Good Days

It's kind of cold in the house today but that's okay. I'm gonna warm it up with some bread in the oven and I think the boy and I will make some cheesy pizza breads for supper.

Morning chores went off without a hitch and everybody was where they were supposed to be. I will need to do an egg hunt in a couple of hours as every nest had a chicken setting on it this morning. The eggs I brought in came from a new nest in the corner of the cows stall. I'm surprised the calf didn't stomp on them. She really is entertaining when she gets to chasing chickens around. Little Daisy gets so excited that she "barks" at the chickens and bawls when they fly off on her.

The seedlings are doing well and I'm still adding seed baggies to the mix. I just never have enough plants to suit me. Ya just never know what might happen and I hate to not have enough.

Well, off to make the bread dough.....

First thing I see

Here it is, the first thing I see every morning when I go out to take care of the critters. All my chickens and the ducks. They are better than any watchdog you could find, they make such a racket out there, you can't hear a thing. The flock is the first thing to be fed each day so I can do the rest of my chores in peace!

Oh yah, it's that time of year again! It's down right cold overnight now, with temperatures heading toward the mid 20's for the end of this week. I am so not ready to be busting ice in November! But, what can you do other than just go with the flow.

Speaking of cold, have you read next years farmers almanac? Hmmm, cooler than normal and dry all thru the growing season. Might make for some poor crops next season. I hate to think we will see 2 years of drought. The way the almanac is reading, I won't get my warm crops out til mid June! That simply will not do! I will be applying some new techniques to keep the plants warm and growing this coming season.....

ARG, i still owe $500 on the milk cow so it's going to be a while before i get it home and milking for me.

I moved and restacked the 200 bales of hay in the big barn this weekend. I needed to clean up the pile a bit and move it down where I had some room to put the indoor goat pen back in the barn corner. I got a bit of a surprise about half way thru it. 2 possums hiding under a wood pallet! now I know what's been happening to all the chicken eggs! poor Polar Bear had been getting the suspicious looks. I killed one and she killed the other. I am already back up to a dozen eggs a day. I was only finding 3 or 4!

I'm back into the no kits thing. The rabbits have all been bred but no kits. I had this trouble a couple years ago too. I still don't know for sure what it is that causes that. maybe it's the weather change, maybe something else. I just keep breeding and waiting. Sooner or later I'll get a round of kits!

A friend has given me a whole stack of Taste of Home magazines so I'm sure to be cooking up something good this week.........

Good news and bad

Some good news and some bad all wrapped up together today. So, I'll just share what's new and let the news fall where it may, LOL. My daughter got herself a job with her college education. I'm so proud of her. It will be tough for her to juggle it with her basketball scholarship and classes starting soon but I think she will do fine. I am still waiting for a call on the applications and resumes I already have out there.

I spent a little time on Monday catching up with some old friends and helped out at a food pantry this morning. 231 people came to the pantry this morning. I was pretty surprised and a little disappointed all rolled up into one. Every single person that came thru there had a cell phone and several had those bluetooth ear things. I helped people to their vehicles with the food and every vehicle out there was newer than mine. Way newer than mine. If they can afford the monthly phone bill, why can't they buy food? The bad economy is hurting everyone and now on top of it, food inflation is coming on strong. Check out this article about price increases on food at of all places, walmart. I despise Walmart for many reasons but the biggest one is- where ever there is a Walmart, there is no other venue to shop. Walmart wipes out every bit of competition, leaving you with no where to shop but there. Anyway, the food pantry was giving away a bag with 2 cans of corn, 2 cans of peas, a can of green beans, a can of pork, a can of chicken soup, 2 loaves of bread, a box of mini corn dogs, a bag of powdered milk, a box of doughnuts and some cookies. Folks, this country is in trouble. That is a 30 day food bag, one visit per month allowed.

We've not had any rain and this heat is really drying everything out. I have run out of rain water and have not watered the garden in almost a week now. It's dying and there's nothing I can do about it. I have even put off cutting the hay because of the lack of rain. I hope we get some this weekend like the weatherman says we should. We need some. The critters are all hanging on thru this horrible humidity. They aren't moving around too much and I can't blame them. Even the poor rabbits look rough. I broke down and put a fan on them after I lost a breeding doe to the heat. I can't afford to lose any more, they are part of my winter meat supply.

I have a line on a Jersey milk cow. I just need to figure out where to come up with $200. Such a small amount to stand between me and a constant milk supply for drinking and cheese but broke is broke. I'm doing all I can to make it work out.

One small blessing is the chickens. They are really coming thru for me with their egg production. I lost a few hens to a neighbors dog so I was worried for a bit when they all quit laying from the trauma. A couple days and I am back to a dozen and a half. The dog deprived me of 7 eggs a day. The owner of the dog passed away and her son decided the best way to care for her dog was to turn it loose and I paid for his ignorance. I so hate that. Seems to be a trend lately tho.

The field corn is coming close to harvesting. The crop looks decent too. I should start harvesting in the next 2 weeks....

The Sun is Back!

The rain poured down all day yesterday! What a sloppy mess! I did have a wonderful visit with a man and his son from Mo tho, and they had a pretty good sense of humor over the mud. Even with not much to see but mud and critters, it was a great visit just the same.

This mornings local news stories are a little distracting. Of course, I found one that disappoints me. It's about the rise in allergies the country is seeing. I made it about half way thru the story and dismissed it as pitiful for calling the "causes of this new rise in allergies a mystery". come on guys, you spent all that time in medical school and you didn't think it just possibly could be all the chemicals we are now consuming in our foods??? You never considered the possibility of the chemical flooded, poor nutritional content, shelves full of junk food diet? Even commercial canned corn has chemicals in it now. How can people that are supposed to be so smart be so stupid?

My buddy Don got his picture in the paper. he works for Tractor Supply in a town 25 miles from me. I guess our struggling economic situation has spurred some folks into at least trying to produce some food for themselves. Looks like the chicks and the over priced chicken supplies at TSC are flying off the shelves. That to me is good and bad both. It's good because there's people out there that recognize we have an economic problem and it's bad because now there are a couple hundred novice chicken owners out there bound to do some pretty silly things with those chickens.

I haven't been to town in a couple weeks since we're about broke again so I can't say what the local feed and seed store has been doing in the way of seedling plants and seeds. They sell tons of "Bonnie" brand plants every season. Over priced hybrids mostly but I do like the flowers.

Hubby gets to finally go to work! It's been a long road getting here! It will still be another 2 weeks before the first paycheck and we'll still need to come up with $250 dollars give or take a buck or 2, for his gas money back and forth until the first check. We're pretty excited about it since we still haven't made the land payment for March yet. It's still good news tho!

I've got some cheese in the fridge. I've got 2 pieces of Cheddar, 2 pieces of Colby and 2 pieces of the Caraway Cheddar(tastes like rye bread). The donation is $12 for a gift of some cheese so if you'd like to have some and help us out with fuel money, I'd be happy to send you some.

The seedlings are looking good today. They sure are loving the sunshine and the warm up. It got of cold yesterday and overnight. I worry about that because some of these little buggers don't take the temperature changes so well. All looks good tho and I'm really itching to get the gardens turned over and prepped for planting!

It's a Thursday

I've been kind of busy, just a little. I'm almost over this cold, the daughter had a conference game, the sheep got hung plus the bread got baked and I tried out a new recipe.

We've got a little snow/sleet/ice storm headed our way, according to the weatherman, so I have not started any seeds yet. I just hate to start them and have them mold.

Copper the sheep will soon be supper, he's got 2 days on him hanging now and I will finish the butcher on him in the morning. I'm already tasting the Gyros sandwiches, I can hardly wait!

Some of the worst ref work I have ever seen in the jr college basketball season and even tho our girls played the last 6 minutes of the game with just 4 girls (my girl and another fouled out) the team won by 2. The 2 that fouled out were basically cheated out of the game, given fouls they did nothing for, the 2 tallest on the team. Oh well, it's over now anyway.

The new recipe isn't anything special, just a simple chicken caserole with shredded cheese, egg noodles, chicken, mushrooms, peas, onion and cream. It wasn't too bad, the kids liked it. A nice change of pace from the stuff I always make for supper.

Not much else is going on around here, we're still unemployed, no word at all this week from anybody we know. It's frustrating to be "in the dark".

Ah, I have a 1.3lb wheel of colby cheese I will give away for a donation of $22 if anybody would like it.

I will be working on some cheddar for the next cheese giveaway this weekend!

Beautiful Monday

It snowed all day and all night and here it is, a beautiful snowy Monday morning. I'm nursing a dandy head cold we all seemed to pick up on Friday. It's sweet, comes with cold chills and a seriously runny nose. What a joy it's been.

I started a new nutritional supplement Saturday, it's called Reliv. It's a complete nutritional powder mix, quickly absorbed into your system. Hard to tell yet with this cold how well it's working but I already know I have more energy. I can hardly wait to get over this cold, I know I'm going to like Reliv. My Mom and Dad have been using these products for quite a while now and I have noticed a big difference in not only the way they look, but they're whole health. I was so impressed, I became and independent distributor for Reliv. Check out their whole video description, it's the changing logo in the middle of the page that says "learn more".

I have decided it's not a very good idea to make cheese while I'm sick with this cold. I've also geared down the daily cooking, no sense in spreading any more germs, LOL. There's plenty to eat in the house tho. I've been bundled up on the couch, reading the new issues of Grit and Mother Earth news. I've also done a little daydreaming about the coming garden. I always end up with a pretty good idea of what I'm going to do and where I'm going to plant what by the time I start my seeds. I did actually pull all the seeds out and go thru them. I haven't actually started any since I knew this snow was coming. Also, we've lost the thermostat control on the fireplace, it quit working Thursday night. The replacement part is $168! Guess we'll just have to adapt and overcome, that sure isn't in the budget. I haven't quite got it lined out to keep a decently regular temperature in the house so no sense starting seeds right now if they might mold from a cold draft. In our 10 day forecast, it's calling for snow on 4 days. This is one weird winter!

No baby goat yet but we're on the baby watch. She could go any day now. I'm so excited, LOL.

Chickens are back to laying but it's been so darn cold that the eggs are freezing and cracking pretty quick. It's been unusually cold here all winter. So much for global warming, more like global ice age!

Self Sustained Urban Living

As many of us have realized, things are getting pretty expensive lately. Fuel and food take up most of our paychecks. Life in the fast lane of Blackberries, fast food and video gaming is getting harder. Some would say that is a good thing. Either way you like it, something has got to give.

I can help you with the grocery bill no matter where you live, even in condos and apartments. It is not difficult to grow things such as tomatoes and peppers, lettuce, cucumbers, even melons in small spaces and containers! A sunny spot is all you need. If you don't have a sunny spot, a florescent light or 2 will do.

For people living in rental homes, you can expand a little with a small chicken coop built like a dog pen or even rabbits in wooden hutches. The hutches even work well for a few chickens. Remember tho, if you have crabby neighbors, don't get a rooster! It's also a good idea to check your city or town ordinances to make sure having chickens doesn't violate some unknown law because you don't want to have to get rid of you egg layers as soon as you get them settled in. Chickens are daylight sensitive and lay an egg every 24 to 28 hours so plan accordingly for your egg consumption. Just 6 hens give me 3 dozen eggs a week, give or take an egg here or there.
In an 8x10 coop with a 10x10 run, I have 10 to 14 fresh eggs every day and fresh meat whenever I want some chicken. How to kill a chicken will be another days post.

Remember my post on raised bed gardens? For those of you that have the opportunity to make a raised bed, I forgot to mention how easy they are to maintain! It is easy to cover the garden in the fall with grass clippings, even newspaper or paper sacks, anything organic that will decompose, kill off the weeds, add to the nutrient value of the soil and keep your soil easy to turn. Just one small raised bed garden here produces literally hundreds of pounds of healthy, pesticide free food for my family.

Now to rabbits- I keep 4 does and 1 buck, I breed every other month for 32 to 40 kits for the table. Rabbit is high protein, low fat and can be served up just like any chicken recipe you have.
Rabbits don't make any noise, their manure is high in nitrogen, phosphorus and potash and can be used right out of the rabbit, no composting needed. It will not burn your plants like cow, horse or chicken will. Rabbit is a win win situation! Small spaces work out well as a medium sized meat rabbit needs just 2'x2' to stay healthy and produce for you.

All these things add up to savings. Think about how much money you spend on food stuffs like meat and veges. Canning is easy to do and cooking is just as easy. Think about how much money you spend eating out. A healthy and tasty meal can be whipped up in your own kitchen for a third of the price if not cheaper than that, for just 20 minutes or so of your time. Plus, you get to spend a little quiet time at home relaxing while you do it! Don't under estimate the stress relief of producing your own food.

Daily critter patrol

Look what I found this morning during morning chores. A new set of kittens, i think they are Shadows kittens. Like I need any more to add to the list of kittens I need to give away. Cats are an important part of farm life. Whithout them i would be over run with mice from all the grains i grow and store here. But, one must draw the line somewhere! I have at least 10 kittens that need new homes if anyone wants a kitten.....

One of my new does kindled this morning. She did not pull a single mouthful of hair. She's got 15 kits in the box, all are freezing to death. There's nothing I can do about it either. Maybe her sister will do better, she should kindle any moment.

The black and white cat is Mop. She's the only long haired kitten we've ever had here. She was in a litter of 4 and the only long haired one of the bunch. She got stepped on by a horse about a month ago and her tail was mashed. if you notice in the picture, she now has a stub for a tail. The dead tail finally fell off her this morning and she is a different cat in both looks and personality. She's happy to be rid of the dead tail, laying there purring like a chainsaw........

I found one of my young banty hens defending a nest of eggs this morning. I'll keep an eye on her to make sure she's really gone broody and if so, I'll set her up for a little cat and puppy protection for her and the nest. I might get some new banty chicks now!

Well off to shovel some compost for my indoor winter gardens. I need to get it inside and warming up so I can get seedlings started before the really cold weather makes them not want to germinate..........

Feeding the Backyard Chickens

I had a question asked by a blogger pal so this evening I intend to do what I can to answer it for her. Thank you Deborah for asking.......

Tonite I'm going to share what I do to feed my chickens without having to fork out $12 for a 50lb bag of commercial chicken feed. Chickens are notorious for eating just about anything they can peck so table scraps are always on the menu. they will also eat about anything you try to plant in your garden if you don't keep them out. Chickens are particularly fond of beets, kale, potatoes, sunflowers, wheat, oats and all types of grass seed. Cracked corn is something they dive on but it lacks protein so I supplement cracked corn with ground soybeans, sunflowers, wheat, some barley, milo and oats. To keep my egg shells nice and solid, I wash every egg shell I crack, dry them and crush them up for the feed mix. I give my chickens all types of squash I grow here. They love the fruit and the seeds and devour pumpkins in a heartbeat. chickens will pluck your almost ripe tomatoes right off the vines. they aren't real fond of sweet pepper but eat your cucumbers every chance they get.

I have also heard it said that you can even feed chickens meat scraps but I do not. I also do not feed my chickens cooked egg.

I have heard that milk and cheese/butter byproducts are good feed supplements but have never set whey, milk of cheese out for them. I may try soaking their grains in it when the goat starts giving me milk.

I have also noticed that chickens like alfalfa and clover, they occasionally steal it from the rabbits and very often get right in the hay pile with the goats and sheep.

The hottest spot for hungry chickens around here in the manure pile. As it decomposes and turns into my growing compost, it is always full of worms, dung beetles and other various insects. Japanese beetles are a favorite for chickens as well. I shake them out of the peach trees and scoop them into buckets with a bit of water in the bottom(keeps the beetles from flying out) and I dump the water filled beetles in the feed pan and get back because a whole avalanche of chickens will appear to scarf them up.

So, anything you grow and harvest for yourself will make decent chicken feed for your backyard flock. don't forget the calcium and you'll have quality eggs and chicken meat without having to spend a dime on feed.

Still miserable and muddy

Yup, the same old story, LOL. It's raining again, of course. One small bit of happiness tho, Halloween is supposed to be dry but cold. Looks like that cold front has finally made it's way here. I hope it freezes all the mud up for me so I can quit sloshing thru the barn lot!

Moo cow had a brush with death yesterday. Found her laid out flat in the barn doorway yesterday morning. It looks like she had been trying to get up but the barn doorway is slightly sloped and she wore herself out and gave up. She had a small bit of froth in her nose, I'll have to watch her carefully and possibly give her some medications. I was hoping to not have to give her any more but that's life I guess. She's still eating and drinking like she should and has occasional periods of where she tries to get up. Since I'm willing to tend her as long as she's still trying, she'll be okay I guess. She may not ever get back up.

I've got 2 ducks setting eggs! I guess the temps staying in the 60s during the day tricked them into thinking it was spring instead of fall. The Rouen has a nest with no telling how many eggs in it and the Muscovy cross has 9 chicken eggs and 5 duck eggs under her. Since chicken and duck eggs have different hatch times, I'll have to watch for the chicks hatching so I can grab them up. If I don't, she may get off the nest and not finish out the duck eggs since they need a week longer to hatch.

Speaking of chickens, I'm finally up to full egg production and we're picking up 35 eggs(not counting duck eggs) a day. I need to pick up a couple more egg customers!

I've been working on making cheese out of store bought milk but it's not going along as well as I'd hoped it would. The commercially processed milk is junk as far as I'm concerned and it's not good for anything, not even ricotta cheese making. The cheese, even with extended cook times and press times, comes out soft and slimey every time. I will not cave and go back to getting milk from the neighbor. To top insult and injury, apparently my (expensive) temperature control box for the cheese cave has mysteriously disappeared! Hmmm, they asked me if I had it. Well, duh, why would I have it? Last I saw it, it was on a fridge in their garage that contained 3 wheels of cheese aging......... Ah, I better quit on this subject or it will turn into a useless rant.

Anyhoo...... I'm working on finding a couple young milking heifers for the farm. I don't have any money to buy them yet so I'm just looking around. I figure I need something small with good milk production and reasonable butterfat content so I'll search for Jerseys. The goat will also be in milk come March so we'll be trying the goat cheese too.

Somebody the other day asked me for a Colby recipe that would work for their excess goats milk. I have one now but I can't find the email... if that person woudls end me another, I will send that recipe and directions to them........

I found a book at TSc the other day, it's got a bunch of old timey recipes in it. Several nice ones I'm going to try this weekend in the bread section. I will of course share the results.

Well, I must get back to the mud and the rain and finish my morning farm chores. Nothing big, just tending all the animals. I have to look at each one every morning to make sure they are all healthy and injury free while I'm feeding them...

Country Reflections

What a beautiful day, wasn't it? I just spent 6 hours today in the hay field. I raked all day. Down and back, down and back. Gives a person lots of time to ponder the world and think. I spent a little time thinking on 9/11. I watched it as it happened on TV, talking to my father whom I called right after the first tower was hit. We sat together, 300 miles apart and watched it unfold from different ends of a phone line. Our world was forever changed on that fateful day......

I got a bit of a break today, the radiator on the tractor had a bunch of grass in it and the farm I am on right now does not have running water. It does have a well but no pressurized water to clean the radiator out so I limped the old John Deere home for a hose out. I needed to put a roll of hay out anyway and I'll rake that small field that I cut the other day on my way back to the big field. A nice break tho as I would have stayed out there until dark.

I should be all done cutting hay by Monday. Then I'm going to build the corn crib(pictures of course). After I get that whipped together, I'll build the layer box for the chicken house and get it installed. I'm hoping it will be a 24 hole box, if I can make it work.

One of my banty hens decided to get a drink out of the horse trough. I don't know why, she had other water easier to get to. She fell in the trough and hubby found her swimming in it. I'm glad she didn't drown but she was pretty tuckered out when he handed her to me, soaking wet and shivering. I hope she doesn't die one me, she's one of my favorites.

Polar Bear the heeler puppy is coming along very nicely, she's already got the "house broke" thing down pat. Now if her bladder would just catch up to her mind! She's got to be the smartest dog I've had in years. She makes all the black labs I've had look like idiots, Good Polar Bear!

Tonite is not a rest up night, even tho I'd like it to be. I'm working on some Monterey Jack and some Colby to go along with the Caraway Cheddar I just pulled out of the press. It smells wonderful and tastes like rye bread.

Blackberry Time-self sustained living

Aw, yummie blackberries! This is just about my single most favorite time of year here in southern Illinois. The blackberries are coming ripe! I gladly endure the chiggers, the ticks, the skeeters, the tall grass and the sticker bushes to harvest blackberries. I have a hard time getting the first 4 or 5 dozen berries in the bucket, they just keep falling in my mouth! Now that I have a puple tounge and purple fingers, I got myself 2 gallon pails full this afternoon. Got home just in time to help with the milking so I could keep some back to make cheese. Yah, I know I said I wasn't going to make any cheese until around September, but I'm out so make some I must.

I am a dingleberry big time today. I did not put the rain barrel back corectly and missed out on the rain off the house roof from yesterday and last night. What a dummie I am. I did get 150 gallons off the barn roof tho so not a total loss. The house barrel is now in place for the next round of rain coming in.

Oh, I didn't tells ya's, I got the chicken pen almost done. Everything but the top wie and the door. I've got 2 bales of straw in the pen doorway and it's working for mow but sooner or later the chicks will learn to jump or fly up over them. Hopefully next week I can get the door done and I'll take pictures.


Oh, also, a member of the US Sentate visited my blog to read the Private Farm-Self Sustained Living post. They found my site from Open Congress.org where it seems a link to my post has been picked up. Welcome members of the US Senate, I hope you've learned some perspective from your visit here.

Country	United States
Region	Maryland
City	Baltimore
ISP	United States Senate
Returning Visits	0
Visit Length	4 mins 49 secs

More Harvesting going on

Time to get back at it. Even tho the weather front has passed, I'm still suffering from some hip troubles. This has been by far, the worst year since the surgery. I just gotta keep at it tho, nobody is going to do it for me.

I've about given up trying to keep ahead of the weeds and grass growing in my garlic/onion patch. I weeded about 1/3 of it last night, got ate up from skeeters, again, and harvested 22 lbs of garlic, 12 lbs of red onion and 38 lbs of yellow onions. Plenty more is ready but I need a break to make more blood! Those skeeters about sucked me dry last night.

A pal told me to try Listerine to repel skeeters. I'm going to give it a try tonight. According to the directions I got, take a baby wipe, pour a little Listerine on it and wipe your arms, legs, any exposed skin with it. It dries quickly and isn't sticky. Sounds like a plan to me.... I don't have baby wipes, hope it isn't part of the trick....

The first planting of corn is about ready. If you recall, the crop didn't go so well and is seriously stunted. The ears are pitiful. I may just let them fully mature and dry on the stalks and use them for seed corn next year rather than try to harvest those tiny ears for eating or food storage. The second crop looks great tho, it's due the end of the month.

A small tragedy today, the Californian doe (rabbit) kindled and killed every one of the kits. Never even pulled fur and had them out of the box. Strike 2 for her...

The chickens are all doing well and the ducklings are growing like crazy! I have one more nest being set on, hopefully I can get another 6 or 7 ducklings. I've cleaned out all the old nests so the chickens and ducks will go back to laying eggs for me.

I've been working on my food storage and my disaster preps too. Reorganizing and making lists of things the kids and hubby have liberated out of it. They've wiped out every single piece of candy in it and all the chocolate! If that doesn't qualify as SHTF, I don't know what does, LOL. How dare them eat all my chocolate stash!

I noticed I'm down to the last dozen quart jars of tomatoes, good thing this years crop is coming on! We eat lots of tomatoes throughout the year and since tomatoes are so easy to grow, there's no reason to even be out of them. I'll be setting up to can tomatoes this week.

More farming updates soon........

A nice Friday on the farm

Well, most of the day anyway. Had to do a little running around first thing and it took 6 hours! Good thing I got an early start. The normal stuff, getting fuel, looking for rabbit stuff, truck sticker, searching for guards for the haybine, the monthly stop in to the gun shop and the flour, sugar and salt purchase. Whew! Lots of stops! But, got it done and back to the farm. I got all the loose straw picked up.... oh, I didn't tell ya's about the straw! A neighbor I used to coal mine with combined his wheat(mine too) and pulled the adjuster out so the chaff would windrow for us to bale. 500 bales for the calves, goats and horses. We borrowed a hay elevator thingy from another farming friend and put it all up in the barn loft. What a cool piece of equipment, no throwing bales up into that little hole above my head! Of course, now we have to fix the hole in the barn roof from the inland hurricane. Turns out the barn is in worse shape than we thought but we got the hole fixed so we'll have dry straw and hay up there. Back to the straw... the New Holland combine is a rotary combine and it beats the wheat stalks half to death and makes it very chaffy(is that a word?) So, the bales shed straw and made one heck of a mess all ove the ground. Guess what I did with it???

Now to what I did today after all my running around... I've been weeding a little at a time out in the front patch and my cantalopes are working on flowering. Some plants are still very small but that's okay, they'll catch up. Anyhooo, I raked out some bunny poo, some chicken poo and mixed it with the straw chaff and spread it out on the cantalope patch. I wanted to go all the way down into the beans and sunflowers but the skeeters were munching me! Dang things are like mini vultures! Tomorrow before the rain comes in, I'll take a picture of it and finish it up. Too dark now for a picture.

Cucumbers are producing! I finally have cucumbers! I also have green peppers, tomatoes are just now looking like they're starting to change.

The fat sheep is outside today. He needs some sunshine so I got the pen up and kicked him out into it. So far, so good, he's still in it! That's more than I can say for the goats. I gave up trying to keep them in a pen. They are a pair of Houdinis. So, I've been altenating tying one or the other, staking them out in the shade and so far that's working good. The one that's free runs around a little bit but they both stay close enough to each other to not get into any trouble.

The ducklings and banty chicks went outside to the chicken coop. Waaaa! My house brooder is empty. I miss the little chirps already. Empty nest syndrome! hahahahaha

The coffee plants are doing well, a picture of them for tomorrow as well.....


Oh, I'm attending a Tea Party tomorrow to support my fellow patriots and to voice my displeasure with what Congress and President Obama are doing to this country. I am angry over the health care plan they have and the cap and trade bill currently in the Senate, all the new taxes on everything the can tax......

Getting it done

Even when you don't want to! That's all part of the every day thing you deal with when you live off your own little piece of land. Things just have to be done, even when you just don't feel like it. The heat index here has been 105+ for the past 5 days. Humidity is making it even worse. You can stand in the shade and pour sweat.

The past 4 days have been miserable, we put up 1100 bales of hay. I'm trying to talk myself into getting moving this morning. That 20 acres won't cut itself! I'm still working on the fist cut of hay here, the constant rains we had all May and the first 2 weeks of June didn't help me out.

Looks like the Banty chicks think the waterer is a roost! The tiny little fellers are flying around the brooder tank now, they look like hummingbirds flitting around in there. Still too small to put outside where they will become lunch for 4 legged critters. I'm happy with the hatch rates this spring, even the non broody hens have helped me out. The turkey eggs didn't hatch tho, that's disappointing.

The garden is plugging along, the stunted corn shot up when it quit raining. I might get good sized ears out of the first crop yet! The 2nd and 3d plantings both look good tho so no worries. I've not even looked at the wheat patch yet so hang in there if you're waiting on that. I need to finish the hay fields first, then I'll get to that wheat, it's not going anywhere.

Oh, I almost forgot, it's almost blackberry time!!!! That's right, I've got wild blackberries and lots of em! Pictures of course and we'll be making some jam with them and maybe some home made blackberry ice cream if I can find a good recipe....

Heat Advisory and chicken pen

Like an idiot, I'm out digging fence post holes by hand in the fist heat advisory-105 index- of the year. I really need to get that chicken pen done! The white hen hatched out 8 chicks and she's down to 2 left. I couldn't catch those chicks, she hatched out in the barn loft and I didn't want them to fall off the edge so I left them. Plus, another duck is sitting on 9 ducklings and 8 more eggs still under her. Some of the ducklings were still wet when I checked on her. The 2 banty hens have 15 eggs between them and should be hatching out in the next 4 days. Just in time for me to be in the hay field. So, I'm digging until I'm dripping wet, then standing in the fan-no AC- with a cold drink then digging again. I got one hole left to go, then the boards and stretch the wire.

The animals are all okay but they're hot. The sheep I should have butchered lays around and pants all day and the goats are complaining. Even the ducks are hiding under the horse trailer.

LOL, you guys didn't know I've got horses too, eh? Maybe some pictures of them soon.......

Real Beauties

Check these babies out! I stole them from my mouse gray Banty hen today. She had 3 of the striped ones plus 3 black ones under her. I left her the 2 smallest black ones as she's still got more eggs under her.

A nice topper for a busy day here. I weeded in between my stalks of corn out back today, paid a bunch of bills and took the kids out for lunch. They like to be treated every now and then. I milked cows and did all the evening chores and found these little beauties.

Tomorrow is the cheese class I'm teaching and around 700 bales of hay to pick up and stack on top of all the stuff that happens daily here... should be an interesting day!

Happy Days-Self Sustained Living Style

It's been a busy few days for the son and I around the farm. We've been scraping the bottom of the hay loft for a couple days sweating out the first cut of hay. We just did 2 of our small patches to check the equipment out and make sure it's all in working order before getting into a big field. We got it all done and the boy cussed me a bit for baling them so heavy. Half way thru the job it got overcast and smelled like rain so I cranked it down a little bit. It didn't rain so I got the "told ya so" along with the dirty look. LOL

I took today off and drove up to visit some new friends and had a very nice time. Thanks Clovis and Sardog for inviting me. I'm so glad you liked the cheese, I got a bunch better at it, eh? LOL Practice makes perfect!

We seem to have dodged the rain so tomorrow will be bean planting day. I'll need to clean off the hay string that seemed to find it's way onto the tiller so I can roll the soil over for easier planting.
6 rows, 100' long will be the order of the day. That will give us enough red kidney beans to last a year. I'll probably get the melons put out as well. Tomatoes are also starting to take off after being about drown to death, I'll post pics when they flower out. I still haven't knocked all the grass out of the onion/garlic patch, I'm still miffed about it too, LOL.

I still haven't finished the chicken coop, actually haven't touched it in 2 weeks. Another half done project to add to the list. If my back doesn't peter out on me I think I'll dig a post hole or 2 for the enclosure. We need to worm a few animals and dehorn some calves too but I need to work it in somehow. The chicks are getting big enough to jump out of their cubby inside the coop and I don't want them to be lunch for the barn cats.

Oh! I almost forgot! We saw our first cougar! The dog was acting like the big scaredy cat he is, whining and such so I figured coyotes were too close. Went out and saw the big son of a gun with the night vision in the CRP about 200 yrds out munching a deer. Scary! I thought they were just urban legend/rumor. Guess not! Hope he doesn't run out of deer.

Just another day on the little bitty farm...

Chicklings

Well, the chicken brooder-aka- 100 gallon water tank- is never going to get out of my frontroom! It's been 24 days and that duck is still setting on that nest of mixed eggs. So me being the curious sort I am, had to go mess with her. What did a find? I whole bunch of baby chicks. Some ran in between the straw bales and I couldn't catch them up, but I did manage to get a few. If I don't steal them, the cats get them. So I have chicklings to go with the chicks I stole from the RIR who is also still setting on her nest. Yesterday while she was off eating, I replaced the eggs with fresh ones since she's been setting for 45 days now and if they haven't hatched yet, they aren't going to!

I cut 2 hay fields yesterday, the haybine is working great and is ready for the season. They weren't big fields, just my back pasture(about 2 acres) and another 5 acre spot. Hate to get in a big field and have the equipment fail on me. I'll rake it all sometime this afternoon and with any luck be baling tomorrow.

I spent about an hour in my garlic/onion patch yesterday too. With all the ain, the weeds had gone a little silly. Somebody, not naming names, mowed the grass into the garden and now I have tiny spider grass growing all over it. The spot has dried out enough to make it too much on my back to mulch the grass out with the garden tool so it's gonna have to wait for another rain.

Other than that, it's business as usual here, waiting for something in the gardens to produce so I can eat fresh instead of my canned....