June 2016 – Peacock Orchard

How the trees are dealing with unseasonable weather

It’s hot. It’s even been in the 90’s a few times. This is not Wyoming weather. This is…..this is weather unfit for human kind. It’s also dry. Spring is when we get our rain. August, September and October are our dry months. We can go without a lick of rain that entire time. Now though, now is not good. This heat, this drought, this is not good on my young trees.

I’m discouraged. I can’t water. I don’t have the water rights to water. I’m taking water out to the most desperate trees but otherwise, I’m just praying. Praying for rain that is missing us every single time.

The kraters and swales do their job admirably. I think if the trees were established better the whole system would be stable against drought conditions. The trees aren’t established though. The most established tree is on it’s 3rd year. All the others are going on their second summer or even their first in a few cases. Their roots aren’t established enough to survive this.

They are drooping. They are yellowing. Their leaves are falling off. I’m near despair. Please, rain, please.

I think I need to mulch. I haven’t for various reasons. Ok, I actually have. The very first year I mulched the trees and it was utterly pointless. It all blew away. I haven’t bothered since. I think I need to try again though. Straw being my best bet. Perhaps fresher straw and not the half decomposed straw I used the first time.

Still, perhaps this is a lost cause. That’s the thought at the very back of my mind. That I’ve done something foolish thinking it was something brave. That I’ve spent years and thousands of dollars proving all of the nay sayers right. If a single dry spring can kill all of my work than this system doesn’t work.

It’s not all dead though. It’s simply dying. Come rain. Come and restore my plants and my spirit. We are all waiting for you.

Beauty Abounds

Our property is in bloom. So many blooms I can’t even fit them all in one post. We have the usual alfalfa and sweet clover. The blooming weeds, erm, wildflowers. The beauty is everywhere but for me, it’s acutely in the plants I’ve planted myself. The acres of sainfoin blooming in all their pink glory. The cider orchard full of vetch, poppies, clover and more.

Enough talk, enjoy the beauty with me.

The sainfoin is such an object of fascination for us.

Let’s not forget the beauty in our animals either. Unfortunately only one of them would stand still long enough to get a good picture.

My glorious Prince the blackshoulder peacock.

Natural Swim Pond- digging has begun

We are water people. I love everything about it, so naturally we’d want something to swim in on our property. Something lovely and looks like it belongs in the landscape. It wasn’t feasible before. Too expensive. However, the unintentional pond has shown us we can line a pond rather cheaply with materials from our own property. Wyoming is a leading producer of Bentonite, a clay that is used a lot in construction and pond building. I cannot say 100% that bentonite is the reason we made the unintentional pond but whatever that black clay is, it holds water. So we’ll be mining it out and lining our natural swim pond with it.

Stage 1 of this project is obviously digging the hole. Our trusty excavator is making light work of that. The swimming area of the pond is planned to be a rectangle 30 feet long and at least 7 feet across. The deep end will also be 7 feet. Our excavator can only dig 7 feet if you hadn’t guessed.

I have the deep end dug, for the most part. I need to move the excavator to the other side to get some stuff I couldn’t reach, but otherwise it’s good to go.

My progress was halted by the gigantic pile of dirt that had accumulated near me. The plan was to double team the digging, one of us in the excavator and one in the tractor moving the dirt. Kids prohibit that plan mostly. Someone has to watch the little devils. They also inhibit the moving of dirt as it is a premier play spot.

We managed it, somehow. The entire pile hasn’t been moved, weather intervened, but I can move the excavator around now to finish the deep end.

So once the rectangle is completed I will go back and slope the walls for the planting area. Make it a more organic shape. Then comes the lining with bentonite. That will be the toughest job yet. Once that’s done though, nothing but plants and parties.

Mulching the garden, my positive and really negative experiences

My beautiful niece and nephew came over to assist with some farm chores for cash. I picked a terrible one for them. I tend to pick pay tasks by how little I actually want to do them. I have a 5 year old hay bale in the lean-to I’ve been picking away at over the years. I finally want it out of there and moved to the garden areas for mulching.

I love mulch for it’s ability to suppress weeds (as I’m a lazy gardener) and it’s ability to hold in moisture. I’m terrible at watering too. My tomatoes and peppers are valuable to me. There is nothing like home canned spaghetti sauce and salsa. I need these things to really take off. So mulching them is worth paying for, and not hauling hay, more so.

I am nervous about this though. I mulched our largest garden last fall in the hopes of suppressing a lot of weeds. What we got instead was an infestation of ground squirrels. When dead babies started showing up we actually worried about the plague. That garden has been completely abandoned at this point. It did have a high point though. One snowy day we looked out the window to find this:

Isn’t it the most glorious stoat you’ve ever seen! That little stoat spent a week murdering every ground squirrel it could find. We haven’t seen one in that garden since. Hasn’t stopped me from abandoning the garden though. The ground squirrels will repopulate the tunnels, it’s just a matter of time. Still, we have some anti-squirrel around and that feels pretty darn amazing.

So you can see why I would be rather nervous about mulching the new gardens. It is done though, or at least part of it is. The tomato and pepper part at least.

Nice in progress picture. It’s a tire surround and makes the entire thing a raised bed. Tomatoes in the middle and peppers in the tires. Nice soaker hose running through the entire thing.

I made sure to leave plenty of room around my tiny plants. They would be larger but I prune off most of the leaves and plant them as far up the stem as possible. I had amazing results with it last year and I’m not messing with success!

Stay tuned for a story about the sleep over hysteria that followed this mulching chore!

Peacock Hatch 2016

We have had awful luck hatching peacocks over the years. The first year they each hatched 2 only to have them both die. I later learned it was from Coccidosis. So, the next year I took the eggs right before hatch. I medicated them and when they were old enough, released them. They all disappeared for one reason or another. This year I’m going to let the moms hatch again. I haven’t quite decided how to give medication yet. Do I pen the lot of them up? Seems foolish. When the moms are too close they peck each others young.

Regardless of my indecision the babies are coming. At least 3, I hope more.

My best hen is setting in her usual spot, atop a moldering alfalfa bale. I daren’t move it lest she pick a more coyote accessible spot.

Prince has been quite attentive to the eggs. Frighteningly so. He was guarding them in between her visits to lay. Whenever I would go to have a peak he’d fly over and give me a look of displeasure. He’s still on guard, now over his hens.

This silly little girl is determined to stay on top of the board we put up to keep them off. Best laid plans and all. I suppose it’s high off the ground so at least she’ll be safe.

Here is hoping for a few blackshoulder chicks this year. Mostly hoping for chicks that live.