Peeps!

Typically  we think of chicks as a spring thing.  Easter and peeps just go together.  But this year we decided to arrange for chicks to arrive in the fall.  We'll confine them to the chicken area in the barn over the winter and they should begin laying by late spring.  If we had ordered them in the spring we'd have to wait all summer for them to begin laying.

We ordered a variety pack of brown egg layers from the hatchery this time .  It's kind of like a grab-bag; you get the odd bird or two left over from other orders.  They are all first quality birds but it's fun to have a variety of breeds in the flock.  We look forward to guessing, as they grow a little older, what breeds we have.

The phone call from the Post Office came while DH and I were out doing morning chores.  As I came in the house to put the milk in the fridge, I heard the phone ringing but could not get to it fast enough to pick up.  We knew the ETA on the chicks was this morning and so assumed they had arrived.  The peeps are LOUD and the folks at the Post Office are happy to have them picked up.

After chores were done, DD and I hopped in the car for the drive into town.  We saw a flock of wild turkeys in a nearby field.

 

The Post Office was still closed but we knocked on the back door and the postal employee brought the chicks out right away.

 

 

It's hard to believe there are 25 chicks in such a small box.  Twenty-five is the minimum order on chicken peeps.  This is so there are enough packed into the box so they can huddle together to keep warm until they arrive at their new home.

 

When we got home with the peeps, the dogs were convinced we had brought them some yummy, warm doggie snacks.  We had to push Jack out of the front seat.  He was eager to investigate the new smells and sounds coming from the box. 

 

 

The day before the chicks were to arrive, we had gotten the brooder box out of the barn where it had been stored after the last batch of peeps.  The chickens had been using it to roost on at night so it needed a fair bit of cleaning.  We pulled out the bag of chick starter food we'd bought at the feed mill and I scrubbed the feeder and waterer.

 

 

The chicks will be kept in the basement for the first two weeks.  It's nice and warm down there right now because of the wood stove.  I was hoping it would be warm enough for them without a heat lamp but when I checked the thermometer in the brooder box, the temperature was only 78 degrees.  We use a red light in our heat lamp instead of a white light.  Apparently the deeper color reduces the chicks pecking each other.

 

We lined the brooder box with newspaper and then covered the floor with straw.  The peeps cannnot be kept on only newspaper because they need a non-slippery surface to walk on; otherwise their little legs and feet may not develop properly.  DS and DD brought them over one by one and I dipped their little beaks into the water.

 

 

They caught on quickly.  The little cinnamon-colored one, in the photo above, planted one leg in the water and one leg in the straw and just drank and drank.  The hatchery said these chicks hatched on Wednesday. They were delivered Friday morning.  Peeps can live for two days without food or water but must be watered as soon as possible after they arrive.

 

 

It's nice to hear their little cheep, cheep, cheeps coming from the basement and we look forward to watching them grow!

The Sticky Bun Run

A couple of weeks before Thanksgiving DH and I saw an advertisement for a Turkey Trot in a nearby town.  In our lives BF (you know, Before the Farm) we enjoyed running and biking.  There was even a time when we regularly trained and competed in local races; 5Ks, 10Ks and even some half marathons and a triathlon.  Our lives here are very busy and active but we've not run or biked regularly since we've moved.  Still, we thought, we would enjoy a 5K on Thanksgiving morning.

Then DH looked into it and discovered it was not a 5K but a 10K.  We knew we were in no shape to run a 10K, plus we wanted DD and DS to run, too.  So we decided to make up our own.

DH looked on a map and measured out (approximately) a 3.2 mile route from our house.  We would run up the lane, down the road, turn between two specific telephone poles, angle across a neighbor's corn field, down a hill, across a stream, up a steep hill, hug the treeline along two more fields, down another hill, up another steep hill, turn right and run to the next road then turn around and run home along the road.

He showed it to me on the map.  It looked like waaaay longer than 3.2 miles.  It looked like forever.  I told him I'd do the first part - to about the third field - and then I'd run home and put the sticky buns in the oven.  Hey, someone has to be in charge of the sticky buns!

The day before, DH and I saddled up Rio and Calico and headed across the fields to preview our route.  We took along white, plastic grocery bags to rip into lengths and tie up into a couple of trees to mark our path.  (Good thing we had quiet horses as we flapped around on their backs with plastic bags!)

We even made t-shirts.

 

The front of the t-shirt has a picture of a sticky bun and it says, "1st Annual Sticky Bun Run.  November 22, 2012."

 

The back reads, "Run Your Buns Off."

 

I made the mistake of bringing along our large puppy, Jack, on the run.  He's been running with me before and, by the end of the run, he'd been behaving himself pretty well.  By the morning of the Sticky Bun Run he had completely forgotten all his previous training.  He pulled me along so much he nearly pulled me off my feet; he ran in front of me and stopped; he tried to stop at each interesting smell; he stopped and barked at every dog we passed; he ran between my legs, etcetera, etcetera FOR THE ENTIRE RUN . . . It was awful!

 

I ended up walking the majority of it out of sheer self-preservation.  DD walked with me.  Poor girl had felt sick and feverish the day before but she was willing to try.  DS and DH ran ahead.  DS finished most of the route we had planned and DH ran the whole thing.  He's awesome!

 

I went home and put the sticky buns in the oven.  It's a recipe called "Best Ever Sticky Buns" and they really are.  We only make them once or twice a year, during the holidays, otherwise we'd be eating them all the time.

 

Best Ever Sticky Buns

 

2 loaves frozen bread dough, thawed (I often will make bread dough in our bread machine instead of buying them frozen.)
Walnuts or pecans, optional
1 stick butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 large package of vanilla pudding - NOT instant
2 tsp. cinnamon
2 T. milk

(True confession time -- sometimes I double the "goo" part of the recipe.)

Grease bottom of a 9x13 pan.  Put nuts in pan.  Roll dough into walnut-size pieces.  Place in pan on top of nuts.  Heat together butter, sugar, pudding, cinnamon and milk until butter is melted.  Pour over dough.  Refrigerate overnight.  Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes the next morning.  Enjoy! 

Hope your Thanksgiving Day was delicious and full of thanksgiving!

The Horses

Although we've been on the farm less than three years, it seems like we've already had a lot of horses come and go. 

DH calls them "hay burners" or "money pits" (and of course he's right, in a sense) but I love horses.  I figure what's the point of living in the country if you don't keep a horse or two? 

Once we got (sort of) settled in, I started looking for a pony.  Shortly before we moved, we met a woman who told us about the fun she and her children had had driving their Shetland pony.  We bought a beat-up little pony cart from her and the kids had a blast one evening carting each other around our neighborhood.  Nearly three years later and that pony cart is still in pieces in the barn.  We'll get back to it . . . eventually.

Patchy Pony was our first equine.   His first owners called him "Cupcake" - ugh - so we re-named him "Apache."  We call him "Patchy Pony" except when we joke his name should be "Napoleon."  He's little but thinks he's all that. 

We took him to a clinic this summer and he learned to step up onto a pedestal.  He seemed so proud of himself!

DD rode him a little bit right after we got him.

 

But we're teaching him to drive so (eventually) he can pull the cart.

 

 

We were supposed to have Belle for only a few months but she ended up staying nearly a year and a half.  I kept hoping she would work out for us.  I (mostly) enjoyed riding her but I was the only one in the family who could - she had a wicked buck she would throw every once in a while and she would run her rider all over if she thought she could get away with it.  When she finally threw me off this summer, I reluctantly admitted she wasn't the quiet, family horse we were looking for and we took her back to her owner.

 

 

Tigger and Noah were camp horse retirees that came at the same time.  We bought Tigger and some friends, who were looking for a quiet horse for their children, bought Noah.  We kept Noah at our farm until they could get their barn put up and their fencing installed.  The children had a great time riding them all over the place. 

 

 

Unfortunately, shortly after Noah was moved into his new home, we realized that it was time to put Tigger down.  It was a tough thing to do but the right thing to do.  He was going downhill fast, despite all our efforts.  I had hoped he would live here years and years but it got to the point where it was more cruel to keep him, so we had to say goodbye.  He was a wonderful horse and we have some great memories of him.

 

Patchy was the only equine in the pasture for a while.  He became so lonely he even stooped to the point of fraternizing with the goats.  I was looking for a horse quiet enough for the family to ride but lively enough for DD to jump and maybe take cross-country.  

 

We really took a chance on Rio. 

 

He came from a horse rescue after he was sold through auction.  I chose to buy him based on a few pictures, a description and a short video.  We named him "Rio Grande Cowboy" and arranged to have him shipped up to the farm.   

 

My heart sank as he stepped off the shipper's trailer.  He was thin and beat up and had a huge, open, seeping wound under his chin.  The woman pushed on one side of the lump and pus streamed out onto the ground.  It was obvious he had strangles.

 

 

He was put into strict quarantine for six weeks while he rested, healed and gained some weight.  Once he was better, we arranged for him to be seen by the equine dentist, the farrier and the veterinarian.  When DD and I got a chance to work with him under saddle, we found he's a lot of fun to ride.  He's quiet but eager to please and is ready to run if you ask him to step it up.  I think he'll be a good match for our family.

 

 

     DD rode him in a clinic this fall with some girlfriends and their ponies. 

 

 

Well, now that we had a mount for one of us we (obviously!) needed another horse.  DD and I would take Rio out and take turns riding him in the fields near our farm, or she would work on exercises she'd learned during her riding lessons while I watched.  But I did not feel comfortable sending her off on the trails by herself on this pony we didn't really know.  We needed another horse.

 

Just before Thanksgiving, Calico was brought to our place.

 

 

Calico is a Tennessee Walker.  He's used during the summer as a child's camp horse but in the spring and fall he is transportation for a judge at dog field trials.  He just came off a three week field trial where, we were told, he was ridden on average thirty miles a day.  Needless to say, he's very fit.

 

There was a striking difference in height when he met Patchy and Rio over the fence!

 

 

I'm so excited to have another quiet, fun horse to ride!  We've already taken Rio and Calico out on trail rides.  In fact, a minor miracle happened - DH rode Calico!  We've been married fourteen years and I believe this is the third time I've seen him on a horse.  It's really good of him to appease me every once in a while. 

 

But this time he had his own reasons to go riding.  We went out a day ahead of time to map the route for our first Sticky Bun Run.  But that's a post for another day . . . 



The calf is here!

Lily had her calf! 

We knew she was close.  She's been very lovey lately and, poor girl, as big as a house.  DD took this rather unflattering picture of her about a week ago. 

 

Sunday afternoon she was moving pretty slow - it took her a long time to walk down out of the pasture.  We'd been putting her into her stall overnight for the past week or so just in case she gave birth overnight.

 

While he was doing chores Sunday evening, DH noticed she seemed restless.  Sure enough, DS went out to check on her around 7:30pm and came running back to the house to tell us she was in labor.  By the time we got to the barn, the two front hoofs and the nose was visible.  DH said he could see a little pink tongue sticking out.

 

 

 

The calf's future would be determined by its sex.  If it was a boy we planned to keep him for two years and then send him to "freezer camp."  It takes two years for a dairy steer to get big enough for slaughter.  If a girl, then we would sell her as a backyard milk cow.

 

 

Lily started out laying down but as soon as the calf's shoulders were out, she stood up and it flopped to the ground rather unceremoniously.  We all winced.  It didn't seem as though the calf should be able to survive the fall.  It hit the floor like a wet gym towel - all in a heap.  Lily immediately swung around and began licking it all over. 

  

 

She began calling constantly to the calf with short, deep moos that we hear only when her calf is first born.  See how white its hooves are?  It always amazes me to watch them change color.  It starts at the top of the hoof and slowly moves down until the whole hoof is nearly black.  It's as though the hoof is filling with blood from the top down.

 

The whole delivery took only ten minutes.  About 45 minutes later the calf was on its feet and we were able to check it over.

 

 

It's a girl!  Yeah!  Truthfully, we're all happy for a heifer.  (It's still hard for us to think about slaughtering an animal that was born on our farm.)  She is a beautiful baby with not a white hair on her body.  We'll post some pictures of her once she's completely dry. 

 

Today she was already trying to romp and frisk about.  DH and I had to got get a cattle panel and put up a temporary wall across Lily's area because the baby kept leaving the nice, clean straw bed and trying to explore the bare concrete floor on the other side of the stall.  We had to laugh when the baby started walking away from Lily and Lily anxiously tried to call her back.  The baby just tossed her head, snorted and kept on walking! 

 

We must come up with a good name for our strong-willed girl.  We like old-fashioned names (we named last year's calf "Hazel") so were thinking along the lines of Heloise, Bessy, Flossy or even Thelma Lou (Barney's girlfriend on The Andy Griffith Show).  I like "Eloise."  Wasn't that the name of the little girl who lived in a hotel? 

 

Whatever her name, we'll enjoy watching this new little one grow up.  Baby cows are good entertainment!

 

We had some more excitement today when a new horse was delivered.  But that's a post for another day . . . 

A Tribute to Lucky-by DD

We all enjoyed Lucky while she was here, but now she's off in the wild, probably living the life of a king(or a queen in this case) So now I have gathered some of the best pictures that we have of Birdsey and compiled them here in a tribute to our little blue jay...

Lucky playing with her bell

 

"But why can't I stuff thoes slimy worms down your shirt??"

 

After taking a nap, Lucky liked nothing better than to fluff herself up and take a snooze in the sun.

 

"Who, me? No, you've got it all wrong, it was the napkin gremlin!"

 

 

 When we would put BOB (bad old bird) in her cage, she would hop onto the bars, stick her head through, and squawk at us. "Hey you! Yeah, you! Lemme out! I promise not to poop on your school books again!"

Birdsey hops on over to, um, help us share our breakfast. 

 



Yes, she was messy...

 

 

Ok, very messy, but we still miss her.  Herself, not her messes... and poop.

 

 

 

 

The End

 

A Short Getaway

Things have been so quiet around the farm recenty that we packed up and headed North for a short getaway. 

With so many critters depending on our care, it's tough to find time to dodge out for a while.  But morning and evening chores have been light because we're not milking the cow or the goat (a twice daily chore) and no one is getting hay.  The fields still have plenty of grass growing and we let the new pony, Rio, out of quarantine and into the main pasture with the other pony, Patchy, and the goats and the cow.  So it was a perfect opportunity to step away from the farm for a couple of days.  

I heard a caller recently on a radio show talk about how he and his wife were shutting down their business.  When asked why he remarked that they were simply exhausted.  He explained they had lived and breathed this new company for years and couldn't do it anymore.  Our farm is more of a way of life than a business but it can still be overwhelming at times.  We all come back better for the experience if we take time off the farm.   

 

The drive up to the cabin was beautiful.  It was just past peak leaf watching time but not very cold yet. 

 

The cabin was beside a large lake.  It was too cold to swim but the children enjoyed fishing.  Thankfully they didn't catch anything so I was spared having to fry up fish!

 

 

The cabin was cute and comfortable.  We spent evenings around the nearby campfire. 

 

 

A nearly tame chipmonk allowed DD to photograph him.

 

 

A six mile hike offered a lot of great views of the woods and the lake.

 

We also rode mountain bikes and went horseback riding at a nearby stables.  Between our activities we were able to squeeze in a lot of reading and lounging by the fire.  DD declared it was our best vacation ever.  I was surprised at how refreshed I felt considering we were not gone that long.

 

Sadly, we've not seen Lucky, the bluejay, since we've been back.  Three of our friends who were watching the farm while we were away reported seeing her at least the first day that we were gone.  She had been spending more and more time outside.  We set her up with a feeding station for while we were gone but we couldn't tell if she'd been eating the food or not.  One of our friends mentioned they'd seen two bluejays so we're thinking she found a mate and took off.  It was a ton of fun to have her - she was a constant source of entertainment - but, I have to say, it's nice to have my house back and it was wonderful to spend time with DH and the children away from the farm!

 

A Lily Vacation

We've had a wonderful respite from most of our farm chores the past few weeks largely in part because we've not been milking our dairy cow.  This is Lily. 

 

She is due to calve very soon.  Sixty days before her expected delivery date, we stop milking her so she can focus on growing her calf.  This gives us a vacation from the daily milking but it stinks that we have to buy milk from the store.

 

Her registered name is much, much longer but the last word is "Waterlily" so we call her Lily.  Like the goats, we weren't really prepared for getting a milk cow when we bought her but ended up taking her anyway.  We knew eventually we wanted to add a milk cow to the farm but it's difficult to find one that is quiet, healthy and gentle, simply because most cows are born on large dairy farms and are not gentled - much less used to being handled by humans or milked by hand.  To make our search even more difficult, we also wanted a dairy cow that was already bred.

 

Our research led us away from purchasing a Holstein (the black and white ones); they are very large, require more food and give a LOT of milk.  Milk is measured in pounds and an average Holstein can give 75 - 80 pounds of milk per day.  That's 7 to 9 gallons of milk every day.  Plus, Holsteins often have trouble giving birth.  The last thing we need is to be playing midwife to a cow!

 

So we looked into other breeds and settled on purchasing a Jersey.  They are a smaller breed that does better on grass  and other forage, plus they give a more manageable 2 - 5 gallons per day.  Their milk is rich in milk fat and makes nice butter and cheese.  Jerseys are typically quiet and easy to handle.  All these characteristics make them a popular choice for a backyard milk cow.

 

During the fall of 2010 I was looking over some classified ads and found an old ad for some Jerseys.  A small, organic dairy just over an hour away was selling some of their cows before winter.  I called and, yeah!, they still had a couple available.

 

  

 We walked out into the pasture among the big, brown creatures and noted how quiet they were.  It was evident they were used to humans and that the farmer knew each one of them.  One stood out from the rest because a) she was already bred, and b) she seemed friendly and quiet.  We were warned she was "a three-quarters cow" and, though we had no earthly idea what that meant, we nodded sagely and arranged to buy her.

 

Turns out a three-quarters cow means she has an infection, mastitis, in one of the "quarters" on her udder.  A bad infection means the cow doesn't give any milk at all out of that quarter so she doesn't produce as much milk as her healthy herd mates and, if they're on a typical dairy farm, these cows are usually sent for slaughter. 

 

The advice from the backyard cow forum folks was to avoid a three-quarters cow.  If she had mastitis once then she may get it again.  Well, we hadn't read that advice beforehand but it ended up working out well for us.  Lily's infection was not that bad.  For the duration of her first pregnancy, that quarter gave little milk and the milk  it produced had a salty, bitter taste but the cats and the dogs still appreciated it so we kept milking all four quarters.

 

At the end of March, 2011, Lily gave birth to a beautiful little calf we named Hazel.

 

 

Happily, after Lily gave birth to Hazel, the mastitis completely cleared up and we haven't had trouble with it since.

 

We sold Hazel to a man from southern California.  He had looked all over the country for a backyard-raised, gentle Jersey heifer and was happy to drive to the East Coast to come get her and haul her home.    

 

After some difficulty (that's another posting!) we were able to get Lily bred again.  She's due to calve very soon.  Her belly is getting bigger and she's very lovie - trying to lick anyone who comes near.  She gets preferential treatment since she's pregnant.  For a few hours each day we let her into a small pasture still thick with grass.  It's funny to watch this hugely pregnant cow trot to the gate when she sees us coming!  

 

 

So our Lily vacation will soon be over and we'll be back to milking twice a day.  It will be a blessing to have her rich, creamy milk on the table again - we've missed it!

Post Sandy Report

I was reminded today that I hadn't posted anything since Hurricane Sandy blew through.  We, and all the critters, weathered the storm just fine.  The only one closed up in the barn was our milk cow, Lily, but even the rest of the animals were content to stay inside for most of two or three days. 

The wind and rain we had was no worse than we've experienced before but it was pretty sustained. What surprised me was how hard the wind blew for so long.  We lost power, which we were expecting, around 9:30pm but it was back on around 12:30pm the next afternoon.  We were thankful for just a glancing blow from Hurricane Sandy.  We're thinking and praying for those who were affected far worse.