My current home doesn't have a verandah or even a porch but I dream of owning a little farmette again, with a verandah overlooking chickens, goats and gardens. Absolute heaven!

Fence vs Windbreak... who won?

Hubby and I had a long talk tonight and made some decisions. Some aren't appropriate for the blog, but we also talked about money and what to do about the expensive fencing situation. We could do 100-300 feet of fencing at a time, per month, and finally get it done by Sept or October. But then if we spend all of our money doing that, we wouldn't be able to plant a windbreak plus all of the fruit and nut trees and bushes that we want.

The windbreak is important. The neighbors all tell us that there is NO time period of any season that doesn't have wind. It blows year-round, and not just little puffy breezes. Real stiff winds and major gale-like-forces. If we don't get the windbreak up, then our corn and fruit bushes, etc. don't have a chance of living, let alone producing. So within the next week or so, I'm ordering 100 privet hedge plants, 10 holly-bush plants, and 2 or more weeping willow trees. A few others too but I haven't completely decided.

Thanks to the advice of Anon and Linda earlier today. You helped a lot.

Might do the back fence next month ... so we will know where to rototill, and I can go on and plant the grape vines along it.

Then... we need to reinforce the fence around our "backyard" (to hold the goat pen, chicken coop, part of the veggie garden and our "relaxing area" with the picnic table etc.) The fence is 4 foot tall with welded-wire fencing. The two corn patches, the sunflower/cuke/watermelon patch and the amaranth patch will be outside of this section, and we'll just hope and pray that the rabbits leave it alone!

When we want the goats to help us "mow the lawn" (yes, I know they are browsers and not grazers), then we'll hook them up and hope they help out by eating the cactus and burrs, and leave lots of poop behind! Perhaps we should revisit the "goat tractor" idea.

The chickens ... if we have the time and energy and supplies, we'll make a chicken tractor and let them out of the coop into the tractor. That will help us with the bugs and greens and leaving fertilizer behind too!

The upstairs bedroom that the Kid just vacated is also going to be the home of more of our veggies and herbs and fruits than what we originally planned. I spent part of this morning arranging things, checking on my baby seelings, installing two "grow-lights" and figuring out we need a few more of them. I think it will work pretty well!

And we're going to work hard to save money and make extra money selling seedlings, etc. so we can get the fence put up by Autumn this year. Gotta get cracking on writing my various book projects too. (Note: compiling a book of "my very first garden" stories ... be sure to read the info at the top of this web-page and e-mail your story as soon as possible. It will be sold on Amazon.com and other places.)

Thanks for all of the input. Really appreciate it.

= = = =

For today, I did 3 loads of laundry, a load of dishes, made a crockpot full of beans/lentils/quinoa, met with another fencing person, gathered as much of the tax info as possible (missing 2 items) and made an appointment for tax prep for Sunday. Also got the Kid caught up on schoolwork. Yippee! Yep... busy day.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

About the only kind of fence that isn't expensive is barbed wire.

but it doesn't keep much in or out except large livestock. Deer just hop over a 6 foot fence.

Trashdigger said...

BTW once married and he supports them, their both of your kid.

Eric said...

If you notice rabbits near your outside the fence patch, have the kid go camping near them with a dog tied up near the tent.

Kids love to camp, dogs enjoy protecting. Win-win situation.