Weeding, Planting, Solar Hot Water, Feeding Cows, Chicks

I haven't posted since Monday!  Are you missing the updates?  We've been so busy working that there hasn't been time to post.  It's been a full week of planting, weeding, chicks, feeding cows, and a new solar water heater.

Every day we're working long and hard in the garden.  Here is the garden a few weeks ago, so full of weeds that we had to re-cultivate the whole thing before planting.   After one of us pushed the wheel cultivator through the row several times, another would come behind with a hoe to get the big stuff that survived.  Finally, I came through with seeds. 

With 40+ rows to work, each 50 feet long, it's been a big job.  We have accomplished a lot, and we have the sore muscles to prove it.  It's looking like a garden now instead of a weed patch. We've planted sweet corn, grain corn, squash, carrots, green beans, dry beans, peppers, tomatoes, turnips, beets, watermelon, and zucchini.  I'm still not done. 

Our big excitement this week was having a solar hot water system installed.  This system uses tubes with a metal core that heat up in the sun, and the water runs through the top header to gather the heat from the metal.  With the water flowing, it can go to pretty low temperatures before it freezes up, down to -30ºF ambient temperature.

We've looked into solar hot water before and the price was $8,000-10,000.  This system was only $3,600.  We expect to recoup the cost in 3-4 years.

We are desperately low on hay for the cows.  This was our first winter and we under-estimated how much hay we needed.  We went into the winter with two loads, about eight tons.  That ran out in March.  We bought another half load, expecting the new season's hay in May.  But it's been cold and hay still isn't available.  In May we bought some crazy expensive bales at a local farm store.

We were also hoping that our pasture could support the cows from mid-May through mid-July, but that's not working out either.  We have about one acre in pasture, but Christina alone could eat that.  It's been a lot of learning this first season.

So we're low on hay, we're expecting some in a week or two, we don't want to buy any before then, but Christina doesn't have enough to eat, and her milk production shows it.  So we're supplementing her diet with the back yard.  She *loves* the fresh grass.  She eats the weeds too.  The girls like walking her around the yard.  It's a bit of hassle because we don't want her to wander freely, but we may keep it up and let her mow the lawn for us.

Our baby chicks are "feathering out" and getting big.  They are flying to the edge of the brooder, our signal that it's time to move them to the coop.  But the coop needs cleaned out before we can move them.  In the meantime, we laid boxes over the top to give them a "lid." 

Every day begins with assessing what is most urgent, then we work our tails off while stuff only slightly less urgent waits.  It's hard for me to work so hard and have so much left that needs done.  I self-talk that it won't be much longer, but I wonder...