Snow Day Morning Chores

 

Finally, a work day snow day!  We had perfectly picturesqe snow on Christmas day, but I already had the day off so it hardly counts.  The perfect snow day is an unexpected day off, right?  

Especially if you have a collection of fuzzies to keep you company.  Sienna puppy is growing so fast, but I predict she will not be as large as Wendigo.  I've been reminded that I thought Wendigo was a challenge when she was Sienna's age too, but now Wendigo seems a perfect angel compared to Sienna. 

Sienna chases, chews, and pounces but it's so good to have a dog that will do all my chores with me again.  Wendigo limits her exhertions to protect her bad knees, but Sienna sticks with me no matter how many trips I make to take to visit the goats.   

We begin our mornings chores with a visit to the donkeys on our way to the mobile chicken coop.  Good morning Ernest - what a big yawn!  

The mobile chicken coop has been moved into the small fenced paddock next to the donkeys.  This gives the chickens their own space to eat and assemble at the coop without being harrassed by Sienna.  The chickens can get out of the fence through gaps, but they tend to stick to the tree lines and back fields to avoid the dog.  I miss seeing them near the house, but it's nice that they keep their mess to the back of the farm now.  

With only ten hens, a rooster, and two guinea fowl, there's plenty of roost space in the mobile coop, yet five of the hens are roosting in the cedar trees at night.  They are taking a risk that a racoon will nab them while they sleep, but they roost so high in the tangled branches I can't fish them down and re-train them to the coop.  Cross you fingers that Sienna and Wendigo take their guard dog duties serisously.  

I moved the chicken food to a lidded barrel near the coop, and I have water buckets near the fence that I can fill from the hose.  I secure the coop door open in the morning, spread chicken pellets on the ground, and bust the ice from the water bucket.  Sienna waits with the donkeys while I tend the chickens.  On this snow day, instead of the normal excided exodus when I open the door, all the tree roosting chickins quickly hopped inside instead.  I don't blame them for wanting their feet out of the snow.   

Look!  Eggs in the nest box!  

After a winter break, my hold hens started laying again when the days began to get longer. The giant white eggs are from the little white hens, and the smallest tan egg is from the giant red meat hen.  

Good morning, Rufus!  Are you anxious for your breakfast hay?  I break the ice on the donkey water and give them a couple flakes of hay.  I've been told that mini donkeys can live on a single flake of hay per day, and a flake is approximatley four pounds of hay.  Rufus and Ernest love to eat, so I give them each a flake in the morning and each another at night.  They would eat even more if I gave it to them, but Ernest is supposed to be on a diet.  I've been cutting little maple saplings from the tree lines and pitching them in the fence.  They eat all the little twigs and peel off the bark!  I think they get bored without something to chew on.  Especially Ernest, who nibbles on the wood gate.  

I need to weigh a flake, because I may be giving them way more than they need, and Brandon is worried I won't make it through until spring with the hay we have stored.  I can easily use a bale each day, and we won't make more bales until the end of May.  I do have one last giant round bale from the year before, so maybe we'll squeak by.    

The goats are living in the fence in the woods behind the zip line field.  Can you see the little shed in the photo?  It's a bit of a walk from the hay barn or the water spicket, so I get plenty of steps during my chores - even some wieght lifting as I carry hay and water.  

My nephew and I walked to visit the goats when we had our camp fire thanksgiving pie celebration, and he mentioned that all these animals seem like a lot of trouble.  Tell me about it - Ha!  I told him that I spend about a half hour on chores in the morning, and another in the evening, so I get an hour of outside excersize every day, rain or shine, because if I skip it my animals will suffer or die.  Talk about motivation!  He said he spends an hour outside playing basketball every morning since he can't go to school.  Why didn't I think of that! 

Unlike the sheep, who rarely need their hay basket filled as they spend all their time grazing grass, the goats are voracious hay eaters, and hay wasters.  Can you see how much hay has built up inside their fence?

The goats are standing on nearly two feet of hay they drop from their basket, and once it hits the ground they don't eat it.  It's good for them to have clean hay bedding, and all that organic matter heats up as it composts and makes a nice warm bed for them.  Brandon found a big wooden crate dismanlted in the dumpster at school.  He brought it home, reassembed it, nailed some tin on for a water proof roof, and cut a little door way into it.  The goats think this goat house is the perfect place to cozy up out of the weather, and I laugh when I see them all come squeezing out of that little hole like clowns from a clown car.  How do they fit?   

The last chore is to feed the wolves dogs.  

Wendigo thinks it's rude to take photos of her with her mouth full. 

Seinna looks ferocious when she chews! 

The Long Hike with Sack Pie Before Hay Bales

 

Saturday, the day of our longest hike so far, started very early.  I fed the animals and did my morning chores by headlamp, and admired Wendigo's white coat gleaming in the barn light as she scarfed her breakfast and the sky began to lighten as the stars faded.   

Brandon was congratulating us for leaving on time, when we got stopped by a train on the tracks near home.  There's no time for delays when a long and challenging hike is on the schedule!

We arrived on time anyway, and everything about the meet up went according to the plan!  We had our cars situated at the end point, and the six of us were ready to hit the trail before nine in the morning.  My bag weighed fifteen pounds, including over three liters of water and a bottle of coconut water.  

We started our adventure at Laurel Lake, and walked across the Laurel Lake Dam.  

On one side of the dam is the fog covered lake.  There were folks in the water training to scuba dive.  

On the downstream side of the dam, clouds were settled in the deep valley under a blue sky.  This is the side our trail followed - over fourteen miles along the river valleys all the way to Cumberland Falls State Park.  

The trail was challenging, but beautiful.  The last time I hiked this section of the Sheltowee we camped along the way, but this time we wanted to do the whole thing in one day.  

Everyone had smiles in the beginning, despite scrambling over treacherous rocks and tangles of roots in the trail.  

We walked along a short stretch where the rock cliffs are exposed to the sun, and kudzu on the trees creates strange shapes.  

We each found a comfortable rock seat for our lunch break.  Brandon has perfected our trail meal in a bag.  Riced rutabaga cooked with meats and vegetables, and served in a zip lock bag with a plastic spoon.  Somehow this meal has earned it's own trail name, "sack pie."  It is yummier than it sounds!    

This box turtle had brilliant red eyes.  

We could catch glimpses of the river through the trees, and hear the rush of water over boulders.  

Such cool rocks! 

We took a trail detour to visit a water fall and soak our weary feet before making the final trek to Cumberland Falls.  After over fourteen miles of stone and root lined trail, plus multiple sets of stone or wood steps, I didn't even have the energy to take the path to see the falls.  I was pooped!  

I got lots of bites from teeny little ticks, my feet hurt like they were bruised the next day, and my legs were tender to the touch, but that didn't stop us from putting up over a hundred bales of hay on Sunday!  We've been told that the hike we did was just as hard as a twenty-mile section of the Sheltowee in other places, so we should be able to meet the challenge that starts this winter.  We still need to practice two consecutive long hikes.  I can't imagine hiking that hard two days in a row!  

Ernest and the Bales

Ernest, our recently adopted mini donkey, has very shaggy bangs that shade his eyes.  Unlike Rufus, who is grey with a buff colored nose and belly, Ernest is chocolate brown with long white belly fur and white felt around his eyes and nose.  When he's upside down rolling in the dust, his white belly fur really stands out.  When he asks for pets and scratches, he hangs his head low, like Eeyore, and doesn't understand why I want to raise his chin and kiss his nose.  Ernest usually has a big lump of half chewed hay in his jaw, which feels strange when I pet his face, and can't be good for his teeth.  Why does he do that? 

My horse owning friend is doubtful that Ernest will ever slim down, but Brandon and I think he may have already lost some of his extra padding.  Or maybe we've gotten used to his lumps and don't notice them as much now.  He's nice to pet on his chest and neck because his hair is so lush and his flesh is squishy.  Yesterday, he let me rub herbal fly repellent on his legs without making a fuss, which was not the case with Rufus, who gets suspicious any time I approach his back legs.  

I have four big round hay bales left over from last year, and we just finished putting away the first cutting of square bales from the whole farm.  Whew!  The big field in front of the house produced about sixty-three bales, and the long field on the side of the driveway made another twenty-two.  That's one hundred and twenty bales for the whole farm!  If we can get that many again, later this summer, I should have plenty to last the year. 

You mean we have to do all that work again?!

Although I think he was looking forward to putting the hay making equipment away for a few months, Brandon volunteered to cut and bale some of our good neighbors fields.  He didn't get very far when the pto shaft on the cutter broke, so he's back in the shop trying to solve another frustrating mechanical problem.  He doesn't seem to find it helpful when I suggest we go old school, and get a scythe.  But, Brandon, just imagine the abdominal strength that would come from all that twisting and slashing!  We could have hay plus rock hard abs!  

Its easy for me to make jokes, because I had the easy job of driving the jeep through the field while Brandon walked from bale to bale and loaded them on the wagon.  I did help unload them from the wagon to the hoop barn.  They are heavy and scratchy!  But they smell wonderful!

The hay bales from the front of the farm were much dryer and lighter than our first batch, from the zip line field.  This made us nervous about the moisture content of the first batch, and we found a few bales that were starting to mold and feel warm to the touch.  Hay fires are a real thing, so we un-stacked all the heavy moist bales and set them singly on pallets and boards with space between each bale so they can dry out and hopefully not have enough mass for combustion.  

That hay from the zip line field was really thick grass stems and hairy vetch (Vicia villosa) vines, so it didn't dry very fast.  The hay from the front of the farm was full of yellow field clover (Trifolium campestre).  The yellow field clover dried fast, and made light fluffy bales of fine material.  Both the vetch and the clover are nitrogen fixing plants, so I think they mean good things for soil quality.  Hopefully the mean good things for goat nutrition too.  All the animals think it's very tasty!  Ernest has to stay on his diet, so I'm feeding the donkeys the left over hay from last year, which was cut late, and is stalky and has less nutrition.  Not fair!

Zip Line Hay Stress

The pool is open, and the grass is tall - it's hay season!  The field behind the swimming pool is the one dubbed the zip line field.  All the hay fields in our neighborhood were mowed over the weekend, but our gear still wasn't ready, so we started late, with rain in the forecast for today.  Hurry, Brandon!  

This year, we have our very own big tractor, a borrowed rake and baler, and an old sickle bar cutter that Brandon bought from Craigslist and repaired.  That long jagged blade on the back of the tractor is the sickle bar cutter.  It's scary. 

Folks these days use a different kind of cutter that is covered, and not as dangerous looking as this seven foot long bar with a series of jagged blades.  As the pto on the tractor turns, these blades jerk back and forth really fast, and cut the grass against those metal spikes.  It's dangerous to animals because although they can see the tractor coming, they don't realize that there's a blade under the grass and against the ground that sticks way out to the side of the tractor.  We were careful to keep the dog away.  

Here's a little clip of the cutter in action.  Poor Brandon spent an eleven hour day in the sun replacing the blades and reassembling this cutter.  He even had to take a part of it to the local welder and have it repaired.  But, he finally managed to cut some grass on Monday afternoon!  Whew!  Everything to do with this hay making project was stressful.  Not only did we have to figure out how to purchase, repair, and use this older technology, but we have the constant question of the weather hanging over us.  You've got to make hay while the sun shines, and you know how rainy it's been lately.   Every day we watched the neighbors make progress with their hay and we knew we were days behind.  Hurry!

Once the hay was cut, it was time to turn our attention to the baler machine.  It's pretty old too - although Brandon reminded me that it's only a year older than him, and he still works pretty good!   

We had the manual for this machine.  Whomever wrote it, bless their hearts, must have assumed all readers would have a basic understanding of the machine, because we struggled to interpret despite all the drawings and photos.  There were about twenty places that needed lubrication, so we patiently scrubbed off the crud and used the grease gun.  Joe told us the last time the baler was used was five years ago, but it worked then, so we were hopeful that it would work for us too.   

Our next step, after cutting the hay and letting it dry, was to use the hay rake to make long wind rows.  Since we don't have a tedder, which stirs up the hay to help it dry, Brandon raked the hay a bit during the early part of the day.  Once I was home from work and we were ready to bale, he piled the hay into long rows.   

Here's a little clip of the rake in action.  It's pretty cool - it doesn't require the pto to turn it, instead, as the wheels roll on the ground, they activate a gear which turns the series of round rakes.  Brandon used the little tractor for the rake, and then the battery died in the little tractor and it was stuck out in the hay field while it charged up again.  Nothing like a dead battery to amplify the stress level.  It's going to rain in the morning - hurry, Brandon!  

We debated the dryness of the hay, and worried that it was still damp, but decided to try out the baler on at least one field and see how it goes.  We expected a learning curve, but oh boy, was that an adventure.  This machine is loud, strong, and seems particularly scary when your loved one is perched near it while it spins, thumps, and pounds.  It has two "needles," which are several feet long and curved, and has a very particular order in which it must be threaded.  After our fourth hour and multiple attempts to thread it, we finally managed to get it to tie a bale!  

Here's a little clip of the baler in action.  Little rakes on the bottom pull the hay into the machine.  The pto on the tractor spins a giant auger which pushes the hay to one side, where a big plunger pushes it into a square hole.  As the hay passes through the hole and onto a chute, those giant needles stab through it and a complicated mechanism ties the string around the bales.  That tying mechanism was what caused us so much grief.  We were warned that the first few bales probably wouldn't tie, so we tried over and over making bales that didn't tie, kicking them back apart, and trying them again.  Finally, after pinching our fingers, and banging our heads, we got the tension right on the strings, and made hay bales!  

The zip line field yielded eleven big bales, and by the time we got them stored out of the weather it was well past dark.  We were exhausted, but so happy that we managed to make that equipment do it's job.  

Today, Brandon finished baling the other two fields that were cut, and got the bales put away right before the rain fell.  We have thirty bales, already.  Now we just have to hope we didn't bale it when it was too damp.  If it's too damp it will mold, or worse, catch on fire!