The chicks got their first dirt bath and the whole scene effused with well being. Between the little chick by itself who doesn’t know how to do it, the one who can’t not fall asleep, and the extreme contentment of the mom.
Way too Comfortable
Brooding
We had another broody hen this year. Only 1 of the fertilized eggs we gave her made it, so quick thinking Nicole went to the store and got a few more chicks. The hen adopted them all and has been a great mom. We gave them separate quarters so the rest of the flock can get used to them without being able to attack them. It is absolutely brutal what mother hens have to go through, beyond the deprivation of not leaving her eggs for almost a month. Separate quarters is a must or I’d personally murder the rest of the flock. Friends of our told us that their broody hens leave the flock. It’s literally safer for them to sleep in the woods with coyote, fox, mink, hawk, bears, racoon, fisher, skunk, …., than it is to stay within their flock.
Esther is enamored with the baby chickens, but mom won’t let her get too close.
Accidental Belgium
Microplots
I built a website for running experiments in collaborative drawing. It’s pretty neat and I’m not going to describe it just yet, but in the process of testing it, I threw at it all kinds of plots I had at the tip of my fingers, and it yielded some pretty cool results.
I may have here my next plotting streak: microplots. Some look predictably bad as they were meant as stress tests, but some came out well enough to make me curious.
More to come on all this soon…
Made it to the Other Side, again
A couple of years ago we built a small bridge that let me take the ATV to the other side of the land. I was just able to take the tractor over it, after 7 years of pushing for it.
I’ve been working on trails back there, and the tractor will be a huge help. Not only that, but I’ve also been able to take the ATV with the big trailer up the hills, loaded with lumber. This means we can start considering building there. I wish I had more time for this, trail building is just fun. Alas, it competes with more important projects.
Nicole’s Gardening Pro Tip
Tomato Hornworms are much easier to spot at night under a UV light:
Protected: Aerial Acrobatics
Out of the Ground
Nicole pulled this year’s garlic from the ground, it’s now in the sugarhouse to dry.
They’re pretty big, hopefully just as tasty.
Every Day
We get a good 10lbs of blueberries every single day. It’s hard to keep up with all the harvesting, processing, gifting and eating. Next year the operation will most likely be turned lucrative.
This season, I can safely say that we have enough berries for our family’s generous yearly consumption. It got me thinking about all the things we solely provide for ourselves. Heat, electricity, water, maple syrup, garlic. These are all major sources of pride, savings, and resilience. Blueberries and currants can definitely be added to the list this year, it took 6 years of tending to the frailest sticks in the ground to get there. As with many things around the homestead this year, we are finally reaping the rewards, and they are plentiful.
This year’s canning label
Soon, we’ll be harvesting en masse from Nicole’s massive garden. We might have other staples to add to the list then. Others like cider are close but not quite 100% self produced yet. Although we don’t particularly seek autonomy as an endpoint, it is pleasant where we have achieved it. It all feels unreal sometimes, that our decade old typical silly dream of leaving the city for greener pastures, could end up being so fully incarnated.
Corroded Temperature Sensor
For a couple of days, we struggled to keep batteries charged even though Sun was plentiful. Quick investigation revealed the charge controller taking pauses for no apparent reason.
I looked at the charge controller’s screen which had some sort of fault, the manual wasn’t particularly helpful but the screen did show that the battery temperature sensor was reporting 67°C, which was absurd (and checked by hand).
The culprit was the sensor, which held against the batteries inevitably got acid water splashed on while refilling the batteries.
The charge controller does not need to know the battery temperature, but it is better for charging decisions and fault protection. So it can simply be unplugged for a bit, but also… I actually have been slowly accumulating double our solar setup, 18 more panels, 1 more charge controller, 1 more inverter, and all the bits and pieces to put them together. We are slowly getting our ducks in a row for an electric car and this currently not deployed expansion is for it. In any case, I just grabbed the sensor from the extra charge controller and plugged it in and ordered another one. It’s nice to have backups of everything too :).
I also added to the monitoring script so it would bark if no amps were coming in during day hours, this really should never be the case.