Firebugs and Berry Blooms

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!

Round 'Em Up!!!

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!

Back to our regularly scheduled program…

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!

Going Nuts

We have several walnut trees in our back yard that are producing a bumper crop this year. The Farmer gathered up a bunch of these, first filling a wheelbarrow, then several plastic bags. He put this horde of nuts in our storage hut.

One of nature’s other bumper crops discovered his treasure trove.

Yes, there are lots of squirrels scampering through the trees and all over the yard, and they discovered Nut Heaven. No work at all, right there in one place was a mountain of walnuts.

They helped themselves.
They went nuts for the nuts, and now… they aren’t many left. The full sacks and full wheelbarrow are mostly empty.

Wasn’t it nice of The Farmer to pick up all those nuts so the squirrels wouldn’t have to work so hard?

The Goats are Gone

Not all the goats mind you, but the Criminal Element has been banished from the farm. However, they really didn’t get the punishment they so richly deserve. No, it’s more of a reward, since they were taken to a new farm with lots of little girl goats. Nirvana indeed!

They didn’t leave without one last escapade, however. Their new warden was supposed to pick them up one day last week. I left them in their smaller night pen, figuring he’d show up any time. The hours went by, but no one came.

About mid-afternoon I noticed one little buck goat, The Jumper, was out with the sheep. He’s an expert at leaping over fences! I figured if he was out, I might as well let the rest out, which I did. Then I waited some more, until finally the day was gone and it was close to dark, so I needed to get evening chores done. The new warden was AWOL!

The Farmer came home from work about the time I was finishing up chores, and was surprised to see the trio of troublemakers still here. We went inside, where I noticed we had a message on the answering machine.

Wouldn’t you know it? It was the guy calling to say he was going to head up to our place and pick up the goats. Too bad he didn’t call before I fed them! The Jumper had already vaulted the fence again and was running around with the sheep, so we had to round him back up, scoot the other two out of their pen, and get all three contained in the back of the shed.

Once we had them safely jailed, we waited for their New Warden. And we waited, and waited, and waited some more. I went inside to check the answering machine in case the guy had got lost and called for directions. There was indeed another message on the answering machine, wanting The Farmer to call. It turns out the guy hadn’t even left yet!

By this time it was totally dark. There isn’t electricity in the little shed, but we do have a couple of outdoor extension cords running out there, so I plugged them in and hooked up a trouble light so we could see.

With it getting so late, I needed to go inside to check on supper and left The Farmer to deal with goats and buyer.

FINALLY, the guy showed up and got his truck parked as close to the shed as possible. I figured two big, strong men could get 3 pygmy sized goats from the pen in the shed to the pen in the back of the truck, so I stayed inside.

I figured wrong, as usual! I stepped out on the porch to check on their progress. The first two goats were loaded, and the new Warden was bringing the third out of the shed. He had hold of one – just one! -- of the goat’s horns as he was guiding it to his truck. Mistake! The goat gave his head a twist to get loose, and was gone in a flash.

Remember, it’s DARK.

The goat ran towards the back pasture. There are no lights there. I saw The Farmer take off after it, while The Warden just stood by his truck. (I guess Wardens are used to letting the guards do the work.) I figured I’d go out and give The Farmer some help. I picked up a bucket of feed on the way, and headed towards the back pasture.

When I went past this guy’s truck, he decided he’d like to chat awhile. He told me what nice goats we had, and showed signs of talking until the cows came home (it’s a sure bet the goat wasn’t coming back without some encouragement). I finally told him I needed to help The Farmer and headed on towards the back pasture.

Have you ever tried herding goats at night? Stumbling around in the dark listening for goat bleats is not my idea of entertainment, though no doubt it would have looked highly entertaining to anyone watching, if they could have actually SEEN us!

I started shaking the bucket of grain and calling for the goat. I heard movements, and finally located the escapee. The Farmer had maneuvered his way behind the goat and was trying to head him back to the shed. Between the two of us, we managed to get the goat back in the lot and shut the gate.

The Warden was still talking. Maybe he figured we could home in on his voice to find our way back to civilization.

Once we had the goat cornered in the shed again, I asked these two big, strong men if they could get the last goat in the truck without losing it again. (Okay, that bit of sarcasm popped out before I thought better of it!) They assured me they could, so I headed back to the house to check on our much put-off supper.

I paused on the back porch to see if they actually managed to get the goat in the truck. When I saw the door close behind the last little goat, I breathed a sigh of relief. Three little goats gone, and hopefully things will be a little more peaceful on the farm!

And I wish the new Warden good luck with his trio of troublemakers!

Hay, Hay, Hay!

We’ve been trying for some time to find a good source of hay this year. With the drought conditions here this summer, the price of hay is going through the barn roof. Some places we called wanted $8-9 per bale! Thankfully, we don’t need near as much as we used last year, since we sold the biggest part of the animals.

It’s been difficult to even find any hay to purchase at whatever price, though the big round bales are easier to come by. However, we don’t have the equipment to handle those, and certainly not enough muscle power to move such a huge thing. I don’t like to use them with our sheep anyway. I personally know of two people who have lost sheep due to the huge bale collapsing down on the sheep while they were eating.

The smaller bales work much better here. I can break them into even smaller flakes to scatter around in several places. There has to be lots of piles available, or the goats commandeer all the hay and the sheep don’t get any.

We finally found a place with the smaller square bales at prices that wouldn’t require the loss of an arm or leg to pay for it. I don't really know why they're called square bales when actually they're rectangular, but they're not round, and I guess 'square' is quicker to say.

At any rate, yesterday The Farmer went and picked up our hay for the winter. It took a couple of loads, and a lot of listening. The guy is bought it from is a TALKER. He’s always interesting, but don’t go there expecting a quick get-away!

That’s one less task done in preparation for fall and winter!

Thanks Farmer!

The Farmer Turns Lumberjack

I mentioned a few days ago that The Farmer bought a new chainsaw. Naturally, he had to test it out. He chose a tree in the front yard as his first victim. This tree had gotten progressively worse for a long time. Every year there were fewer and fewer limbs with green leaves as the tree got deader and deader.

There were a few problems with this project, however. On one side of the tree was a fence. Behind and to the other side were more trees. Most importantly, our house was in front of the tree, and worse, the tree was leaning in towards it. Therefore, the problem was to get the tree down without smashing the fence, or inflicting damage to the house.

The Farmer thought he had it all figured out. He put one rope on the tree he wanted downed, and another rope on a second tree behind it, then connected them with a winch. The theory being, of course, that once he had the tree sawed almost in two, he could tighten the winch and make the tree fall AWAY from the house.

Of course theories don’t always prove out exactly as expected.

The Farmer turned lumberjack had the right idea. He cut a wedge out of the tree on the side he wanted it to fall.

Then he sawed almost completely through the other side. Next, he started winching (not the pirate type of wenching, mind you, but the cranking a handle kind of winching).
Here’s where the trouble began. The ropes had stretched out, so even after all the cable was winched back onto the spool, the tree wasn’t leaning far enough in the right direction to fall down. However, if the cable on the spool was loosened to allow the winch to be repositioned, the tree leaned dangerously towards the house.

A pretty problem indeed!

Being mechanically minded, The Farmer decided to go get his tractor to keep the tree propped up long enough to loosen the ropes and shorten the length, then reattach the winch and start cranking the cable tight again.

Unfortunately, the tractor didn’t cooperate. It had a dead battery, so naturally wouldn’t start and couldn’t be moved to where the tree was. The Farmer was in a fix all right. It takes something pretty big to hold a tree in place.

At last, The Farmer decided he didn’t have anything to lose by finally trying his assistant’s suggestion. (It’s an unwritten rule that men cannot act on a woman’s suggestion until she has repeated it at least three times, and they have tried at least one idea of their own, and preferably two or three.)

The suggestion? Connect another piece of rope to the anchor tree, thread it through the loop at the end of the rope attached to the sawed-upon tree, then secure it back to the anchor tree, thereby keeping the leaning tree from falling on the house. That allowed The Farmer to attach the winch to a shorter piece of rope so he could tighten it up more and get the tree falling in the desired direction.
Once all that was accomplished, the project moved forward again. The tree started to fall in the right direction, but the upper branches caught in the tree beside it. The branches were dead, but still fairly sturdy.

Finally, after a little more judicious sawing, and some resounding thumps with a pry bar, the tree fell in a serious of crashes of trunk, then several big limbs.

I stopped the camera just a little too soon and missed The Farmer saying,
"At least everything missed me!"
The Farmer was lucky to survive his lumberjack experience, as one of the dead limbs caught in the tree barely missed landing right on top of his head when it finally dropped. You can see the force of the landing by how the log is driven deep in the dirt.

I don’t think even The Farmer’s head would have been hard enough to withstand that! I guess his guardian angel must have been looking after him, allowing him to walk away unscathed.

Just another day in the life of The Farmer turned Lumberjack.

Busy as a Bee!

Bang, bang, bang! I can’t decide if I feel like I’m sitting in the middle of a shooting gallery, or it sounds like someone shooting off fireworks. Dove hunting season began at 12 noon here, and there are obviously LOTS of hunters busy taking advantage of it.

According to Tennessee Wildlife Resource Agency, the mourning dove is the most hunted migratory game bird in North America. I believe it, and I think every possible hunter is out there for the start of the season. The dove may be the symbol of peace, but they’ll be in pieces if they show a feather today.

While hunters are busy terminating doves, here on the farm we’re hoping for new life. One of the peahens is sitting on 4 eggs. It sure would be nice to see some little peachicks running around in the aviary. It just hasn’t been our year for peachicks. So far, zilch, nada, none.

While the hunters were after doves and the peahen sitting on her eggs, The Farmer was busy mowing the back yard today. This is news because it’s the first time he’s done it in years. We sold off the majority of our sheep and goats, and don’t have enough left to keep the grass eaten down like we used to.

He also tried out the new chainsaw he bought today. His previous chainsaw expired from old age. He sent it to the shop to be fixed and the bolts fell apart. Yeah, you could say it was extremely old.

While The Farmer was busy checking out his new chainsaw, some old trouble showed up to see what was happening. And what’s the biggest source of trouble on the farm? Why, the ornery little goats of course.

The one busy chewing Farmer’s pants is his special pet, a cashmere goat named Tom Thumb. He is the rare goat that would rather be petted than eat cracked corn.

And while the hunters hunted, the peafowl sat, and The Farmer sawed, there were bees and bugs busy gathering nectar from the newly blooming Sedum ‘Matrona’.

All around the area today, people and critters were busy as bees!

A Final Fix & New Beginnings

Over the weekend The Farmer worked on the aviary some more. The joints on the back hoop keep popping out of place when we have high winds or little goats that sneak inside and jump against it.

The hoop holding the netting is made of PVC plastic pipe, so he put new glue on the joints.

To help secure the top hoop, there is a rope from the top of the hoop to a tree. It was anchored in a downward slant. The Farmer decided it would work better at an upward slant.

To accomplish that, he needed a tall ladder and a trip in the treetop. I caught up with him just as he was ready to get back down...


It’s all fixed up and looks good now.

When I went out to take a picture of the finished work, I discovered there was also something new…
A whole bunch of new guinea keets!

Reconstruction

The Farmer got busy yesterday and set about making a new door for the aviary -- a stronger, sturdier and hopefully goat-proof door. Nothing is ever simple, so it took several hours of work.

First, he took an old screen door, and reinforced it with sturdy wire mesh on both sides, making it more than strong enough to keep the peafowl in, and tough enough to keep the goats from going through the door itself.

That was only half of the equation however. To keep them from pushing the door open or knocking it down, it needed a sturdy wood frame to keep the door solidly in place.

During the construction, a little kit (baby rabbit) hopped by to pay a visit. This little one must have just left the nest to still be so tiny.
When the goats came by to inspect the new door -

...they also checked out the teeny-tiny visitor.

Finally the door was completed and securely in place. I don’t think the goats will move it anytime soon!

From bad to worse...

… Or the continuing saga of goats and peafowl.

All right, so on Tuesday the goats tore down the door to the aviary and all of the peafowl escaped. We rounded up all but two peahens and got them back in their smaller pen. At the last minute we discovered one of the last two peahens on the electric wires, but never saw the other.

Come Wednesday, and it’s status quo: one peahen missing, one on the electric wires. Later in the day I looked out the window and didn’t see her doing her high wire act. I thought, “All right! She’s down.” Wrong! I went outside and discovered all she did was move into the tree between the wires and the house.

The temps were up in the mid-90’s yesterday, so I needed to effect some kind of repair on the aviary gate so I could let the peafowl back in. They needed more space and access to their little wading pool to splash around in and stay cool.

The door was still intact, just knocked off the supports, so I used bungee cords to fasten it back in place. I knew that would suffice to keep the peafowl in their pen. The problem was keeping the goats OUT of the pen.

Taking a page out of The Farmer’s “Jury Rigging Manual”, I went looking for a wooden pallet. I found one wider than the door opening and tied it in place. To make sure the goats couldn’t climb up the slats, I turned it so they were vertically oriented.

It wasn’t long until the goats came to investigate my repairs.

Now here it is, 2 days since the Great Escape, and as it stands,
a) the goats haven’t found a way to get through the wooden pallet (good!),
b) one peahen is still missing (bad!), and
c) one peahen is still up in a tree (rats!).

The Farmer decided this evening it was time to matters into his own hands and find a way to get this peahen down out of the tree. She was too high up for any ladders we have, so he got the bright idea to use my BB gun, just pumped up enough so the BB would reach the peahen and maybe sting and annoy her, but not do any real damage.

The bright idea rather backfired. He did indeed get her out of the tree… you know, the one close to the house? Yep, she flew out of that tree…. and way back to the woods and roosted in a tree there. Bad to worse indeed.

He tried the same BB tactics to get her out of that tree, but she wasn’t falling for it again.

Failing with that tactic, he then threw a rope up in the tree to snag the branches she was on and shake them. She hung on and rode it out. Finally he had to admit defeat. But stay tuned! It ain't over until the fat lady sings, or the peafowl comes down out of the tree.

The score is peahens 1, Farmer 0.

Wheel Addicts

The Farmer here stopped on the way home from work and got some feed for the critters today. After we did evening chores, he got the dolly out of the shed to tote the 50 pound sacks from the car trunk to the feed room.

Toby went nuts.

What is it about dogs and wheels? Every dog we’ve ever had goes crazy when a vehicle goes down the road, the lawnmowers start rolling, you move a wheelbarrow… whatever! If it’s got wheels, they want to chase it.

“You can’t possibly be talking about ME…”
Little wheels, big wheels, one wheel or many, they just don’t care. If it goes round and round, they give chase. Toby bites at the wheels so much, sometimes it’s difficult to continue moving things, and we have to lock him up out of the way.

Dogs… they’re wheel addicts.