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April Update to The Bar 1 Homestead

Another month down and one month closer to getting the homestead started!  We still do not know when we are leaving Jordan yet, still waiting on orders, and a definite location for that matter!  Still thinking I will be somewhere in the DC area but not sure exactly where!  We have started to lock a couple things down for the homestead. We ordered the bee hives and they have arrived at the house!  Two Warre hives is what we decided on.  I have not locked in the bees yet which is starting to concern me the later it gets but I cannot do that without knowing exactly when I will be back home to receive them and get them settled in!  Hopefully we get orders this week and I can contact my gaining unit to get some things locked in so I can order the bees. 

We have also locked in our two feeder pigs for this year.   We are purchasing them from the Haffner Family Farms in Eagle Bend Mn.  They are running a farm similar to what I would possibly like to see ours doing some day.  Becky has been a pleasure to work with, they sell feeder pigs as well as pasture raised pork and lamb among other items.  You can see what they offer at http://www.haffnerfamilyfarm.com/contact-us.html  They are good people.  We will probably end up picking up the piggies on the way back from picking up Lexi from UofM at the end of the school year. 

Our order of seeds also come in this week, no doubt in my mind we got way too much! 


 
Instant Garden
Options:
Instant Garden
Herb Collection
Size:
1 Collection
Organic Superior Licorice Mint
Size:
100 mg ~250 seeds
Connecticut Field Pumpkin Seeds
Size:
1/4 LB ~620 seeds
Organic Peredovik Black (oil) Sunflower
Size:
5 g ~65 seeds
Black Mammoth Sunflower
Size:
1 LB ~6,000 seeds
Alfalfa
Size:
5 LB ~975,000 seeds
Japanese Buckwheat
Size:
1 LB ~15,000 seeds
Rose Clover
Size:
1 LB ~270,000 seeds
White Dutch Clover
Size:
1 LB ~256,000 seeds
Large Red Cherry Tomato
Size:
~25 seeds
Little Marvel Pea
Size:
1 OZ ~100 seeds
Grain Sorghum
Size:
1 OZ ~1,000 seeds
Organic Bush Blue Lake 274 Bean
Size:
1 OZ ~75 seeds
White Proso Millet
Size:
5 LB ~400,000 seeds
Red Mammoth Mangel Beet Seeds
Size:
1/4 LB ~6,000 seeds

Not sure what we will end up planting this year however.  Most of what was ordered was with feeling chickens and pigs in mind as well as improving the pasture.  Terri and Lexi are responsible for the instant garden and Herb collection packets for our small garden area!  My brother in law Charlie is going to get about 1 Acre of our land on the homestead plowed over for me this spring (once I send him a map of what we want turned!), that is where the pumpkins and some of the Mangel seeds will be planted, those are mostly to help with winter feed for the Pigs and Chickens.  I am sure a good number of the pumpkins will end up as jack-o-lanterns as well however!   If I get the bees in time, we will plant the buckwheat as well to give them a little help getting started.   

The Alfalfa, and clover will be spread in the area behind the pigs when we move them before a good rain to see if we can get a small stand to take in order to improve what used to be the corral which is overrun with weeds currently.  We will plant the black sunflowers and some of the peas along the fence line of the small orchards, the hope with them is to be able to save the seeds from them for next year as well as produce a little to see how the chickens like them.  We need to wait and see what the neighbors are planting before we do too much planning with the sunflowers.  As we want to save seed we need to be careful of not cross pollinating,  meaning if the neighbors are doing sunflowers we will have to time ours differently or on a different property.  The neighbor by the homestead did sunflowers last year so pretty sure he will rotate crops this year  All in all I am sure we will get the first step of the learning curve to hit this year so we learn something for next year! LOL.

Now one future project I will need some help on if someone happens to have a little experience with it.  We have an old silo on the property.  We are trying to figure out what to do with it, we are thinking of sealing off the bottom 8 feet or so and making it into a smoke house.  Thinking it is maybe too much area to be able to do a hot smokehouse but even a cold smoke house would be pretty cool in my mind. Especially with the pork we plan on raising, nothing like a good smoked ham! If anyone has any experience with this I would very much appreciate any feedback you could give!  Below is a picture of the silo to help with any ideas!!



As always, thanks to everyone to checking out the blog, feel free to share if you have people with the same interests! 

And last thing, Happy Easter, He has Risen.

Travis

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