Leave it!

Evan's dog, Dolly, is pretty special to us.  In her training as a puppy we taught her the "leave it" command.  Anything she wanted with high value like a dog treat, lunch meat, toy we'd practice telling her "Leave it." and taught her to leave it along until we gave her a command that it was OK to take it.  This has been incredibly valuable as we go about our daily lives, but never more so than now that we have all these chicks everywhere!  

When we first brought home the chicks in the boxes she was keenly interested and excited about them.  So occasionally we'd tell her to "Leave it" and she'd settle right down, still looking intently but obedient to our command.

I am so impressed that Evan has been consistent with her and that she has taken to the training so well.  She is a smart dog and I am so happy we took the time to teach her some of these basic commands because it is sure making our lives much easier during stressful times like getting 200 chicks settled into their coop.

Dolly loves the chicks and wants to play, but is using restraint and watching intently.

Hopefully she continues to be a good girl around the chickens and uses her instincts for good.

Nature's Beauty...

The longer we live here the more blessed I feel.  I love that God blesses us with His creation on a daily basis, sometimes I overlook it or take it for granted, some days I sit in awe of it.

This photo was taken by Sunshine, it's just over our back fence in the CRP field bordering our property.  Every afternoon we have a resident herd of mule deer that cross our fence and head to nearby pine trees to hang out.  I grumble and complain about these guys tearing up my fruits trees, but then they show me their awesome display of competition.  I can't hold a grudge too long...but I can build better fences and tree protection to make sure they don't ruin the trees again!

When trying to photograph any sunset I am always reminded of how with many things in life I tend to take for granted or put off...now is the time to cherish the moments in our lives that deserve our focus.  As with a sunset the moments come and go so quickly and if I don't stop and intentionally capture it either with a camera like trying to capture the sunset or with our hearts like with in a family memory the moment is lost.  So many times I end up of putting it off for in a minute or taking for granted there will be a next time.  As I try to capture a sunset picture and realize the small window of time there is to grab the camera, find the right vantage point, and capture the moment it has already faded from it's original glorious state that caught my attention in the first place.

Slowly I am learning to stop quicker, and pay attention to the moment when it comes along.  Gradually, life seems much richer and more fulfilling somehow.

Oceans and sunsets make me feel closer to the Lord on challenging days.

Turkey Check Up...

Well we still have Butterball and Snowball, the two turkeys we've managed to keep alive.  Or maybe it would be better to phrase it that they've managed to stay alive in spite of us.  However you want to think about it works for me.  They love free-ranging and we love having them free-range.  They have continued to be good foragers and have left the garden plants alone for the most part.  They are efficient eaters of all things creepy-crawly and green-n-tasty, they only seem to eat a small amount of commercial feed.  We keep some commercial feed available at all times.  They also get into the pig feed we soak for the pigs.  I think they think they have it made here, what a smorgasbord they have to choose from really!

They follow us everywhere as we go about our chores around the place, they even follow the boys down to the dirt pile where they play and then they follow them back when they head back to the house.  I truly adore all the sounds they make as we work in the garden.  I had no idea we'd enjoy turkeys this much.

Butterball checking out the freshly cut hay.

Butterball on the left, Snowball on the right.

I thought we were going to get some electric fence action here but Snowball was just after a bug on the post and didn't touch the fence in the process.  Good thing too, because that fence is really hot!

They have the darkest eyes and the strangest looking heads!

They are really cool animals.  We still aren't sure if we will do turkeys next year.  They were a rather expensive adventure to get started and we weren't all that successful in keeping many alive. We will keep thinking about it and see what we can afford to do next spring.  For now, we are really enjoying these two characters.

Second Round of Pigs...

We got 4 more pigs last week!  They are pretty cute and oh so curious.  Spud Man is pretty excited to have a new batch to watch grow.  Our first batch are all sold (we are keeping one for our own meat supply), and they will be slaughtered tomorrow.

This new batch will get to enjoy all the crops we planted for them in one section of the garden, as well as any surplus we have from the rest of the garden too.  We can't wait to see how they do!  The largest crop we planted was rape seed/canola.  Then we also planted mangle beets, carrots, turnips, wheat grass and of course other garden crops in surplus to allow for sharing with the pigs and chickens.

Their names are Oreo (because it is black and white), Swiss (because it has circle dots all over like Swiss Cheese), Ring (as in onion ring), Nacho (no idea where that name came from).  They all have to have food names....because that is what they will be....food.

So we are off on another phase of the project.  We can't wait to try the first batch of bacon in a month or so.

Infuriating Underground Animals...

I need some kind of rodent squad to come and rid the place of all things mole, gopher, and mouse!  

I grumble every time I run across something like this...

...and especially this.

Then, I remember I have a few secret weapons.  First line of defense is our fierce hunter, Betsy the cat.

There is just one problem with fierce hunter cat....she is a hunter, she doesn't usually kill them.  She plays with them until they are severely stressed, and exhausted.

Sure they are worse for wear when she's done, but they are not usually dead.  So normally what happens is these next two characters come on the scene and finish the job (or steal her potential dinner, not sure what you'd really call it.)   They look harmless, but they are rodent killing machines I tell ya.

I think they even give us a little doggy smile when they kill one for us!  Unfortunately, they don't always notice when the cat has done her job of wearing them out so...

...in comes my other secret weapon.  My fearless rodent killing daughter.  See how fast she moves?  The camera can't even catch the speed in which she disposes of them for me.   By this time, after the cat has had her fun, it is the least we can do to put it out of it's misery after the cat has a hold of it.

Sunshine has to be the most level headed 14 year old girl I know of, not much phases this girl.  I was busy looking around for something to hit it with, and she just stepped over, stomped on it nonchalantly like she does this 10 times a day, no biggie.  Meanwhile, I thought something along the lines of "Der, why didn't I think of that?"  I blame my sluggish response and reasoning on the fact that after 4 pregnancies, I have lost some of the brain cells I once had at 14 years old.  That is my story and I am sticking to it.

We really need to learn to set gopher traps, because so far the gophers are most likely winning.  I think they might be reproducing faster than we are killing them. Oh, and we really need to catch the mole that keeps tunneling all around the garden every day too!

The 2nd Movable Chicken Pen Project...

I really enjoy working on projects involving lumber and tools.  I even think someday I might enjoy learning again to weld, and maybe even use a plasma cutter too.  There are so many projects I'd like to try and skills I'd like to improve on. The metal fabrication skills would likely go well with the woodworking in making some neat things.  I enjoy being creative as well as practical.

Last week we started with this....a few boards on the ground.

By the end of the day we had it this far.  A great start for sure.

When we got a chance to work on it again a day or so later we got it completed and moved to the field to begin it's life of usefulness.  We haven't gotten around to getting the chickens into it yet, it was all we could do to move it from the carport area to the field.  Whew, what a chore.

This area is where the water bucket for their waterer sits perfectly.  Also, there is an extra slot for food storage or other items.  Which will come in handy.

Overall it took about 14 hours of working on it to get this completed, as well as a couple trips to Kelly Lumber Supply to get what we needed.  This movable chicken pen is larger than our last one.  The last one I made 8'x8', and this one is 8'x10'.   Between the two pens we will be able to house 95 meat chickens (42 in the smaller one, 53 in the larger one).  It is heavier and bulkier to move, but still we are able to move it OK with 2 people just like we move the other one.

This pen should be all we need to get through the remaining of our chicken production season.  The first chicken tractor cost us in the range of $50, this larger one cost about $75 because we had to buy more products new than the first one.  We had so many scraps and used things on hand for the first one it was down right reasonable to build.  I still don't feel like $125 total for both pens is bad at all.  I appreciate so much when Mr. Wonderful brings home salvaged lumber, supplies, and parts!  It is the equivalent of a bouquet of flowers for me I think. 

Only problem is, working on a gravel surface is proving to be a little painful to the knees.  For Mother's Day the kids got me a foam knee pad for gardening which I use when I need to work on projects now.  It is most helpful!

I think one of the things high on the priority list is to get our shop area enclosed.  Right now it is an open hay shed/carport and soon it will be a 22x36 workshop with an open carport area.  I have a dream about what it will look like inside, and how organized it will be.  Everything would have a place, because right now, nothing has a place and your guess is as good as mine as to where I might find something.

 It will be really exciting to design a nicely functioning workshop.

Turkey Troubles...

We ended up with two turkeys from the surprise hatching yesterday!  Which is quite exciting, we feel blessed to have any excitement at all after the trouble we had with the incubation process.

They took a while to get dried off and gain composure after hatching. I wondered, developmentally, how they'd be, given their temp troubles before hatching.  I fully expected death or complications after hatching, once we got over being so excited they actually were hatching.  Sure enough, they have some leg issues.

Here is the hatching unit we used once they were out of the incubator and needed more time to finish hatching (the incubator has a wire base, and the heating element is pretty low and I didn't want them to burn their heads on it).  So I moved them to the hatching unit I made years ago.  It is a little hillbilly, but it works fabulous....maybe I should have incubated them in this too because it sure is easier to maintain temps in it than in the incubator so far.

My homemade hatching unit made from an old cooler, dimmer, 40w light bulb, old extension cord, and of course duct tape!

So this morning, after checking on them at 4 a.m. I realizing we had issues. I Googled how to deal with  it and formulated a plan.  One had curled under toes and wasn't balancing properly and the other had spraddle legs (like he is doing the splits basically.)  

Inside the hatching unit...

I wrangled up Sunshine to assist me and we got to work doing our best to remedy the issues. For this guy with the curled under toes, the remedy starts with the simple band-aid that has been trimmed down a little.  See how the toes curl under him and they don't spread out to support it's weight? That is what we are trying to help fix.

Here are the bandages trimmed and ready to go, we will use the padded part as the flat surface to spread the toes out onto and the tape parts to secure it until the toes can set right.  Like a splint.

I think we got it positioned fairly well and hopefully it does the trick.

I am not really sure why, but scenes from the movie Forest Gump kept running through my mind this whole time. lol

Here is the 2nd turkey poult, with the spraddle legs.

Poor baby, he was so frustrated he couldn't get anywhere!

This bandage we cut in half lengthwise to use as a sort of hobble to keep the legs from spreading out further than we want them to. So he can learn to walk and balance with feet under him.

Standing pretty good already, hopefully he can keep it up.

We will keep you posted if this temporary solution has any effect on their issues.  They say if done early enough it gives them a good chance of being able to walk normal and strengthen the legs.  I certainly hope so after all of this drama surrounding the turkey adventure! Hoping they do well.  I think they need names.  Any suggestions?

Cockeye Update...

 Remember little Cockeye?

Well, he is doing pretty well!  He is growing well despite his beak issues.  He appears to be strong and vigorous.  He is only slightly smaller than his peers.

He still looks a little...well cockeyed doesn't he?

We are glad he seems to be doing well.

Surprise!

I was awakened by a strange noise coming from the bathroom this morning.  Kind of a scratching scrambling noise and there was a curious peep peep.  At 5:15 a.m. it took a while to register what I was hearing...once it dawned on, me I flipped the covers off and raced to look and make sure I wasn't dreaming.

I stared in disbelief as I saw that we had a turkey hatch in the night!  You know the turkey eggs that I was 99% sure I killed with high temps in the incubator?  Yup, those are the ones!  We had one completely hatched, 2 more have pipped.  They are trying to get the job of hatching done.  This is so exciting and it feels like a gift from God!

They also hatched 1 day earlier than normal, maybe higher temps develop them faster! lol  I won't know if they are normal or healthy for a while longer yet, they are still figuring out how to walk and getting dried off and fluffy.  So in a few hours hopefully we will have a better idea.  I am just so excited we have life!

I am so glad I didn't give up on them last week when I was so sure they were dead....I had decided to go ahead and finish the incubation period just in case one was in a cooler corner of the incubator and made it somehow.

I will have to be sure to tell Butterball about the new arrivals when we go feed the older birds this morning!  I am sure he will be excited to have some young peeps to tell about life on the farm.  Thankfully the timing works out well because we have a new batch of chicks in the brooder so these turkeys can go right in with them in a couple days and I won't have to have a separate set up for them if we don't want to.  Although, I have a feeling they will be a little spoiled and stay inside for a while.

I was so excited to be able to share this update with you!  We obviously won't have a good hatch rate beings we bought 24 hatching eggs and it only looks like 3 will even possibly hatch, but after this 27 days of stress, worry, and constant care it feels like a triumph!

 

So we didn't completely fail after all!  Now if we can keep them alive from now on, hopefully if they could survive the inconsistencies in the incubator they are toughened up enough to live through anything now!  

One and Only Butterball...

Well it looks like we've failed at incubating turkey hatching eggs.  We are sad to report that we had a terrible time trying to keep the incubator temperatures steady enough.  This time of year we have such large temperature swings between days, nights, and weather conditions outside and room temps inside that we just could not keep it steady enough.  At first it was swings of 2 degrees at 98-101.  Then we got several unseasonably warm days at 93 during the day and 60 at night and things got more difficult and stressful to keep in a healthy temperature zone.  It took constant checks every 30 mins and small adjustments each time to keep it in the zone.  It was exhausting, stressful and worrisome.

We candled the eggs last week and found about 16 that didn't develop much at all past the first few days.  So we tossed all those and only 8 remained and appeared to be developing.

Then yesterday was when I felt 99% sure we'd done them in for good.  We found the temp in the incubator to be clear up to 106 degrees!  After all day it had been a steady 99-100.2 which was perfect!  That 106 is killer hot.:(   I feel like a failure, because after those weeks of attending to it so carefully and then this...when we are just days away from the hatch date we let the temp spike too high?  What a let down for all of us.:(

We are still going to finish out the incubation period, until the 22nd of May, just in case there is a 1% chance one lived through the heat wave.  I'd be every so grateful to have a ray of sunshine in our apparent failure, but I will also be alright with this being a lesson learned I suppose.

So I guess Butterball will likely be an only turkey this year.  I hope next year to order some from a local feed store and have them keep them for a couple days to make sure they are good and strong and over their travel/shipment stress and try again.  We spent our turkey budget this year on the hatching eggs and since those didn't work out we have to wait until next year.

Things we learned~

*  We are far too busy this time of year to be babysitting an incubator.
*  Ordering turkeys in the mail isn't the best idea, unless we can order them from a fairly nearby hatchery.
*  Turkeys are pretty cool and we really would like to raise them next year.

Thanks for reading about our challenges with the turkeys.  That is what life is about, not everything can be a success.  Hopefully next year our turkey story will go more positively and we can include you along the
journey.

For now Butterball doesn't mind his broiler chicken buddies.

I think he likes being one-of-a-kind.

Lookey Who We Got to Babysit.....

This last spring a friend of mine decided it would be a good idea to get some baby ducks.....for easter (you know the drill, they are cute and fluffy and great for the kids, then they grow and you turn them loose on someone's farm right?). Anyway she had had the ducklings for a few weeks but they were growing out of her pen she had set up and they were impossibly messy, no exageration there. They were smelly, bad house guests in general. Eventually she had to have them in an old bathtub in her garage so they weren't getting the attention she wanted them to have.

Of course it just so happens they had to go on a trip and needed someone to babysit these ducklings for a couple days...she promised she'd come back and get them really, but then the kids fell in love with them and they soon became my problem. Before we knew it we'd had them several weeks. We were slightly better set up for them as we did have an area outside for the messy guys. We figured out a way to keep their water clean and their bedding dry. We even had a pond in our yard so they got some frequent swims. Overall it was really fun.

They soon had to go to a new home though as 5 ducks in town did not really make sense. We found them a suitable home complete with natural pond with lots of feed and acres and acres to enjoy. It happened to be my in-laws place, so they were welcomed with open arms.....too bad the coyotes had hunger pangs and there ended up being a couple unfortunate ones.:( It's always one thing if it isn't another!

They really know how to make a muddy mess of our pond don't they? Ducks are messy, don't let anyone tell you different! Hope you enjoyed the little piece of springtime heaven....

Meet the Chickens....

Thought you might enjoy a little photo tour with commentary of our backyard chickens.

"Yo Lady,..... Ya, You! Could you let us outta here?"

"Freeeom, Sweet Freedom!"

"Mmm....What do we have here?"

"You Lookin' At Me? You want some of this?"

"I am outta here!"

"Leave me alone! I am not a morning bird!"

"A little privacy here please?"

"I'm feeling the urge.....time to head to the nestbox."

"But before I get to work, can I get a little privacy please?"

"PREDATOR!!!! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!"

Disclaimer: No hens were injured in the making of this photo tour. Chickens are not bothered by housecats in the least, can't same the same about the poor cat being chased by the hens though.

Scaredy Dog.....

We have a Golden Retriever Puppy (well ok she looks grown but trust me she isn't!) she is about 8 months old. We have recently started letting her sleep out of her crate free to roam about the house. Since then she just barks occasionally like a big baby, stares around the room and growls and barks some more. I flip the covers off and go see what it up.....nothing. So back to bed, again 5 mins later she is looking all around barking and quietly growly, flip the covers back again...go look, nothing. Anyway it took me a few nights of trying to let her be loose and then deciding I loved my sleep too much to be listening to a barking dog. So last night I decided to take a little longer and see what it was that was bothering her.....I FINALLY figured it out! When all the lights are out, the woodstove has a window and you can see the flame flicker and the light dances all over the living room....that freaks her out. Poor girl. So needless to say she's going to be sleeping in her crate at night until stove heating season it over. I think it is actually kinda funny.


This is her checking herself out.....it was pretty funny!

My childhood horse Dixie.......

So here are some basics on my childhood......I am the youngest of 4 children. My parents are still married after many years. Anyway I grew up on a ranch, with horses, cats, and dogs all about. I loved riding my horse Dixie, she was the most amazing horse EVER, if I was being stupid and oh I don't know riding backwards bareback and goofing off, she'd buck you off and then stand there and wait as if to say "straighten up and get back on"......she was a babysitter really, cranky as all get out but a wonderful horse. She knew all my secrets and she listened to all my problems and dried all my tears.......I could run like the wind on her and I loved her dearly. She was tragically hurt in a cattle guard when I was 16yr old and I think part of me died that day when I had to make the decision to put her down because her injuries were just too deep. It was one of the hardest things I have ever had to live thru, she helped me thru so many things in my young life and when she died suddenly I had no way of coping with life anymore......she WAS my childhood.

I can still remember her speckled quivering muzzle as she laid there in the middle of our county road cattle guard, we were both in shock. I just did not want her to suffer anymore, I wanted her pain to be over.......I had to say my final goodbyes fast....... but how do you say goodbye to your everything? How do you thank her for all the hours of rides, and the tender sneezes while grazing, all the sunsets on horseback, all the wild rides thru the trees, and the tender nudges of her soft but prickly muzzle when I cried....that same muzzle I was looking at in her last minutes alive? I left before they actually gave her the shot I could simply not watch her die like that. My Dad burried her under a tree not far from our house and placed a HUGE boulder over her grave. I still go there sometimes and it still hurts on some kind of deep level I can't explain.

Now Dixie was nothing spectacular in the looks department, she was an uptight appaloosa mare that had a cranky PMS problem all the time (she was spayed and evidently was stuck in cranky mode) she had horrible skin and was allergic to everything, her main was so unruly and stiff it almost always had to be shaved off (think mohawk), she was still beautiful to me though. She was elegant in a strange kind of way, she was ladylike in her manerisms, she was THE BOSS around the barnyard. There were many forms to her crankiness......when saddling her she'd purposfully try to step on your foot....she really hated being cinched up, or when hearding cattle she'd reach out and take a chomp out of one of the cows just because she could.

Good old Dixie......there may be more from our story to come you never know...........Maybe I will go searching for a pic of her so I can show you my childhood horse. I think I am done tearing up for a while though.