Sunday, January 21, 2018

January Farm Update

SKOL VIKINGS!!

There - got that out of the way!

Since our last post when the weather was nasty cold, we have had more nasty cold, a warm up, back to sub zero highs, then snow, and now pretty warm at 35 degrees today.  Typical Minnesota I would say.

Two weekends ago when we had a little warm up, Kevin and I went for a tromp through the woods.  He is always scouting and planning his tree harvesting for firewood.  I am looking more at tracks and other interesting things.  We spotted a tree that had the bark chewed off very high off the ground - obvious porcupine sign.  We made our way to the base of the tree but it was pretty clear that porky was not around.  There was a well trodden trail so we followed it and at a surprising distance from the dining tree we found his den.  We could see his back and tail about 8 feet or so up in a split and hollow tree - at the base his pile of poo and a frozen waterfall of porky pee.


Forest had a close call this past week.  I came home from work, changed and headed out to do chores as usual.  I heard a goat sound, but not the usual complaint (feed me now, I am starving!) - a scary choking sound.  What I found was the two lads with their heads together, Forest's collar not only hooked behind one of Ranger's scurs (those are the quasi horns that he has) but then tightly twisted.  He was foaming at the mouth and barely able to draw a breath.  The collar was so tight that there was no way I could unbuckle it but fortunately Ranger was cooperative and let me push his head down so I could push the loop of collar back and Forest was freed.  Pretty scary.  Forest has a new plastic chain collar that is breakable.

And just a few photos now - chores in the snow, and turkeys of course.  Try as I might, I have not been able to get all eight of them into one picture. 



Winter rolls along, the does are getting wider with their pregnancies or maybe Echo is fooling me again and just is getting chubby - hope not though.

We hope you all are well and avoiding the flu - be careful out there, and be well.