More barn destruction

The last week and a half has really flown by! We've been busy playing with the dogs, tearing down the barn and a quick visit from my sister who helped with some of the barn destruction. I thought I'd show some pictures so you could see some of the progress.

Rich finally got enough trees cut down that we could get close to the building. Here's a picture of the corner of the barn now that we can get close to it:



I told him I didn't want him to start pulling it down until I got home from work so I could take pictures. He was all set though with the chain wrapped around the corner post of the barn and the other end of the chain attached to the truck. Slowly he inched the truck forward and I could hear the wood crack and then...





Yeah, it wasn't dramatic. The corner post pulled away from the building but otherwise nothing really happened. The wood creaked and popped a little bit but otherwise the barn stayed standing.

Here you can see the front of the barn. The corner where the support is pulled out is barely sagging. That's because there was a huge beam that was still in pretty good shape holding it all up.



It ended up taking 5 attempts to really get any good progress. Here are some pictures from each attempt:













So, there are some pictures of the barn coming down. It wasn't all that exciting really.

We found a couple old glass pepsi bottles around the barn, as well as other gallon size glass jugs.


This is an action shot of my sister pulling apart more of the barn. She's pulling on the floor of the second story that's fallen down. She thought this was fun.


Inside the barn. This is a central hallway through the middle of what was the barn. There are little rooms or stalls on both sides. The roof is gone and this part fell in years ago. There are trees growing up in some of the rooms.


Another picture inside the barn.


We found this inside the barn. I'm not entirely sure it's empty.


Here's Jake exploring the inside of the barn. He's pretty fearless.

Meet Kimble

Our first new addition to the farm is Kimble. He's a year and a half old border collie mix that we adopted from a shelter up in Morganton. He was originally adopted by an 80 year old couple to be an outside watchdog but Kimble rarely barks and seriously loves everyone. He is completely wrong to be a watchdog but he's very smart and loving. We were looking for another border collie mix to keep Jake company and when Rich met Kimble he knew we had to adopt him. He's been with us since Friday and we've had a full weekend working with the dogs around the property.

I know a few of you are probably looking at that picture and saying to yourself, "That looks just like Jake!" If you aren't, you should be because the two dogs look amazingly similar. There are differences and when you see the dogs together it's easy to tell them apart.

Here's a picture of Jake for comparison:

I couldn't get them both to pose together but I'm sure you'll see them in future pictures around the farm.

Happy Chickens!

Today Rich and I went to the Small Egg on a Range Setting Field day that I mentioned a few days ago that was offered by the North Carolina Cooperative Extension office. Let me just start off by saying WOW, we were both impressed! The lectures in the morning were well thought out, lunch was great and the tour afterwards was over the top fantastic.

After a few opening remarks, introductions and a hearty welcome, our first presentation was delivered by Joe Moritz of West Virginia University about chicken diets. He reviewed a number of research projects that showed the effect of various diets and how range foraging affected the birds and their eggs. I've been trying to research about what to feed chickens but so much of what I'd found online was unclear and I was left more confused than ever. The information that Joe presented was immensely helpful to me and as his presentation finished I felt more confident than ever that I could figure out what feed to provide.

The second presentation was by Donna Carver of North Carolina State University about biosecurity and how to be a good neighbor. She covered the types of things to consider when raising chickens near neighbors and how to protect the birds from some of the common bacterium and viruses that they're susceptible to. I'd previously read some about this but I had no idea how serious it really was. I came away with more great information about preventative measures to take to protect our flock once we finally get one.

Ken Anderson of North Carolina State University spoke third about selecting breeds for meat and egg production in range conditions. I've been researching this as well and I was pretty sure I knew what type of birds I wanted. I didn't realize that there's more to consider than I originally thought and I need to go back to the drawing board to figure out what birds will best fit our goals. I'm sure I'll be using the web sites that Ken recommended to do more research before I order our first batch of chicks.

Our last speaker of the morning was Kim Decker of NCDA & CS and he spoke about how to market egg and meat products when you're a small producer. This probably affects us the least because we're primarily interested in keeping chickens for eggs for our own use but there was still tons of great information. He covered some egg laws in our state and talked about some of the business side of raising chickens.

After the speakers were finished, Joe Hampton of the Piedmont Research Station where we were currently touring told us about the lunch they'd prepared for us that day. We were having chicken! What else, right? We had chicken grown right there at the research station and it was fantastic. Here's a picture of Rich's lunch:



After lunch we had to suit up in tyvek suits to reduce contamination to the facility. We were the first group to tour in years because of the danger of contamination. Because this facility does some really important research, it's critical that the birds be protected. The suits included plastic boots and hairnets and we wore were oh-so-stylish. It was worth it though to see the chickens. Here's Rich modeling the suits before the tour:



Now we're finally to the really awesome part of the day - the tour. Joe Hampton was our tour guide and he has this infectious enthusiasm about the chickens and the research they're doing there. He's a great speaker, very knowledgeable about the facility and was very good at explaining things in a way that even someone like me without a background in poultry science could understand. We started with a tour of the hatchery, incubation and sorting building. Here's where I wish I'd taken a camcorder to record everything he said about the building, equipment and research because it was all fascinating. Instead, I've got a few pictures that I hope turned out well enough for you to get an idea of how cool this all was:

Joe is the guy in red talking about the incubators and hatchery:


The hatchery equipment is all computer controlled:


This is Ken showing us the trays where eggs are stored until they hatch:


Here's a picture of the processing room where the chicks are vaccinated, sorted and otherwise handled after they're hatched:


After seeing where the eggs are incubated and hatched, we moved on to the chicken house. This is where chickens are raised just like they are in commercial operations. These chickens are part of various experiments that take place at the facility. I wonder if this is how chickens were raised in the big barns on our property?

The chickens in this house were molting so they looked pretty rough. They're kept in close quarters in cages just like a commercial operation would use. They don't have much room to move around though and while chickens don't need a whole lot of space, it still seems like cramped quarters. Everything about this facility was clean and well maintained though and even though there was a bird smell in this building, it wasn't overpowering. Joe spoke a little bit about how increasing grain prices was affecting his budget because chicken feed had gone up 50% in the last year. The budget at the research station is set by the state and while they do sell some things to help cover their expenses, they have to be very careful about competing with the people they're trying to support in the industry. One woman on the tour asked how we could help the station and we were told to write to our government representative in the legislature to let them know that we want them to continue to support the research being done at this field station. I will be writing my letter this weekend!

And finally, happy chickens! Another part of the experiment was the compare the birds in the chicken house to birds raised on the range. This is a similar set up to what we want to do here on the farm, although on a much smaller scale. These looked like healthy, happy chickens. Nearby there were a couple of chicken tractors.











As if that wasn't enough, afterwards we got a tour of some of the horticulture experiments that are going on at the site. They're trying to breed strawberries that will grow during the winter here in North Carolina! How cool would that be?



I can't say enough good things about the field day at the Piedmont station. If you have a chance to attend one of these field days, it is definitely worth it!

Name Our Farm Contest

A couple of posts back I asked for farm name suggestions and my sister commented that I should be a good blogger and offer a contest with a prize. I'd already been thinking along those lines but her bringing it up prompted me to post about it again. So, here are the details of the contest.

Submit farm name ideas. There's no limit to what you can submit. I'll collect ideas until I get enough to choose from that I really like. I'll make another post in a couple of weeks with the top few names that we really like so you can see what we're choosing from. We'll make some sort of decision and announce the winner. The winner will get a chicken named after them. Don't worry - this'll be a laying chicken, not a meat chicken so you don't have to worry about your name sake being turned into pot pie right away.

The clean up continues

I haven't posted for a few days because it has been more of the same old thing. More mowing cutting down trees so we can get close enough to the barn to tear it down. Progress has been made though so I thought I'd give an update with a few new pictures.

Here's a picture of the side of the barn now that the trees have been cut down:

For the first time, we're able to actually get close to the corner of the barn to look inside...

This is producing lots of wood that Rich is cutting and stacking in the backyard to dry for the winter. Here's a picture of some of it in the back of the truck...

Help name our farm!

It's not much of a farm yet. Our only livestock are mosquitoes. The only things we've harvested were the result of plantings done long before we got here. Still, it will be a hobby farm soon. When I registered for the poultry class I was asked what the name of our farm was and I didn't have an answer! So, help us out and make any suggestions you can think of.

Thanks!

More clean up and barn pictures

I haven't had much to post lately because it's really just more of the same old thing. Rich continues to cut down trees and stack wood so he can even get close enough to the barn to start tearing it down. I went out tonight to take some more pictures because I could actually get close enough to the barn to see the side of it.

This picture shows the side of the barn now that enough trees have been cut down to see it. All the green in front of the barn are leaves from branches that haven't been cut up or hauled away yet.

I know this picture doesn't make much sense but this is really what it looks like in person too. The trees are holding up what little wall is still in place and there's wood falling down everywhere. A few more trees and hopefully it'll all fall over and we can just pick up the pieces. Surprisingly, some of the wood is going to be salvageable. We'll need to pull out the nails and trim some of the pieces but some of this can be reused.

Here's Jake. He loves it when we're outside working and he has fearlessly explored the barn and all around it.

Small Egg Production in a Range Setting Field Day

This weekend was full of more brush clean up. In addition to around the barn, Rich tackled the gigantic wild rose bush that divided the back field. This thing started out about the size of a small garage. The pictures didn't turn out but once everything is cleared I'll try to get something posted.

I registered Rich and I to go to a class about chickens. The North Carolina Cooperative Extension has a course listed called Small Egg Production in a Range Setting Field Day (http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/index.php?page=events&event_id=12740). It includes a few speakers and a field trip in the afternoon to view the research station. Since neither of us have any experience at all with chicken, except for cooking it, we thought this might be helpful. If you'd like to join us, it's only $25 for the day.

Brush cleanup

Rich spent most of the day trying to clean up the area around the barn so that he can even get close enough to it to actually start working. The back of the truck is full of wood he cut down or picked up off the ground and he cleared a large section of the yard. There's still enough brush that you can't quite see the barn unless you look very carefully through the leaves. The brush and junk trees used to be all the way to the patch of grass that still needs to be cut down or further so he made massive amounts of progress today.



That handsome black and white beast is my dog Jake. He loves all of this outside work and is a great mowing dog. While I'm driving around on the mower, he runs nearby to keep me company.





Another patch of brush that we've been working on is in the center of our circular driveway. There is a large tree stump and there was lots of brush. Rich managed to pull up one of the small tree stumps today. I'd really like to get this cleaned up so I can put in flowers next spring and maybe a weepy pink Cherry tree.

Things learned at the code department

1. Chickens are not allowed to live in the front yard.
2. Our front yard includes sections of land that no one considers our front yard. Front yards are determined by the road they are against, not the positioning of the house.
3. Hot tubs must be surrounded by a 4 foot fence.
4. Our property already has too many structures on it but the good news is, we're grandfathered. As long as I can document the number of structures on the property, we can tear down what we want and replace them.
5. The demolition permit will cover all the structures we want to tear down except the old house and the sweet potato barn.
6. Structures with no side 12' or longer do not require a permit of any sort. This is great news because the chicken coop won't be anywhere near this large. Permits are only needed if we run electric to the structure.
7. Permits aren't needed if the structure is classified as agricultural.

And, lastly, we learned the proper pronunciation of the side road next to our property. The sign reads, "JIM N 1". The permit lady kept referring to a street called "Gemini" and it was only when she printed a copy of the map she was looking at and pointed to the street that Rich realized that the "1" was really an "I" and someone was too clever for their own good. We've lived here for 6 months now and just today learned that we live at the corner of Puetts Chapel and "Gemini". Wow.

Tonight's projects were mowing and cutting up downed trees. Rich has to cut up some of the trees to even get close enough to the old barn to start tearing it apart. I mowed around the old barn and part of (what I consider) the front yard.

Black walnuts

We have three or four relatively young black walnut trees on the property. We weren't entirely sure what they were until they started growing walnuts and Rich pointed them out to me. There were some bad storms a few days ago so we went out today to pick up any walnuts that might have fallen. I think the squirrels might have picked up a few because I didn't really see many on the ground.

This was what I was able to pick up today:

Asparagus seeds

One of the discoveries on our property is that there is a small asparagus bed near the corner of the house. We were walking around the yard earlier today and noticed that the asparagus has gone to seed. At some point we'll have to work on the bed but for now there are more pressing issues to deal with.

Barn demolition and chicken coop dreams

I've been researching chicken coop plans for a few weeks now because I'd like to raise chickens starting next spring. I only want a handful of birds so most of the coop designs look relatively small. To save on the expense of building a home for the chickens I decided that we'd reuse as much existing wood on the property as possible. It just so happens that we have a very large barn that has fallen in that we need to clean up anyways.


This picture actually shows the one wall of the barn that is still standing. The rest of the barn has fallen in. The plan is to salvage as much wood as possible and to save the rest for a big bonfire this fall.

The first thing I did was to give my local building inspector's office a call to see if there were any permits that we'd need to finish tearing down the building. There is an application and a $75 fee. The office isn't open today because it's Labor Day but I'll send Rich over there tomorrow to fill it out so we're covered for the paperwork.

Welcome to the farm!

Rich and I have lived here for almost six months now so I thought it was about time I started some sort of blog to record our farm adventures. I'm a city girl so I really have no idea what I'm doing but I've got big plans for a garden and animals for next summer. Right now we're still in the cleanup stages and still trying to get accustomed to taking care of this much property.