Sounds of the Months

 

Here are some videos that I made this year.  I like to hear the different sounds of the months.  This first one is in February, when we played with the dogs in the ice. 

This video is from the last day of April, which was the little lamb named April's first day outside.  

Jamie catches a snake in this video from May.  

The little chicks have feathers now, and are ready to go to their new homes.  This video was from thier first days, in June. 

Also from June, our flock of ewes with bird song.  The deep rumble is the ram, calling to the girls from his adjacent pasture.  

Here's a video of my flock as they emerge from the coop. 

Enjoy my sounds! 

The Shepherd and the Goatherd Go Hiking

I got to spend several weeks out in the woods at night, catching bats.  The photo above is a federally endangered gray bat.  Despite their endangered status, in certain parts of Kentucky and Tennessee where there are lots of caves, we regularly catch gray bats.  In this photo you can see the little metal bracelet that I put on his forearm.  This tag has a number that will be entered into a database, and if anyone in the future finds this bat hanging in a cave, or tangled in their mist-net, they will report the number and we will learn about how far this bat travels.  I think the bats get used the bracelet pretty quick, but I always feel a little guilty about making them wear one.

Despite being very busy with travel for work, things have been happening back at the farm.  We have sheep!  This is our new ewe, named Lamb Chop.  How did we get into the sheep business?  Our experience butchering one of our goats taught us two things.  One, we can definitely butcher an animal and make meat, and two, it would be more worth the effort if the animal was meatier.  Katahdin sheep were recommended by our vet because they shed their wool, usually give birth out on the field with no problems, and aren't prone to parasite problems.   Plus they are little butterballs and make good meat.

This is our ram, Pistol Pete.  He's a big boy already, at only five months old.  He and Lamb Chop are hopefully the foundation of our flock.  

I have always been the driving force behind the goats.  Brandon is tolerant and supportive - building fences and shelter and taking care of them while I'm gone, but he has never thought they were worth the effort if it wasn't for my enjoyment of having them.  The sheep are different.  Brandon has an enthusiasm for these sheep that he never had for the goats.  He made all the arrangement for getting them, subdivided the pasture with electric fencing so he can rotate their grazing, buys and mixes grain to supplement their feed, and checks on them daily.  He's the shepherd and I'm the goatherd.  

We've been hiking every chance we can get.  We're practicing for some serious overnight hikes we plan to take every month starting in January.  Since June, we've hiked approximately 47 miles.  

It's been so nice to have something to do with our friends that is outside, where we can keep our distance from each other.  

Kentucky has so many great hiking trails.  Some of them have pretty stone arches.  

And mushrooms!  Hiking with mushroom hunting enthusiasts means we get to see lots of pretty fungi. 

Chicken of the woods.  

Cauliflower mushroom. 

Trails near swimming holes are perfect during the summer.  Laurel Lake always feels like home to me.

Although hiking in my bathing suit resulted in poison ivy on my leg.  Between the time spent outside for work, hiking in the forests on the weekends, and fighting through the weeds in the garden, my skin has been itchy from bug bites or poison ivy all summer!  

This year was the first zucchini and spaghetti squash harvest since we've been at the farm.  The weeds and the squash vine borers have taken their tole, but not before I was able to get a harvest.  There are green beans on the vine, waiting to be picked.  

We sold some of the goats, including Little Buck.  It was hardest to part with him, but I needed to reduce the herd size and I didn't like making little inbred babies.  Little Buck was purchased by a local man who is starting a herd and was grateful to find a nice buck.  Donnie is now my only buck, and he is with Peaches and Little Buck's daughter, Newnoo, so they can make more kids.  I still have the River Brothers too.  Brandon was amazed that anyone wanted to buy the goats he put on craigslist.  They sold within the day, especially Peaches' little bucklings, that were only two months old.  After making enough money selling the goats to buy his new ram lamb, Brandon was suddenly more enthusiastic about the goats too!  

The goats have been relocated to the new fence down in the woods.  Brandon built them a small shelter.  Five goats is easier for me to manage on walks.  With my set up, the goats stay healthiest if I let them out of their small pasture regularly so they can browse.  

The new goat pasture is full of honeysuckle vines and shrubs, and they are quickly eating every leaf.  When I let them out for their daily walk, they eat my green bean vines.   Doh!  

Boots and Wildflowers

Brandon researched hiking boots, ordered boots, tried on boots, returned boots, and then when he finally found the perfect boot at the outfitters, I asked the salesman to bring me a pair too.  We have matching feet!  We were excited to try out our new footwear at the Red River Gorge on Friday, and ended up hiking over nine miles - no blisters!  

This pretty yellow flower, that looks like six leaves circle the stem, is called tickseed (Coreopsis major).  

I think this bicolored flower is called goat's-rue (Tephrosia virginiana).  It was growing in small dense clusters near big swaths of bracken and wild blueberries (or cranberries, farkleberries, or deerberries (Vaccinium sp.), I can't tell them apart).  

We've hiked this trail before, so we knew to save our lunch break for the top of the ridge, when we could enjoy the views from our perch on the exposed rock.  

See those exposed rocks on the other side of the valley?  There's a natural arch in the stone there, and we were headed that way to get an up-close look.  

We hiked across this narrow spine with stone puddles filled from the recent rain.  I imagine bats flying along the ridge could swoop in for a quick drink.  

We made it all the way over the ridge, through the valley, and back up the other side!  I took this photo from the natural arch that we could see during our lunch break.  See those rocks?  That's where we were sitting and where we saw the puddles!  How cool that we can travel so far through that forest on a narrow foot path.   

We stopped under the arch carved in the sandstone by the wind and erosion, and planned our trek back to the car.  

Growing in crevices on the shady side of the cliff was this pretty red flower with jagged petals and soft round leaves.  My book says this is round-leaved catchfly (Silene rotundifolia).  

This little flower was growing on the edge of the trail.  I believe it's a species of houstonia, probably Houstonia purpurea, called Venus' pride, since the leaves are broad.  My boots are ready to hike again!

Lawns and Forests

There's Brandon, mowing the grass as he loves to do.  I've mentioned before how he keeps expanding our yard.  We both enjoy the contrast of the tidy lawn against the shaggy edges of our hay fields and natural areas.  My landscaping plans tend to have long term goals, and short term weeds, so it's nice to have something clean and even to break up the tangle. 

This area on the west side of the driveway used to be a jungle of tall weeds and old fence posts.  It's evolved to a smart looking lawn with plenty of room for guest camping and parking. 

The east side of the house is where we've allowed small volunteer tree saplings to grow.  Mostly silver maple trees, but also locust, green ash, red bud, and paw paw trees are growing here.  The trees closest to the house had their lower limbs trimmed.  I would like to keep clearing the honeysuckle vines from the tree trunks and trimming the branches so that in time it looks more and more park-like near the hammock.  

We initially let this area grow wild.  This allowed the small trees to get a foot hold, but the Japanese honeysuckle vines dominated the un-mowed vegetation.  I like wild places, and want to provide plenty of wildlife habitat, but I would prefer more diversity than a mass of honeysuckle.  We tried letting the goats eat the vines, but without fences, what worked best was to mow between the trees with the bush hog, then keep the vines suppressed with the lawn mower.  If I really want to promote native grasses and wildflowers, I think I need to exhaust the honeysuckle vines through mowing, so they don't just grow back the instant we stop cutting them.  Herbicide would work too, but I'm not ready to try that just yet.  Burning would be great, but we would have to get brave enough to try it, and I don't feel very brave so close to the house.  It's a good thing Brandon likes to mow.

This is the view from the hammock - already the sky is being covered by the leaves of our little trees!

The nature trail, as we call it, cuts through the tall vegetation near the tree line.  In the winter we see rabbit, deer, and coyote tracks in the snow on our trail, so we know we aren't the only ones to appreciate it.  

Most of these tall herbaceous plants are goldenrod, poison ivy, and honeysuckle.  The rabbits love to dart in and out of these tall plants.  In the background, you can see small sycamore trees from our early tree planting efforts.  There's also a few silky dogwood trees in the corner near the stream, where the ground stays wet.  It's nearly a wetland.  I would love to dig a small pond in this area, so we could host wetland plants and amphibians.  

See all those dead trees?  Those are the ash trees that were killed by the emerald ash borer, and our future firewood supply.  We see wood peckers drilling holes in these trees, and the hawks use them as perches while they spy on the chickens.  Brandon swears he saw a bobcat, twice, in these narrow woods on our eastern boundary.  The neighbor says she saw a cat climbing a tree, and thought it was a mountain lion.  I might believe there's a bobcat, but have my doubts about a mountain lion in farm country.  Some fat house cat might be creating a stir in the neighborhood.  

Early this summer I heard a wild turkey gobble while I relaxed in the hammock.  I grew up in a house in the forest, so I feel at home in the shelter of trees.  I'm happy to see our wild places become more like real forests.  At the rate these trees are growing, it won't be long!  

Spiky Plants and Itchy Plants

See those tall white flower spikes behind Wendigo?  Those are yucca blossoms.  When I think of yucca plants I envision the southwest, or my grandma's yard in Kentucky.  We were careful when playing freeze tag to avoid the yucca patch by the clothes line.  

There were a few of these spiky plants here when we moved in, and they are spreading.  The flower stalks are huge, and pretty.  I read on Wikipedia that people in the Appalachians called yucca the meat hanging plant, because the fibers from the leaves are so strong they could be used to hang meat in the smoke house.  

The flowers don't have a very strong fragrance. 

As Brandon expands his mowing area, the yucca are being released from the weeds that have surrounded them, so Wendigo and I can get close to admire the blooms.

Look what grows in the grass near the yucca plants - poison ivy!  Can you see the leaflets of three? 

"Leaves of three, let them be."  The leaves also have a "mitten" shape or a "thumb".  Poison ivy can be tricky to identify because it can be a tiny plant hidden in the grass, like this, or a long vine growing on a tree, or a tall woody looking shrub and vine, that can brush against your face as you walk.  When it doesn't have leaves, I can identify it by the naked end bud - the last bud on the end of the branch or vine doesn't have scales, and looks fuzzy. 

See the tiny new leaf that is growing from this poison ivy plant?  It's red in color.  I notice that poison ivy often has a reddish stem, new red leaves, and a bit of red at the bottom of each leaflet.  It took years of me pointing out poison ivy plants before Brandon learned to identify it.  I forget that not everyone looks at each leaf in the world and wonders what kind it is.  What does the world look like through the eyes of someone who doesn't notice the shape of individual plant leaves?  Is it all just a green tangle?  

White and Purple Blooms

Wow, just look at that pear tree blooming!  Does it bring to mind the cherry tree that grew outside Anne's window at Green Gables, the White Lady?  

This is the view from our bedroom window.  There are so many petals on the roof it looks like it's been snowing!

From every window we could see white petals blowing on the breeze. 

The grass was coated with petals, and the chickens spent their time gobbling them up.  It's fun to think that my breakfast eggs were made with pear blossoms. 

I like to stand beneath the branches and listen to the buzz of the visiting insects.  I'm hopeful that the pear tree and the bugs had plenty of nice weather together this year, so all the flowers were pollinated.  So romantic. 

The poor old tree is hollow, and lost nearly a third of it's crown when a giant branch broke off.  It didn't mind the pruning, and made plenty of flowers anyway. 

The wild pear tree growing from the corner of the barn and outhouse was impressive this year too.  Even the little red bud tree that I planted in the back yard years ago made an impressive show this spring. 

It's nice to have some purple blooms to go with the white pear trees. 

It won't be long before this tree is big enough to make some shade for sitting in the back yard by the pool.  Can you believe it's almost time to open the pool?! 

I've been out in the world some, for work and for play, and realized that all the flower photos I've been taking are of purple or white flowers.  Like these violets. 

And the purple dwarf larkspur. 

This is a super cool wildflower called dutchman's breeches (Dicentra cucullaria). 

Do the funny shaped flowers look like breeches to you?

I got to see some sessile trillium (Trillium sessile) growing on a slope.

The blue phlox made the most impressive show, growing in a huge patch that turned the hillside lavender.  I'm so glad it is spring!