Just Mucking Around

This week Barry rented a mini-excavator to dig out the little mud puddle at the rear of our roods to turn it into a proper pond. You can see what it looked like before here.

When we bought the farm last summer we knew that we had a variety of small creeks that come together just in the back part of our property because even in the driest year ever there were three trickles of water heading into the triangle. Once the rains started coming down this winter, we discovered we really did have a pond. This is good news for us since it will help us with our pastured animals.

Ever since we've moved it has been on Barry's mind to widen the pond's walls, clean out the silt and muck, and make something pretty and useful.

Eventually we will plant shrubs and other vegetation on the banks and also add water plants. If we can stand the mosquitoes, it should be a nice place to visit in the afternoons.



Barry is so happy on his machine he stays at it for hours at a time. I mean HOURS, like six or seven, before I make him come in for something to eat and drink.

I'm hoping he'll have time to dig a foundation for my new smokehouse. More on that as (if) it progresses.

See you on the farm!

Watermelon!

We only had two watermelons fruit off the one vine that survived the intense heat and lack of rain this summer. The first melon was the size of a baseball and rotted before I could harvest it. This one that I took off the vine this morning is a nice icebox size and only has a small spot on the bottom where it got a little too much moisture during the last rain. It is a 'Moon and Stars' heirloom variety.

This is the rest of the morning take: pink tomatoes (some still a bit green but delicious fried) banana peppers, jalapeno peppers both green and red, and said watermelon. I'm planning on pickling the peppers with some okra we got from a neighbor. The watermelon we'll have for desert tonight. Should all be dee-licious.

Free Ranging

We've had a few changes recently here on the farm. After keeping our chickens under cover of chicken wire and in large pens for months, we've let them all out on the pasture to forage for themselves. This was a decision made to give them a better life, and us better eggs. Plus it is easier on the feed costs. We had closed them in because of the hawks that have been living in the area. We lost three chickens in two days early this spring, and we just couldn't stand to lose anymore, so we put them under cover.

A month or so ago our Silver-Laced Wyandottes were just too big to keep in their pen any longer, so we pastured them inside a large electric fence that we move weekly. So far the hawks haven't bothered them, even though they are easy pickings. I think the chickens are too big for the average hawk, which is about the same size. So now that all the chicks are grown, we hope the hawks won't bother with any of them, at least until next spring when they have to feed their own chicks, and I suppose then we'll close up our gang for a few weeks to keep them safe. Now the ducks and all the chickens can range free on our property. The small bantams have been finding their way into the dog's area, but our Azawakh don't seem at all interested in them. Lucky for the little chickens they were the ones on the field when the chicks came in for the 'greener grass' in with the dogs. They have all escaped injury, and the Wickles (as I call them) have gotten a lot of brownie points with Barry.





We have a few new additions to the flock. Recently we visited a farmer friend of ours in N. Georgia who raises Cornish Cross chickens for one of the 'big box' chicken companies. The ones you get at your local supermarket are raised in places like our friend farms. Every seven weeks he gets a delivery of 100,000 day old chicks to raise in his four computer-run long houses. He often has a few extra, so we took home 10 from a recent delivery just 18 days ago.

We are raising these for ourselves and friends as an experiment to see if we can take a hybrid bird with great meat, but raise them more slowly (10-12 weeks instead of 7) and use forage and organic feed. It will be a challenge as these birds are bred to eat constantly. To control their growth we have to control their feed. They aren't great foragers, so we won't worry about what they find themselves, but they are greedy with the feed. If we are successful, we'd like to raise new broilers four times a year and offer them to friends. They sure do make a good dinner. I'll let you know how it goes.



See you on the farm!

Too Early for the Great Pumpkin

A couple of months ago I went out to the volunteer squash patch (that grew from the old compost pile) to find several small green globes running amok. A few days later the green globes had become orange globes, therefore certifying their identity as pumpkins. Pumpkins? In August? What's up with that? Apparently some seeds know no calendar. It has been fun plucking the squash from their little nest, but I don't know what to do with them now. I want pumpkin in October and November, maybe September, but certainly not August when summer is still in the front of my mind and stomach. I want fresh tomatoes and lettuce, cucumbers and peppers. Yet here they are, the winter squash brigade, clogging up the garden space. Ah well, I guess I'll have to find a way to use the bounty, if not now, then put up in jars for later. We've found the butternut squash to be really tasty as a stir fry up with onions, and they melt in your mouth in a soup. I suppose it is a blessing no matter the season.






The chickens are doing very well. The Wyandottes are moved every few days to a different part of the pasture. We got a super light, portable electric fence that most of them agree to pretend is actually stopping them from leaving. A couple have figured out that if they fly up and over the fence it won't shock them. I think it is time to clip their wings. I haven't had to do that in a few years because my flock was small enough to contain, and the bantams can fly even with clipped wings, the little snots. The turkeys can fly like jet airplanes, so we are very careful with them when they are on pasture. They like to fly into the dog run and that would just be a tragedy in the making. I've no idea why the chickens and turkeys find the dogs so interesting. The ducks always keep away from the fence, but our Gang of Five Cochin roosters just love to stand at the fence and mock the dogs. They should be more careful, but since they are roosters I'm not too concerned about them. Eat or be eaten, they'll find a place someday.



We hope to have an open house in September and will invite everyone we can think of to stop by for a bit. More info on that later.

See you on the farm!

Free Fall

Hello August!

I realize it has been awhile since I updated the blog, and for those who are my loyal followers, I apologize. It seems like life just got so crazy a few weeks ago and hasn't slowed up a bit.

I think, too, that I get so caught up in that 'perfect blog entry' that I don't ever have the time to actually do it (of course not, who does?). What I am going to try to do from now on (fingers crossed) is to update more often but with shorter stories. I also get annoyed with blogger and how slow and clunky it is for photo uploading and moving things around, so you 'old timers' on here, drop me some advice to make my posting faster. TiA.

Barry found quite a great little freebie the other day. He told me he had found a tree that had fruit that looked like "a cross between an olive and a cherry". Hmm....when he took me down to the edge of the woods to show me, I pulled down a branch, smiled and said "Muscadines. We've got wild muscadines!" Then I jumped up and down with happiness and ate a few grapes. Yes, ma'am, this is a great little farm, with or without our help.

So tonight Barry dragged the ladder out to the tree (there are four, actually) and tried to get as many grapes as he could. This is a big bowl, and we've left at least two more bowls on the tree because it is just too high up. If that isn't just the saddest thing I've had to write, but yes, we can't reach all the fruit. Well, I guess the birds will feast on us this month.

For all you non-Southerners out there, muscadine grapes are native to the southeast U.S. and taste nothing like table grapes. They have a thick skin and a sweet, juicy, delectable center that is like candy. Scuppernongs are similar but remain green when ripe.

I'm off to look up muscadine jelly recipes. Mmm...

See you soon~

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.