08/10/2009 Monday: Gloomy all day and about 70 degrees F. Around dinner time it started drizzling.
I went into work today. I'm so tired it's hard to get serious about public health indicators. Before work I picked up some money and went to the Farm Store to pick up 4 bags of country livestock equivalent. After work I mailed two letters and went grocery shopping.
The four goats I had the guys help me put into the smaller pen on Saturday managed to escape. I noticed that they were out when I went to do evening chores. I managed to fix the panels, one had come away from the wall that I'd tied it to, and put the two oldest girls, Marcy's daughters, back in. Tomorrow I'll catch the two smaller goats and will put them in too.
On the deck: Pat and Chris put up the roof beams. Chas did the drawings for the ceiling trusses and I faxed it to the company in Vancouver that makes trusses. Chas called and the company, Arial Trusses, will do the figuring and will give us a bid based on Chas's drawing. Dunno how long it will take to get the trusses built but once that's on we'll have to talk to the company from Longview that Pat has selected for the metal roof. Both Chas and I agree that we'd like a green roof. I really wanted a copper roof but decided against it. Neither of us wants to stand out. This way our house fades into the background.
We also need to pick out a door for the deck. We think we'd like a metal door for security reasons. We'll rekey the house and spiff up the front door which really needs to be removed, sanded and restained or repainted. We may stick with basic black on the front door but have a slightly more cheerful color on the deck door. I was thinking red or blue.
We had ground beef patties with french fried potatoes and broccoli for dinner.
I've been thinking of making another duck pen that runs alongside the sheep pen. I'd use the panels from the aborted greenhouse that is now alongside the potting shed. Mike and Mary H gave me the panels awhile ago. I'm still thinking about this.
Speaking of the potting shed. I had hoped to get that painted this year but it may have to wait till next year. It should be done before I put up the greenhouse, though.
08/09/2009 Sunday: Overcast but not cold.
I'm going to have to move the hay and feeder in the small goat pen where I'm keeping the just weaned goats because the older ones steal the grain and hay I put into that pen's feeder which is currently along the stock panel. Having the feeder there is a lot easier than against the wall because I just need to toss the hay over. When I move it I'll have to walk into the pen. I think I will move the feeder to the wall side. It also keeps the goats from using the feeder as a launch pad to jump out of the pen.
I also need to put some hay into the pen for bedding.
I did move the feeder to the wall and the water tub to the stock panel. While it isn't as convenient to toss in the hay and the grain, it does work. If I weren't so lazy I'd go right into the pen to feed them.
I took a good look at the two Rouens I own yesterday. It turns out I have a male and a female. Since they're buried under the tarp and usually at opposite ends of the tractor and I rarely see them side by side. This time I did. The male is really spectacular. Both birds are significantly smaller across the breast than the Pekins are. Pekins have definitely been bred to be meat animals.
I have no idea what the sex of the three Pekins are since they don't show sexual dimorphism. I don't see any curly tail feathers indicating a male. My best guess is that they're all females.
Of the two breeds the Rouen ducks are certainly prettier but I have to say I find the boring white Pekins much more fun and interesting. They have this way of cocking their heads at you and seem to be asking, "Hey, whatch up to boss? Yes, I'd love more feed and clean water."
Maybe I can get Danette to buy the two Rouen ducks.
Course I like the Muscovies even better since they have beautiful plumage and each one is different.
Chas and I put a Gary hay bale into the Hereford's outside feeder. When I brought them in from grazing in the north pastures they were happy to devour it.
Chris came by and dropped off a pickup load of silage. We put about 2/3 in with the Herefords in their indoor feeder and a third we dropped on the hay that I'd put out earlier. Both sets of cows went nuts for the silage. I paid Chris $20.00 for gas and his time but suggested we think about getting silage when he comes to work for me. Chris is such a sweetie.
Dinner was salmon with a baked potato and chard. Yum!
08/08/2009 Saturday: Overcast and cool which made it pretty nice to work outside.
I can always tell Saturday's from other days. I just wear myself out but lots of work gets done.
Juan, Enrique and I moved four baby goats into a separate pen so that I could wean them. There were just too many goats in the regular pen and way too much confusion when feeding time came. Later in the day I found out that one of the small male goats had gotten out. I have no idea how. I put him back in with the others.
The two larger goats are Marcy's offspring. The two smaller goats are.
Enrique and Juan moved 12 bales of hay into goat barn. I was originally going to have them move 4 bales in but they brought 6 and then asked if I wanted more bales. It seemed reasonable to have them bring more bales since they had the tractor out. I had Enrique lift up two bales to see if they could put them in the loft fairly easily. It would definitely be easier with an elevator. Gary has an elevator and said he would loan it to me. I don't think he uses it much any more since he started making round bales.
Enrique weed whacked around the equipment shed and around the green barn and then moved down the driveway to whack the area to the wood shed. Enrique also whacked around the bottom concrete deck.
While Enrique was weed whacking Juan trimmed brush along the east fence line of the road pasture. He and Enrique also cleaned out the back of the well house flower bed which was full of weeds. I'd done the front but not the back of that bed. He got driven out by all the yellow jackets. I keep forgetting that that area is full of yellow jacket nests.
Everything looks so much better when the grass is trimmed around the barns and back towards the creek. It brightens my spirits when the grass is cut and the place looks tidy.
While Enrique and Juan were weedwhacking and trimming brush I went out to begin spreading compost on S2. Laura called in Enrique to bring in loads of compost to fill in several large holes in the S2 paddock. He brought in the compost and dumped it while I spread and leveled it. We got some of the compost from the large compost heap moved and got quite a bit of the poop and digested hay scraped off the pasture near the driveway into the road pasture barnyard.
I napped the morning away. I just plain wore myself out yesterday. I was on my feet from about 6:30am till the guys left around 2:45pm and then I had to go do chores till 3:45. Then we were expected at Laura and Willie's wedding. My wedding present was very boring: $150.00 cash. I had totally forgotten about their wedding until Gary reminded me of it when he was here for a visit on Wednesday.
We went to the VFW hall in Pe Ell for the reception. The food was great. Mary N supplied a terrific taco salad made with noodles. Yum. They also had beef with BBQ sauce. I didn't see the sauce but the meat was very delicious. Chas and I left early. We are both exhausted from all the activity these past few weeks.
08/07/2009 Friday: Cool and some misty rain. This is a lovely change from the past several weeks that were so hot.
It was so crazy around here this morning that although I wasn't going to go into work, I just had to to get away from everything. Glad I did. I just worked with no interaction with anyone. I'm going to value the silence when everyone is gone for the weekend.
Took two square bales out to the Herefords and one to the Dexters. We need to put a round bale into the Hereford's feeder this evening. I may also let them out to graze. There will be better conductivity with the grass being a little wet from the mist.
I stopped at the Brooks' Produce Stand that sits on the road to Doty and bought some beets, enough for a mess of greens and at least two meals of beets. Cost of $4.00 ($2.00/lb which is a bit more than I wanted to pay, but did). I have Todd Brook's phone number. He's the owner/manager. He's going to have green beans for sale shortly, maybe even Sunday. Todd Brooks is the brother of Ron Brooks who loaned us his wood splitter for several weeks two years ago when we were splitting up the leftovers from the trees we had removed for safety reasons.
I stopped in at the Doty Store to get a Nickel. Who was there but Bill K, Jr. We had a nice chat. He's been retired for awhile, June, I think. He's keeping himself busy trying to maintain 3 homes.
We got our tax assessment. It's down about $22K so our taxes won't be as much next year. Wonder if our land in Redmond will go down in value.
Chas and I put a bale of Gary's hay into the Hereford feeder.
08/06/2009 Thursday: Cool. Boy the weather has sure changed in the last two days from really hot to cool.
I took a bunch more pictures, mostly of the Dexters. I just can't seem to figure out which cow is which. It is hard when they're all black. Now I have to figure out which cow has the yellow tag in her left? ear.
Chris and Pat showed up to continue working on the deck. They're framing in the step and the wheelchair ramp today. I'm dying to see the decking laid down. Maybe tomorrow. Nope. We're not putting down the decking till later on. Pat is putting down some inexpensive siding to protect the deck and so that he has something to walk on instead of the joists.
Chas sanded some of the decking, the boards with the rough spots and stains. He also sharpened the blades on the brush hog.
After chores I ate breakfast and then when Merlin showed up to see the Shorthorns, I took him out to see them. He really wasn't interested in the cattle. He's not sure that they'll produce good beef for him. I just laughed since I knew differently. He really liked the animals and mentioned several times how healthy they looked and how tame they were but he really wanted beef cattle to raise over the winter. I told him that if he couldn't find what he wanted at a price he could afford, he could contact me and see if the steers were still available.
After that I came in and had a nap. Selling cattle is hard work, that and staying up way too late at night reading.
Around 3:30 Lucky started barking. It was the Charlene. She came by for some beef. I'd promised her some at the last flood get together.
Then after she'd left the PUD guy came by. Busted. Likely we'll get a visit from the building folks asking where our permit is. Pat said we didn't need one just to replace the deck. We'll see.
Dinner was Massamun curry. Yum. I made it with two chicken breasts, three carrots, an onion and three potatoes.
08/05/2009 Wednesday: Another cool morning. It did warm up but the wind kept it cooler.
Pat and Chris, a friend of Pat's from Adna, worked on the deck today. Chris will be coming tomorrow to help out. He's out of work and needs the money. The guys laid out the wheelchair ramp and step. I asked for at least a 4' step up to the deck. All the joists except for a few have been laid in on 16" centers (it looks like). I'm not sure what the guys will do tomorrow but they have to lay in the ramp and fill in some missing joists and install the step up to the deck. I suppose then they will begin installing the deck.
Chas was told he'd have to sand some of the deck boards where they were stained in the lumber yard and where they are rough, especially the boards that he's already put stain on.
In the morning I put out three square bales in the Hereford's feeder. After I got back from work Chas and I put in a bale of Wally hay in the Hereford's feeder. You'd have thought I didn't already put in 150 lb of hay this morning the way they attacked the hay.
Richard S showed up to see how we were getting along with the deck. I didn't get a chance to talk with him because I was busy finishing up evening chores.
Gary showed up around 4:30. He reminded me that Laura's wedding is this Saturday. I have to find the invitation. I hope it's on the kitchen table otherwise I will have to call Mary and get directions for everything.
Dinner was onions, garlic, chicken cubes and yellow and zucchini squash all cooked together. I liked it even if it was pretty bland.
Tomorrow Merlin comes to look at the three Milking Shorthorn steers. Maybe I can talk him into buying all three. I'd like to have those cattle gone. I'm for sure certain that I won't bother to raise Shorthorns again as much fun as they are to bottle feed. They just don't put on the weight as fast as a meat steer. I'm sure the meat is tasty.
I sent Susie a long email today bringing her up to date on the Dexters and on farm happenings.
08/04/2009 Tuesday: Cool this morning till about 10:30am. Then it warmed up some but it didn't get as hot as it was earlier in the week.
Pat showed up around 9:15am without his buddy. He's only hiring help when he needs two people. His buddy will be by tomorrow morning. Pat got a lot of work done today. Most of the pier posts have been set on their holders. Just a few more piers to go in the middle.
Chas did some more painting of the cedar decking. Pat and I talked about the fact that we are likely to need more cedar decking. The deck looks huge. A 10 foot wide by 24 foot long deck is a large deck. Pat says we'll have a wheelchair ramp that doesn't go quite as far as we had originally thought it needed to go so we'll have lots of room to spread out. We'll no doubt spend quite a bit of time out there.
The driver from Lincoln Creek Lumber showed up with the replacement beams and 2x6s that were unsuitable for using on the deck. I have a small credit at the lumber store that will get eaten up when we buy the roofing materials.
Chas headed up to Lacey to get an enhanced driver's license. He stopped at Franz's to get some bread. Now I have to figure out how to get that bread into the bread freezer which is already packed to the top.
I took a bunch more pictures this morning. There are still two cows born in 2007 that I can't identify; that is, I can't tell which cow is which. I may be getting closer though since I found baby pictures of Angel's Carolina. She has a brown stripe down the left side of her neck near her head. Thank heaven's I took those pictures. I'll see if I can take more pictures tomorrow of the two mystery cows, one with a baby and one without. I think the one with the baby is Carolina.
I worked on APHA Film Festival work this morning and was kept pretty busy reading my UW email.
After lunch I took the ATV and put the rabbit cage on the trailer and drove the ATV over to the chicken tractor where I picked up the remaining 6 Red Rangers and moved them to the chicken coop. I used my new chicken leg catching tool which worked great. If I could get close to the birds (which is not easy when the chicken tractor is nearly 10 feet long and 6 feet wide and the length of the catcher is 4 feet and the length of your arm. It came up a little bit short). I did catch them all and put them into the pen with the other Red Rangers, the two turkeys and 5 Barred Rock hens and 4 Buff Orpington young hens. Quite a collection of chickens.
Now the question becomes, do I want to buy more Buff Orpingtons and more Pekin ducks? Meyer's Hatchery has them on sale right now. I could brood them in the green barn.
After moving the Red Rangers to the chicken yard I jumped back on my ATV, gathered up the gas mix, cut plastic wire slices and weed whacker and headed out to weed whack under the north corridor fence. I went from the (new wire) gate to the cross fence dividing the large pasture from the northwest and southwest pastures and was able to get some of the west corridor fence cleared. It looks so much better and shouldn't be interfering with the electric fence. I forgot to check to see if it made any difference in the voltage.
I let the Herefords out to graze. They behaved themselves and didn't try to get through the corridor fence. I suspect that was because I was out there with them most of the time and because they know that they only get a few hours of grazing and that they needed to get their bellies full while they could. No smart moves, only grass grabbing and swallowing. I brought the Herefords in after I did evening chores. They weren't happy to be chased in but after kicking up their heels, went back to the road pasture and to their hay ring.
I'll need to put in a bale of hay tomorrow afternoon with three square bales in the am to keep them from starving.
I was actually surprised to see that there were actually some green blades of grass in N5 where Chas had mowed and which we'd left to rest. The green won't last long with so many hungry mouths on the pasture.
I got a call from someone who might be interested in purchasing the two youngest Milking Shorthorn calves. He'll be coming by Thursday at 10am. His name is Merlin and he lives on Bunker Rd.
08/03/2009 Monday: Cool in the morning but toasty in the afternoon. Nice breeze around 3:30pm. It chills off nicely at night. It was hot enough that I watered this morning again. I want to be sure the beet and chard seeds germinate.
Pat and his helper got here early and while I was gone got quite a bit of the deck uprights and a few horizontals (joists) put in by the time I got home around 2:30pm. They removed the burlap that was keeping the concrete from curing too fast and drilled holes in the concrete pads with Pat's new drill. It has a special name but I can't remember what the name is. Basically we have two joists on 4 posts with a lot of 2x4s used to support the beams. The 2x4s are braced against the ground and against the posts.
Pat finally got around to examining the boards that we got delivered last month. Most of the beams were wowed and the 2x6's were also wowed and twisted. I called the Lincoln Creek Lumber and spoke with Diane and complained. She's sending out replacement boards tomorrow and the driver will take the old ones away. I also ordered some additional brackets. I guess Pat had forgotten to buy them.
I asked Pat to check the lumber when it comes tomorrow to make sure it's okay. I was a little unhappy that he hadn't checked it before he started work. Pat is not ready to be a contractor yet; he has lots to learn. His carpentry skills are really good. And I guess he's a good roofer. We'll see when it comes time to put the roof on.
I retrieved some articles for Rachel, the Medical Director for the Lewis County HD and worked on the health indicators. Jane and I also talked about her vaccination manual. She wanted an index or table of content. I suggested to her that I make bookmarks so that her table of content takes folks to the exact section of the document with the information of interest.
Chas picked yellow squash and zucchini. I don't think he got all the zucchini. He only picked one and I'm sure there must be more. With zucchini there are always lots of baby squash especially with four plants.
I'm toying with ordering 25 straight run Buff Orpingtons and 20 Pekin ducks. The ducks are good eating and many of the Buffs will be roosters so they can be eaten, too. The Barred Rock hens must be getting close to giving up on the egg laying. They'll go into the pot soon, too.
I think this weekend I'll have the guys help me move the rest of the Red Rangers up to the chicken coop. The coop will be a little crowded but should work okay. I'm thinking of expanding the chicken pen with more stock panels to give the additional birds more space. We'll also move the Pekin/Rouen ducks up to their new pen in the goat pen. I'll need a shelter for them but will use a tarp temporarily to give them some shade.
Or, I might move the Muscovy drakes into the new pen until I can get them butchered. I need to start butchering birds soon.
I want to separate out the goat kids that are old enough to wean. They'll go into the old calf pen under the lean to. I want the milk from their mothers for the pigs.
If I ever get rabbits they'll go under the stairs in the lean-to. There should be enough room for two does and a buck. I should make my own cages to save money. Rabbit meat is really good.
This morning at the Farm Store I picked up some more beets. I purchased cylindrical beets and will try to plant several rows of them tomorrow. I still have a fairly sizable bed left that needs filling with something. I don't believe I've ever tried succession planning before.
I do need to plant some leek seed so that we can harvest it over the winter. I guess now is the time.
Dinner was chicken breasts. I cooked 6 breasts. We each ate one. I plan to use the others for lunches. Chicken breast makes great sandwiches. I had mashed potatoes with corn. The potatoes weren't very good. They probably had sugar/fructose in them and the chives had no taste.
08/02/2009 Sunday: Cool in the morning but the temperature rose steadily all day. The temperature must have hit 88 today but I'm guessing. Around 4pm the sea breeze came out and cooled things down considerably.
Chas and I put a Gary bale of hay in with the Dexters and one in the Hereford's outdoor feeder. The cows seemed to like it although they prefer Wally's hay. With 5 babies and hungry mothers it doesn't seem to make any difference in the hay consumption even though I butchered two bull calves. The cows seem to devour more than half of a 500lb bale in one day.
After I finished chores I had breakfast. Around 10am I went out and watered the garden and pulled some weeds. I also planted more beets and some chard. I put three packages of various kinds of chard together in one package and shook the package to mix them. Then I planted them in the row where I'd planted cabbage seed - but only one ratty-looking cabbage plant came up. I pulled it up and tossed it. I'm hoping the weather will cool off soon so that my plants don't look wilted even with twice a day watering.
I picked chard for dinner tonight but we never got around to eating it. It's one of my favorite greens which is why I planted another row.
Pat came by in the afternoon with a pickup load of sweet smelling silage (actually it wasn't ensiled just yet but it was on its way to being silage). We used the tractor to put 1.5 bucket loads in the Hereford barn feeder. The cows are mad for it. We also half filled two 30 gallon round buckets, put them on the ATV and rolled out the contents in two lines when we got in the home pasture. The Dexters like the pre-silage as well.
I gave Pat a nice beef roast for his family to enjoy. He said he might pack it in a slurry of salt and then bake it. He says the salt chips right off and that the meat underneath is delicious and tender. Probably too much salt for me.
I was going to weed whack under some of my fence lines after lunch but fell asleep and had a really nice nap.
We ate a t-bone steak plus rice and green beans (frozen) with a couple of slices of my first attempt at zucchini bread. It's ok but not wonderful. The meat on the other hand was soooo good. I would have eaten more but decided to only cook one package.
08/01/2009 Saturday: Another hot day although the morning started off fairly cool.
I can't believe it's really August. With all that's going on in our lives time is just flying by.
I took two bales of local grass hay out to the Dexters and spread it on the ground in the south pasture for them to munch on. They still have hay in their feeder and will likely clean that up by tomorrow. I fed them several alfalfa leaves for their dinner.
The Herefords still have hay in their round bale feeder but I dropped one square bales onto the pasture and one into their feeding during morning chores. In the afternoon I dropped two square bales into the large tire and one on the ground. That makes about 250 lb of hay. Since they eat a 500lb round bale in two days I figured 5 bales of local grass hay ought to be about right.
While Enrique and I worked on the fences, Juan pruned back the undergrowth in the pasture along the north side of the driveway and by the equipment shed. It looks a lot better now. Juan did some pruning around the trees on that side. Those trees often send up suckers that need to be pruned off. The burn pile is enormous now.
Enrique and I went out with our fencing tools and equipment and did several things to try to keep the cows in the paddocks and from going through the electric fence into the corridor. We raised up the bottom strand one notch. I also raised up the top strand by one notch. We also replaced two t-posts with an extra post (three posts where there were formerly two) and rotated them so that the notches were facing into the pasture. I rehung insulators where they had popped off and tightened the fence.
I also pulled one post that was leaning over and replaced it facing into the paddock. I also replaced missing insulators where the cows had popped them off.
We removed the polywire gate and installed a 12.5 gauge wire gate with gate hooks on each end of each strand. Enrique did the squeezing with the fencing tool while I got everything ready. I'm hoping that the 12.5 gauge wire will conduct electricity better than the polywire.
The charger was reading 5.9 when we started and 6.7 when we were done. I imagine that when we get the area under the fences weed whacked and sprayed we will get an even higher reading.
I had Juan and Enrique bring in 4 bales of local grass hay to replace what I fed this past week. While they were at the barn I had them smooth out the area where the tree stump used to be. There's a small bump but the soil there will pack down eventually. Now we can get in and out of the car without slamming the door into the stump, plus, we can get the tractor and ATV into the barn a whole lot easier.
Enrique weed whacked the road pasture corridor. I raked the grass and thistles into the Hereford's pasture where they proceeded to munch the grass and thistles with every indication of enjoyment. Next we'll need to spray it with a Roundup + Crossbow mix to kill the brush along the highway fences. While Enrique was weed whacking I used my pitchfork to collect the grass and thistles that he cut and tossed them into the pasture for the Herefords to munch on. Still lots of fences to weed whack under.
After lunch Enrique, Juan and I added a short panel to the pen I'm trying to make for the Pekin and Rouen ducks. To make the bottom level we had to dig a small trench. I always use those curly fasteners I get from Premier Sheep to hold stock panels together. It's worth the money for the ease in putting two panels together and for removing the fasteners when I need to make changes to a fence.
I gave the guys some beef and some zucchini squash. I have lots of squash to share.
Chas and I sprayed the still curing concrete several times today. I can hardly wait till I can let the cows into the third bay for the first time. Having that bay concreted will give the cows extra sleeping space in the winter time and will provide easy access to their salt mixture.
Chas stained more cedar for the new deck. He likely only has another day left of staining - unless he decides to put a second coat on.
Chas took me out to dinner. Pe Ell was having its Polish Daze and we decided it would be fun to eat authentic polish food. We ate under a large tent and had pieroski, polish sausage, cole slaw, a roll with butter and ice cream. We were too late for the cabbage rolls. Maybe next year. The pieroski were delicious. Bill Schulte, one of the County Commissioners was there. We talked briefly. I met lots of interesting folks there.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
August 11-20 in reverse chronical order
08/20/2009 Thursday: Not as hot today as it was yesterday, thank heavens.
During chores I got the Dexter feeder cleaned out today and a new round bale put in. I have that dang steer which insists on getting into the feeder and peeing on the hay. After awhile the hay at the bottom gets really wet and then the other cows won't eat the hay because it smells so bad. I have to clean it out fairly often but it does make for heavy pitchfork work. I have to get inside the feeder, dig out the wet hay and toss it out and then pitchfork it away from the feeder so the animals can get up to the feeder. Double heaving. Anyhow, the feeder is clean but I was wiped out.
Chris got here around 9am and got some of the skip sheeting on our roof completed. We're having the roof re-roofed with forest green metal roofing.
I didn't realize how tired I was until I relaxed today. Every time I sat down I'd fall asleep. While I was napping Chas was putting a primer coat on some of the plywood that we're going to use on the underside of the deck, sort of like we did on the back deck.
I asked Chris to put up another piece of 2x4 on top side of the goat hay feeder so that the goats couldn't put their feet in the hay. Now they can only put their heads through - at least that's what I'm hoping. Yup, the goat who was doing most of the feet in the manger is doing it less. Just a small change and animal behaviors change.
The Herefords have almost finished the round bale we put in their feeder yesterday. I put them out to graze and will put them out tomorrow again. Late in the day we'll put out another round bale.
When the guys are here we'll put out the new protein block. They haven't had one for months although they have a variety of minerals and salt available to them ad lib.
08/19/2009 Wednesday: Way too hot. Hotter than yesterday.
Chris and Pat got the trusses on the deck in but they haven't been braced yet. They left around 12:30 because Pat needed to get ready to take the next four days off. He's going to the ocean for some fishing and R&R.
I talked to Pat about the "windows" that would have gone on the deck. Chas and I never have been very comfortable about the idea of having permanently installed vertical pull windows. Pat reminded me that we needed windows to stop the wind in the fall when we wanted to sit outside. We talked about other ways of handling the situation. Originally we'd wanted removable windows. Pat reminded us of that and suggested we use Lexan plexiglass windows that we could remove in the summer time and store. We thought that was a fine idea so that's what we'll do. Pat will frame in the space and we can buy the size of plexiglass for the available space.
08/18/2009 Tuesday: Hot. Sun.
After doing chores I slept till 10:45am. I guess I must have been tired.
When I was fully awake I went over to Tammy's and picked up the salmon and had a tour of her garden. The garden is designed around square foot gardening so the raised beds are designed in multiples of 4 (e.g., four feet wide by 4 feet wide, etc. They've already set up a place for their rabbits and are replacing the bad wire on the bottom of the cages they found. I promised Tammy that I would find some rabbit ads for her on craigslist.com.
It was really too hot for Pat and Chris to work today. Also, the plywood didn't come till after lunch, nor did the trusses so they got a late start. The plywood was $1008.00 and the trusses were over 750.00. Expensive day but having the trusses built and delivered was a lot less expensive than having Pat build the supports for the roof.
When it was cooler the guys came back and put the trusses into position. Pat has to readjust his side of the trusses since he was an inch off. Also, I reminded Pat that the two joists on the end were doubled. He was going to put the one truss where the roof comes down to each corner as a singleton but I distinctly remembered him saying that the truss at that end was a doubled truss. I saved him and Chris extra work.
Chas and I both took pictures of the truck and the crane putting the trusses up on the roof. They also moved the 35 sheets of plywood onto the trailer so that they wouldn't warp from being on the uneven ground. I paid Chris $40.00 for his work today even though he didn't work that many hours. He was on call most of the day. I thought given the work he did that $40.00 was just enough for his trouble.
I told Pat that we wanted the north and west sections by the corner pole to be open, to act as entrances. We'll make a short railing where the wheelchair ramp will fo bu the rest will be open.
Richard came by to put in some cams where Pat is building us our extended sofits. I had him wire them up all along the front of the house but the ones south of the door will be on their own switch so we don't have to turn them on if we don't want to. The lights will be on a three-way switch so that we can turn them on either from the front or back doors.
08/17/2009 Monday: Sunny all day. Not horribly hot but hot enough to make you sweat in the sun.
I asked Chris to remove the harrow I got from Jr. Kiser and straighten it out. He did. It looks mostly usable even if it is a little rusty from being stored in the open but buried in tall grass. After work he and I talked about building a corral, actually a bud box. I still need to get the two gates down from the most western pasture and bring them up to the area that I'm going to use for a corral.
I ordered another approximately $1000.00 worth of wood for the deck and for the roof. I ordered 150 - 16' long 1x4s and 35 - 4x8x1/2 inch CDX plywood plus 16p & 8p nails and a carbide saw blade and a box of Hammer Tacker staples. The plywood will be put on the deck roof and under the sofits. The 1x4s will be used as furring strips for the metal roof.
Chas and I put a Wally bale of hay into the Hereford feeder. As soon as the cows who were out in the pasture grazing heard the tractor they came charging up to get their hay. The pastures are so dry that I'm not sure they're finding much to graze.
Before dinner I took the four yellow squash Chas harvested two days ago and sliced them thinly and put them in the food dehydrator. Someone on one of my lists suggested that this was a good way to store the excess yellow squash and zucchini most gardens supply. People like to eat the "chips" as chips and others use the dried vegetable rounds in soups and stews. I thought I might as well try it so the circles are drying overnight.
Dinner was leftover chicken with french fries and steamed broccoli. We had blueberries and yogurt for dessert.
Tammy called to tell us she had caught an extra salmon and to ask if Chas and I would like to have it. I said yes and that I'd be over tomorrow to pick it up.
I just realized I forgot to enter the date that Wendy had her bull calf in my electronic record for her. Fortunately I'd written it down in my farm (and task) notebook. He's all black except for a spot of white on his pizzle. He's a big calf. Now, I'll update her record.
08/16/2009 Sunday: Cloudy and cool in the am; sunny in the pm.
I put the cows out early today. They'd eaten every lick of Wally hay that Chas and I had put in Friday afternoon. I figured they could get their fill of grazing during the day even though the pastures are pretty much dried up. Then I'd put in two or three bales of local grass hay this evening to tide them over till tomorrow. I'd have to give them three more bales tomorrow morning and then let them out to graze when I get home from the Health Department. Or, maybe I'd just let them out to graze when I did morning chores.
I watered the garden this morning. It's looking pretty good. New beet plants and chard plants are growing well. We have small Hubbard squash, not too many, but a few and there are more blossoms. The other sweet meat type squash also has a couple of squash on it. The chicks are eating the kohl-rabi. I thought it was slugs but it isn't. No slugs in my garden.
Chas asked me to water the plum tree that is near the gazebo. It has been dropping plums. Chas thought this might be a sign of water stress. We dropped the hose mostly on and let it run for awhile. I moved it twice more to get different sides of the tree. When I was moving the hose I noticed that there was plastic under the dirt almost up to the trunk. No wonder the tree is thirsty. It didn't get the benefit of the rains we had last week. I've made a note to tear out all the plastic around the tree and cut out the suckers.
Actually, I need to tear out all the carpet and plastic that's lying in the gazebo garden.
I put dinner on around 3pm. It was a small pot roast. I put in a layer of chopped onions, with carrots on top and a row of potatoes surrounding the outside of the pot. Then I cut the roast in half across the width and placed it on top. I covered the roast and veggies with a roasted garlic and pepper flavoring and threw it all in the oven with some water and a little bit of chicken bouillon. Later I cooked up yellow squash with onions to have as a side dish. Yum.
Jr Kiser came by just after I put dinner on and just as I was about to take off to do chores. He wanted to let me know he was at the old homestead and did I want to come pick up the harrow he had buried near a stack of wood. I said yes and grabbed the tractor. I carefully drove along the 30 foot wide right of way till I was almost there and then drove on the shoulder till I could safely cross the road. Once there it took me about 30 seconds to pick up the harrow and then another 5 minutes or so to wrap it up to attach to the chain for easier carrying.
Jr. didn't want any money for the harrow. It's pretty rusty and I'll have a devil of a time untangling it, but it will be a useful farm tool.
I want back the same way I came after about 30 minutes of farmer talk: pickup trucks (I want one), hay, animals and butchering. What else do farmers talk about?
Then I did my chores.
Fortunately I'd already made the bed so I could collapse in a heap and relax until dinner. Not that I did so much today but water the garden, weed a little and pick up the harrow.
I did put some more tasks on the to do list. Always more work to be done around a farm.
DSL went out again tonight. I had to reboot everything. And sooooo slow.
08/15/2009 Saturday: Overcast and only about 60 degrees F. It was cold sitting down eating lunch.
Enrique and Juan arrived to help out around the farm around 8am.
Since I had barely started chores I had the guys move 17 or so bales of hay into the Dexter feeder stall (Stall 1). I needed to have some loose bales in the stall so that when the round bale runs out I can feed the small square bales without having to go get them. They also put 6 bales into the goat barn. I sure appreciate having the hay close at hand. I also had them put one bale by the pen where I'm holding Pixie and her baby. Hopefully by Monday morning the baby will have bonded firmly to Pixie and won't go wandering off. She's really little.
I had Enrique and Juan move a bale of last year's hay to the pig pen and put the hay into the pigTel (actually a CalfTel that I'm using as a shelter for them. I was astounded to see that there was no hay left in their hut when I looked yesterday. They'd either spread it around their pen or had eaten it. I'm not sure which they did. In any case with the nights turning cold they needed the hay to keep warm. Now they'll be warm.
I washed out the dog igloo again and put it over by the side of the green barn. I will likely use it to shelter new piggies when they're just little instead of the dog kennel which they seem to like to trash.
As the guys were cleaning out the Dexter lean-to I noticed that one of the double lean-to roof supports in the lean- to has rotted out. It's just hanging there. Fortunately there are two posts holding up the roof in that section but the post in front will need to be replaced. Maybe that's something Chris and Pat can fix when they have a free moment.
Well, one of my Muscovy ducks hatched 13 ducklings over the past several days and brought them out to show me yesterday. Knowing that most of them would get trompled on by the goats I set up a large galvanized tub in the goat barn now that I have power out there, added a layer of wood shavings and a heat lamp, a feeder and waterer and had my more agile friends Enrique and Juan catchall but two of them using a fishing net and a bucket.
I told them to leave two with the mother. Well, I got 11 to put under the heat lamp and the momma got two as I requested. Hopefully she'll be able to keep the babies alive. And me, too. They seem comfortable now but momma duck was hovering around them for the longest time as they gave distress calls. They finally settled down and momma took her two babies out to feed them from the scratch I throw out twice a day for the ducks. Now I have chicken feed in the barn so they'll also get some of that along with the scratch. I may put out a pan of scratch where the ducks can get it but the little escapees (my latest batch of 100% Boer goats) can't.
The newest set of Boer kids are two months old and are nearly ready to be weaned.
I've been thinking about the goats. I think next year I'll sell most of the crosses for $30.00 about a month old when they're well started. I really want the milk for my pigs, not the babies. Course if I don't have pigs I can keep the babies longer. There's nothing like milk-fed pork. Yum.
Yesterday one of the construction guys who stopped by to harass Pat, my carpenter, saw the Pekins and said he might be interested in acquiring 1 or more of the ducks. As we chatted he mentioned that his grandparents had rabbit cages that might still be useful. I told him that I would be willing to barter with him if he was interested trading one or more three hole cages for each duck. He's going to look at the cages and see if they can still be used. Until recently they've been stored in the chicken coop. Now they're outside. We'll see how useful they are. I'm planning ahead. The cages are also useful for temporary older chick habitat, too.
I'm going to truncate the goat pen I have in the lean-to and hang rabbit cages under the stairwell. That's the nice thing about covered space. You can use it for many purposes.
I found another dead chicken. It was starting to smell which is how I discovered it. These Red Rangers definitely have to be harvested around 12 weeks or they just keel over and die. Bit of a disappointment. I think I will stick with Buff Orpingtons even though they grow more slowly. At least I can get eggs from them when they're 5 months old.
I had sort of expected Danette and her friend to come see the Welsh Mt sheep but her friend may not want them since they aren't registered. I'm about to put another ad on Craigslist if Danette's friend isn't interested. I appreciate Danette's efforts on my behalf even if they don't end in my selling the sheep.
I stopped in at a sign shop a week or so ago to get some idea of how much a HCDF farm sign would cost. I want one that I can hang additional signs from like: Beef for sale, Lamb for sale, ducks, chickens, etc. for sale. It looks as if the basic sign would be around $300 but that's for a double sided sign plus art work and maybe even one or two of my for sale items. Living along the highway has its advantages, namely, lots of eyeballs.
I can't decide what I want on my sign beyond the farm name and what??
We sure got lots of work done around here today: recently cut stumps from having the stumps ground out (the stump grinder cut most of the above ground wood out then ground the stumps down) got picked up and put on the burn pile, trash got picked up and the metal separated out from the burnables and pure garbage put where we can take it to the dump. Also some weed whacking done. The farm is looking better each weekend.
Getting the trash and waste wood picked up has made a big difference in how it looks around the construction site. We moved hoses and Rubbermade tubs to their proper places and got rid of lots of little bits of metal left over from Richard S's work on the well house. Not much actual garbage left over.
I need to empty the tin cans out of the garbage pail they're in and take them to the recycle center. Then I can move the empty cans down to the area under the deck for more recycle.
We also got most of the Dexter pen/lean-to cleaned out and the results spread on one of the extremely dry and not very productive Dexter paddocks the paddock next to the corridor pasture. I decided that it made more sense to put the loose/spilled hay and mostly composted litter directly onto the field so that we didn't have to handle the results twice.The field is a little lumpy because the litter is wet and harder to spread with the tractor bucket. Once it dries out we'll drag it and that will make it look better. Any kind of amendment helps improve fertility.
I plan to use some of the Dexter compost in my garden which needs it badly (that compost is closer to my garden than the Hereford compost pile is) and to spread it on other paddocks to improve the fertility of my yucky clay soil.
It's pretty amazing to me. The 10 cubic yards of chicken manure I put on two years ago is almost gone, devoured by the soil bacteria, I guess. I can tell because the soil is starting to form a crust when I water the plants when it didn't for the past two years. Makes it hard for seed to come up.
A week or so ago I direct seeded more beets and chard and still have a package of cylindrical beets to seed. I also planted more leeks inside in a plastic grape container. I guess this is the time to plant them for putting out before the first autumn frost. They're like hair right now but about 3 inches high. So cute at that stage. The leeks in my garden are beginning to get bigger.
We've been harvesting limited zucchini despite having 4 plants and yellow squash but I'm not sure we're going to get any Hubbard or the other winter squash by the time it gets really cold. Lots of flowers but no fruit. Oh well, this may not be the summer for winter squash.
The corn looks good. I have not squeezed any ears to see if they're filling out but will soon. The potatoes also need to be dug up. I'm not expecting much of a crop this year. I didn't keep them well enough watered and they just didn't thrive.
We definitely will not have to fertilize the road pasture. It has lots of compost on it.
Chas picked yellow squash and washed and cut them up for me to cook tomorrow night.
Dinner was chicken with rosemary potatoes baked in the over with beets. Hard to beat beets. They were really sweet. I'll be happy when we finish all the commercial chickens up so that I can harvest one of my roosters. I have a gimpy rooster that the others pick on. We'll harvest him first.
08/14/2009 Friday: Overcast and cool and somewhat gloomy.
Chas and I went to VJs to look at windows. Pat suggested a 4x4' window for each of the two bays. We're getting thermo-pane windows even though we don't really need them there because it's hard to find single pane windows these days. I found the one that I want. It's a vertical slider just the right size. Now I have to order two. Then Pat can get them framed in.
Pat and Chris began work on the sofits. They had to scab on a 2x4 to the existing 2x4s and add two pieces of plywood to support the horizontals and the angled 2x4s. They've done the section up to the door. Next week they'll be finishing up the west side of the house but that section will be trickier because it has shorter 2x4s sticking out to form the overhang. I'm going to be interested in seeing what Pat will do.
Chas and I ate out at Country Cousins. We'll likely not eat there any more since the food is overpriced and not all that good. It used to be good when we first came here but the food is no longer up to snuff. Plus it's crowded and noisy.
Tuesday the trusses will come. The truck will have a small crane to lift the main joist which, unlike the others, is not broken in half. We're building a hip roof over the deck. Lots of lovely triangles. Pat will need to figure out how much plywood we need to buy to cover the deck roof and then Chas will likely go to town with the trailer to save us a $15.00 delivery fee.
Chas and I put another Wally hay bale in their outdoor feeder. I moved the ring out of the dip that it was in by shoving it with the ATV. Worked like a champ. The ground was slick from waste hay so it slid really well.
I did not make a regular dinner tonight. We were still too full full from lunch. Chas had curried beans with tuna while I ate a bowl of cereal. Later we had frozen blueberries with yogurt.
One of the Muscovies who was setting had a boatload of babies. I'm going to steal some of the babies and raise them in one of the tubs to see if I can't get most of them to live. We lost all of one clutch and 6 of 9 in a second. This Muscovy had lots of babies. I'll leave her with two. Wonder if the other Muscovy will have babies. She started setting earlier but doesn't seem to have had any hatch yet.
Tomorrow we'll have to bring up the tubs, wood shavings, extension cord, heat lamp and feeder and waterer plus a cover to keep the ducklings warm and safe from most of the preditors. One of the tubs, the smaller tub, will stay outside the barn.
I also need to be thinking about expanding the pen that I have the St Croix ewes in since I'm going to be getting another ewe and her baby/babies in partial payment for Sweet Pea.
Cally is the cow that is limping. Her right hind foot seems sore. I wonder if she got kicked or if she has some kind of infection. Usually they don't get infections this time of the year.
Lots of jobs for the guys tomorrow.
08/13/2009 Thursday: Looks like sunshine all day.
Sherry here to clean.
Pat and Chris here to work on the deck. Today they're tearing off the eves troughs and facia boards. Looks like the only thing holding up the 2x4s that make the overhand is a 2x2 running along the side of the house. The guys are going to put in supports so that the roof overhand is less likely to come down when we walk on it. The overhang will be the same distance all along the house so that the large window in Chas's study and the one over the stairwell will be somewhat shaded. The overhang will be the same all around the deck.
Chris used the saws-all to cut the nails holding the facia board. Noisy bugger. I may borrow it to cut off the bent rebar that Mike gave me to use as a peg for the collapsible feeder.
Pat cut off the fancy ridge beam out about 2 feet so that when we put in the trusses everything will fit properly. Chris took off the evestroughs and facia boards. Then they left around 1pm. Dunno why. They just snuck out.
Chas went to town with my car and the trailer to get 2x4s and other wood for the deck and overhang.
When I checked over the garden I noticed that the row of chard I planted has sprouted and the plants are about 1.5 inches high. The beets have also sprouted. We'll have beets to eat soon.
Dinner was Mexican food: chimichangas. Pour salsa into a pan. Lay out frozen chimichangas, pour on more salsa, put grated cheese over all. Cover with aluminum foil, bake for an hour at 425 degrees F. Eat. Delicious.
08/12/2009 Wednesday: Actual rain this morning, not just drizzle. This should help the pastures.
I went into work today but I wasn't very productive.
Chas took the harrow he made of the crusher screen, railroad tie and chains and dragged the road pasture after we put a Wally bale of hay in with the Dexters and one in the Herefords outdoor feeder. It looks one hundred times better without piles of shit everywhere. His screen contraption works very well.
The Southwestern Washington Fair starts soon, I think on the 18th. Danette is going to show one or more of her Boer goats there. I may try to attend the fair on the day/s she's showing to offer support.
I made a stew with a package of our beef, purchased potatoes, carrots, an onion and green pepper. I made dumplings to go on top. Dumplings always make the stew tastier since I almost always add some sage to the biscuit batter.
08/11/2009 Tuesday: Light drizzle in the am. A small amount of drizzle fell in the afternoon.
Chris arrived around 8:30am. Apparently he was supposed to call Pat before coming into work. We got the problem of the roof trusses fixed. We'll have to cut 2 1/8th inches off each support post for the trusses to fit smoothly without a differential in the porch and house roofs.
Anyhow, I put Chris to work, and me too. We moved 100 or so bales of hay from the trailer where we'd been storing them and onto the stack in the bay next to where we store the trailer. I could have waited till the weekend but Chris was here and he sure can use the money. Plus, he's a nice guy. We put some of the hay bales in the back where I'd been taking out the less prime bales and stacked some in front. I think we only lost one bale due to improper handling (on my part).
Chas asked me to move the hay because he's going to drive down to Vancouver and pick up the trusses next Tuesday to save us $150.00. Personally I'm not sure my jeep will be able to haul that weight back but Chas seems to think he can. Oh well, if the transmissions goes, I'll just have to buy a pickup.
Aside from helping Chris move hay, I slept from after the hay move till it was time to do evening chores. My battery is running on empty and I sure must have needed the sleep.
Dinner was pizza. I did not feel like cooking.
Pixie finally had her baby. It's a heifer and a feisty little thing she is indeed.
During chores I got the Dexter feeder cleaned out today and a new round bale put in. I have that dang steer which insists on getting into the feeder and peeing on the hay. After awhile the hay at the bottom gets really wet and then the other cows won't eat the hay because it smells so bad. I have to clean it out fairly often but it does make for heavy pitchfork work. I have to get inside the feeder, dig out the wet hay and toss it out and then pitchfork it away from the feeder so the animals can get up to the feeder. Double heaving. Anyhow, the feeder is clean but I was wiped out.
Chris got here around 9am and got some of the skip sheeting on our roof completed. We're having the roof re-roofed with forest green metal roofing.
I didn't realize how tired I was until I relaxed today. Every time I sat down I'd fall asleep. While I was napping Chas was putting a primer coat on some of the plywood that we're going to use on the underside of the deck, sort of like we did on the back deck.
I asked Chris to put up another piece of 2x4 on top side of the goat hay feeder so that the goats couldn't put their feet in the hay. Now they can only put their heads through - at least that's what I'm hoping. Yup, the goat who was doing most of the feet in the manger is doing it less. Just a small change and animal behaviors change.
The Herefords have almost finished the round bale we put in their feeder yesterday. I put them out to graze and will put them out tomorrow again. Late in the day we'll put out another round bale.
When the guys are here we'll put out the new protein block. They haven't had one for months although they have a variety of minerals and salt available to them ad lib.
08/19/2009 Wednesday: Way too hot. Hotter than yesterday.
Chris and Pat got the trusses on the deck in but they haven't been braced yet. They left around 12:30 because Pat needed to get ready to take the next four days off. He's going to the ocean for some fishing and R&R.
I talked to Pat about the "windows" that would have gone on the deck. Chas and I never have been very comfortable about the idea of having permanently installed vertical pull windows. Pat reminded me that we needed windows to stop the wind in the fall when we wanted to sit outside. We talked about other ways of handling the situation. Originally we'd wanted removable windows. Pat reminded us of that and suggested we use Lexan plexiglass windows that we could remove in the summer time and store. We thought that was a fine idea so that's what we'll do. Pat will frame in the space and we can buy the size of plexiglass for the available space.
08/18/2009 Tuesday: Hot. Sun.
After doing chores I slept till 10:45am. I guess I must have been tired.
When I was fully awake I went over to Tammy's and picked up the salmon and had a tour of her garden. The garden is designed around square foot gardening so the raised beds are designed in multiples of 4 (e.g., four feet wide by 4 feet wide, etc. They've already set up a place for their rabbits and are replacing the bad wire on the bottom of the cages they found. I promised Tammy that I would find some rabbit ads for her on craigslist.com.
It was really too hot for Pat and Chris to work today. Also, the plywood didn't come till after lunch, nor did the trusses so they got a late start. The plywood was $1008.00 and the trusses were over 750.00. Expensive day but having the trusses built and delivered was a lot less expensive than having Pat build the supports for the roof.
When it was cooler the guys came back and put the trusses into position. Pat has to readjust his side of the trusses since he was an inch off. Also, I reminded Pat that the two joists on the end were doubled. He was going to put the one truss where the roof comes down to each corner as a singleton but I distinctly remembered him saying that the truss at that end was a doubled truss. I saved him and Chris extra work.
Chas and I both took pictures of the truck and the crane putting the trusses up on the roof. They also moved the 35 sheets of plywood onto the trailer so that they wouldn't warp from being on the uneven ground. I paid Chris $40.00 for his work today even though he didn't work that many hours. He was on call most of the day. I thought given the work he did that $40.00 was just enough for his trouble.
I told Pat that we wanted the north and west sections by the corner pole to be open, to act as entrances. We'll make a short railing where the wheelchair ramp will fo bu the rest will be open.
Richard came by to put in some cams where Pat is building us our extended sofits. I had him wire them up all along the front of the house but the ones south of the door will be on their own switch so we don't have to turn them on if we don't want to. The lights will be on a three-way switch so that we can turn them on either from the front or back doors.
08/17/2009 Monday: Sunny all day. Not horribly hot but hot enough to make you sweat in the sun.
I asked Chris to remove the harrow I got from Jr. Kiser and straighten it out. He did. It looks mostly usable even if it is a little rusty from being stored in the open but buried in tall grass. After work he and I talked about building a corral, actually a bud box. I still need to get the two gates down from the most western pasture and bring them up to the area that I'm going to use for a corral.
I ordered another approximately $1000.00 worth of wood for the deck and for the roof. I ordered 150 - 16' long 1x4s and 35 - 4x8x1/2 inch CDX plywood plus 16p & 8p nails and a carbide saw blade and a box of Hammer Tacker staples. The plywood will be put on the deck roof and under the sofits. The 1x4s will be used as furring strips for the metal roof.
Chas and I put a Wally bale of hay into the Hereford feeder. As soon as the cows who were out in the pasture grazing heard the tractor they came charging up to get their hay. The pastures are so dry that I'm not sure they're finding much to graze.
Before dinner I took the four yellow squash Chas harvested two days ago and sliced them thinly and put them in the food dehydrator. Someone on one of my lists suggested that this was a good way to store the excess yellow squash and zucchini most gardens supply. People like to eat the "chips" as chips and others use the dried vegetable rounds in soups and stews. I thought I might as well try it so the circles are drying overnight.
Dinner was leftover chicken with french fries and steamed broccoli. We had blueberries and yogurt for dessert.
Tammy called to tell us she had caught an extra salmon and to ask if Chas and I would like to have it. I said yes and that I'd be over tomorrow to pick it up.
I just realized I forgot to enter the date that Wendy had her bull calf in my electronic record for her. Fortunately I'd written it down in my farm (and task) notebook. He's all black except for a spot of white on his pizzle. He's a big calf. Now, I'll update her record.
08/16/2009 Sunday: Cloudy and cool in the am; sunny in the pm.
I put the cows out early today. They'd eaten every lick of Wally hay that Chas and I had put in Friday afternoon. I figured they could get their fill of grazing during the day even though the pastures are pretty much dried up. Then I'd put in two or three bales of local grass hay this evening to tide them over till tomorrow. I'd have to give them three more bales tomorrow morning and then let them out to graze when I get home from the Health Department. Or, maybe I'd just let them out to graze when I did morning chores.
I watered the garden this morning. It's looking pretty good. New beet plants and chard plants are growing well. We have small Hubbard squash, not too many, but a few and there are more blossoms. The other sweet meat type squash also has a couple of squash on it. The chicks are eating the kohl-rabi. I thought it was slugs but it isn't. No slugs in my garden.
Chas asked me to water the plum tree that is near the gazebo. It has been dropping plums. Chas thought this might be a sign of water stress. We dropped the hose mostly on and let it run for awhile. I moved it twice more to get different sides of the tree. When I was moving the hose I noticed that there was plastic under the dirt almost up to the trunk. No wonder the tree is thirsty. It didn't get the benefit of the rains we had last week. I've made a note to tear out all the plastic around the tree and cut out the suckers.
Actually, I need to tear out all the carpet and plastic that's lying in the gazebo garden.
I put dinner on around 3pm. It was a small pot roast. I put in a layer of chopped onions, with carrots on top and a row of potatoes surrounding the outside of the pot. Then I cut the roast in half across the width and placed it on top. I covered the roast and veggies with a roasted garlic and pepper flavoring and threw it all in the oven with some water and a little bit of chicken bouillon. Later I cooked up yellow squash with onions to have as a side dish. Yum.
Jr Kiser came by just after I put dinner on and just as I was about to take off to do chores. He wanted to let me know he was at the old homestead and did I want to come pick up the harrow he had buried near a stack of wood. I said yes and grabbed the tractor. I carefully drove along the 30 foot wide right of way till I was almost there and then drove on the shoulder till I could safely cross the road. Once there it took me about 30 seconds to pick up the harrow and then another 5 minutes or so to wrap it up to attach to the chain for easier carrying.
Jr. didn't want any money for the harrow. It's pretty rusty and I'll have a devil of a time untangling it, but it will be a useful farm tool.
I want back the same way I came after about 30 minutes of farmer talk: pickup trucks (I want one), hay, animals and butchering. What else do farmers talk about?
Then I did my chores.
Fortunately I'd already made the bed so I could collapse in a heap and relax until dinner. Not that I did so much today but water the garden, weed a little and pick up the harrow.
I did put some more tasks on the to do list. Always more work to be done around a farm.
DSL went out again tonight. I had to reboot everything. And sooooo slow.
08/15/2009 Saturday: Overcast and only about 60 degrees F. It was cold sitting down eating lunch.
Enrique and Juan arrived to help out around the farm around 8am.
Since I had barely started chores I had the guys move 17 or so bales of hay into the Dexter feeder stall (Stall 1). I needed to have some loose bales in the stall so that when the round bale runs out I can feed the small square bales without having to go get them. They also put 6 bales into the goat barn. I sure appreciate having the hay close at hand. I also had them put one bale by the pen where I'm holding Pixie and her baby. Hopefully by Monday morning the baby will have bonded firmly to Pixie and won't go wandering off. She's really little.
I had Enrique and Juan move a bale of last year's hay to the pig pen and put the hay into the pigTel (actually a CalfTel that I'm using as a shelter for them. I was astounded to see that there was no hay left in their hut when I looked yesterday. They'd either spread it around their pen or had eaten it. I'm not sure which they did. In any case with the nights turning cold they needed the hay to keep warm. Now they'll be warm.
I washed out the dog igloo again and put it over by the side of the green barn. I will likely use it to shelter new piggies when they're just little instead of the dog kennel which they seem to like to trash.
As the guys were cleaning out the Dexter lean-to I noticed that one of the double lean-to roof supports in the lean- to has rotted out. It's just hanging there. Fortunately there are two posts holding up the roof in that section but the post in front will need to be replaced. Maybe that's something Chris and Pat can fix when they have a free moment.
Well, one of my Muscovy ducks hatched 13 ducklings over the past several days and brought them out to show me yesterday. Knowing that most of them would get trompled on by the goats I set up a large galvanized tub in the goat barn now that I have power out there, added a layer of wood shavings and a heat lamp, a feeder and waterer and had my more agile friends Enrique and Juan catchall but two of them using a fishing net and a bucket.
I told them to leave two with the mother. Well, I got 11 to put under the heat lamp and the momma got two as I requested. Hopefully she'll be able to keep the babies alive. And me, too. They seem comfortable now but momma duck was hovering around them for the longest time as they gave distress calls. They finally settled down and momma took her two babies out to feed them from the scratch I throw out twice a day for the ducks. Now I have chicken feed in the barn so they'll also get some of that along with the scratch. I may put out a pan of scratch where the ducks can get it but the little escapees (my latest batch of 100% Boer goats) can't.
The newest set of Boer kids are two months old and are nearly ready to be weaned.
I've been thinking about the goats. I think next year I'll sell most of the crosses for $30.00 about a month old when they're well started. I really want the milk for my pigs, not the babies. Course if I don't have pigs I can keep the babies longer. There's nothing like milk-fed pork. Yum.
Yesterday one of the construction guys who stopped by to harass Pat, my carpenter, saw the Pekins and said he might be interested in acquiring 1 or more of the ducks. As we chatted he mentioned that his grandparents had rabbit cages that might still be useful. I told him that I would be willing to barter with him if he was interested trading one or more three hole cages for each duck. He's going to look at the cages and see if they can still be used. Until recently they've been stored in the chicken coop. Now they're outside. We'll see how useful they are. I'm planning ahead. The cages are also useful for temporary older chick habitat, too.
I'm going to truncate the goat pen I have in the lean-to and hang rabbit cages under the stairwell. That's the nice thing about covered space. You can use it for many purposes.
I found another dead chicken. It was starting to smell which is how I discovered it. These Red Rangers definitely have to be harvested around 12 weeks or they just keel over and die. Bit of a disappointment. I think I will stick with Buff Orpingtons even though they grow more slowly. At least I can get eggs from them when they're 5 months old.
I had sort of expected Danette and her friend to come see the Welsh Mt sheep but her friend may not want them since they aren't registered. I'm about to put another ad on Craigslist if Danette's friend isn't interested. I appreciate Danette's efforts on my behalf even if they don't end in my selling the sheep.
I stopped in at a sign shop a week or so ago to get some idea of how much a HCDF farm sign would cost. I want one that I can hang additional signs from like: Beef for sale, Lamb for sale, ducks, chickens, etc. for sale. It looks as if the basic sign would be around $300 but that's for a double sided sign plus art work and maybe even one or two of my for sale items. Living along the highway has its advantages, namely, lots of eyeballs.
I can't decide what I want on my sign beyond the farm name and what??
We sure got lots of work done around here today: recently cut stumps from having the stumps ground out (the stump grinder cut most of the above ground wood out then ground the stumps down) got picked up and put on the burn pile, trash got picked up and the metal separated out from the burnables and pure garbage put where we can take it to the dump. Also some weed whacking done. The farm is looking better each weekend.
Getting the trash and waste wood picked up has made a big difference in how it looks around the construction site. We moved hoses and Rubbermade tubs to their proper places and got rid of lots of little bits of metal left over from Richard S's work on the well house. Not much actual garbage left over.
I need to empty the tin cans out of the garbage pail they're in and take them to the recycle center. Then I can move the empty cans down to the area under the deck for more recycle.
We also got most of the Dexter pen/lean-to cleaned out and the results spread on one of the extremely dry and not very productive Dexter paddocks the paddock next to the corridor pasture. I decided that it made more sense to put the loose/spilled hay and mostly composted litter directly onto the field so that we didn't have to handle the results twice.The field is a little lumpy because the litter is wet and harder to spread with the tractor bucket. Once it dries out we'll drag it and that will make it look better. Any kind of amendment helps improve fertility.
I plan to use some of the Dexter compost in my garden which needs it badly (that compost is closer to my garden than the Hereford compost pile is) and to spread it on other paddocks to improve the fertility of my yucky clay soil.
It's pretty amazing to me. The 10 cubic yards of chicken manure I put on two years ago is almost gone, devoured by the soil bacteria, I guess. I can tell because the soil is starting to form a crust when I water the plants when it didn't for the past two years. Makes it hard for seed to come up.
A week or so ago I direct seeded more beets and chard and still have a package of cylindrical beets to seed. I also planted more leeks inside in a plastic grape container. I guess this is the time to plant them for putting out before the first autumn frost. They're like hair right now but about 3 inches high. So cute at that stage. The leeks in my garden are beginning to get bigger.
We've been harvesting limited zucchini despite having 4 plants and yellow squash but I'm not sure we're going to get any Hubbard or the other winter squash by the time it gets really cold. Lots of flowers but no fruit. Oh well, this may not be the summer for winter squash.
The corn looks good. I have not squeezed any ears to see if they're filling out but will soon. The potatoes also need to be dug up. I'm not expecting much of a crop this year. I didn't keep them well enough watered and they just didn't thrive.
We definitely will not have to fertilize the road pasture. It has lots of compost on it.
Chas picked yellow squash and washed and cut them up for me to cook tomorrow night.
Dinner was chicken with rosemary potatoes baked in the over with beets. Hard to beat beets. They were really sweet. I'll be happy when we finish all the commercial chickens up so that I can harvest one of my roosters. I have a gimpy rooster that the others pick on. We'll harvest him first.
08/14/2009 Friday: Overcast and cool and somewhat gloomy.
Chas and I went to VJs to look at windows. Pat suggested a 4x4' window for each of the two bays. We're getting thermo-pane windows even though we don't really need them there because it's hard to find single pane windows these days. I found the one that I want. It's a vertical slider just the right size. Now I have to order two. Then Pat can get them framed in.
Pat and Chris began work on the sofits. They had to scab on a 2x4 to the existing 2x4s and add two pieces of plywood to support the horizontals and the angled 2x4s. They've done the section up to the door. Next week they'll be finishing up the west side of the house but that section will be trickier because it has shorter 2x4s sticking out to form the overhang. I'm going to be interested in seeing what Pat will do.
Chas and I ate out at Country Cousins. We'll likely not eat there any more since the food is overpriced and not all that good. It used to be good when we first came here but the food is no longer up to snuff. Plus it's crowded and noisy.
Tuesday the trusses will come. The truck will have a small crane to lift the main joist which, unlike the others, is not broken in half. We're building a hip roof over the deck. Lots of lovely triangles. Pat will need to figure out how much plywood we need to buy to cover the deck roof and then Chas will likely go to town with the trailer to save us a $15.00 delivery fee.
Chas and I put another Wally hay bale in their outdoor feeder. I moved the ring out of the dip that it was in by shoving it with the ATV. Worked like a champ. The ground was slick from waste hay so it slid really well.
I did not make a regular dinner tonight. We were still too full full from lunch. Chas had curried beans with tuna while I ate a bowl of cereal. Later we had frozen blueberries with yogurt.
One of the Muscovies who was setting had a boatload of babies. I'm going to steal some of the babies and raise them in one of the tubs to see if I can't get most of them to live. We lost all of one clutch and 6 of 9 in a second. This Muscovy had lots of babies. I'll leave her with two. Wonder if the other Muscovy will have babies. She started setting earlier but doesn't seem to have had any hatch yet.
Tomorrow we'll have to bring up the tubs, wood shavings, extension cord, heat lamp and feeder and waterer plus a cover to keep the ducklings warm and safe from most of the preditors. One of the tubs, the smaller tub, will stay outside the barn.
I also need to be thinking about expanding the pen that I have the St Croix ewes in since I'm going to be getting another ewe and her baby/babies in partial payment for Sweet Pea.
Cally is the cow that is limping. Her right hind foot seems sore. I wonder if she got kicked or if she has some kind of infection. Usually they don't get infections this time of the year.
Lots of jobs for the guys tomorrow.
08/13/2009 Thursday: Looks like sunshine all day.
Sherry here to clean.
Pat and Chris here to work on the deck. Today they're tearing off the eves troughs and facia boards. Looks like the only thing holding up the 2x4s that make the overhand is a 2x2 running along the side of the house. The guys are going to put in supports so that the roof overhand is less likely to come down when we walk on it. The overhang will be the same distance all along the house so that the large window in Chas's study and the one over the stairwell will be somewhat shaded. The overhang will be the same all around the deck.
Chris used the saws-all to cut the nails holding the facia board. Noisy bugger. I may borrow it to cut off the bent rebar that Mike gave me to use as a peg for the collapsible feeder.
Pat cut off the fancy ridge beam out about 2 feet so that when we put in the trusses everything will fit properly. Chris took off the evestroughs and facia boards. Then they left around 1pm. Dunno why. They just snuck out.
Chas went to town with my car and the trailer to get 2x4s and other wood for the deck and overhang.
When I checked over the garden I noticed that the row of chard I planted has sprouted and the plants are about 1.5 inches high. The beets have also sprouted. We'll have beets to eat soon.
Dinner was Mexican food: chimichangas. Pour salsa into a pan. Lay out frozen chimichangas, pour on more salsa, put grated cheese over all. Cover with aluminum foil, bake for an hour at 425 degrees F. Eat. Delicious.
08/12/2009 Wednesday: Actual rain this morning, not just drizzle. This should help the pastures.
I went into work today but I wasn't very productive.
Chas took the harrow he made of the crusher screen, railroad tie and chains and dragged the road pasture after we put a Wally bale of hay in with the Dexters and one in the Herefords outdoor feeder. It looks one hundred times better without piles of shit everywhere. His screen contraption works very well.
The Southwestern Washington Fair starts soon, I think on the 18th. Danette is going to show one or more of her Boer goats there. I may try to attend the fair on the day/s she's showing to offer support.
I made a stew with a package of our beef, purchased potatoes, carrots, an onion and green pepper. I made dumplings to go on top. Dumplings always make the stew tastier since I almost always add some sage to the biscuit batter.
08/11/2009 Tuesday: Light drizzle in the am. A small amount of drizzle fell in the afternoon.
Chris arrived around 8:30am. Apparently he was supposed to call Pat before coming into work. We got the problem of the roof trusses fixed. We'll have to cut 2 1/8th inches off each support post for the trusses to fit smoothly without a differential in the porch and house roofs.
Anyhow, I put Chris to work, and me too. We moved 100 or so bales of hay from the trailer where we'd been storing them and onto the stack in the bay next to where we store the trailer. I could have waited till the weekend but Chris was here and he sure can use the money. Plus, he's a nice guy. We put some of the hay bales in the back where I'd been taking out the less prime bales and stacked some in front. I think we only lost one bale due to improper handling (on my part).
Chas asked me to move the hay because he's going to drive down to Vancouver and pick up the trusses next Tuesday to save us $150.00. Personally I'm not sure my jeep will be able to haul that weight back but Chas seems to think he can. Oh well, if the transmissions goes, I'll just have to buy a pickup.
Aside from helping Chris move hay, I slept from after the hay move till it was time to do evening chores. My battery is running on empty and I sure must have needed the sleep.
Dinner was pizza. I did not feel like cooking.
Pixie finally had her baby. It's a heifer and a feisty little thing she is indeed.
August 21-31 in reverse chronical order
08/31/2009: Monday. Overcast with the occasional spit of rain. It's supposed to be sunny.
Pat and Chris arrived around 9am. They're cutting the furring strips on the roof and did some work on the sofits. The left at 2:30pm.
I went to use the lights in the cow barn but they didn't turn on. It looks as if the circuit breaker was tripped. Wonder how that happened. I asked Chas to check it since he was going that way. He said that the circuit breaker had somehow tripped. He reset it and tested the lights. They work now.
I talked with Danette around 5:30pm. She has more meat customers than she can provide meat to. She and I talked. If she can find me buyers for my excess cattle I will pay her $25.00/half for the referral. Seems fair to me. She also shared some of her promotional material with me. She recommended that I not discuss the sex of the animal but instead use the term Hereford beef, a more generic name with no sexual connotations. Many people are put off by the possible killing of females. Me, too, but selling breeding stock is impossible these days. No one wants to overwinter cattle. It would sure help my bottom line if I could sell a few cows.
Danette sells her meat for $2.75/lb but that includes the kill fee and the cutting and wrapping. She also takes payments so that folks don't have to fork out a large amount of money when it comes time to pick up the meat. She says Joe at Salmon Creek Butchery will pick up final checks. If people have overpaid because the animal doesn't weigh as much as Danette thought it would, she immediately reimburses the amount of the overpayment.
She also provided me with cover letters and recommended I get a Web site. Hard to believe that someone who was so adamant about people having Web sites in her work life now doesn't have one of her own to market her own beef.
I cooked the last of the pork chops tonight, I think. They need using up. Pork just doesn't last that long, about 7 months in the freezer. Chas made zucchini/yellow squash surprise with tomatoes and herbs. I also cooked French fries. It was a tasty dinner.
I'm gradually turning my Yahoo groups to Special Notices for groups I'm not reading. That should cut down on the number of digests I get in any one day. There will be more as I try to free up some time.
08/30/2009: Sunday. Sunny all day and about 72 degrees F. Just right. No rain till Thursday, I think.
This morning a family came out to purchase a goat to be a companion to their gelding. Wed or Thursday I'll be taking at least three goats over to Danette and Joe's place. I need to double check to make sure that I have two doelings and three wethers. Got $60.00 for Marcy's doeling.
Chas and I put in a new bale of Wally hay into the Hereford's outdoor feeder. I took two square bales and a bunch of the Wally hay which had dropped off the round bale and put it into S1 for the Dexters. They grazed on that hay for a long time. This evening I added another square bale to the Dexter feeder. The little devils had reached under the gate and had devoured most of a bale and made a mess of another. I moved the bales away from the door but I may have to put in a better barrier to keep them from devouring the square bales. Honestly, you'd think I never fed them. They still have uneaten hay in their round bale feeder.
I dashed over the Tami's place after lunch to pick up some green beans she'd picked for me. I took her a dozen eggs. Took the dog with me. He likes to go for car rides.
I had awful leg cramps last night and a couple today. I have no idea what is causing them unless I'd somehow dehydrated.
Dinner was green beans, baked potatoes and salmon burgers. Not very inspired but then neither was I.
Note from Susie today. We're trying to resolve the problem of Noel and her cysts and her inability to breed again. And her acting like a bull.
08/29/2009: Saturday. Overcast but no rain. Not very warm but clamy.
We totally cleaned out the Welsh Mt sheep pen this morning including removing the compost pile that I'd made over the past year. All the waste hay is gone; we even used a leaf rake to rake up all the poop pellets. It looks so clean there now. The guys got a little carried away and cleaned out the sleeping area too so I had to lay down new hay but hey, the place is sparkling clean now.
We removed all the waste hay in the goat feeding area, too. I kept tripping over the mounds of loose hay and finally couldn't stand it. It's nice to go into winter with pens thoroughly cleaned out. Next comes the goat pen and the St Croix ram pen.
I've been gradually scrubbing each of the water tanks with a small scrub brush. They do look much better now.
My helpers spread the waste hay and pen cleanings on the north side of the driveway. I didn't see much point in making yet another compost pile when the hay and pellets would just break down over the winter right in the pasture.
I had them move some rocks into the cottage garden. They used them to line a new flower bed near the chicken coop. I'd had Enrique move three tractor bucket loads of compost from the Dexter pen to the beds last week. Today we smoothed out the compost and broke up a lot of the lumps. It looks as if I need to add another three loads to raise the bed up some more. I might have to move a few rocks into the bed a little as they encroached on the path some but that won't amount to much work.
I was off building one of those triangular feeders that I saw at the SWW goat show while they were laying in the river rock. Since I saw them at the Fair I wanted something that the three wethers and two does couldn't put their feet (and whole bodies) into. Using one of those protein block tubs just didn't work for obvious reasons: big flat surface with plenty of space to squat and pee or poor. Anyhow I had a piece of hog panel that had gotten squashed under a tree during the storms in 2007 that I was saving. I was able to find just enough unbent wireon it to turn into the feeder. I just tied everything together with binding twine to make sure it would work properly.
Speaking of protein blocks/tubs, I purchased a 250 lb block/tub for the Herefords at Del's. The price was right but the cattle ate it way too fast. It was completely gone in less than a week. I really prefer the harder molassas-based protein blocks I get from the Farm Store. They last quite a bit longer, at least two-three weeks. I like the protein blocks as they really compliment the grass hay I'm feeding, adding some protein and energy to the cow's diet. I'm saving the alfalfa till the chill of winter has set in. I also have second cut orchard grass at Victors. He's storing it for me until I have the space.
The last thing we did today was to clean out the gazebo garden. It was getting hard to walk around the garden and to see what few flowers are in there because it had grown up so much since we last cleaned it out. Way too many blackberry vines and elderberry branches. Now I can see the flowers. We took out one ATV trailer load and put it on yet another burn pile.
More undergrowth to take out next weekend. I also want to rip up the carpet and plastic that the previous owner put down to keep down the weeds in the gazebo garden. They totally covered the ground under my plum tree so that it doesn't get any water. I think we can handle the weeds with a sharp hoe or pruning shears depending on how far ahead of me the undergrowth gets.
I just talked to Bob F to ask about my bull calf. He said he only has two bull calves. He'd gotten rid of most of his herd in January (I'd forgotten he told me that) so only has 4 spring babies. He's planning on selling me one and castrating the other for meat for his freezer so Bob just won't be a source this year. Sorry. He did say that he's likely to have more steers next year. He might be someone to keep in your rolodex as a potential source of private treaty steers.
The bull calf that Bob has in mind for me has a slightly darker coat than the other. That's the one he'd keep for himself if he needed a new bull calf.
Victor has four of Bob's steers from last year or the year before last and they're wonderful looking. Real chunky/meaty looking. I saw them at Victor's when I went to order more hay a month or two ago.
I expect that bull calves will be higher priced next year as there are going to be a lot fewer beef animals. Nearly everyone has cut their herd sizes after last year's high hay prices. Even my friend Gary has reduced his herd considerably and will be buying three females from me next spring to raise up for meat for his customers. And Bob as well.
The Dexters as wonderful eating. If I were raising another steer for myself I would raise a Dexter. That way I could keep the entire animal. Dexter steers take between 24-28 months to mature to butchering weight. The older Dexter steer will be 24 months next March. Some grain for three months and he'll be ready to harvest.
Actually I have never eaten a Dexter but the blind taste test that was done in 2008 by a group of rare breed animal owners placed the Dexters in 3rd place after two really exotic and very rare cattle, cattle I'd never heard of. My friend Susie charges $4.50/lb for her Dexter meat and has more buyers than she has animals but then she lives up north in Snohomish where there are people with more of a disposable income than we have around here.
I expect I'll have enough Dexter meat in a few months. I'm going to butcher one of my old Dexter cows for hamburger as she didn't produce a calf for me this year. She likely has ovarian cysts. She's completely changed her personality. She's turned into a bull, trying to mount the cows in season and generally getting in the way of Huck who wants to breed the cows in standing heat. She's also pawing and snorting and carrying on. Time for her to go. Can't keep unproductive cows around. They cost too much to maintain over the winter.
I've been giving some thought to selling a hamburger Hereford. I thought I would sell her at a price that would include the cutting and wrapping, say $2.50/lb so that the purchaser could just pick up the meat without having to worry about paying the butcher. They'd just pay me.
I had calf liver and onions for dinner. Nothing like calves liver for a delicious dinner.
08/28/2009 Friday: Overcast. Looks like rain this evening.
I had an inspiration this morning. Surprised me because it doesn't happen often. As mentioned previously one of my Muscovies had 13 babies. I lost one and gave three to the momma. The rest I am raising in my goat barn in a large galvanized water tub. Feeding and watering is a bit of a problem. The water container I have leaks and the feed container is a flat ceramic kitchen bowl. The bowl works well but needs to be refilled twice a day. The water container is a PITA to move from the hose to the tub.
As I was thinking about the problem I remembered I had three dog/cat feeders in the cow barn, ones that had been left by the previous owner. I hadn't had time to FreeCycle them so I still had them in the barn. These are the "we're going away for the weekend and want to make sure Fluffy has food and water while we're gone" containers. They're cylindrical and take up vertical space but not much horizontal space. The feeder can be filled with dog or cat food but in my case will be filled with chicken crumbles. The waterer will obviously be filled with water.
This solves a lot of problems and frees up a few chore minutes in the morning. I just need to periodically fill up the feed container and the ducks will have plenty of feed in front of them to eat. The waterer will have to be changed once a day because ducks are so messy and love to grab a mouthful of feed and then dump it into the water.
I have an extra waterer but will probably find a use for it when I raise chicks. My cat is using the feeder that goes with it for his cat food.
It turns out that I have two waterers and one feeder. I'll just use one of each. I moved all three from the cow barn to the green barn and washed the feeder and one waterer.
Danette's two cows have gone to be meat. I hope she's not too sad. She said she would send me Kevin's phone number. Kevin is the gent that does the butchering.
I had hoped that Kevin would be able to make it to my place but when I talked to the guy at Salmon Creek Meats this morning he said that it was unlikely that he would be able to do my animals today. Sigh. I guess I can wait. I wanted to do it ASAP so I can move animals around and to give the little goats additional space. I have them in the duck pen now.
Regarding minerals for my critters. I generally prefer the loose minerals as I have heard that the goats/cows can't lick enough minerals off the block in one setting to meet their quota. Dunno if that's true. Their tongues get tired before they've gotten the minerals. Plus I like to mix the minerals with kelp so that they get the benefit of that mineral-laden stuff, too.
Certainly a block will last longer than loose minerals because the animals seem to prefer the loose minerals. Still I might put out a backup block for those who like to lick the blocks. I purchased Redmond mineral conditioner but haven't yet put any out since I haven't unloaded my car yet. (Lazy me).
I've heard that you can mix the Redmond minerals with water to dissolve it and can spray it on your land in conjunction with compost tea to improve the soil bugs. It is a soil amendment as well as an animal salt. Some people also add molasses to the mix which is really supposed to help the land and improve the tilth and fertility of the soil. Course some will be excreted by the animals over time and that should help with the fertility, too.
Danette suggested that I harvest or sell the two does that didn't take care of their babies. One was a runt that I expected would grow some with good feed but she never has. The other is larger and more meaty. I'm conflicted about doing her in. I think I will also try to sell the Nubian and her daughter. Lord knows I have more goats than I know what to do with.
The three wethers are still fairly small, not large enough to eat but someone might be interested in them if I price them low enough. I just separated them from their mothers a couple of weeks ago. They're eating grain and hay quite nicely. I need to add on to their pen to give them more space as I mentioned above.
Today was my mother's birthday. I gave her a call to find out how she's doing. She has really bad arthritis and is using a cane. We had a good chat.
This afternoon I went over to Mary & Mike's place to look at a BBQ that they'd picked up for scrap. They remembered that I wanted one and asked me to come over to see it. The bottom three burners have rusted out but they seemed to feel that I might be able to find a replacement in Walmarts. The dimensions are 8" along the pipes by 17.5 width across the burners. I've forgotten the name of the BBQ itself but Mike assures me that if they have the burners they will be standard.
Mary gave me some delicious tomatoes and cucumbers which I cleaned for dinner. I just washed the cucs and sliced them. Wow, what flavor. I also cooked corn from our garden and a couple of steaks. We each ate a piece of Marie's peach pie with Cool Whip. I'm stuffed.
08/27/2009 Thursday: Sunny. It will likely be hot today.
No word from the Salmon Creek Butcher. Sigh. Maybe he'll call later with a new date.
I spent most of the day working on entering receipts into Excel for tax purposes. Still have a lot to enter.
Pat and Chris put in the last two sections of plywood on the deck roof. Tomorrow they'll put the black tar paper on and perhaps even lay in the furring strips.
We got a bid from the metal roof folks: $5720. but he forgot about $150.00 worth of bits and pieces. I gave Jack a check for half the amount. He stopped by on his way back to whereever he has his shop: Longview? Pat is checking over the materials list and will let us know if we need to make changes.
In the afternoon Chas and I put a Wally bale of hay in with the Herefords. Most came in from the fields to get their share.
Mary and Gary came by at 6pm for a visit. Chas had chopped the vegetables for hot noodles but we hadn't started cooking. Mary and Gary visited till 7pm. They brought me some plastic coffee cans that I will add a screen to and turn into a worm box for a few worms, just as an experiment.
08/26/2009 Wednesday: Warm most of the day but around 4:30 pm it cooled off a little and got cloudy.
Senator Edward Kennedy died peacefully this morning at his compound in Hyannesport, MA. He'd had a brain tumor for over a year. He will be missed by many and especially missed by those who depended on him for encouragement in getting health care reform. A great loss.
Chas and I went into town and did our weekly chores. We got money to pay the guys working on the house, returned and borrowed new library books (and donated books and magazines to the library), went grocery shopping, recycled tin cans, and got me a new battery. My battery went dead catastrophically. One day it was working and the next it was dead as a doornail. It was designed to last 4 or 5 years and I guess it finally just died.
I also picked up 3 bags of livestock feed, and a 50 lb bag of Redmond super salt and a bucket. I still need to pick up minerals although I still have goat and cattle minerals. Be nice to only have to buy one kind of mineral for all the animals.
Chas and I moved a bale of Wally hay into the Dexter's pen. I called the girls when I was done and they all came in. They always seem to know when I call them that there's something good to eat at the end.
I moved several bucket-loads of dirt from the Dexter's compost pile to the surrounding fields. I also filled in some holes. Honestly this property is full of holes. Be nice to have smooth pastures to walk on. The dirt is also intended to act as humus since we collected it from around the Dexter lean-to.
Got a call from Anna Scharff who is going to buy Sweet Pea. She's been working 20 hours overtime and feels guilty because she hasn't emailed me. I purchased two St Croix sheep from her. She may come by Saturday because one of the neighbors is going to shoot her very old horse and bury it using a back hoe. The horse is basically starving to death because it has no teeth and can't digest any food it does take in.
08/25/2009 Tuesday: Cool and overcast, light drizzle.
Pat & Chris are here to work. Chris drove into Centralia to Lincoln Creek Lumber to pick up a single board. Pat didn't order quite enough facia boards to complete going around the deck. It sounds as if they're pounding in the skip sheeting/furring strips. And dropping heavy objects...
The guy selling metal roofing is supposed to come today to give us a bid. Pat has also asked a couple of eves trough vendors to give us a bid.
I need to ask if Pat can cut that piece of rebar in the Hereford feeder. Plus I should get the top of the other piece of rebar with the heavy duty steel bottom that Mike H gave me the last time I was over for a visit.
After I figured out just how many feeding stations I have to feed at twice a day, I was a little overwhelmed. It's sometimes a lot easier not knowing just how much work you have to do.
The Muscovy drake I threw in with the Welsh Mt sheep was out of the pen when I arrived at the green barn to do my morning chores there but at least the one duck got some respite from the constant feather plucking for one night. I really need to sell or butcher the aggressive duck; there are almost no feathers left on the non-aggressive duck. Even the down has been pulled out.
The guy from the metal sheeting/roofing company came by to give us a bid. He took measurements and did a schematic and will draw up how many sheets we'll need for the roof. He says it's available for a $1500.00 energy efficiency tax rebate when we do our taxes next year.
Marie came over with a lovely peach pie while I was doing my chores. I stopped briefly to talk and then finished up. Chas gave her some squash and a carton of eggs to take home with her.
No word from Susie about my question regarding Noel. I'm sure she's still thinking about how to answer me. I hope I haven't made her mad.
Chas and I put a Wally bale of hay into the Hereford's outdoor feeder.
08/24/2009 Monday: Cool this morning but by 9am the sun was shining. It's likely to be hot this afternoon.
Pat came to work around 10am. He brought us some tuna he'd caught on his trip as well as two crabs. He kindly cleaned them for us since I had no idea how to clean them. When he was done he took the bits and pieces that were left over and tossed them into Hope Creek for the crawdads.
Pat got the west side plywood on the trusses. First he had to go to pick up some scaffolding to stand on from Chip and then get it set up. Cutting the plywood is likely to be a bear because of the hip roof. Just about every single piece of plywood need to have an angle cut out of it. The plywood sheets are held together with clips.
Pat says he'll finish attaching the joists to the support pieces after they get the plywood on. He says it's not a high priority to do it now. Tomorrow the sheet metal person comes to give us a bid on the roof. I hope it's not more than $6,000.00.
Pat seems to feel that we'll have most of the work done by Labor Day. I sure hope so. I'm really tired of all the construction. I want my house back and peace and quiet.
I need to make a feeder for the little goats, one that they can't crawl into. I may see if I can make any use of the hog wire that got folded up when the tree fell on it last year. I only need 2 small pieces for each end and two longer pieces for the sides. I could pound in some rebar to keep the feeder from being moved around by the goats.
I may do a search on google to see what I can find in the way of goat feeders (hand made rather than purchased). I'm more looking for ideas.
Everything seems to be running smoothly on the farm. I've pretty much got a routine set up that seems to work. I do have several places and animals that I have to feed.
For example, I have the 3 Pekin and 2 Rouen ducks still in the duck tractor on our lawn between the house and Hope Creek. The Muscovy ducklings that I stole from their momma are in their own galvanized tub until they get too big. They may have to go out into a duck tractor when they get larger and no longer fit in the tub.
The chicken are all in the chicken coop area except for the four small barred rocks that I'll have to track down at night sometime and see if I can't pen them up in the coop.
I have sheep in three different spots. The Welsh Mt sheep are in their own pen; the St Croix females are in the old calf raising pen and the ram is inside the green barn in a separate pen.
The goats are in three areas, too. I have the two oldest doelings in a larger pen under the green barn lean to. The other 5 kids are in the former duck pen till they're weaned and can no longer get through the stock panels. The adult goats are in the regular goat pen.
The Dexters have their own pasture and lean-to shelter as well as one stall (the center stall); The Herefords have the road pasture and the barn lean-to for their eating and sleeping. I need to buy a round bale feeder for the Dexters that I can keep out on the pasture so that I don't have to do so much cleaning in the lean-to. It should be much easier to clean the Hereford's lean-to what with the new concrete slab we put in the third bay.
The pigs have their own pen and shelter that I keep filled with hay that I clean out of the hay storage section of the barn.
So, basically I have 12 feeding stations/areas. This doesn't count the dog and cat feeders.
I think I need to downsize.
Chas and I had a memorable dinner. We ate most of the tuna Pat caught along with squash surprise (the no-tomato variant) and corn from our garden. The corn was pretty good but not exceptional. I still have trouble eating corn on the cob because of my braces.
08/23/2009 Sunday: Overcast in the morning and chilly but it warmed up in the afternoon.
After I did morning chores I ate breakfast and changed my clothes. I decided to go to the fair and I'm really happy I did. I learned a lot about Boer goats and what to look for in a doe. My purchases from Melody and Patrick were all wrong. I also think I need to be feeding more grain to get them gaining weight, especially the young ones.
I asked Danette for the name and contact information for the judge who did such a good job of explaining why she placed the animals being shown. She sells percentage Boer doelings. I'd like to pick up some really meaty does, maybe two and get a picture of the preferred Boer doe style/look/structure.
When I got home from the fair Chas and I put a Wally bale of hay in the Hereford outdoor feeder. The cows heard the tractor as we got the hay and all of them came in from the far end of the hay field. The grass in the field is pretty sparse. They put their noses in the round bale feeder and proceeded to chow down. They were hungry. The grazing they do just keeps them busy during the day.
I went out with the ATV and rounded up the calves. They're pretty blase about the ATV now and just walk into the road pasture unless I push them.
In keeping with my idea of helping the Boer goats gain weight I upped the babies feed some and will increase it a little more each day until they leave some, then I'll stop adding grain at that point. I'd like to see my little Boer goats out of Mystical put on some muscle.
08/22/2009 Saturday: Overcast in am but sunny in the pm.
When I went down this morning I noticed that one of the two ducklings I put under the old Muscovy had been smothered. The other baby has found its mother. She has three babies. The old Muscovy crushed one and the other headed right for momma sometime during the night. It amazed me that momma and baby found each other again. I tossed the dead baby outside and Lucky picked it up. When I got back to the house he was crunching on it. It made me a little queasy hearing him crunch the dead duckling.
I drove the Muscovy out of the nest and tossed the eggs and put a board in so that her nest no longer exists. The Muscovy mother-want-to-be is very old now and very bad tempered. I expect she'll turn into duck soup shortly (snort, snort). I have my new butchering knife sharpened and ready to go. However, I'll have to wait till she puts on some weight. She got quite thin from sitting on the nest for so long.
Enrique & Juan moved 8 bales of hay to the Dexter feeding stall. That way when I run out of hay from a round bale and don't feel like moving another into their feeder I can just feed square bales. Holy smokes, I just realized the Dexters ate nearly an entire bale in 3 days. They like Wally's hay way too much. It disappears extremely fast.
After that E&J moved 2 - 50lb sacks of chicken feed to the chicken coop and 4 bags of all purpose feed to the goat barn. Enrique dumped one of the bags of chicken feed into the chicken feed garbage pail but put the other bag under the east roost. I moved it so that it was standing upright so that the birds wouldn't poop on the bag.
I'd purchased a large protein block for the Herefords on Wednesday. We moved a large tire that I had for holding the tubs to the hill by the water tubs and put the protein tub in that tire to keep it from moving around. By then I'd put the Herefords out to graze so that they didn't try it till I brought them in for the night when I did evening chores. They seemed to like it. I'm going to be interested in how long the tub lasts.
I counted the cattle in the road pasture. By my count I have 18 Herefords, crosses and Milking Shorthorns. Ouch. That's way too many animals. I will have to take some to the auction. I need to contact Ty and see if he's interested in doing some penning with his horses and maybe even moving the critters to the sale barn.
Enrique and Juan finished cleaning out the Dexter pen. They took the area in the lean to down quite far and when they were done Enrique used the bucket to drag the dirt in front of the lean to over to the compost pile. I also asked him if he would mound the compost pile back up again since the cattle had run all over the pile and had gradually knocked it down. We need to spread quite a bit of that back on the land.
While Enrique was smoothing out the paddock Juan spread the compost Enrique dumped today and last Saturday on the pastures by hand so that it's more or less evenly spread out. I was planning on using the harrow but who knows when I'd get it done. I like having the compost spread out.
After lunch which was quite late (1:30 pm) Enrique, Laura and Juan picked up and dug up medium sized rocks from inside and outside the goat pen, tossed them into the tractor bucket and dumped them on the rock pile for future use. I guess the Whitakers or Johnson's had dumped a pile there for possible use some day. I kept tripping over them and finally decided I'd had enough.
We picked up the stones outside the pig pen first and dumped them. Then I opened up the new gate I'd made for the goat pen and we picked up stones from inside the goat pen. By the time we were done both sides of the fence were pretty flat which will make it a whole lot easier for me to walk around.
Late in the work day we filled in three low spots on the west side of the driveway with compost from the Hereford pasture compost pile. Juan leveled and smoothed the piles. I have other holes to fill in but we can do that over time. I will seed these filled-in areas this September after the rains start and the new dirt has had a chance to settle and get really wet. Chas was concerned that there would be no place for the water to drain off the road if we filled in all the low spots but I don't think there will be a problem. It will be a lot easier to cut that section of the driveway now that the dips aren't quite so deep.
I want to level the entire area so that we can cut the grass with the mower if we want. Eventually I will fence off that area for the sheep/goats and they can keep the grass down.
I did not use one of the beds in the cottage garden this year. I decided to take the opportunity to add more compost while it was empty of flowering plants. I asked Enrique to bring three loads of compost from the Dexter compost pile and dump on former Dahlia bed. My role today was to open and shut the south gate as he came out with a load and back in when he returned for another load.
I still have to spread the compost around the central stump and make it look pretty. I also need to spray the small bushes that are growing up from the brush we cut down last year. Those dang stumps keep trying to coppice. That means we're always cutting them back.
Dinner was southern chicken breast (type of chicken breast), biscuits and green beans. These southern breasts at least have some flavor unlike the Foster Farms chickens.
I wrote Susie H a note telling her I was disappointed in Noel's inability to have additional calves and wanted to hear from her about her thoughts on my concern.
08/21/2009 Friday: Overcast much of the day and pleasantly cool.
Chris showed up at 9am to work on the skip sheeting on the roof. When he gets that done and when the plywood has been nailed to the deck roof Pat will contact the company in Vancouver/Longview to order our metal roofing. Periodically the entire house will shake as he tromps around up there.
Left to do: reroofing, deck, temporary window framing, railing, backfill to make the area around the steps flat (maybe put in a concrete pad), finish deck roof, install cam lights.
Richard also showed up around 11am to work on the exterior cam lights. He'll also install the new bathroom fan which we need really badly to suck the moisture out of the bathroom after showers. Even my towels start to smell mildewy after a few days even when it's hot and even when I carefully spread them out to air dry.
2pm. Chris finished skip sheeting the roof. The 1x4s have been tacked down. He says that he'll have Pat check to make sure the 1x4s are in the correct place on the roof and then will screw down the 1x4s to complete the job. He left at 2pm.
Chas had to go into town. The primer he purchased from Rhodda separated and had to be returned. Chas discovered it's easier to prime the plywood if he first brushes the panel off with a wire brush. The wire brush removes the rough spots and loose wood and makes it easier to brush on the paint. Chas said he'll do another panel or two tomorrow.
Pat and Chris arrived around 9am. They're cutting the furring strips on the roof and did some work on the sofits. The left at 2:30pm.
I went to use the lights in the cow barn but they didn't turn on. It looks as if the circuit breaker was tripped. Wonder how that happened. I asked Chas to check it since he was going that way. He said that the circuit breaker had somehow tripped. He reset it and tested the lights. They work now.
I talked with Danette around 5:30pm. She has more meat customers than she can provide meat to. She and I talked. If she can find me buyers for my excess cattle I will pay her $25.00/half for the referral. Seems fair to me. She also shared some of her promotional material with me. She recommended that I not discuss the sex of the animal but instead use the term Hereford beef, a more generic name with no sexual connotations. Many people are put off by the possible killing of females. Me, too, but selling breeding stock is impossible these days. No one wants to overwinter cattle. It would sure help my bottom line if I could sell a few cows.
Danette sells her meat for $2.75/lb but that includes the kill fee and the cutting and wrapping. She also takes payments so that folks don't have to fork out a large amount of money when it comes time to pick up the meat. She says Joe at Salmon Creek Butchery will pick up final checks. If people have overpaid because the animal doesn't weigh as much as Danette thought it would, she immediately reimburses the amount of the overpayment.
She also provided me with cover letters and recommended I get a Web site. Hard to believe that someone who was so adamant about people having Web sites in her work life now doesn't have one of her own to market her own beef.
I cooked the last of the pork chops tonight, I think. They need using up. Pork just doesn't last that long, about 7 months in the freezer. Chas made zucchini/yellow squash surprise with tomatoes and herbs. I also cooked French fries. It was a tasty dinner.
I'm gradually turning my Yahoo groups to Special Notices for groups I'm not reading. That should cut down on the number of digests I get in any one day. There will be more as I try to free up some time.
08/30/2009: Sunday. Sunny all day and about 72 degrees F. Just right. No rain till Thursday, I think.
This morning a family came out to purchase a goat to be a companion to their gelding. Wed or Thursday I'll be taking at least three goats over to Danette and Joe's place. I need to double check to make sure that I have two doelings and three wethers. Got $60.00 for Marcy's doeling.
Chas and I put in a new bale of Wally hay into the Hereford's outdoor feeder. I took two square bales and a bunch of the Wally hay which had dropped off the round bale and put it into S1 for the Dexters. They grazed on that hay for a long time. This evening I added another square bale to the Dexter feeder. The little devils had reached under the gate and had devoured most of a bale and made a mess of another. I moved the bales away from the door but I may have to put in a better barrier to keep them from devouring the square bales. Honestly, you'd think I never fed them. They still have uneaten hay in their round bale feeder.
I dashed over the Tami's place after lunch to pick up some green beans she'd picked for me. I took her a dozen eggs. Took the dog with me. He likes to go for car rides.
I had awful leg cramps last night and a couple today. I have no idea what is causing them unless I'd somehow dehydrated.
Dinner was green beans, baked potatoes and salmon burgers. Not very inspired but then neither was I.
Note from Susie today. We're trying to resolve the problem of Noel and her cysts and her inability to breed again. And her acting like a bull.
08/29/2009: Saturday. Overcast but no rain. Not very warm but clamy.
We totally cleaned out the Welsh Mt sheep pen this morning including removing the compost pile that I'd made over the past year. All the waste hay is gone; we even used a leaf rake to rake up all the poop pellets. It looks so clean there now. The guys got a little carried away and cleaned out the sleeping area too so I had to lay down new hay but hey, the place is sparkling clean now.
We removed all the waste hay in the goat feeding area, too. I kept tripping over the mounds of loose hay and finally couldn't stand it. It's nice to go into winter with pens thoroughly cleaned out. Next comes the goat pen and the St Croix ram pen.
I've been gradually scrubbing each of the water tanks with a small scrub brush. They do look much better now.
My helpers spread the waste hay and pen cleanings on the north side of the driveway. I didn't see much point in making yet another compost pile when the hay and pellets would just break down over the winter right in the pasture.
I had them move some rocks into the cottage garden. They used them to line a new flower bed near the chicken coop. I'd had Enrique move three tractor bucket loads of compost from the Dexter pen to the beds last week. Today we smoothed out the compost and broke up a lot of the lumps. It looks as if I need to add another three loads to raise the bed up some more. I might have to move a few rocks into the bed a little as they encroached on the path some but that won't amount to much work.
I was off building one of those triangular feeders that I saw at the SWW goat show while they were laying in the river rock. Since I saw them at the Fair I wanted something that the three wethers and two does couldn't put their feet (and whole bodies) into. Using one of those protein block tubs just didn't work for obvious reasons: big flat surface with plenty of space to squat and pee or poor. Anyhow I had a piece of hog panel that had gotten squashed under a tree during the storms in 2007 that I was saving. I was able to find just enough unbent wireon it to turn into the feeder. I just tied everything together with binding twine to make sure it would work properly.
Speaking of protein blocks/tubs, I purchased a 250 lb block/tub for the Herefords at Del's. The price was right but the cattle ate it way too fast. It was completely gone in less than a week. I really prefer the harder molassas-based protein blocks I get from the Farm Store. They last quite a bit longer, at least two-three weeks. I like the protein blocks as they really compliment the grass hay I'm feeding, adding some protein and energy to the cow's diet. I'm saving the alfalfa till the chill of winter has set in. I also have second cut orchard grass at Victors. He's storing it for me until I have the space.
The last thing we did today was to clean out the gazebo garden. It was getting hard to walk around the garden and to see what few flowers are in there because it had grown up so much since we last cleaned it out. Way too many blackberry vines and elderberry branches. Now I can see the flowers. We took out one ATV trailer load and put it on yet another burn pile.
More undergrowth to take out next weekend. I also want to rip up the carpet and plastic that the previous owner put down to keep down the weeds in the gazebo garden. They totally covered the ground under my plum tree so that it doesn't get any water. I think we can handle the weeds with a sharp hoe or pruning shears depending on how far ahead of me the undergrowth gets.
I just talked to Bob F to ask about my bull calf. He said he only has two bull calves. He'd gotten rid of most of his herd in January (I'd forgotten he told me that) so only has 4 spring babies. He's planning on selling me one and castrating the other for meat for his freezer so Bob just won't be a source this year. Sorry. He did say that he's likely to have more steers next year. He might be someone to keep in your rolodex as a potential source of private treaty steers.
The bull calf that Bob has in mind for me has a slightly darker coat than the other. That's the one he'd keep for himself if he needed a new bull calf.
Victor has four of Bob's steers from last year or the year before last and they're wonderful looking. Real chunky/meaty looking. I saw them at Victor's when I went to order more hay a month or two ago.
I expect that bull calves will be higher priced next year as there are going to be a lot fewer beef animals. Nearly everyone has cut their herd sizes after last year's high hay prices. Even my friend Gary has reduced his herd considerably and will be buying three females from me next spring to raise up for meat for his customers. And Bob as well.
The Dexters as wonderful eating. If I were raising another steer for myself I would raise a Dexter. That way I could keep the entire animal. Dexter steers take between 24-28 months to mature to butchering weight. The older Dexter steer will be 24 months next March. Some grain for three months and he'll be ready to harvest.
Actually I have never eaten a Dexter but the blind taste test that was done in 2008 by a group of rare breed animal owners placed the Dexters in 3rd place after two really exotic and very rare cattle, cattle I'd never heard of. My friend Susie charges $4.50/lb for her Dexter meat and has more buyers than she has animals but then she lives up north in Snohomish where there are people with more of a disposable income than we have around here.
I expect I'll have enough Dexter meat in a few months. I'm going to butcher one of my old Dexter cows for hamburger as she didn't produce a calf for me this year. She likely has ovarian cysts. She's completely changed her personality. She's turned into a bull, trying to mount the cows in season and generally getting in the way of Huck who wants to breed the cows in standing heat. She's also pawing and snorting and carrying on. Time for her to go. Can't keep unproductive cows around. They cost too much to maintain over the winter.
I've been giving some thought to selling a hamburger Hereford. I thought I would sell her at a price that would include the cutting and wrapping, say $2.50/lb so that the purchaser could just pick up the meat without having to worry about paying the butcher. They'd just pay me.
I had calf liver and onions for dinner. Nothing like calves liver for a delicious dinner.
08/28/2009 Friday: Overcast. Looks like rain this evening.
I had an inspiration this morning. Surprised me because it doesn't happen often. As mentioned previously one of my Muscovies had 13 babies. I lost one and gave three to the momma. The rest I am raising in my goat barn in a large galvanized water tub. Feeding and watering is a bit of a problem. The water container I have leaks and the feed container is a flat ceramic kitchen bowl. The bowl works well but needs to be refilled twice a day. The water container is a PITA to move from the hose to the tub.
As I was thinking about the problem I remembered I had three dog/cat feeders in the cow barn, ones that had been left by the previous owner. I hadn't had time to FreeCycle them so I still had them in the barn. These are the "we're going away for the weekend and want to make sure Fluffy has food and water while we're gone" containers. They're cylindrical and take up vertical space but not much horizontal space. The feeder can be filled with dog or cat food but in my case will be filled with chicken crumbles. The waterer will obviously be filled with water.
This solves a lot of problems and frees up a few chore minutes in the morning. I just need to periodically fill up the feed container and the ducks will have plenty of feed in front of them to eat. The waterer will have to be changed once a day because ducks are so messy and love to grab a mouthful of feed and then dump it into the water.
I have an extra waterer but will probably find a use for it when I raise chicks. My cat is using the feeder that goes with it for his cat food.
It turns out that I have two waterers and one feeder. I'll just use one of each. I moved all three from the cow barn to the green barn and washed the feeder and one waterer.
Danette's two cows have gone to be meat. I hope she's not too sad. She said she would send me Kevin's phone number. Kevin is the gent that does the butchering.
I had hoped that Kevin would be able to make it to my place but when I talked to the guy at Salmon Creek Meats this morning he said that it was unlikely that he would be able to do my animals today. Sigh. I guess I can wait. I wanted to do it ASAP so I can move animals around and to give the little goats additional space. I have them in the duck pen now.
Regarding minerals for my critters. I generally prefer the loose minerals as I have heard that the goats/cows can't lick enough minerals off the block in one setting to meet their quota. Dunno if that's true. Their tongues get tired before they've gotten the minerals. Plus I like to mix the minerals with kelp so that they get the benefit of that mineral-laden stuff, too.
Certainly a block will last longer than loose minerals because the animals seem to prefer the loose minerals. Still I might put out a backup block for those who like to lick the blocks. I purchased Redmond mineral conditioner but haven't yet put any out since I haven't unloaded my car yet. (Lazy me).
I've heard that you can mix the Redmond minerals with water to dissolve it and can spray it on your land in conjunction with compost tea to improve the soil bugs. It is a soil amendment as well as an animal salt. Some people also add molasses to the mix which is really supposed to help the land and improve the tilth and fertility of the soil. Course some will be excreted by the animals over time and that should help with the fertility, too.
Danette suggested that I harvest or sell the two does that didn't take care of their babies. One was a runt that I expected would grow some with good feed but she never has. The other is larger and more meaty. I'm conflicted about doing her in. I think I will also try to sell the Nubian and her daughter. Lord knows I have more goats than I know what to do with.
The three wethers are still fairly small, not large enough to eat but someone might be interested in them if I price them low enough. I just separated them from their mothers a couple of weeks ago. They're eating grain and hay quite nicely. I need to add on to their pen to give them more space as I mentioned above.
Today was my mother's birthday. I gave her a call to find out how she's doing. She has really bad arthritis and is using a cane. We had a good chat.
This afternoon I went over to Mary & Mike's place to look at a BBQ that they'd picked up for scrap. They remembered that I wanted one and asked me to come over to see it. The bottom three burners have rusted out but they seemed to feel that I might be able to find a replacement in Walmarts. The dimensions are 8" along the pipes by 17.5 width across the burners. I've forgotten the name of the BBQ itself but Mike assures me that if they have the burners they will be standard.
Mary gave me some delicious tomatoes and cucumbers which I cleaned for dinner. I just washed the cucs and sliced them. Wow, what flavor. I also cooked corn from our garden and a couple of steaks. We each ate a piece of Marie's peach pie with Cool Whip. I'm stuffed.
08/27/2009 Thursday: Sunny. It will likely be hot today.
No word from the Salmon Creek Butcher. Sigh. Maybe he'll call later with a new date.
I spent most of the day working on entering receipts into Excel for tax purposes. Still have a lot to enter.
Pat and Chris put in the last two sections of plywood on the deck roof. Tomorrow they'll put the black tar paper on and perhaps even lay in the furring strips.
We got a bid from the metal roof folks: $5720. but he forgot about $150.00 worth of bits and pieces. I gave Jack a check for half the amount. He stopped by on his way back to whereever he has his shop: Longview? Pat is checking over the materials list and will let us know if we need to make changes.
In the afternoon Chas and I put a Wally bale of hay in with the Herefords. Most came in from the fields to get their share.
Mary and Gary came by at 6pm for a visit. Chas had chopped the vegetables for hot noodles but we hadn't started cooking. Mary and Gary visited till 7pm. They brought me some plastic coffee cans that I will add a screen to and turn into a worm box for a few worms, just as an experiment.
08/26/2009 Wednesday: Warm most of the day but around 4:30 pm it cooled off a little and got cloudy.
Senator Edward Kennedy died peacefully this morning at his compound in Hyannesport, MA. He'd had a brain tumor for over a year. He will be missed by many and especially missed by those who depended on him for encouragement in getting health care reform. A great loss.
Chas and I went into town and did our weekly chores. We got money to pay the guys working on the house, returned and borrowed new library books (and donated books and magazines to the library), went grocery shopping, recycled tin cans, and got me a new battery. My battery went dead catastrophically. One day it was working and the next it was dead as a doornail. It was designed to last 4 or 5 years and I guess it finally just died.
I also picked up 3 bags of livestock feed, and a 50 lb bag of Redmond super salt and a bucket. I still need to pick up minerals although I still have goat and cattle minerals. Be nice to only have to buy one kind of mineral for all the animals.
Chas and I moved a bale of Wally hay into the Dexter's pen. I called the girls when I was done and they all came in. They always seem to know when I call them that there's something good to eat at the end.
I moved several bucket-loads of dirt from the Dexter's compost pile to the surrounding fields. I also filled in some holes. Honestly this property is full of holes. Be nice to have smooth pastures to walk on. The dirt is also intended to act as humus since we collected it from around the Dexter lean-to.
Got a call from Anna Scharff who is going to buy Sweet Pea. She's been working 20 hours overtime and feels guilty because she hasn't emailed me. I purchased two St Croix sheep from her. She may come by Saturday because one of the neighbors is going to shoot her very old horse and bury it using a back hoe. The horse is basically starving to death because it has no teeth and can't digest any food it does take in.
08/25/2009 Tuesday: Cool and overcast, light drizzle.
Pat & Chris are here to work. Chris drove into Centralia to Lincoln Creek Lumber to pick up a single board. Pat didn't order quite enough facia boards to complete going around the deck. It sounds as if they're pounding in the skip sheeting/furring strips. And dropping heavy objects...
The guy selling metal roofing is supposed to come today to give us a bid. Pat has also asked a couple of eves trough vendors to give us a bid.
I need to ask if Pat can cut that piece of rebar in the Hereford feeder. Plus I should get the top of the other piece of rebar with the heavy duty steel bottom that Mike H gave me the last time I was over for a visit.
After I figured out just how many feeding stations I have to feed at twice a day, I was a little overwhelmed. It's sometimes a lot easier not knowing just how much work you have to do.
The Muscovy drake I threw in with the Welsh Mt sheep was out of the pen when I arrived at the green barn to do my morning chores there but at least the one duck got some respite from the constant feather plucking for one night. I really need to sell or butcher the aggressive duck; there are almost no feathers left on the non-aggressive duck. Even the down has been pulled out.
The guy from the metal sheeting/roofing company came by to give us a bid. He took measurements and did a schematic and will draw up how many sheets we'll need for the roof. He says it's available for a $1500.00 energy efficiency tax rebate when we do our taxes next year.
Marie came over with a lovely peach pie while I was doing my chores. I stopped briefly to talk and then finished up. Chas gave her some squash and a carton of eggs to take home with her.
No word from Susie about my question regarding Noel. I'm sure she's still thinking about how to answer me. I hope I haven't made her mad.
Chas and I put a Wally bale of hay into the Hereford's outdoor feeder.
08/24/2009 Monday: Cool this morning but by 9am the sun was shining. It's likely to be hot this afternoon.
Pat came to work around 10am. He brought us some tuna he'd caught on his trip as well as two crabs. He kindly cleaned them for us since I had no idea how to clean them. When he was done he took the bits and pieces that were left over and tossed them into Hope Creek for the crawdads.
Pat got the west side plywood on the trusses. First he had to go to pick up some scaffolding to stand on from Chip and then get it set up. Cutting the plywood is likely to be a bear because of the hip roof. Just about every single piece of plywood need to have an angle cut out of it. The plywood sheets are held together with clips.
Pat says he'll finish attaching the joists to the support pieces after they get the plywood on. He says it's not a high priority to do it now. Tomorrow the sheet metal person comes to give us a bid on the roof. I hope it's not more than $6,000.00.
Pat seems to feel that we'll have most of the work done by Labor Day. I sure hope so. I'm really tired of all the construction. I want my house back and peace and quiet.
I need to make a feeder for the little goats, one that they can't crawl into. I may see if I can make any use of the hog wire that got folded up when the tree fell on it last year. I only need 2 small pieces for each end and two longer pieces for the sides. I could pound in some rebar to keep the feeder from being moved around by the goats.
I may do a search on google to see what I can find in the way of goat feeders (hand made rather than purchased). I'm more looking for ideas.
Everything seems to be running smoothly on the farm. I've pretty much got a routine set up that seems to work. I do have several places and animals that I have to feed.
For example, I have the 3 Pekin and 2 Rouen ducks still in the duck tractor on our lawn between the house and Hope Creek. The Muscovy ducklings that I stole from their momma are in their own galvanized tub until they get too big. They may have to go out into a duck tractor when they get larger and no longer fit in the tub.
The chicken are all in the chicken coop area except for the four small barred rocks that I'll have to track down at night sometime and see if I can't pen them up in the coop.
I have sheep in three different spots. The Welsh Mt sheep are in their own pen; the St Croix females are in the old calf raising pen and the ram is inside the green barn in a separate pen.
The goats are in three areas, too. I have the two oldest doelings in a larger pen under the green barn lean to. The other 5 kids are in the former duck pen till they're weaned and can no longer get through the stock panels. The adult goats are in the regular goat pen.
The Dexters have their own pasture and lean-to shelter as well as one stall (the center stall); The Herefords have the road pasture and the barn lean-to for their eating and sleeping. I need to buy a round bale feeder for the Dexters that I can keep out on the pasture so that I don't have to do so much cleaning in the lean-to. It should be much easier to clean the Hereford's lean-to what with the new concrete slab we put in the third bay.
The pigs have their own pen and shelter that I keep filled with hay that I clean out of the hay storage section of the barn.
So, basically I have 12 feeding stations/areas. This doesn't count the dog and cat feeders.
I think I need to downsize.
Chas and I had a memorable dinner. We ate most of the tuna Pat caught along with squash surprise (the no-tomato variant) and corn from our garden. The corn was pretty good but not exceptional. I still have trouble eating corn on the cob because of my braces.
08/23/2009 Sunday: Overcast in the morning and chilly but it warmed up in the afternoon.
After I did morning chores I ate breakfast and changed my clothes. I decided to go to the fair and I'm really happy I did. I learned a lot about Boer goats and what to look for in a doe. My purchases from Melody and Patrick were all wrong. I also think I need to be feeding more grain to get them gaining weight, especially the young ones.
I asked Danette for the name and contact information for the judge who did such a good job of explaining why she placed the animals being shown. She sells percentage Boer doelings. I'd like to pick up some really meaty does, maybe two and get a picture of the preferred Boer doe style/look/structure.
When I got home from the fair Chas and I put a Wally bale of hay in the Hereford outdoor feeder. The cows heard the tractor as we got the hay and all of them came in from the far end of the hay field. The grass in the field is pretty sparse. They put their noses in the round bale feeder and proceeded to chow down. They were hungry. The grazing they do just keeps them busy during the day.
I went out with the ATV and rounded up the calves. They're pretty blase about the ATV now and just walk into the road pasture unless I push them.
In keeping with my idea of helping the Boer goats gain weight I upped the babies feed some and will increase it a little more each day until they leave some, then I'll stop adding grain at that point. I'd like to see my little Boer goats out of Mystical put on some muscle.
08/22/2009 Saturday: Overcast in am but sunny in the pm.
When I went down this morning I noticed that one of the two ducklings I put under the old Muscovy had been smothered. The other baby has found its mother. She has three babies. The old Muscovy crushed one and the other headed right for momma sometime during the night. It amazed me that momma and baby found each other again. I tossed the dead baby outside and Lucky picked it up. When I got back to the house he was crunching on it. It made me a little queasy hearing him crunch the dead duckling.
I drove the Muscovy out of the nest and tossed the eggs and put a board in so that her nest no longer exists. The Muscovy mother-want-to-be is very old now and very bad tempered. I expect she'll turn into duck soup shortly (snort, snort). I have my new butchering knife sharpened and ready to go. However, I'll have to wait till she puts on some weight. She got quite thin from sitting on the nest for so long.
Enrique & Juan moved 8 bales of hay to the Dexter feeding stall. That way when I run out of hay from a round bale and don't feel like moving another into their feeder I can just feed square bales. Holy smokes, I just realized the Dexters ate nearly an entire bale in 3 days. They like Wally's hay way too much. It disappears extremely fast.
After that E&J moved 2 - 50lb sacks of chicken feed to the chicken coop and 4 bags of all purpose feed to the goat barn. Enrique dumped one of the bags of chicken feed into the chicken feed garbage pail but put the other bag under the east roost. I moved it so that it was standing upright so that the birds wouldn't poop on the bag.
I'd purchased a large protein block for the Herefords on Wednesday. We moved a large tire that I had for holding the tubs to the hill by the water tubs and put the protein tub in that tire to keep it from moving around. By then I'd put the Herefords out to graze so that they didn't try it till I brought them in for the night when I did evening chores. They seemed to like it. I'm going to be interested in how long the tub lasts.
I counted the cattle in the road pasture. By my count I have 18 Herefords, crosses and Milking Shorthorns. Ouch. That's way too many animals. I will have to take some to the auction. I need to contact Ty and see if he's interested in doing some penning with his horses and maybe even moving the critters to the sale barn.
Enrique and Juan finished cleaning out the Dexter pen. They took the area in the lean to down quite far and when they were done Enrique used the bucket to drag the dirt in front of the lean to over to the compost pile. I also asked him if he would mound the compost pile back up again since the cattle had run all over the pile and had gradually knocked it down. We need to spread quite a bit of that back on the land.
While Enrique was smoothing out the paddock Juan spread the compost Enrique dumped today and last Saturday on the pastures by hand so that it's more or less evenly spread out. I was planning on using the harrow but who knows when I'd get it done. I like having the compost spread out.
After lunch which was quite late (1:30 pm) Enrique, Laura and Juan picked up and dug up medium sized rocks from inside and outside the goat pen, tossed them into the tractor bucket and dumped them on the rock pile for future use. I guess the Whitakers or Johnson's had dumped a pile there for possible use some day. I kept tripping over them and finally decided I'd had enough.
We picked up the stones outside the pig pen first and dumped them. Then I opened up the new gate I'd made for the goat pen and we picked up stones from inside the goat pen. By the time we were done both sides of the fence were pretty flat which will make it a whole lot easier for me to walk around.
Late in the work day we filled in three low spots on the west side of the driveway with compost from the Hereford pasture compost pile. Juan leveled and smoothed the piles. I have other holes to fill in but we can do that over time. I will seed these filled-in areas this September after the rains start and the new dirt has had a chance to settle and get really wet. Chas was concerned that there would be no place for the water to drain off the road if we filled in all the low spots but I don't think there will be a problem. It will be a lot easier to cut that section of the driveway now that the dips aren't quite so deep.
I want to level the entire area so that we can cut the grass with the mower if we want. Eventually I will fence off that area for the sheep/goats and they can keep the grass down.
I did not use one of the beds in the cottage garden this year. I decided to take the opportunity to add more compost while it was empty of flowering plants. I asked Enrique to bring three loads of compost from the Dexter compost pile and dump on former Dahlia bed. My role today was to open and shut the south gate as he came out with a load and back in when he returned for another load.
I still have to spread the compost around the central stump and make it look pretty. I also need to spray the small bushes that are growing up from the brush we cut down last year. Those dang stumps keep trying to coppice. That means we're always cutting them back.
Dinner was southern chicken breast (type of chicken breast), biscuits and green beans. These southern breasts at least have some flavor unlike the Foster Farms chickens.
I wrote Susie H a note telling her I was disappointed in Noel's inability to have additional calves and wanted to hear from her about her thoughts on my concern.
08/21/2009 Friday: Overcast much of the day and pleasantly cool.
Chris showed up at 9am to work on the skip sheeting on the roof. When he gets that done and when the plywood has been nailed to the deck roof Pat will contact the company in Vancouver/Longview to order our metal roofing. Periodically the entire house will shake as he tromps around up there.
Left to do: reroofing, deck, temporary window framing, railing, backfill to make the area around the steps flat (maybe put in a concrete pad), finish deck roof, install cam lights.
Richard also showed up around 11am to work on the exterior cam lights. He'll also install the new bathroom fan which we need really badly to suck the moisture out of the bathroom after showers. Even my towels start to smell mildewy after a few days even when it's hot and even when I carefully spread them out to air dry.
2pm. Chris finished skip sheeting the roof. The 1x4s have been tacked down. He says that he'll have Pat check to make sure the 1x4s are in the correct place on the roof and then will screw down the 1x4s to complete the job. He left at 2pm.
Chas had to go into town. The primer he purchased from Rhodda separated and had to be returned. Chas discovered it's easier to prime the plywood if he first brushes the panel off with a wire brush. The wire brush removes the rough spots and loose wood and makes it easier to brush on the paint. Chas said he'll do another panel or two tomorrow.
July 1-10, 2009 in reverse chronological order
07/10/2009 Friday: The day started off with ground fog so I knew it would be hot. It was. It's still hot out and it's nearly 9:30pm.
I went into work today and continued working on the indicators project. I'm sure there are three versions by now, the full page indicators and the snapshot in time pages (all 11 of them) and probably a copy on John A's computer. They'll all have to be reconciled at some future date. They'll be presenting on Monday at 9am. I'll need to get up really early to listen to the PPT presentation that John and his colleagues will make.
Before I got into work I hit the bank and drew out $1000. to pay Ty for the hay. I'll owe him for 143 bales @ $3.00 each and 130 bales at $2.00 each for a total of $429 + $260.00 = $689. His price per 10 bales is less than Gary's round bales even if I figure 10-12 square bales for each round bale. The second batch of hay he said got rained on a little but it's nice and leafy. I'll feed that first.
I've been keeping an eye on Sweet Pea's baby. I don't believe she's been feeding it because all it does is sleep. Tonight I checked her belly and it seemed empty. I drove back to the house on the ATV and mixed up some milk replacer for her. I grabbed her, straddled her and pried open her mouth and stuck the bottle in. Fortunately she was hungry enough to take right to the bottle. I only made up half a bottle and she drank it all.
I'm afraid this means that Sweet Pea is stew meat or will be sold for slaughter since she's not caring for her baby. LauraVic seems to be kicking her baby away but I planned to get rid of her later this year anyway. I hope it's not true and that she'll let the baby nurse. I'll keep a watchful eye on that baby, too. It's a lot more active than Sweet Pea's baby.
Later: I think I was wrong in assuming that Sweet Pea is the mother of the calf. LauraVic is feeding both of them with me supplementing one of the calves with milk replacer. I can't believe that LauraVic had twins but the momma is not owning up.
Even later: I was right. Sweet Pea did have the baby but wasn't going to feed her.
Danette and Joe showed up to bring me some hamburger. I'd asked them if they had any hamburger left and would they sell me some. Danette brought me 3 packages of hamburger plus two jars of home-made jam. That was so sweet of her. She said it was in "payment" for the loan of my small trailer.
They've been using my small trailer to pick up hay and, based on my suggestion, a round bale feeder that they can use to toss square bales into for feeding their cows. They got the feeder at a lot less - about $95.00 less than what I paid for it at the Farm Store.
Danette tells me she doesn't much care for the Angus steers they picked up at the auction. If I have any Black Baldy steers for raising next year she'd be interested in them but she's not interested in the Black Baldy heifers because of the bull next door. With any luck a couple of my Herefords should give me some Black Baldy bull calves which I will steer right away.
It's easier for me to sell the Black Baldies than the Herefords. The babies look like ghosts, shiver, although I don't mind bottle feeding them.
I showed her the new trenches and water/power system. She said how much she liked the hydrant system she has at her place. She did say that if you leave them on they freeze. Makes sense to me.
I plan on using insulation on each of the hydrants just so that I don't have to carry water as I have in past years. I want an easy farming life. I'm wondering how big a plastic pipe I'd have to buy to put over the top of the hydrants as further insulation.
Around 8:45pm Ty showed up with another load of hay. This hay dried out too fast in the field so that the bales tend to fall apart when dropped from the top of the trailer. It got rained on as I mentioned above but it is fine hay and looks pretty good. With the fields all dried out I'll be having to feed hay the rest of the summer unless it rains. I paid him $990 for the hay he delivered for me.
I talked to him again about the round bale feeder. I told him I was interested in becoming a silent partner if he decided to buy a round baler. He said he would think about it. It's much easier to manage the round bales than a zillion square bales. Each round bale is the equivalent of about 10 square bales depending on the weight of the round bales and the weight of the square bales.
The damn cows have been going through the electric fence. I know it's Wendy that's doing it. I may have to put some of the insulators on the other side of the fence. I think I have some insulators that will fit on the wrong side of the fence. If I don't, I know where I can buy some.
07/09/2009 Thursday: Overcast and cool. Late in the afternoon the sun started shining.
I think that it is Sweet Pea who had yesterday's Black Baldy heifer. I have not seen her nursing her baby but her udder is full of milk. I can't see any other cow that's bagged up like she is except Myrtle and Myrtle has not had a baby, but she must be close.
Today, LauraVic had a Black Baldy heifer. The baby looks good. It still thinks it's invisible.
I spent the morning removing hoses and Y's and putting them where I needed them. First I had to water the cows. They were standing patiently by their water tubs but obviously in need of liquid.
I attached the hose that ran into their tub to the hydrant on the south side of the barn because I didn't want to take the time to undo the hose. It's tied to staples in the side of the barn under the east lean-to. Once the tub filled up and the Herefords got their fill of water, I disconnected the hose and started going around collecting just the right length of hose for giving each set of animals supported by a hydrant their water.
Ok, here's what I did. The hydrant closest to the stalls on the east side of the cow barn at the south end will support any animals in the stalls and the Dexter's waterer out in the field. I did not put a Y on that hydrant but I will because I need a length of hose to water plants as well as the dedicated Dexter water tub hose. Currently the dedicated Dexter water tub hose is the only one connected to that hydrant.
The new 24 foot hose I bought a few weeks ago brings the Dexter water tub hose over to the hydrant. Chas suggested I bury that hose in the existing trench. Makes sense to me. I may partially fill in the trench and lay the hose about 6-12 inches down. I asked him what I would do if it stopped working. He suggested I just cut it off and lay down a new hose. Simple solution. I liked it.
I took the Y off the old faucet that used to live between the two stalls and attached it to the Hereford hydrant. Then I ran a short length of hose to the tub sitting by the new electric fence and installed a longer length of hose that runs to the automatic waterer sitting on the tub that sits parallel to the north cow barn wall.
I removed the 4-way adaptor that I'd installed on the faucet on the west side of the house and put it on the hydrant by the green barn. A week or so ago I purchased a female:female adaptor so that I could put the piggies on a Lixit waterer. That got put on one of the off-on switches. I ran quite a bit of water through it because it was a little rusty from sitting from last year.
On the end off-on switch nearest the goats I installed the hose that was already available to water them. That is two down.
The north end off-on switch is running the duck and Welsh Mt sheep waterer. I still have one available off-on switch that I can use if I need more outlets.
I installed a Y adaptor on the south hydrant that we installed between the chicken coop and the potting shed and ran one long hose that I can use for watering the chickens and the garden. The other part of the Y will also have a hose that I can use for water in the potting shed and eventually in the green house when I get that built.
I really like those hydrants. Course I didn't have any idea how they worked but Chas came to the rescue and got the water turned on. It turns out that there are 3 positions: off, halfway (but no on) and all the way up which is on. I felt like a darn fool but then I'd never seen one in action. I thought half-way was fully on. Learned something today.
By then it was lunch time and I came in to relax and eat.
I spoke to Danette today. Actually she phoned me to talk about the trailer she and Joe borrowed to take chickens to the butcher. She told me they'd picked up 30 bales of hay. Danette wanted to know how much hay the calves she's raising would eat. I told her an adult cow would eat 30 lb a day and that younger ones would eat less, maybe 20 lb depending on their age. She immediately decided they didn't have enough hay. She asked if she could keep the trailer longer so that they could pick up more hay.
That's fine with me since I've managed to fill two of the four bays in the equipment storage building with hay. Bays 1 and 3 have hay (counting from the south side). Bay 3 has grass hay in square bales and bay 1 is storing 17 round bales. I really have no space to store the trailer. I might just leave it outside and cover it with a tarp.
We were actually able to stack some of the round bales two high last night. Chas is getting pretty good at stacking hay. Course he's had a lot of practice since he stacked in 74 round bales from Gary and the 20 bales from Wally.
The Herefords are enjoying Wally's hay enormously. We put in a round hay bale last night as we were putting Wally's hay away and by now it's more than half gone. I did turn them out into the big pasture to graze. They're less mischievous when they have limited grazing time. Once they start laying down it means they're finished grazing for awhile and are chewing their cud and it's time to bring them in. They had about 3 hours of grazing time.
In the afternoon I went to visit Mary and Mike. I wanted to thank Mike again for his suggestion about drilling a hole in the concrete to hold a pin that would keep the collapsible feeder from collapsing. Mike sure is handy to have around. He's building me a spear to put on my bucket for spearing hay bales for carrying out to the field.
Mary showed off her garden and her new goodies. That woman is a working fool. She has a great eye for laying out plants in an attractive pattern. Her place really looks good considering that she was flooded out two years ago.
Chas brush hogged the rest of the south-west pasture and then got a good start on the north-west pasture. He looked worn out around dinner time and admitted he might have overdone it. Sitting on that bumpy tractor and steering the tractor in circles is a lot of work. It's hard on your concentration and hard on your back.
He mentioned that there was lots of clover in the field. Course I did include extra clover in the seed mixes I put on the fields.
We still need to pull the t-posts from the furthest west pastures and remove the gates. I'm hoping that by next year we'll be able to use those pastures for grazing but I might be a little overoptimistic. Oh well, one of these years I'll be able to use those two pastures.
Back to work tomorrow. Monday is the presentation to the Lewis County Board of Health. I sure hope something is ready for presenting on Monday. I'll have to get up really early Monday morning to make the 9am meeting time.
Dinner was different for Chas and myself. I cooked a Cornish Game Hen for myself and some Kielbasa for Chas. We had potatoes and peas for our vegetables.
All in all this was a good day. I got a project started and finished without much trouble, just a lot of walking around. I did take a length of hose down to the chickens so that I would have enough hose to for watering the ducks. I hate filling a bucket and hauling the water. Too much like work.
07/08/2009 Wednesday: Overcast and gloomy with rain showers. Not sure it showered 50% of the time as the weather channel said it would but it did give us scattered showers.
I went in to work at the Health Department. On the way there I stopped at the Farm Store and picked up 4 bags of Country Livestock and a female:female fitting for my pig waterer. I also purchased a Y adaptor to split one faucet into two outlets.
I also stopped at Cenex and bought 10 gallons of hydraulic fluid for the tractor. That stuff is expensive. It cost about $123.00 plus or minus. Then I went to the bank and picked up $300.00 for paying the guys this weekend.
After work I stopped at Sunbirds and picked up a Y adaptor, but a large one for the pig & goat hoses and a 12 x 16 foot tarp.
By the time I got home, Wally was here to drop off 20 round bales of local grass hay. This is the first time he's been on time. His bales are tighter this year for some reason so they stack better. I paid $900 for the 20 round bales. He charges $45.00 each bale.
Chas and I put 17 bales into the first bay of the equipment shed this time. I want to save Gary's hay for later. One bale of hay went into the Hereford's feeder, one went into the Dexter feeder and one went into the Dexter stall for later use.
I'm going to put the tarp across the back side of the hay to protect it from any rain we might have. We'll be working out of that hay first. We put it in the south-most bay where we usually store the tractor. I'll have to make some tarp pins to hold it in place from some of my 12.5 gauge wire..
As we were putting away the hay I noticed a new black baldy calf. When we took the round bale into the Hereford pen I checked the new calf out. It's a heifer calf so I don't have to band it. I have no idea which of the cows it belongs to because they all had their noses in the feeder. I'll ear tag it tomorrow while it still thinks it's invisible and maybe determine who the mother is. I'll bet it's LauraVic.
Then I did my chores and came in to make dinner. Dinner was a couple of very small steaks and pirogues. Chas was good and peeled some carrots for roughage. I can't eat hard carrots with my braces. I can't really bite with my front teeth.
While I was at work Richard finished installing the hydrants. On Monday he'll concrete them in after we've had a chance to make sure the system works properly. He said that the concrete will just lift out if we need access to the black pipe below. Gary suggested that I put in a post by each hydrant but in most cases I'm close enough to the wall to put a loop around the pipe and attach it to the wall or post. I will need to get some insulation for the exposed pipe and for the handle. It almost looks like a rag and a plastic sack will keep the pipe dry and somewhat insulated.
07/07/2009 Tuesday: Overcast and gloomy most of the day but the sun did shine later on around dinner time.
Busy day around the farm. I was going to work on APHA stuff but Richard and his co-worker showed up with a ditch witch to start work on digging ditches between the well house and the equipment shed via the green barn, and between the well house and the south end of the vegetable garden and I got side tracked. The line from the green barn also crossed the road and went over to the electric fence on the north side of the cow barn. One line goes from the water faucet currently situated between the two north stalls to the south end of the cow barn. Essentially I'll have water hydrants at each end of the cow barn, at the south end of the vegetable garden, by the south-west corner of the green barn and by the equipment shed.
We managed to cut the phone line in the middle of the road necessitating a visit by a CenturyTel repairman and a charge for his services. CenturyTel will bill us. We did not cut the line to our septic system as far as we can tell.
Chas tested DSL so that if we had any problems we could call CT back and get the repair person back out to fix the problem.
I dug out some of the dirt in the trench where it wasn't level on most of the lines except for the one running between the green barn and the equipment shed, plus I dug the hole for one of the hydrants.
By the end of the day I was tired.
Some of the trenches have been filled in but there are sections where the dirt needs to be replaced in the trench. We'll use the dirt from the compost pile.
Charles began brush hogging the large south west pasture where last year he dug the trench. The end of the trench was about 4 inches too high. When he finishes brush hogging both the south west and north west pastures he'll dig out the end of the trench.
The grass and clover mix seeds we planted last fall have grown considerably. We have canary grass which must be about 5 feet tall. Chas can only do about half the row otherwise it binds up. He got about 2/3 of the field completed today. He'll likely finish tomorrow.
I'm hoping to put in a second fence along the freeway to keep the cows in but likely it won't be till next year. It will be a two strand fence like the corridor fence we have now but it won't form a corridor around the field; it will just run along the freeway. I'll need to put a gate in this fence so we can graze cows along it if we want. That's a large section of fenced-off land.
We also need to pull the existing t-posts that divide the two pastures. Those will be reused along the highway, I think.
07/06/2009 Monday: It tried to rain today but it was more like a mist and lasted most of the morning and part of the afternoon.
During chores this morning I took pictures of the St. Croix ewes and ram, the piggies and some of the goats. I also took pictures of the square bales of hay I got from Ty.
With the rain I wonder if he'll be able to get me more hay. Likely it's out in the field already baled but rained on.
I fed two bales of hay to the Herefords. I did not put the Dexters out to graze but fed them hay and alfalfa. They still have lots of the Wally bale left but only eat it when they're starving.
I took pictures of the pigs, goats, and St Croix sheep for my records. I still have to name the St Croix sheep.
I came in after chores, ate breakfast, and promptly fell asleep in my chair. I think Chas must have turned off the TV sometime.
After lunch Charles brush hogged pastures S2 and S3. They were filled with Canadian thistles with the occasional bull thistle mixed in. I pulled thistles by hand as long as my hands could stand it. Even with wearing gloves the thistles made it through my gloves. What thistles I couldn't pull by hand I pulled the flower heads from the stem but I didn't get all of them. I really need to get the weed whacker out and cut thistles under the electric wire.
07/05/2009 Sunday: Cold and cloudy.
I did my morning chores and then came in and fell asleep till around 11am when Charles, Sharon's friend, phoned to ask if he could visit. We said, sure, since we really enjoy talking to him. We had coffee/tea together and chatted about interesting things. Chas intends to buy some raw coffee beans so that they can try roasting coffee. This was Charles's idea.
This cold nights weather is not going to help the garden grow. The corn is up only about 6 inches, way lower than it's supposed to be by this date. With the really hot weather the ground dries up and the plants desiccate. I water as often as I can but I don't think it's nearly enough.
Hardly any of the beets have come up. Very disappointing. Chas's kohl-rabi barely sprouted. The pole beans are short and not very many sprouted. The chard is about 4 inches high and doing well. The single kale plant, at least that's what I think it is, is really growing. Onions are nearly ready for harvesting as green onions. The garlic is turning brown. I need to prune off the bulblets growing on top.
I fed two bales of Ty's hay to the Herefords. They loved it. The Dexters also got some of the same hay. The Dexters ate hay while around 4pm the Herefords went out to graze for three hours. I figure if I keep their grazing time short they'll fill up and not get into as much trouble. They'll be too hungry.
I want to put the last remaining round bale from Wally's last batch which is in the Dexter's stall into the Hereford feeder so that they'll clean it up. The Dexters are much more discerning in their choice of hay but the Hereford's seem to eat mostly everything. Not that I try to feed them bad hay but I have to get rid of last year's hay from Wally.
We used up the leftover spaghetti sauce from last week. I boiled it pretty well before we ate it.
I have got to take pictures of the goats so that I can sell some of them.
I registered for APHA this fall and secured our hotel reservations. By our I mean Margaret B's and myself. All I have to do now is get my flight reserved.
07/04/2009 Saturday: Cloudy in the am but hot and sunny in the pm.
Today was quite busy. My friends showed up to help around the farm around 6:45am and I put them to work right away. Chas wanted the trench between the well house and our house partially filled in. Enrique and Juan left a foot of space between ground level and the bottom of the trench for the Dish Network guy who was going to be here sometime before 5pm to lay in his cable. Enrique used the tractor to move the dirt while Juan did the shovel work. I was happy to get that project done.
Fortunately I'm getting up at 6am and was already out doing chores. Generally I feed the ducks and chickens in their chicken/duck tractors, move the tractors to a new spot and water them. I only empty the ducks water once a day since they fill their beaks full of dirt and then rinse their mouths out in the water. About 10 minutes after I fill their protein tub full of clean water they have turned it into mud.
Fortunately the mud settles to the bottom so that water on top, while muddy is not chewable. I generally end up with half an inch of mud on the bottom of the water tub that has to be cleaned out.
About 7:30am Ty showed up with a crew of 4 guys and a trailer-load of hay. Ty didn't have my phone number so he didn't call ahead of time. I would have had the equipment shed ready for the storage. As it was we had to move some lumber and lay down pallets. We ran out of pallets. I'll need to pick up a tarp or two, something I should have done before, to lay the remaining hay on.
Ty and his friends and Juan and Enrique stacked 143 bales. I'm expecting at least 300 and maybe more. I want to be sure to have lots of hay available for my critters this coming winter even though I'm going to downsize.
I had the guys remove the dog carrier from the pig pen and put wood chips and hay into the calf tel. The piggies had made a nest for themselves way at the back when I checked during evening chores.
While Enrique helped Chas put hay in the cow barn, Juan and I wound up polycord for use next year. We did not take down the rebar.
Before Juan and Enrique left they moved most of the lumber from the cow barn to the equipment shed. There are still two very long pieces of lumber left to move but they're so long I'm not sure they'd fit in the equipment shed. They must be 20 feet long.
Then we built a buck pen in the lean to in the green barn. It's still not exactly what I wanted - one of the problems of rushing things.
Around 4pm the Dish Network guy came out and hooked us up with High Def TV. It will cost us a little extra every month but the difference between normal, old fashioned TV, and HD is amazing. The phone company will need to come out to check to see where the phone line is before we can install the pole. The Dish Network folks can't dig the hole for the pole until the phone line location has been verified, otherwise, Dish gets fined.
After he left we dashed over to Suzanne and Rick's place for their annual 4th of July BBQ and potluck. The food was exceptional and the fireworks were spectacular. I drove by yesterday and donated $50. to Suzanne for the purchase of fireworks.
07/03/2009 Friday: Cloudy in the am but hot in the pm.
Chas and I replaced the road pasture gate with one that isn't bent in the middle. Gary suggested that we reverse the gate so that the gate hangs from the straight post, not the post that's leaning. I think it would be better situated on the straight post near the loading ramp because we usually come from the cow barn. Now we have to drive around the gate. The gate will close against the loading dock instead of hitting the dirt and coming to a shuddering stop.
Gary and Mary brought over 20 more round bales. It was late in the day when they delivered it so we only got 10 of the bale put in the barn. We'll no doubt pay tomorrow for not having it put away.
The co-ax cable is in but not yet hooked up. There's a plug in my study and beside the TV so that we can surf the net from our TV chairs if we want. The cabling for the Dish satellite, High Definition TV is installed. Our electrician is doing the work.
We ate leftover chicken for dinner.
07/02/2009 Thursday: It's even hotter today than it was yesterday.
One of the bales of hay we moved last night fell off the bottom bale and was leaning against the fenceline feeder but inside the fenced-off area so the cows didn't spread the hay everywhere. Before we could stack the remaining 10 bales we had to get that one down. We moved two bales and let the last one fall into place. We discovered that picking up the bales while they are on their sides and then flipping them so that they're on their ends turns them into balls. They lose their cylindrical shape so this last batch we turned on end and carried them in without dropping them into place. So, now I have 54 bales.
Also, regarding the hay, stacking the bales too close together by placing them into the previous row makes one side lift up and the other side become lower. It's better to leave space and then push the bale into it's designated slot. That way the bales don't tip over. It doesn't help that Gary's bales are slightly kitty-whumpus to start with.
We moved another bale out to the Herefords this morning before we started moving the bales Gary dropped off into the barn.
Unless I get rid of a lot of my critters I'm not going to have enough hay to last the winter. Something to think about. I need to call Ty again but it's too late tonight.
Neither Pat nor the electrician, Richard, showed up today.
Mike and Mary H picked up the large trailer so that they could move joists for their new workshop area. Unfortunately they had to move the wood Chas had the guys put on the trailer off the trailer so they could use it. Later they brought it back. Both were suffering from the heat, but especially Mary.
Gary finally got his cows butchered. Mary ended up with 7 more tongues and 7 hearts. I guess they had tongue sandwiches for lunch. I have to figure out what to do with testicles.
Got an email reply from Clay. He says his freezer is full. I suggested he contact Bolar to see how much meat that would be in terms of space. I also suggested he could take half a calf if one entire calf was too much. I have to laugh. He was pretty insistent when he and his daughter were her a month or so ago that he wanted a cow. Never can tell with customers.
07/01/2009 Wednesday: Gad, it's already July. Hot today with sunshine all day.
I had the butcher come out today to do Cheddar but instead I had him do my two Black Baldy bulls. I just couldn't do it. Cheddar's calf is still nursing and I really like her. Come fall I might have a change of heart but for now, she lives!
Bolar came early because Gary's cows heard the truck and freaked out, jumped the fence and took off into the pasture. Rather than wait around for Gary to round up the cattle he came over to my place and then went to Rick N's to get one of his cows. When I asked, Bolar gave me a used butcher knife after he was all done butchering the two bull calves. I was quite happy to pay him but he asked for cookies instead.
With the two bulls gone it should be quieter in the Hereford barn yard. So, two down, 6 more to go. One of my senior Herefords is limping. Old age, I think. Gary agrees and indeed was the one to point out to me that she's showing her age. She's just getting tired I think. After she weans her baby this January, she'll go, plus the red bull to Gary's and the three Milking Shorthorns to someone on Craigslist. Then I have to make a couple of hard decisions. I have a Hereford that I don't particularly like that I think I will sell with her baby depending on the sex of the baby. She's a nice looking cow but easily spooked. Or I may sell the cow that didn't get bred during regular breeding season. Or maybe one of my favorites who lost a huge calf last year. Hard to decide. I want the Hereford herd down to 7 or 8 cows of smaller frame size.
Gary is coming next week to pick up his red bull calf so no more bulls until the young ones come along - except for Huck.
Gary delivered 54 round bales of lovely grass hay. It's lovely and green and hardly has any stems in it. I reached in to put scraps in the Hereford feeder and it was snatched out of my hand before I could let go. I asked Gary to save me some additional bales if he was going to do more bales. He said that if he could find some more good grass hay on the 30 acres he's doing, he'll bring me some more round bales. He put up about 120 bales for his own use but I expect that won't be enough. I know for certain 54 round bales plus 300 square bales won't be enough for me unless I really cut the Hereford herd. And I am working on that.
With this drought the grass is going downhill fast I'll probably have to feed hay early. I must say that the field that Chas brush hogged has come back very nicely. What with everything going on at our place it may be awhile before we get to brush hog again but I'd like to get everything cut back soon. It seems to grow better and the cows like it better.
I'm taking a few days off Tuesday through next Tuesday, then back to work on Wed. I thought I would have time to sort of veg out and do some weeding in my garden and weed whacking one of the Dexter pastures that is full of thistles going to seed.After I cut them the Dexters will eat them with relish.
Yesterday instead of relaxing Chas had me out laying driveway fabric (Tripar) and shoveling bucketloads of gravel. We're trying to get the last bay in the barn cemented. Once that's dry and ready to be used we'll make a concrete pad out about 20 feet along the length of the barn and then 6 feet beyond that we'll lay in Tripar and gravel and have the concrete truck come back do do another pour. I'm bound and determined not to have the animals knee high in mud this winter.
I'm hoping to get the Dexter pen concreted too but I'm afraid that may have to wait till next year. Chas doesn't seem concerned about money but I like to spread out the spending.
Then today Gary delivered 54 round bales of local grass hay which Chas and I mostly put in the barn which meant that today I'm even more tired since I didn't get a rest from yesterday's labors. We have 20 bales still aging in the driveway making for an interesting driving path for visitors. We're so slow as Chas has it in his mind that he has to sneak up on each bale, pick it up daintily and then go halfway around the barn before he can put it into place with lots of TLC. Lots of backing up and too-ing and fro-ing. Drives me nuts. Just go straight into the barn and drop the round bale into place, damn it!
I also have 300 square bales coming. Probably take three trips. Most of the hay is just across the street so they don't have to drive far.
My small trailer purchased a year ago May has finally been licensed and the lights and turn signals checked. They work. Our friends with the Boer goats borrowed the trailer and will be using it to haul chickens in boxes and carrying cases to a guy who butchers and then cut and wraps them for customers for $4.50 each. Ouch. Nice to know that trailer is available if I decide I want to pick up hay for some reason. We'll have to use Chas's car since mine is set up with the equipment for the large trailer.
My butcher no longer will take liver, hearts, tongue or tails to cut and wrap. Apparently farmers who included those things with the beef made problems for my butcher. Customers would refuse to pay for the "extras."
No problem, I said, here's a bucket, stick the "extras" in there and I'll take what I want and give Mary & Mike the stuff they like. They'll take calves liver but not cow liver. Cow liver is too strong. M&M sure like the hearts and tongue. I saved the testicles from the bull calves and will try them out. Not sure what you do with them but I remember something about boiling them?? I'll have to check out the Web for a better answer.
I had liver and onions for dinner tonight. It was pure eating pleasure. I'd forgotten just how good calves liver is.
As of today we have a new fan with lights in the kitchen over the kitchen table. The awful/broken kitchen light is no more. We had the light hanging on the wall where I keep the microwave removed and new recessed lights put in over the kitchen sink. Our electrician is a contractor and will also be wiring up the various barns and outbuildings and running water pipes from the far end of the garden to the green barn and to the outbuildings just in case I ever put animals down in that section of the property - likely sheep or goats). We'll finally get a fan that vents outside instead of into the tops of my kitchen cupboard.
Richard (the electrician) is also going to wire the attic so that we can put in our new high def tv this Saturday.
Oh yes, he moved the large outdoor light which was on the end of the tack room and being held up by its wire (dangerous) to over between the first and second stalls so I'll have a light more centrally located to see by when it's dark out. He's also replacing the unsafe electrical panel in our tack room and will be putting in a plug hanging from the ceiling so that Chas can use electrical equipment when he's at his table working area. The outlet/plug on the north side of the cow barn now only works when the lights are on. Soon it will work anytime, lights or no lights. That will be nice because it means I can start the chickens in the barn instead of in my basement. That will be much better.
I acquired 3 new sheep: St Croix meat sheep and have the Welsh Mt sheep up for sale on Craigslist. Two ewes from one farm and an unrelated ram from another. So far everyone is separated but I have to get rid of some of the smaller stock to free up areas to keep them in. My barn is getting crowded.
I have a goat who absolutely refuses to nurse one of her babies. It's the most beautiful doeling. I guess she selected the two she wanted to nurse and that's that. Morning and night I dump her on the ground and kneel on her so that I can let the nicest doeling nurse. She looks pretty good considering she's just eating twice a day.
My breeding buck from last year was harvested last Saturday and I acquired another beautiful buck from Danette for breeding this fall. I think I told you about him already so I won't bore you.
I've attached a pix of our dismantled well house from having the pipe develop a hole. While the roof was off we replaced the tank and pump and pipeline and cable to the pump. The third picture is of the house sans deck.
Aside from that my property looks like someone threw a bomb at it. It's even worse now because a deep trench goes between the house and the well house for additional power and water lines and there are large piles of dirt everywhere. My back yard has been chicken tractored to death but the grass should be very lush from all the chicken poop this fall and next summer.
I did manage to find a nice bench that I assembled (sort of) so that I could see what it looked like. It wobbled when I got all the screws hand tightened. Chas tightened up all the screws for me using the proper tool. I just used a wrench when you really need a rachet. Lazy me. That will likely go on the deck when it gets completed and the roof goes on.
Garden is dry and needs weeding. After putting the hay in the barn tomorrow maybe I'll have time to do some garden work. It's amazing what you can do with a good swan's neck hoe in a short period of time.
Dinner for me was liver and onions. Chas had a cold plate with cheese and sliced meat. My liver was so good. Nothing like calf liver!
I went into work today and continued working on the indicators project. I'm sure there are three versions by now, the full page indicators and the snapshot in time pages (all 11 of them) and probably a copy on John A's computer. They'll all have to be reconciled at some future date. They'll be presenting on Monday at 9am. I'll need to get up really early to listen to the PPT presentation that John and his colleagues will make.
Before I got into work I hit the bank and drew out $1000. to pay Ty for the hay. I'll owe him for 143 bales @ $3.00 each and 130 bales at $2.00 each for a total of $429 + $260.00 = $689. His price per 10 bales is less than Gary's round bales even if I figure 10-12 square bales for each round bale. The second batch of hay he said got rained on a little but it's nice and leafy. I'll feed that first.
I've been keeping an eye on Sweet Pea's baby. I don't believe she's been feeding it because all it does is sleep. Tonight I checked her belly and it seemed empty. I drove back to the house on the ATV and mixed up some milk replacer for her. I grabbed her, straddled her and pried open her mouth and stuck the bottle in. Fortunately she was hungry enough to take right to the bottle. I only made up half a bottle and she drank it all.
I'm afraid this means that Sweet Pea is stew meat or will be sold for slaughter since she's not caring for her baby. LauraVic seems to be kicking her baby away but I planned to get rid of her later this year anyway. I hope it's not true and that she'll let the baby nurse. I'll keep a watchful eye on that baby, too. It's a lot more active than Sweet Pea's baby.
Later: I think I was wrong in assuming that Sweet Pea is the mother of the calf. LauraVic is feeding both of them with me supplementing one of the calves with milk replacer. I can't believe that LauraVic had twins but the momma is not owning up.
Even later: I was right. Sweet Pea did have the baby but wasn't going to feed her.
Danette and Joe showed up to bring me some hamburger. I'd asked them if they had any hamburger left and would they sell me some. Danette brought me 3 packages of hamburger plus two jars of home-made jam. That was so sweet of her. She said it was in "payment" for the loan of my small trailer.
They've been using my small trailer to pick up hay and, based on my suggestion, a round bale feeder that they can use to toss square bales into for feeding their cows. They got the feeder at a lot less - about $95.00 less than what I paid for it at the Farm Store.
Danette tells me she doesn't much care for the Angus steers they picked up at the auction. If I have any Black Baldy steers for raising next year she'd be interested in them but she's not interested in the Black Baldy heifers because of the bull next door. With any luck a couple of my Herefords should give me some Black Baldy bull calves which I will steer right away.
It's easier for me to sell the Black Baldies than the Herefords. The babies look like ghosts, shiver, although I don't mind bottle feeding them.
I showed her the new trenches and water/power system. She said how much she liked the hydrant system she has at her place. She did say that if you leave them on they freeze. Makes sense to me.
I plan on using insulation on each of the hydrants just so that I don't have to carry water as I have in past years. I want an easy farming life. I'm wondering how big a plastic pipe I'd have to buy to put over the top of the hydrants as further insulation.
Around 8:45pm Ty showed up with another load of hay. This hay dried out too fast in the field so that the bales tend to fall apart when dropped from the top of the trailer. It got rained on as I mentioned above but it is fine hay and looks pretty good. With the fields all dried out I'll be having to feed hay the rest of the summer unless it rains. I paid him $990 for the hay he delivered for me.
I talked to him again about the round bale feeder. I told him I was interested in becoming a silent partner if he decided to buy a round baler. He said he would think about it. It's much easier to manage the round bales than a zillion square bales. Each round bale is the equivalent of about 10 square bales depending on the weight of the round bales and the weight of the square bales.
The damn cows have been going through the electric fence. I know it's Wendy that's doing it. I may have to put some of the insulators on the other side of the fence. I think I have some insulators that will fit on the wrong side of the fence. If I don't, I know where I can buy some.
07/09/2009 Thursday: Overcast and cool. Late in the afternoon the sun started shining.
I think that it is Sweet Pea who had yesterday's Black Baldy heifer. I have not seen her nursing her baby but her udder is full of milk. I can't see any other cow that's bagged up like she is except Myrtle and Myrtle has not had a baby, but she must be close.
Today, LauraVic had a Black Baldy heifer. The baby looks good. It still thinks it's invisible.
I spent the morning removing hoses and Y's and putting them where I needed them. First I had to water the cows. They were standing patiently by their water tubs but obviously in need of liquid.
I attached the hose that ran into their tub to the hydrant on the south side of the barn because I didn't want to take the time to undo the hose. It's tied to staples in the side of the barn under the east lean-to. Once the tub filled up and the Herefords got their fill of water, I disconnected the hose and started going around collecting just the right length of hose for giving each set of animals supported by a hydrant their water.
Ok, here's what I did. The hydrant closest to the stalls on the east side of the cow barn at the south end will support any animals in the stalls and the Dexter's waterer out in the field. I did not put a Y on that hydrant but I will because I need a length of hose to water plants as well as the dedicated Dexter water tub hose. Currently the dedicated Dexter water tub hose is the only one connected to that hydrant.
The new 24 foot hose I bought a few weeks ago brings the Dexter water tub hose over to the hydrant. Chas suggested I bury that hose in the existing trench. Makes sense to me. I may partially fill in the trench and lay the hose about 6-12 inches down. I asked him what I would do if it stopped working. He suggested I just cut it off and lay down a new hose. Simple solution. I liked it.
I took the Y off the old faucet that used to live between the two stalls and attached it to the Hereford hydrant. Then I ran a short length of hose to the tub sitting by the new electric fence and installed a longer length of hose that runs to the automatic waterer sitting on the tub that sits parallel to the north cow barn wall.
I removed the 4-way adaptor that I'd installed on the faucet on the west side of the house and put it on the hydrant by the green barn. A week or so ago I purchased a female:female adaptor so that I could put the piggies on a Lixit waterer. That got put on one of the off-on switches. I ran quite a bit of water through it because it was a little rusty from sitting from last year.
On the end off-on switch nearest the goats I installed the hose that was already available to water them. That is two down.
The north end off-on switch is running the duck and Welsh Mt sheep waterer. I still have one available off-on switch that I can use if I need more outlets.
I installed a Y adaptor on the south hydrant that we installed between the chicken coop and the potting shed and ran one long hose that I can use for watering the chickens and the garden. The other part of the Y will also have a hose that I can use for water in the potting shed and eventually in the green house when I get that built.
I really like those hydrants. Course I didn't have any idea how they worked but Chas came to the rescue and got the water turned on. It turns out that there are 3 positions: off, halfway (but no on) and all the way up which is on. I felt like a darn fool but then I'd never seen one in action. I thought half-way was fully on. Learned something today.
By then it was lunch time and I came in to relax and eat.
I spoke to Danette today. Actually she phoned me to talk about the trailer she and Joe borrowed to take chickens to the butcher. She told me they'd picked up 30 bales of hay. Danette wanted to know how much hay the calves she's raising would eat. I told her an adult cow would eat 30 lb a day and that younger ones would eat less, maybe 20 lb depending on their age. She immediately decided they didn't have enough hay. She asked if she could keep the trailer longer so that they could pick up more hay.
That's fine with me since I've managed to fill two of the four bays in the equipment storage building with hay. Bays 1 and 3 have hay (counting from the south side). Bay 3 has grass hay in square bales and bay 1 is storing 17 round bales. I really have no space to store the trailer. I might just leave it outside and cover it with a tarp.
We were actually able to stack some of the round bales two high last night. Chas is getting pretty good at stacking hay. Course he's had a lot of practice since he stacked in 74 round bales from Gary and the 20 bales from Wally.
The Herefords are enjoying Wally's hay enormously. We put in a round hay bale last night as we were putting Wally's hay away and by now it's more than half gone. I did turn them out into the big pasture to graze. They're less mischievous when they have limited grazing time. Once they start laying down it means they're finished grazing for awhile and are chewing their cud and it's time to bring them in. They had about 3 hours of grazing time.
In the afternoon I went to visit Mary and Mike. I wanted to thank Mike again for his suggestion about drilling a hole in the concrete to hold a pin that would keep the collapsible feeder from collapsing. Mike sure is handy to have around. He's building me a spear to put on my bucket for spearing hay bales for carrying out to the field.
Mary showed off her garden and her new goodies. That woman is a working fool. She has a great eye for laying out plants in an attractive pattern. Her place really looks good considering that she was flooded out two years ago.
Chas brush hogged the rest of the south-west pasture and then got a good start on the north-west pasture. He looked worn out around dinner time and admitted he might have overdone it. Sitting on that bumpy tractor and steering the tractor in circles is a lot of work. It's hard on your concentration and hard on your back.
He mentioned that there was lots of clover in the field. Course I did include extra clover in the seed mixes I put on the fields.
We still need to pull the t-posts from the furthest west pastures and remove the gates. I'm hoping that by next year we'll be able to use those pastures for grazing but I might be a little overoptimistic. Oh well, one of these years I'll be able to use those two pastures.
Back to work tomorrow. Monday is the presentation to the Lewis County Board of Health. I sure hope something is ready for presenting on Monday. I'll have to get up really early Monday morning to make the 9am meeting time.
Dinner was different for Chas and myself. I cooked a Cornish Game Hen for myself and some Kielbasa for Chas. We had potatoes and peas for our vegetables.
All in all this was a good day. I got a project started and finished without much trouble, just a lot of walking around. I did take a length of hose down to the chickens so that I would have enough hose to for watering the ducks. I hate filling a bucket and hauling the water. Too much like work.
07/08/2009 Wednesday: Overcast and gloomy with rain showers. Not sure it showered 50% of the time as the weather channel said it would but it did give us scattered showers.
I went in to work at the Health Department. On the way there I stopped at the Farm Store and picked up 4 bags of Country Livestock and a female:female fitting for my pig waterer. I also purchased a Y adaptor to split one faucet into two outlets.
I also stopped at Cenex and bought 10 gallons of hydraulic fluid for the tractor. That stuff is expensive. It cost about $123.00 plus or minus. Then I went to the bank and picked up $300.00 for paying the guys this weekend.
After work I stopped at Sunbirds and picked up a Y adaptor, but a large one for the pig & goat hoses and a 12 x 16 foot tarp.
By the time I got home, Wally was here to drop off 20 round bales of local grass hay. This is the first time he's been on time. His bales are tighter this year for some reason so they stack better. I paid $900 for the 20 round bales. He charges $45.00 each bale.
Chas and I put 17 bales into the first bay of the equipment shed this time. I want to save Gary's hay for later. One bale of hay went into the Hereford's feeder, one went into the Dexter feeder and one went into the Dexter stall for later use.
I'm going to put the tarp across the back side of the hay to protect it from any rain we might have. We'll be working out of that hay first. We put it in the south-most bay where we usually store the tractor. I'll have to make some tarp pins to hold it in place from some of my 12.5 gauge wire..
As we were putting away the hay I noticed a new black baldy calf. When we took the round bale into the Hereford pen I checked the new calf out. It's a heifer calf so I don't have to band it. I have no idea which of the cows it belongs to because they all had their noses in the feeder. I'll ear tag it tomorrow while it still thinks it's invisible and maybe determine who the mother is. I'll bet it's LauraVic.
Then I did my chores and came in to make dinner. Dinner was a couple of very small steaks and pirogues. Chas was good and peeled some carrots for roughage. I can't eat hard carrots with my braces. I can't really bite with my front teeth.
While I was at work Richard finished installing the hydrants. On Monday he'll concrete them in after we've had a chance to make sure the system works properly. He said that the concrete will just lift out if we need access to the black pipe below. Gary suggested that I put in a post by each hydrant but in most cases I'm close enough to the wall to put a loop around the pipe and attach it to the wall or post. I will need to get some insulation for the exposed pipe and for the handle. It almost looks like a rag and a plastic sack will keep the pipe dry and somewhat insulated.
07/07/2009 Tuesday: Overcast and gloomy most of the day but the sun did shine later on around dinner time.
Busy day around the farm. I was going to work on APHA stuff but Richard and his co-worker showed up with a ditch witch to start work on digging ditches between the well house and the equipment shed via the green barn, and between the well house and the south end of the vegetable garden and I got side tracked. The line from the green barn also crossed the road and went over to the electric fence on the north side of the cow barn. One line goes from the water faucet currently situated between the two north stalls to the south end of the cow barn. Essentially I'll have water hydrants at each end of the cow barn, at the south end of the vegetable garden, by the south-west corner of the green barn and by the equipment shed.
We managed to cut the phone line in the middle of the road necessitating a visit by a CenturyTel repairman and a charge for his services. CenturyTel will bill us. We did not cut the line to our septic system as far as we can tell.
Chas tested DSL so that if we had any problems we could call CT back and get the repair person back out to fix the problem.
I dug out some of the dirt in the trench where it wasn't level on most of the lines except for the one running between the green barn and the equipment shed, plus I dug the hole for one of the hydrants.
By the end of the day I was tired.
Some of the trenches have been filled in but there are sections where the dirt needs to be replaced in the trench. We'll use the dirt from the compost pile.
Charles began brush hogging the large south west pasture where last year he dug the trench. The end of the trench was about 4 inches too high. When he finishes brush hogging both the south west and north west pastures he'll dig out the end of the trench.
The grass and clover mix seeds we planted last fall have grown considerably. We have canary grass which must be about 5 feet tall. Chas can only do about half the row otherwise it binds up. He got about 2/3 of the field completed today. He'll likely finish tomorrow.
I'm hoping to put in a second fence along the freeway to keep the cows in but likely it won't be till next year. It will be a two strand fence like the corridor fence we have now but it won't form a corridor around the field; it will just run along the freeway. I'll need to put a gate in this fence so we can graze cows along it if we want. That's a large section of fenced-off land.
We also need to pull the existing t-posts that divide the two pastures. Those will be reused along the highway, I think.
07/06/2009 Monday: It tried to rain today but it was more like a mist and lasted most of the morning and part of the afternoon.
During chores this morning I took pictures of the St. Croix ewes and ram, the piggies and some of the goats. I also took pictures of the square bales of hay I got from Ty.
With the rain I wonder if he'll be able to get me more hay. Likely it's out in the field already baled but rained on.
I fed two bales of hay to the Herefords. I did not put the Dexters out to graze but fed them hay and alfalfa. They still have lots of the Wally bale left but only eat it when they're starving.
I took pictures of the pigs, goats, and St Croix sheep for my records. I still have to name the St Croix sheep.
I came in after chores, ate breakfast, and promptly fell asleep in my chair. I think Chas must have turned off the TV sometime.
After lunch Charles brush hogged pastures S2 and S3. They were filled with Canadian thistles with the occasional bull thistle mixed in. I pulled thistles by hand as long as my hands could stand it. Even with wearing gloves the thistles made it through my gloves. What thistles I couldn't pull by hand I pulled the flower heads from the stem but I didn't get all of them. I really need to get the weed whacker out and cut thistles under the electric wire.
07/05/2009 Sunday: Cold and cloudy.
I did my morning chores and then came in and fell asleep till around 11am when Charles, Sharon's friend, phoned to ask if he could visit. We said, sure, since we really enjoy talking to him. We had coffee/tea together and chatted about interesting things. Chas intends to buy some raw coffee beans so that they can try roasting coffee. This was Charles's idea.
This cold nights weather is not going to help the garden grow. The corn is up only about 6 inches, way lower than it's supposed to be by this date. With the really hot weather the ground dries up and the plants desiccate. I water as often as I can but I don't think it's nearly enough.
Hardly any of the beets have come up. Very disappointing. Chas's kohl-rabi barely sprouted. The pole beans are short and not very many sprouted. The chard is about 4 inches high and doing well. The single kale plant, at least that's what I think it is, is really growing. Onions are nearly ready for harvesting as green onions. The garlic is turning brown. I need to prune off the bulblets growing on top.
I fed two bales of Ty's hay to the Herefords. They loved it. The Dexters also got some of the same hay. The Dexters ate hay while around 4pm the Herefords went out to graze for three hours. I figure if I keep their grazing time short they'll fill up and not get into as much trouble. They'll be too hungry.
I want to put the last remaining round bale from Wally's last batch which is in the Dexter's stall into the Hereford feeder so that they'll clean it up. The Dexters are much more discerning in their choice of hay but the Hereford's seem to eat mostly everything. Not that I try to feed them bad hay but I have to get rid of last year's hay from Wally.
We used up the leftover spaghetti sauce from last week. I boiled it pretty well before we ate it.
I have got to take pictures of the goats so that I can sell some of them.
I registered for APHA this fall and secured our hotel reservations. By our I mean Margaret B's and myself. All I have to do now is get my flight reserved.
07/04/2009 Saturday: Cloudy in the am but hot and sunny in the pm.
Today was quite busy. My friends showed up to help around the farm around 6:45am and I put them to work right away. Chas wanted the trench between the well house and our house partially filled in. Enrique and Juan left a foot of space between ground level and the bottom of the trench for the Dish Network guy who was going to be here sometime before 5pm to lay in his cable. Enrique used the tractor to move the dirt while Juan did the shovel work. I was happy to get that project done.
Fortunately I'm getting up at 6am and was already out doing chores. Generally I feed the ducks and chickens in their chicken/duck tractors, move the tractors to a new spot and water them. I only empty the ducks water once a day since they fill their beaks full of dirt and then rinse their mouths out in the water. About 10 minutes after I fill their protein tub full of clean water they have turned it into mud.
Fortunately the mud settles to the bottom so that water on top, while muddy is not chewable. I generally end up with half an inch of mud on the bottom of the water tub that has to be cleaned out.
About 7:30am Ty showed up with a crew of 4 guys and a trailer-load of hay. Ty didn't have my phone number so he didn't call ahead of time. I would have had the equipment shed ready for the storage. As it was we had to move some lumber and lay down pallets. We ran out of pallets. I'll need to pick up a tarp or two, something I should have done before, to lay the remaining hay on.
Ty and his friends and Juan and Enrique stacked 143 bales. I'm expecting at least 300 and maybe more. I want to be sure to have lots of hay available for my critters this coming winter even though I'm going to downsize.
I had the guys remove the dog carrier from the pig pen and put wood chips and hay into the calf tel. The piggies had made a nest for themselves way at the back when I checked during evening chores.
While Enrique helped Chas put hay in the cow barn, Juan and I wound up polycord for use next year. We did not take down the rebar.
Before Juan and Enrique left they moved most of the lumber from the cow barn to the equipment shed. There are still two very long pieces of lumber left to move but they're so long I'm not sure they'd fit in the equipment shed. They must be 20 feet long.
Then we built a buck pen in the lean to in the green barn. It's still not exactly what I wanted - one of the problems of rushing things.
Around 4pm the Dish Network guy came out and hooked us up with High Def TV. It will cost us a little extra every month but the difference between normal, old fashioned TV, and HD is amazing. The phone company will need to come out to check to see where the phone line is before we can install the pole. The Dish Network folks can't dig the hole for the pole until the phone line location has been verified, otherwise, Dish gets fined.
After he left we dashed over to Suzanne and Rick's place for their annual 4th of July BBQ and potluck. The food was exceptional and the fireworks were spectacular. I drove by yesterday and donated $50. to Suzanne for the purchase of fireworks.
07/03/2009 Friday: Cloudy in the am but hot in the pm.
Chas and I replaced the road pasture gate with one that isn't bent in the middle. Gary suggested that we reverse the gate so that the gate hangs from the straight post, not the post that's leaning. I think it would be better situated on the straight post near the loading ramp because we usually come from the cow barn. Now we have to drive around the gate. The gate will close against the loading dock instead of hitting the dirt and coming to a shuddering stop.
Gary and Mary brought over 20 more round bales. It was late in the day when they delivered it so we only got 10 of the bale put in the barn. We'll no doubt pay tomorrow for not having it put away.
The co-ax cable is in but not yet hooked up. There's a plug in my study and beside the TV so that we can surf the net from our TV chairs if we want. The cabling for the Dish satellite, High Definition TV is installed. Our electrician is doing the work.
We ate leftover chicken for dinner.
07/02/2009 Thursday: It's even hotter today than it was yesterday.
One of the bales of hay we moved last night fell off the bottom bale and was leaning against the fenceline feeder but inside the fenced-off area so the cows didn't spread the hay everywhere. Before we could stack the remaining 10 bales we had to get that one down. We moved two bales and let the last one fall into place. We discovered that picking up the bales while they are on their sides and then flipping them so that they're on their ends turns them into balls. They lose their cylindrical shape so this last batch we turned on end and carried them in without dropping them into place. So, now I have 54 bales.
Also, regarding the hay, stacking the bales too close together by placing them into the previous row makes one side lift up and the other side become lower. It's better to leave space and then push the bale into it's designated slot. That way the bales don't tip over. It doesn't help that Gary's bales are slightly kitty-whumpus to start with.
We moved another bale out to the Herefords this morning before we started moving the bales Gary dropped off into the barn.
Unless I get rid of a lot of my critters I'm not going to have enough hay to last the winter. Something to think about. I need to call Ty again but it's too late tonight.
Neither Pat nor the electrician, Richard, showed up today.
Mike and Mary H picked up the large trailer so that they could move joists for their new workshop area. Unfortunately they had to move the wood Chas had the guys put on the trailer off the trailer so they could use it. Later they brought it back. Both were suffering from the heat, but especially Mary.
Gary finally got his cows butchered. Mary ended up with 7 more tongues and 7 hearts. I guess they had tongue sandwiches for lunch. I have to figure out what to do with testicles.
Got an email reply from Clay. He says his freezer is full. I suggested he contact Bolar to see how much meat that would be in terms of space. I also suggested he could take half a calf if one entire calf was too much. I have to laugh. He was pretty insistent when he and his daughter were her a month or so ago that he wanted a cow. Never can tell with customers.
07/01/2009 Wednesday: Gad, it's already July. Hot today with sunshine all day.
I had the butcher come out today to do Cheddar but instead I had him do my two Black Baldy bulls. I just couldn't do it. Cheddar's calf is still nursing and I really like her. Come fall I might have a change of heart but for now, she lives!
Bolar came early because Gary's cows heard the truck and freaked out, jumped the fence and took off into the pasture. Rather than wait around for Gary to round up the cattle he came over to my place and then went to Rick N's to get one of his cows. When I asked, Bolar gave me a used butcher knife after he was all done butchering the two bull calves. I was quite happy to pay him but he asked for cookies instead.
With the two bulls gone it should be quieter in the Hereford barn yard. So, two down, 6 more to go. One of my senior Herefords is limping. Old age, I think. Gary agrees and indeed was the one to point out to me that she's showing her age. She's just getting tired I think. After she weans her baby this January, she'll go, plus the red bull to Gary's and the three Milking Shorthorns to someone on Craigslist. Then I have to make a couple of hard decisions. I have a Hereford that I don't particularly like that I think I will sell with her baby depending on the sex of the baby. She's a nice looking cow but easily spooked. Or I may sell the cow that didn't get bred during regular breeding season. Or maybe one of my favorites who lost a huge calf last year. Hard to decide. I want the Hereford herd down to 7 or 8 cows of smaller frame size.
Gary is coming next week to pick up his red bull calf so no more bulls until the young ones come along - except for Huck.
Gary delivered 54 round bales of lovely grass hay. It's lovely and green and hardly has any stems in it. I reached in to put scraps in the Hereford feeder and it was snatched out of my hand before I could let go. I asked Gary to save me some additional bales if he was going to do more bales. He said that if he could find some more good grass hay on the 30 acres he's doing, he'll bring me some more round bales. He put up about 120 bales for his own use but I expect that won't be enough. I know for certain 54 round bales plus 300 square bales won't be enough for me unless I really cut the Hereford herd. And I am working on that.
With this drought the grass is going downhill fast I'll probably have to feed hay early. I must say that the field that Chas brush hogged has come back very nicely. What with everything going on at our place it may be awhile before we get to brush hog again but I'd like to get everything cut back soon. It seems to grow better and the cows like it better.
I'm taking a few days off Tuesday through next Tuesday, then back to work on Wed. I thought I would have time to sort of veg out and do some weeding in my garden and weed whacking one of the Dexter pastures that is full of thistles going to seed.After I cut them the Dexters will eat them with relish.
Yesterday instead of relaxing Chas had me out laying driveway fabric (Tripar) and shoveling bucketloads of gravel. We're trying to get the last bay in the barn cemented. Once that's dry and ready to be used we'll make a concrete pad out about 20 feet along the length of the barn and then 6 feet beyond that we'll lay in Tripar and gravel and have the concrete truck come back do do another pour. I'm bound and determined not to have the animals knee high in mud this winter.
I'm hoping to get the Dexter pen concreted too but I'm afraid that may have to wait till next year. Chas doesn't seem concerned about money but I like to spread out the spending.
Then today Gary delivered 54 round bales of local grass hay which Chas and I mostly put in the barn which meant that today I'm even more tired since I didn't get a rest from yesterday's labors. We have 20 bales still aging in the driveway making for an interesting driving path for visitors. We're so slow as Chas has it in his mind that he has to sneak up on each bale, pick it up daintily and then go halfway around the barn before he can put it into place with lots of TLC. Lots of backing up and too-ing and fro-ing. Drives me nuts. Just go straight into the barn and drop the round bale into place, damn it!
I also have 300 square bales coming. Probably take three trips. Most of the hay is just across the street so they don't have to drive far.
My small trailer purchased a year ago May has finally been licensed and the lights and turn signals checked. They work. Our friends with the Boer goats borrowed the trailer and will be using it to haul chickens in boxes and carrying cases to a guy who butchers and then cut and wraps them for customers for $4.50 each. Ouch. Nice to know that trailer is available if I decide I want to pick up hay for some reason. We'll have to use Chas's car since mine is set up with the equipment for the large trailer.
My butcher no longer will take liver, hearts, tongue or tails to cut and wrap. Apparently farmers who included those things with the beef made problems for my butcher. Customers would refuse to pay for the "extras."
No problem, I said, here's a bucket, stick the "extras" in there and I'll take what I want and give Mary & Mike the stuff they like. They'll take calves liver but not cow liver. Cow liver is too strong. M&M sure like the hearts and tongue. I saved the testicles from the bull calves and will try them out. Not sure what you do with them but I remember something about boiling them?? I'll have to check out the Web for a better answer.
I had liver and onions for dinner tonight. It was pure eating pleasure. I'd forgotten just how good calves liver is.
As of today we have a new fan with lights in the kitchen over the kitchen table. The awful/broken kitchen light is no more. We had the light hanging on the wall where I keep the microwave removed and new recessed lights put in over the kitchen sink. Our electrician is a contractor and will also be wiring up the various barns and outbuildings and running water pipes from the far end of the garden to the green barn and to the outbuildings just in case I ever put animals down in that section of the property - likely sheep or goats). We'll finally get a fan that vents outside instead of into the tops of my kitchen cupboard.
Richard (the electrician) is also going to wire the attic so that we can put in our new high def tv this Saturday.
Oh yes, he moved the large outdoor light which was on the end of the tack room and being held up by its wire (dangerous) to over between the first and second stalls so I'll have a light more centrally located to see by when it's dark out. He's also replacing the unsafe electrical panel in our tack room and will be putting in a plug hanging from the ceiling so that Chas can use electrical equipment when he's at his table working area. The outlet/plug on the north side of the cow barn now only works when the lights are on. Soon it will work anytime, lights or no lights. That will be nice because it means I can start the chickens in the barn instead of in my basement. That will be much better.
I acquired 3 new sheep: St Croix meat sheep and have the Welsh Mt sheep up for sale on Craigslist. Two ewes from one farm and an unrelated ram from another. So far everyone is separated but I have to get rid of some of the smaller stock to free up areas to keep them in. My barn is getting crowded.
I have a goat who absolutely refuses to nurse one of her babies. It's the most beautiful doeling. I guess she selected the two she wanted to nurse and that's that. Morning and night I dump her on the ground and kneel on her so that I can let the nicest doeling nurse. She looks pretty good considering she's just eating twice a day.
My breeding buck from last year was harvested last Saturday and I acquired another beautiful buck from Danette for breeding this fall. I think I told you about him already so I won't bore you.
I've attached a pix of our dismantled well house from having the pipe develop a hole. While the roof was off we replaced the tank and pump and pipeline and cable to the pump. The third picture is of the house sans deck.
Aside from that my property looks like someone threw a bomb at it. It's even worse now because a deep trench goes between the house and the well house for additional power and water lines and there are large piles of dirt everywhere. My back yard has been chicken tractored to death but the grass should be very lush from all the chicken poop this fall and next summer.
I did manage to find a nice bench that I assembled (sort of) so that I could see what it looked like. It wobbled when I got all the screws hand tightened. Chas tightened up all the screws for me using the proper tool. I just used a wrench when you really need a rachet. Lazy me. That will likely go on the deck when it gets completed and the roof goes on.
Garden is dry and needs weeding. After putting the hay in the barn tomorrow maybe I'll have time to do some garden work. It's amazing what you can do with a good swan's neck hoe in a short period of time.
Dinner for me was liver and onions. Chas had a cold plate with cheese and sliced meat. My liver was so good. Nothing like calf liver!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)