Livestock in the Yardstead

We have some new 'livestock' at our place.


The worms are settled into a bin in our basement.



We had a litter of 4 Florida White bunnies on Monday.

I have unloaded 4 yards of composted manure into the garden at the farm.

Things have been moving forward but I am feeling strangely in limbo. In between.

Wonderful Worms and Earth Day

The past 4(?) years my family has gotten together to celebrate Earth Day at ArkWorks Farm. I do not kid myself into thinking that the things we do are really making a difference for the earth, anymore than turning the lights off for an evening will slow climate change. I see globalization, capitalism and our species living well beyond our means as a raging wildfire sweeping across a tinderbox forest, Earth Day is me stepping on a single live ember of this fire; grinding it out under my heel and feeling self righteous for doing a good deed. If we grind out enough embers, as a society we may be able to effect change. Or maybe we just enjoy a day with our family doing some work outside and eating grilled home grown chicken!

For my family: on our agenda this weekend is wonderful worms! I will help you set up a worm compost bin and you can let the worms eat your garbage! Bring a medium sized plastic storage bin with a good lid to the Farm this weekend as a temporary bin.
First thing-how much garbage do you have? Plan for the permanent worm bin to have 1 sq ft surface for each lb of compost-able garbage per week. 5# of coffee grounds, egg shells or veggie scraps each week = bin foot print of at least 5 sq feet.
The bin can be as easy as a large plastic storage bin with some holes drilled in the side or wooden or the more expensive commercial bins like 'Can-O-Worms'. I have a book with lots of different plans and options for your viewing pleasure this weekend.
The bin should stay in a cool place like a basement or garage-they prefer temps 59-77 but will still work (but more slowly) at 50. They really do not like temps in the high 80's and up. Basement works best if you do not want them to freeze out over the winter.
I should be receiving the redworms in the next day or so and Saturday we can set up your temporary bins. The weather looks cooperative and there was NO mud last weekend, in fact it was much, much too dry. We are going to attempt our first overnight in the camper saturday night (IF I can get organized enough). Have a great week! Kris

Catch up time

It has been a long time since my last post! There have been alot of things going on--mostly between my ears :) I have been working out 5-6 days a week and it is both depressing and empowering. Depressing because at one point in my life I had lost nearly 50 lb and was lifting weights like a fiend-to the point where I was considering entering an amateur body-building contest. Now here i am again-nearly 40 with 50+ lbs to loose-but now with 2 kids, a business and a husband to care for ( he thinks he is self sufficient but he is not --haha). Empowering because I AM doing it. It is very hard to care for myself before others but I am getting the hang of it.

Working out has really helped me to stay in the moment, I suffer from anxiety attacks sometimes-when every thing seems so out of control. I have come to realize that these episodes of anxiety are the result of getting out of the moment-obsessing about next weeks or months work schedule, or thinking about ALL the things I should do around the house-instead of thinking about what I need to do TODAY. It really takes a concentrated effort to pull back once the anxiety cycle starts but a good session on the treadmill helps alot, its a walking (and running) meditation.

We had let the land search cool off and I think some time was what we really needed. Looking at some of these pieces of land helped us to define what it is we are looking for. I think we will wait for spring and offer to buy the property next to my Dad's place-it is not for sale now but it sounds like she is considering a move. I would like to be close to my family and DH is good with that as well. We would be able to help each other-him with kids getting off the bus and we can help him as he gets older. This is a significant departure from our original ideal of building an off grid home, but instead we can consider a remodel and it has a large barn and several outbuildings !! I am at peace with this idea -it feels right.

We are taking delivery of 1/2 grass fed beef in a week or two --i am excited about beef! Sorry Dad-we love your chickens but now we are ready to mix it up a little! We also have our garage as weatherproofed as we can get it and DH is wood working again-it is good to see him happy and not bored in front of the tube! The home made christmas gift workshop is up and running again! I'll post a few pictures after christmas -sorry family no peeking!

On a sad note my worms have passed on to the big bin in the sky! We had hundreds of fruit flies in our house and they were breeding in the bins-so the bins were put outside to freeze. Maybe the worm eggs will survive until spring. ??

Thanks for reading and stay warm out there! K

Meet the Worms

They have been talking chickens at the back forty and http://a-homesteading-neophyte.blogspot.com/; while I have no chickens right now, I do have livestock of a different sort. They are very low maintenance, they do not bother the neighbors, they do eat my childrens homework (and my junk mail), and all they ever give me is S**T! They are my red worms of course! They started as a dozen worms brought home from the Midwest Renewable Energy Fair (http://www.themrea.org/) two years ago by my then 5 year old. Last winter most of our food scraps went into the bin, then they moved outside for the summer and turned a large pile of last years used up 'potting soil' into great growing material again. Now the worms are back in the house in TWO bins. We are experimenting with using them to recycle waste paper in addition to waste food (anything but meat or fat). Any paper not brightly colored or shiney goes through the cross cut shredder and into the bins. We are using the resulting compost for flowers/ornamentals-not for food-so I am not so worried about the heavy metals, etc from the ink. Now instead of hanging on to EVERY piece of schoolwork the girls bring home (and they bring home ALOT) they love to shred the work and feed it to the worms-of course the 'masterpieces are saved for posterity! So far the only problem I am having is fruit flies! I had read that freezing the food scraps prior to placing in the bin would prevent the fly eggs from hatching, but it does not seem to be working. I loved Harvey's idea for worm bins in the greenhouse and worms fed to the chickens on the modern homestead site-K

Bread not Weapons

I DID IT!
Finally, my bread turned out. Okay so
I am using a bread maker but I was
turning out these incredibly dense 2 lb blocks of bread and I couldn't figure it out-checked water temp, added vital gluten. My children were eating it and pretending they liked it. My dear and horribly funny husband remarked that it was bread like this that won wars because it provided sustanance in addition to being used as a weapon! It was the yeast-dead, dead, dead. Another small victory!

Sorry squirrels, sorry worm bin -no more bread for you!