The Fall Season

Hay bales… check
Mums… check
Mother-nature’s yearly transformation of color… ... check
Our property was almost an autumn wonderland.
All that was left... pumpkin pick-up day (our favorite)! This year, like years gone by, we went to Penn Vermont Fruit Farms, with a big pickup truck & bought 850 lbs of pumpkins. We really love to support local farms and are fortunate to have such a great network of growers in the area. Along with local decorations, we keep our food pantry stocked with plenty of what the season has to offer, apples, from an orchard just down the road at Manoff Market Gardens. From the spring to the fall, they have kept the kitchen supplied with fresh seasonal fruit.
This fall, we refocused on a few tasks, making revisions to some projects already underway and finishing up others started in the summer.
Learning as we go, some projects inevitably require some changes. While our composting process is working well, its location left some desires. We wanted to make an effort to cut down on driving these machines carrying composting materials across the property. With that in mind, we relocated the new compost pile just off our secondary parking lot. Not only does the new location save time & reduce gas consumption, it keeps our vehicles on previously established roads, thereby saving our fields from erosion.
(Driving repeatedly across grassy areas not only kills the grass, it compacts the soil, making it harder for other plants to get started. Then water run-off starts following the path, leading to further erosion. A steeply sloped hill, like the one we are located on, speeds up the soil erosion process substantially.)
With the pile more accessible, we can turn it more regularly, which speeds up the composting process. Lastly, we made a number of compost bins, allowing for piles in different stages of decomposition.

Our summer chicks grew fast and needed a new home, but where to start?
With the mindset of conserving, we save lots of materials that could “be used for something.” This goal of reuse has left us with a few piles of offcuts & leftovers, which from afar, don’t look like much. However, with a little creativity & imagination, they can really turn into a fun & functional project.
Using old fence posts as the foundation... ...our scrap piles slowly erected a house... ...complete with recycled doors & windows. Leftover from our pond overhaul, thick black rubber (pond liner) covers the roof. Temporarily, this serves a as a waterproof roofing, but in the spring, we hope install a living roof. The black plastic will serve as a liner for a garden that will be planted on top of the coop. The only lumber we bought were 3 sheets of plywood and four 2x6s, used on the roof; a strong roof is required to support the garden that will be living on it. Now all we need is that first egg!