Heartland

When I look around our new home, I see hills and trees,

tame life and wildlife,

past and present.

When Tom looks around Indiana, he hears music.

We've now been at Lick Skillet for a year. Early on I challenged my guitarist husband to produce an album with a farm theme (I was especially keen for him to do an arrangement of the Flight of the Bumblebee. He tried but wasn't happy with the results; my plans for acquiring honey bees didn't work out either. 2013 just isn't the year of the bee, I guess).

He wrote and arranged, expanded his inspiration to all things Hoosier, and HEARTLAND is the result.

Tom's latest instrumental album is 15 songs; it's a mix of fingerstyle offerings, some with a country flavor, many his patented smooth and melodic style. Samples and downloads are available on Amazon, as well as iTunes, or via Tom's website. You can stream the album on Spotify and other stream-y type sites (can you tell I don't listen to music on the internet?).

We've done several videos to showcase the album, Wind Farm is up first.

We're anxious to share our new home with you all, I hope you'll spend a few moments with us in the HEARTLAND.

Farmhands

The garden has, once again, gotten away from me. Weeds and pests abound and I just can't bring myself to spend more than 5 minutes out there since this heatwave started.

This morning's 5 minutes were spent watering the tomatoes (I think I have an issue with blossom end rot, so I've dissolved calcium pills* in some water. It can't hurt and just might help). I did a double-take when I saw this tomato hornworm and it's hitchhikers.

These are the coccoons of braconid wasps. These tiny wasps lay their eggs inside the hornworms; the larva hatch and eat the caterpillar's insides (almost makes you feel sorry for the beggar). The wasps are tiny and don't bother people.

And luckily for me, they don't mind heat and humidity. At least, someone is working in the garden!

*I had stocked up on calcium pills on sale and now don't take it anymore. If this works, I'll feel good that I've found a use for them!

Tangled

Electronet is a wonderful invention. It is portable, electrified fencing with built-in fenceposts. It is designed to be used as temporary fencing, very useful for rotational grazing.

The theory of the stuff is sound. The reality has a few quirks ready to catch the unwary.

First, even though you probably want to put your fencing in the pasture or, if you keep goats, the shrub, the bottom strand of wire will ground out if it comes into contact with too much green stuff. That means you need to force your mower over previously nonmowed ground to clear a path. A string trimmer is a poor substitute and bush-hogging just doesn't cut it (get it?).

Of course, you can't mow where the fence will go until you are sure exactly where the fence will go.

That brings us to the second quirk, the math doesn't add up.

Our sheep fencing is supposed to be 164' long with each panel 12.5' feet. Somehow ours has 12 panels which are 13' each and one that is around 11'. Think about that. Thirteen sections. We have found it impossible to set up a rectangle using 13 sections of fence. So our pastures end up being odd shapes and we guess where to mow, often having to mow again to make it come out right.

Thirdly, never, never, never, never attempt to put this stuff up with only one person. Two is the bare minimum, a dozen would be even better. This would be the time to have an Amish size family so each kid could grab a fencepost to move the pasture. Of course, the Amish wouldn't be using electric fence anyway.

Since we want to use our electronet for rotational grazing, we need to move it every few weeks. But the sheep were already inside the fencing. We thought "easy, peasy. Just move it a bit at a time and the sheep will move along too." 

This worked fine the first time. The second was a good chance to learn how to catch escaped sheep.

The fourth problem with electronet is it has a mind of its own. Like Skynet, some time while it's stored in your garage, it develops self-awareness, decides humans are the enemy and plots and plans for our downfall. The favorite strategy towards this end is entanglement.

Do not ever turn your back on electronet before you install it. Somehow while it's laying on the ground, it subtly weaves its strands into snarls and tangles. Unless you have someone with the patience to undo the Gordian knot (in our case, that would be Tom), you face a session worse than Rapunzel with a hairbrush. Over time, we've come up with a system for tying strands together when we take the fence down, this reduces the mess but somehow the poles still snag strands along the way.

Despite these difficulties, electronet enables small-holders to move livestock around for more systematic grazing. And so far, it hasn't sent any Terminators our way.

Why is a raven like a writing desk?

If you know the answer to that Lewis Carroll classic, let us all know. In the meantime, here's one that's a bit easier:


Q. Why is a small farmer like an independent musician?

A. Both work their tails off full-time for part-time income.


Nowadays, selling music is almost solely the province of the internet. Where once you might sign with a record company and hope to sell vinyl, you now write, record, produce, upload, and promote your own material online. And the rewards are...well, here's an example:

Spotify just posted, over 7 different reports for streaming of  28 separate original Tom Rasely recordings, a grand total of 10 cents in income.

Yes, that's right. A dime, one tenth of a buck.

Ah music, the road to riches.

While the internet has kaboshed a lot of the old ways of selling music, some new ideas are springing up also. One of these is a website called Patreon, a new wrinkle on the traditional patronage system.

Wikipedia defines patronage as the "support that kings or popes have provided to musicians, painters, and sculptors."

Kings and popes being in short supply, Patreon relies on everyday fans and music lovers.

Please watch this video, 

check out Patreon and consider supporting us. But whether or not you do, Tom's videos will continue to be available for free at youtube.com/tomrasely as well as free tabs for guitar players on request.

Hello Fodder

Growing fodder for your livestock is all the rage.

For those of you who don't know, fodder is sprouted seeds that are allowed to grow up a couple of inches, basically grass or seedlings.

If you're a large farm, you can spend big bucks on a fodder set-up; Farmtek will sell  you the means to grow fodder hydroponically starting at $1,500 up to almost $5,000.

Since I wanted to feed 3 rabbits, I figured that might be over the top a bit.

My set up consists of 6 pans made from milk or vinegar jugs--5 have holes drilled in the bottom for drainage, one is for soaking the seeds.

They set on a tray I got years ago at a dollar store and I measure out the wheat berries with the top of a spray paint can. I water twice a day if I remember.

Total out of pocket expense: $11 for 50 lbs. of wheat from the feed store, very in tune with the spirit of frugality here at Skillet Farm.

So far the rabbits are "meh" about the wheat grass. They nibble on it half-heartedly and don't touch the root mass or berries. When they're finished, I give the remains to the chickens so nothing goes to waste. I have cut down on the rabbit pellets I feed and also supplement with weeds and goodies from the yard and garden. I think the fodder will be more important over the winter when green stuff is hard to come by.

Have you experimented with fodder? What's your system and how is it working for you?

We just can't seem to stop building things

We have about 2 acres of pasture. Or what will be pasture once we get it bush-hogged down to manageable length.

The plan is to use the electronet fence to rotate the sheep on those 2 acres, giving them fresh feed and us mowed fields.

The biggest problem (other than the bush-hogging and the fact that the sheep aren't trained to move where we want them to go) is that these pastures have no shade. None. Nothing on the sunny side. So we needed to make something that would provide relief from the sun and be easily movable.

Our glorious contraption pictured above is made from 4 old fence rails that we gleaned from a neighbor's wood stash, 3 lengths of pvc (we had to buy these), the unripped part of an old tarp, all tied together with baling twine.

It should be sturdy enough to stand up to sheep curiousity and it's light enough that the two of us can pick it up and relocate it.

Of course, it may also be light enough for the wind to toss about but I'm working on that.

The sheep have given it their baaa of approval.