Around Here These Days

Fall is certainly here. The nights are often in the 20s, my garden is full-on dead (but, for once, I've actually yanked a few plants and tossed them over the fence), and we use the pellet stove in the daytime (when we can get it started).

The girls are all healthy. I spent a week in October terribly sick - fever and aches were the only symptoms, but it kept me off my feet for a full week. THAT was not good for the housekeeping, let me tell you. And we ran out of bananas and eggs more than once (this whole-foods living doesn't leave much for kids to fend for themselves!). I did deign to take ibuprofen when my fever rose above 104˙, messing up lo, these many years. :)

We continue to homeschool with Ambleside Online, however, the week I was ill certainly revealed that apparently *I* am the only person who does anything around here and/or *I* am the only person who makes anyone do anything around here. These are not good dynamics. :( I do not know the answer yet, but I am praying about it, and debating on whether academics need to take a hiatus temporarily to give Real Life Skills some focus. For me, too.

The 20 pullets we raised this summer turned out to be 17 pullets and 3 roosters (I'm still wondering if I can get a refund on the pullet price I paid...), and one pullet succumbed to a Great Horned Owl. I'm sure it's no coincidence that the Devil has horns too... Anyway, the old hens are molting and taking their annual sabbatical from laying, and the new pullets have given us 2 or 3 eggs total, but production certainly isn't keeping up with our needs, so i've been having to buy eggs. Usually from an unmanned roadside cooler, sometimes from the grocer, and WOW am I reminded how blessed we are to have free-ranging hens. The product isn't even comparable to the store's.

We now officially have 3 jersey steers. We waited a long time to take care of Chuck (about a week and a half ago; nearly 6 months old) because of his Special Needs. I feed them every day now, and scratch my head and wonder if I'm feeding them enough/too much, too frequently/too rarely and the rest of it. I am fairly secure in my belief that Mae is pregnant; we boarded about a dozen ugly Angus-type cattle in September/October, and among them were 2 young bulls. There was no sign that Mae came into heat, so she probably settled after spending 6 weeks with a Highland bull before we got her. :) She is now quite tame, inasmuch as she comes near for her feed and will tolerate being touched through the fence or gate. The other day she was mooing at me near the garden, so I agreed to give her some hay (which is 100 yards or more from where I was. I walked along the fence and sang, "c'mon Mae!" and began running.. She tossed her big horns and galavanted alongside me up to the area where the hay is. I eased up before we got there, because I realized that she could toss herself right through the fence and never notice, were she inclined... :]

I 'wormed' the cattle using Shaklee's Basic H, of which I had to buy 5 gallons for over $200, because of course they've updated to Basic H2 and there hasn't been 50 years of experience to vouch for its safety or effectiveness at this application (of which Shaklee doesn't endorse). I expect I'll never have to buy from them again, considering the rates of application. :)

Hubby's work has eased up - still full time, but no on-call weekends and few after-hours projects (um, unless you count the projects *I* request...). We have been avoiding wheat for the most part, and are trying to limit the grains we eat as well. We eat potatoes, sweet potatoes and squash more often instead.

Lately I've been reading:
Rodale's Complete Book of Composting
You Can Farm
Salad Bar Beef
Wheat Belly
Folks, This Ain't Normal

Planning to Borrow (from the Library):
In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto
Fast Food Nation
Omnivore's Dilemma

And wishing for:
Growing a Farmer: How I Learned to Live off the Land
An Agricultural Testament
Holy Shit: Managing Manure to Save Mankind

Farmish Update

My goodness, I forget how busy it gets in May.

Hubby has been working late nights - he got home at 11 pm one night!

Sir Loin is doing well. He began to munch grass during his daily exercise (MY daily exercise?) last week, though I didn't let him eat much. I need to refresh my reading on calf bloat and all that... We had a guy from church come help us with a little project... Sir Loin has lost his manhood, earlier than I'd originally planned. We decided it might be best to do that while he was still small enough to manage easily (?), considering we have no idea what we're doing. The procedure went well; it's amazing what you can learn on YouTube.

We've had remarkable success with our broilers this year - up until this weekend. I built a floorless pvc/chicken wire pen for the bigger broilers, and put them in the garden, with new grass each day. Found one dead on Saturday, and two dead this morning. I hate losing big fat (expensive) birds... We had some severe weather hit Saturday evening, and again Sunday afternoon. Perhaps they were smothered in the effort to be sheltered/warm or ??? Still ahead of where we were last year, and I even have enough to sell a few - and a very willing buyer, once I can figure out a proper price!

One hen (a black australorp, I think) is setting on a nest (tucked behind the former kitchen sink, up against the broken greenhouse, naturally). I saw it today when she came out to eat, and from my view it seems they might be mostly smaller eggs. We don't really have any pullets, but someone is laying small eggs.. I'm interested to see what hatches!

I have a lead on a milk cow... (!) My stomach turns a bit in thinking of it. Where would we put it? How would it live? Where would we milk it? HOW would we milk it? We have a few ideas and options, but nothing as straightforward and workable as "a barn." Then I thumb through my 200 Easy Homemade Cheese Recipes Book and get excited again. :)

Hubby's work let us use the backhoe when it was in the neighborhood. We have a hole, and a pole stuck in it! Now to wire in the meter base, get it inspected, get power, power the pump, set up the pipe, attach the sprinklers, and irrigate the pasture! (then what...?!?)

I have done almost *nothing* in the garden, except break the push mower. It's been such a wet, cool spring, and the grass and weeds area already knee-high in there! We do have chives, and some self-sown lettuce, cilantro, and parsley showing up. We prepped the carrot box (raised bed) but haven't planted. Today and tomorrow are cool and windy; maybe we'll get it planted soon.

In addition to the push mower, the rest of the house is also falling apart.

• The ignitor on the pellet stove is haywire (causing circuit overload if we try to use it). Hubby starts it with a propane torch or something, when we need it (how absurd is it to need a pellet stove in May?!). 
• The dishwasher broke on Mother's Day, and I've spent a week trying to hunt down parts, hoping we have figured out the problem (ribbons aren't dishwasher safe. Rocks, chicken bones, apricot pits, cherry seeds - those are all fine.). I ordered parts online today; MUCH cheaper than any local option (who also would have had to order them). 
• My favorite stove burner has been dead about 2 weeks now. Haven't even had time to *figure out* how to pull it apart, let alone fix it. We seem to be using some part of that appliance every time Hubby is present :) 
• Several plug-ins in the kitchen have stopped working. It's obviously an entire circuit, but the breaker isn't tripped.
• The faucet at the rear of the house is wonky. If you turn it off too much, it turns back on. Getting it "off" just right is tricky. We have a new faucet, but... haven't installed it yet, of course. :]
• The hydrant in the backyard isn't working right. Not sure if we have to dig up the whole thing or what, but getting water to the calf and other things is getting complicated back there!

These things aren't broken, really, but they need worked on:

• Part of the garden fence still needs lined with chicken wire. I was working on this when wind, rain, and hail pelted me until I was wet to my underwear. No fun, but I stayed to keep the chickens from drowning. :P
• The field fence hasn't been worked on in a couple weeks. Nice for backhoe access, but not very helpful in the long run. We've set the gate and gate support-stuff, but actually that's the only place that you *can't* enter from that side. :) I need to get the fencing pliers and go to work during naptime...
• I need to build another pvc pen for the next batch of chickens. I'm cannibalizing the greenhouse structure for the pvc, and we bought corner-connector things and glue. This one will be 24" high, so turkeys might live in it eventually (first one is 18" high).

Whew! If I don't post here often, you'll know why! :)

September Update

The coyotes haven't returned, that we can tell.  I'm hoping someone else killed them, though it would be nice to know for sure so that I could sleep with both eyes (and ears) closed.

I uprooted all my tomatoes on Saturday.  I've put up 26 quarts of tomatoes (paltry, I know), and a counter is full of still-ripening ones, but there are a lot more green ones on the vines.  I hope this will encourage them to ripen!  For once, the "Old German" tomatoes I put in are producing well.  They were intriguing, before I remembered what they were.  A yellow tomato, with pink at the blossom end, extending from there in stripes toward the stem end.  Even peeled they are an interesting pink/yellow tiger appearance.  We also have a tomato plant that perplexes me.  It is a nice round fruit, but pure yellow when ripe.  The only tomato of which I bought a single plant was supposed to be Early Girl, but these are definitely not.  I wonder if the greenhouse mis-marked the plant, and if they'll have any idea what it was when I ask about it next year.  It's a nice fruit.

Goldie is still mothering 10 chicks, who are 6 weeks old today.  They probably managed to eat their own 26 quarts of tomatoes, but I've put them out of the garden.  I try to only let them out of their pen just after I've harvested, since they prefer the ripening ones.  This is the first time we've let a hen brood her own chicks, and I have no idea when they should be 'weaned!'  When they come into contact with the rest of the chickens, the other hens attack the chicks and unmercifully pluck out a beakful of feathers.  Should I just put Mama back in with the other chickens?  Is it fine to keep her with them?  How long?  I'll probably just let nature take its course, unless I run across information indicating there could be problems with that.  I do hope most of the 10 are female; for once I've got more egg-wanters than egg-producers.

Big Sister enjoyed her beautiful pet hamster for about 10 days before my mom came with her kids.  The little boy opened the cage the night they got here, and Nutmeg escaped.  He was seen the next night, but wasn't caught.  It's been 12 days since then, and we haven't seen him.  There are signs he might be about, but the live traps remain untouched.  We have seen mice, and we have a terrible dilemma.  Was the gnawed end of carrot we found from Nutmeg?  Or a mouse?  We don't dare put out killing traps for fear we'll find... well, you know. :(  How long do we wait to deal with the mice?  How long do we hope for Nutmeg's return?  I am having a harder time with this than I imagined I might.  He was the sweetest, friendliest hamster at the store, and Big Sister was really taking such good care of him.  My nephew is a handful, and probably no worse than some of mine, but I find myself still upset about this senseless loss. Big Sister is obviously more sad than I, and prays to find Nutmeg each day.

We've started to paint the house.  Or, we've started to finish painting the house?  In any case, the refinance requires that it be completed, so the paint is on hand, and we've been hard at work scraping/power washing/priming.  And we still don't know how to reach the uppermost parts...  I'm excited for it to get done and look nice.  And wow, even at 40% off, decent paint is pricey.  The walls to be Clary Sage, the trim Divine White.  Looking those up doesn't offer much by way of illustration, so I'll just have to take a photo later.  :)

The turkeys need put in the freezer, but with painting we didn't even get to thinking about it.  Not sure how that's going to go, but it's something that needs our attention soon.  Facebook updates are always so interesting this time of year...

I met a homeschool mom whose mother raises rabbits... and harvests them.. (!)  I've wanted to learn a bit more about this, and they've promised to tell us when they're going to process their next batch.  I'm more freaked out about it than my kids (who think bunnies would be fantastic to eat).  Typical weird, uncivilized homeschool field-trip:  "Load up kids, we're gonna go kill some bunnies!"  Yikes.

*Yawn*

This past week has had some visitors.  Some welcome, others less so.

My mom and her kids came on Wednesday.  It's been... busy!... keeping six kids fed and clothed and disciplined and refereed, and don't even ask about the status of the housekeeping....

Oh the housekeeping.  Tuesday it was looking fairly decent around here.  The whole Appraisal Motivation thing, you know...

Before that, however, my kids sadly reported finding the remains of Whitey-Black out near the chicken pen.  She is one of our oldest and nicest (or slowest... the kids can catch her easily) hens.

From our first batch of chickens.  Whitey-Black is one of two that survived the Chicken Massacre of '07.

In any case, I was sorry to lose her, and wondered what may have gotten her.  Aside from the above-mentioned massacre, we've been actually quite lucky when it comes to losing things to predation.  We leave town with the chicken house door open, and they free-range for days without coming to harm.

 a Young Rusty

Wednesday morning, in the wee hours, the dog was barking more than usual.  Our window was open, and the fan on, so it wasn't too much to sleep through, but it was notable.  Hubby left for work early, and the dog would bark off and on as the sky lightened.  I had baby in bed with me, and at one point (full daylight, almost 8:00 maybe?) the dog's bark changed at the same time there was considerable ruckus among the chickens (who were already out for the day of course).  I got up from my bed, and looked out my window to see what I thought were 2 large dogs - german shepherd, maybe? - and they were standing in the weeds and dirt just past the chicken house.  Most of the chickens were scattered about the backyard, clucking nervously.  I yelled at the dogs from the window, and watched them bound towards the north property line (not far from where they were) and then straight west along the edge of my neighbor's hay field.  They paused where Neighbor's ATV track cuts through the field, and I saw 2 patches of white.  When I yelled again, those patches took off south until I couldn't see them.  Unlike before, when I had an impression of the dogs but couldn't identify them well enough later, I noted several things about these dogs.  I inspected the area, and was very sad to find Rusty torn apart.  She was a rust-colored aracauna.  And then I went to find my neighbor, as he uses only a cell phone now and his number is not in the book.  He wasn't home, but I left him a note (he was actually out checking water on his ATV by then, on the very track the dogs had raced down).  Later he called, and didn't know of anyone with that kind of dog in the area, but encouraged me to shoot them. :)

I have just acquired a small handgun of my own, but didn't have ammo for it.  I purposed to remedy that, and considered the situation.  I was perplexed though; while they looked like large, cardboard-brownish dogs, with tall, pointy ears, pale undersides (if that's what I'd seen from a distance).  Problem was, they didn't act like dogs.  If they'd killed Whitey-Black, then they were coming to kill and eat.  Dogs come to play, and when one toy breaks, they go to the next, and the next, and... Several people asked if maybe they were coyotes, but these seemed to me to be much bigger and taller.  I did some research, and decided that my perspective from upstairs was probably the least-reliable information I had to go on, and that they were probably coyotes.

My handgun ammo was harder to track down than I thought, and really wouldn't be useful unless I was right on them anyway, so I had Hubby teach me how to use his .22 rifle that evening.  The next morning Hubby had showered, and was in the bathroom when the chickens freaked out and the dog went nuts.  I ran to the window, peering into the darkness with a gun in hand, but could see nothing.  The birds were closed into their coop, but something was obviously out there, and I was so frustrated to be unable to help.  I threw open the bathroom door, half-sobbed that they were back, and slid open the bathroom window to illustrate my point.  I let him put on a few clothes, and sent him out. :)  Shortly I saw his figure creeping in the shadow of the playhouse.  I watched, anxiously, but heard no gunfire and he eventually turned on his headlamp.  He bent, and was putting something against the wire of the coop, and rearranged a board that was leaning on the side of the structure.  Then I saw white wings in the darkness, lifeless and waving as he picked the bird up from it's feet.  I pounded the windowsill and thought dark thoughts toward the beasts.  Hubby dropped her on the grass just inside where a light (from the wrong side of the shed/coop) spills.  Bait.


He told me it was the petite, pure-white one we call Grace.  There was a gap in the wire, and Grace had either slept just inside there, or had walked by at the wrong time.  Her head was crushed, but they hadn't been able to drag her out, and likely ran off when the cacophony erupted.  Hubby left for work, and I took up my position at the bedroom window, watching and waiting.  Baby woke, and I nursed her, wondering how inappropriate it would be to try to shoot something at the same time.  The creatures didn't come back for their bait, though I watched until 8:00.

a young Grace, upper left.  She lost the coloring on her back eventually.

I was completely certain at this point that we were dealing with coyotes, whether or not they looked too big to me.  The MO was right, and their tails were too fluffy for german shepherds.  I read that they hunted at sunset and sunrise, usually, so Hubby grinned, armed himself to the teeth, and spent 2 hours after dusk in the chicken house, listening to chickens snore.  He did the same for a half-hour on Friday morning, and I took up my post again too, but there was nothing, either time.  Nor Saturday.  Now it is Sunday, and 5:30 had the dog barking again, though not crazily.  Hubby went on patrol, and lay in wait, but nothing now, either.

We're talking about getting someone to trap, have a motion-sensor light to install (but I'd really rather them dead), and I fantasize about shooting the beastly thieves myself.  I'm so ready to do that.

Because then?  I could actually sleep the whole night (excepting my Baby's bad habits), and get some decent rest...

Creatures

Despite the wintery weather we've suffered in this past month, the "farm" side of our place is coming along.  That happens when you order your critters in March; you have no choice but to deal with them when they show up!

We ordered our standard 50 cornish cross broilers, though I'm almost ready to double that, and sell the balance.  We'll see how it goes this year, and maybe we can do that next time.  

The best part is they're over 4 weeks old now, and we have lost ONLY TWO - the one Organique squished (oh, that is so hard to write!) and another in that first couple days.  I don't know if it had to do with the organic starter or not, but I'm happy to see it.  Here they are on Thursday:

On Tuesday we picked up our three turkey poults, and a Rouen duck.  Here are the poults.  We only got 3, because we still have some turkey in the freezer.  We got the broad-breasted bronze this year:

Here is the duck.  He's cute now, but I'm not looking forward to his/her goings on in future years.  We don't plan to eat it:

Here is a handful of our hens.  We have 2 roosters, and about 20 or so hens.  The gold (buff orpington) rooster is in the foreground, and Big Ed (a light brahma) has a white body, black tail, and has his head down, above and to the left of the gold.

They're doing well laying eggs for us finally; better when we DON'T suddenly realize Organique is missing, and the mad scramble to find her finds her madly scrambling eggs in the chicken house.  But we haven't had any of those days lately.. *sigh*

Farm & Garden, June 2

In the garden:

All but 1 tomato plant are set out.  The 1 was the victim of the stroller-smashing accident, and when the whole thing was mostly busted off, I set it like a flower in a cup (a sippy cup, actually...).  It sprouted wonderful roots!  It's been hardening off on the porch, and hopefully I'll be feeling moveable enough to set it out today.  Total tomato plants will be 27.  The girls had messed with the plants, and several little packs of tomatoes were missing their labels, so I'm not sure what's out there.  I do have 3 "juliet" salad-style tomatoes, 3 "old german" stripey-lookin' things, 6 "mountain fresh" which I bought because they were tall and their tag had only a handwritten title, and no other information (I think that's why they were still available).  I called my neighbor and had her google them.  I also have 4 little bush-type plants, and I forgot their name (but the tag is in my apron pocket, I think).

The SFG holds 4 peppers, a huge bell, a 'chocolate' bell, a 'sweet cherry', and a 'garden salsa' - hot one.  I have 3 more of each Sweet Cherry and Garden Salsa with the tomatoes.  10 total pepper plants.

The onions in the SFG have sprouted!  The carrots are getting their first real leaves, if/when Organique will stop scooping out handfuls of dirt and seedlings.  I also don't like it when she scoops up 'weedy' garden dirt and adds it to the SFG.  Argh!  And I can never move fast enough to intercept...

The lettuces are getting bigger (again, the ones Organique hasn't uprooted to add to her 'soup').  The largest are maybe a fist-sized clump.  Not sure when I'll be able to bring myself to pluck any.  They're so pretty!

The SFG potatoes are really growing.  Four per square foot seems excessive to me, but maybe the fancy dirt makes up the difference?  I also have 5 garbage bags set in the ground with about 6 potatoes each.  They're beginning to sprout.  As are 5 little seedlings in a row across the surface of one... I'm not sure what they are or how they got there.  They look possibly like melon or squash, maybe even sunflowers.  Maybe I should transplant them...

The SFG has 7 cucumber plants.  I don't know if I'll get a trellis built, or let them wander off into the wilderness.  So far they haven't died, but they don't seem to be growing much either.

I have several herbs in the SFG.  Chives, sage, thyme, oregano, cilantro.  I started basil seeds, but they're not acting real hardy yet, and I don't know that they'll get there or not.  There are still a handful of empty squares that had assignments on paper, but not yet in reality.  I may change my mind.

Yet to do:

Set out pumpkin starts, zucchini (I found some eventually), yellow squash (I'll be hatin' the squash, huh?), and the butternut squash a friend gave me.  Of course, the sippy-cup tomato.

Have Hubby rototill a spot for the sweet corn he ordered.  So much to do on his off-time!  So little off-time to do it! :)

Critter-wise, most of the Mutants are still eating and drinking.  Hubby is on call this weekend, but Sundays are usually slow; maybe we can do it then (with the plucker!?!), or on Saturday evening if he's not too done-in.

The seven little white turkeys are alive and well, which surprised me some.  As soon as they could (and it was soon), they would jump up onto the edge of the bedliner/brooder, occasionally getting down to the ground.... the same ground the Meat Mutants occupied for some time.  Turkeys are susceptible to chicken germs or something like that, and I was worried.  Hubby never got around to moving the hoophouse, and eventually ALL of the turkeys made it down below, and there was no trying to capture all 7 every night to put them to bed.  They're still down there, knocking over their feed and water daily.

The 3 geese are quickly outgrowing the garden cart.  I'm not sure what to do with them yet.  They and the turkeys are both without heat lamps, after surviving one night where we forgot to plug it in.  I think that's always how that works out.  They're so big, but they're still 'babies' - 3 weeks old today, I think.  Their feathers are still the soft, fluffy kind, and they'd probably still be hawk-bait if they were somewhere exposed.  They LOVE green stuff, and eaven choked down several morning glory vines the girls tossed in.  They prefer alfalfa and clover, of course. :)  I'd like to know if they'll eat thistles...  Then I might know where to put them. :)  A guy at Hubby's work grew up eating farmyard geese, and warned him they were the greasiest meal he'd ever eat.  Sounds like a self-basting bird, to me!  I hope we like them.

Still to do:

Take the plucker shaft/flange back to the shop and have them figure out how to center the shaft.  The guy got it off a bit, and the balance just won't work that way.

Get the plucker operational (it should be, after putting the shaft back on) and kill the Meat Mutants.

Find a better home for the geese.  They're still too small to stay inside field fencing, I think, and I'm not sure if poultry netting will keep them in (it's not electrified).

Maybe kill a rooster.  One or two of our four are a bit too aggressive.  Organique ended up with a scratch on her hand due to one of them.  Too bad he's the prettiest.  The big Light Brahma is really mellow, as is the Buff Orpington.  It's the Brown Leghorn and the Black Australorp that are problematic.

Fix the shed to keep chickens out, and fix the coop to keep chickens in.  That way we can find their eggs!  And my porch will be more presentable...