Try & Try Again
Try & Try Again

I adopt a trial-and-error approach to life, much like a scientist. By applying permaculture techniques at home, I attempted to use greywater irrigation, swales, and tree planting in unison. Despite initial belief, this integration proved overly maintenance-heavy and clashed with livestock habits, leading to issues with weeds and tree damage. Abandoning this method, I now reflect on adjustments for future attempts while tackling other projects, advocating for shared learning to improve collective futures.

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The Fragrance of Fertility
The Fragrance of Fertility

Molly’s distaste for chicken manure season belies its importance to our soil regeneration efforts on our cleared ranch land. Farming realities hit us hard last year with equipment malfunctions, but we remain committed to restoring our sandy soil. We supplement rotating livestock with 200,000 pounds of nutrient-rich chicken manure to boost growth and improve water retention. Our journey also involves incorporating woodchips to further enhance the soil’s water-holding capacity, a multi-year process pivotal to our ecological restoration.

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Second Chance on Cutting Hay

My previous post was about a disappointing hay harvest.  Well, the second cutting exceeded my expectations.  I got 39 bales of hay off of ~15 acres.  This same area only produced 13 bales the first cutting.  What made the difference?  Well, I think the fertilizer had finally kicked in.  We had a good 2″ of

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Disappointing Hay Harvest
Disappointing Hay Harvest

I had a few acres cut for hay this year as the cows weren’t keeping up and it was going to seed. On 25 acres I only got 15 bales. I knew one 10 acre patch would be sparse, but I was expecting 2 bales per acre on the remaining 15 yet I got less

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Isn’t it Swale
Isn’t it Swale

Added more earthworks to the ranch. This time I put a swale in as the first phase of my orchard. A swale is basically a ditch on contour.  The idea being that runoff acclimates in the ditch and slowly infiltrates the soil instead of running off. The added depth of topsoil and moisture retention is

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Curb Appeal

When I built the pond in front of the house (the one that catches the rainwater overflow) I was left with several yards of spoils.  They had been stacked up for several months and were quite unsightly – with weeds growing in great abundance.  So I finally broke down and rented a dump trailer from

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Surviving the Storm
Surviving the Storm

Hurricane Harvey passed through this month and dumped about 12″ on the ranch over a 5 day period.  It was rather insignificant as the water fell at a steady slow rate, and had plenty of time to move through the terrain and make its way off of the property.  Of course it all moved towards

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And More Water – Part III
And More Water – Part III

If you were with us for And More Water – Part I, you saw the cisterns that we put in to capture rain water from the house.  Yesterday I finally got around to completing the system. When I built the cistern, I left a 2″ stub up in order to draw water out of the

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Something Smells Fishy

After several months of waiting, Dunn’s Fish Farm showed up at a local feed store.  I bought 200 Channel Catfish, 200 Black Crappie, 100 Copper nose Bluegill, and 10 lbs of Fathead Minnows ($475).  Unfortunately, half of the crappie were dead when I got home.  The bags, which are filled with 1/4 water and 3/4 oxygen,

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And More Water – Part II
And More Water – Part II

It didn’t take long for the cisterns and small pond to fill up, so I expanded the puddle to a full-fledged pond. This will make a nice water feature in the front of the house and will further aid in providing irrigation to the orchard. The pond holds about another 4,000 gallons – yielding a

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And More Water – Part I
And More Water – Part I

As everyone is suffering from post-election exhaustion here in the USA, we at Amber Oaks are focused on ways to distance ourselves from those who wish to rule us.  I’m just about finished with our rainwater catchment system. Before we left Santa Fe, I scored three 1500gal direct burial cisterns for $2,400. That’s like waaay

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I Need a Drink
I Need a Drink

Water is fundamental to life, so when I we were choosing the property, it was one of the primary considerations for selections.  I was told that the local water supply coop serviced the property – unfortunately that was not the complete story.  Manville WSC did indeed have a service lines in the area.  They had one

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