Living in the Wyoming countryside
Yes, another picture post of our snow harvesting.
The snow was deep. About 8 inches. The kids really loved it. Mostly
I was totally impressed with my snow collection though.
That’s a 3 foot deep krater filled to the top.
And the swales are even with the berms. So about 3 feet of snow collection there as well.
Earthworks are a total success!
The commercially farming neighbor isn’t keeping any of this moisture.
Last winter I had a good attempt at growing apple trees from seed. I actually did a pretty good job until summer, when I no longer watered my tree seedlings and they all died. This time around I will have more time and hopefully will not repeat my mistakes.
I’ve found the hardest part is finding pear seeds at all. Most of the store bought pears I’ve gathered have 0-1 seeds in them. I was lucky, though, and found organic pears from Colorado at our local King Soopers. Naturally, I bought two of each variety. They had a lot of seeds in them so I’m hopeful of success.
So, just like apples I cut the pears up, divided out the flesh to the kids and collected the seeds. I cleaned them and placed them on a clean paper towel in a plastic cup. Then I add a small amount of water to the paper towel, put the cups in a plastic bag and wait. I find times vary by seed, though 2 months is pretty standard. I check weekly to removne any molding seeds and plant out germinated ones. Once you see a nice root growing you simply plant out to compost filled plastic cups, water and voila, easy peasy.
Winter is a slow outdoor season for obvious reasons. I’ve had to do some pest proofing of various trees and bushes but for the most part we just wait for snow and then marvel at the resulting white. December I begin spring planning. Last years planning involved a lot of tree purchasing and mapping out of various earthworks. Dreams of our greenhouse, pergola and water harvesting mechanisms were also included.
We accomplished some of those tasks this year along with a lot of tasks that weren’t pre-planned. This year we managed the following:
Gosh, I’m getting tired thinking about the things we did this year. Still a lot to accomplish though. The major projects I had wanted to get done this year were not done. Now that I am not working these will be at the top of my project list. The pergola, the greenhouse and starting all fruit trees from seed. Because of the loss of my income I’m going to make a real push at growing my own from seed and growing root stocks to graft from the successful experimental trees.
Also on the list is improved food production in the kitchen garden and we are planning to butcher the pigs at home . I am trying not to set us too many tasks as house maintenance often surprises us. I know we need to repaint the house and probably caulk the windows ASAP.
One major project I want to take on is building a natural swimming pond that is also going to collect roof water. I admit, that will probably be #1 on my list. Stay tuned for that. I have a habit of over doing ponds. Hopefully this one will be sealed better than the last one I dug.
Other than that I’m preparing the basement now for the kids and for seedling growing. I’m also managing our permaculture group. Whoo. I’m glad I quit my job now. I’m going to be BUSY!
Most moisture that arrives to us arrives in the form of snow. It also arrives at about 60 m.p.h. Blowing snow is what I set out to catch and the swales/berms and kraters have proven they are capable of catching it. The best part of that is that they then keep the snow melt in place as they were made for water harvesting.
The snow we had over Thanksgiving was not blowing. In fact it was a beautiful snow, soft, powdery and almost straight down. While our earthworks naturally filled with snow it was not anything that flat land couldn’t have done. So, what surprised me about this snow harvest is that the clover caught it. Acres of tall sweet clover that annoyed us all summer has done wonders at collecting snow.
Mowed contour with clover on both sides
We decided to experiment with this clover, which we did not plant but have in abundance. Husband mowed decently on contour. At least he was able to do some experimental lines, N, S, E, W and an X patter before a loose fence wire got caught in the mower. Then it snowed and everything was a mess. So some mowing was accomplished but not as much as we would have liked. We thought where he mowed would collect blown snow and the remaining, tall clover would assist in keeping it from blowing it away. We may still be right about that but what it did was show us how much tall plant matter can collect and keep at it’s base.
This clover has been interesting to us. It arrived gradually and now we have roughly 35 acres of it. It grows extremely tall. So tall in fact that our ducks often get lost in it. While hunting them down one day in the car we disturbed two deer, which we wouldn’t have seen if they hadn’t started jumping, as the clover was taller than they. This clover is a food for so many animals, our own included. I just hate how tall it is, how smothering it is to the plants I want and how it destroys our mower when we do mow it. Also, it hides those pesky rabbits from predator view.
We caught way more snow than the wheat field behind us.
Still, if it gathers a lot of snow and keeps it on our property I suppose this clover invasion is a blessing, though a mixed one.
This majestic and unintelligent dog certainly loves the snow.
I loved how the different outdoor elements were iced over. This is a clump of grass.
I thought the garden gate I made from a crib mattress looked beautiful all iced up.
I have worked full time for an amazing couple for the last six and a half years. I love my job. It’s varied and interesting. I’m the only employee so I have an amazing amount of freedom to do whichever task I would like to do at a given time. This job has enabled me to buy hundreds of trees and bushes. This job has been something I’ve truly loved.
So, why am I leaving? Our kids. They have been happy in their childcare center and I have been happy with it as well. That is no longer the case. I do not want to move them to a different center. Our oldest will be in kindergarten next year and he does not take to change well. When we weighed our options it became clear that the best thing to do was stay home with our children.
However, I see it more as the eventual career shift we knew I’d be making happening just a bit faster than planned. We always knew that when the farm was stable I’d quit to farm full time. We aren’t there yet. We only have 5 acres planted, so many more to go. My time has been quite stretched though. There were times this spring when I wasn’t sure I could do everything I was doing. I am relieved to know that I will not have to split time between the farm and my day job any longer. I’m also relieved to have before and after school care figured out for our Son.
I’m not all that sure how I will do things yet. Daughter doesn’t much like being outside. I’m not sure where she gets that from. So I’m not sure how I’ll manage all my chores with her. I’m excited to figure it out though. I’m excited to start a new chapter of our life. I’m excited to be able to devote my time and attention to our trees and plants.
She fell in some mud at the barn and was SOOOOO mad!
Things will be slower now. I’ll be growing more from seed. I’ll be grafting from the trees I have established already. I’ll be more restricted with financial resources. I’ll be so freed up on my time though, I think it will even out. I can finally dig that pond we need for irrigation and the pond we want for swimming. I can build more Kraters. I can build a giant hugelkulture to block wind where it’s needed. I can do so many things now.
So this winter I’ll be focusing on the house. It has been sadly neglected and I fear I am going to be purging vast amounts of useless stuff. I’ll be turning our unfinished basement into a winter play area for the kids. I’ll be finishing the kitchen (I hope). I’ll be very busy this winter.
So stay tuned for interesting things to begin happening on the farm!
Also, pig pets!
I’ve been intensely interested in how much snow our Kraters may collect. They’ve done pretty well with rainwater collection and I assumed they’d fill with blowing snow, but wasn’t sure. The results are in after our first snow.
Deepest Krater with pawpaw island. Had about a foot of snow all around.
Largest Krater in circumference. Snow only collected on one side.
Goji Krater, did the absolute best. For some reason this Krater is just in an ideal location. It always collects the most water, the plants here did the best and it collected the most snow. I’ll have to think and observe why this krater has done so well.
Just for fun here are a few more pics of our first snow collection and fun:
This is our newly renovated driveway drainage ditch. Filled about 3 feet with snow.
This is another driveway drainage earthwork and the path from the garage to the ditch filled pretty well with snow. Enough for the kids to enjoy fully!
As you can see from this pic the snow blows and sometimes we will have 0 snow on large amounts of the property as there is nothing to catch and keep it. We experimented with our earthworks, which work well, and also selective mowing of our incredible sweet clover sections. Selective, on contour mowing harvested a ton of snow. It was far from the house, and the kids were happy where they were, so I didn’t get pics of this. I’ll try to later on.
My kids are so adorable!
I convinced them to go to the barn to feed the pigs and they did this while I was busy doing chores.
Our akbash is such a weirdo. He doesn’t know what to do with the pigs. He just stood there wagging his tail and doing this high pitched whine that the pigs didn’t like at all.
Such cute little piggies! Getting friendlier every day.
Meanwhile, thanksgiving dinner keeps threatening me.
