Chicken tractor version 1.0. Note the hardware cloth skirt to thwart digging predators.
Useful when picking up chicken poop covered feeders.
Chicken tractor version 1.0
We give a quick hose down to the 10' square area that we just moved the tractor from. Seems to help disintegrate the chicken poop into the yard even quicker.
Chicken tractor version 1.0, now with chickens.
Waterer.
Upper gardens
Experimental dust bath box. Trying to get the chickens to not dig holes in the yard.
Lower gardens
Feeder. Be sure to get one they can't easily poop in.
Primary family vehicle
Add some straw and you have a layer's nest.
Favorite vegetable garden tool, the hori hori.
One of our Barred Rocks happy in her portable dust bath box.
Note the new wind measurement tool. Gathering data for one year to see if we could pursue wind harvesting for electricity.
Long hill to climb while hauling 100 lbs of chicken feed. Thank goodness for my Kona Ute cargo bike.
Just a rock. On the theory that the chickens need something hard to peck to keep their beaks from growing too long.
Chickens like freshly cut bamboo. Who knew?
How to keep an injured chicken from being pecked to death by the others in a chicken tractor. Note the new addition segmenting off the injured chicken and her brood buddy.
High summer grass mowed down. Ready to start permaculture. Future food forest.
First fruits from new trees. Will be building permaculture guilds under each of these trees.
New and improved: nest boxes for our chicken tractor. The sand + dichotomous earth on the bottom gives enough weight to keep the buckets upright. The spikes on top keep the chickens from roosting and pooping all over them.
Water security. Harvesting rainwater from the roof gutters into a pair of 2500 gallon cisterns. Will use water to irrigate vegetable garden and food forest. And as an emergency supply of potable water.
Building out the food forest. First 15 yards of compost/dirt only made three beds (you can see them in the background). This is the second load of 15 yards. I bet we'll need a third...
Site of future Food Forest. Already has deer fence, drip irrigation lines, two year old fruit trees, and rough steps carved out of the heavy clay soil.
Dirt delivery #2 from local dairy for Food Forest version 1.0. You can see the beds made from delivery #1 in the background. 30 yards so far...
Permaculture sketch of our Food Forest version 1.0
Dirt/compost from local dairy for Food Forest version 1.0. First 15 yards.
Food Forest version 1.0 :: laying out the paths among the existing (young) fruit trees.
Repairing the irrigation after a 15 yard dirt truck rain over it.
Ah, the joys of "maiden eggs". The pullets have finally landed...and started laying.
Sketch for how we're going to harvest rainwater from our roof.
2500 gallons each. Two of them.
When dry, the rainwater cisterns are actually pretty lightweight.
Free wood chips from local tree service folks; used to line the walking paths.
Making a bed for the cisterns.
Ugh. Clay. This is what breaks my back when digging by hand.
Gravel for the bed for the cisterns.
We had to build a wall once we saw how far down into the hill we had cut. Oops. Extra money; extra time.
Trench to bring electrical down to run the water pump.
This was *so* more than what my wife was expecting. Oops.
Routing the rainwater from the cisterns back up 25' to the upper vegetable garden hydrant.
Blue thing is the 3P filter so we have very clean water flowing into the tanks. Neat piece of engineering.
Grundfos pump to bring the roof water from cisterns back up the hill.
After the "trashcan" to pull silt and leaves from the flow, I can send to either my cisterns or (if full) to a large diffuser that was already in the back yard.
Food Forest version 1.0 buildout. Beds in, starting on retaining walls and paths. My back hurts just looking at those bricks.
Wish this had not sat in our yard for two weeks, but oh well. The kids thought it was cool.
Love the photo stitch app on my iPhone.
Harvesting rain water :: a plumbing masterpiece.
Overflow down into our field.
Cisterns for harvesting roof water.
Rain harvesting cisterns are in; here's the aftermath on the yard.
Trying Agribon paper this year for the first time. Working great. Loads of lettuce still growing strong underneath there, even in November.
Grundfos pump to pull the rain water from the cisterns back to the vegetable garden and food forest
Bamboo screen to help with neighbor relations. Will grow quickly to 12 feet.
Modified doghouse to act a a pump cover. We added heat tape inside to keep the pipes from freezing.
Agribon 30 paper. Seriously extending our growing season for vegetables. Great stuff.
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