One Less Possum

This morning about 4:00 am one of the dogs roused me from sleep. They do this sometimes, usually Lysander will have to go out to relieve himself at unholy hours of the morning. I don't know why since he's beyond four years old and a big dog, so he should sleep through the night, but Barry says he's spoiled rotten, so that's why he likes to roam the back yard at night. Here is a photo of him in my working hat. Isn't he cute?





Anyway, I digress. This morning the dogs got me up and I staggered sleepily to the back door and opened it. Usually they mosey out to do their business, but this time they shot out the door like the hounds of hell were behind them. Then I heard what they had: our rooster, Big Boy, cackling loudly. He wasn't crowing, he was yelling, putting up an alarm. I didn't hesitate, I grabbed the maglite flashlight and took off running, down the crazy granite steps, through the dog yard full of tree roots to trip me up, across the field trying to avoid the chicken tractor and the field of corn (did I mention I was in my pajamas and didn't have on my glasses?). I ran up to the chicken pen, and all the chickens were out there. The chickens are out? Chickens should be asleep! The rooster was still raising the alarm when I heard the most gawd-awful sound--like someone was sitting on a duck and jumping up and down to make it wheeze. Terrible! I ran around the corner to the barn and into the chicken room. The sound was coming from under the egg nests. I shined the light there and my brain made sense of what I saw before I could put words to it: POSSUM! A damn possum was trying to eat one of my chickens! Shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot!!! (I used other words, but I think you can imagine them) I yelled "Get away from her you bastard!", and this was loud enough to get Barry's attention in the house, he tells me.

The possum moved reluctantly away from the chicken, and I looked around for something I could use to bludgeon the thing. Leaning against the wall were several metal fence posts. They weren't there yesterday, but boy am I glad they were there today. I grabbed one and with the flashlight in one hand and my fence post in the other I stared down the beast. It cocked its evil little eye at me, then back at the chicken. It wanted to try for her again. The chicken was moaning in fear and agony and I kept telling her, "It's okay sweetie, you'll be fine, just let me kill this [insert really bad word here] and I'll help you". The possum started to move and I let out a war cry and plunged my trusty sword down and into it and almost through the barn wall. It jumped and contorted and squeaked, but it couldn't get away because I had it pinned. I reached over to the roosting area and picked up the chicken with one hand (still holding the Evil Thing with the post in the other) and placed her behind me on another chicken shelf. She would not stop screaming, and a chicken screaming is an ugly sound, let me tell you.

At this point I was torn. If I let up on the beast he might still be able to run away, but I couldn't just hold him there forever, and if I put down the light I couldn't see to stab him again. Luckily at this point in the narrative the brave hero came through the door: Barry stepped into the barn saying "What the bloody hell is going on?" I was completely rushed on adrenaline at this point and could hardly speak, but he saw what was happening, said a few bad words and then picked up his own fence post. "Shall I kill it?", says he, "YES!!!", says I. And he did, vigorously, several times. Would you believe that possum was twitching for ten minutes? I made Barry haul it out of the barn and onto the fields with the Medea-like curse, "Let the hawks have him!". The Really Dead Possum the next day--he is a big specimen.

We examined our victim chicken and she was covered in blood, but seemed fine when looked at more closely, just missing a lot of feathers. We think one of her legs is broken, probably in trying to get away from the possum. She eventually calmed down and we took her back to the house with us and kept her in a small dog crate. She was fine for the night. She is now isolated in a crate in the same area with the other chickens, but since she is 'damaged' they would attack and hurt her, but we are hoping she can recover eventually. If not, then we will do the right thing by her. Poor Big Boy the rooster has lost all his tail feathers, his beautiful plume, and has a sore butt to prove it. My new favorite wound treatment is propolis spray, which is a gift from the bees. Great stuff, which I highly recommend for animals and humans alike.

We think this is the same possum who got one of our sitting Cochins about a month ago, but she wasn't in the barn with a rooster, so today's attack was a bold move on his part. He lost his chips, though, and human intervention won the day. Let's hope we can win future battles. I'll keep a fence post handy.
Big Boy before and after the attack. Poor guy.

The Little Plant Laughed

The potatoes were a surprise harvest yesterday. The cabbage were shouting at me to pull them out and peel off the layers of slugs that had taken over (if it's good enough for a slug, it's good enough for us!), but the potatoes were a quiet victory. They didn't flower much, so Barry insisted it wasn't time yet to pull them up, and who am I to argue with a Welshman, not actually Irish only because of a little bit of water between them. I couldn't just leave those two sad, brown potato plants in the ground any longer, so I pulled them up: nothing on the end of it, oh well, the potatoes haven't come. Then I stuck my hand in the soil (because I can't leave anything alone) and lo and behold, there are potatoes down there--actual, edible potatoes! At least ten good sized spuds, all from two little chunks of potato with a sprouting eye on it back in early May. Now THAT is some powerful magic! The garlic came up the same way. I planted one little clove per hole back in November, then magic happens and each clove has turned into a whole bulb of tasty, organic garlic. Man, it just doesn't get any better than that.

Well, we got a little, teeny, tiny bit of rain today. Not enough to really do much, but better than nothing. When I went out to the garden to check on things, I found these tasty morsels: The slicing tomatoes are very slowly starting to turn red and pink. I re-tied many of the tomato vines that are getting heavy with fruit. The squash are taking over out there and it is like some strange sci-fi movie, "Attack of the fast-growing squash!". We can hardly put down a foot without almost stepping on another fruit. It is really very exciting to find these little presents every morning. Kind of like a tasty Christmas daily. I knew I would enjoy growing things, I just never had the time and space to do it. I'm trying to be good about keeping records, but that isn't really my style, so some info gets lost, like the Amazing Squash type that I planted. I can't for the life of me remember what it is. I can't find the seed packet, either. I started off writing everything down, but that stopped during the heavy rains since I couldn't write outside. This forgetfulness, or lack of attention seems to be doubled since this plant is growing better than any other in my garden, mocking me with its fruitfulness. Do plants have a sense of humor? Probably.

This Week in Pictures, Part 2

The turkeys are getting bigger every day. They are starting to really look like turkeys (instead of cute chickens) and the males are starting to "strut", when they fluff up their tails and fan them out. They wouldn't do it while I had the camera, of course.

Barry is watering the corn and potatoes. He's looking a bit grim about the lack of water, and the extreme heat lately. It affects him as much as they plants, and they both wilt.
















Last night during Bee Rush Hour.


















A volunteer squash of some kind in the compost pile. We don't know what it is since we haven't eaten much squash this year. Clearly the compost doesn't get hot enough to kill seeds. I'm hoping for cucumbers.
I made this berry tart with an almond flour crust (no gluten for my friends who ask) and homemade cottage cheese for the base. The blackberries are from around the corner, but the strawberries and giant raspberries are from the store. Seriously, how do they get them to be larger than strawberries? I probably don't want to know.














Scarlet Runner beans. Not as prolific as we'd like, but they have pretty red flowers in late spring.

Squash blossom in the garden. This is a summer squash I planted only a few weeks ago and it is going nuts and taking over the entire garden. Next year I'm planting all the squash types out in the field where they can take over and run amok.
My first strawberry from my planters in the front yard. Tasty and beautiful.

Gotcha!

The volleyball-size one is still out there, these are only baseball and racquet-ball size. :0)

From the seed catalog:

Tomato Giant Pink Belgium (Heirloom)

HEIRLOOM. A succulent and enormous dark pink tomato

HEIRLOOM. 88 days. A succulent and enormous dark 1-1/2 to 2 lb. pink tomato that many gardeners prefer to the more acidic varieties. The flavor is sweet and very mild, and the large fruits are very attractive. Indeterminate. Pink-skinned tomatoes occur as a result of a clear skin over red flesh. (Ordinary red tomatoes have yellow skin over red flesh.) When ripe fruits retain green pigment, tomatoes take on purple and brownish hues.

This Week in Pictures, Part 1

Here are a few photos from around the farm. This is my Moon and Stars Watermelon, coming along nicely.


The infamous tomato plants. I spied a hint of orange on one of them today, so eating isn't far behind.











This is the tomato almost the size of a volley ball.






These are pear shaped Roma tomatoes.















Morning glories are growing everywhere. They are beautiful, but highly annoying in the garden.






They creep over every other plant and lock them down to the ground and generally make a mess of things for weeding. At least they don't have thorns like some of the other weeds.



Grapes twining their way over the wire shed. There are more grapes to the right of the photo running down an arbor Barry built.



Garlic harvested this week and curing in the garden shed






This really has nothing to do with the farm, but I just had to share. Barry drove a bobcat around for two days at our friend JJ's house this week. It is the smallest machine of its kind that Barry has every driven as he normally works on those monster excavators you see building bridges and roads. They had fun pushing around dirt and wood chips, but it was too darn hot.

And to take us out of this photo montage is Barry playing on his guitar. Moment after I took this I heard a 'sprang' of a string breaking, which brought his strumming to an end. Ah, well, time for a new string.

Best Bees Ever

The bees are very active this week. I've been watching them come and go every day and it is amazing to see all the take offs and landings happening, and all without a control tower. You can't quite see it in this flower photo, but a bee is just inside one trumpet gathering nectar. I also found one on the squash blossom when I was checking the garden. It is pretty cool to see the bees actually doing their thing up close.

I did a hive check on the bees today. It was hot and still around noon when I got the smoker going and put on the gear, but by the time I got the hive open the wind had picked up. Nice. Thanks a lot, Ma Nature. When it is windy the smoke won't go where you want, it just blows away. Plus, the bees seem to be hanging around the hive area more. It was looking like Atlanta airport at rush hour. The bees didn't seem upset, though, just worried about the possible forest fire I was creating with all my smoke.

The last few evenings starting around 5 o'clock the bees have been gathering en mass at the hive entrance. Yesterday Barry was looking out the window when he suddenly yelled, "Sally! The bees! Look at them on the hive!!!", which of course I imagined to be a swarm picking up and moving out, or some other tragedy. What really seemed to be happening was evening rush hour, or happy hour on the veranda, I'm not sure which. As they all start coming in for the night a backlog of bees collects on the outside of the hive which looks a bit scary, but is only a whole mess of bees hanging out either staying cool or waiting their turn to get into bed.

I opened up the hive and had a look and I am very pleased and surprised at how much work the bees have done in such a short time. They are pulling comb on almost all the frames in the top box, and sealing up many of them which have been filled with honey.


This picture is a frame that the bees have gotten them comb ready for honey.




This one is of a frame that they are starting to close up the comb, which means the honey will be sealed up until they need it for the winter, or until some big human comes in to steal it. The top part that is white is the sealed comb. If you've every bought "comb honey" you've seen this, just not on the frame.


This photo is looking down into the box of frames. You can see they've built out honey comb on most of the frames. Six of the eight are filling up, so I went ahead and added a floor to their bee condo so they wouldn't feel over-crowded. I briefly checked the brood box (the big bottom one) and didn't see anything that shouldn't be there (extra queen cells, empty eggs cells, small cats--no, just kidding about that last one).

While I was out there and geared up I trimmed all around the hive since the grass and weeds like to grow quickly in this heat. The lack of water doesn't help the gardens, but the weeds don't seem to mind. Even with all this heat and no rain, I have to get out there every day and do things. The garden is prolific and I'm just hoping we get some rain to keep the corn and potatoes growing.

That's all for now, see you on the farm!

Found Food

The tomatoes are just starting to ripen! The cherry tomatoes and Romas are first out of the gate, and both are delicious, although I'm partial to the little cherries. The slicing tomatoes are still green, which is frustrating for those of us tapping our feet, waiting patiently for color. Perhaps this week...

We bought two new soaker hoses to water the garden at night. It does make a difference. The corn is still growing, and the tomatoes and peppers get bigger each night. Fifty feet of hose for $8.97 at Walmart is a deal.

While our garden is slowly releasing its fruit to us through the summer, I've been fascinated by the amount of found food, I come across. Wild foraging is another term for it. I've recently found wild red raspberries growing in the yard where the dogs stay, wild blackberries along the roadside, sorrel in the side yard, some kind of berry along the garden gate, and mushrooms in the front yard. I've eaten every one of my finds, even nibbled on the mushrooms, although I couldn't exactly ascertain the type, even with all my identification books. Clearly more hands-on experience is required for the fungi.

The fruit might be free for the taking, but taking them isn't always free. The scratches and cuts on my hands, arms and legs shows what I put into my food finds, and lets Mother Nature take back something from me for my discovery.

If I actually return from my run/walk with some of the blackberries, I put them on my yogurt for breakfast. However, I don't always have that many, since there is something about eating on the sly that makes found food more delicious. I come home with my hands purple and my mouth happy.








Anyone out there know mushrooms? I think this one is edible. It seems to grow on old roots in the yard. They have all dried up and gone totally black this week, I guess because of the lack of rain. Any thoughts?




More pictures soon. See you on the farm!