Fields Of Heather: Farm

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Around The Farm March 13, 2015

Looks almost peaceful, doesn't it? Pics can be deceiving like that. We were up half the night looking for them, worrying about them as we listened to the coyotes hollering, and knowing it was icy hoping they hadn't slipped and broken a leg. We drove around before it was even fully day light, but still couldn't spot them. At 7am a neighbor called with their location - they were on the opposite side of 8th street. That's about the busiest street around here at 7:20am (when we got to them) - it's the street that leads to the school. We had to get them across the road, through traffic, then walk them home. Dan didn't stay here in the snow long, he brought them down to the road - it was too icy and difficult to walk in the fields. Dan fell down the bank, landed on his knee, and I walked them the rest of the way home. One of them got her nose in the feed bucket I was using to lure them home, and pulled my shoulder back at an angle, so that I've had pain all week from it.

Then add in that we had never properly fixed the gate they tore through in the upper pasture, Friday afternoon we were chasing horses. They went through the broken gate. The guys had the horses almost home when someone drove by and beeped their horn, spooking the horses. It took us another hour, and the help of a neighbor, to find them.

I'm so done with those cows, but they are still here. Dan wants to keep them until April. For now they are in the goat pen.

Between chasing animals, a funeral, and a new baby to visit (I have a new nephew), and some just plain general laziness on my part, I got very little done on the farm this week. With the snow melting, it is more and more obvious how much there is to be done. I wish I could afford to hire help, but I don't think that is going to be in our budget this year. And really, there is no good excuse for me not getting more done. Like that gate - if I had gotten Matt to help me fix that gate earlier this week, I wouldn't have been chasing horses this afternoon. Pure laziness on my part, no other excuse for it. It's time to transition from the lazy days of winter into the full force, get things done, mode of Spring. If I just tackle one project a day it will make a big difference. Eventually. :-)

The decorative pond thawed enough that I could remove the dead fish. :-( I am so sad that I killed them - we thought they would be ok in there all winter, but it was a rough winter and the ground froze too deeply. On the positive side, that is the longest I have ever had carnival fish survive - usually we keep them in the house and they die within a week. The pond is still pretty full of ice, I'll probably shop vac all the water out and start fresh this spring - it's full of leaves & debris. I need to read up on pond care.

Piper, who is extremely pregnant, also has CL. I'm so discouraged. The hair has fallen off, so Dan will take her out back (always to a field we don't keep any livestock on at all) to clean it out and hopefully she and her babies will be ok. (I'm guessing twins, but it could only be one). The first goat babies should arrive early April here.

Yuck. This is what spring REALLY looks like. :-) The pastures are all starting to look a mess too.

I cleaned up some of the hay from outside the dog pen - where we had Ugie the goat for the last couple of months. It was ice under the hay yet. I put the hay in the chicken coop to help with some of the mud for now.

Peterson the peacock is still loose. I have not seen him at our neighbors since we attempted to catch him - but my sister in law did spot him there, so I am hopeful he's still hanging around.

Washing the eggs. :-) This was a few days worth. The hens have slowed down a bit, and keep going broody, I've been kicking them off nests all week, but today I left one nest to hatch out. I like baby chicks. :-)

I started cleaning up this area so I'd have a place to sit down while working out here.. but it just looks so sad to me, with the one faded chair cushion and the faded umbrella, and the dead leaves in the stones... it's a start. I'll want to paint those basement doors again too, once it is warm enough

This doesn't show the mess as much - but off to the right is almost all mud. We had a ground mole last fall that did a lot of damage. I did a google search and found out I should have put down seed in the fall (there is so much I should have done in the fall, and did not, leaving extra mess this spring). I did find this "In order for you to seed, the ground temperature has to be warm enough for the seeds to get established and the roots take hold. I would also recommend to aerate your lawn in the spring, seed, you can also fertilize, and water regularly. Aerating will allow the seeds to penetrate into the ground better. " It sounds like mid april - so just a month away - before I should put seed down.

Upcoming Projects

This rain barrel is for sale for $300

I'd love to make a similar one - but I may need to hire someone to paint it.

I spent a lot of time researching rain barrels, and how I want to make mine. Mostly I want to paint them (which you should all know I'm not very talented at, but I do love Krylon..) but before I can do that I want to put them together. I've done my research, you can see everything I have found here - http://fieldsofhether.blogspot.com/2015/03/making-my-own-rain-barrels.html
I'll update as I make them.

I'm researching an outdoor bread oven, and a smoke house too. I don't know how far I will get with those projects, but I am hoping to build both this spring.

Around The Neighborhood -
The farm on the hill, where we learned how to grow & harvest tobacco last year, sold for $600,000. For just 60 acres. But it is a really nice barn. The new neighbors will be Amish as well, from Lancaster County.

They appear to be tearing down the farm house on Hickory Grove road - Jay Showers old house. It's owned by an amish family, I'm pretty sure they will build a big new house in its place.

The Lapp's are building on again -

I think it's a porch. We'll see. They also built this recently - (sceenshot of someone's facebook post)

Around the Farm This Week - March 5 2015

While everyone else is shouting "come on spring!" I'm walking around thinking we need 6 more weeks of winter to save up for, and prepare for, all the work spring will bring. The rain barrels are not done, the shed roof needs repaired, spouting is missing off the back of the shed, fences all need repaired, at least two shelters need completely rebuilt... and that's not even a real start of a list. I need to start our spring project list, list the materials needed, adjust our budget, and plan to get some of this taken care of. But oh vey, this spring will bring a LOT of work. (I'm still blaming my son's fall wedding for being so far behind - but some - perhaps a lot - of it was laziness too.)

How Not To Catch A Peacock:

1. Drive car to location. Shine spot light on peacock, who has roosted on a neighbors truck for the past few days, but tonight is up in a tree.
2. Repeat the phrase "he'll be a sleep, he'll be easy to catch" as the not sleeping peacock looks down at you.
3. Drive home, get truck & extension ladder, leaving others behind to sing lullabies to the peacock, & tell him it's past his bedtime, he should be sleeping.
4. Listen to female (ie "mom" or "wife") list all the reasons using an extension ladder in the dark, on a hill, after an ice storm, may not be a good idea.
5. Ignore female. Extend ladder on icy hill.
6. Find that the ladder does not reach the branch.
7. Attempt to lift ladder in the air & use it to scare peacock, so that he will fly down to ground.
8. Watch peacock fly to another tree, 10 feet higher than his original perch.
9. Plan To repeat.

Eggs all washed. smile emoticon Each winter we line the inside of the coop with old feed bags, to help stop drafts. The hens have all done well all winter - we're getting 10 eggs a day now. For some reason, our hens only lay if we feed them one feed from clarks (true value). Although other feed labels look comparable, & friends & neighbors have no issues with other feed (we'd prefer to buy local feed from Norms farm store) if we switch to any other feed, they stop laying.

Since we're getting 10 eggs a day, I'm making a lot of egg recipes. This puff oven pancake was a hit this week - it's an old recipe I've used often, but I added a lot more stuff, like an omelet, this week -

http://fieldsofhether.blogspot.com/2015/03/recipe-puff-oven-pancake.html

On The Internet This Week -

I have had this posted on my facebook page by well meaning friends so many times in the past week - everyone thinks I "need" these. But the two pictures do not go together.

"The black eggs are boiled eggs in sulphuric springs. The chicken is a Ayam Cemani rooster a rooster and a Hen together are known to sell for $2500 - $5000 for the pair. They come from Indonesia."The birds are completely black: black plumage with a greenish shine, black legs and toe nails, black beak and tongue, black comb and wattles; even their meat, bones and organs appear black. " "The hens lay cream-colored eggs with a slight pink tint" - from the backyard chickens forum

Where those black eggs came from - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%8Cwakudani
Ōwakudani (大涌谷 lit. "Great Boiling Valley"?) is a volcanic valley with active sulphur vents and hot springs in Hakone, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. It is a popular tourist site for its scenic views, volcanic activity, and especially, Kuro-tamago (黒卵 lit. "black egg"?) — a local specialty of eggs hard-boiled in the hot springs. The boiled eggs turn black and smell slightly sulphuric; consuming the eggs is said to increase longevity. Eating one is said to add seven years to your life. You may eat up to two and a half for up to seventeen and a half years, but eating a whole third is said to be highly unadvised.

Cows:
We have 2 black angus cows that could be bred this spring. But we can't keep them in the fence. I don't know how many times we have been called, or I have hollered out "the cows are in the middle of the road" just this week. Too many. Way too many.

We already sold one because she would not stay fenced, I think we may need to sell a second one - the 3rd stays in the fence when the other cow isn't in the same pasture to lead the way out. But do we really want just ONE cow to have a baby this year? What will it cost to have just one cow inseminated? Add to the list of things we need to figure out. The two babies in the back pen are ready to move up to the middle pen, they are off milk and on just grain and hay now. It's too icy to move them just yet, but I need to get them out of that pen before I can get more babies.

Goats -
Doing well. We found a new home for Uggie this week - that was hard.

If you have visited the farm, or petted the goats at heritage days, you have probably met Uggie - she is one of the friendliest, and oldest, goats I have had. (She's the one you all ask "what happened to her ears?" - She's a LaMancha, they don't have regular ears) This winter we had to move her out from the goat pen - I can't risk her getting pregnant, so she had to be on her own in a separate pen. She wasn't happy - goats are herd animals. They hate being alone. She had the opportunity to be a companion to another older goat, both pets. I know it's what is best for her - but I hated seeing her go. She's been here 7 or 8 years, since she was a baby.

Garden:
I'm pretty excited about this garden calendar, although so far all I have done is download it. I used to have a printable one that worked like this, but this is a spreadsheet that does all the work for you :
Garden planning calculator. Tell it what you want to plant, it will tell you when to start the seeds, & when to plant outdoors -http://seedsforgenerations.com/garden-planning-calculator/

I think that pretty much sums up this weeks chaos & interests - I'm hoping to do this each week, so I have a diary of what life is really like here on the "peaceful" farm in central PA. :-)

My Day In Pictures

#mydayinpics 9am 6159 steps so far. #fitbit

#farmlife Push mower is broken, so I'm mowing the backyard like the Amish. Loaded Betsy up to go to auction. #mydayinpics 10am 8417 #fitbit steps 4th load of laundry

Laundry. Finished the hand mowing. Laundry. Finished the detergent. laundry. Started weed whacking. Laundry. #mydayinpics 11th 9919 #fitbit steps

#mydayinpics 12pm. Cleaned the car. Wow. It was bad. 10808 #fitbit steps

#mydayinpics errands.

#mydayinpics #farmlife livestock auction, bought a goat. Introduced him to the others. Took pics of Maggies babies.

#mydayinpics 9pm. Fed the boys when they came in from baling hay. Sorted ALL of those socks. Ironed the spots out of the table. Watched the sunset. Folded more laundry.

My Solar Light Obsession. I like to sit out here at night and read a bit before bed.

On The Farm 6/20/2014

Monday we sold Betsy at the Dewart Livestock Auction. I hate doing that. But practically, I cannot keep cows as pets. Unless they can have babies. I came home with a little billy goat, whom our son named Norbert. I'm not a fan of the name, but it appears to be sticking... We plan to seperate the goats this fall, splitting the goat pen in half and moving the baby girls born here this year to the back with Norbert, keeping the older girls, who are not related to Horton, with him to be bred.

Tuesday I went to the Middleburg Livestock Auction and bought some poultry:

They are all doing really well - I'm rather amazed.

For the first time all month, there are 3 days in the forecast with no rain. So the plan is to bale hay on Monday.. we're fervently praying it really does NOT rain this week-end!

On The Farm 6/5/14

So, my plan to update this weekly isn't going so well.. but considering the whirlwind May was, that's not really a surprise.

The big news on the farm has nothing to do at all with the actual farm (other than his intent to take it over from us in 20 years, after he retires from the Military). Our oldest son is officially engaged! He flew home from WA and proposed to his girlfriend earlier this month. We've been BUSY planning and getting ready for their September wedding. :-)

Along with his visit home, a trip to Philadelphia, a skeet shoot here on the farm, the younger kids were in a school play, wrapping up the school year, football... I keep reminding myself that in two years all the kids will be grown, this chaos is so temporary, and I'm going to enjoy it as much as possible!

Some of the Misc projects we got done before the skeet shoot:

The fire pit - we dug it deeper and made the stones look neater.

Took the bushes out in front of the house, moved the picnic table up

I made a chalkboard paint sign to hang off the fence

cleaned up & painted the date stone (I hate the red, & will repaint it again)

Put in the bean pole teepee

built the dog pen beside the house - all fenced in (we use this only when visitors are afraid of the big dogs - or most recently, we used it as a temporary goat pen for the goat that just gave birth...)

Cows:

We moved Bubba to a friends house, where he will finish growing. They raise deer, and want him to eat the grass the deer will not eat, in the deer pen. When he is fully grown this fall, they will pay to have him processed, and we will split the beef. I struggle so much with this yet...

We're working on selling Betsy - she's two years old now, and sterile. I so wish she could have babies here on the farm, but since that won't happen, she'll be sold for beef. Preferably soon, while the prices are high.

That leaves us with the three herfords in the lower pasture, who will hopefully have babies here next year, and 3 young steers. We'll add more steers when they are more affordable, the prices have been insanely high this spring.

Goats:

We had two new babies born, twins. One of the nannies didn't give birth early this year with all the others, which is nice, I like having babies here all the time. One is a boy, one is a girl. We're looking for an unelated billy to add to the herd, then I'll split the goat pen in half, and keep the girls born this year with the new billy, so they aren't bread back to their dad.

Hay:

I could cry when I look at our "timothy" field. It's more of a dandelion field. Last year we had such beautiful timothy.. but this year that is a corn field. It's a late year, the temperatures have been cold much longer than in recent years. Usually we are baling this week, but it will probably be another week or so this year. We'll have plenty of good hay, just not good timothy.

On the Farm, May 5th 2014

We've made so much progress over the past two weeks! Still so much to do, but we're crossing big things off the lists now. :-) The peacocks are loving that big new run, there on the right. The bunnies are outside in the new hutch, on the left. I love the new herb bed, with the Inuksuk in the middle, and the raised bed gardens are all doing well.

We pulled out the clothesline poles, and moved them. Then I painted them blue. And added little rock beds around them, planting french lavendar around each pole.

We hauled in a load of river rock for around the chairs and pond.

We put in an herb bed, then I decided it looked unbalanced, and put in a butterfly bed as well.

This will be the butterfly garden

Our oldest built this Inuksuk a couple of years ago. It was in an odd location, where you never saw it, in another yard.. we moved it back here where I can see it all the time.

The horse pasture was looking sparse - Dan had oats planted into it this week.

Bubba is moved to the front pasture with the other cows, and we moved Mickey down here now too - so there are 6 cows out front. Milo is still in the back yard (he still gets milk once a day) and Wendell is in the center island pen.

Still too young for his pretty tail - but next year when it grows in, he'll have plenty of room to display it, here in his new pen.

Betsy, Enjoying the impromptu pond in the pasture, after a heavy rainstorm.

Still lots to do here - but the pond is officially running! I found all of this pond, including the filters and everything, alongside the road with a free sign on it. I can't believe it all works! The pump is the old well pump from here on the farm.

The new bunny hutch isn't pretty - but the bunnies love it, and I love not having to carry a dog kennel in and out of the house every morning and evening! Olaf runs up and down that ramp nonstop - he loves it. PB prefers to sit up in the boxes with the hay.

This Week On The Farm 4/28

One of our spring projects is to enlarge the chicken coop run. We haven't started yet. Soon.

Bubba (cow) is almost recovered and ready to move back to the front pasture with the other cows. We need to start introducing Kase to the other horses here on the farm. Kase (rescue horse) has some rainrot yet, but mostly you wouldn't realize he was half starved to death just a few months ago - he is doing great.