Sunday, September 27, 2015

Collecting Raindrops

One of Adam's farm projects is making a rain collection system. Initially, he's using these two barrels that were left on the farm by Mr. M.
 They have spigots attached, and you can join them together into one water flow, attaching a hose. Then you spray water on the compost pile or wherever you need it.
These barrels are presently at the barn, collecting water from its roof. But first Adam needed to clean the roof and gutters of debris like pine straw and leaves.
The gutter is along the back side of the barn. And  here they are, raised and catching that rain water.

Later this is the shady, protected area where Adam plans to raise worms, red wigglers. Producing worm casings is actually a thing among natural farmer types. Quite beneficial for one's soil. Adam says, "We're growing soil, not crops." Excellent soil will naturally produce wonderful crops. So he's all about the soil.
The debris from the roof is already on its way to decay.
To be honest, I haven't been back to the barn since I took these photos a few days ago because it's been so rainy! I finally got that photo of the raised barrels just this afternoon :)
Almost as soon as we got the seeds into the winter garden, and I took the clothes off the line, and  Adam got his two barrels hooked up and ready to go ... the rain began.
Here's a photo of Oriental yesterday -- the town where we used to live, right on the Neuse River. When the wind blows strongly into the river, it piles the water up into the creeks and we get flooding. This is called "wind tide." The area on the right of the fence above is usually Raccoon Creek. The area on the left of the fence is usually Hodges St. Not yesterday! I guess we should call it Hodges Creek.
I'll snap a photo of the barrels soon for you. Meanwhile, a very fortuitous thing has occurred. Adam was chatting with our HUD inspector the other day. He happens to have some land and about eight Friesian horses. Adam read that those large animals put out about 100 pounds of manure each day -- per horse! This fellow piles it up and adds wood chips, but would love for Adam to come haul away as much as we'd like to have. Yippee! Well-seasoned horse manure is like gold. With the use of a friend's truck, Adam hopes to collect lots of this farm gold. Another nearby friend has cow manure also. All this wonderful stuff will put us about a year ahead, in our farm plan for growing things.

God is so good. Even though our lives in other areas are sometimes quite stressful, quite difficult, we see repeatedly that God is in this farm pursuit; He is blessing it. What a relief and joy that is! Because we truly don't want to pursue anything that He isn't participating in, with us.

5 comments:

  1. What great blessings!

    Happy fall at the farm ~ FlowerLady

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  2. I LOVE this! Reminds me of my dad and his rain collection plans! He's got loads of them! And the manure IS a God-send (ha, how many people would say WHHHHHAAAAT???!!) it's free and it's full of nutrients. When I was a child, if we came across a pile of horse poo on the road (or in a field), she would stop and scoop it up into a bag for our allotment. Since I've been gardening this year, I've been smuggling a big bag of bunny poo and straw back from my friend Anne's house to add to my compost heap and for the beds as the earth in my garden is awful clay-stuff which is no good for anything!x

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  3. Adam knows about everything!!!
    You are lucky he knows "someone with a truck," to help you make use of his knowledge and opportunities. I was about to say I hope Adam can get his own truck one day, but then I thought, As soon as Adam gets his own truck he will probably spend too much time running around helping all the other people who need that someone! It's good that he has the time he does right now, to get your homestead established. The best therapy for what ails a man.

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  4. I'm continually amazed at the multitude of ideas you folks have! Yes, God is blessing your socks off and it looks like Adam has been doing his homework for a long time. This is getting good! :)

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  5. the water barrels are such a great idea; love rain water! so glad you found someone with horse manure and rare breed horses at that. Friesians almost went extinct a few years back. I'm commenting on Wednesday...think there's a storm headed y'all's way and that means more water. sigh.

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