You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘Farm’ tag.
Yesterday I was treated to being able to get out of the house a bit (Paul is almost fully recovered, aside from restrictions on lifting) and see Susan, who was home for literally ONE day between trips, and also to see my animals, who I’ve been missing terribly.
We’re making headway in our efforts to bring them home, though. Trees are coming down, cleaning up is underway, plans are in process. It’s very exciting! I can’t wait to be able to look out the window again and see my flock.
Sophie and Adelaide’s baby-daddy, Jack – who may or may not be the future baby - daddy of kids that Milkshakes may or may not be already carrying. She’s been sneaking into his pasture to spend some “quality time” with him.
I got to see Coconut, who is 18 kinds of adorable, and I just want to rub those ears! But, aside from nibbling at Susan’s fingers, he’s a bit skittish still.
Mr. Jefferson here gave me lots of nice, wet cow kisses.
Sophie and Adelaide are almost as big as Milkshakes, and they won’t let me near them. On the plus side, unlike Frodo and Finnegan who thought they were lapdogs, these little ladies know they are goats.
Wren! She’s gotten just about too big for me to be picking her up and snorgling her now.
As for Jerry, he likes to make it difficult to get a decent picture. Once he knows your game he’s either INYOURFACE or lurking just behind you.
This way you either get NO pictures, or ones like these:
I miss that crazy llama!
This weather here is crazy, y’all. Two days ago there was snow and ice (well for us, crappy rain. For people a mile up the road and points north, snow. For all of us, ice overnight). We were shivering in our beds from the cold.
Today it’s been practically t-shirt weather. And since a lot of the eggs Emily has been bringing in from the coop have been dirty, I decided I’d use the warm weather to see how coop winterization was faring.
NOT GOOD.
People take care of their chicken coops a lot of different ways. Some people use hay or straw, some people use pine or hardwood mulch. I’ve even heard of people using grass clippings. Personally, I like to use pine shavings. They’re nice and fluffy and comfortable for the chickens’ feet, and they do a great job at drying out all the many droppings that chickens leave behind them and absorbing extra moisture and odor. I’ve used hay and straw but find that the poop doesn’t get dried out at all and the hay doesn’t break down as easily. If you’re going to use hay or straw, you’ll need to clean it all out more frequently. As for grass clippings….I imagine it would be like the hay but even less absorbent. The last thing you want is a moist coop to harbor bacteria and parasites. You’re going to have those anyway, but you don’t need to put out a welcome mat (and you don’t want to chance introducing any droppings from wild birds that might be on that grass).
Anyway, pine or hardwood shavings. You don’t want to use cedar because the aromatic oils are bad for the birds. I really wish that wasn’t the case, because my coops would smell SO much better.
I do a thorough cleaning out of the coop twice a year, in the spring and the fall. At those times I’ll completely remove all bedding materials and the leave the doors all open for a few hours to air it out well. If you’ve had a bad time with parasites or illness this is the time when you also want to scrub the surfaces a bit with some hot water and dish soap. You can bleach it if you’re so inclined, but be careful to dry it out completely and remove any residue before the chickens go back in.
Personally, I like the method that Zac over at Juniper Moon Farm used this past spring after a bout with mites. He used a propane – fueled weed burning tool (read: flame thrower!) and lightly charred the entire inside of the coop.
Anyway, once the coop is aired and dried out I dust it down with Poultry Dust. This is an insecticide powder to ward off lice and mites. Then I add the pine bedding and let the chickens back in to mess it all up.
Like I said, unless we are having an infestation of some sort or there is some major illness afoot, I only do this twice a year. The bedding and the poop break down together and whenever it’s looking more “muddy” than “piney” in there I’ll throw a layer of more pine on top. The composting of the under layer of poop and pine creates some heat and insulation during the winter that helps keep them warm. In the summer, it breaks down a lot faster with the heat and I replace bedding a lot more often.
But back to today. Today I intended to check the bedding and add some fresh stuff on top. That’s not what happened.
The winter this year has been very mild and very, very, very wet. The chickens are spending more time inside trying to stay dry and therefore pooping a whole lot more inside. It hasn’t been cold enough to keep the waste in any kind of deep freeze, and it’s been just cold and wet enough to keep everything gross and damp. No drying. Not breaking down as fast. Gross.
Today I cleaned out the coop.
The good news is that all the “muddy” compost I shoveled out can be used as……. compost. I chucked it all over the area that will be the garden this spring.
And while I was at it I spent time listening to the chickens, observing their behavior and taking stock of their general health and well – being.
Speckles – our Egyptian Fayoumi – just started laying for us. We’re getting the cutest little cream – colored eggs from her. And it took her long enough – she’ll be a year old in about a month and a half.
Miss Harriett, a pretty black Cochin.
Roobert, the resident jack-ass. He likes to attack boots.
ETA: Emily and I have been calling him “Mad – Eye” because he lost an eye a few years back, and that’s when the bad behavior started. Nothing worse than a grumpy one eyed rooster.
This handsome boy was one of the batch we hatched out in August. He’s called “Tevye” and he’s a bit off a mutt.
One of Speckle’s adorable little eggs next to a normal – sized egg.
And speaking of eggs: last summer our hens were on strike. Nobody was laying. For months we were in an egg drought. I couldn’t figure it out. I treated them for every possible ailment, checked thoroughly for any and all problems.
We’re pretty sure they were all in a slow molt. Nobody looked bald or shabby, but there were a whole lot more airborn feathers than usual. So this fall we installed a light into the back coop so that once the molt was over they wouldn’t go immediately into winter mode. ( chickens stop laying in the winter due to loss of daylight, not the cold temperatures. Increase their light, and they won’t stop laying)
Now it’s January and we are overloaded with eggs.
There are no fewer than 6 dozen eggs in my fridge at this very moment, and we haven’t collected yet today.
Anybody want an omelet?
For those of you who haven’t seen the story on Susan’s blog already, we had quite a fun adventure a few days before Christmas.
Susan called me one evening and I asked if I would like to help her pick up some baby cows. An hour and a half away. In my truck. The thing about this kind of this is that YES. Yes this is the kind of thing I would say YES to. Also, Susan and I haven’t been on a road trip together in ages, and this mini trip promised the kinds of fun we could talk about well into the future.
So we loaded up our “Ram Cram” box into the back of the suburban and headed out after a quick run through the Dunkin’ Donuts drive-thru for large iced coffees all around. Did I mention Zac came with us? I think he was picturing a fun and relaxing road trip. I think Susan and I were thinking it would be fun to have along someone else to do all the hard work.
Fortunately we had great weather and the drive was easy. Before we knew it, we were there, staring down the reality of cramming 3 calves into the truck.
One cow in place. At about 2 and a half weeks old, these guys are just under 100 lbs each. In a year’s time they’ll each top out around 1,000 lbs or so.
Cow number 2 in place. These two are called “Madison” and “Monroe”.
And cow number 3! This cute little brown guy is called “Jefferson”.
With some trepidation I closed the hatch and we started our drive back to Juniper Moon Farm. They were a bit anxious and had trouble adjusting to the movement at first, but after a bit they settled down (and thought the lights and hooks in the ceiling were teats).
Susan got to hang out in back and get lots of cow kisses. These little boys are very friendly.
We felt quite smug cruising down the highway with our haul.
Caroline was thrilled to come out and help us get them all situated in the barn and nuzzle their sweet faces.
Once they’re full grown it’ll be hard to believe we ever managed this, but we certainly won’t forget how much fun it was.
I can’t wait to see what she’ll ask me to put in my truck next!
Tonight’s a short post to let you know I haven’t fallen off my cookie challenge wagon, but I’ve had a long and exciting day picking up 3 cows for Susan and driving them back to the farm.
Three cows in the back in my suburban, yes. There are pictures to come, I promise!
But for now, Linzer Cookies!
First, you’ll need to start out with the same butter cookie dough I used for the frosted cut – outs: Susan Branch’s ‘Annie Hall’s Butter Cookes’.
The dough gets rolled out once more and you’ll need your cookie cutters – or better, linzer cookie cutters. I have a linzer set I use which consists of a star – shaped cookie cutter and several very small cutters of various sizes for the center.
You cut out as many stars as you like, and half of them get the centers cut out (2 stars become 1 cookie).
Then you bake them and let them cool. Once cooled, spoon a small dollop of jam (or whatever sweet filling you prefer) onto a whole star. On a separate plate, dust confectioner’s sugar over the stars with the centers cut out. Then place the sugar stars on top of the jam stars and voila!
Linzer cookies!
These don’t last very long around here, let me tell you!
Waaay back in the beginning of November I got hooked on a site / idea called “Wovember”. The basic idea was to raise “wool awareness”; that real wool comes from sheep. Behind every wool product you buy is a real animal and the shepherd who raised it. There’s a whole farm economy and lifestyle in there that many people don’t even think about when picking out their woolens (or worse, their synthetics).
The fun part of “Wovember” for many of us was the challenge to wear 100% wool all month long. Hand – knit socks from pure fine wool? Check. Hand knit sweater from Juniper Moon Farm yarn? Check. A commitment to only buy 100% non – synthetic wool products? Check. You get the idea.
Then my friend Anna convinced me to enter a photo into the Wovember photo contest. It was a photo of her holding a JMF sheep she had sheared this fall. So I thought, why stop there? I searched out a few other photos I had taken at the farm and submitted a few of my favorites, never dreaming anything would come of it. I mean, the other entries in the contest were jaw – droppingly stunning, super adorable and very woolly.
So imagine my surprise when I got an email from >Kate Davies. I won first prize in the Sheep Photos category with this photo of Neve:
I am honored, excited, and most of all, stunned. Sheep and wool are near and dear to my heart and I am thrilled to have taken part in this!
Now that I have a moment to breathe and check in, I can tell you how packed my last few days have been!
It all started last Thursday when I met part of my book club at a sushi restaurant to talk about an “extracurricular” book some of us had read this year: The Hunger Games.
It’s a trilogy that’s been out for a few years now aimed at young adults, but almost all of my adult friends have read it. They’re making it into a movie coming out in 2012, so if you haven’t read it yet, I HIGHLY suggest you do! I don’t know anyone who’s read it that did not like it. Both Emily and I read all three books in about the same number of days.
And now that I have mentioned it, I am craving wasabi again. Go figure.
Saturday was an early day. Caroline and I took a class through the local Cooperative Extension dealing with processing meat birds. I’ve been thinking for awhile I might like to raise my own meat chickens and turkeys for the cost and health benefits, but I’ve been squeamish about it and not sure I could actually do it. When this class popped up it seemed like the perfect time to see if I was ready.
No, I didn’t take any pictures.
Yes, I did process a chicken all the way.
This is what it came down to: there was a chicken in a killing cone (the bird is put upside down in an inverted cone to hold it in place and keep it calm) in front of me. If I didn’t kill it, there was a line of people behind me ready to do it. So….I apologized and thanked the bird, and I sent it to its maker. After that the rest was easy. Anyone who’s cooked a full chicken or turkey for dinner could easily have done it.
After the bird is killed (as humanely as possible, I should add), the head removed, and the blood drained, the carcass is scalded for one minute to loosen the feathers. Then the legs are removed and it is put into a Whiz-Bang feather plucker.
With the feathers gone all that remains is to pull out the organs, wash out the cavity, and package it for the freezer. This part took some practice, but Caroline and I cleaned out several birds and it gets easier every time.
All class participants got a fresh chicken to take home for their freezer.
As for the killing: I am not sure I could do it if I had raised the birds from chicks. Fortunately Paul is willing to do that part if I handle all of the cleaning. Fresh, free – range, drug – free chicken is a beautiful thing, and with any luck we’ll have our own flock of them going in the early spring. I can also tell you this: raising your own food (and killing it) makes you much more thankful and mindful of every bite you eat. It’s very hard to mindlessly shovel it in when you’ve worked hard for it and an animal’s life is forfeit by your hand.
Emily won’t be thrilled.
Sunday was also an adventure. Susan had arranged for Caroline and I (we make a pretty damn good team, she and I) to drive to Manassas, Va to pick up her “Rent – A – Ram”. Every fall, she leases a male sheep from another farm to breed with her ewes so we have lambs in the spring.
Paul built a fantastic crate to go in the back of the suburban, and Caroline and I were on our way to pick up Solomon, a beautiful Cormo Ram. Since it felt like we were cramming a Ram into the truck I got into the habit of calling it “Ram Cram 2011″.
It was a beautiful day and a beautiful drive up through rolling farmland (it killed me, every bit of it. I need my farm already!). We got Solomon and loaded him up in no time and were on our way with nary a hiccup. We got him back to the farm as the light was failing and introduced him to his new pasture – mates.
I couldn’t have had more fun if I tried. I didn’t get any pictures, though, so I blatantly stole this one from Caroline:
That’s Solomon being sniffed – up by one of my boys. I can no longer tell Frodo and Finnegan apart.
He’s going to make some beautiful lambs!!!!
Lots of pictures. It was a fun fall day and I wish I had room here to post all 400 something photos we took.
Caroline called me up Sunday morning and invited me to the local(ish) fiber festival that was taking place this weekend. I had been on the fence about going since we’d done Old Farm Day on Saturday and I really didn’t have the cash to be going to a FIBER festival, but I scraped together what I could and we went for it! Besides, how can you say no to Caroline? I love hanging with her.
The weather was very fall – like: overcast and chilly. Perfect for looking at all things wool.
We watched the sheepdog trials for a bit and hit the sheep tent. We both got plenty of photos of the animals in there, and then promptly forgot we had cameras. When you’re focused on wool, well.
We made a point to check in on our friend Anna at her vendor station. I wish I had gotten some pics there, but you’ll simply have to take my word for it that she has beautiful pottery and woven things. In fact, I’ve linked her website to her name. Check it out, y’all (she’s the one that did the awesome Juniper Moon Farm mugs and yarn bowls).
Caroline picked out some lovely hand – dyed yarn from Knitting Notions (who I am thrilled has an online store, so I can order from them in the future), and I got some sportweight Superfine Alpaca (actually I bought one hank & Caroline bought me the other – how awesome is she?) from Delly’s Delights. I’ll be going back to them again as well.
I really had a great time with Caroline. I am hoping like mad I can snag her and take her to Rhinebeck next year. I can’t think of a better travel companion for such an adventure (though all of you Rhinebeck buddies from last year certainly come to mind as well!!)
Anyway, enjoy the only two decent photos I managed to get from the day. One of an Icelandic who was too hilariously like Feenat to pass up and a Cottswald that looked a lot like Ernie.
Enjoy!
Our very rural county does not have a county fair. We barely have a supermarket. Very little excitement happens here (unless you count the various animal escapes or occasional tornadoes and forest fires). However, the first Saturday of every October we have our county fair equivalent: Old Farm Day.
The basic idea is a showcasing of livestock and antique farm equipment from local farms. But that’s not all. There’s the local orchard making open kettle apple butter all day. Pulled pork barbeque and kettle corn. Square dancing and bluegrass. Draft horse plowing demonstrations, animal sound contests, beekeepers with honey and mechanical bull riding. And tractors on display. Lots and lots of old tractors.
This year we met up with Zac and Caroline for their first Old Farm Day. They seemed to enjoy it as much as we do.
I will say that there seemed to be less animals this year, and there was no one doing any spinning or basket weaving demonstrations. Otherwise it was quite lovely, and I would have stayed until the bitter end had we not had things to do back home, and small children hanging off us and asking to buy everything in sight.
LOVE this old chicken coop!
11 Ton steam engine built in 1921 to power plows or mill machinery.
The location is beautiful – it’s one of the oldest former plantations in the county.
Waiting for the kids’ “Tater Hunt” to begin.
“How can we get this thing home without anyone noticing???”
Neve & Oona’s “Tater” haul. You get to keep what your kid grabs out of the ground!
That’s a “Large” size kettle corn. Paul might have bought an extra – large, had they offered it.
Oona and Neve each lasted (barely) 10 seconds on the mechanical bull this year.
We left happy and satisfied with our Old Farm Day experience, and look forward to next year!
PS – plan your 2012 Juniper Moon Farm Farm-Stay experience accordingly!
I’ve been feeling increasingly crummy the past few days and woke up today with a full – blown head cold. So although there is stuff going on (pies! knitting! school!) I am too tired to upload pics and share just yet.
For now, enjoy these sweet pictures I took last week at the farm of Caroline and one of my new babies (I’m pretty sure it’s Adelaide – she’s a tad curlier than Sophie. Or it may be the other way around. I’ll have to ask Caroline what I decided. My brain’s toast).
Also – how awesome is that hand-knit sweater vest she’s wearing? She’s mad talented.
