Pig and Turkey Adventures

Snow has arrived!

We knew it was coming and wanted to make sure all the critters were properly sheltered.  Penelope and the poults have been resistant to moving indoors so finally we had to force the issue.  Thursday evening we slunk out to the garden in the dark armed with fish landing nets.  It was pretty traumatizing for the turkeys but at least they are indoors.  I have them locked in the summer coop and will keep them incarcerated for a week or so before letting them out again.  Hopefully they will imprint on the little building as home.

Now the pigs - they sort of moved themselves.  Earlier in the week they went missing - their fence was laid flat.  After a bit of a search, Kevin found them over the hill north of the house at the edge of the the swamp.  Usually when they get out they are easily led back to their pen with a bucket of feed, but not this time.  They came as far as the front of the shop and stopped there.  Kevin had to put some fence panels together and "tow" them to get them moving so he just took them to where their winter quarters are, partly tucked under the haybarn roof. 

 The size difference is quite noticeable.  We've definitely had health problems with the pigs this year and three of the four are much smaller than they should be at this point.  On the up side, they are alive and seem to be recovered and growing again. 

The new pig pen enclosed a large mound of really old hay that Kevin hauled out of the hay barn earlier this summer.  It's been composting for a few months and the pigs are really enjoying digging into it.

Deer hunting season is almost upon us so the next two or three posts will be hunting updates from Kevin. Be safe and be well friends.

Random October

Subtitle:  A little of this and of that...

You may recall my post a couple of weeks ago.  I was crabby about all of the nasty insects on the laundry that was hanging on the clothesline; I described my efforts to removed them.  The post script to that story is that although I was able to shake most of the critters off of our clothes, I did not get them all.  I found a couple of the beasts on the INSIDE of my pants AT WORK, A WEEK LATER!!!  Ugh!

Let the randomness begin:

If someone calls you from my phone and meows... it's isn't me trying to be funny:

Kevin and Rollie ground feed for the pigs on Tuesday - they had a lot of helpers with the clean-up

and Kevin's hair ended up even whiter than it already is!

Penelope's poults are getting pretty big these days but they continue to be quite shy.

It was chicken moving weekend.  I have mentioned this event quite often over the years.  Each spring the hens and resident rooster move to the Summer Coop, then in the fall they move back to the Winter Coop.  It's hard to get photos of this because we all have our hands full of unhappy poultry, but Kurt did manage to get a couple this time:

Before the move - a sort of creepy shot inside of the Summer Coop:

And Kevin carrying a bird or two to the lit-up Winter Coop.

And there you have it - Random October.  Be well friends.

October happenings.

Another typical workweek has gone by followed by another busy weekend.  Kevin had the Scouts out for Flowers Funny Farm - an annual October event.  They camp on the other side of the woods so I don't see much of them.  Pretty quiet here so I get a little more done than usual.  Two batches of soap are in the molds, lots of laundry is done (no bugs this week, we finally have cooler weather!) and  I put in some garden time.  My main goal was to clear one of the beds to put in some garlic.  I did accomplish that with a little help from my friends - the feathered kinds.  There wasn't anyone around to take our picture, but my hens were such enthusiastic helpers that I had to be careful not to step on them as I forked over the bed!

I also got the pie pumpkins and squash out of the garden and into the shelter of the garage.  I will be cooking and freezing them over the next month or so. 

 The Carnival squash look too pretty to eat - each one is a little piece of art.

This big pumpkin is one from the Scout patch  It had escaped into the sunflowers but I found it in time for it to be sold.

I will share a picture from the greenhouse.  I am really looking forward to having my own fresh lettuce again - pretty soon.  Rollie has replaced the hail-damaged roof panels - Thanks Rollie!!!

More of Rollie's work - he has sided the shed where my sister Carolyn's camper and porch used to sit (it was just a roof).  At one time I was thinking new goat barn, but better yet, it will be housing some equipment and we can then remodel and enlarge the does area in the corner of the pole barn.  That will be very nice.

I hope you all are enjoying autumn - too bad it is such a short season. 

Be well friends.

Back from Vacation and ... Invasion of the Dreaded Beetle!

I am pretty sure that I whined a bit last year when the Asian Lady Beetles showed up - sorry, but I have to whine again.  They arrived yesterday and in such large numbers they could not be ignored.  If you have not experienced these insects for  yourself - you need to know that not only do they smell bad, they also bite.

I had to remove the clothes from the line in the late afternoon - normally a pleasant task on a sunny fall day, but not this time.  These nasty little beasts love to be in the sun and were hanging all over the wash and the garage wall, as well as just filling the air.  I had to resort to snatching a piece of clothing off the line and then dashing to the shade of the nearby pine tree. Then the garment had to be vigorously flipped to remove the creatures before being folded and dropped in the basket.  This procedure was then repeated for every item of the four loads of wash on the lines.  Tedious. 

We had a very nice little vacation up in the Bayfield/Washburn/Ashland area of Wisconsin.  We relaxed (although not as much as we thought we would), hiked, ate out (a lot), shopped, and even got to visit with some area farmers.  Here are a couple of photos from a hike we took to the sea caves.

 

 

Back at home, the pullets are starting to lay a few eggs and are now sporting blue leg bands.  The older hens will soon be joining them in the winter coop.

The wheat and rye are up and looking good.  This weekend was just beautiful in these parts (despite the wretched bugs!). 

And that is about enough for this week.  Until next time, be well friends!

Storm Damage

I hope that someday we can look back at the weather of 2017 and remember it as an unusual, strange sort of  year.  I sure hope this isn't our new normal.  Unseasonable cool or even cold days when it should be warm, now warm when it should be cool.  No serious frost yet - weird.

This has been a stormy week and we did not escape from damage.

Can you see the holes in the roof of the greenhouse?

Critter-wise, it's a lot quieter around here.  Mitzi went home today as planned; I will miss her but maybe not her loud voice.  Yesterday all of the young roosters and one of the tom turkeys became just chicken and turkey.  Both of the toms were supposed to make it to the freezer but one of them escaped the capture team (Kori, Rollie, and I) and gets to stay a while longer.  

Penolope and the poults have settled in.  I do not know where they spend the night - not in the shelter we provided for them.  I was worried during the storms but they seem to be just fine.  They like resting on this borrowed excavator.

The boy scout's pumpkin patch provided a bumper crop this year.  Today was pumpkin picking day. This is the field before the scouts arrived.

This is just some of them - many more left with the scout families to be sold and provide much needed funds for the boys to go to camp.

My view from the milking stand is a little more colorful.  The young rye field has really greened up.  That's a bit of Vinca's tail in the upper right.

There will not be a post here from me next Sunday - maybe Kori will do a guest post.  Kevin and I are taking a little vacation to celebrate a pretty big anniversary. Until then, be well friends.

Oh no, she's talking about turkeys again!

The turkeys continue to amuse us - Kevin has taken to gobbling at them and the boys gobble back.  Most of the time that is - when they don't then he just sounds kind of silly!

They get pretty full of themselves sometimes!  Unfortunately for some of them, they are not destined for a long life.  We are going to keep a couple of them though, and our new hen - meet Penelope and her poults!

Poor girl, her feathery gown is rather soiled and tattered but underneath she is a princess - a Royal Palm. She came from some farmer friends who had lost all of their turkeys except for this little family to coyotes.  Hopefully she will have a long and happy life here.

News from the goat pen - Mitzi will be going home next weekend.  Her owners prefer to milk just once a day so starting tomorrow I am going to once a day for both does. 

She has a very loud voice and continues to be naughty on the milking stand, but I have grown quite fond of her.

We are done with the farmer's market for the season but somehow I don't think that will make life less hectic!  These days I've been trying to keep up with the tomatoes as they ripen, really enjoying having an abundance of cantaloupe to eat, and putting off dealing with the apples - after that it will be pumpkins and squash. Kevin is finished with the grain work now but is getting quite busy with scout activities and is trying to figure out winter housing for all of the critters.

We have quite a bunch of young roosters that need to go.  More on that next week I think.  Until then, be well friends!

Signs of Fall

It seems to be autumn all of a sudden.  We haven't had a noticeable frost but may have had an un-noticed one or else the plants just know it is time.  The pumpkin, melon, and squash vines have started dying down revealing a pretty good yield.

These are the eating pumpkins in the garden. Winter Luxury and Rouge Vif  D'Etampes (some people call it Cinderella) are my favorites to cook up for pie and muffins.

 

The Troop 52 pumpkins are plentiful and HUGE this year.  I order the same kind of seed for them every year, a variety called Howden that has done well here.  There is also one called Howden Biggie and I wonder if we didn't get those by accident - all of them that I can see are really big!  Hopefully there are some smaller ones out there for the people who prefer non-behemoth sized jack-o-lanterns!

Remember we had some chicks hatch about three weeks ago?  Here is what they look like now.

Meanwhile, out in the summer coop there are three more hens that want to set!  Sorry ladies, wrong time of  year for that.  I keep taking their eggs; I sure hope they give it up soon.  I don't know if there is a way to re-program hens to set in the spring instead of the fall or not, but I hope so.  Guess I will have do do some research on that this winter.

With the grain harvest complete, Kevin and Rollie lost no time and got busy replanting rye and winter wheat.  Kevin is doubling the amount of winter wheat planted over last fall.  This is a photo of the no-till grain drill he rented for a nominal cost from our local NRCS office. This will be the first year we try no-till, he ran the disk over the fields to knock the stubble down and then planted with this. Some research has shown better yields with no-till so we will see what happens.

I will close with a little winter color from the goat pen.  This pine tree has a red vine that has climbed all the way up - not desirable I suppose, but festive!

No turkey talk this week!

Until next time, be well friends!