Fin de Bagnols

Bagnols is a sweet little town in the heart of the Beaujolais grape growing and wine producting region of France, and I can't imagine a finer place to enjoy those delicious, sweet and tender green beans the French are famous for. But preferring to avoid airplanes, we now grow our own Fin de Bagnols from heirloom seed.

We don't know exactly why these beans were named Fin de Bagnols. It's a delicious little enigma since, in French, the word "fin" has about 50 different meanings.  It could mean "the end of the town of Bagnols," although the town still exists.  Or perhaps "at the edge of the town of Bagnols." Or "fin" could be taken to mean "thin, slender, or very fine."  Pas de quoi.  They're French beans and that's all we are ever likely to know.

Fin de Bagnols - delicious French beans

If in Doubt, Rout it Out!

No, this is not a picture of Bali, the most beautiful and serene spot on earth, where I'll be off to in a couple of weeks.  December isn't especially kind to Bufflehead Pond Farm and its denizens, and this denizen in particular is getting out of Dodge for a couple weeks.  But not until the rest of my garden is prepared for spring, with all the new raised beds built and filled with rich delicious compost and dirt for our new green babies...

The Big Chill

Don't go in the deep water unless you can swim

You don't want to own a bunch of equipment unless you can repair it.   Nobody can afford to take their tractor, implement, tool, system, whatever to a retail repair place every time something breaks.  Recently, due to the weather clearing for at least a few hours, I decided to use my tractor mounted wood chipper to chop up some small branches and limbs that I had trimmed from trees surrounding the area close to the house.  We use the wood chips as mulch and as ground cover in the garden area and a few more spots around the farm.  Here's the set up.

So I'm chipping away and there is a rod which is attached to the feed roller which allows the operator to raise the feed roller from outside the feeder chute. Obviously this is the only safe way to clear a jamb in the feeder.  So this rod breaks free at the weld where it attaches to the feed roller mechanism.  Did I mention that this is a Chinese designed and manufactured chipper?  Not my first problem with quality but the only chipper I could afford in this size.

So back into the shop to effect repair.  I have a small MIG welder that has paid for itself just doing little repairs like this.  I grind the area where the parts will be (re) joined in order to have clean surfaces.  Had to be creative with a couple of clamping pliers in order to hold the parts in place.

Parts joined.  Weld isn't the prettiest but should hold.  But wait there is more.

In order to prevent a future failure I added a short brace to the handle rod.  Made these two braces from 1/8" steel that I had laying around the shop.  Welded one on each side and back in business.

Fun & Healthful Dog Food from Kitchen Scraps

For all of you who have asked us for advice on feeding their pets, I wish we could.  We are not experts in animal nutrition, so all we can talk about is what we do for our little muttlets!

In short, we mainly feed raw and organic selections made from beef, chicken, turkey and occasionally bison.  We buy from a local manufacturer, and keep it frozen until we’re ready to feed The Skids. 

Chicken/Turkey Gourmet Blend

But this can be expensive!  So what we also do is save our cooking scraps and make homemade meals from fresh, wholesome people food.  Here’s how: 

• First, no grains (wheat, barley, oats, corn, rice, etc.), no potato or sweet potato.
• For carbs, add carrots and carrot peelings and fresh or fresh frozen apples.
• For green, add broccoli stems and spinach
• For meat, use everything left on the bird (chicken or turkey) except the bones.

It takes a month or two to accumulate enough scraps from cooking, including complete chicken and turkey carcasses, with everything going into doggie bags in the freezer.  Then, when the freezer is bursting at the seams, we thaw it all out and blend it together in the Cuisinart, supplementing a little fresh carrot, apple or spinach, as needed.  I freeze it all in convenient meal-sized zipper baggies! There’s nothing in this blend but really tasty food, and The Skids go crazy for it! 

We supplement their “store-bought” raw meals with this very tasty treat.  It’s fresh and wholesome, I know exactly what’s in it, and they thrive on it.  But your dogs might be different.  We are not soliciting comments on our choices, nor are we recommending that anyone else do this, but for those who have requested ideas, here’s one we enjoy doing for our furkids! 

Enjoy!

Certificate of Occupancy

Big day last Saturday 5/9 as I issued the Certificate of Occupancy to the Bufflehead Farm Chicken Coop.  Finally finished netting the Run.  And had to pick up another feeder and waterer.  But I get ahead of myself.

Last post, which was a month ago 4/10/15, I had finished the sheathing and was ready to start roofing.  Never did a roof before.  Started with 15lb roofing felt stapled to the sheathing.

Added the triple tab shingles including a first course of a new shingle cutting the tabs off to give the first row a solid cover.  Then a full sheet of triple tab, across and up.

For the crown you take waste tabs; or new ones left over, and nail them across the top, covering the nail heads of each tab by the one to follow.

Paint the trim and the body.  Then I gave up my search for 2 x 2' windows and went on-line to find cheap windows.  Found shed windows but nothing close to 2'x2'.  Did find 12" x 16" windows.  $70.00 for both windows including shipping.  Much better than $108 EACH from the local Home Depot.  But it meant that I did have to reframe and patch the window openings to accommodate the smaller windows.  I actually like the smaller windows better.

Windows in, and paint touched up, time to start on the chicken run.  The idea was to build a 12' x 8' run that would start at the coop and end at the garden fence.  At some future date we wanted to build a chicken gate from their run to the garden.  In the fall when all is harvested we would turn them loose in the garden to eat all the leftovers, roots, vines and any bugs lurking. (Photo bomb by Gabriel)

Plans called for a run that would be 5'4" high.  That does not work for my 6'3"self.  So I modified the plans and created a taller run.  Pretty simple 2x4 frame walls braced at top and bottom.Photo above is the end wall which meets the garden fence.  Then I added the side walls and attached them to the front of the coop.

Built a simple screen door out of some spare cedar planks I had in the shop.  The brass door knocker is a brass casting of "Marley's Ghost".  The literary among you will recognize Marley as the ghost who haunted Scrooge in Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol.  I acquired this knocker when I bought a rather odd house in Arlington Virginia that had a bunch of weird stuff like this left by the previous owner.  Been moving it around with me for 15 years so figured this was a good place to use it.

Then had to screen the whole thing in with one inch chicken netting.

All in all it came out pretty good I would say.  So we moved 4 of the 7 chicks that we bought out to the new coop on Saturday May 9.  They had all been staying in a large cardboard box in the garage.  They seem to like the new digs.  Plenty of room, and lots of fresh air.  4 of the 7 chicks are a few weeks older so in a couple weeks we will move the 2 Silkies and the Rhode Island Red into the new coop as well.

 

Chicken Coop Construction Part 2

Almost two weeks have gone by since the last post and we have enjoyed good weather and longer days so much progress has been made on the chicken coop construction.

As of the last post  I had the wall framing up. So it was time to make the gables and attach them to the wall framing.  Gables were made from 2 x 4s cut at 30 deg and fastened to gussets made from OSB. 

I then attached the gables to the wall framing using hurricane ties.

Then I started cutting plywood for the wall sheathing. 

 And the roof

 And the back wall which will have two large doors which should make cleaning the coop much easier.  I know I wouldn't fit in the small chicken door in the front.

 The opening on the side walls will have the nesting boxes with a hinged lid for egg gathering.

 So now that the sheathing is on I can build the framing for the nesting boxes.  Two identical boxes, one on each side.

 Once framed I add more sheathing for the nest boxes.  You can see the vertical dividers in the nest boxes providing 3 nesting boxes on each side.

 Here's the chicken's eye view of the nesting boxes.  Fill those with straw or wood shavings
 and you have the equivalent of your grocers dairy case.

 

 Then I built this roosting box.  There are two of them.  Going to line the bottom with linoleum for obvious reasons and then they are mounted two feet above the floor of the coop.  Just a couple pieces of plywood fastened to two 2 x 2s.  The end plates are plywood with a hole for a closet rod and then I seal up the open end of the holes.

 Here is one of the roosting boxes mounted.  The other one sits on the same center support and to the left. They just lift out for cleaning.

And roofing is done,  Nesting box lids are also roofed (rooved??) and hinges installed.

 So far I think I have about 40 hours invested to this point.  I don't think I could make a living building chicken coops.  I still do not have my windows.  Trying to find something used.  Guess I'll start painting next.

Chickens; the Gateway Farm Animal

They say Chickens are the gateway animal for rural residents.  Everyone starts with chickens which are relatively easy to care for and produce wonderful eggs and; we are told, hours of entertainment.  Once hooked one moves on to "harder" animals like goats and pigs. 

So you cannot have chickens without a place for them to live safely