Quiet One

Chicken coop hardening

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It was time to get some chicken eggs and to harden the chicken coop. the Quiet One came out this morning and we spent an hour getting all the tools and supplies over to the chicken coop so we could get it updated. There used to be a fenced off portion down by the window but the steers tore it up in the last couple of years by trying to go through it. They did not get through the fence but they tore it up beyond salvaging and it had some big holes. This time I anticipated the cows trying to go through it again. We put a triangle with alternating H braces and smooth wire fence tighteners to create an anchor that can take a charging animal and bounce it off. We put three 2×4 across the chicken wire so that the cows can see there is an actual fence present. We also slanted the fence so it forces them to turn all in the hope that it won’t get ripped apart again. This also creates a larger chicken yard. Normally, that does not matter as I do not lock them up normally but we are getting zero eggs/day with 30 chickens. I cannot figure out where they are laying eggs. Today we heard the little silkie hen lay an egg behind the sink and snagged it as soon as she left. It is the first egg I have collected in five day!

The plan is to get the fence around the greenhouse and then to put chicken wire over the roof of the chicken yard so they cannot fly out. I want to force them to stay in the chicken yard for 1-2 weeks until they get used to using the laying boxes. Drilling the holes was surprisingly easy! The auger just went right into the ground and I only hit one rock and it just went around it. It was amazing, I have never had it that easy and I only need to drill one more hole and I will be done. It is for the gate into the greenhouse area but I need to go pickup a gate first. I want to make it so that the gate has to be pulled outward and if it is pushed on it will just close it against the chicken enclosure. This way even if the gate is not latched the animals cannot push it open.

Digging out the barn is the next big chore. The new little tractor has a wider bucket than the John Deere so I am unsure how the gate setup is going to work. I may have to move 1-2 of the posts out 18” so the new tractor can make the corner. I have not been brave enough to try it yet! Mostly because I do not have time for another project yet. I need to get the greenhouse and chicken coop finished first. Once they are done then I can move onto the barn. I did take some time and move one of the barn lot piles, the one closest to the barn, so that I can make a new pile of barn poop and straw. Not having to drive to the far end of the barn lot will save me some time, a couple of hours probably overall.

I went to town to get some cow panels and a brand new gate for the greenhouse fence. I am all ready for tomorrow.

Ram and bull in herd and breeding

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Summer is definitely here, all of the fields are dead and the only green is along the creek where patches of water still exist in deep pools or along the spring path. Nothing can kill the blackberries. They grow along the creek and spring in multiple places on the farm. I have managed to pick 181 cups of blackberries so far this year, so just over 11 gallons. I need to pick about another 10 gallons. We will have plums coming on in next 2-3 weeks and we can pit and freeze them for the wife’s breakfast smoothie. I try and collect 2 cups of fruit for 365 days. It takes a lot more than you would think when you are planning for the entire year.

The grandbaby is turning one year old this month. He is all over the place now and getting into everything. Nap time is still my favorite time. I loved it when our daughter was young and I still love it. Annmarie snuck down while I was “babysitting” this weekend one morning before going outside to do something.

It was time to sort off the sheep. I had two lambs to sell and we needed to sort off all the lambs so we could put the rams in with the ewes. We also traded a ewe for a new ram so I needed to chose that ewe and mark her so we can sort her off in December. The final count after multiple sorting passes is 12 wether lambs (#434-447), 17 female lambs, 2 sold so 15 to add to our herd at the end of December (#439-456), ewe #380 is going to Mr Horse Tamer, we also have 25 ewes that are being bred by 3 rams. We will be eating the lazy ram this winter, he will be made into 100% burger. The Quiet One came out and helped me sort everyone. It took a bit to get everyone moved into the correct pasture. The lambs are down below, the ewes and rams are up with the cows and bull. All the boys got turned in with their respective opposing genders.

I am working shifts at work so I am taking days off mid week to account for days worked and I wanted to get the chicken coop hardened and the fence around the greenhouse. So we put the 6” auger on one of the tractors and got the three 50# weights applied via my custom welded jig! There is just not enough weight if the soil is hard someone used to have to try and push down on the arm and that is not very safe. I bypassed the seat pto safety on the older tractor but I have not done that on the new one yet. It is fairly simple I just have not needed it yet. Eventually I will have to do it. The plan is to get this done on Tuesday & Wednesday of next week. I have no idea how hard it will be do dig the holes. The ground has not seen any water for about 2.5 months, the good thing is it is creek bottom so it should be deep soil. There are not any rock bluffs in the area we are digging holes.

Greenhouse build

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I have plans to get Annmarie’s greenhouse in place and put together so she can use it. We would like to grow vegetables through the winter so we are going to give it a go. We will probably put a remote thermometer in the greenhouse so we can track the high and low temps throughout the year. This will not be possible if I do not assemble the thing. Rainman and I had already built the base earlier in the year we just needed to assemble the actual greenhouse, or so I thought. The Quiet One and I worked on changing out panels down by the spring first. I had purchased some old metal panels and we swapped out the newer horse exercise ring panels for some old ones that can stay forever. I of course found a deep spot with my rubber boots and ended up getting water inside my left boot first thing in the morning. My foot stayed wet for the rest of the day.

Before we could even assemble the first part of the base I had to bring over almost two yards of gravel to spread around the outside of the base. The chickens had spread out the gravel and were eroding the base. Once we got that corrected we assembled the base and the instructions said to bury the base. We brought in another three yards of gravel to fill the base but kept it away from the metal. I wanted to get the entire thing assembled then use some metal to wood screws to attach the greenhouse base to the wooden base we installed. We also bolted the wooden frame to three foot ground anchors screwed into the ground in the spring. I do not believe it will be able to fly away. It might fly apart due to the wind but the base frame will stay attached to the ground if it does! All the videos said it would take two days but we were making stellar progress despite reading the instruction booklet. That is until the instructions started to tell us to disassemble one piece for every two we attempted to add. We will have to change out some longer bolts for shorter ones as we used up all the long ones and we need them for the roof.

I ended up on my back after attempting to jump off of a ladder at what I thought was a foot or so. It was more than that and I did not stick the landing, my feet slid out from under me and my back stopped my fall when it pounded into the ground. Surprisingly, I did not knock the air out of my lungs. I did end up bruising the bottom of my left foot. It hurts to walk now and I have a slight limp until I get used to the pain. I also wore a short sleeve shirt, it was hot, and I don’t usually do that so I got an impressive sunburn on my arms and neck. At 58 years old I am not near as spry as I used to be.

We ended up almost getting the roof truss pieces in place before quitting. The Quiet One did bring over chickens! I now have an extra approximately 25 chickens. So there are about 40 chickens running around now. They need to figure out that they have to go to the front spring if they want water. I got a dozen eggs today, so the dog is back to getting an egg on her food twice daily.

Our Ring camera is getting a lot smarter. It can now tell you that the critters it sees are a flock of chickens! It is pretty amazing. They now need to work on the logic so the camera tells you when a dog enters the picture.

Haying done for now.

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Well we do actually go on vacation occasionally, we spent a week in Cove at Ascension summer camp. I am the nurse and Annmarie is the priest. I spend the week working on my jewelry as I am always too busy at home. I was able to complete three chains that were in various stages of completion. While we were away the Quiet One mowed the entire property again to knock down all the cheat grass a second time. It takes two mowings to get it knocked down. They did all the main fields. I spent one Sunday mowing around the buildings and along the road and up top a single time around the CRP. They had already gone around twice on three sides. This helps keep the weeds from creeping in from the fence lines. I did not see a single rabbit while I was mowing. We did have a second calf born while we were away, it is a little buy and he is already bigger than his three week old sister. He is a beautiful brown color. This is the second boy that has been brown.

I did try and mow on the back side of field #1 but it is tough. I just knocked down the high stuff. There is still a tipping point from the old hole that I did not get completely filled. So you have to be careful with the tractor or it will tip over. I really need to get the Gingerman over here with a dozer and cut a road on the back side so I can fence off the stream-bed. We might even be able to even out the side to the point that I could grow some grass on this side. I might be able to get 1-2 acres planted in grass. It’s a long term goal. It is going to require a dozer. I wouldn’t mind planting a couple of trees back there also.

The chickens have been getting decimated so we decided to upgrade our security. We now have a Ring camera on the backside of the old house and it watches the coop and entire ram pasture/back of barn. We should now be able to see coyotes, raccoons and other predators. It is a lot easier to review footage when it gets marked because something is there.

Our garden is pumping out herbs and we just picked all our fall planted garlic. The nice part was it was free! We saved garlic from last year and planted it in the fall, we will do the same thing again this year. We use an entire large brown paper bag of garlic over the course of a year. Garlic is a root vegetable, not a spice. We are picking raspberries also. We are getting about a quart every day now. Annmarie has started to freeze some for use during the winter. We are not going to get much tree fruit this year. The late freeze killed the buds, plus last year was a bumper crop and the trees like to rest after a great year. But our thornless blackberries and the wild blackberries are incredible this year. I picked almost 25 gallons last year. I will probably have to fill in the missing fruit with blackberries this year so I suspect I will need to pick at least 40 gallons this year. If you equate that to the price of buying fruit we probably save $800-1000 in fresh fruit by freezing our own. Plus, I don’t mind picking blackberries, it is fairly relaxing.

It’s all fun and games till pickup time

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Well I spent most of Friday being a mechanic. I was able to bale hay for a while until I had the baler explode again. Same problem, one of the entire rows of pickup tines gave out when I tried to push a huge clump into the baler. This of course got jammed inside the baler and I was done. So then I proceeded to tear the baler apart again except this time I broke one pickup tine on the left side and an entire row on the right side. So I had to take off all of the pickup guidance channels but three. Of course I had three bolts that I could not loosen. Those hex key heads might be smooth for the incoming grass but there is no room inside the baler to really put some English on the bolt and I had to grind off three more bolt heads. Luckily, they were not any of the bolts I had just installed last week. I am sure that the bolts are kinda welding themselves to the channels with rust. Once I grind off the heads I can turn the lower part of the bolt with my fingers. I am even hosing them with some penetrating lubricant prior to attempting their removal. Luckily, I performed no blood sacrifice on their removal. My hands are still trying to heal from the first attempt.

I wanted to use the tractor to haul the trailer instead of the pickup. There is a tight corner at the far end and there is no reason to use the pickup. Unfortunately, I could not find the correct bar with a 2 5/8” ball mounted on it. I ended up chaining it to a three point bar. Not exactly secure but it lasted for two days and I ordered a premade three point hitch with a 2” receiver for a stinger so I can use a 2 5/8” ball and the trailer will be secure. I ordered it on Saturday and it should arrive by Monday, that is pretty fast! So on Saturday Annmarie and I went out and started to pickup bales out of the field and unload them into the barn. I only turned about 75% of the bales in field one and it was noticeable. We had some wet soldiers so those got set outside the barn on their side to dry. They will be fed to the boys in Alcatraz and the yearlings in the orchard. Nothing goes to waste. Every time we picked up a load we grabbed two bales that had to be dumped and were not wrapped. Those go to animals in Alcatraz, orchard or the horse. We made four trips to pickup hay and unloaded three loads into the barn (191 bales). The two of us got 4 ton loaded into the barn on Saturday and one ton of soldiers drying out (51 bales).

We were able to get a great view of the new calf. I ended up dumping six bales off the side of the trailer right near the gate and the cows got free food. She was very visible.

On Sunday I went to TJ Hooker’s house and sheared his alpaca. I ended up shearing it standing up. I only cut it once, but it had not been shorn ever and it was three years old so it was a little wild. I was able to trim its toes and even had to grind its teeth straight. I did not need to cut off its fighting teeth as they were quite small. I will probably have to do that next year. I told him to not wait so long. I am still trying to decide if trading shearing for fencing material is a realistic business proposition.

Afterwards I went home to pickup more bales of hay. The Quiet One and Rock Slayer came out to help. We unloaded the load waiting for us into the barn and it was time to take the stack from 8 feet height to 16 feet, that top half is the hardest! The Quiet One did most of the crawling around on top of the bales while the Rock Slayer and I tossed them up to her. We picked up five more loads and put three of them into the barn. We added another 7 ton of hay into the barn and then stacked another 3 ton over by the grain bins. Rock Slayer had to leave but the Quiet One was game to keep going until we picked up all the bales. We had to make three more trips to get all of the bales. We did open up field two so the cows can get in there and eat the downed unbaled hay and eat the green grass. Field one is all closed up and if we get more rain I may get a second cutting off of field one.

We did stop and look at the Gingerman’s hive up outside of field one. It is still alive and kicking. Not a ton of bees but they are working and are present. They were pretty calm, I picked the lid off without any protection and peeked inside the hive.

We ended up piling another 435 bales or 8.7 tons of hay over by the grain bins. The bales weigh around 40# so they can be thrown and moved easily but after 1000 bales it starts to add up! I did learn that I can only throw the bales about ten feet into the air. I just cannot get any higher. I only ended up with three blisters between my fingers from the hay hooks. Even with gloves those parts of my hand don’t get a lot of friction. I do change out which fingers the hooks go between on a regular basis in an attempt to slow down the blisters.

Overall, I am super excited about the hay. I had a neighbor offer up about 3-4 more acres to cut and I still need to cut down by the schoolhouse plus I still have a second cutting on the Naked Gardener’s property. We are going to not purchase any hay this year for the cows and feed out what we have. I will need to get the hay rearranged in the machine shed so I can put more small bales in there. I also need to fix the wall of the old lamb shed so that I can stick bales in there for the winter. It’s a good hay year.