New animals on the farm

Last week Bo, from Bonanza, or just Beau, came to the farm. He will be catching many mice coming winters and is already exercising taking fat flies down. He is very curious about the chickens, but they just dont care about him.

Beau - 11 weeks old - has already been everywhere together with me on the farm and is very clever finding his way home.

Because the rooster Anna only had one wife left in his harem, I bought him some more wives: Ina, Janne and Kaatje. to my surprise Anna has become happy again and shows his ladies proudly around the farm. This did not happen the last 2 months, after 4 chickens became decaptivated by predators, mostly birds. So the new ladies made all fears go away. 

When the new ones would be put to bed, at 22.00, they saw some very attractive green grass they did not have on their last place. So I thought, ok, after 2 hours in that box, you deserve som gooddies. But within 5 minutes thy something even bigger and greener. Can you imagine, they flew off to the forest!

Luckily at 23.00, dark because of clouds, I found two of them. Kaatje, the last one, I hoped she would survive the night out there totally alone. I got up at 05.30 to see how all the others were doing, together with the 2 intruders... and let them outside at 06.45 to make chicken noise so hopefully Kaatje would come to join. And she did! At 07.40 the whole chicken family was complete.... and I very exhausted after that very short night.

Luckily also Belindas feathers - his only wife for several months - slowly come growing back now Anna can devide his sexual attention to 4 ladies.

Around the boat

Like me, my sailing boat is retired. The boat can have 5 persons to sleep, but is more comfortable for just 1 or 2 persons. But an small child extra  is no problem. 

The boat offers a marvelous view from the back coaches, from 3 m above the ground.

Some pics from around the boat taken on a rainy day in the middle of August.

View towards the guest room (guest house).

Throwing some chicken food around, makes a nice picture.

Boat still with its winter cover on.

Leisure 22, 6.40 m long.

Behind here you will be totally alone.

View from the outdoor kitchen.

Campfire place.

Reinfann to put under fruit trees to keep lice away.

In the boat you are near the beach to bath, near the outdoor kitchen, near the campfire, near the toilet, near the food forest and you have the nicest far view from above.

Relaxing after some work with a marvellous view.

Coffee corner with the possibility to cook here when it rains. Has a roof over.

Work in progress. 

Chicken butchering station and possibility to wash the dishes... with water warmed on the roof?, or just with rainwater collected from the roof.

8 km to the nearest supermarket.

Solar cooker was from a quest. But we are going to build one maybe next year.

When you arrive too late to catch a bus from Larvik, this are the 2021 taxi prices. Normal day price will be around 1200 kr. 

December weather

December has been a warm month this year with a sunny Christmas.

But a few days after Christmas there finally came one centimeter of snow. Chickens Anna, Belinda, Maritha and Danny saw snow for the first time. Brave rooster Anna started exploring though and took some steps onto the white. Later his ladies followed, but most of the day they looked from the open garage to the white world around.

Some pics of the last 4 kilometer driving up to my house. 

                                       

Nearing the farm. To the right the first food forest. The small 'pipes' are against mice damaging the small fruit trees. And there really are a lot of mice this year. Even in my car I catch them.

 

 

The entrance of the farm. Here we have to put the garbidge in separate containers, a long walk from the house.

 

 

Left red end of the barn is the chicken garage with a huge chicken coop inside.

 

And finally the main house. Considering putting the electricity cables in the soil, to avoid unhealthy radiation from electricity fields. Orange baskets outside are with seeds inside.

 

Writing this on January first I can tell, it has today really started snowing. The first time this winter that it snows. The good thing with everything becoming white is that the world becomes a lot brighter and that the dark winter days are gone, for as long as it takes.

 

 

Corona quarantine dining corner for when it would rain, with cosy lights.

Everybody, I wish you a healthy, happy and social 2021! 

Let us hope and pray that the license Bill Gates got to produce a huge 'dust'cloud from Kiruna in the north of Sweden (nearby Narvik in Norway) does not make that we get a summer without or with almost no sunshine, because that is what Bill wants. He says he wants to protect us from the damage of sun radiation. This cloud is said to be produced June 2021. I prefer my plants - and us people (vitamin D) - to get energy and healthy growth from sunshine. I do not like manipulation of the weather.

From plastic pole forest to food forest

Slowly the first food forest is growing. Thanks to the help of enthousiastic hard working workawayers.

 

We are working on two swales, made with the help of an A-frame. Swales not to catch water, but in the hope to spread the water over the whole meadow instead of only two areas. 

In these swales we have thick branches or thin beams, like in hugelculture. This wood inside the soil will be able to take up water, to give in turn to the plants growing in it. And when the wood brakes down, nutrients will be released in the soil.

Not easy to choose which fruit tree where to plant, when you know it can be very wet in some areas. That is why we plant all trees on a small hill, so part of the roots are above the water level. Time will tell.

 

I am looking forward to taste the first Dutch cooking pear Gieser Wildeman one day in the future. Thirty of these trees are going to be planted, grown from seeds this year. 

Next spring all these little fruit trees will be cut down to knee height, 50 cm, to create little fruit trees, which will be easy to prune and harvest without having to use a ladder.

The red plants above are Amaranth, full of proteins in the leaves as well as the seeds. The seeds will be given to the chickens. The leaves you can use in a salad or cook shortly together with other veggies.

View on the lake from the flag pole near the main house.

 

After work done, it is good to rest on a warm day overlooking the lake or on a cold evening enjoying dinner in a nice warm 'moon suit'.