Anita Bower

Your place sounds wonderful!

Anita
Homeschooling Mom
Nottingham, PA

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[email protected]

> Your place sounds wonderful!

Thanks Anita, we think it is wonderful, and we are working on
getting it preserved forever by taking out a conservation easement
on the entire 175 acres, that basically involves selling the
developement rights. We will be allowed to build on a small
section of the farm bordered by the existing buildings, but will not
be allowed to increase the amount of buildings by more than 20%.
It is a forever thing and the land should always remain intact.

Sue
>
> Anita
> Homeschooling Mom
> Nottingham, PA
>
> \l /
> @ @
> o00–(_)–00o

Anita Bower

Sue:

> preserved forever by taking out a conservation easement
>>on the entire 175 acres,

Good for you!

We have 15.5 acres in southeastern Pennsylvania: meadow, pasture, woods,
pond, barn, house. We currently have it classified as farmland. Farms on
all sides, including Amish across the road. We, too, hope to keep it from
being developed, but are putting off doing it until our son gets older and
we have more time. I am gradually introducing native wildflowers to the
meadow, and eventually hope to do the same in the woods.

We have 3 Scottish Black Face Sheep, 6 chikens, 2 dogs, 6 cats. A pair of
Canada Geese nest on the pond every year, and a Great Blue Heron fishes
there regularly. Something eats the goslings, though, which makes me very
sad. Could be a fox, which we have, or a snapping turtle, which we may or
may not have. Also, a possum frequents the barn and decimated our flock of
banty hens. We now have them in a hen house, but, I think the banties
aren ot happy being cooped up, even though they have a run. Do you know
anything about banties?

Anita......who loves living in the country!


Homeschooling Mom
Nottingham, PA

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Karen Judson

Carol

Your place sounds wonderful too. We miss seeing keruru, we used to have them
visit us on Waiheke. They would sit and gorge themselves on loquat fruit!
Sometimes they seemed hardly able to fly away they'd be so full.

Where abouts in New Zealand are you?

We're in Hamilton now, in the suburbs but with a very large section and
gully, and next to a reserve. Lots and lots of trees.

Regards,
Karen

----- Original Message -----
From: "Brown" <mjcmbrwn@...>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, May 22, 2000 7:50 AM
Subject: [Unschooling-dotcom] The Winona Farm Welcomes Unschooling Visitors


> It is so good to hear of other homeschoolers doing these things. We (dh
and me,
> plus 4 sons aged 19, 16, 13 & 10) have just mooved to a 16 acre block of
land,
> which is about 12 - 13 acres native bush (forest? woodlands? - these don't
> really describe it properly) with a stream running through the middle of
it. We
> are living in the garage plus room that we built before we moved, and are
now
> trying to build the house, but the weather has been rain, rain, rain. (It
is
> winter here in New Zealand) The only animals we have so far are the 2
rabbits
> and cat we brought with us, and a delightful puppy ds #3 got for his 13th
> birthday 2 weeks ago. As vegetarians, we aren't planning on animals beyond
> poultry for eggs, and a few goats to keep the gorse down. As Karen says,
we
> don't have much in the way of wild animals here in NZ but we are
priveleged to
> have a pair of keruru or native pigeon, living in our bush. These are very
> large and lovely birds, which are protected now, but are still poached by
> people who find them good eating.
>
> We are about to start planting trees and are looking forward to getting
our
> gardens started come spring.
>
> Carol
>
> Anita Bower wrote:
>
> > We have 15.5 acres in southeastern Pennsylvania: meadow, pasture,
woods,
> > pond, barn, house. We currently have it classified as farmland. Farms
on
> > all sides, including Amish across the road. We, too, hope to keep it
from
> > being developed, but are putting off doing it until our son gets older
and
> > we have more time. I am gradually introducing native wildflowers to the
> > meadow, and eventually hope to do the same in the woods.
> >
> > We have 3 Scottish Black Face Sheep, 6 chikens, 2 dogs, 6 cats. A pair
of
> > Canada Geese nest on the pond every year, and a Great Blue Heron fishes
> > there regularly. Something eats the goslings, though, which makes me
very
> > sad. Could be a fox, which we have, or a snapping turtle, which we may
or
> > may not have. Also, a possum frequents the barn and decimated our flock
of
> > banty hens. We now have them in a hen house, but, I think the banties
> > aren ot happy being cooped up, even though they have a run. Do you know
> > anything about banties?
> >
> > Anita......who loves living in the country!
>
>
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> We have 15.5 acres in southeastern Pennsylvania: meadow, pasture, woods,
> pond, barn, house. We currently have it classified as farmland. Farms on
> all sides, including Amish across the road. We, too, hope to keep it from
> being developed, but are putting off doing it until our son gets older and
> we have more time. I am gradually introducing native wildflowers to the
> meadow, and eventually hope to do the same in the woods.

It sounds really nice, we have a lot of wildflowers here, many I don't
know the names of, but I sure do know the violets that grow
everywhere. My 4yod Stephanie loves them and tells people not
to walk on her flowers, but it's impossible to avoid them all.

> Something eats the goslings, though, which makes me very
> sad. Could be a fox, which we have, or a snapping turtle, which we may or
> may not have.

Human predators took our four goslings last year, we believe that it
must have been because the goslings [about 5 weeks old, so
getting fairly large] all disappeared in one night, there was no sign
of any feathers or blood and the parent birds were unharmed. If an
animal had taken them the parents would have tried to defend them
and been injured themselves.


> Do you know
> anything about banties?

Not really, we had a bantam rooster but he died of old age. We
are breeding birds for the Hmong market so we can't have banties
unless they were kept well away from the other chickens or the
fiesty little roosters would be spreading their genetic information.

We did have a lot of racoon trouble with all the chickens who had
leftt he coop and taken up residence in the barn being on their
menu, that was two years ago. A new group have migrated to the
barn and we have not lost any of them, they are still around as we
see their footprints in the mud near a pond. The one difference I
can think of it that now we have six domestic geese who patrol the
farmyard all night and maybe they scare the 'coons away.


>
> Anita......who loves living in the country!

Sue....... who loves living in the country too!!

Anita Bower

> The one difference I
>can think of it that now we have six domestic geese who patrol the
>farmyard all night and maybe they scare the 'coons away.
>
>

This is a good idea. Geese are good guard animals. Do you have dogs? If
so, how do they interact with the geese?

We just installed an invisible fence for our dogs, and are working on
training them.

Anita
Homeschooling Mom
Nottingham, PA

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@ @
o00–(_)–00o

[email protected]

Anita wrote:

> > The one difference I
> >can think of it that now we have six domestic geese who patrol the
> >farmyard all night and maybe they scare the 'coons away.
> >
> >
>
> This is a good idea. Geese are good guard animals. Do you have dogs? If
> so, how do they interact with the geese?

No we don't have dogs, but I guess if they were raised with geese
they wouldn't be a problem.

>
> We just installed an invisible fence for our dogs, and are working on
> training them.

How do they work, and do you know if they would work on other
animals.... sheep and goats specifically?






Sue

The Winona Farm in Minnesota Welcomes Unschoolers All Year Round
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is to be dishonest." -Mahatma Gandhi

Anita Bower

Sue wrote:>>
>> We just installed an invisible fence for our dogs, and are working on
>> training them.
>
>How do they work, and do you know if they would work on other
>animals.... sheep and goats specifically?

I don't think they would work for sheep or goats. The system depends on
training the dog to know where the buried wire is and avoid it. The shock
only occurs during the training or if the dog forgets.

Sheep and goats would need a sturdy fence!

Anita
Homeschooling Mom
Nottingham, PA

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