3 Down, 1 To Go

This morning we left our 3rd farm stay in central California and started the trek to our final farm stop in Arizona. We’ll take a week to get there and explore a good bit of southern CA along the way.

If you’ve been following along, you know that the main focus of this past farm was goats. We both learned how to milk goats by hand and AC learned how to trim hooves. And, on our last full day, we got goat-wrangling experience when those little escape artists found their way out of their paddock and into the driveway.

Our host, Lorraine, was good about teaching us other “homesteady” stuff, too. Here are some highlights:

• She showed us how she makes cheese.
• We made a batch of soap together.
• AC and I started some seeds for her fall garden.
• AC brewed up some essential oils.
• We constructed bat houses (mostly in an effort to get them out of her barn, but also for pest control).
• Speaking of pest control, AC learned how to trap ground squirrels.
• I read a great book on permaculture and got recommendations for other titles to add to our farm library.
• AC learned a bit about pruning when she helped a neighbor cut back his pear trees.
• AC made some compost and we learned a bit about vermiculite (worm compost).
• Lorraine catches water off the roof of her chicken coop and uses it to water her chickens and goats. We’ve talked a lot about using water catchment on our land and will employ this method with some tweaks!

As with all of our experiences thus far, we also learned a few things we would do differently such as building our chicken coop in a way that is easier to clean, nixing roosters, and having higher fences.

One of the big highlights of the trip was hanging out with neighbor Pat. Pat is Irish and has the foul mouth to prove it, but he is also a super skilled builder! He was a general contractor and hand-built some remarkable structures on his land. His greenhouse was beautiful–all white with an upper wall made purely of functioning windows that can be opened for air flow on hot days. He doesn’t garden anymore and his greenhouse now serves as an outdoor dining room–that’s how nice it is! He also built a massive, breathtaking barn. It has three stalls for his horses, a sleepable loft, and lots of storage. Even his chicken coop was inspiring! To top it off, Pat’s land was clean and tidy. We’ve noticed that a lot of homesteaders tend to “collect” anything that they think might be useful in the future and, sometimes, their yards get a bit cluttered. Not Pat’s. New goal: be like Pat.

Until next time,

Charli