I caught another predator this morning.  It started out simple, let the dogs out to pee, since I was up and outside I decided to let the chickens out.  That was when I noticed the skunk in our live trap.  Now they make a live trap for skunks, it is far smaller than mine.  I cannot catch big raccoons if I use the smaller skunk trap.  Know why the skunk trap is smaller?  It is so they cannot lift their tail.  If they can not lift the tail then they don’t spray.  Hence no bad smell.  Unfortunately, I cannot just cruise on up to the live trap, lift it and carry it away.  I would get sprayed.  So I had to stand way, way back and shoot it.  Every time I shoot a skunk they spray, there is just no way around it.  I am going to have to go out way later today and empty the trap up at the boneyard.  The smell is palpable!  I was having a hard time breathing because I could taste the smell.  Not very pleasant.  Then Annmarie and I heard some meowing (she had come outside after she heard the gunshot).  One of our kittens had somehow gotten into the back of the chicken coop and was stuck up on a rafter.  While I was getting the ladder, she coaxed it into coming over to her while she was standing on top of the nesting boxes.  I was not needed.

I got to spend a little time in the chicken coop tonight.  Sarah was feeding the chickens and she found a mouse in the chicken food garbage can.  Now, since I have instructed the child multiple times to place the lid back on the metal trash can I was less than sympathetic.  I told her to pop it with the plastic container, scoop it up and toss it outside for the cats.  I went outside and worked on the sprinkler system for the chicken yard.  Sarah hit the mouse multiple times to no avail.  She ended up getting a second container and trapping the mouse and then taking it outside for our cuddly kitten (about 14 weeks old).  The mouse took off running, it was no match for a wily outside cat.  No more mouse.  I need to add a couple more sprinklers to the chicky yard.  My new grass died from lack of water to the appropriate spots. 


  I am getting several small eggs a week now.  So hopefully my production from the chickens will start back up again.   It is almost time to get the timer and light going again.  The chickens need 17 hours of light/day to maintain peak production.  I use a timer and a cheap light (40W).  I had unplugged the extension cord to the coop to use for my new electric weed eater.  So after this weekend, I will put it back.  After September, I should have time to wire the chicken coop with power.  Lots of jobs, just no time to finish them.  

There are times when nothing gets done.  Work has been crazy (I volunteered to teach some classes and drive a metaphorical bus, more work), we are getting ready for the Swim team major fundraiser in 4 weeks and there is no time left for anything else.  So the farm is on cruise.  Now that has not prevented the sheep from getting out every day.  I left the barn door open and I think they are jumping into the barn and running out the other side.  The momma and her babies are still crawling under the fence where it crosses the creek (I am gonna fix that today with a hog wire panel).  The teenage chickens have started to lay.  In the last two weeks we have gotten over a dozen fairy eggs (very small eggs with no yolks).  I gave them all to one of my original local egg customers.
My baby chicks are running around in their outside enclosure.  I had switched my drip sprinklers to a new rotary style drip sprinkler.  Damn things won’t turn.  Total waste of $2.  So now I am going to scavenge parts off of those and use in my old ones.

Here are the sheep cooling off next to the old wood shed.  They love leaning up against the concrete on a hot day.  The chicken is a Silver Laced Wyandotte.  They are pretty fragile as chicks but I am having good luck with them as adults (if they live to adulthood).

Sunday night when we were going to bed Annmarie asked me if I had locked the chickens up?  Of course, I was upstairs in our bedroom half undressed.  I had not locked the chickens up, so I trudged downstairs, grabbed a flashlight and some dog food.  I figured since I was going outside already I would bait the live trap.  I locked the chicken yard up and set the trap and baited it.  The trap is literally four feet from my chicken enclosure, so any critter getting caught in it has aspirations of a chicken meal.  We woke up Monday morning and are laying in bed talking when Annmarie says “Isn’t that a raccoon chittering?”  I listen and then make an authoritative statement “No, just some birds”.  We send Sarah out to the chicken coop to feed the babies and water first thing in the morning (she had not done it the evening before).  She comes running back inside stating “There is a raccoon in the trap”.  I guess Annmarie was right and I was wrong.  I went out and dispatched the coon, then carried the trap to the pickup so they could drive it up to the boneyard for disposal.  I heard later that Sarah was moaning because she got a drop of blood on her shoe when she emptied the trap.  I still have not caught the other adult coon.

Can you tell I spent seven hours on the tractor mowing?  Here are the before and after pictures.

Ram pasture before mowing

Ram pasture after mowing

We have started pouring water onto the ram pasture after the mowing.  Hopefully, the grass will take off.  You can see the green about 1/3 out from the chain link fence.  We would like that to go all the way out to the far fence.

If you look closely at the after mowing picture you will notice all kinds of stuff piled up along the fence.  The dog keeps escaping from our yard.  So I keep trying to add stuff in an effort to keep the dog in the yard.  It is not working.  Now one of the sheep and her babies have figured out how to crawl under and get into the yard.

Front of the house before mowing

This is looking out from our front porch.  You can see the corral gate that I had to wire a hog panel to the gate.  The baby sheep had figured out that they were small enough to slip through the rails and go out and eat on this hillside.  Well, the momma sheep just stood at the fence and bawled nonstop every night.  So I installed the hog wire.

Front of the house after mowing

Looks much better doesn’t it?  I have to use the weedeater to get the stuff near the creek.  The hillside was too steep to get the tractor down there.  Yes, I did buy another weedeater.  I went for a cheap $60 electric one.  I can just throw it away when it breaks.  I hate weedeaters right now.

Orchard near house before mowing

This is the orchard from our front lawn.  See the dirt patch at the bottom of the picture?  That is where I had to dig up our water line last winter.  That was another back hoe experience.  Nothing like fixing pipe in the rain.  It rained the entire weekend I was outside fixing the line.  See the huge stand of Russian thistles?

Orchard near house after mowing

Looks much better!!  The mower was able to tear up the thistles, it just took a long time.  At the bottom left of the picture you can see the post I ripped out to make my gate.  I could have driven between the posts.

Me on the tractor!!  You can see the orchard before I mowed here.  Take a close look for the back fence, it is the one that is hidden behind all the weeds.  That huge mess of thistles behind the cab is the road into the orchard.  to the left and right is the front creek ditch.

Orchard mowed

This is the orchard mowed.  The tall weeds in the center mark the path of the front ditch.  I couldn’t get close enough to mow them.  If you look from the post in the bottom left corner of the picture to the post just right of the apple tree you will be looking at the new fence line.  I will start working on this again this week.

Orchard mowed.  See fence line!!

Boy howdy.  Look at that fence line.  The amazing part is that the field is green with no irrigation of any kind.