Author: Steve Hardin

Love me some alpaca

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It has officially begun, wheat harvest at the farm is underway, it started on Saturday. If you notice, they brought a tractor out and disced a harvested area by the access gate. This is so they can use the area as a staging point for all the equipment. This way an accidental fire is not started when they park for the night.

Bubba came out to do another day on Saturday. I was under the weather and slept most of the day but did manage to drag myself off of the couch and go out and give him clear directions on what needed to be done. He still has a little bit left in the the barn, about 2 hours and another 2 hours on the chicken coop.

His mother sent me a picture of the bucks in the lower field on their way off the farm. I messaged her yesterday to see if Bubba was coming out on Monday so he could help me with the bull corral. I wanted to make a big push to get it done. She informed me that Bubba was busy but she was under the impression he was done until I was ready for him to disc the upper field again. I need to get a new disc this week. I told her Bubba had a lesson here, he was not done with the barn or chicken coop. He could finish them and then disc when I was ready or he could get paid and be done, his choice. Bubba made it sound as if he was done. I am told he will be out tomorrow to finish the chicken coop and barn. Digging shit is not fun or glamorous but it does pay the bills.

Sarah had a school project due and she wanted to do a video on how to trim the alpaca’s feet. Since my mother in law has said they need it I had added it to the infamous “list”. This plan actually had an added benefit of helping both Sarah and us at the same time. We herded the alpaca into the corral with minimal effort and no dog help. We kept the dogs in the front yard as they are more of a problem than a solution when it comes to the alpaca. I knew she needed a video so I had on an old blue T-shirt with a clown face on the front in yellow and the sleeves cut off. It was perfect video actor attire! Annmarie made me cover it up! I was looking forward to seeing it on the how to video. We have 10 alpaca and last year we cut everyone’s feet I thought but there were a couple of bad alpaca feet. I am not sure about it now but next year will be the key as we got all 10 this year. I only made one toe bleed bad enough to use styptic powder on it. The alpaca do not like you making them bleed. We would catch them, trim their toes then push them into an adjoining pen. The problem with this is I keep telling everyone they don’t spit on humans. Now there have a been a few instances were people have gotten spit in the face but its not a normal thing. The black one spit in my face when I went to open the gate to let a newly trimmed alpaca into the completed pen. It didn’t seem like an accident and it didn’t seem like he was aiming at his buddy. Annmarie and Sarah say he was aiming at me. Its not very fun and it smells like regurgitated grass and bile which it is.

They take passive aggressive to a whole new level. They just stop moving and then lift all four legs off the ground. If you are not ready they end up laying on the ground with their feet under them and won’t move. This makes it very hard to trim feet. I would just reach under them and fish one foot at a time out. We tried to make Sarah catch them as they like women better than men. My mother in law feeds them apples every day by hand. Me they only see when something bad is happening.

After the alpaca were completed I went and trimmed two trees and two bushes in the yard. I like the shade trees to be open enough to have a great round shape but still allow the wind to blow through. The bushes were hanging too low. I put all the branches out in the orchard for the sheep to eat. They will strip off all the leaves and then I can cut them up and pile them in a burn pile to torch this winter.

Annmarie spotted the twins on her way home Sunday. I have seen them all over the farm at one point or another.

We were headed to bed tonight and spotted a huge beetle on our front porch. Annmarie did not like its look or size. Its about 2.5 inches long and 1.5 inches wide. Its pretty big for around here. While she was looking at it and holding the front door open I saw something large fly past the porch light and into the open front door. I looked inside the house but could not find anything. I am in the kitchen doing the blog and Annmarie has gone to bed. I just heard a howl and holler for me five minutes ago. My wife was hiding on the bed pointing at another beetle in our bedroom. It was on its back and she wanted me to get it out. I am not that comfortable just picking it up so wanted a piece of paper. As I searched the room for something to use she gave me blow by blow commentary on how it was turning itself over and was now on its four legs and getting away! I got it to step up on same paper and gave it a Viking funeral in the toilet. It seemed safer than tossing it outside with its buddy to procreate.

Raccoonageddon

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We had a plan last night for predator control and we stuck with it. Around 2130 Annmarie heard raccoons chittering on the back porch. We started breaking out the weapons and the Border Collies started looking for places to hide. They are not real big on loud noises. Our ankle biter Brussels Griffin was all excited and wanted to go outside with us and chase stuff. We had to be careful when we let Annmarie out the front door that he didn’t slip past her. He is pretty sneaky. I gave her time to get to the other side of the old house and then I flipped the outside light on, popped the back door open and started blazing away with my Walther P22 pistol. The laser sight makes shooting in low light situations amazingly easy. I had to spread the wealth though as it was a target rich environment. There were four raccoons and I only had 11 shots when I started. So after two rounds in an animal I switched to another. Two 22 rounds typically does not kill a raccoon immediately unless you are head shooting them. I am not a bad shot but I am not head shot on four moving targets going all directions at once good. I had managed to hit three and was trying for a fourth when Annmarie started blazing away. I never did see what animal she was shooting at so I am afraid there may be five raccoons not four. I had time to slam another clip in and run to the fence to look over for more raccoons after Annmarie hollered it was clear. We looked in the trees and did not find anything. I came back, finished off one and we ended up with three dead raccoons. I usually deal with bodies in the morning as I was going to have to wash off blood from the sidewalk. So we went to bed and in the morning I went out to move the carcasses before going to work. There was only one carcass! The other two were gone. Now before I have any doubters they were all dead. As in finish them off dead before we left the porch. I have made that mistake in the past and don’t do it any more. We are unclear how two of the carcasses vanished. All the cat food was gone also. We will leave out cat food again tonight but I would be surprised if they came back again anytime soon.

The club wheat is ready to harvest and should be cut next week. It is probably the best crop we have had in years. It seems to get better every year.

As I was stepping out of the pickup to take pictures of the wheat two little deer fawn twins jumped out from under a rose bush and ran out into the wheat. If you look at the picture below closely you can see one ear. Both fawns were right there in the wheat field. They are little and still spotted, momma leaves them all over the farm. I have spotted them at both ends of the place. We also have a few bucks coming in at night and early morning. This is good as my nephew and I both have buck tags this year.

I picked up a 260 gallon water trough for the bull area today and 500# of wood pellets for the chicken coop. Bubba just about has the coop done and the pellets will be needed. He shoveled out the old sawdust and bleached the walls today. He just needs to lay down some new pellets after moving old ones. The nest boxes need to be cleaned out and the back room needs to be vacuumed up. He got the milking area of the barn cleaned out today also and under the stairs. Just the momma area, the feeders and the sorting chute need to be completed.

I looked at a set of discs today. It will cost $1000. I am going to have to break down and get them next week so we can finish prepping the fields for alfalfa.

We also got a quote for two miles of fiber optic cable to be strung out to the house. It’s not cheap but it is doable. We would rather have high speed internet than a boat, RV, four wheeler, new vehicle, motorcycle or snowmobile. So we should know by next week hopefully if it is possible and when it can be done.

Two men = no balls

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It has been another long week. Annmarie kept telling me to slow down or I was going to make myself sick. I spent all day on the couch today sleeping cause I am sick. I am not sure if her words were prophetic or a curse, lets just poll all married men to get a final answer.

I did take it easy one night! I have started to work on cleaning my dog tag maker! I only used water, cotton rag and some 320 grit wet/dry sand paper to clean it up. There are some very precise rails, tracks and flat stops that need to be polished. I spent two hours working on it and barely touched it. I also realized some tools are required. I really need to take each piece off and clean it then reattach it. Luckily, it is so old I only need a standard screw driver, and an open end wrench. The trouble is I need a stubby screwdriver or an angled one and the same on the open end wrench. So I ordered special tools on Amazon and they are here except for my special open end wrenches. Those should be here next week. I will attack it again when I have all the tools. I am going to try and add up all the hours it takes me to just clean it up and get it functional. At this point I am going to estimate a 100 hours and I already have 2 hours into it.

The Expert came out to look at our predator problem. We had a very good discussion and I will call him after the wheat has been harvested. He is going to set up some traps and get a predator contract resigned. The farm used to have one so we will get a new one signed. So our farm will be added to the arial shooting plan. All in all I was very happy with the interaction. He remembered Ted and Tom and all their sheep. He also loves lamb, states it is the best meat of any animal. I agree with this statement.

The momma cow and baby stayed in the corral and milk barn area for three days. We fed them and used our 35 gallon water trough. It was incredibly hot but the cow would go in the barn if she wanted shade. I had to wait for help to get that calf tagged and banded. I went over and took out some alfalfa hay for them and fed 1/3 bale and set the other outside the corral so she could not get at it. I also moved the last of the hay from winter into the barn lot for the soon to be food cows to eat extra on. This was what the lazy alpaca were eating on instead of foraging. So the slugs found my stash of hay for the cow and started eating on it! You know they are lazy when they have to lay down to eat.

My nephew came over on Tuesday and we went out to deal with the calf. Annmarie was going to film us but we didn’t really give her time and had the calf pinned pretty fast. The nephew went for the all hands on deck approach and just jumped in and tried to grab a front and back leg and drop it on its side. He ended up on the ground and holding one back leg with the calf near a gate and a corner. I jumped on it and pinned it down then he climbed on top of it. We were right next to the gate hinges. This is important because I had a hard time finding two testicles. So I kept asking him to move the calf around a little bit to ease the abdominal muscle tension. There was a yellow jacket nest in the end of the gate. He got stung twice in the ear before we finally just grabbed the calf and slid him three feet away from the gate. It took me about five minutes to find both testicles and get them into a rubber band. The calf is a little old and you have to pull the scrotum through then kinda pop each testicle past the rubber band. I got them both so in a few weeks the calf will have no testicles. We tagged him in the right ear also. I did verify i had the right color tag this time but just in case all our cull animals will be tagged in the right ear if we are selling them. So even if I mess up gender the ear will tell us which ones to get rid of. I need to look but I think its number 13 or 14.

We then had to chase them out onto the back hillside and out with the other cows. Our no nutter bull has torn up our fence in front of the barn to get near her so he needs to be two fences away from her. She ran to the top of the hill so our nephew went up and chased her down while I opened all the gates ahead of her to get her out with everyone else. I really like the picture that Annmarie took below.

We then went over and finished working on the bull corral. We got the last four posts set in gravel and put up all the used feeder panels. The panels are heavy so we used the tractor to drag them over to the post line. We also had to use the tractor to lift sections of the panels so we could hook in the next section. The only thing left to do is to add the cow panels and chain everything to the wooden posts. I do need to finish filling the last rock crib and put up four wooden boards. After that I need to clean out the old wood scraps and all the old fence materials. I also have about four fence holes to fill in. I also need to drag the ground and level the area out. Once that is done I need to install the water trough. I may need to put In a couple of gold fish in the tank to keep it clean. I am at 85% completion! In three hours I could have the fence done the rest is to make it safe and provide a spot for water. The water trough will hold 235 gallons of water and we are not going to use a pump. I will be hand dipping water from the spring into the trough. I just thought up a bucket arrangement I can attach to a railroad tie that has a hose attached to the bottom that I can just bucket into it and then the water will flow into the trough so I don’t have to try and throw the water through the fence. That will make a mess.

Barn teenager done

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As I slept on the cough today trying to get better Bubba “finished” the barn. I say this because Bubba did a teenager finish. I now really understand my father as he was always getting on me about the minutiae. I learned by the time I was a teenager that the job had to be perfect. Yet every teenager I have ever had out to the farm uses a different measuring stick of completion. Bubba is correct, this section is clean of poop and straw. Yet for the barn to be functional we have to have all the sorting pen that was removed reinstalled and all of the feeders put back out.

This doesn’t include the two smaller areas where we keep the new mommas. It still needs to be cleaned out and under the stairs needs to be cleaned out. I went out and talked to Bubba to give him clearer directions and then we went over how to clean out the chicken coop. He started working on the coop after that and I went back to the couch for another several hour nap. We should have all the buildings cleaned out by Monday. I am super stoked. I need about 8 more hours on the bull enclosure and then its onto the next project. I need to trim the alpaca feet and fix the machine shed overhead beams I broke last year with the tractor. I will call on Monday and get some custom beams cut for the repair.

We need to clean out the milking area also. Meathead is coming out on Tuesday to finish moving all the straw and poop from the barn over into the compost pile. She can grab the extra compost from the alley way and front barn lot at the same time. There are four big rocks in the milking area I would like to take out. They were used as support for floor beams but they just get in the way now. I have tried to get them out with the tractor but there is no room to move the tractor around in this tight space. I am just going to have to use a breaker bar, shovel and fulcrum to get them out. Last night I went to bed early due to an illness. I was dead asleep when I was woken up by the dogs just raising a ruckus outside. It sounded like they were tearing something up and it was vicious. This went on for a little while then I heard Annmarie slap the side of the house loudly to shut them up and I fell back asleep. When she came to bed she told me that the dogs were at the back garden gate barking and trying to get at the four raccoons on our back porch. They were helping themselves to the cat food. She had flipped on the light and took a shot at them with the 30-30. She missed as they were almost gone by the time she got back with a weapon. So we have baited the back porch with more cat food tonight. I didn’t feed the cats in the barn and we are going to send Annmarie out to the chicken coop area and I will come out the back door blazing. Last night the raccoons ran toward the chicken coop. Annmarie will be waiting for them. As soon as I start shooting she will turn on her flashlight. I will not leave the back yard so she can shoot at anything that comes her way, no crossing of fire lanes. This is a stupid problem to have but they cannot get at my chickens! My babies should be laying next month and I do not want to wait another 8 months before getting more eggs.

Cowboy breakfast

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The animal experience ended well, we made homemade biscuits and milk gravy! I even fried the sausage in leftover bacon grease, do not knock it until you have tried it! The sausage was really lean and you need some fat to get the flour to brown. The biscuits are always made from Bisquick, which isn’t really from scratch but they are still made at home and they are amazing. It was a great ending to a long morning. We started moving animals at 0530 this morning. It has been very hot and the animals don’t do well in the heat, they get stressed easily. Annmarie doesn’t like the heat either, one could say she gets stressed also, if one dared. So we were out the door by 0534 to begin our adventure. It’s hard to explain to people why we have worked so hard to subdivide the property and why we have so many different gates and enclosures throughout the farm. It all comes down to moving and sorting animals, this task is much easier if you can place animals in pens or re-sort them when needed. This was especially true today as we had two separate groups of cows and two separate groups of sheep.

The sheep and horses were in with the first group of six cows. We used the border collies to push the sheep into our front yard. This was Annmarie’s idea as it gets them out of the way and I agreed but as an added bonus the lawn needs mowed. Dual purpose is the name of the game. The dogs did very well and it took less than a minute to get them out of the barn lot and into the yard with no swearing. This is a near miraculous event and not very common. Our dogs are trained to respond to swearing and yelling. This is totally our fault, but we realize that the dogs need to practice on the animals to learn but it can be trying at times. We got the first six cows into the corral and dusted them down for flies. We had them in 2 of the 3 pens then went to get the other cows. The other cows were way down by the schoolhouse. Actually, half were up by the irrigation pump but they ran down to see the bull and ended up at the end of the property by the school house. Annmarie took both dogs and Mouse was being a spicy pickle with tons of extra hot and a dash of horseradish. Sarah asked me why she kept using him if he kept running and doing the wrong thing. I told her that she was teaching him, he won’t learn without mistakes and since she could call him back every time with the animals visible he just needed fine tuning. Getting him to return to us with the animals in his sight is the hardest trick of all to teach and that one we have done. The rest is just repetition. He wants to go in a straight line and pretends that the command “right” or “left” means run directly at whatever animal it is we are currently working. She got them out of the trees and headed back toward the house. We pushed them through the first fence and I closed the gate and worked the dogs as Annmarie’s voice was wearing thin as well as her patience. The cows don’t want to work easily as there is a calf in their midst. The reason we want them is so we can tag and band the calf and let the bull at the sequestered cows and yearling heifer.

The above picture is where the cows were the first time, the below picture is where the cows are after they got around the dogs and Annmarie because the dogs failed to turn them when they broke. They ran for the dry creek bed and went under the fence. I had not locked down the panels in the creek area yet. I usually do this later in the summer when we are trying to control access to certain areas of the pasture. I did shut the gate, even though it didn’t help. Sarah had to go to work so Annmarie and I and the dogs pushed them up the hill this time so we could run them across the top of the hill away from obstacles. This worked well and we got them into the barn lot fairly easily. We locked them in behind the barn and attempted to push them into the corral. Now it should be noted that before we went out to get these cows Annmarie asked me if we should not use the horse corral panels to build a funnel for the cows to go directly to the corral. I was opposed to this option as it meant more work. Well, this came back to haunt me as the cows would not go into the corral. The mean cow with the green ear tag would not go, she kept coming back at us and eventually ran past us. Annmarie is a huge proponent of gentle steady pressure when moving the animals. I am more of a holler and dog kind of guy. She got me to agree to make hamburger out of the green tag cow and to add her to the butchers list but even more importantly she agreed to go into the barn while I worked the cows with the dogs. The dogs did great and we pushed everyone right into the corral. She wanted to know why I didn’t do that every time. I stated that my method is only quicker part of the time and the animals tend to break away more as I use the dogs and shaker sticks aggressively. I just got lucky.

We powdered and sorted cows, the green tag cow went into the to be eaten in six weeks pen. We have a no scrotum bull that was wreaking havoc in the pens. He is in the to be eaten pen. He is is about 100# heavier than everyone else. We had a one nutter last time we killed and he was great eating. This one never had any testicles descend stupid problem number 15.

We managed to get the calf isolated to one pen and I went and got a tag and bander pliers. I like the calves to be under 30 days old but this one is more like 2+ months old. I am here to tell you that there is a world of difference when you are grabbing and catching one by yourself. I couldn’t get it by the neck but managed to snag a back leg. Have you ever seen those vibrating dumbbells advertised on infomercials that go back and forth and you are supposed to hold onto them? It was exactly like that trying to hold onto a back leg and getting drug around the pen. I knew that I needed to grab the opposite front and back leg and then flop him onto his side. But the execution of this was not happening. I could not get to the head of the animal. So I grabbed the other back leg! Now I have two of these pumping pulling weights attempting to jerk me off my feet. I got kicked in the chest and belly several times before it finally started bawling at the top of its lungs. I couldn’t take the physical, auditory and mental abuse any more. I let it go and we concocted a plan to get this stuff done. We decided to keep the calf and mother in the corral until I can get some help. We will feed them, let them into the old milking portion of the barn and fill the 35 gallon water trough. I realize that the cure for this is to learn to rope. I had rope to tie up legs on the calf but I could not get it to ground. Annmarie tweaked her back 3 days ago so she was forbidden to help wrestle the calf. On a good day I end up with bruises and sore for a couple of days.

After all of that Annmarie decided to give the green tag cow a butcher reprieve and she was put back in with our bull.

The bull and his 8 ladies needed to be pushed back out to get a double fence between them and the market cows. So the dogs and I stopped at the spring to get our fill of water before moving on. Zeke went upstream and made the water muddy for me to drink. This is part of the annual water quality check I perform. I have never gotten sick yet. As far as we know no one has over the course of the farm’s life. The spring head is only about 60 feet away.

The sheep just did not want to leave the shade or the front yard. We tried twice with the dogs but everyone was tired after 4 hours working animals and the lawn still needs to be mowed so we are going to leave them in for at least a day.

We called the state trapper on Friday and he returned our call today. He is coming out to evaluate our predator problem on Monday. We will get this sheep depredation problem under control. Someone suggested guard dogs and they do work, but they cost about $75/month per dog to maintain. We are not about to go into this yet as it costs us about $120/month for the two border collies by the time you add in food and all the vet bills. This is cheap help and saves us from having to pay a human being to help so it is totally needed but it is an ongoing cost and we like to keep those as low as possible.

Annmarie and the dogs were all tuckered out after the running around and a hearty breakfast.