The Concussion Cart
Ma here. A few years ago, Pa spotted this cart in the road ditch on a trip into the city. We determined if it was still there when we drove back by it would be ours. Well, it was, and it got dropped on my head loading it into ole Blue, earning it it’s name. Continue reading
The girls were practicing their gift wrapping skills.
Sorry I am late yet again but it has been one heck of a busy last couple of weeks around the OKA. The good news is I have a huge update for you this evening and there are more in the pipe mostly in the way of bee related videos and pics but more on that later. Continue reading
We are so stoked to have them. Jujube, apple, pear, plum, blackberry, raspberry, blueberry, grapes, muscadine, mexican plum, hackberry, honey locust, black locust, fruiting dogwoods, autumn olive, Hanson’s bush cherry, hardy kiwi, persimmon, chokecherry, currants, mimosa and hawthorn are just the tree and shrub species that will be available to them. I would venture to guess there isn’t another place with this kind of diversity anywhere near here and it ought to make for some seriously interesting honey.
Thank you again Mr and Mrs Wadulisi for letting them stay with us.
Well, that’s about all I got, take it easy.
Pa
Conetainers Planted full of tree seeds.
I made friends with a guy from down under, a fellow permie and an aficionado of all things nitrogen-fixer. We’ve made a couple trades and this go round I ended up with some varieties that are going to be questionable at best for the climate here on the farm. Continue reading
I saw these Rooter Pots a while back and thought I might like to give them a shot. I made the purchase and then researched them. I didn’t find much on them so I hope that’s not a terrible thing. They are basically a special built tool for air layering. I have tried with a plastic bottle and I have tried with plastic Continue reading
Autumn Olive Leaves and Blossoms.
I hear so much stuff about invasive plants. “Oh you don’t want to plant that it’s invasive!” or “You better get a jug of RoundUp! That stuff will take over.” About a year or so ago I found a plant growing in the woods across the road and inquired on social media as to what it was. It turns out the only right answer that I got was from a Kansas University Plant ID Twitter account. That person told me it was the “Dreaded Autumn Olive” Continue reading
Our temporary makeshift rain catchment.
Ma and I have been hard at work around the farm getting things ready for the upcoming growing season. I found an ad from a friend on facebook that had these lick tubs for sale for $5 each. They will serve as a good part of our water catchment until we get something a little more permanent and then we can use them for tree planters and who knows what else. Maybe a water feature in the food forest. Hey, that’s an idea!
Ma here, I’m about a week late with this post. We sure have a lot goin on here on Off-Kilter Acres, so I hope you will forgive me. Everyone meet TG – our lone turkey. Continue reading
The “before” shot of the area we worked on today.
I have been so stir crazy with the spring taking its time getting here that just about every waking minute is spent thinking about permaculture, thinking about all the fruit trees and berry bushes and garden veggies that I have to plant that it’s just about to make me go crazy. But today at lunch I remembered a project that we talked about, and actually started, before we were plunged in to the Continue reading
http://www.takepart.com/article/2013/11/14/fsma-public-comment-period-about-close
This is ridiculous! I don’t find it to be troubling just because we are farmers that do things this way I find it troubling because it just completely goes against the grain of the way things are meant to work. Imagine for a minute a blackberry bush that you find growing in a treeline or pasture, how and where did it’s fertilization come from, who cares for it? Aren’t those berries some of the sweetest and best tasting berries ever? Sure they are! How did they get to be that way? I can tell you how they got to be that way.
Mother Nature has systems in place to afford plants the right things to make them bountiful. The birds and rodents that help themselves to the berries before and after you get there to harvest a few clean up the mess and fertilize the soil, the plant it self works to build it’s own mulch when the leaves and canes fall and the soil organisms team up with them to break it all down. No one goes out there with a jug of round up and fertilizer to “care” for the berries, they just do their thing, thanks to Mother Nature and her time tested methods.
We have teamed up with Mother Nature and try to use her methods here on Off-Kilter Acres every chance we get. One way we do that is by letting our animals, namely our chickens, ducks and a turkey do a lot of the work for us. We don’t need a running tiller as long as we have our birds. Not only do they work the soil, they provide a massive amount of manure to enrich our soil and they are one of the best pest reduction tools that has ever existed, not to mention they provide us with protein in the form of eggs.
Now why in the world would anyone try to buck this system? After all it’s been time tested for thousands and thousands of years, only in the last 100 years or so have we as humans decided that chemicals are the way to go. They make it easy right? Sure they do but they are not sustainable, none of the Big Ag methods are. So what is the hook you ask? The hook is the almighty dollar and they are attempting to scare you into paying them. Nothing sells like fear and they are trying to convince us that a little chicken poop is going to make us sick or is somehow unsafe to be on the same farm where you food is grown. Thanks, but no thanks Uncle Sam, I’ll take my chances with poop as opposed to your carcinogenic chemistry.
Plant a tree people, grow your own groceries, shop at farmers markets or buy from people you know that grow their own food it’s the only way stop this insanity.
Off-Kilter Acres 