I just wanted you guys to know that I have the posts set to be new for forty days. I may change that in the winter when people have more time to stop by here. This time of year is busy for homesteaders, me included. I do try to stop in here, and keep the threads fresh and interesting for everyone. The next few weeks promise to be busy for me as we have crops to get in and I am in apple and pear season in a big way. Not to mention I have about ten ducks to butcher. I hope everything is treating all of you well. We are making our first forays into using pigs to clear space for a garden. I will let you all know how that is working. I should have baby pigs sometime in December. Right now we are looking at ways to keep them warm. This next week we will also be heavily into hauling hay for winter. Also I am planning on putting some fall stuff in within the next day or two. I have been a little shorthanded this week as my great big son has been working as security/helper/bouncer at the county fair. Therefore my attention has been to his chores as well as my own. I was planning on entering some of my goats, but their papers have gone missing and this is the last day. I hope everyone is having a great harvest this year.M Mine has been Okay, but not something to write home about. We had a lot of drought this year. However, we've had good crops of sunflowers, southern peas, Okra, Milo, and tomatoes, pumpkins, cutting flowers. We've had fair crops of beans, greens, radishes, Cucumbers(which i expect more of),peppers. We had lousy crops of melons,both summer and winter squash, Corn, Turnips(of all things this one surprises me most. I am putting in more), Onions.

Little Bit farm

-- Little Bit Farm (littlebit@brightok.net), September 05, 2003

Answers

You know diane, I really appreciate your faithfulness on this board. I also wish we were closer. We are getting new participants all the time. I do try to find interesting material for you folks. Thank you for noticing. I am trying to make this board a comfortable place to be. I am enjoying it's smallness as there seems to be few who want to scream and yell in print so far. That is a nice thing. Also I had someone contact me yesterday who found our little board through a search engine. That is great! We are making a name for ourselves. Pretty cool!I like to think maybe we can be a board full of real homesteaders, rather than just talkers. It comforts me that everyone is so noticeably busy right now. That means that we are all out there doing it not just talking about it.

Little Bit Farm

-- Little Bit Farm (littlebit@brightok.net), September 06, 2003.

Ooh John, please tell us the story of "The Great Rabbit Massacre of 2002". It sounds exciting!

Little Bit farm

-- Little Bit Farm (littlebit@brightok.net), September 08, 2003.

I'm glad to see you around Jack! I'm glad you enjoyed the fruit tree info. I really am planning on doing some seed starting this year. I am hoping to get trees reall adapted to my weather conditions.

Little Bit Farm

-- Little Bit Farm (littlebit@brightok.net), October 06, 2003.

Great idea LB.....I have been so busy that I have not had time to do half the reading I would like to do.......you have some wonderful links!!! Wish you were near enough to share with......we have a bumper crop of all squash, melon, corn and onions.

-- diane (gardiacaprines@yahoo.com), September 06, 2003.

Hi Lil' Bit! Like Diane, I too enjoy your links and share them w/ the better half regularly. Sort of as a motivational tool.

I did get a major expansion of the garden started this year, but it's going to take me a lot of time and manure to build this soil up to what it should be. Bad stuff. I'm seriously considering importing (buying) some top soil here to speed things up in that respect and raise the beds some more for better drainage. Hate to spend cash money on dirt, but I think it would pay off quickly in productivity while decreasing the frustation level for me. I'm already spreading the word amoung friends and relatives to bag those Fall leaves for me. Finding adaquate (free) mulch and manure is proving harder than expected.

I'm thinking of getting some more Rabbits again (To replace those killed in the "Great Rabbit Massacre of 2002") to help some. We got the garden in real late due to the rain, but we've had a good harvest of 'maters, beans and corn, w/ a few really good melons to boot. The Red Raspberrys I traded for w/ Randy on the Homesteading today forum have done real well and are gonna need to be split up. He has them for sale over there and I give 'em a thumbs up! Real tasty.

Keep up the good work Lil' Bit. I don't post much, but I stop by and check things out most every day. Later, John

-- John in S. IN (jdoofus@hotmail.com), September 07, 2003.

John......what you got..heavy clay?? That's what we had here when we moved here. The raised beds with tons and tons of manure have given us wonderful results. I think I would buy truck loads of manure before I would soil. If you do that with lasagna type square foot gardening I'll bet you would be happy with the results. Intensive works and is sustainable.

I just built some wonderful raised beds around the house for flowers and used mostly compost. Wow.....never had such gorgeous flowers and herbs.

Little Bit.......small forums are nice. I still mostly hangout at Homestead Today.......but it is having problems with database and I think they are going to have to change servers. I have always loved this format......haven't ever found any that I liked better. I prefer the no graphics format since I am on a slow dialup.

Look out........Melissa just posted a link to the Lucenet board.....encouraging the unhappy ones to kind of move on. They show up here.......well..hope not :>( .

-- diane (gardiacaprines@yahoo.com), September 08, 2003.

Posting this again, this time at the bottom of the thread!Ooh John, please tell us the story of "The Great Rabbit Massacre of 2002". It sounds exciting! Little Bit farm

-- Little Bit Farm (littlebit@brighterok.net), September 08, 2003.

Diane - This is the worst stuff I ever laid eyes on! Kinda peanut butter yellow/brown and slick as goose **** when it's wet and like adobe when it's dry. I've already put 4-5 truckloads of chicken house litter and 2 loads of last years leaves in it and it really hasn't helped to much.(an area approx 30 x 75'). You're right of coarse, but I want to build up (elevate) also as I really like the raised beds. I was thinking that I could speed things up by getting a load of good topsoil (priced it today. $90 delivered) and continue with the adding in of humus, compost, etc as I can collect it. Yeah, it's $90, but it will probably speed the process up by 2-3 years. I may have found a horse dookie supply today also. Visited an old farmstead I've wanted to buy for a long time and the neighbors have 12 big horses and mules I'd forgotten about. They had a hugh pile of stall cleanouts piled up and a shiny John Deere w/ a bucket on it parked next to it! W/luck I could even get it loaded into the truck. I'm going back there tommorow & see if their home.

"The Great Rabbit Massacre of 2002" was just simply awful. My very good friends son raised rabbits and showed them while in 4H. He did real well, even won some things in the state fair w/ them. The boy decided he didn't want to do any of that anymore and left it all to Dave to take care of. Dave got tired of it and offered me the whole kit and kaboodle for free. 14 - 15 rabbits, cages, feeders, the whole mess. I took him up on 7 rabbits and cages. I cleaned up a spot behind the barn under the roof that was real nice and dry and out of the winds. I didn't have the chain to hang the cages and set everything up on sawhorses for the night. The next morning, the cage (1 big one. divided up) was knocked on the ground and several of the cages were broken into and all but 1 of the rabbits were dead or dying. It was awful. The ones that were still in the cages had their legs chewed off, or part of their skin yanked off. Bad, bad bad. One of the nastiest things I've ever seen. I ended killing the 2 bad ones and have 1 lonesome rabbit out there now. I moved the cage into the chicken house for protection and that's where it is now. I'm pretty sure it was the neighbors dogs that knocked things over but I'm not sure they did all the killing. I still feel bad about the whole thing. I'd like to get the gage out of the hen house,as it's kinda in the way, but it's the most secure place. I've lost more critters in the last 12 months than ever before. Yuck. I'm working on the other hen house now getting it more secure. And keeping the rifle by the back door.

-- John in S. IN (jdoofus@hotmail.com), September 08, 2003.

Little Bit thanks for sending me a e-mail about this site . Homesteading today is getting to where it no longer has much content for homesteading . I live on 118 ac farm rent out 80 tillable ac. and homestead the rest . Love the articles about starting trees from seed . thanks again Indiana Country Friend Jack Bunyard

-- jack bunyard (bunyard@cnz.com), October 06, 2003.