Catching Up: October 16-31, 2008

10/31/2008 Friday: Rain most of the day with lulls.

It turns out that the goat that strangled itself was not the little one with the frosted ears (Berney) but the brown goat, Marcy. I guess it must have happened Saturday or Sunday. Chas found her Monday.

Well, I ended up getting home from Portland last night about 8:30pm. This morning I wasn't too tired as I went to bed relatively early for me.

I spent most of the day trying to get my mail beat down to a reasonable level and didn't quite succeed.

During a lull in the rain Chas and I went out to drop in another bale of hay into the Hereford's feeder. I'll have to move the round bale feeder to the more grassy area since where I'm feeding them now is mostly muck.

I called Clayton from the Farm Store this morning. He will have Dave take the truck home and drop off my new round bale feeder likely next week sometime. I also ordered a large and small protein block tub. This is the feeder I intend to put in the barn in the middle manger (with a gate in back to keep the cows out of the barn. That way I'll just unwrap a bale and push it into the feeder. It will be drier feeding the cows in the barn and somewhat easier, too, since we'll just be pushing the hay instead of lifting it and moving it around.

In the afternoon I drove over to Adna and met Joe and Danette. They've had a bred heifer for sale for three weeks and nerry a nibble till me. I saw her ad on Craigslist. Wendi seems like a nice animal but is a little rambunctions (tried to get out of the pen they had her in but I expect that she will tame down) and not too keen on being close to people. The price is way low, only $600. She's been bred to a rather large black Angus bull who crashed through their fence and bred her in July, Sept, and in October, they think. I'm a little concerned that the bull might have been too big for this heifer. The baby might be huge. I'd hate to have trouble like I did this year with Sweet Pea.

Plus I have to worry about getting her from their farm to ours. I will have to see what Tye is doing and if he is willing to pick her up for me for a fee. One more cow more or less won't make too much difference.

Chas fixed the side of the cow barn either yesterday or today. I can't remember. Myrtle kept pushing the other cows into the side of the barn until she'd pushed the plywood and siding out. Chas put it all back together again. Thank you, Chas!

I told Joe and Danette that I would think about it but I am inclined to buy her.

Dinner was beer brats from Francis Meats. butternut squash and corn.

10-25 - 10-30, 2008: Laura gone to APHA in San Diego.

10/24/2008 Friday: Very overcast in the morning. That means the rest of the day after the fog burns off will be wonderful and sunny.

I showed Chas how to do the chores while I'm away in San Diego. I made an Excel checklist and will write out detailed instructions for him in case he has questions.

I have to get my clothes ready for the trip and pack. I've gone through the boxes of clothes I rarely wear and have thrown likely candidates into the washer. When I get them out of the dryer I'll figure out what I'll wear. My small suitcase is in the basement ready to be packed. I'll finish packing when I get the suitcase upstairs and tomorrow when I throw my last minute things into it.

Chas went out mushroom hunting but didn't find a mushroom. He was looking for the most exotic mushrooms: truffles. Too bad he didn't find any. We just haven't had enough rain.

I tried something new tonight. Instead of putting a pallet on the forks I placed two pretty well tied bales of hay directly on the forks, then two more crossed and one on top (total 5) and moved them to the green barn. I wanted to make sure Chas had enough hay in the stack for the week I'll be gone.

Dinner was T-bone steaks from our stash of home-grown beef, squash and processed potatoes. (Two out of three isn't bad).

10/23/2008 Thursday: No fog and not even very cold.

Sherry here to do cleaning. I worked on getting my UW email down to nothing.

Chas and I get to go to the dentist to get our teeth cleaned today. The dentist's office called yesterday to see if we could fill in a couple of empty slots at 1pm. We're free so we'll go. The dentist visit wasn't as bad as I thought it might be.

Dinner was leftover enchiladas and some of Chas's zucchini medley with lots of garlic.

10/22/2008 Wednesday: Cold in the morning; lovely and sunny in the pm.

The cows got mostly husked corn from the pile today. They fight over it. The Angus bull particularly loves the corn and will peer longingly over the fence at me for me to throw more corn. It's hard to resist those big brown eyes.

I worked on my computer in the morning. Chas went to town to his chiropractic appointment.

When he came back he had a new barn lamp with him but before he changed it out he decided to check to make sure it hadn't gotten turned off by mistake. It had. Ocam's razor at work again. I wonder who turned it off? It was likely me but it could have been our workers. So now we have a backup of the entire lamp. Dunno if Chas will return it.

After lunch around 2pm Chas and I went out and put new round bales in with the Dexters and with the Herefords. The Dexters will likely last about 4-5 days with a bale. The Herefords will finish one in two days tops and then beg me for husked corn. I worry about Chas putting in bales of hay by himself when I'm away next week. I do it by myself but he doesn't move quite as fast as I do. Plus the animals know me.

Dinner was leftovers: chicken, squash from last year's stash and cooked cracked corn with mushrooms. It was pretty good. The squash was Hubbard and was excellent.

10/21/2008 Tuesday: Cold, foggy in the am and sunny in the afternoon

Chas and I went into town so that I could visit the orthodontist. They replaced the round band on my top teeth with a rectangular band and put stops in it so that it wouldn't move like the last one did and poke my cheek raw. The bottom band didn't need replacing but they did remove it and put it back after they checked my teeth.

After that we headed for Lacey and had lunch at the Main Chinese Buffet. After a stop at Top (grocery store) we went to Costco and did our infrequent shopping spree. We filled the car with food which will hopefully last for some time.

Dinner was berries and yogurt. We were still stuffed from lunch.

10/20/2008 Monday: Pouring down rain this morning. I mean really heavy rain. There's no chance that I could easily work outside. Thank heavens, although it did stop later in the morning and was even sunny off and on the rest of the day, but cold.

I took a few minutes before I went to do my chores to clean off the kitchen table. It's amazing how much stuff piles up over the course of several months. Most got moved to my study where I'll classify it and put it where it should go.

Chas and I moved a round bale of hay into the Hereford's road pasture feeder. It went fairly smoothly today. No yelling and arm waving. Just as we were finished Mary and Mike showed up with our trailer. They left it by the cow barn. Chas will use the jeep to put it away.

I'll likely need to put in a round bale into the Dexter feeder when Chas and I get back from my orthodontist appointment and shopping expedition to Costco tomorrow. The new Dexters will definitely cause the round bales to disappear much faster.

Gary N came by around noon and stayed for hours. We had lots to talk about. We discussed brush hogging pastures (cut the pasture short after the cows graze it), fertilizing pastures with chicken manure (good), politics (why do people vote against their own self-interest?), clear cuts (causes water runoff) and other interesting topics.

Before he left Gary admired the cows and said they looked good. I was thrilled to hear him say that.

Evening chores were a snap since I only had to throw hay to the goats. Tomorrow I think I'll put a bale or two of hay into the Dexter feeder to keep them content till I get home from shopping. We'll dump in a new bale in a couple of days.

Oh yes, Brie was bred by Huck today. Everyone tried to get in on the act: Brie, Noel, the boss cow (obnoxiously trying to mount Brie and generally getting in the way), Emma's baby bull calf (unsuccessful) and the bull (who was definitely successful at least three times that I saw). Unless there's something wrong with her, Brie should be bred.

Chas ordered some new sleeveless vests in grey and blue. They arrived today.

10/19/2008 Sunday: Lovely day. It started off cold but rapidly warmed up to around 60 degrees F.

We did the laundry today. We took turns doing it.

Chas took down the eves trough on the west side of the stalls. It was pointed downward toward the lean-to and leaked like a sieve. That meant that that ground was always wet. Actually, way beyond wet, mucky. He's going to try to replace it but will shoot the water toward a down spout that will run the water underground away from the barn.

I spent the day with the tractor and a pitchfork digging out the muck and spreading it on the Dexter's pastures. N2 to be specific. I worked from 11am to 1pm and then again in the afternoon. Late in the day Chas took over. Over the course of years and the tossing out of hay the area directly in front of the lean-to has built up. Chas and I made many passes over the area in front of the lean-to to try to lower the area so that the water would drain away from the stalls and lean-to.

I let the two Dexters in with the others today. Once they were together in the same pasture they all ran from one end of the pasture to the other often kicking up their heels. It was so funny to watch. Huck was very interested in Pixie today. He licked her and checked out her good parts many times. I think she's coming into season although he didn't breed her today. They also lay down together. In short, Huck has been very attentive.

Dinner was baked chicken. I almost always buy whole chicken and cut it into parts and cook it in parts. Much easier than trying to take apart a hot bird. We also had a baked potato from my gardening efforts and baked squash from the store. Delicious. We're both stuffed.

10/18/2008 Saturday: Overcast.

Groan. I feel awful this morning. For some reason I could not get to sleep. It was after 3:20am when I think I finally fell asleep. That's the last time I remember seeing. Lack of sleep makes me feel crotchety and out of sorts.

My two workers showed up today to continue to cut the the underbrush on the east side of the property. Before they started one of them helped me move a top bale over to the Herefords. After we got that task taken care of I had him move one bale down so that it is easier for me to move a bale. Later I took one bale that I had pushed too far over so that I blocked my access to the square bales and moved it out of the way. Now I have four bales down on the ground and thus easy to get.

I had some help moving a round bale into the Hereford's feeder

I fed the critters. It is so easy now that I'm only feeding grain in the morning to everyone.

I have one and a bit square bales left in the goat barn. I'll move a bunch more in this week and then some more in late next week so that Chas only has to move the large round bales while I'm in San Diego.

I let all the ducks out, even the month-olds. The adult Muscovy female and the Rouen male seem to be getting along quite well with the babies. The older Muscovy is a bit of a pain. He kept pecking at the babies till I threw him out. This morning he looked a little disgruntled and wouldn't pal around with the other ducks who seem to be moving as a herd. I'm sure over time they'll get along.

I removed the outer leaves on a bunch of corn and tossed the cobs over the fence to the Herefords who evidenced extreme pleasure in their eating of same. The Angus bull, Myrtle, Cally and LauraVic seem to be the main corn eaters. LauraVic could use some additional feeding up anyway. She looks thinner than I'd like but then she gives a lot to her baby via the milk she produces. I toy with the idea of selling her but I really like the babies she produces.

The work along the east side is going well and is beginning to look good. Unfortunately the beaver who have a dam upstream are cutting down Chas's favorite trees, the Vine Maple. It's really sad because they're such beautiful trees. Some are quite tall, about 15 feet and about 5 inches in diameter. Our help thought that we had cut them down when they got to that section. I explained about the beaver and their damn upstream. I'm going to have the guys cut the downed logs up into burnable lengths and just leave them there for the beaver to strip the bark and maybe eat what they want.

Chas will no doubt go down and put a curse on the beaver so that maybe they'll go elsewhere. I'll be interested in seeing their dam and the resulting pool. Chas went upstream to the beaver dam. He says it's only a few inches high and easily broken up. He didn't see a house so their home must be further upstream or downstream probably not on our land.

The area the guys worked on looks pretty good. They ripped out all the blackberry bushes and trimmed up the brush and picked up branches that were lying around. I'll have to take a better look tomorrow when I have time.

While the guys were finishing up I moved the tractor into the Dexter's pen via the south gate with the intent of digging out some of the muck around the entrance into their stall. I want to clean the stall too but will likely do it from the driveway side. The guys had their cars parked in front of the north gate partially blocking it and I was afraid I might scratch their car if I drove the tractor near it, thus the trip to the south gate. I foolishly left the power on but later shut it off so I could make some alterations to the fencing.

I guess I must have taken out about 5 scoops of muck plus one I hand dug and then had to abandon when I got the tractor stuck. Yup, the soil turned to slick clay and I got stuck. The guys were still here so two things happened. We removed the trailer from the ATV and drove it in and Edwardo showed me a trick to get a tractor out when the back tires are spinning (even with the tractor in 4 wheel drive). I put the chain on and he put the tractor down with the bucket tilted so that it was lying with the opening on the ground. He raised up the tractor so that all the weight was on the back wheels. While I pulled backwards he backed the tractor out.

I was really happy that we got it out but decided I'd had enough work for today. Edwardo moved the tractor to the front of the cow barn and I hosed it down to get rid of the very acidic manure. Perhaps tomorrow I will try digging out some of the slime but I won't plan on getting quite so close. I'll dig and toss the slop I pick up into the bucket and then spread it.

The way I spread it is based on the tractor blade's ability to "float" over the ground. First I fill the bucket and when I get to where I want the manure, I dump it. I go forward tilting the blade so that it's pointing straight down and sharply push the lever down so that it locks in float position.

I fed the goats and sheep really early since I needed to make space for the new hay; I just finished up the open bale by tossing it into the appropriate feeders. Doing evening chores was really simple since all I basically had to do was to rinse out the goat waterer and herd the ducks into their pen. The adult ducks were somewhat reluctant to go into their pen but I finally persuaded them that they really needed to go into their pen.

Tomorrow I'll pull up the rebar and electric fence in the road pasture and let the Herefords in to graze the entire pasture. The small area that they have been living in is way too small for such a large number of animals (15 including Gary's bull) since I closed the hay field to give it a chance to recover. They need the space to wander around and graze what little grass there is. I'd sort of like to wait till I leave for APHA Saturday and may reconsider the move till next Friday. That will get a few more days of growth on the grass just in case Chas is late on getting a new bale into the feeder.

I'll also move the two new Dexters in with the other Dexters tomorrow. I imagine once they're in with the other 5 animals that the round hay bales will only last about 5 days, maybe less. The new additions are currently going through a little more than a square bale a day (but I'm likely overfeeding them slightly.

Dinner was salmon burgers, squash and boxed scalloped potatoes.

10/17/2008 Friday: Generally gray day with some sunny spots.

Before I went in for breakfast I enlarged the duck pen by moving a couple of panels and adding one. I decided that during evening chores I would move the adults and ducklings in together.

Chas and I went into town to do our usual set of chores. We also picked up diesel (so much better now that it's only $2.99 per gallon), went to the bank, library, post office and shopped for groceries. Before I did our grocery shopping I stopped in to get my hair cut. It was growing unmanageable. The only problem is that I end up with hair down my back and I'm itchy for the rest of the day.

I took a trip into Pe Ell to visit the antiques shop. I found out that Shirley, the owner, is looking for someone who can make signs for her. I had been talking about my friend Sherry M who was such a good sign maker that all my friends are now buying her signs. Shirley was interested because she just lost the person who was making signs for her. Tonight I called Sherry and gave her Shirley's name and phone number. I hope this takes off for Sherry. It would be a nice source of income especially if she continues to make special signs for folks.

I moved the adult ducks in with the ducklings and all went well for a few minutes but I had to throw the large Muscovy drake out because he was pecking the babies so he's out on his own tonight without any food. I'll let the babies out tomorrow so that they can wander around and learn about the place and maybe even find some goodies to eat.

Marilyn D showed up. With any luck she'll be renting her place to a couple of friends, not her family. Things should be fairly quiet in that quarter. No more loud party noises.

Myrtle was bellowing this evening I think because one of the Dexters was calling back. I wandered around for awhile trying to figure out what the problem was but started counting noses. All 15 cows were there and Myrtle's son was by her side. He's hard to miss because he's a red boy, the only one I have on the property now.

Dinner was packaged chicken dinner served over rice and accompanied by a package of the corn Chas and I husked, cut off the cob, blanched and froze. That corn was really good. I'm almost sorry I didn't freeze more corn.

I noticed a call from Clayton at the Farm Store. He called to confirm that I still wanted the collapsible feeder. By then it was too late and he'd gone for the day. I'll call him next week and have Dave deliver it in early November. By then I'll be back from San Diego and the APHA conference will be over.

10/16/2008 Thursday: Overcast, big time with a faint hint of sunshine way off on the Doty Hills. It rained last night.

Chas and I moved one round bale into the Hereford's feeder and then one into the Dexters' feeder but not without a lot of hand waving and yelling. When Chas has his ear plugs in he can't hear much of anything and I end up yelling. Then he gets pissed off because I'm yelling. I can't win. LOL. We muddled through the process. When bales are stacked on top of one another it is hard to get the top bale without help. It also helps to have someone opening and closing gates.

Once we get the round bale feeder up on end where we want the hay we have to act quickly otherwise the cows will use it as a convenient scratching post and knock the dang thing over. Not that this is a huge problem but it is fairly heavy to lift up on end so that it can be rolled into position so I prefer not to have to do it twice.

I removed most of the wrapping before we put the bale into the Dexters's feeder which helped a lot. It's easier to partially remove the wrapping when I'm not being squeezed between the edge of the feeder and the round bale - and cow noses. We did the same thing for the Hereford feeder but Chas, who was running the tractor, dropped the bale on its side when we got into the pasture approximately where we wanted it but it meant we had to put the bale on end so that I could finish unwrapping it, all the while chasing cows away. Moving hay out is definitely a two person task when the cows are hungry and you are moving slowly.

I fed the Dexters some apples. I feel so sorry for the bull. In his greed he always puts his nose on the electric fence and then gets a shock. A second or so later he bellows in pain and I end up feeling badly for him. The main herd sure does enjoy their apple slices.

I also fed a couple of apples to the new girls but they aren't as receptive to apples as the cows in the main herd. I usually end up putting the slices into their protein block feeder and letting them eat the treats over time.

Mike and Mary have found some new-to-them used cabinets that they can use to replace the cheap ones in their home. They have to drive up to Bellevue and called to find out if I would loan them our large trailer. I said sure. Mike has to figure out how to get the lights to work. I suggested that they might want to figure out how to re-align the ball since it makes the trailer end very low. It sometimes bangs against the ground. I think they'll be over later today to pick it up. When I returned Mary's call they were loading engines into their pickup. Mary said she would be over later.

After lunch Mary and Mike showed up. I went down to talk with them and showed them my new ducklings. I also showed them the cleared out area and how much better it makes the property look.

After they left I took the tractor and began scraping up the waste hay and manure that had piled up from the leavings from the round bale feeder. I ended up making windrows that I scooped up using a pitchfork and tossed into the tractor bucket. I must have dumped about 7 loads before I finally got smart. I made one large pile through a combination of scraping with the bucket and with the box scraper. Then I was able to scoop up one load to dump. By then I was so tired that I just wanted to feed the goats, sheep and ducks and relax.

I'm only going to feed the Nubians grain once a day and the Boers none at all except occasionally. The Boers are getting way too fat. The Nubians are still quite slim but I'm not sure they need twice a day grain. I may continue to grain the littlest Boer doeling but she'd getting pretty chunky as well. I think she'll do okay with once a day feeding in the morning.