Rural Ramblings at Kings Country

New Home for Rural Ramblings!

2009-10-16T16:27:00.001-05:00

Go to Rural Ramblings for the new home page!

Thanks!

Time for a Change!

2008-07-19T21:25:00.004-05:00

I've been thinking of changing the platform and URL for this blog for a long time. I figured the one year anniversary of the blog was a good time to switch, so started working on it the first of this month.

I hoped to have it all fancied up and perfect before announcing it, but I’ve got too much going on and it’s taking too long. I’m going to start posting to the new blog address from now on… just leave off the /blog in the address to
http://www.ruralramblings.com/ and you’re there!

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY & HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

2008-07-04T17:30:00.006-05:00

Not only is this July 4th Independence Day...

1776 The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence.

But also on this day in ...

1802 The U.S. Military Academy opened at West Point, N.Y.

1804 Author Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem, Mass.

1845 American writer Henry David Thoreau began a two-year experiment in simple living at Walden Pond near Concord, Mass.

1939 Baseball player Lou Gehrig, afflicted with a fatal illness, bid a tearful farewell at Yankee Stadium in New York, telling fans, "Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth."

1959 A 49th star was added to the American flag to represent the new state of Alaska.

1960 The number of stars on the American flag was increased to 50 to honor the new state of Hawaii.

2004 A 20-ton slab of granite, inscribed to honor "the enduring spirit of freedom," was laid at the World Trade Center site as the cornerstone of the Freedom Tower.

2007 The birth of our little blog, Rural Ramblings!

So HAPPY BIRTHDAY to us!
Hope you enjoy our missives and come back and visit often!

Fowl Rescue

2008-07-03T14:16:00.007-05:00

Why is that things seem to go wrong the most when you’re short on time? I’ve got more company than I expected coming this weekend, the house is a wreck, and I needed to get some groceries. But I haven’t been sleeping well, so after the guys went off to work this morning, I laid down for a quick nap figuring I’d be more energetic after a little rest.

I was dreaming about catching chicks, and that there were all kinds all over the house. Little did I realize when I woke up almost two hours later that was a prophetic dream. Two hours! Oh man! I didn’t have that kind of time to waste today! But okay, I feel better, so time to get moving, and fast.

My one little injured chick was peeping. I figured she was lonely. I kept wishing for something else to hatch out soon so she’d have a buddy. I held her a while and talked to her, then zipped outside to do the morning chores.

The wound is healing, even though it still looks pretty yuck.

The animals were all giving me the hairy eyeball, like, “WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?” I was mobbed by chickens and guineas looking for some scratch grain, peafowl screeching for their morning chow, and indignant goats butting my legs because they hadn’t got their morning treat of animal crackers yet. Okay, okay! I’m moving as fast as I can.

Then I heard it.

If you’ve ever had guineas with keets, you know this sound. It’s that high-pitched locater cheep that means, “Help me, I’m lost!” One little keet was running around in the back yard screaming at the top of its little lungs. At first I figured it got separated from the group we saw last night, and when the guineas all came in for food, it’d find its mama. No such luck.

Instead, the older guineas were pecking at it, so I figured I’d better go to the rescue. I got out my trusty net, waded through the other critters, and went after it.

Now if you’ve ever chased a guinea keet you’re probably already laughing, because you know those short little legs move like they’re jet-propelled. It’s really too bad no one had a camera, cause I’m sure this would have qualified for a winner on “Funniest Home Videos.”

After much running around in the 90 degree heat, I finally captured the little twerp, took it inside, and put it in the brooder box with the injured chick. Finally! Now back out to finish my chores.

I wasn’t out there for very long until I heard that sound again. Uh-oh, there’s another keet somewhere! I grabbed my trusty net again, and went off to hunt it down. This one was in the weeds along the driveway. Those weeds include poison ivy.

We went around in circles, I slipped on some rocks and skinned my leg up a little, and about that time I was thinking, “I sure hope you appreciate me saving your life little keet, cause if I get poison ivy for the first time in MY life, I ain’t gonna be happy.” After a whole lot of tries, I finally netted the little speedball, put it in a bucket in the feed room and figured I’d finish my chores, then take it inside.

Only once it shut-up, I heard that sound again. HOW MANY OF THESE KEETS ARE RUNNING LOOSE!?! I’m sure about that time I heard God laughing and saying, “You’d think by now you’d be careful what you wish for! Now you’ve got some little cheeps to keep your lonesome chick company.”

The trouble is, this one was down in the bottom pasture. Now keets are nigh impossible to see in grass, let alone tall weeds like’s in that pasture. The only way you can find one is to home in on the cheeps, and then you still have to extremely lucky to locate it.

I went to look at a known nest site there, and discovered a mass of adult guinea feathers. Hmmmm, so that’s probably why these are running loose on their own – someone had mama for a midnight snack. But where is this little cheeper?

Feathers to the left, two nests of eggs to the right.

I waded through a whole lot of weeds, and probably still wouldn’t have found it except for one thing. This one doesn’t blend in. It’s a light gray. I’ve never seen a keet this color. We had some white guineas way back when we first got some, but I don’t remember them hatching out any gray keets. What I do remember is white guineas are the first to go when the predators come looking for food. They stand out, unlike the regular colored ones, so get picked off quickly.

At any rate, I captured that chick, and thankfully didn’t hear any more cheeps, so took them inside. Unfortunately, I just thought I was done chasing keets, cause when I got in the house I heard the sound again, and it wasn’t coming from the brooder box.

Oh no! The first little cheep had jumped out of the box and was running around all over the house. I headed towards the sound and stepped in something squishy. “Oh crap!” Yep, that’s what it was alright. Guess the little fink’s digestive system is working fine.

It ran in the office, where there are far too many places for it to hide. I crawled around on my hands and knees trying to find it. It ran out of there and into another room and under the bed.

Hiding out among some stuff on a shelf in the office.

By this time my legs were really itching and I knew I couldn’t reach the keet, so I figured I’d take a shower and get ready to go to the grocery store and maybe by then it would be out again. About the time I started to step in the shower, I heard cheeping in the hallway.

I headed after the little cheep, and it zipped towards the living room. I was praying, “Please Lord, I don’t care if you laugh, but don’t let anyone come to the door and see me running around the house with no clothes on, trying to catch this little beast. I haven’t got time to explain it the psychiatrist after they take me away in the straight-jacket!”

Lucky for me, when those little keet feet hit the linoleum in front of the door, the keet went sliding and I grabbed it.

That's the little gray one hopping out of the water dish.

Once I got it back in the brooder box, I threw a towel over the box and went looking for a screen to put over it so there’d be no more jailbreaks. I now have 1 chick and 3 keets cheeping away in a hopefully escape proof box.

And I’m NOT going back outside for fear I might hear more cheeps!

Play this movie, and you'll hear a lot of those locator cheeps!

CSA Basket of the Week

2008-07-02T00:14:00.006-05:00

Well, I leave it to you experts out there (if you buy food, you're an expert, right?), what do you think of this basket of food?

I don't usually leave pictures full sized, but if you click on this, it'll bring up a huge picture so you can get pretty good detail on this week's items.

There is a nice basket of berries there in front I need to clean. To the right is a package of sausage, hot. And I do mean hot. Last time I cooked some of this, it was so hot we couldn't eat it, and The Farmer loves to pile jalapeno peppers on salads or sandwiches. I have to wonder if they put it in the baskets because nobody else wants it.

As you can see in the basket, there's 3 yellow squash, a cucumber, 6 little tomatoes, 3 onions, and a few sprigs of herbs. Oh, and a box of mixed beans that are decent.

Now, research by myself and a friend at the local Publix and Farmer's Market would suggest the following prices (and I tried to err on the generous side):

$4.50 Beans (selling .42/ounce for organically grown beans at Publix)
$4.99 Berries (per quart at Farmer's Market; guessing that's right size)
$-.50 Cucumber (2 for $1 at Farmer's Market)
$2.50 Herbs ($2.50 for bag with about 12 sprigs at Publix)
$-.45 Onions (10 for $1.49 at Farmer's Market)
$6.00 Sausage (for 1 1/2 pounds as advertised on CSA site)
$1.99 Squash (8 or 9 for $1.99 of young squash at Farmer's Market)
$2.10 Tomatoes (10 for $3.50 at Farmer's Market)
$23.03 Total

We started the second week of May, and run through the first week of October. As near as I can tell, that's 21 weeks for $650, or $30.95 a week. If I'm wrong and there's another week in there, it'd only be $29.54 a week, but I think it's 21 weeks and the higher price.

I know they have to buy baskets and boxes, but then, the people at the Farmer's Market and Publix had to package their goods also, so I don't really think it's fair to add anything on the cost for that.

I would also hope that as their garden produces more, we'd get more in the basket. But leaving quantity aside, which I realize would vary with what the garden is producing, there's the issue of quality. Maybe it's just me, but the squash are way too big - they're supposed to be young and small so there are few seeds. The cucumber is also too old, and several veggies in the past have been the same, like the snowpeas and broccoli.

The sausage is excellent quality meat, but so hot we can't eat it. The Farmer suggested I mix it with some unseasoned pork to tone down the heat, so that might work. I'd hate to feed another $6 worth of meat to the dogs.

I went into this hoping for some high quality food and a great experience to write about. I just know CSA is a good thing, and I wanted to be able to brag about how great the one was I joined. I figured, hey, I could write them up and they get some free advertisment! But you notice I've been careful not to mention the name, and even 'erased' their stamp off the sausage package.

Cause unless I'm missing something, I don't think they've earned bragging rights.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

P.S. I finally figured out what form the email should take I send to the people running this particular CSA (trying to be as non-confrontational as possible). I think I will let them know I've been putting pictures of the produce on my blog, and gotten several comments, and thought they might be interested in reading some of them... then make a list of some I've gotten over the last 8 weeks, along with a comment or two of my own at the end. I'll wait for people to comment on this post, then send them an email tomorrow.

Phantom of the Peeps

2008-06-30T21:46:00.005-05:00

Yesterday Young Son and I were doing some staining. (Yes, we are finally moving again on the bathroom remodeling project, though still quite slowly.) We had a door, several crown molding corners and a couple of corbels to stain.

Young Son went out to the workshop to get some sawhorses. When he came back, he asked me if I'd seen the dead chick in front of the feedroom door. Rats! No, and I'd been out there just a couple hours before.

There's a hen sitting on eggs under the workshed, but she hasn't shown up in the yard with any chicks in tow yet. Maybe one of her eggs hatched early? At any rate, I figured I'd check it out when we took the sawhorses back and did the evening chores.

Sure enough, there was a tiny little form on the ground in front of the feed room. Poor little fluffball! I touched it with my toe to scoot it out of the way until I could deal with it... and it peeped! Whoa! Buzzing flies notwithstanding, the little chick was still living. Guess the vulture flies would have to wait for a meal.

On first glance it looked it really bad shape, like something stepped on it, just catching the side of the head and taking the feathers and skin off. I wasn't sure if I shouldn't just put it out of its' misery, but I like to give every critter every chance to make it. I decided to take it inside and see if I could doctor it up a little then put it in an incubator for a while.

Once I cleaned all the dirt off, and used some Visine saline drops to clear the junk out of both eyes, I could see that although it was nasty looking, it wasn't as bad as I feared.

Actually, it sort of reminds me of a 'Phantom of the Opera' mask.

I'm not positive both eyes are undamaged, but they're open and the chick is moving around. The little peep is now residing in a brooder box with a nice heat lamp to keep it warm, and a teddy bear to cuddle up to.

Hopefully the little Phantom gets to grow up and make lots of operatic clucks.

Chicks & Peafowl & Frogs & Bats

2008-06-28T21:13:00.005-05:00

It’s been another hot day on the farm, and high time to get the bigger chicks out of their brooder box and into a "big chicken" pen.

They weren’t too sure what to make of such a big wilderness to explore, and didn’t want to come out of the cage at first. The Farmer walked up behind them and shook the cage a little to encourage them to go out.

Once The Farmer moved out of the way, a couple of the peahens decided to come up on the other side of the fence and check out the small fowl. That gave the little ones the needed incentive to move. I'm sure those peahens looked gigantic to them!

Besides, they were thirsty, and I had put out a fresh jug of water for them.

This evening when I went out and checked on them, they were running around in the tall weeds at one end of the pen, playing hide and seek. I stayed a while to watch them flitting about, then walked down into the bottom pasture to enjoy the fireflies fairy twinkles for a while.

From there I wandered on over to the pond and listened to the frog chorus. I got a surprise bonus, and watched a fancy aerial display from several bats.

They were munching up some of the bugs flying above the pond. It was too dark for the camera to focus on them zipping around down close to the pond, so I had to catch them up in the sky. Listen close and you can hear the frog chorus, with a short solo from our peacock.
Summer nights may be hot, but they're still pretty cool.

You'll have to do that yourself....

2008-06-23T22:59:00.002-05:00

The other day, it was my turn to prepare dinner, so I asked my wife to go over to the local market and buy some organic vegetables.

She came back rather upset. When I asked her what was wrong, she said, "I don't think I like that produce guy. I went and looked around for your organic vegetables and I couldn't find any. So I asked him where the organic vegetables were."

"He didn't know what I was talking about, so I said, 'These vegetables are for my husband. Have they been sprayed with any poisonous chemicals?'"

"And he said, 'No, ma'am. You'll have to do that yourself.'"

Guineas Gone Goofy

2008-06-23T17:53:00.003-05:00

I looked out in the pasture a while ago, and saw two guineas running round and round the pasture. This is nothing new; they do it all the time. One chases the other, trying to prove dominance I suppose.

Then I remembered I'd taken a short video of their crazy antics back in the spring. I was sitting at the table eating breakfast, and watched those goofballs chase around the pasture for a half hour or more.

Guineas can be awfully mean to each other and any other fowl on the farm. Good thing they have redeeming qualities like being great "watchdogs", and the best critters for cutting down the tick population. Here's one of the guineas keeping watch from the top of The Farmer's work shed.
Without such redeeming qualities, I doubt if many people would put up with the Guinea Gangsters.

Peachick Surprise

2008-06-20T16:45:00.005-05:00

A couple hours ago I looked in an incubator to see one chick almost out of an egg, and another just pipping. But a while ago I decided there sure was a lot of peeping going on, so I peeped too... peeped right in the incubator that is!

Here's what I saw: It's the 3 Stooges! Or maybe it's 3 little T-Rexes!

What a nice surprise! I've got 2 peachicks in a brooder box already, and 3 more hatched out now in the incubator.

This is more like it!

Rural Writer Tells All

2008-06-19T16:04:00.008-05:00

Well, maybe not quite all. But way back in April I promised to tell more about Ellie, and then more recently to tell about what I’ve been studying and working on lately. Some of it ties together, so here we go, Rural Writer tells all.

What I’ve been studying: The main course I’m taking is on List Building and Internet Marketing. The Farmer can’t work forever, and since I’m handicapped by Regional Pain Syndrome and Fibromyalgia, I can’t work off the farm. I’ve toyed with many different ideas, but this seems to be the best fit.

For the first few weeks we had up to 4 teleseminars a week, lasting a couple hours each. These were guest teachers, Internet Gurus sharing some of their wisdom on how they make money. We also had a weekly Q&A session with our two instructors, and we have online videos to watch and scads of stuff to do to implement what we’re learning. This is an INTENSIVE course.

Now most of the people taking this course are flat out Internet Marketers. By that I mean they are learning about internet marketing, and they are going to sell internet marketing. Most, but not all! A few of us are learning how to build a list (you need someone to sell to) and how to market on the internet to different niches, such as art shows, home decorating, horse training, fitness, health food and more.

My first niche is health food. One of the building blocks is a blog, and mine is “Health Food Made Easy.” I don’t believe it’s one way, all or nothing, but that you can make small changes to your diet to include more health food… one bite at a time. I’d love to have some new visitors and would really love some comments to liven it up. Getting started takes time, and I’d be thrilled for any support!

While I’m learning internet marketing for my own “career”, I’ve got a second use for it as well. I want to apply some of what I learn to help raise money for Ellie’s surgery.

More about Ellie: She's my 3-year-old granddaughter. Ellie was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy when she was a year old. She was born in Texas, but they moved to Canada to be closer to my wonderful DIL’s extended family, so they could have more help with Ellie. Also, Canada has a so-called “free” health care system.

Most of the time that health care system is a good thing, and really helps with Ellie’s many medical and therapy expenses. The problem is the surgery she needs, a Selective Dorsal Rhizotomy, is best done at the St. Louis Children’s Hospital. They do a less invasive type of surgery, have done more of them than anyone else in the world, and have a better rate of success.

Naturally, Canadian free health care doesn’t apply in the US. They’ve got to raise the money for Ellie’s surgery. A minimum of $40,000 worth of money. It needs to be done next spring for various reasons – Ellie’s age, and making it during better weather so it’s easier on her parents to drive an hour every day to take her to physical therapy after the surgery.

My “building block blog” for fundraising is Helping Ellie Walk. It’s just getting off the ground, and I have even more work to do with it than Health Food Made Easy.

What is NOT easy is condensing all this information into one blog entry. What is NOT easy is trying to take classes and go through all the instructional materials, put what I learn into practice, keep up with the farm chores and household chores, and once in a while get some sleep.

But I’ll try to do better at keeping updates posted here now and then, however brief they may be. In the meantime, you can always check out my other two blogs to see what’s happening with Ellie and one of my business ventures!

And that’s my Reader’s Digest Condensed Version about Ellie and what I've been doing!

Cost of CSA Baskets

2008-06-18T17:22:00.003-05:00

Actually, these baskets costs more than $25 each week. I was thinking about paying the $100 a month, but I forgot to take into account the deposit we had to make.

The total cost for this CSA season is $650, and it is supposed to run from the first week in May until the last week in September. Looks like about 21 weeks to me, in which case, the baskets of food cost about $30.95 each.

I keep waiting to see if this gets better, but right now I'm thinking I'll either try a different CSA next year if I can find one, or just forget the whole thing, which I really hate. I really, really wanted to be able to support CSA's and write great things about them. But I was looking for really good, better than I could buy in the grocery store kinds of veggies. For the most part, that isn't happening.

Maybe it'll get better. Maybe we'll get some huge baskets of food as the garden really gears up in a few weeks.

Maybe.

This Week's CSA Basket

2008-06-18T17:10:00.003-05:00

Okay, the quality of food is better than the first few baskets, and by the 4th week, delivery was on time.

Here’s what the veggies looked like this week:

That’s Romana Italian flat green beans in the little greenish box. As you can see, there are also decent looking tomatoes. Also included are 3 straightneck yellow squash, onions, and a few sprigs of oregano. That’s kale in one of the gallon baggies and collards in the other.

We also got another dozen dirty eggs. Two were cracked and I immediately fed those to the dogs. How do I know what bacteria seeped into the eggs?

We also discovered one of the other eggs was bad when Young Son tried to make scrambled eggs this morning. He dropped it in with the other eggs before he noticed it, and the yuck spread throughout the mixture so thoroughly we had to throw the whole batch away. He now knows to crack them singly into a smaller bowl first to check their freshness. He’s spoiled because with our own eggs, if I don’t know for sure they’re freshly laid, I don’t put them in the fridge. They’re immediate dog food.

We get an email each week from these people doing the CSA and they are always sooooooo enthusiastic about what’s in the basket. Maybe I'm just too picky, but while some of it is looking decent this time, other things I think they’ve waited too long to pick. The Farmer wonders if this is their first year gardening. The people where he works make fun of the food in the basket. It's not turning out quite as I'd hoped.

But there you have it, another $25 worth of eggs and vegetables.

Hidden Cameras?

2008-06-17T09:22:00.004-05:00

The Farmer and I went down the driveway you see in the header of this blog. It's across the road from our driveway. We wanted to see what exactly is back there.

There's a house way off from the "main" road which we'd never seen in the 10 or so years we've lived here. It's a lovely setting with a creek in the front, and a swimming pool and big field in the back.

The neighbors work someplace far off, and only occasionally come back for brief visits. Since they're gone so much, they ask one of our other neighbors to look after the place, and have ADS security.

They also have this sign on both the front and back doors...

I smiled and waved when I read the one on the front door, and The Farmer did the same when he read the one on the back door.

Just one thing... I hope whatever jobs they have don't require great spelling skills.

Bird, M.D.

2008-06-15T12:05:00.004-05:00

In this case, the M.D. stands for Major Deity, because I'm sure that's what the parrot looks like to the little chicks below her.

There's this feathered being far above them, much larger than they are!

Or perhaps she could be BIRDzilla!

Whatever she looks like to the little chicks, she is intensely curious about those peeping little fluff balls!

Egg Survey

2008-06-12T07:51:00.003-05:00

A quick question here...

If you sell eggs, or even if you just were going to sell eggs, do you feel like they should be cleaned? Or do you feel cleaning is up to the person who buys the eggs?

I'm curious... so tell me EGG-xactly what you think!

Camouflage

2008-06-11T21:29:00.005-05:00

How do you like my stealth chick?
I have two brooders now, a new one for the older chicks with a cooler light source and taller sides, and the older one that is in use for the latest hatchlings, with the hotter light and teddy bear.

I didn't want my older chicks to feel too deprived so I put an old fuzzy slipper in their box.

Little did I know I was providing the almost perfect camouflage for my party chick with the medley of colored feathers.

We're high tech here... we have stealth chicks!

Dropping in for a minute...

2008-06-10T17:09:00.003-05:00

A minute... that's about all the time I seem to have these days. A minute for this, a minute for that! My minutes are all busy!

I have a backlog of pictures of more chicks - there's a total of 9 hatched out right now, and butterflies and a second bloom on the Voodoo Lily, but no time to sort through them now and put them up here. Soon I need to go out and do evening critter chores, then Farmer and I have to go pick up our truck we let a friend borrow.

This week is the last BIG push on my classes, in that I have not one, not two, alas, not even just three teleseminars this week. No, I already had one advanced training call today, and have three calls tomorrow, and two more on Thursday. Add them up, and that's SIX calls in ONE week! No wonder I can't get anything done!

But that's the last of the scheduled training calls, and after that I can proceed more at my own pace watching videos and doing homework and getting down to "business" work.

So stay tuned, and hopefully I'll soon be able to post more about what I've been up to and what's going on around here on the farm!

A Whole Lot of Peeping Going On

2008-06-06T16:52:00.004-05:00

I have 3 incubators full of eggs. Most of the eggs are from the peafowl. I'm using automatic turners in two of the incubators, and they're so big I can only fit one in every other space.

Since my hen population is getting a little elderly, I decided I'd put a few chicken eggs in-between some of the peafowl eggs. I started back on May 16th. This past Wednesday, just 19 days later, the first chick hatched.

When I don't have very many chicks, I give them a washable stuffed animal to cuddle up to and help them stay warm.

Yesterday another one hatched, and sometime during the night yet another.

Looks like the latest has some Silver Crested Polish in there.

Later this afternoon I looked in one incubator and there were TWO more new ones. They both look like Buff Orpingtons, so the count is 4 yellow and 1 party-colored.

I wish the peafowl eggs would hatch so easily. I haven't had any luck the last two years, and haven't heard a peep out of any eggs this year either.

I'm hoping a whole lot more peeping goes on before we're done!

Voodoo Magic

2008-06-02T22:29:00.005-05:00

There's a bit of Voodoo at our house right now. Specifically, the Voodoo Lily out by the pond is blooming.

It's scientifically known as Dracunculus vulgaris (aka Arum dracunculus). Some of the common names are Dragon Arum, Ragons, Snake Lily, Black Arum, Black Dragon, Dragonwort, & Stink Lily. In Greece it is called Drakondia, with the dragon being the long spadex inside the enormous maroon-lipped spathe.

There is also at least one plant nursery that has dubbed it "The Viagra Lily" for obvious reasons.

When we first moved here, there was a whole colony of these plants on the hillside above the spring feeding our pond. Unfortunately, when the guys dug out the pond we lost a lot of them. It will take a while for the colony to rebuild. The plant spreads by tubers underground, and spreading seeds above ground.

It's an interesting plant. Way up there on the cool-o-meter! Not only is it funky looking, but it's a thermogenic plant! The first day or so it's in bloom, the flower produces heat. I suppose that's to help carry the stink. Yeah, for a short period the plant also rates high on the yuck-o-meter.

It smells like something that died a long time ago. The Voodoo Lily uses the carrion smell to attract insects that like dead stuff, like flies, for pollination. You can see in this video the smell works very well at attracting flies.

Fortunately the smell doesn't last long, but all kinds of bugs seem to love it.

The flower (spathe) on this plant is a couple feet across. The shimmering purple-black "jack" supposedly can grow to as long as fifty inches. This one has a ways to go before it reaches that size, being only a little over 23 inches long from the base down in the throat of the flower, to the tip. It really is a neat plant. Just don't breath deep the first day it's blooming!

Last Week's CSA Produce

2008-06-01T17:06:00.005-05:00

We finally got our produce from our CSA on Thursday. I took a bunch of pictures so you could see what we got. It comes in what I think is a half-bushel basket:
Peeking inside, you see the eggs and veggies. The first week we got some sausage, and last week there was some pork, but this week there was no meat included.
I spread out the vegetables to make it easier to see what was included. Besides the eggs, there was broccoli, radishes, 3 onions, a couple little boxes of sugar snap peas, a gallon baggie with kale, and another with lettuce.
Oh, and there were a couple of sprigs of some herb also.

As you can see, the lettuce didn't fare too well being kept closed up in a bag and no refrigeration for 2 or 3 days. I threw it out for the peafowl to munch on.

The kale looked a little better, and the sugar snap peas were so-so.

The broccoli fascinated me, however. I don't believe I've ever dealt with such limp broccoli before. The picture doesn't really do it justice. You had to see it wobbling around, all flopped over, held upright only so far as the more rigid center stalk would keep it.

So there you have it, my $25 worth of veggies. Hopefully next week they'll arrive on time and in better condition.

Update on CSA Delivery

2008-05-29T07:39:00.002-05:00

Late last night I got another email from the guy who does the deliveries. He informed me he got to the store too late, it had already closed. Duh! Like we hadn’t figured THAT out!

Supposedly he’s going to drop the baskets off this morning. The store opens at 10am, so The Farmer can go pick it up before his dentist appointment today. (Lucky Farmer!)

And, also supposedly, he’s going to start delivering by noon so the baskets can be picked up any time after that, because in his words, the afternoon drop-off “just doesn't leave enough time for anything out of the ordinary to happen and get taken care of.”

It took him three weeks to figure that out??? Apologies aside, why did he ever think that would work in the first place? If everyone didn’t get there at the same time, like minutes before the store closed, you missed the delivery and wasted your time, gas and money. (I might also mention that we were never told at what time the delivery would be made anyway, just what day.)

I hope this goes smoother for the rest of the season.

Waiting on CSA Deliveries

2008-05-28T20:49:00.006-05:00

I had hoped to have a picture to put on here this evening of our latest batch of goodies from our CSA (Community Suported Agriculture) membership. This is our third week, and frankly, it’s not going as well as I’d hoped. It’s not the goodies we’re getting that’s the problem, but trying to connect to get them!

First off, they deliver to various areas. When we signed up, we understood there was going to be a drop-off in the town where The Farmer works. Before I ever signed us up, he agreed to pick the food up on his lunch hour, or after work, so no problem there.

The first glitch was the drop-off point. The store which is the pick-up point isn’t in the same town at all, but in the next one over. Okay, we made that adjustment, though it makes it harder and less cost effective since he has to drive further to pick it up.

The next problem is the timing. The first week the guy delivering the food baskets had to work through the delivery day, and stuff didn’t get delivered until the next day. Okay, beginning of the season, glitches happen, move on.

The next week the Farmer called to check if the food had been delivered before going to pick it up. He called right before he left work, and it still wasn’t there. Evidently the guy came soon after, and the storeowner called The Farmer on his cell phone to let him know the food was there, but he was already on his way home. Considering he was more than half way home and considering the price of gas, he didn’t turn around but figured he’d pick it up the next day.

Here we are on the third week, and due to Memorial Day our delivery date was changed again, and we could live with that, but it’s not knowing what time of day the stuff will be there that’s a major problem. The store closes at 5pm, and The Farmer was there at 4:30 this evening, and the guy still hadn’t delivered the stuff. I suppose he made it there before closing time, but then how is anyone supposed to get their stuff until the next day?

That means the greens and vegetables are going to sit in their basket yet another day. I understand they have to be picked one day and delivered the next, but the way it’s going, it’s the following evening of the third day before I finally get them. The produce has lost quite a bit of freshness by that time, especially since it’s not being refrigerated.

Maybe this is how all CSA’s are run, and maybe it works for people who can drop everything to go pick stuff up whenever they get around to delivering it, but it’s not working that well for us. The timing needs to be consistent. I’m beginning to regret I ever signed up for this. It’s not cheap, but for FRESH veggies I figured it was worth it.

If this doesn’t get better, I’m afraid I’m going to feel like it’s not worth the extra expense and trouble for tired vegetables. And if I feel that way, and really wanted to do this, seems like it would be awfully tough to get people just learning to appreciate eating fresh vegetables to bother with it.

How about it, how does this work for other people? Am I expecting too much, or are there better ways of doing this?

Picking up Pastured Poultry & Delivering a Single Sheep

2008-05-25T18:58:00.003-05:00

It’s been a busy weekend, and it’s not even over yet since we’ve still got Memorial Day!

Friday afternoon I went out the back roads through places I’ve never been, and ended up at Mountain Fork Farm to pick up my order of pastured broilers.

Yes, I know we have chickens here on our farm. And yes, I thought about raising some for the freezer. There’s just one catch, but it’s a BIG catch. If I raise them, I have to process them, which is a nice way of saying I have to chop their heads off, scald, pluck and gut each chicken. I’ve done it in my time, but at this stage I don’t have the stamina for such a big project, so I decided to support some other farmer who does.

It was a nice drive, and what I saw of the farm was gorgeous. They had a canopy set up a little ways down their driveway, right before you go through the gate to their property, with chickens in coolers ready for pickup. I wish I’d thought to ask how many acres they have. It has to be pretty good sized, because I couldn’t even see their house from where I was.

The first thing you see is a big greenhouse in a field to the right of the driveway. They also sell a wide variety of vegetables that are grown using sustainable agriculture methods, so no doubt get a lot of use from the greenhouse.

They have a shed not far from the greenhouse with big coolers for the chickens and such.

There was a big field to the left, and the road winds on back through the trees. I could hear chickens way off, and I know from their website they raise turkeys, Berkshire hogs, Dexter cattle and horses. I was disappointed not to see any of that, but maybe I’ll be able to go back again another time.

Saturday I spent catching up on work in the house, with laundry and cleaning and baking a couple of Cherry-Orange coffee cakes, several pizza crusts, bread for us, and “Birdie bread” – made with whole grains and veggies, cut up in cubes, and fed to my picky parrot.

Today we delivered a ewe to a friend’s farm way out back of beyond. You even have to drive through a creek to get to the farm. I reckon they don’t go anywhere during hard rains! They were supposed to be home by mid-morning, having gone to a Fiber Festival earlier this weekend. We got there mid-afternoon, but nobody greeted us but the dogs.

Of course, that’s a pretty big greeting, considering they are HUGE Great Pyrenees, and there were about ten of them prancing around us. They will not, however, win any awards for vicious watchdogs, as they were far more interested in seeing if we would pet them. Of course, we’ve been there before, but even the young pups we’d not seen before were eager for their share of attention.

We wandered around the yard for a while. The dogs were all barking and the one inside was going nuts. I knocked at the door. No answer. What to do???

Fortunately, they have several pens, and there was one unoccupied behind the house, complete with shade tree, so we put the ewe in there, got her a bucket of water, left a note in the screen door, and went back home.

The funny thing is, a couple hours after we got home Kim called me. I figured she was going to comment on the new sheep and tell me where she’d been. Wrong! I said, “Did you find the present we left for you?”

Turns out she hadn’t, and she’d been home the whole time. I’m not sure where she was working, but her mother was in the house and never realized we were out there, or unloading sheep in the pen right by the house. I figured there was no way they could NOT know we were there considering how the dogs were carrying on, including the one in the house. We’d left a note in the screen door and left a sheep, so there’s no denying we were there!

At any rate, the sheep got delivered, and I got to check out a bunch of the ewes and lambs she had running around.

We’ll do the check and registration thing to each other through the mail, so … all’s well that ends well?

We tried a different route home, and I couldn't resist snapping a picture of this lovely red barn we passed. Oh… and Robin… you won’t believe how many wild turkeys we saw on the way to and from their farm! They never stood still long enough for a picture, but I promise, we really did see LOTS of them!

Paul's Himalayan Musk Rose

2008-05-21T07:33:00.006-05:00

This Paul is a rambling rose that was named after the guy who hybridized it and registered it in 1916. It's got a lots of thorns, light pink double bloom, , resistant to most rose diseases, and that nice rose smell.

It blooms once a year, in the late spring or early summer.

This one is growing beside a huge oak tree at the front right corner of our yard, alongside the driveway.

Every year it's gets taller and fuller, and it's so lovely when full of blooms!
I love rambling roses, even when they're named Paul.

Going to the Dogs

2008-05-18T08:38:00.006-05:00

We have 3 kinds of dogs at our house.

1) We have two dog dogs, Toby and Neffie. Toby's an American Farm Collie and Neffie is a Maremma, a type of Livestock Guardian Dog (LGD).

Neffie on the left, Toby to the right. They're walking
towards me from the back pasture in the early morning sunlight.

2) We have a cat dog named Spot. He's a big white cat that follows us around everywhere we go outside, and comes when you whistle for him.

This is Spot Fencewalker, our cat dog.
3) Then there's my Bird Dog. She's an African Grey Parrot, and loves to imitate the dogs outside when they start barking. Remember, she's imitating it just as she hears it, so it sounds a little strange.

The picture is rather dark as I didn't have any extra lighting,
but it's the sound effects that are important anyway.

We have a strange household, and a farm full of strange critters. We're definitely going to the dogs here.

Welcome to the Funny Farm!

Firebugs and Berry Blooms

2008-05-17T16:12:00.008-05:00

After a lot of rainy days, it was nice to see some sunshine today. Since everyone was home, it was also a good day to get a few things done around the farm.

The Cave Geek (aka Youngest Son) helped the Farmer get all the rotten particle board and other junk off the front porch and in a cart to be hauled down to the bottom pasture. Farmer Firebug likes to burn things, so he started a nice fire.

While Farmer Firebug is setting the world on fire, Toby the Wonder Dog is making an ash out of himself, chasing hot ashes all over the pasture and jumping up to catch them in his mouth. (This is the same dog who catches bumblebees. I'm not sure if he thrives on danger or is just an idiot.)

He seems mesmerized by all the floating ashes, either watching them or chasing after them.

While down in the bottom pasture, I noticed that the wild blackberries are in full bloom. Maybe the bugs and birds will leave a few for us to enjoy!

Critters in the Backyard

2008-05-14T16:51:00.003-05:00

When I went out to do chores this evening, this is what I saw:
There's a goat to one side, a couple of llamas, a Maremma LGD in-between, and a rooster. But wait! Look closer! What's on that male llama's back?

Well, look at that, one of the Buff Orpington hens is resting her feet in llama wool.

As a matter of fact, the rooster was on Samson's back too when I first went out, but by the time I grabbed my camera, he'd gone off to see if I was putting out any feed.

Maybe sitting on a sheep or llama's back is like having warm, fuzzy slippers on your feet. Since it was a cool, rainy day, that probably felt good.

I just never know what those critters are going to be up to when I go outside!

Update from the farm...

2008-05-09T23:44:00.003-05:00

I'm soooooo far behind on everything and anything these days! Briefly, the facts are these:

1) We're still working on the bathroom. The new (again!) counter/sink was delivered, and this time it is all in one piece, so The Farmer is going to install that tomorrow if all goes well.

2) The place is awash with blooms. There are azaleas blooming, and also coral bells, ajuga, iris, lenten rose, tea roses, tiarella, honeysuckle, geraniums, and all kinds of wild flowers. I have clematis vines blooming in purples, blue, variegated and white.

This particular clematis is on a fence alongside the yard. The blooms are about 6" across.
3. We've got a new occupant in our pond, a great big turtle. That's okay until The Farmer decides to stock the pond with fish. We don't want to buy sushi for the turtle, but for now he can subsist very nicely on frogs and tadpoles. We have a bazillion of those, ha!

4. I still haven't got the sheep shorn. Note to self... set a date SOON!

5. I've also been trying to give away 3 roosters. No luck. They're tearing the feathers off the backs of the hens. They need to go one way or another.

That's the short version. I just don't have time to write about everything that is going on right now. Why? Well, I'm taking a 6-week class, and it is INTENSE. I barely have time to keep up with regular chores, let alone any extras.

So if my posts are sparse, you'll know why!

Look what FedEx delivered!

2008-05-05T09:08:00.003-05:00

While I was out doing chores this morning, I saw a BIG FedEx truck maneuvering to get into our driveway. I was trying to think what in the world I had ordered until I saw the HUGE package the guy was taking out of the truck. Aha!
Hooray, hooray! Our new counter and sink arrived in ONE piece this time!!! Guess I know what the Farmer will be doing next weekend. Yes!

It wasn't ME, Mom!

2008-05-02T09:13:00.002-05:00

This morning I was sitting at my desktop computer in my office down the hall from the living room. I was concentrating on finishing up the day’s humor mailing so I could get it sent out, and kept hearing Young Son giggling. It sounded just like it does when I’m sitting on the living room couch, and he’s down in his room in the basement right underneath me, laughing at something he’s watching on tv.

It passed through my mind to wonder what he was doing up so early since he doesn't have to go to work today, and what in the world he was watching on tv that time of morning, but I was busy so didn’t think any more about it until he came upstairs a while later.

Then I asked him what had him laughing so bright and early, and he informed me it wasn’t him because he just got up.

Ohhhhhh…. picture the little light bulb going off over my head. If it wasn’t the Geek giggling, then it was our parrot imitating him. Sure enough, I heard the same sound a little while later when I knew the Geek wasn’t in the basement..

Mind you, the parrot stops the minute you walk in the room and gives you that innocent, “It wasn’t me!” kind of look. And she’ll probably never do it so Geek will get to hear it. But she has a perfect rendition of the sound, just like she imitates the sound of a dog barking in a distance. After all, she mimics the sounds just like she hears them.

No telling who I'll hear next.

Yesterday's Visitor

2008-04-30T08:50:00.002-05:00

I've seen the little hummingbirds enjoying nectar from the honeysuckle blooms, but yesterday was the first time I saw one go to the feeder this year.

I can sit at our dining room table and watch these little jewels flitting about. They always make me smile.

Update on the Bathroom Project

2008-04-29T06:30:00.002-05:00

The bathroom is usable again, but far from finished. We tore out the particle board flooring and found there was a little black mildew even on the bottom layer of plywood. I cleaned the wood as best I could, then gave it a couple of coats of Kilz primer, and The Farmer covered it with a layer of roofing tarpaper, then put a new layer of plywood down on the old layer, another layer of tarpaper, then underlayment board, and finally the new vinyl flooring. It looks fantastic! The “Old World Fresco” faux finish on the walls and the pattern on the flooring blend beautifully together.

The new toilet is in place. It takes a little getting used to. We got one of the taller ones with an elongated bowl, so it’s a little different seating! It only uses 1.6 gallons of water per flush, and the flapper closes back almost instantly leaving half the water still in the tank, so that’s different too. But it does the job, and that’s what counts!

The guys got the vanity lifted in place and it looks lovely. We still need to buy handles and pulls for the drawers. That should make it look even classier once they're attached.

Then after all that work, the big moment arrived to finally see the cultured marble vanity top. I was so excited to finally get to uncrate it and see what it looked like! And what did we see when we opened the box?

Yep, one corner was broken off, so there we were, finally ready to use it and no can do. Bummer. Worse, this is a special order deal, so it’ll be around 3 weeks before we get another. We had to take it back to the store, get a refund, and order a new one. In the meantime, we just put the old top back on. It wobbles a little as this vanity is a different size from the old one, but it’s usable.

There are still a lot of odds and ends to finish up. I have to stain the new door on one side, and paint it on the other. We put the old door back in place for now, so we can use the bathroom.

The Farmer needs to change the hanger placement on the corbels, then I need to stain them. They’ll go up first, then the cupboard over top of the toilet will sit on top of them. We also need to put the medicine cabinet back up, but need the new vanity top in place first so we can see where to place it between there and the light bar over top. The crown molding and baseboard and trim around the tub and surround needs cut and put in place. We need towel bars, the toilet paper holder and light switch covers put up.

Since we have to wait for a new vanity top and we can’t devote another week to working on the bathroom full-time, it will be a while before everything is done.

But it’s gonna look GREAT!

Primal Scream Therapy

2008-04-24T16:49:00.004-05:00

This morning when I went out to do chores the peacock was strutting his stuff and screaming.

I joined in.

Hey, I’m not the only person around here that does it. Sometimes neighbors walking down the road scream back, and last week I even heard one of the garbage guys screaming at the peacock while hanging on the back of the garbage truck as it went rolling by.

I figure it’s great therapy, doesn’t cost a cent, and that peacock and I can scream at each other for a good ten minutes before we get tired. And this week I need any stress relief I can get, so Primal Scream Therapy it is.

The problem is that bathroom we’re remodeling. Getting the wallpaper off was frustrating, but that hasn’t been the only problem. (Naturally!) After that, the Farmer had to disconnect the plumbing from the sink, and he and Geek carted the vanity out. No problem there.

However, the commode refused to leave in one piece, as the bolts were rusted in place. The Farmer ended up having to bust the bottom apart to get the commode loose. We now have a dead, slightly fragmented gold commode setting on our front porch awaiting final disposal.

Worse, once the water was disconnected, even though the valve was turned completely off, it wouldn’t quit leaking. We put a bucket under it, but it filled up so fast we had to empty it every hour. The Farmer went to work that afternoon, but thankfully stopped and got a new valve on his way home, and made the repairs that evening so I didn’t have to get up once an hour all night to keep water from overflowing.

Yesterday Geek and I painted all day. We trimmed out and painted the ceiling twice, both coats of “Cool Gray” (white with the barest hint of gray). I couldn’t believe how dingy the ceiling was once you could see the difference the fresh paint made.

Next we worked on the walls. That mess required trimming out three times, a coat of primer, and two coats of our base color of gray. We finished about 5pm, and decided to wait until today to do the faux “Old World Fresco” finish.

That took most of the morning as it’s tedious work. Brushing on lime wash, then color glaze, then brushing them together… the lime wash dried quickly, so you can only do a little section at a time. When we first started I wasn’t so sure I was going to like it, but now that it’s done – Wow! I can’t wait to see how all this looks together.

Of course, we aren’t done with problems yet. We ripped the old linoleum off the floor this afternoon, only to discover there were TWO layers glued together, AND glued to the floor. Part of it came right up off the floor, but part of it stayed firmly attached. We’ve tried various methods of removal, and none have been too successful. Since it’s only a thinner layer of paper and glue left, and we’re putting finish board on top, we may leave it. I’ll have to see what The Farmer thinks of it.

Last but not least, what do you suppose was under the linoleum? Remember, this is a bathroom. You know, lots of MOISTURE!!! So let’s use particle board, right? ARGH! The floor has gotten wet from leaks on more than one occasion, and one end was particularly nasty with black mildew. There are a couple of cracks in the board, but there is a layer of solid plywood underneath, so… once again, we’ll see what the Farmer thinks needs done.

For now, I’m just taking a rest until it’s time to go out and do evening chores and get in a little more Primal Scream Therapy.

Remodeling the Bathroom

2008-04-21T23:09:00.003-05:00

We’re in the midst of remodeling one of our bathrooms this week, and I’m really wondering, who’s Bright Idea was this?

…. Oh yeah, I think it was mine. Somebody just slap me up the side of the head the next time I get such an attack of insanity!

This is our second major remodeling project in this house, the first being a kitchen makeover. It had wallpaper that was not put up properly and came off in little tiny bits. This bathroom also had wallpaper, which thankfully came off in somewhat larger pieces than the kitchen wallpaper did, but left tons of glue behind. I’m talking about a wall GUNKED over with glue. I was actually a little afraid when we got rid of the glue the wall might fall down.

At any rate, I have come to the following conclusion: Anyone who puts up wallpaper in a slipshod manner in a house to hide imperfections on the wall so they can sell it to some poor unsuspecting soul who will then have to deal with it and try to somehow fix the mess deserves to be put in the 9th level of hell (as in Dante's Inferno), and in fact, I think we need to invent a 10th level for such deception. It’s just too evil.

Young Son (aka to Ellie as “Uncle Geek”) and I worked on that mess today and we’re still not done. Understand this room isn’t that big, only about 4x8 feet, with one wall mostly taken up with the space for the tub & surround.

We rolled the liquid enzyme stuff on the wall to soften the glue, then scraped, scraped and scraped some more. Then we rolled more enzyme stuff on the wall, and scraped even more. We found holes we had no idea were hiding behind the wallpaper, and in some places a second layer of wallpaper. Preparing a satiny smooth wall for a paint job just ain’t happening. No, it would take more time and energy than we’ve got, and probably only new wallboard would actually do the job.

Instead, we formulated a plan B which supposedly works well for imperfect walls, and decided to use a Faux Finish, namely Color/Lime Washing to make what the paint company calls an “Old World Fresco” kind of finish. Since we bought a new pale gray commode, and the cultured marble countertop & sink are creamy white with swirls of gray and black, but the cabinetry and trim is all oak with a light stain so will put a lot of wood color in there, we decided to use some gray on the walls.

Specifically, after a primer coat, the base coat of color is going to be “Argent Gray”. (Who names these colors anyway?) It will get a lime wash and a tinted umber glaze.

We’re going to pick up the umber tint in the flooring, which is a good grade of vinyl with a pattern that looks a little like diamonds of slate in varying shades of taupe and cream with just an occasional slight brush of gray undertones. (Don’t I sound like a decorator? Ha!)

Tomorrow morning The Farmer & Geek are going to take out the old vanity and sink, and the old commode, then we’ll get the wallpaper hiding behind them off and finish prepping the wall and go from there.

We’re hoping to get the majority of this project finished this week, but you know how it goes with these things. There’s always surprises, and usually not good ones!

It’s gonna be interesting!

Springtime on the Farm

2008-04-20T14:44:00.003-05:00

I love this weather. It's still cool at nights and the first part of the morning, then warms up in the afternoon, but doesn't get so HOT as it does later. Unfortunately, this moderate weather usually doesn't last very long, and we have a very brief bout of spring.

Trees, bushes and flowers are in bloom all over the place! When I walk out our front door, there's a flower bed with a white pulsatilla and several ajuga in bloom, coral bells and iris with buds not quite open, and several other plants greening up but not yet in bloom.

The pond is scummed over with pollen. Our vehicles turn yellow overnight from all the pollen the trees are puffing out.

We have a row of cherry laurels across the front of the yard blooming.

This is the first year the two dogwoods I planted in the front yard have bloomed. I really like the pink variety.
On the north end of the house, the hostas have got a good growth going, the Lenten Rose is still full of blooms, as is the Viburnum bush.

The honeysuckle (Alabama Crimson Red) is also blooming. I saw a hummingbird enjoying some nectar from the honeysuckle blooms just this morning!

When the wind is right, the sweet smell of the viburnum in the front yard and the lilac in the back yard mingle, and oh! What a heavenly aroma!

It won't be long until the roses start blooming, and out in the woods, I've seen trillium, mayapple, trout lily, and all kinds of wild dogwoods in bloom.

It's wonderful to see all this color. Later in the year the flowerbeds are still colorful, but when traveling down the road, it's mostly green that meets the eye, with only a few splashes of color from things like crepe myrtles or butterfly bushes.

I guess I'll enjoy the plethora of colors and moderate temperatures while they last, and try not to think of the heat to come!

Home again, home again!

2008-04-16T23:12:00.003-05:00

After a long day of flying, I finally made it back to town about 9pm last night, and home by 10pm. Fortunately, all the flights were on time. That always makes it easier!

I got the wand treatment when going through security at Winnipeg, plus had my laptop checked for chemical residue. Maybe they think frumpy grandmother types are now making explosives in their basement? If that wasn’t enough, my luggage also got a sniff-over by a dog – quite a nice looking black lab. I don’t know if they were looking for drugs or more explosives or what, but the only thing the dog sniffed out was some leftover chicken salad.

It's good to be safely home, but after this latest trip, I’ve come to the following conclusion: I believe it's a point of honor with airlines that whatever gate you come in on, your next departure will be at a gate as far away as possible. Even in Memphis, which isn’t the biggest airport going, I ended up going from the end of one concourse, around the bend and to the opposite end of a different concourse. I seem to do a lot of walking in airports.

Kind of ironic that flying is such good exercise.

A Morning of Therapy

2008-04-13T20:25:00.004-05:00

Besides going all kinds of places for therapy, Ellie has in-home therapy to help problems caused by her Cerebral Palsy.
This morning she worked on her big yellow ball. Dad tries to make sure it's as fun as possible!

Farmland in Canada

2008-04-13T20:12:00.004-05:00

This is the field behind the kids house in Manitoba. As you can see, even though the weather has warmed up in the last few days, there is still patches of snow here and there.
Last year they grew canola in the field. In past years, they have also had potatoes there, and wheat. It will be interesting to see what they plant this year.

Taking pictures...

2008-04-12T20:10:00.002-05:00

We're starting to take pictures for next year's fund-raising calendar for Ellie. The calendar pages start with shots like these:

I'll take this photo and build a picture around it with a "Little Red Riding Hood Theme".

We've also taken some shots of Ellie with a Winnie the Pooh outfit on, and will take more pictures tomorrow and Monday.

I just know it's gonna be a great calendar!

Safely in Canada

2008-04-12T12:33:00.003-05:00

All did not go according to plan with my flights, but I figure it could have been a lot worse. I had to change gates 3 times in Atlanta, which isn't so unusual, even if they were on 3 different concourses. Minneapolis/St. Paul was the problem. The weather was getting bad with rain and sleet by the time I flew in, and by the time I left it was worse with snow and ice. The weatherman was predicting between 4-8" of snow!

We were an hour late boarding the plane, and sat on it another hour waiting our turn to have the plane de-iced before we could take off. I was way over two hours late getting to Winnipeg, but considering some of the recent traveling messes, and some of our past travel glitches, I figure that was pretty tame.

Yesterday we were kind of laid back, and I recovered somewhat from a long day of flights and sitting in airports. I read an entire book before I even got to Minneapolis (452 pages!), so I had time to people watch. Airports are even better than malls for people watching. At malls you have mostly an indigenous population, but in airports the people are literally from all over the world. Different languages, shoes, clothing, luggage... it's interesting to sit and watch all the people rushing by.

My favorite was a young man with a foot high Mohawk died several different colors. Wish I'd had my camera available! It reminded me of the joke about the old dude watching this young fellow with a multi-colored Mohawk. The young guy spouted off, "What's the matter old man, you never seen anything like me before?" To which the elderly gentleman replied... "Well actually, I fooled around once with a peacock when I was younger, and I was just wondering if you were my son."

Which reminds me of the old saying:
OLD AGE AND TREACHERY ALWAYS TRIUMPH OVER YOUTH AND BEAUTY!

Getting ready to travel...

2008-04-10T08:00:00.002-05:00

I'm leaving shortly to head for the airport. It's going to be a long day of travel, trying to get from the southeast to the Canadian province of Manitoba. IF, and these days that seems to be a BIG if, all goes well with my flights, I should be there by 9:30pm.

I have too many irons in the fire right now, and besides trying to get ready for a trip to visit my son, his wife and our 3-year old granddaughter, I've been working on getting supplies to remodel one of our bathrooms.

In the meantime, farm chores continue. For some time I was milking Cinnamon, a little less each day, as her prodigious milk supply gradually dries up.

If you're of the praying persuasion, please pray I have safe trips today, no cancellations, no delays... just easy flights from here to there!

Sometimes Farming is Hard

2008-04-03T17:31:00.004-05:00

Let’s face it – farming isn’t always fun.

If you raise crops of some sort, there are problems with the weather, fuel costs for heating greenhouses and running equipment, and a sometimes fickle market, to name a few.

When you raise animals, you have all those problems and then some. And it’s easy to get attached to animals, especially the little ones. Babies of any sort are cute! It’s great to look out and see lambs or kids or calves or colts or any little critters frolicking around in the fields.

Yes, it’s great --- that is, IF the moms are taking proper care of the youngsters and everyone is doing fine. But it isn’t always like that. Sometimes things go wrong. That’s when farming really tops the charts in the “not fun” department. That’s where I’ve been this week.

You can raise the same sort of critters for years, using the same husbandry practices, and then all of a sudden, one year it all goes wrong. Sometimes you can figure out the cause and adapt or change things. Sometimes you have no idea what the problem was, so there’s just not much you can do about it.

When our little twin goat kids were born this spring, I was a little concerned. The mother is getting up in years and had a difficult labor. Worse, she was NOT supposed to be pregnant in the first place, but was bred by one of her sons. One of the kids had a deformed leg, but that eventually improved. Overall, they seemed healthy enough.

At least, they seemed fine until this week. Then one get sick, and within 24 hours was dead. Then the second one got sick, and within 24 hours was dead. I worked over them until I could barely straighten back up, giving them antibiotics, dextrose, vitamins, and every other therapy I could find that would pertain to the problem.

Nothing helped.

I knew it was a slim chance going in that I could save either kid. It didn’t help that I read even though they've had vaccinations, once in a while, some kids still get sick. They were in my care, and they died.

That’s hard.

This morning Son #2 and I had burial detail. The ground is too hard and rocky here to dig down very deep, so we opt for an above ground burial. It’s easier, but not easy. It has to be done right to make a hot compost so the body is broken down quickly and with no odor. We had 5 big carts full of stuff we put in the pile: some below, some above the bodies. It was hard work. To make matters worse, it was raining.

While we worked the llamas hummed and the mama goat cried. Their mournful dirge made a hard job even harder. I’d moved them as far away as possible from where we were working. It didn’t matter. When we were finally done and I let them out, that mama goat made a beeline to where we’d buried her babies and cried some more. It was heartrending.

Sometimes farming is hard.

Birthday Greetings...

2008-04-01T07:21:00.000-05:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROBIN!!!

A Fowl Predicament

2008-03-28T23:07:00.004-05:00

When I went out to feed last night, I saw a strange sight in the sheep shed. Ever see a chicken hanging by a toe? No, this was not a chicken trapeze artist. More like a trapped-by-a-toe chicken. The chickens like to roost on the 2x4 at the top of the chain link fencing separating the front and back of the shed. Evidently she caught a toe when she tried to hop down.

A fowl predicament indeed!

I grabbed a pair of work gloves to wear in case she got frantic when I tried to free her. Those claws are great for scratching the ground looking for bugs and seeds, but they also make nasty scratches on bare skin.

She was dragging her leg when I first let her loose. I didn't know if she'd broken it or the leg was just numb from holding her entire weight for so long. I looked for her this morning, but couldn't see any chicken that was limping around, so I'm hoping she is okay now.

Otherwise, we might have to make chicken fence fries.

Kids at Play

2008-03-27T09:31:00.003-05:00

Our little goat kids spend most of their time playing, with an occasional nap or time out for a snack.

They like to run all over the fields, jumping around like they have little springs in their feet. But even more, they like to climb on things. Anything!

They climb on the lawnmower and tractor.

They climb on bales of hay.

They climb on tree stumps.

They climb on rocks.

They climb into the feed troughs.

They climb on top of overturned buckets.

They climb on wagons and carts.

After they climb in, on top of, and/or over something, the next most fun thing is to jump off it.

Those little kids will climb on anything they can find, and they don't limit themselves to inanimate objects either. Oh no, they climb on top of their mom. They climb on top of sheep that are trying to rest and peacefully chew their cud. Nothing is exempt!

Their latest and most favorite jungle gym is our male llama, Samson.
They jump on and off his back when he's kushed down, and even try to climb up his neck. He's wonderfully patient, but draws the line at kids trying to climb to the top of his head, and will twist his neck around and nudge them off his back.

This morning I got a short video of them hopping on and off Samson. Short, because as soon as they saw me, they figured it was time to go out, and went running towards the gate.

It's a good thing Samson is so laid back, or we might have squished kids!

Llama Lingo

2008-03-25T22:21:00.006-05:00

To kush or not to kush, that is the question. Well, actually, more to the point, the question I'm hearing a lot lately is, "What does kush mean?" Like all terms specific to a hobby, occupation, breed... whatever! ... when you use it all the time, sometimes you forget not everyone knows what you're talking about. And why should they? So here's a brief intro into Llama Lingo.

Kush refers to a specific body position. Llamas are part of the camel family. If you've watched many movies that take place in the desert, you've no doubt seen a camel cush down so someone can climb on their back to ride. They bend their front legs, drop to their knees, and then fold up their hind legs. Some people call it a kneeling position, others say the animal is sitting.

At any rate, this is what a llama looks like when it "kushes" down. They often rest like this during the day. It is also a submissive posture for them, much like a dog rolling over to show its' belly. When males fight, the loser ends up in a kush position. They also breed in this position.

One thing to note, the term can be spelled either way, kush or cush. I've noticed that for whatever reason, it's more often spelled with a "c" when talking about camels, and with a "k" when talking about llamas.

For a llama to kush is NOT the same thing as lying down. Then they lay on their side, and often do a "dead llama" imitation that will have you running out in the field checking to see if they're still breathing.
Our llama lady loves to pretend she doesn't hear me calling her name, and holds really still until I get up close. I think she does it on purpose, just to see how fast I can make it out there.

It's nice to know I provide such great entertainment for the animals!

Round 'Em Up!!!

2008-03-22T10:57:00.006-05:00

Today was "Vaccinate & Worm the Sheep, Goats & Llamas Day." It didn't start off well. I thought I had everything in one place, but turns out I was missing a vital piece of equipment needed to make wethers out of the two little boy goats. This needs done while they are small, and who knows when we’ll have good weather on a Saturday again. I needed to find the band castrator tool TODAY.

While I searched The Farmer tried to come up with alternatives, like using a pair of needle-nosed pliers to stretch open the bands. He decided to test it out, and the first band he stretched open popped off the pliers and flew off into unknown regions. Some day when I'm running the sweeper I'll probably find a little green rubber ring where I least expect it.

It was obvious from the test trials that pliers just weren't going to do the job. The bands need to be stretched completely open, not just from two sides. I searched and searched some more, and finally found the missing bander. (Maybe those ornery little boy goats snuck in the house and hid it, hoping to avoid their eunuch-thized fate!)

I finally had all the necessary paraphernalia gathered up so we went outside to round ‘em up! We did the sheep first. They haven't been sheared yet and are easy to get hold of. They got their vaccinations and Ivomec sheep drench, and were good to go.

Miss Keira kept poking her nose over the fence, so we slipped a halter on her, clipped on a lead, and said, "Okay, you can be next!" She's not overly fond of shots, and always kushs down.

Well! That brought on an unexpected complication. Samson was in the same pen, and wanted to make amorous advances, figuring he at last had her where he wanted her! ARGH! Not NOW! The Farmer stood on one side of Keira fending off her suitor, while I got on the other side and gave her a vaccination and shot of wormer. She was off like a jet plane the minute we let her loose. (Sorry Samson, another day!)

Since Samson hasn't been handled much, we figured he was likely to be a handful and decided to save him for last. We rounded up the goats, gave them all their meds, then picked up each twin and did the dastardly deed of slipping a band on to switch them from buck to wether, and poking a baby aspirin down their throat. They screamed and complained more about the aspirin than the band, and were off playing the minute we let them go, so it obviously doesn't bother them much.

That left our new big boy, Samson. I tried to entice him with some feed, but he knew we were up to something and wasn't having any. The Farmer decided he was going to have to rope him. Oh fun!

I said, "If you're going to play cowboy, let me go get my camera first."

As The Farmer first approached, Samson went running off to the other side of the pen.

The first couple of throws were unsuccessful, but The Farmer was determined!

I was surprised when after a few tries, Samson just seemed to accept the inevitable and stood still while The Farmer walked up to him and put the rope around his neck.

Not only did he allow me to put a measuring tape around his middle to check his weight, he let me give him both shots without fuss. He didn't kush, and he didn't give any indication he wanted to spit at us either. I was much impressed!!!

Our handsome boy is turning out to be quite a gentleman!

So it ended up he wasn't much trouble at all, and we were done with our round-up in record time!

It's Officially Spring!

2008-03-20T10:15:00.003-05:00

Now whether the weather stays spring like is another matter! It started out cold this morning, with frosty fleeced sheep:

The sun burned the frost off rather quickly, sparkling in the dew on leaves and grass. The woods is coming alive with more plants every day.

New arrivals! Ferns are starting to peep up through the leaf litter.

Unfortunately, the warmer weather not only makes the plants grow, but the bugs are starting to come out, too. Spiders are scurrying around in the leaves, gnats flitting around, and all too soon there will also be the nasties - ticks and mosquitoes for instance.

Coming back towards the back yard I noticed another bright spot on the spring landscape in the catalpa tree by the sheep shed:

I love bluebirds, they're so bright and beautiful!

It's the first day of spring, plants and birds and bugs are appearing, and I'm eager to see more and more signs of spring!

Llamas, Together at Last (Sort of)

2008-03-19T14:28:00.007-05:00

It all started last night when The Farmer and I went out of do chores. We have a routine, and things get done just fine as long as we stay with the routine. When it gets interrupted... no guarantees what happens!

Part of that routine involves me putting out feed for our new llama guy, Samson, plus the sheep and goats, while The Farmer feeds our lady llama, Keira. She is in the same night pen as the goats, and if someone doesn't stand guard, they'd come and eat her food, then go eat theirs.

Samson learned to go in his pen when he sees me with the feed bucket the second day he was here. What a smart guy! Then Farmer opens the gate, and Keira and the older goats come running into their adjoining pen lickety-split. They know it's dinner time! The two little kids aren't always as prompt. They're still playing somewhere and not interested in what the adults are doing.

We have much more fun off playing by ourselves than always following after Mama!

When the older goats ran in last night, only one little kid followed, but we could hear the other one bawling loudly somewhere. When we finally located him, we saw he'd gotten himself into a real predicament.

He'd obviously been playing on The Farmer's lawnmower. Little goat kids LOVE to climb and play on anything they can find. The only trouble is when he jumped down, he managed to catch his foot and was stuck fast.

I must say, it took real talent, because as you can see in the picture to the right, he had to jump down at just the right angle for his foot to go in there. The only trouble is that once he was down, his leg was at the wrong angle and he couldn't get it back out.

But then, neither could we!

The Farmer finally had to get a pair of pliers and pull back the metal far enough to get the little rascal's foot loose.

Needless to say, our usual routine got lost in the rescue operations. That's probably why when I went out to do chores this morning, this is what I saw:

Uh-oh! Two llamas in ONE pen!

Well, surprise, surprise! I guess I forgot to walk over and shut the gate to Samson's pen last night after putting his feed bucket in place. Instead, I was homing in on the distress call from the little goat kid, and my routine came unglued.

The good news is they don't seem to be fighting. The bad news is I don't know if they've gotten romantic either, and I feel a little guilty not being there to keep check on them the first time they were both in the same pen.

If I were a betting woman, I'd guess Samson is still looking for love, cause Keira keeps her distance. Whenever he gets within a few feet of her, she skitters off in another direction. She's still not sure what to make of this new furball who thinks he wants to get up close and personal!

It's still a game of hide and seek - Keira hides, and Samson keeps seeking!

Spring Flowers

2008-03-17T21:46:00.004-05:00

After a couple of rainy days, we had some sunshine this morning so I went looking to see if there were any wildflowers out in the woods. I figured it was about time for the trillium to show their faces.

Sure enough, I saw several peeking through last year's leaves for the first time this year.

There were other wildflowers in evidence also...

And when I got back in our yard, I noticed even the lilac bush is starting to leaf out...

I do believe spring may decide to show up after all this year.

Mainstream moves to Organic, while Organic moves to Mainstream…

2008-03-13T23:04:00.004-05:00

Back in my younger years, and NO, contrary to what my kids may think, that was NOT in the Stone Age… I was a bit of hippie. Fast food, chemical farming and an urban lifestyle were much more popular than the counterculture of organic farming and alternative energy that interested me. I read magazines like “Mother Earth News” and “Organic Gardening & Farming” and anything else I could find about leading a healthier, sustainable lifestyle back before it became somewhat of a fad.

And I bought all kinds of books put out by Rodale Press, such as:
* The Rodale Herb Book
* Organic Plant Protection
* Stocking Up
* The Rodale Cookbook
* The Good Goodies
* Naturally Delicious Desserts and Snacks
… and many others.

At that time, Rodale was the leader in organic farming. I knew what to expect when I bought a book from them. No chemicals. Whole foods.

Then came the years where we moved from place to place, and I had nowhere to garden, and eventually slipped into a more mainstream type of eating, with convenience foods and other highly processed psuedo-food.

After being back on a farm for 10 years, and gradually getting back into that healthier lifestyle, I renewed my interest in books on a sustainable, healthier way of life.

Since I collect cookbooks, I naturally wanted some with recipes for the kind of meals I’m trying to fix these days. Health problems dictated an even more stringent approach, and I’ve discovered that good diabetic cookbooks and those for the G.I. diet have a lot of what I’m looking for. Imagine how excited I was when I got a flyer in the mail from my long lost supplier of great books – Rodale Press – advertising a new book on G.I. Cooking! “Aha!” says I, “Here’s where I’ll get a really great cookbook with recipes using fresh-from-the-farm ingredients like grass-fed beef, fresh cheeses, local produce and other goodies!”

When it finally came in the mail, I eagerly tore open the package and started reading through the introductory stuff and checking out the recipes. To say it wasn’t what I expected is a gross understatement. I thought maybe I was missing something, so I went through it a couple more times, paying closer attention to recipe ingredients.

Here’s a sample of what I found:
* a suggested snack of 1 oz. potato chips and 4 ounces juice,
* suggested use of reduced-fat margarine spread,
* commercial frozen dinners included in the suggested diet plans, and
* frequent use of brown sugar and white sugar.

The point is, it didn’t look any different from a cookbook I could pick up anywhere. That was most definitely NOT what I wanted or expected.

What happened?

These days I can go to Publix, a major chain grocery store, and buy a huge variety of fresh, canned, boxed and frozen organic foods. I won’t debate the misuse of the word “organic” here, but the point is that the mainstream is moving towards healthier foods.

And what used to be the counterculture, back-to-the-earth, good foods and farming people – well some of them seem to be moving towards the mainstream. I don’t know if they’re trying to reach a broader audience and increase sales or what the idea is, but I miss being able to order a book from someplace like Rodale Press, and know it won’t look like every other book out there, but stick to that sustainable type of lifestyle J.I. Rodale promoted.

Maybe this was a fluke, but I’ll be a little leery of buying from that source again.

So what did I do with this not-what-I-was-looking-for cookbook? I did something I very rarely do, considering how much I love books of all kinds, and being a collector of cookbooks in particular, because I can usually find some merit in a book and figure it’s worth keeping, especially considering you have to pay postage to return a book. Well, this one was NOT worth it.

I sent it back.

You Know You're a Redneck....

2008-03-12T11:53:00.002-05:00

Yes, you know you're a redneck, if you open the paper and read this about yourself, or your wife...
I have to wonder what she wears to Wal-Mart? Or for that matter, what is the proper casual attire to wear to the Dollar Store?

What a hoot!

Lovelorn Llama

2008-03-11T17:12:00.000-05:00

It's soap opera time on the farm with a tale of unrequited love, raging hormones and cold-hearted indifference.

Flash back to last Thursday night, when a new llama arrived on the farm. We've been thinking about getting some company for our single llama lady for a long time, and happened to see an ad for this guy. Isn't he handsome?
However, I guess we should have placed an ad with eHarmony.com, because we seem to have a compatibility problem here. After a brief bout of curiousity, and touching of noses, Keira has since refused to acknowledge there is another llama on the farm.

Yes, it would seem the lady rejects her would-be sweetheart. In fact, she refuses to admit his existence most of the time. It's the cold shoulder treatment for poor Samson, with Keira turning her back to him and ignoring his presence in the pasture next door.

See Samson in the background?
And there's Keira, as usual, giving him the cold shoulder treatment.

Every morning when I let the critters out, Samson rushes to the fence to see where Keira went. He hums and groans, sounding very much like he's trying to start his engine, desperately trying to get her attention.

It doesn't work. She continues to thoroughly ignore him.

Will Samson ever get the attention of his would-be lover? Will Keira ever accept him as a suitor? Stay tuned for the continuing soap opera of "The Lovelorn Llamas!"

Stay tuned!

2008-03-10T15:52:00.002-05:00

I have pictures of our new llama, but have been unable to upload any pictures to Blogger for a couple of days. Hopefully, they will resolve the matter SOON. Maybe I need a new venue...

Kids at Play

2008-03-06T23:07:00.005-06:00

Goat kids are like people kids - if we're talking about super-charged, high-energy, and probably ADHD affected sort of kids.

Yesterday they crawled under the gate to the chicken pen, and found something to jump on and have a great time playing.

The penhens couldn't figure out what those strange new chickens were!

And the biggest trouble with their new playpen is that they couldn't remember how they got IN there, and couldn't figure out how to get back out. Their Mama was walking around and around the chicken pen and aviary bawling for them, and what did they do?

They just kept playing.

Slug Surprise!

2008-03-05T12:28:00.009-06:00

I thought I had slugs figured out. They crawl on the ground, munch on my hostas and other flowers, and make slimy trails across the sidewalks and front porch.

As far as I knew, they never got far off the ground - no further than crawling up on the plants they munch on.

Well, I know this is going to be a shock to some, but it turns out I was wrong.

It's like this... yesterday we got over an inch of rain so I went out in the woods between showers. I figured I wouldn't see anything new, but I still needed the exercise.

Wrong again! I definitely saw something new!

By the time I made it to the big tree in the above picture, it had started sprinkling again. Still, I felt like getting up close and personal and communing with that particular tree, which is when I found a surprise -- several surprises of the same type in fact!

Okay, there's probably lots of you out there that knew this happens, but imagine the shock to my "slugs creep on the ground" beliefs when I looked way up in that tree and saw a bunch of slugs crawling down. And I do mean a BUNCH. There were a couple dozen in various stages of progress slowly slithering down that tree. And that's just the ones I could actually see.

Slugs are not supposed to be crawling way up in a TALL tree. They are supposed to be making their slimy way across the grass or other vegetation close to the ground.

That's when I got to wondering... I know slugs are supposed to like beer, and it makes good bait for a trap, so do you suppose they had a kegger the night before, and drank too much beer? I can just see these little redneck slugs partying, and one says, "Hey, what 'cha suppose is at the top of that tree?" And the other inebriated slugs holler, "Yeah, let's find out!"

Then there they are the next morning, hungover, blinking and waving their optic tentacles around, and screaming in terror because they are WAY UP IN A TREE!!!! Now what???

And that's when they all started making their way ever so slowly down from the heights.

All right, all right. So maybe they didn't really do all that. I did a little research and discovered there are actually slugs that crawl around on trees, especially in damp weather, and they are called.... yep, tree slugs (Lehmannia marginata).

I don't know if that's what this particular variety is, or they belong to some other slug group I haven't discovered yet.

I just know there were slugs in a very tall tree, and man, was I surprised!!!

Llama vs. Goats

2008-03-03T17:55:00.008-06:00

My little llama girl likes to hang out with the goats. She usually ignores the sheep, and sometimes just does her own thing, but mostly, she's with the goats. It will be interesting to see what happens when Samson, our soon-to-be-delivered male llama arrives.

However, at present, it's Kiera and the goats. As much as she likes the goats, she has one pet peeve. She does NOT want to share any feed with them.

I've told you and told you, leave MY feed alone!!!

If they persist in trying to eat her food, she finally lets them know in no uncertain llama terms, "That's it!"

I spit in your general direction!

Ahhh, llamas, they know how to get their point across!

More Dancing with a Peacock Prancing

2008-03-01T16:24:00.007-06:00

It's Saturday Night Live around here every day. We have chickens tap dancing across the lawn, roosters who think they're Irish, goat kids who try Russian folk dances around the fields, and occasionally I do a little break dance (aka falling on my... behind).

Today we feature the Romeo of the Roost, our handsome Prince of Peafowl, Sir Peacock of Prance, waltzing around the aviary.

During the day he periodically prances about, trying to entice one of his harem with his lovely fan of feathers. He sashays around the aviary, looking for love. Finally, he tires and has to let his feathers fall.

This frenetic activity will continue for some time yet, as he dances his courtship during the day, and gives raucous cries at night, telling the world he's looking for love.

It's Desperate Housewives meets Dancing With the Stars.

Lord of the Dance

2008-02-28T11:32:00.002-06:00

One, two, one, two, step in time - Don't fowl it up!

Goat Kids Playing in Snow

2008-02-27T09:55:00.003-06:00

I looked out about 2:30am to see snow on the ground. When The Farmer got up to go to work, I got dressed in layers of warm clothes and went out to take pictures. I've got a bunch I'll put up later, but right now I want to feature our goat kids kicking up their heels and having fun.

The cold weather doesn't seem to bother these little guys. They're jumping and playing and running as fast as their little legs will carry them. Just check out the little video below:

These little guys sure got spunk!

Typical Scene on the Farm

2008-02-26T08:28:00.002-06:00

It's a blustery day here on the farm. There's moisture in the air, sometimes just a light mist, other times it's wee little balls of stinging sleet. This is not my favorite time to be out and about, but the animals need hay even more on days they don't go out and graze.

The guineas don't seem to mind a little rain, running around looking for grain or perched on the fence.
I almost chickened out of my morning walk through the woods, but I figured if the guineas could hack the foul weather, so could I.

The wind was making quite a racket as it roared through the trees, and of course the creek was up a little from the bit of rain we had.

On nice days, when I let all the animals out together, it's not unusual to see all kinds of combinations of critters, with the chickens, guineas, dogs, sheep and llama.
This isn't the first time I've seen poultry perching on sheep. I think that nice thick wool must keep their feet warm, or maybe they just like being on top of things.

It's a typical scene on the farm.

A Peeling Parrot

2008-02-25T21:45:00.006-06:00

Right now my parrot is barking. No, I’m not kidding. She hears Toby barking outside and starts mimicking him. She does a pretty good job of it, too.

A little while ago she was eating a grape. She’s funny about them. She’ll only eat one if she sees a person eating grapes and they give her one. I tried pretending to eat a grape and give her one and she wouldn’t take it. But just let Young Son walk by munching on a grape and she’s eager to pluck one out of his hand.

She has a system to eating them. She doesn’t like the juice to drip in her cage, so she either hangs out over the edge, or uses one of the papers on top as a plate. She rolls the grape around in her mouth until she gets the peel off, then eats the inside of the grape.

She does much the same with apples, carefully munching the fruit while leaving the peel behind.

What a crazy bird! I never know what she’ll do next.

Just Kidding Around!

2008-02-21T09:09:00.009-06:00

The twin goat kids will be 1 week old tomorrow. It doesn't take them long, however, to start jumping and skipping around all over the place. This morning when I put some hay in the pen for their Mama, they decided it would be fun to crawl all over it. Making a mountain out of a molehill.... uh, hay pile.
Goat mothers must be very long-suffering, because their kids are full of antics!

Most of the time Cinnamon just keeps on eating and ignores her youngsters shenanigans.

Kids! They get into everything!

Every once in a while, they do stop long enough for a scratch or to take a nap.

Hold on a second! I've got an itch.

Whew, I'm tired. How about a little nap?

They're mighty cute little guys, and at least while they're little, they don't cause much real trouble. That comes later, when they hit the goat equivalent of teenager and adulthood. Then it's find every hole in the fence you can - or make one! Find ways to open gates at every opportunity! See if you can break into the feed room or hay storage!

That's when cute becomes incorrigible. And I'm not kidding!

Is it a mini-Hobbit hole?

2008-02-20T12:28:00.006-06:00

After I finished this morning's critter chores, I took a short walk in the woods. There is yet another type of wildflower starting to produce blooms.

The slue is more of an algae soup right now, chock-full of vibrant green strands of algae. Along the bank I saw some creature has made a hole in the hillside. I wonder what it could be?
It's pretty round - suppose it's a miniature Hobbit hole?

As usual, since I was looking and READY, I didn't see any deer, owls, or even rabbits or squirrels. I'm afraid my leaf-crunching as I walk is a detriment to seeing much wildlife.

Back at the house, I noticed the Lenten Rose on the north side of the house has a couple of new buds. It may still be February, but there are definite signs of growth!

I can't wait for spring, all two days of it that we get in the south before the heat of summer slams into force!

Daffodils

2008-02-19T14:48:00.003-06:00

I saw the first daffodil blooms of the year here yesterday.

Another sign that spring is coming!

Bright yellow flowers poke up towards the sky
Bringing forth hope that springtime draws nigh.
Their grace and great beauty are all sure to please
As the cheery toned flowers bob round in the breeze.

Goat Twins

2008-02-16T18:00:00.000-06:00

After much difficulty yesterday and today, I finally got these pictures I took yesterday soon after the goat kids were born uploaded through Blogger.

The movie is of the youngest twin trying to get up for the first time.

As you can see, he finally succeeded.

Those airplane ears kind of tickle me:

They're cute little guys, but wse sure don't need two little boys. I'm afraid when they get old enough we'll have to find them a new home!

Everyone's excited about new kids!

2008-02-15T10:02:00.002-06:00

I went out to do morning chores, and had a GREAT surprise waiting! Cinnamon had just given birth to the second of twins.

Out little llama shows great interest in babies on the farm, no matter what sort, and Neffie, the Maremma LGD, is very protective.

More pictures later! I must go back out and finish up chores!

Snow!

2008-02-13T12:22:00.007-06:00

It's snowing here for only the second time this year. Now everyone north of the Mason-Dixon line, don't be laughing about how excited people in the south get over such a little dab of snow!

When I went out to do chores this morning, the first thing I saw was Toby cavorting around with snow dusting his back.

A couple of the peahens were out and had even more snow on their backs.

After I finished taking care of the critters, I walked down into the woods. There was snow dusting all the leaves on the ground, and some sticking to the trees. I took a picture of the slue on one side on our property.

I didn't see any owls or deer today. They probably had the good sense to stay tucked inside some sort of shelter.

My quince bush has frozen blossoms. Right now the iced blossoms look rather pretty, but I'm sure when it warms up they'll all turn brown and die.
Back up near the house, the birds were busy at the feeders and birdbath. We always have several cardinals and woodpeckers dining at our buffet.

They take turns at the feeders, and sit on the fence posts patiently waiting their turn.

You can see what blustery weather we're having by the way the feathers of this lady Cardinal are all ruffled up. She even tucked one of her feet up in her feathers to stay warm.
We won't get any accumulation worth mentioning from this morning's snowfall, but it was still fun to see some snow for a change!

Sometimes you need to look ahead!

2008-02-12T12:17:00.000-06:00

I’m a firm believer in multitasking. Whenever I can make or do something that accomplishes more than one thing at a time, I’m all for it. I’ve been trying to get more exercise, so about a week ago I figured once I’m already bundled up to go outside and do critter chores, that would be a good time to go for a walk and get more fresh air and some of the aforementioned exercise.

My favorite place to walk is in the woods. I always take my camera along, hoping for not only fresh air and exercise, but a chance for a good picture. (More multitasking!)

The woods are carpeted in dead leaves right now, so there is no way to move quietly. I’ve been looking for signs of spring, like new plant growth peeking up through the leaves, so most of the time my head is down and I’m looking at the ground.

That proved to be a mistake this morning. Not only were there no new signs of greenery, I missed a chance at a couple of great shots.

Mind you, I haven’t seen a single critter in the woods these past few days. It’s usually getting towards mid-morning by the time I make it back there, so I wasn’t expecting anything more than maybe a few squirrels. I’d seen signs of deer on previous walks. I also had suspicions there was an owl in there from the scat I saw every day at the bottom of a tree back near the creek.

In the space of a couple of minutes this morning, my observations were verified.

As I was walking along the creek, I heard a faint rustle above me, and looked up in time to see not one, but two owls take flight from a tree not 10 feet ahead of me. Oh to have been looking up in time to take a picture!

No sooner had I watched them fly off, then off to my right I heard leaves rustling, and saw a buck take off through the woods. Once again, it was too late for any clear shot to get a picture. He was too far away with too many trees between us for a clear photo anyway.

I didn’t expect to see any of those critters that time of day, especially the owls. I hear them at night, and sometimes have seen them at dusk, but mid-morning?

You can bet from now on I’ll be sure to look ahead and LOOK UP every once in a while!

A Sunny Sunday on the Farm

2008-02-10T16:38:00.000-06:00

After record breaking warm temperatures earlier this week, it’s back to cold weather. Yeah, I know “cold” is a relative term, and what’s cold for us is a balmy day further north. There was a hard frost this morning, but the sun came out and it turned into a lovely day.

The return to cold weather hasn't obliterated all signs of a coming spring either. After doing the critter care chores, I went for a short walk in the woods. I noticed the redbud trees have - what else? - red buds appearing.

I noticed other signs of growth in a slue towards the back of our wooded area that is filled with water again, thanks to the recent rains. The algae is bright green there. The moss in the woods also continues to green up, and there are a few plant leaves poking up here and there.

In my flower garden, the plant my Granny used to call "Live Forever" is already showing new growth for this season.
This particular variety is officially known as Sedum 'Matrona'. It has lovely pink flower heads that the butterflies and bees dearly love.

The animals enjoy the sunshine too, and I noticed a bunch of the guineas in the front yard, headed down towards the pond.

All in all, it's just nice to enjoy a sunny Sunday here on the farm.

Of high water & a fallen tree...

2008-02-07T11:55:00.000-06:00

Yesterday morning we awoke to the sound of flood waters. It had rained over an inch for the second day in a row, and the creek along side our property had flooded over its’ banks.

Sometime during the night it got up over the road, though by the time I went out and took pictures, it had already mostly went back down.

There was more water over the road between our place and the neighbors on past us. This is where the creek actually passes through a culvert under the road.

Debris usually blocks some of the culvert and the swollen creek waters cannot pass through, so the creek overflows the banks. You can see and hear the water rushing and roaring as it comes out of the culvert.

This morning the creek has subsided a great deal. Here it is rushing over a fallen log.

Still, the water is running pretty fast, as you can see the way it is rushing over this limb dipping in the water.
I also noticed earlier this week, with the rain and strong winds we've been having, a tree has fallen along the edge of the woods by the bottom pasture.
Fortunately, we didn't get the tornadoes people in other partsof the state had, so we really didn't have much else but a few branches down.

A creek running high with excess water beats drought conditions any day!

Book Collector's Anonymous

2008-02-06T08:41:00.000-06:00

bib·li·o·phile (ˈbi-blē-ə-ˌfī(-ə)l) noun
1. A lover of books.
2. A collector of books.

I am a self-confessed bibliophile. I probably should be in some sort of 12-step program for bookaholics. As in:

Step 1 - I admit I’m powerless over my addiction.

Well, maybe it’s not that bad, but I do admit I have a lot of books. After all, I’ve been collecting them since I was a kid. (And NO, I don’t have any on stone tablets, papyrus scrolls or even parchment!)

There are shelves on walls of two rooms in our house that are cover to cover filled with books. There are several individual bookcases in different rooms jammed full of books. There are stacks of books by my computer. There are piles of books by my leisure station (the living room couch). A book here, a book there, I’ve got books everywhere! And in the words of my sassy parrot, “Sooooo??????” You can never have too many books!!!

Books are knowledge. They tell you things you want to know. Like when you can’t get a vet to the farm and you have to figure out what to do with a sick sheep or goat! Gardening tips, how to build things, on and on it goes. “How to” books can be a lifesaver!

Books are entertainment. They take you places you might otherwise never go. They can introduce you to new ideas, people and places. Books are just flat out good company.

Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers. ~ Charles W. Eliot

My books are loved and well read. So it’s always a thrill to get new books, and I have 10 on the way for my birthday. Oh boy! That’s a big batch of books! It’s a book bonanza! A bountiful blessing of books! A… well, you get the idea.

Half of them are new cookbooks. A cookbook club made me an offer I couldn’t refuse, with 5 books for less than the price of one, and I only have to buy one more book at club prices to fulfill my obligation. How could I say no??? (What was that number for the bookaholics 12-step program?)

I’m really excited about these. I’ve been working on improving our diet, and regularly cooking much more than I have the last few years. Here’s a list of the books bouncing through the postal system to get here:

BEST DIABETES SLOW COOKER RECIPES
by Judith Finlayson with Barbara Selley, BA, RD

CORNBREAD GOSPELS
by Crescent Dragonwagon

HOW TO COOK EVERYTHING VEGETARIAN
by Mark Bittman

MEDITERRANEAN HARVEST
by Martha Rose Shulman

VEGETARIAN COOKING FOR EVERYONE, 10th ANNIVERSARY EDITION
by Deborah Madison

I can’t wait to get my hands on them and check out the new recipes!

The other half of the books are health/medical books. That’s another area I’m trying to improve in our lives, and these are supposed to contain news on the latest breakthroughs in alternative and conventional medicine, in addition to some reference works. (My little brain is fermenting with ideas of different uses for that information.)

Books, books, books! I love to collect them! I love to read them!
Forget Book Collectors Anonymous --
I’ll proudly proclaim I love to collect books!!!

Signs of Spring

2008-02-05T12:42:00.000-06:00

When I went outside to do chores this morning I was pleased to see signs of spring. Yes, I know it’s still February, and we have more winter weather to come. Today, however, with 70+ F. temperatures and blossoms starting to appear, it reminds me of spring.

The first bright spot of color I noticed was a dandelion. Come summer, they’ll pollute the place, but for now, it’s nice to see that splash of sunny color in an otherwise cheerless landscape.

The landscape is also pretty in pink as down by the pond, as there is a quince bush starting to bloom. It’s the first bush I notice blooming here in the spring, and is extra special because it came from my dad’s farm in West Virginia. Some of the buds got frost bitten, but others bravely hung on and are opening up.

In the woods I noticed the patches of moss are starting to take on a vibrant green hue in sharp contrast to the drab brown leaves.

But splashes of color aren’t the only signs of spring. There’s also the sounds.. First thing I noticed when I went outside this morning was the spring peepers song. It’s the first day I’ve heard them, and they will get progressively louder. Some nights they make it hard to sleep!

It's not the picture here that matters - it's just the boggy area of our bottom pasture, where a spring in the hillside seeps out and the water collects in this low lying area. Nothing much to see, but you can HEAR the spring peepers doing their thing. (Ignore the ever present noise of guineas in the background now and then.)

I know we’ll have more wintry weather, but today is an encouragement I can hold onto. Cause peepers and posies, they’re both a promise of the spring to come.

Our Pond Runneth Over...

2008-02-04T15:05:00.000-06:00

When we first dug the pond, it only took two months for it to fill up. It’s spring fed, so that made a difference. I'm sure it would have taken a lot longer if rain falling in the pond was the only source of water.

Then came the drought. Months and months of little or no rain, and the water in the pond went down, down, down, until it looked more like an overlarge mud puddle.

Lately we’ve been getting more rain and the pond slowly started filling back up. When I went outside this morning, I was thrilled to see it is totally FULL again.The water is right up to the overflow pipe. Who'd have thought it would be so exciting to see water running out a pipe?

Ahhhhh, the lovely sound of running water....

Hooray! Here’s hope we don’t see such low water levels again!

Seven Things Tag!

2008-02-01T17:18:00.000-06:00

Robin of Seasons Eating Farm has tagged me. If not replying causes dire consequences, I guess I’d better not risk it. I can foresee vet bills, frozen buckets of water, and gadzooks, even MORE guineas wandering around. (The Farmer is trying to see how many we can raise…. don’t even ask how much feed they’re consuming!)

The idea is to post seven little known weird facts about yourself. Hey, everything about me is weird! How am I supposed to choose a measly seven????

Okay, here are the first things that come to mind:

Hyperfocusing is my modus operandi. Thank A.D.D. for that.
My parrot thinks I’m her mate or her mother, Im not sure which.
I like to watch anime and play VGA Planets (blame my boys).
When I was a little kid I used to have a pet turkey that followed me around.
My living room has items in it from not only the US, but stuff friends have sent me from Canada, China, Japan, Kuwait, England, and various counties in Africa. My favorites are an original painting of a Tuareg dwelling in the desert (the Tuareg are a nomadic people in northern Africa) and a picture worked in leather of a shepherdess and sheep in Mongolia.
I used to work in greenhouses in Pennsylvania, raising Poinsettias. During the day I helped with the plants. At night I stoked the furances with coal.
I once sewed up a tuxedo with tails, using black denim to make a working outfit for a chimney sweep. The top hat was bought seperately however!

I’ll even throw in a bonus fact – I am hopelessly geographically challenged and directionally impaired. As the saying goes, I couldn’t find my way out of a paper bag.

If there's anyone out there reading this that hasn't been tagged already, "Tag! You're it!"

This little Piggly Wiggly is a market…

2008-01-31T12:44:00.000-06:00

Mother Hubbard’s cupboard is bare. The pantry, fridge and freezer are showing a lot of empty spaces as we are running low on a lot of items. However, some hit the critical phase this morning.

* No flour for making bread, therefore,

* No homemade bread, and no store bought either.

* No eggs for breakfast or baking. (And boy! I can’t wait for farm fresh eggs again. Those pale yolks in store bought eggs are past pathetic.)

* No toilet paper for… well, you know. For putting in the bathroom, right!?

Both The Farmer and Young Son are working today, so I had to drive myself to the store. To most people, that’s not such a big deal, but driving aggravates my pain, so I don’t do it very often.

That being the case, I opted for the closest store, which is – you guessed it! Piggly Wiggly.

I’d never heard of Piggly Wiggly until we moved to the south. The name still makes me laugh, but it’s a convenient 3 miles away, so to paraphrase the nursery rhyme a little …

To market, to market, to buy at Piggly Wiggly;
Home again, home again, a fast jiggety-jiggly.

High ANT-xiety

2008-01-29T14:40:00.000-06:00

It's a cold and dreary day here. We've had a few sprinkles, but not really enough to even measure in the rain gauge. It's just misty out there.

I don't know if the weather had anything to do with this, but when I came back to the house from doing morning chores, I noticed a flower pot in the rosebed had what looked like a lot of dirt all over the edges.

When I got closer, I realized it was NOT dirt. After all, dirt doesn't usually move on its' own.

No, indeed this "dirt" was actually a moving mass of ANTS! The pot and the plants in it were positively polluted with ants.

I've never seen them on a pot out in the open in such masses. There were creepy crawling piles of ants all over!

I kept a safe distance while taking pictures. Over the past few years I've developed a sensitivity, if not a downright allergy, to ant bites. Makes me feel kind of sorry for the poor gnome...
He's being tortured by ants crawling all over his stumpy body.

Just looking at all those ants was enough to give me the creeps.
High ANT-xiety indeed!

The Farmer's (Grand)Daughter

2008-01-26T13:59:00.000-06:00

We have several grandchildren, and all are special. However, I must admit they're extra cute when they're little tykes like our youngest granddaughter shown here:

The Farmer's tractor seems to be great fun!

Colder weather is here again!

2008-01-24T14:40:00.001-06:00

Tuesday it rained all day, and yesterday was overcast. Today it’s bright and sunny, but a cold front has moved in, and temperatures dropped drastically. It doesn’t seem to bother the animals. Wish I could say the same for myself!

I notice the peacock has pretty well re-feathered, and has nice new plumage in time for courting.

He hasn’t starting displaying his lovely fan of feathers yet. The incessant honking that signals breeding season usually starts in February sometime, along with Mr. Peacock dancing and prancing to get the girls attention.

Then it'll be Saturday Night Fever 24/7!

Spot needed probiotics...

2008-01-22T13:42:00.000-06:00

Our cat, Spot, has been on antibiotics for a few days now due to the fact he got bit by something and developed abscesses. I was concerned about the effect antibiotics have on the normal "good" flora of the intestinal system. I have a probiotic powder I sprinkle on food for the sheep and goats, but I doubted Spot would eat his cat food if I sprinkled stuff on it. He's a rather picky eater.

I got the bright idea to try feeding him yogurt, though I had my doubts Mr. Picky would actually eat it. But I figured people eat yogurt for the beneficial bacteria, so why not Spot?
Why not indeed? Turns out Spot loves yogurt! I barely sit it down on the porch before he's shoved his nose in it and lapping away.

It sure makes it easier he likes it. I'd hate to try squirting the stuff down his throat!

Corn Crazy

2008-01-21T20:18:00.000-06:00

In the mornings when I go out to do chores, the chickens always come running because they love me so much. Okay, maybe it has more to do with the fact I always throw some cracked corn out first thing.

The guineas aren't far behind, and rush in to get their share. It seems every critter on the place loves to munch on cracked corn. Even wonder dog Toby will lick some up now and then.

However, the top of the food chain here is the goats, and when I let them out, they chase everyone else away.

And just what do you think you're doing, trying to eat MY corn????

For that reason, the goats are always the last critters I let out of the night pens, but I always make sure there's some left for them to have a morning treat also!

It seems the only critter outside that never wants their share is the cat, Spot. I guess he figures that corn isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Strange Self-Portrait

2008-01-19T21:19:00.000-06:00

When I was looking through the pictures I'd taken of the water-filled troughs, I noticed this one particular shot of my reflection:
As you can see, the wind was blowing my hair and there are clouds in the sky. Also, I have a camera in my hands (how else could I take a picture, right?).

A strange picture of a strange person...

Wild and Weird Worms

2008-01-18T14:48:00.000-06:00

Okay farm fans, here’s the trough full of water after it rains…

And here’s the question:
How does the earthworm get in there?
Seriously, every time it rains, I find earthworms in the feed troughs. I understand they’re coming up out of the soggy ground to get some air, but how in the world do they manage to crawl up the slick sloped plastic sides of the water trough and end up in the water there?

However they manage it, they can’t seem to get back out of the trough and it’s full of water. I reckon it correlates to “Out of the frying pan and into the fire,” only it’s “Out of the mud and into the water.”

All of which equals one dead worm.

The Wounded Warrior Comes Home

2008-01-17T13:08:00.000-06:00

Spot got to come home this morning, but boy! Is he a sorry looking sight! There’s a big patch of fur shaved off, and we were wrong… there were actually TWO punctures and abscesses, not one. I guess the second was a little smaller and covered under fur, so we didn’t notice it.

I tried to get a close up shot, but he wouldn't hold still. Here’s a link to the best shot I could get a for a closeup of the wounds, not for the faint of heart, or easily grossed out. I’ve seen worse, but this is nasty enough!

Since these sites were infected, we have to leave those wounds gaping open and uncovered to allow them to continue to drain. Spot’s on an antibiotic, which is thankfully a liquid, and not too difficult to get down him.

I don’t know what he was fighting with, but it definitely left him a wounded warrior.

Spot's Adventures

2008-01-16T15:32:00.000-06:00

We have a cat named Spot. The Farmer named him Spot because… well, he has big spots. I think the name gave the cat some sort of identity crisis. He thinks he’s a dog. Why do I say that?
* He comes when I whistle for him.
* He’s been known to play fetch.
* He follows me around everywhere like a dog.

Further, he is positively fearless. Once we had a huge snake eating guinea eggs. We're talking 5' long or more, with room enough to hold at least 5 guinea eggs in its' belly.

Just look at him checking out a snake in this video…

And after he looked at this BIG snake a while he decided to whack it one. The following is a VERY short video of him doing just that… you can actually hear him swat the snake.

I’m afraid sometime recently this bravado got him in trouble. He tangled with something that fought back and ended up with a huge abscess above his left front leg, which has an obvious puncture wound in the middle of it.

Since we weren’t sure what he tangled with, we took him to the vet. He cried pitifully all the way there. VERY vocal, which is highly unusual. He usually has a very short, quiet “mew”. These were loud and oh so mournful. The kind that makes you feel like a heel, even though you know taking the cat to the vet is doing what’s best for him.

He’s scheduled for some minor surgery to lance the wound and drain it. If all goes well, we should be able to pick him up tomorrow.

If he keeps this up, one of these days this look…
... is going to be permanent.

But I hope not. Spot the cat is one of the best dogs we’ve ever had.

Toby Chasing Thunder

2008-01-14T11:29:00.000-06:00

When we had that bad storm last week, I took a video of Toby running around like a demented critter, chasing after thunder. Yes, the dog chases after a SOUND. He runs, he barks, he jumps... he thinks he is going to catch it, sometime, somehow.

In this first one, you see the lightning flash, and him taking off through the main pasture chasing the noise while sheets of rain blow over him.

Here he once again runs through the field, but I caught him when he came back and jumped up against the fence, barking and trying to let that thunder know some day he's gonna get it!

I don't think there's a single critter on this farm that's normal.

Stormy Weather...

2008-01-10T19:54:00.000-06:00

We've had some wild weather here today! For a big part of the afternoon and evening, there was a tornado watch. Thankfully, we didn't have one, just a lot of rain and straight line winds.

Here's a video of the rain and wind blowing through the trees - these are mature trees, so it was moving some heavy timber!

We didn't get away totally unscathed. A fair size limb blew down out of one of the walnut trees in the back yard.

The wind also blew down part of the pallet fence The Farmer built around my lilac bush and trumpet vine to keep the goats from eating them.

All things considered, we didn't fare too badly. Just a lot of wind, and almost 2 inches of rain, which we really need!

Perhaps there's still a silver lining to every cloud?

Baa, baa, black sheep, have you any wool?

2008-01-09T13:24:00.000-06:00

The weather remains changeable here. Yesterday it was up in the 70's, last night it rained, this morning it was in the 40's. At least the sun was shining brightly when I went out to do the morning chores.

The sheep were still resting in the main pasture, in a nice, neat row near the orchard:
That's the matriarch on the left, Coconut, then Rowan, Domori, Payapa and Valrhona. They're retired now from producing lambs, though of course, they still produce wool! In fact, each one produces a different color. Being Shetland sheep, some of those colors have special names. From left to right, their colors are: white, gray, moorit, shaela and musket.

So to the question, "Baa, baa, black sheep, have you any wool?"
The answer is yes! And so do all the other different colored sheep!

Mutant Grape

2008-01-08T13:24:00.001-06:00

I bought home a bag of grapes from the grocery store. The guys really enjoy munching on them for a snack. One grape of the bunch was much bigger than most of them.

Tops of a regular grape and the big conglomerate grape.

It's rather strange. It looks like a bunch of grapes just grew all together.

Bottom of the same grapes, regular and weird.

If all the grapes grew together like that, you could have raisins the size of prunes!

Toby, our handsome wonder dog!

2008-01-04T11:47:00.001-06:00

It was another cold night here. I was out taking pictures of the ice on the pond, when I happened to get this shot of Toby.

I was really pleased with this shot because I have a hard time getting good pictures of Toby. First off, it's very difficult to get a good picture of a critter with black fur. It's hard to see the details without making the rest of the picture too light. I have that problem every time I try to take pictures of Toby or our llama, Keira, as they both are dark. The background in this picture just happened to work out well.

It's also difficult to catch him standing STILL for a long enough time to bring the camera up, focus and take the picture. He's constantly on the mooooovvvvvveeeeee, and he usually comes running the minute he sees me look at him.

So there he is, standing still for a change, posing for a picture to show what a big, handsome dog he is!

This Polar Bear Club is for the BIRDS!!!

2008-01-03T10:16:00.000-06:00

I spoke too soon yesterday about being glad I didn't have to chop ice. Figures. I went out this morning and there were empty heated water bowls in the peafowl pen and poultry pens. That meant I either had to carry water out from the house, which is a fair distance, or chop the ice off the top of the unheated water buckets so I could pour water out of them into the heated buckets. Follow that?

I chose the latter, and whew! That's tiring work. The good news is I had enough water to fill the bowls back up. The bad news is, if it's still this cold tomorrow, I'll have no choice but to carry water from the house to the distant water bowls.

While I'm chopping through ice to fill water bowls for the domestic fowl, some of their wild cousins are trying out for the Polar Bear Club, and splashing around in the birdbath.

Even though this birdbath has a heater to keep the water from freezing, it's not THAT warm, and the air is FRIGID. Personally, I think they're birdbrains to be playing in the water when it's this cold.

I figured I was providing drinking water during the cold weather months for the birds, but never imagined I'd be providing a heated spa!

Back to our regularly scheduled program…

2008-01-02T10:14:00.000-06:00

The holidays are over, and it’s back to the old routine. The Farmer went back to work today, which means I have to do morning chores again. Naturally, it also happens to be one of the coldest days we’ve had this winter, with a way wicked wind whipping through clothing.

I hate cold weather. (Okay, so I hate really hot weather too. I’m just a temperate kind of gal.)

I put on thermal underwear, flannel pants and gym pants. I put on a shirt, sweater and winter coat. I stayed fairly warm, except the wind still managed to slip through the fabrics and spread its’ vile chilliness.

The goats weren’t thrilled about moving out, and even the sheep with their way wooly coats were tucked in the shed this morning. Usually the cold doesn’t phase them and they sleep out in the field, but I suspect the wind was whipping through their wool and getting to skin, so they were feeling winter’s bite also.

We’ve been missing a hen for a couple of days. I found her this morning in the hen house which I thought The Farmer was looking into every night to see if there were any eggs. You know what they say about assuming things! Our hens are elderly, so I suspect it was just old age.

That meant a long trek out into the woods to dispose of the corpus not so delicti (a body, but no crime… and it wasn’t too delicti-delectable looking either). Toby went with me until we got to the electric fence. It wasn’t on, but he doesn’t take any chances and won’t go near it. We never saw it happen, but at some point in time, he must have gotten zapped but good, because we can’t even carry him across without he totally freaks out.

It seemed to take forever to get all the animals fed, check water, dispose of a chicken corpse, and otherwise finish up the chores this morning. I’m glad we have heated water buckets so I don’t have to chop ice, and I'm glad I don’t have to shovel snow. There were a few flakes floating around, but not enough to really say it was snowing.

And I’m thrilled to be back inside where it’s WARM.
I’m afraid I wouldn’t make a very good pioneer!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

2008-01-01T18:54:00.000-06:00

Here we are, all set to start a new year. And every year, I think I’m going to do better, and get more done, and have BIG plans for what I’m going to accomplish. And every year, most of the things I accomplish don’t seem to match what I’d planned to accomplish. Maybe this year will be different? (I know, take off those rose-colored glasses!)

So what’s on the agenda for 2008?

#1) Get rid of all the wool from past shearings sitting in my basement.

#2) Update our farm website. Our critter population has changed dramatically.

#3) Rejuvenate my flock of laying hens. Time to order some new chicks this spring! My hens are getting elderly – I didn’t even know that chickens lost coloration in their feathers like we do in our hair.

#4) Order some meat breed chicks also, and fill our freezer with some “I know what’s in ‘em” chicken. My biggest hang-up is finding someone to do the processing. I can’t handle all the feather plucking and cleaning out and stuff like I did when younger and healthier.

#4) Find someone who raises beef without hormones, and put some no-dye-or-anything-else-in-it beef in our freezer.

#5) More, higher raised beds in the garden. Even just one that was tall enough I don’t have to bend over to work would be great. It would make growing veggies so much easier for me.

#6) Finish refinishing the house, specifically, the hall bathroom and my office. Those are the major projects, but there’s a bunch of little stuff that needs done, too.

#7) And the most major project, clear out all the extras in the house, from merging 3 households of packrats. It’s time to clear things out, but it takes a lot of time and effort, and is difficult when you have lots to do, and not enough hours during the day you can work!

I know doing all this will be difficult in one year, but it’s good to have goals to shoot for!

On Guard!

2007-12-28T19:38:00.000-06:00

I went outside the other night to check on something. Checking me out was our super-duper watch dog. He wants to know everything that's going on! Most of the time, I take him with me when I'm wandering around at night. He's got a lot of muscles and teeth, so I figure he makes a pretty good body guard. He doesn't ask for much in the way of pay either, just some praise and a pat on the head.

Sometimes dogs are also woman's best friend.

Toby the Wonder Dog Chasing Ashes

2007-12-26T13:58:00.000-06:00

The Farmer was burning some old feed sacks and boxes yesterday. Toby loves it when his fellow firebug makes a fire. He thinks it's great fun to chase and jump for flying bits of ashes.

Every once in a while Toby gets hold of a hot ash, shakes his head for a minute, then goes right back to jumping for more ashes.

I guess everyone has their own idea of what's fun!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

2007-12-25T20:09:00.001-06:00

This morning this handsome cardinal was sitting on a tree stump in our front yard. This is not a mirror image - look closely! It's two different pictures I put side by side. The cardinal just turned his head in opposite directions in the two pictures.

Merry Christmas to all!!!

Friday on the farm...

2007-12-21T13:16:00.001-06:00

It was beautiful out there when I went to do chores this morning. The weather has warmed up again, and I wore a light jacket instead of my heavy winter coat. Even at that, I pulled off the jacket before I was half way finished with the chores. Though the sun was shining, it’s pretty dreary. What colored leaves we had have either turned brown, fallen to the ground, or both. Still, there’s a little color peeking through here and there, like this lovely little violet.Toby was in rare form this morning, galloping all over the place, carrying around a big piece of lumber he found somewhere. He’s got to have a piece of wood in his mouth, whether it’s so tiny you can barely see the end of it sticking out of his mouth, or so large it’s twice his size and he’s dragging it along behind him.

He’s the farm jester, always finding ways to make me laugh, no matter how grumpy I might be. He loves to play in the water. In the original game, he jumped up and bit the water, but later it evolved to him wanting sprayed while he ran around with his lumber stogie in his mouth.

The other animals generally ignore his lunacy, unless he gets too close. Then they’ll scoot out of his way while casting a wary eye in his direction.

Eventually, they’ll go back to munching their hay or grass or whatever they were doing.

It’s another beautiful Friday on the farm.

Snowball, the Dancing Cockatoo, Ambassador for Bird Rescue

2007-12-20T07:38:00.000-06:00

This little video was first seen on the web May 9th, on the Bird Lover's Only Rescue website, and has become such a big sensation! My favorite clip is that first one, which can be seen on the Bird Lover's Only Rescue site. I've had the link for weeks, and every time I watch it, this bird makes me laugh. However, there is a longer version they posted on YouTube that I could share:

The video clip of Snowball dancing made Time Magazines top 10 list for Best Web Videos.

Snowball has been on the David Letterman show, but that clip isn't nearly as entertaining. I feel sure Snowball was intimidated by the change in environment, and all the noise the band and audience were making.

Now Snowball is going to be featured on Animal Planet's show, "The Year in Animals." The first airing is this Saturday, December 22nd, 8pm Central.

Besides being highly entertaining, this little video of Snowball makes an important contribution in educating people. I imagine a lot of people didn't even know there was such a thing as bird rescue organizations. I imagine a lot don't realize how many birds NEED to be rescued.

They look pretty in the cage, and many people are in love with the idea of having a bird. Once they have one, the reality is sometimes quite different than they imagined. Birds are messy. They need a better diet than just seeds and water. They need good lighting. They need toys. They can be destructive, because they need to chew. It's a natural behavior, and they don't distinguish between their chew toys and your good furniture. Having a parrot is like having a perpetually teething puppy.

They need attention. The parrot family especially, because of their high intelligence, are quite needy. An African Grey, for instance, is reported to have the emotional level of a 2-year old, and the intelligence of a 5-year old. Would you leave a 5-year old in a crib or playpen at all times? Well, guess what, you shouldn't confine a parrot in a small space 24/7 either.

They need change! They need a stimulating environment. And yes, they need love. DON'T get a parrot unless you are willing to live with the mess and give one the time and attention it deserves. You won't be happy with the resulting chaos, and the bird won't be happy confined and ignored.

Snowball's "mom" wrote a very good piece about the difficulties of owning a parrot, and why so many end up in rescue. I think the main difficulty is people don't take the time to learn about the creature they want to own, what kind of behavior to expect, and what it needs to thrive. The first time they get bit, they think they have a BAD BIRD. More likely, the bird was frightened, or it was the result of a BAD OWNER, because they didn't understand how to interact with the bird.

My own parrot, an African Grey, is a rescue bird. Her previous owner bought her at some sort of bird show. She had NO idea what she'd gotten into. She just "wanted some company." Reading between the lines after talking to her, I suspect she got bit and was thereafter afraid of the bird. She scooted the bird out of the way with a flyswatter when she needed to put food in the bowls.

The parrot had a bare chest and no tail feathers. She told me the bird was moulting. I didn't contradict her, but I knew better. This one had just been moved to a new environment. African Greys are notorious for feather picking when stressed, and it often becomes a habit, much like biting fingernails is for some people.

Why buy an animal if you don't know how to take care of it, or at least are willing to learn how to do so? Owning an animal brings responsibility for that animal. Who else will care for the animal, and be sure it has what it needs to thrive? It doesn't matter if it's a bird, rabbit, ferret, horse, cow, pig, or whatever.

Bottom Line: If we buy any animal, taking it into our care, it's our responsibility to learn how to care for it properly, then DO IT. If everyone did that, we wouldn't need so many bird, dog, and all kinds of other rescue organizations. There are a lot of cute animals out there, but please be sure you're ready to take care of one properly before you give into that impulse to buy one.

You'll both be a lot happier that way.

Continuing Cold…

2007-12-19T16:59:00.000-06:00

The weather has remained rather frosty every morning. I noticed three little lambs ears peeking through a drift of fallen leaves, 3 erect little soldiers in a row.
Our old goat gals must suffer some aches and pains with the cold, but they gamely move out in the morning, checking to see if I’ve thrown out any corn or put out any hay. One way or another, we’ll all survive this frigid-to-us weather.