then I finished
> alone, and crouched in the lush bushy weedy chicken yard an airy
> fluttering of a small wild bird brushed over my back.
>
> Then yesterday, on our walk to the nut orchard to fell a birch, I
> peeked in that thrush nest by the white oak sapling. Empty! then
> suddenly fluttering by my feet and swooping and crying around my head;
> she escorted me away a good distance. The fledgling was dark, speckly
> and HUGE. I don't dare check the other nests.
>
> Except I do keep checking on Moch Moch Mocha Duck's nest, to her
> dismay. I even stole the two live keats (one death, and one has
> palsey - it's mom was shut in up on the Hunt Rd. ; maybe not as good
> nutrition in the yolks of those Guinea eggs?), plus four of her ELEVEN
> ducklings (from 11 eggs), to keep the smaller and less well-dressed
> keats warm in my house. The tiny keats tend to disappear in our wild
> set-up; I suspect the huge garter snakes that we raise in the chicken
> house on the fat mice that steal grain find the keats to be smaller
> than mice.
>
> The garter momma who left me her skin last week at the milk well
> showed me an acrobatic move over the lip of the well and under into
> the cement-floored indoor space. Upon next opening the well tarp, a
> BABY garter snake met me! While the lower well has been cooling
> milk, the upper well has been a hot snake egg incubator! What a
> diverse temperature contraption.
>
> I took Josie Daylight along on my Wednesday away work day. Two days
> of diarrhea have followed; I feel like a failed mom. Separation
> anxiety is not to be taken lightly.
>
> I've started to compute each goat's average milking each week, before
> averaging them all for our weekly milk amount. I'm dreaming of doing
> the retroactive numbers and posting a chart of their milking curves
> inside the cellar door, so that you can all see their ebbing and
> flowing achievements. I even think of the colors of the graph for
> each goat, correlated with their names: Windy sky blue, Kanga kangaroo
> colored, Mulberry purple, Pepita green, Hazel hazel. .. all this very
> wistfully, as in two days I call Gary Masalin to ascertain whether we
> might start the blueberry harvest as early as Wednesday (the day I
> drive south for counseling). The goats and I will be shifting to
> wanders and fellings or prunings at the crack of dawn. Winnowed-out
> certified organic blueberries will be the new milking treat (the milk
> stays white surprisingly).
>
> Thank you for jar delivery improvements. Kristen and Svea, one quart
> was broken in the bag and glass in the others when I peeked in on my
> table where it sat. Willow, whey for Josie can be a trade, and/or can
> you make my website? (I wrote it up when there was still snow; still
> waiting for a willing web artist.) Or find me a renter for the
> upstairs, available Sept. 1st?
>
> I've stared at this probably an extra hour too tired to think how to
> end it. So silly, but I like doing it. Despite missing both human
> evening events that I thought I could try to get to tonight, I have
> this computer illusion of being social with other than goats and
> Nosenia.
>
> Much cream on top despite all struggles, Shana
>
>
> On Fri, 17 Jul 2015, Shana Hanson wrote:
>
> Dear Jar Keepers,
>
> I have stolen jars from two of you plus sent a few of my own this
> week, in order to contain milk of drinkers whose empty jar was not
> with the driver to ride along to the previous pick-up. This causes me
> stress, because you clean your own jars specifically for your milk,
> and haven't given permission for them to go on other trips.
>
> Maria Gail and Josie Daylight (goat kid) can both be commended for
> always leaving jars when they take or receive them. But now Joelle
> for instance must LEAVE AN EMPTY JAR for Maria to see on the way to
> Joelle's refrigerator, or Maria too becomes a Jar Keeper by
> association. Then Maria gets to SAVE the jar for a week, and put it
> with her own for travel to her NEXT milk pick-up. At least that's how
> I thought it would work.
>
> So I just spent one whole hour getting this gmail up, then typing this
> once and having it disappear, then trying again, and now I must go
> to my attic and find a jar to replace Eileen's which I stole, then
> heat water to clean better, then get it to dry before milking by 10 AM
> for Eileen. So I am not out on a goat walk, nor moving a fence, which
> means tonight's milk will be less. So disappointing.
>
> I wanted to blog about hopefully 11 ducklings hatching next Wednesday,
> and three keats next Friday, all under Mock Mock Mocha Duck out back.
> Also, I wanted to tell of my encounter on Tuesday with the beautiful
> Garter snake whose AM sauna I interrupted, under the tarp on top of
> the milk well. That morning I broke a whole half gallon of my own
> treasured fresh milk, whick hit a lump of cement inside my root cellar
> when I tried to set it down, with Josie Daylight hurrying me by trying
> to follow me in. A huge load of milk had made it that far, packed in
> a bucket, despite running with all the goats the whole way. I
> grieved all day somewhat, with also still thoughts for the piglets.
> After goats were back home, I went to clean up the milk and glass.
> The cellar floor had drunk it all. I hope the tall Heartnut tree
> behind there reaches that goodness. Then the snake left me a gift of
> her/his perfect skin discovered at the PM lowering of the milk, and I
> felt blessed and content again.
>
> Very late now to start my animal day. But these blogs are
> important to me. Willow, there's no way now that I can be free of
> goat wandering before 11 (not 10 as I thought earlier this AM) to pick
> currants. I yearn for these snatches of human involvement at the
> farm; maybe you can come soon, to wander with us? or pick without me?
> either is okay.
>
> Much love to all of you, Jar Keepers and Jar Deliverers alike, Shana
>
>
>
> On Sat. 11 Jul, 2015 Shana Hanson wrote:
> I finally got up and typed a draft and when I tried to save wouldn't
> connect and disappeared. Gregor and his computer are gone for two
> weeks at least - got the connector for this one yesterday but not
> working. Sad to have lost this blog. Sorry can't be connected.
> Visits welcome. Shana
>
> Well it saved this time, so try more?
>
> Dear 5th Stomaches digesting the leaves of our woods,
>
> In response to Jane's yearnings for more milk and my love for all of
> you my milk-drinking "off-spring," I've reverted to additional
> woodland napping, brush hauling, and tree climbing, in efforts to keep
> goat bellies as wide as possible as often as possible. I was so proud
> of how wide yesterday that I took pictures of each goat at their
> widest. Late last night I napped in the cool dry stream "bed," while
> the goats munched crisp previously untouched patches of Sensitive Fern
> and Winterberry bushes. Maybe I will pack a tape measure with me, to
> correlate inches of goat girth with cups of milk in the daily log
> book. Diane Schivera says I do get to present this fall at the MOFGA
> fair, about the intersection of Femelschlag forestry and my Air Meadow
> milk production, plus application to ecological and climate problems
> we face. Somehow I will figure out how to fit in a graphing of goat
> girths? or a flip-card stack of matched pictures to animate their
> expansion?
>
> The dryness is causing the almost-yearly death of brook trout minnows,
> as the puddles of the stream disappear. My MOFGA tour group yesterday
> caught maybe a dozen tiny trout in a milk jar, using our hands, a cup,
> and interpersonal acrobatics of collaboration. We wish them well in
> their relocation to Rainbow pasture pond.
>
> We also found the third thrush nest of the season, with four blue
> eggs, miraculously tripped over but not stepped on by 5 humans and 6
> goats.
>
> My appreciation for fragile life these last couple days includes huge
> grief over news that my last two piglets to leave died of meningitis,
> probably my fault and entirely preventable. I had provided a cooked
> road-killed raccoon for which I didn't find time to be prompt nor
> thorough in cooking steps. Nosenia refused the first-offered piece,
> the head, which the babies found the next day. Fleeting thought, "I
> hope that's okay for them to eat," relief at no stomach aches
> resulting, then a week later they lost their coordination then
> dropped. Aktan and Erin already loved them, and did a lot fast to try
> and save them. Prayers and amends.
>
> Earlier this week (Tuesday), I candled Moch Moch's large clutch. All
> 11 duck eggs are progressing, plus 3 out of 4 Guinea eggs from a
> neighbor! This is in contrast to only 50% fertility across three
> species here in our spring clutches. Einstein the cat got the clear
> Guinea egg as a birthday treat (my birthday). Nosenia got to wallow
> the edge of the clear swimming pond out back plus clean up little
> apple drops for her special birthday treats (my birthday). The goats
> got to get wide then even wider.
>
> Time to milk then perfect their earlier wideness on the pile of ash we
> just pruned. I pack the "hay" bags with leaf bunches while they pick
> into their own containers.
>
> Hopefully much milk, Shana
>
>
> On Mon, 6 Jul 2015 Shana Hanson <shanahanson@gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear People made of Leaves (partly),
>
> Please watch out for the 5 foot diameter open well which my Suzuki
> Samurai re-discovered Saturday night. It's in the pasture paddock on
> the shady side of Rainbow House, just below your much nicer well. I
> was driving down to the Goat Palace (which used to be the porch of the
> Rainbow House), to unload a huge trailer load of poplar shavings from
> Peter Baldwin (what a gift!). So I laid down in the fresh goose shit
> (I'd just moved them over), to come-along the Samurai up out of its
> deeply tipped position, using the drilled well head to hold the other
> end of the rope (all these wells! we are blessed with water). I
> finished shoveling shavings at 10 pm, then wandered with goats until 1
> am (with some napping). We heard lots of fireworks, but didn't see
> any.
>
> Please help yourselves to wild strawberries on the sunny sides of the
> Rainbow House yard. Nosenia (my sow), myself, and Sarah Lozanova's
> children have not nearly been able to eat them all. Wild strawberries
> are the pasture's response to acid rain, and/or road salt in other
> spots. I am trying to fit in some lyming of each area the geese
> leave. It is heavy work (rock dust), and the goats complain because I
> am not wandering with them if I do it.
>
> This Friday, July 10, 6 AM to 9ish (then pancakes and fruit), myself
> and the goats will lead a MOFGA Farm Tour. It will be hard to find us
> once we start, but it's okay to be pointed a way back if you must
> leave earlier. So far, Karin Whitman, Helen Burlingame, and probably
> Sarah Lozanova with children are planning to come. Let me know if you
> want to join us. I will be 52 years old at 7 AM that day.
>
> Then Saturday, July 11, 10 AM to Noon, Nosinia, Windy and Mulberry?
> (or whichever two goats are willing to get in the Samurai with Nosenia
> and myself) are hired to demonstrate land work at Head of Tide
> Preserve, on Doak Rd. in Belfast (thanks, Karin!).
>
> Last Saturday Gregor, friend Brittany, and I managed a two hour burn
> of brush (in the back, winter, goat yard) for biochar, a hot test of
> endurance on such a sunny day. The goats slept there last night, so
> the pine pitch from their pasture paddock which they rubbed their
> heads in will now be black from charcoal, and their bodies will be
> generally gray instead of white for awhile.
>
> The goslings have outgrown their moveable parent-proof feeding area,
> so now either Solomon and Goldie get obese and costly, or I must come
> up with enough clovery-with-young-grass areas to keep the babies well
> without grain. Yesterday I tried a new crawl-under feeding trick, but
> Solomon manages to reach in and pull out the dish. When they used to
> roam free, newly seeded areas got plucked bare, and many areas were
> sped towards strawberry production when the geese focussed too much in
> certain spots. When I give them a strategically placed fence, the
> geese help mow what the goats don't eat.
>
> Contented in a tired body, Shana
>
>
> On 6/29/15, Shana Hanson <shanahanson@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Dear Landlubbers (I'm guessing you are down on the ground),
>>
>> Encouraged by Jessica, I'm blogging early.
>>
>> We will be up in the trees tomorrow. Ash, mostly, a staple in Austria
>> and here.
>>
>> Saturday we did light a fast inferno for two hours of open-burn
>> biochar. Phew! Some ferns stayed green beneath the fire, but we
>> turned red like lobsters.
>>
>> Yesterday the goats got two bags of hay in the pouring rain (first
>> time I caved since our contracts started), and then they did get a
>> LONG WET late evening walk in Winterberry bushes and Sensitive Fern.
>> I kept falling asleep wrapped in the alpaca poncho that my intern
>> Rowan gave me two years ago, balanced on a horizontal log in the
>> swamp, then kept getting woken up by falling off when Josie Daylight
>> would start dancing on top of me. They went to bed with wide
>> satisfied bellies. (I went to bed satisfied to have happy animals.)
>>
>> Today they were staked in flowering white clover and young grass, but
>> terribly bored by evening. So I made it up to them with an almost
>> three hour walk, bending down Witchhazel and Buckthorn, visiting the
>> sunny small easterly Sensitive Fern, Canada Lillies (myanthemum) still
>> a passing treat, Goat Sorrel in the neighbor's clearcut, and...
>>
>> Speaking of Micro-grains, I lied and the goats aren't grain-free now.
>> We all noticed how tasty the juicy green sedge seedheads are. I
>> hadn't had supper, so ate my share.
>>
>> Poor Alice Ireland a few doors down has been tormented by a guinea
>> fowl we thought was my boy. So poor guy got all his flight feathers
>> clipped this early morning, as I'd jerry-rigged the fence to shut the
>> birds in yesterday in the rain. Then I looked in her driveway, and it
>> was SOMEONE ELSE! I'm dreaming of the two-sylable call, a female?
>> Our "fox-eaten" long-lost hen from last summer? or some new blood
>> from afar? So tomorrow, Guinea adventures are planned; my boy may not
>> have to wait for keats to hatch under the duck. Flying insects, watch
>> out! (Guineas are SO fast.) (Even with no flight feathers.)
>>
>> Contented, Shana
>>
>>
>> On 6/26/15, Shana Hanson <shanahanson@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Dear Daily Jar Bearers,
>>>
>>> We will burn brush for Biochar in the BACK winter goat yard, tomorrow,
>>> 10 AM to 2 PM. Go to the garage door on MY house, and follow the
>>> trail north-north-west, past the back pond to the next clearing.
>>> Potluck lunch.
>>>
>>> I have been sad to stick to my own rules of averaging Windy's, Kanga's
>>> and Pepita's records, and have your milk amounts go down this week.
>>> The goats like to stay in when it rains, and I seconded their vote
>>> after getting soggy moving fences. Also, Bluegrass and Povertygrass
>>> going to seed are not tasty to our goats. Due to the owl displaced by
>>> the clearcut last winter, as well as 50% hatch rates across all my
>>> fowl this season (down from 80%), my mowing fleet of geese is tiny and
>>> slow (two adults and three goslings; last year four adults and 14
>>> goslings). Just as well, as the re-seeded areas are out of rotation,
>>> but we need some mowing help temporari;ly in this fast-growing part of
>>> the season. We'll see if Nosenia the Guinea sow will appreciate
>>> "micro-grains" (see, I'm already geared toward effectively marketing
>>> to her). Then the grass will tenderly rejuvenate.
>>>
>>> Meanwhile, goats are taking some day trips to my temporarily added
>>> land parcel (for sale) three miles from home. We are clearing walking
>>> trails to entice buyers in to some of the nice places. All six goats
>>> do indeed fit in the back (well, Mulberry would prefer to drive) of my
>>> Samurai. Once at the land, they fill their bellies with birch,
>>> poplar, maple, buckthorn and oak while Gregor and I fill the trailer.
>>> They have no choice but to try and fit back into the car in their now
>>> wider condition, as we have commitments to all these wonderful people
>>> who look for milk down the well.
>>>
>>> The story on Mulberry, who two weeks ago jumped up on the table twice
>>> in one day with all four feet as I was pouring milk there, is probably
>>> that she has "cyctic ovaries." She seems in heat all the time, and
>>> has come into a small but rising amount of milk without pregnancy. My
>>> other "virgin milker" many years ago was also infertile. Both
>>> were/are outstandingly healthy and sweet-tempered. I'm hoping the
>>> cystic obstruction will detach from my dilligent simulation of
>>> nursing. If not, I am researching use of May Apple roots.
>>>
>>> At home, we-re browsing Sensitive Fern, Winterberry bushes, Witch
>>> Hazel, Ash, and many other plants and trees. We're thankful that the
>>> biting insects got confused by this cool extended spring.
>>>
>>> Moc-moc Mocha-duck seems to be setting a second time already (she
>>> thinks its still spring for sure). Jennifer Armstrong and Meg want
>>> female ducklings for their widowed drake. Thanks to Rita Horsey on
>>> Hunt Rd. whose birds have provided fertile eggs, Moc-moc is aiming to
>>> hatch a mate or two for my Guinea rooster as well, widowed by the fox
>>> last summer. Then what will his chicken hen partner, also widowed by
>>> the fox, do? Yikes - I have 5 days to get a few eggs to add from
>>> Sumner at Meadowsweet Farm (chickens hatch in 21 versus 28 days).
>>> Always the management tasks to distract me.
>>>
>>>
>>> In creamy tiredness, Shana
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 6/20/15, Shana Hanson <shanahanson@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Dear Milk Drinkers, Daughters and Sons of my Goats,
>>>>
>>>> This is my attempt tp use Gregor's computer to keep in touch.
>>>>
>>>> Highlights of my week:
>>>>
>>>> Today I moved junk off the property I just bought in Belmont for my
>>>> son, and three baby garter snakes slithered out from a broken oven or
>>>> microwave(?) into my car, and down onto 3 Streams Farm, the latest
>>>> welcome immigrants (Gregor and Jeff being also welcome and recent).
>>>>
>>>> Nosenia is now piglet-free, and one breast was staying noticeably
>>>> larger and stiffer, so I milked her this evening, looking forward to a
>>>> taste. She didn't mind at all. Her milk is similar texture to our
>>>> goats'milk, but slightly salty. No I won't add her to your contracts.
>>>>
>>>> The huge broken-topped ash tree came down right where I hoped it
>>>> would, last night, just in time for it to nourish the goats on my day
>>>> away at a training today.
>>>> They got the first of two hay bags full of Picked Leaves early this
>>>> morning. They filled up on sensitive fern plus helped pick more
>>>> leaves this evening, so they'll get the second bag tomorrow. They
>>>> somewhat neglected to eat the patch of pasture just added; they will
>>>> now try and train me to cut them a big ash every day.
>>>>
>>>> Another highlight was Gregor and Jeff seeking late sunshine to dry
>>>> their lovely laundry, so they hung it behind the Rainbow house while
>>>> myself, Windy and Kanga were in milking. We came out and got spooked
>>>> by the big dark hanging shapes that had magically appeared, lit by the
>>>> westerly sun. Then Sarah Lozanova got spooked by me, as I was
>>>> diligently taping the milking schedule inside the door without a sound
>>>> and with quiet goats standing by, when she opened the door to put her
>>>> jars in. She asked if people lived there - well, no people live IN
>>>> the house, but we do live a lot in the pasture (including happy
>>>> hanging of laundry, so it seems).
>>>>
>>>> With Gregor's help, one large part of the pasture has new improved
>>>> pasture seeds germinating, and the newer leaf piles along the road are
>>>> planted (late) to Buttercup Squash. Goats and pigs seem to leave
>>>> squash and pumpkin plants alone until they are ready. Out back I hope
>>>> to dig in some potatoes soon, as the small poultry are likely to leave
>>>> those alone (goats graze potatoes so won't be allowed there).
>>>>
>>>> Our woodchuck moved to Elissa's and Tom's more organized and filling
>>>> gardens across the road, freeing our wild kitchen garden full of
>>>> greens for duckling (with hen mother) habitation - plenty of tiny
>>>> snails there.
>>>>
>>>> Did anyone read down this far?
>>>>
>>>> Do you want to come help us open-burn goat brush into biochar,
>>>> Saturday June 27, 10 AM-2PM? Bring food items to roast in the fire
>>>> (Dutch ovens recommended) for potluck lunch.
>>>>
>>>> Way after bedtime so rambling on, love, Shana
Maria Gail asked how I rake without hurting my back. I posted this video for her; thanks for everything, Maria!
