Larsen Poultry Ranch - homesteading journey

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

Miss @Larsen Poultry Ranch, is this new place fairly close to where you were residing before?

Yes, it's only a little farther away from work than before, so my commute will be closer to 30 minutes. It's about 20 minutes from my parents house and 25 from my in-laws.

 

[thistlebloom]

Yay! A place of your own is so exciting!

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

Well test went ok last week, still pending bacteria results but around 6 GPM, which is a lot higher than I was expecting based on the ppk I saw from the county.

Home and termite inspection today, I'm at work so only getting intermittent updates. So far they did find termite damage by the front door.

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

Sounds like there's quite a few areas with termite damage and some rodent damage too. Apparently they didn't block access to underside of house in some areas...

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

Got the full reports last night, negotiating with seller. The deck pretty much needs to be replaced, there's a lot of dry rot and termite damage there. Lots of water damage from leaking pipes and fixtures. Door needs to be replaced due to termite damage too. Hopefully they will be willing to work with us. We do want the property but don't want to be paying through the nose for the previous owner's failure to maintain the house.

Apparently appraisers don't like out of the box jobs, due to potential liability. The lender has been trying to get someone to appraise the property for a week now, finally got someone. It's probably going to push the close date back.

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

I've been checking out the arbor day . org website, there's quite a few trees I'm drooling over. The new house will be zone 8-9, so if I order by end of November I can get bare root trees delivered November to beginning of December.

I have been reading about coppicing, and that looks like a good way to make sure we have plenty of firewood on an ongoing basis. Several trees that are supposed to be decent for coppicing are available on the website so I might order some. There's plenty of oaks on the property, and I think those can be coppiced too, they'll just grow slower. The fun part is, this is CA, so there's restrictions on a lot of the trees I want to get.

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

The quail eggs I won at auction arrived on Fri, but I was finally able to get about 90 of the in the incubator last night. The rest are supposed to go in the second incubator tonight after we get it repaired. I weighed the eggs and chose the bigger ones to incubate in the better incubator, but hopefully I get a decent hatch out of both. I'll be happy with about 50% and overjoyed (possibly overwhelmed) if I get better than that. They were shipped eggs and then I waited longer than I should have to start them.

They are a mixed lot from Myshire, so could be any of their colors. I did get 21 celadon eggs but dropped one while I was loading the tray. If those hatch I will have a second grouping of celedons. There were several eggs that were over 14g, one was 18g. I think that one is probably a double yolk though, so it likely won't survive.

 

[thistlebloom]

Be careful about coppicing already mature trees. It will make for large wounds which trees have difficulty / slower to compartmentalize the wound, leaving time for disease to take hold. I don't recommend it be done on mature trees. It will certainly limit their life span.
Coppicing is ideal for young stock and the best way to insure that the tree grows into a good framework from the start if coppicing them is your goal.

If you can grow eucalyptus in your zone there are several varieties that make good firewood. My dad had a woodlot of eucs on his small property that kept them in firewood.

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

Be careful about coppicing already mature trees. It will make for large wounds which trees have difficulty / slower to compartmentalize the wound, leaving time for disease to take hold. I don't recommend it be done on mature trees. It will certainly limit their life span.
Coppicing is ideal for young stock and the best way to insure that the tree grows into a good framework from the start if coppicing them is your goal.

If you can grow eucalyptus in your zone there are several varieties that make good firewood. My dad had a woodlot of eucs on his small property that kept them in firewood.

There's eucalyptus in the area, so that's a possibility too. I hate how much they shed though. But if they are only grown for a few years they might not shed as much or as big?

Might have to just clear out the mature trees then, and plant the young ones to coppice. The whole property is very treed. We couldn't even get to the lower portion because of the brush and a fence. I think the flatter portion with the house is probably 2 acres. The rest is on a slight hill.

I'm so full of ideas on what we can do to this place. I wish we could get a drone video of it from above. Kind of like a before picture, and then do more after a few months or a year, etc. Wonder if I know someone with a drone...

 

[Senile_Texas_Aggie]

Could you use Google Earth for the "before" picture?