Lately I have been experimenting with new indoor growing methods. One I am working on now is called Fogponics and is a variation of aeroponics (growing without soil). Fogponics uses a nebulized nutrient mist generated by ultrasonic foggers.
Ultrasonic foggers require an optimal depth for good fog output. You can buy floats for between $10 and $25 or even higher. This video covers my DIY solution to this problem. The depth of water over the fogger is about 1.5 inches or so.
I am brainstorming on how to put together what we have done on our homestead, here on this site and elsewhere into a project that others can become invested in to facilitate a move to the next phase of food production here – a permaculture aquaponics greenhouse.
Stay tuned for more information as the project proceeds.
Today marks the one year anniversary of the EF4 tornado that devastated 40 miles of south central Massachusetts and which came very near our home.
We are marking the day quietly, solemnly.
We burned sage in the garden to begin to bring healing and to hope all beings are brought into peace and balance with less suffering.
Quail hatching here this morning!
Check out the Mother Earth News “Food Gardening” iPhone/iPad app.
It is a resource on how to grow various crops … Its free so check it out! I will be test driving it myself.
I am using my iPhone to compose this post so I apologize for any odd formatting.
This years kidding season has been a bit Trumatic here on the homestead. Our reliable milker Torte lost her babies in a miscarriage early on this winter. Spelty had been crushed in the goat shed collapse in October 2011 snowstorm. If she had been pregnant she lost it or was never able to get pregnant. That’s okay because her hips may not have been able to handle a pregnancy after healing from her crush injuries.
Luna and Ama kidded out twins each and they look awesome. Unfortunately Luna is rejecting her babies and her milk doesn’t seem to be very robust this year. Ama is having to milk or rather nurse all four babies. Ama has a ton of milk so that’s okay for now.
The really terrible news is that we lost Millet and her two babies to some sort of odd failure of her large intestines. She died on the first day of spring.
What all this means is that this year we only have one goat in milk so I’m going to put away the portable milker and we will milk her by hand and have hardly any milk. Hopefully next year we’ll have better success.
This is an extremely powerful video and Andrew Faust absolutely speaks for me
OCCUPY THE ECONOMY : Andrew Faust – Permaculture – OWS from TerraVisus on Vimeo.
Andrew Faust Permaculture Designer: HomeBiome.com
Costa Boutsikaris Filmmaker: TerraVisus.com
This October surprise snow storm dump 2 feet of wet clingy snow on the northeast and particularly on us. The
Night of the storm our goat shed collapsed and crushed/trapped one of our goats.
We found her weakly crying and slipping away. We pulled her out from under tons of shed and snow – was pushed down into muck. We rolled her onto a bed sheet and slid/pulled/lifted through 2 feet deep snow many yards and then into our dining room onto blankets. We covered her in blankets as well and fed her molasses water until she rehydrated enough to drink on her own. She began to eat grain and hay. She menaces passing cats who she doesnt like. She can not stand on her own – her back leg is not working, might be dislocated.
We now have to take her to the vet and i hope its a simple matter of joint reduction. Will share photos of that when it happens.
Am also sharing some photos below of a tiny bit of the vast amount of storm damage here. We have no power, no internet so i am having to post by iPhone.
This is the first post I am writing from my iPhone and I hope that it’s going to be helpful to give more recent snapshots of what’s going on at our homestead.
The kids carved pumpkins today and our chickens helped with the mess.
Activate the Wp-cumulus plugin to see the flash tag clouds!
We are a family of 5, including Nika, Ed, Q (14), KD (7), and Baby Oh (4). We garden 1024 square feet of raised beds plus assorted permacultural plantings. We also have 13 LaMancha dairy goats, 40 chickens, and one guard llama.
