chickens

Forever Friday 35/45

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Only 9 days left as I did all of this work yesterday! We are actually going to go to the coast for some actual rest and relaxation so I have fewer days than that to work on the farm. I need to be ready for Winter and its getting close to being finished and close to being winter!

I keep trying to get more organized. This is probably my single biggest hurdle. I will be making labels for my tool drawers next so I can finish organizing the new tool box and storage area in the machine shop. I am going to have Annmarie engrave labels on metal and get magnets for them so I can move them around if needed because I will not be happy with the first version. I also spent an hour and cleaned up all of the fencing buckets, tossed out the trash and got everything organized into grouped bins. I think I need to make a couple of shelves above this area to put tools onto, that project can happen later after everything else is done. I did take the drain hose and elevate it. It doesn’t weigh very much but it takes up a lot of space. I have this for around the barn but did not have time to get it into the ground. I used the old rope and pulley that used to hold up the fuel nozzle from outside the machine shed.

I had the pickup and trailer in the ram pasture but it was hard to drive in through the new gate as I am not going to get the flooded out culvert cleaned up and replaced. The angle of approach needed to be adjusted to make coming around the old chicken coop easier. This option had been discussed and since it rained 12/100” last night I thought moving some dirt was perfect. The moisture did not go down far but it did help some. I have a pile of dirt that I have been slowly lowering and I just lowered it enough to create a drivable dirt path. My little tractor can do this but it takes a lot of time with a 1/3 cubic yard bucket and a four foot wide box blade.

I got two more rock cribs finished and full of rocks. I am so ready for work where I do not have to move a few thousand pounds of rock a day. My limit alone is about 10,000 lbs of rock a day, which is only two cribs as I have to move the rock twice. After that I am ready to move onto a different job. So I ended up grading the animal access to the spring. It had three old post holes that needed cleaned up as we widened the water access and made it more into a funnel shape. I also dug out the water area to widen it and harden the far bank. My waterproof muck boots have gotten a serious workout this year.

I ended up watering the new plants with a bucket and collected eggs. For some reasons the chickens are slacking off as I only got seven eggs yesterday. I am unsure why, I am thinking it is time to cull all three roosters and the ancient hen who can only crab walk. The chickens don’t lay well when I disturb the normal patterns but since they are not laying anyway I might as well do it now.

Forever Friday 32/45

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Well it’s closing in on my home time, in two weeks I will be at work trying to figure out what has changed in the 6.5 weeks I have been gone. I am actually looking forward to going back and getting back in the thick of things. This is starting to affect my at home timeline. I had a friend bring over more plants on Sunday that they had culled out of their garden. I planted five more currants, four more bush raspberries and two more thornless blackberries and trimmed off about 8 blackberry pieces and shoved them into some dirt and tossed some water on them, hopefully they will grow. I have enough blackberries now. I still need about four more raspberry canes to fill in the rest of the line. I need to hammer in some pecker poles and create a couple of wire supports for the plants to grow on. I also went through the area and hoed up all of the thistles. The garden area looks much better. I am hoping that next year I can hit it early and kill all the weeds. I used Black Gold potting soil around all the plants this time to give them a jumpstart. I am going to do that with all the transplants from now on. Our soil is solid clay in places and just does not provide that initial surge growth that is needed for the plants to get well established.

I drove in early today to town and picked up more potting soil and ran errands. I was able to get everything I needed and fit it into my car. I did not want to take the rock filled trailer off of the pickup so I got it all to fit by using my trunk, backseat and front floorboard for storage.

Today, Mr Professional and his progeny came out for two hours and helped me plant the rest of the plants over in the flooded zone. The only plants that survived the flood was a male sea berry that was underwater, five echinacea plants and today I found some little bitty green plant that I remember planting but don’t remember what it is called. Nothing else survived the flood. We planted15 more plants and spread out some flower seed. Every plant got potting soil around it, it took all 8 bags I purchased plus two more from the leftovers in the lavender garden, there are only two bags left unused now. As we were planting the tiny little plants the teenager chickens kept coming into the flower area. I had not anticipated this as they are just squeezing through the large square openings in the ranch panels. The chickens will eat all of my new flowers and bushes! So then we had to string up 18 inches of chicken wire in the inside of the new fence to keep the chickens out. If I had thought of this earlier while building the fence I could of accounted for this but it did not occur at that time that the chickens would be a problem. I left two plants down in the spring water to see if they would snap back, they did not look good after staying out all night. I even watered everything last night before coming inside. Back at the fence tomorrow…

Chicks are laying

Steve HardinLeave a comment

It is very hard to believe that this is the end of January.  The weather has been incredibly mild.  In the last 28 days we have gotten just over 4” of rain.  We usually get 12” annually.  The ground is so saturated that if you look out in this field, all the little brown spots are worm mounds from them surfacing to avoid drowning, that is a lot of worms!  This is prime fencing weather but since I am supposed to be inside the house doing home improvement projects I don’t get to go outside and fence all winter long.  Being able to fence all winter long is not a problem that normally occurs.

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I have been working on the upstairs bathroom.  I have the closet almost roughed in and finish wood on the walls.  I still need to build one stem wall and a frame for the closet door.  I am going to hold off on the rest of the closet build until I get the floor tile installed.  I can do that while we are waiting on the plumber to come in and install the sink and toilet.

I was super stoked that I managed to get the closet floor cut and installed on the first try only using a tape measure and square to draw out the pattern on plywood.  It just needed some judicious use of nylon hammer to get it into place.  I am all ready to start installing the Hardiboard on the floor.  Once that is in I can start painting the Red Guard on to create a waterproof barrier to set the tile on top of preventing any toilet water from ending up in the downstairs ceiling. Barring no complications I should have the Hardiboard down and the Red Guard done over the weekend and will be able to start laying tile next weekend.  I am hoping to lay all of the floor tile in one setting.  Once it has cured for 24 hours I will come back and put the floor trim tile up on the wall.  I am not going to use pool tile grout this time.  I am using an epoxy base but it’s not quite as sticky as the stuff I used last year.  When I was talking to the tile shop I was told I should only have done about three square feet of grout at a time so I could clean it all up quickly.  I am pretty sure we did about six square feet of grout at a time and it was painful.  I am still cleaning up grout in some low traffic areas a year later.

Zeke is figuring out how to get out of the front yard again.  He was jumping at the lower wire strand to make it loose so he could crawl under it but he has figured out how to get out without doing that now.  I am going to drill through the 4×4 posts and string another wire through the posts and see if that keeps him in.  It is crazy how hard it is to keep him in the yard.  Mouse hardly leaves even if he front gate is left open!

My baby pullets just started to lay this week!  Instead of getting three eggs a week we have gotten two dozen in the last four days.  Our egg customers will be happy to get eggs as we were not selling any.

We did have another single lamb born this morning.  Annmarie and I think the ram got tired when he was doing his job this summer.  It’s like he had to save up energy before he could rush in for a few days then take a break to build up more energy, he is no Energize bunny.  We are seriously considering a second ram to cause some competition between the two rams.

  • Total lambs born (dead or alive):  28
  • # of singles:  5
  • # of twins:  7
  • # of triplets:  3
  • Stillborn lambs:  1
  • # died without a tag:  4
  • # bummered:  3
  • # ewes delivered:  15
  • # lambs alive on property:  20
  • Birth rate (alive & dead included):  187% (goal>150%)
  • Ewe productivity after 1 week (live lambs on farm):  140% (goal >125%)
  • Lamb success (live lambs on farm after 1 week):  71% (max 100%)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whose the boss?

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Well it’s a New Year!  One of the things I have noticed the most about doing the blog is I seem to repeat myself.  There is always a variety but we are a farm and do have the same type of animals and jobs that need to be done.  I don’t think it’s such a bad thing.  There is always a daily variety, the weather, the moon cycle, the sound of the birds or running creek, the leaves on the trees, something new every day to make it different.  I write this blog for me, consider it my therapy.  As I am out working on something I always wonder if it has been done before and what were the previous generations thinking?  We don’t have that so I wanted to create a record of what it is like to actually run a small farm and what it takes to keep it up and the problems that come up.  I have done the blog since March 2010.  I wish now that I had started three years earlier but I did not and at that time it was not as easy to create and run a blog.  I am not the most computer literate individual as my wife and daughter will attest.  Ten years is a long time to stick with this and I plan on doing it until I cannot.  I want to be able to pass on that day to day thought process and the highs and lows associated with farm life.  I truly do enjoy all the hard work, time and effort that goes into creating and maintaining a farm.  As I get older, I will need to learn how to work smarter, not harder and I hope someone can learn those lessons earlier than I did.  This has been my New Years revelation for 2020.  I hope the reader, you, can enjoy the small moments and laugh at the absurdity along with me.

I want out and took a picture of my new flood lights on the tractor after it was full dark.  Realize that I took these pictures with my IPhone that hates low light and I did it with no flash.  It was amazingly bright!  I have a front and rear view.  I will have no trouble working in the dark now.  I just need the weather to warm up and I will be ready to go!

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On January 1, 2020 I made the perfect breakfast.  I made fried ham and potatoes with onions and garlic with a perfect eggs over easy.  The yolks did not get broke in the flip and they were from our chickens.  The ham was from a trade of lambs for a pig this year and the potato was a baked leftover one from dinner a few nights before.  I have learned to drop the chopped garlic in for the last couple of minutes of cooking to get its full aroma and flavor.  I used to toss it in early and burn it and to top it all off I use “Slap Ya Mama” Cajun seasoning as my only spice.  Perfection.

 

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We have one ewe that has finally figured out the game. She just hangs out alongside the wall when we come in and feed and work in the barn.  She just stays sitting and we leave her alone.  She doesn’t bum rush the new hay when we put it out and when everyone else comes back in she gets up and joins the herd.  She is one of our original Baker Girls so she was in our second batch of sheep we ever bought.  So we have had for almost a decade.  As you look at our herd you can tell who the old original ewes are, they just look tired.  We have opted to allow them to just keep on keeping on.  They are now getting some supplemental food away from the main herd.  This has been helping them gain some weight and not constantly lose.  We may end up having to confine them in the orchard during the summer to limit their roaming.  As long as they can keep up with the herd we will let them.

My baby chickens still want to be stupid and not go in at night.  Unfortunately, they are not consistent.  Most nights they are all in the coop, one night I had seven chickens sitting outside the door.  On the first night of the year I had to go and put a black chick into the coop, I believe she is copper maran.  It is hard to catch a black chicken in the dark and when I scooped her up she smacked me in the face with her wing and caterwauled about being handled.  You would have thought she was going in the stew pot any second with the raucous she was creating.

 

 

Lamb in hand

Steve HardinLeave a comment

We have had the ram isolated and in with the steers for the last two weeks since we had a lamb born on the 9th. We figured it was the tip of the iceburg and the babies would start popping out everywhere. It has been two weeks and no more babies. The sheep come into estrus every 3 weeks so she must have been the only one in heat. So babies should start up in 1-2 weeks.

I had to kick the baby chickens out of the coop today. I just went out there and chased or threw them out one at a time. Only about 10 managed to get out on their own. I went out just before dark and after the automatic chicken door had closed and had to chase 24 back into the coop. Only six had made it inside before the auto door closed.

Annmarie and I had a discussion about what to call the side by side UTV. She did not like the name “side by side”. She did not really care for UTV either. So she opted for “buggy”. I tried to explain that a buggy in recreational vehicle terminology is something you use on the sand. We are calling the side by side a “buggy”.

I did go down and feed the cows another bale of hay and spotted a new calf! It looks good. How can it come out ready for winter?

I have started to wire the machine shed. It is going to be a slow process but hoping to have it down before the new year.

We killed two lambs today, it was our part of the trade two sheep for a pig deal we have been doing the last couple of years. It seems to be working out for both of us. Again we were able to salvage an amazing amount of items courtesy of an Indian friend. He took both heads, all 8 forelegs, lungs, kidneys, hearts, livers and some diaphragm meat and some scraps from the hide. I started a fire in the fire pit and burned off the hair for him. But I am not taking the blame if I overdid it. He said last year when I started the bonfire it was so hot he ended up over cooking the heads and legs. He blamed it on the heat, and his wife blamed him! So I did it at a lower heat and smaller fire. Hopefully, it will meet wife approval standards.

Annmarie is violating the Christmas rule by hanging out a Christmas decoration before Thanksgiving! I went out to let the dogs back in a mere few hours and discovered that the Christmas decoration had fallen apart. It would appear that the powers that be also agree with me on the Christmas rule.

Annmarie used the upstairs bathroom to stain some wood for the laser cutter. Its a great space as we can shut the door and turn on the ventilation fan. It may become a permanent craft location for this reason.