Eggs!

Here's the eggs our chickens have laid so far. To celebrate Kori going to Florida tomorrow, and to showcase our eggs, I cooked a special dinner of Spaghetti Carbonara using all of the eggs. It was delicious, although I need to find another source for proscuito. It cost $10 at Safeway for enough to make one course of pasta. Ridiculous, as I would have payed that much for a Kilo in Italy. Oh well....

Hydroponic update

Here's an updated picture of the ebb and flow system. Almost all the plants that have been transplanted are doing very well on 1/2 strength nutrient. The 400W Metal Halide (MH) bulb is 24 inches above the top leaves. I definitely had it too close when I switched lights from fluorescent to HID, and it burned some of the smaller leaves, but they all seem to be recovering nicely. I also transplanted all of the tomatoes in 8" pots to 5" pots so there is more room in the grow tray. PH is being maintained around 6.5 as far as I can tell. I have a digital meter on order that will give me more precise readings.

We started a lettuce/ salad green mix today. The goal of this project is to see how cheaply we can grow hydroponic salad greens. The seeds were free from heirloom seeds, the tray is recycled, and the jiffy peat pellets that the seeds are planted in cost $2.79. Of note, is that I forgot to buffer the water to start the seeds, and that the seeds are so tiny that there are probably from 3 to 8 per pellet. They are being stored in a dark place, on a heat mat for the next couple of days.

Transplants

We put the plants in the ebb and flow hydroponic system tonight. The 40 gallon reservoir is full of 1/2 strength vegetative nutrient. The light has been moved up several inches to help the transplants. The 12 net pots are full of the expanded clay pellets with the transplants in the center of the pot. It appears that our 4' x 4' watering tray can handle 16 8" net pots. We will probably also try to grow one of our tomato's in the easy grow system. Currently, our watering cycle is:
12:00 - 12:20
06:00 - 06:20
12:00 - 12:20
15:00 - 15:20
18:00 - 18:20

Here's some pictures from the pig roast. First Brandon, Ian and I dug a pit in the sand, next we filled it with rocks we collected on the property. Friday night, Brandon, Bob and I threw all the pinion stumps in the hole and lit them on fire around 9:30. We let them burn down to coals until 12:30 AM Saturday. Around 11:30 Brandon and I prepped the pig, which consisted of rubbing it down with salt and stuffing the cavity with garlic and onions. We put down a layer of wire, followed by wet burlap, and then several layers of Ti leaves. Then we took it out to the fire and dug some of the red hot rocks up. We placed 4 or 5 inside the cavity, and set some aside. We then wrapped up the pig/leaves/burlap inside the wire, and put it down on top of the hot rocks. Next, the rocks that we had put to the side we put around and on top of the pig bundle. A piece of 4 x 8 plywood went on top of the hole, and around 1:30 we finally got it sealed by burying the edges with sand dug up from the pit. Brandon deserves a lot of credit. He was a huge help! Without him, there would have been no pig roast. Thanks Brandon! Whew!! time for bed.

Small Scavengers

I guess I forgot to put the lid on the can for the chicken feed this morning. When Brandon went out in the evening to feed them for me he found these three small "dinner guests" in the bin. They are the cutest little things aren't they?

Soda Lake

We took a drive around Soda Lake. It was unexpectedly beautiful, despite all the wrecked cars at the bottom. Molly had a blast randomly swimming around. Our house is about 1/2 mile the way Brandon is facing.

emigrant trail

We stopped by the emigrant trail marker today, took a picture and uploaded it to panoramio.com. It will be included as a link in Google earth. The trail marker is at the far east end of our property. You can read about the trail here, and here.

Ted and Jo

Local celebrities and our neighbors, Ted and Jo came over and had Gumbo with us last night.
They have a web page at: tjs-djs.com

Pellet Stove

We bought our pellet stove and hearth on 24 Sep 07, and had it installed and operational two days later. It took a few trips to the hardware store to get it plumed, but it was done before the first frost. Total cost was $3,232.52. Pretty expensive, but we think it will pay off in the long run. It has a thermostat set for 65 F, and it is on a timer, so if it is colder than 65 F in the house, it comes on at 5:15 AM and turns off at 9:00 AM. Then it comes back on at 7:00 PM and turns off at 10:00 PM. Pellets cost $240 for 1 ton, or 50 x 40 lb bags. Each ton of pellets is supposedly equal to 1 cord of firewood. So far we are very happy with the stove. It's a little noisy as it feeds the pellets, but not obnoxious. It does an awesome job of heating the house and there's nothing like waking up to a warm fire. Plus we are saving big on our propane bill.

Seedlings

The seeds are starting to come up! Today I started feeding them a weak solution of Olivia's cloning/rooting solution. (1/2 a cup nutrient to one gallon water)

Grow lights

I picked up a 2 bulb 40W shop light fixture @ $10, and two GE plant and aquarium bulbs @ $10 ea. and set them 3" over the top of the seedling tray. It's on a timer set for 18 hours on and 6 off. I will hook it up to my kill-a-watt meter and see how much it cost to run a day vs the 400 W High Pressure Sodium light. Also, I can see lots of little white roots down in the growing medium, which means lots of seedlings soon!

what I've been doing...

I am thoroughly enjoying being in a place of our own. I hope that when everything is situated and I find a job that I still have some time to enjoy my photography and drawing and to continue learning to knit. My days start at sunrise, which is beautiful here, when I go out and feed the chickens and turkeys while Brandon gets ready for school. After one of us takes him to the bus stop I will let it warm up a bit and go and water the plants and the fruit trees that we planted. My biggest problem is keeping the chickens and turkeys from eating all of my young plants - today they totally denuded a chili pepper plant that we had growing! I have put chicken wire over my "baby" lavender plants, but they step on top of it and crush them. It is definitely getting easier to think of them as a food source - and I don't just mean eggs.

I am hoping to set aside one corner of the shop for me - my drawing and related items. I really don't want our sunroom to turn into the room where we put everything that we don't want in the house.

sprouts!

We have sprouts! Several basil seeds and one tomato seed have sprouted, and it's only been two days! They are still on the heat pad, drinking buffered water, and have natural light. Hopefully tomorrow, they will start on a 50% rooting solution, and I'll be able to rig up the grow lights.

Ceiling Fan

I installed the ceiling fan tonight. It's a very nice unit, 5 blades with a remote. I got it on sale at Home Depot, discounted from $189 to $89. It's mounted over the top of the pellet stove, so when it runs in reverse, it will help to distribute the heat throughout the house.

Cutting Firewood

Brandon and I cut firewood with Bob Frew and his father-in-law . We went on the east side of Fairview Peak around 6,000'. In the background you can see some snow left from the storm Thursday. We filled the white Toyota with pinon stumps, planning to burn them in the pig pit. We went to lunch at Middlegate Station, where Brandon ate the 1 lb. "Monster" Burger.

Started Seeds!

Put 1 seed each in starter tray.
3 x 12 heirloom tomato varieties
5 x 2 basil varieties. Italian large leaf and a variety we brought from Sicily
4 x cilantro

placed on heating mat and covered with the dome.

Tomato seeds were from Heirloom Seeds.

Starting Hydroponics Supplies

I stopped by Anything Grows Hydroponics in Reno to pick up some supplies to start our heirloom tomato and basil seeds.
Purchased:
12 x 8" net baskets @ 3.50 = 42.00
PH test kit @19.98
propagation dome@ 4.98
heating mat @27.98
ready grow seeding tray @ 16.98
50L hydroton expanded clay pellets @ 30.98
Total with tax: 153.44