Wood Stove Season

It snowed!  It was just a dusting, and didn't stick around long, but I think it finally settled in my mind  that the summer is over. 

Brandon spent hours last weekend chopping firewood from a fallen tree.  The tree fell from our wood line into the neighbors hay field.  It lay there for several weeks before someone used their tractor to push it from the field into the trees.  Brandon fought through the brush to claim it for firewood.  He thinks we already have enough wood stored from his efforts last fall to squeak through the winter, but he gets antsy without a surplus.  This new wood isn't seasoned, so it will be best if we don't burn it this winter unless we need to.  

That old saying about firewood warming you twice is true, he was overly warm from his efforts to saw and chop the tree, and and we haven't even burned it yet.  He was sore from all that chopping too, but the strength that comes from all the effort is just a bonus.  

Just look at the moat around the mobile chicken coop.  If I miss my dry path to the door, I slosh through the mud that softened up by the moles who excavate here.  Brandon curses and threatens the moles when he stumbles in their excavations, but I find moles so interesting I don't mind sharing our soil with them.  I like to envision a whole different world inhabited by strange predatory creatures under our feet.  

After the snow melted and the puddles dried up, I blocked the big chickens from using the mobile coop, and set it up as a shelter for my baby birds that have been living in the greenhouse brooder.  I stapled tarps over the open sides, filled the bottom with a thick layer of dry hay, stretched extension cords all they way from from the outlet in the barn, and hung a heat lamp, feeder, and water bucket.  I was so proud of my work I was convinced Brandon would mention the tidy job I did with the tarps.  As we took our evening walk he looked at it and said "You managed to make that ugly coop even uglier." What!?! 

Well, the chicks appreciate my efforts anyway.  The big Red Ranger chicks weren't too hard to catch to transfer to the mobile coop, but those little white leghorns are like canaries.  They fly!  And they run really fast.  They scrambled so hard to escape me that they kicked up dust in the brooder and I had tie a bandanna around my face to keep from choking on the chicken dust.  At night the little white birds are centered under the heat lamp with a ring of big red birds on the outside of the cluster.  I think they like their new digs, and are learning to jump onto the perches.  

At night the coop glows red from the heat lamp.  When I approach to look in the window all the chicks scatter and squawk like I'm the big bad wolf.  It makes me miss Helen and Mrs. Hall, my first chicks who were raised in a box in the house, and were so tame I could pick them up and feed them by hand.  

I hope the chicks enjoy the heat from their lamp as much as the house cats and I enjoy the heat from our wood stove.  I love wood stove season so much I can welcome the winter.  Do you love your wood stove too?    

New Bus Door

This morning the world was coated in a thin layer of ice, and under the crispy ice shell the ground was saturated, making each step slurpy with mud.  Despite the cold I felt warm inside my down jacket as I trudged through the mud to deliver hay to the goats and donkeys.  I had to break the ice on the latch to the greenhouse door so I could tend the baby chicks in the brooder.  The bed of lettuce survived the freeze, and the chicks were content under their heat lamp.  Wendigo waited patiently in the cold rain, knowing her breakfast was coming soon. 

It's nice to look at the colorful leaves on the trees in the photos I took several weeks ago when we visited the blue bus.  The leaves are off the trees now, and the ice crust on every branch is making it harder for me to deny that winter has arrived.  We were lucky to get two nice weekends in a row free to visit the bus, enjoy the views, host a picnic, and do some much needed maintenance. 

Our closest neighbor to the bus let us know that people had been visiting the bus.  We already knew we had hosted uninvited guests, because we had to clean up the trash they left behind.  Having a door that wouldn't latch must be the same as an open invitation!  We replaced the broken door with a new door, made from a piece of painted plywood, with sheets of metal screwed on to protect it from the weather. 

Our old door had more of a cute cottage look, and the new door has more of a Mad Max aesthetic!

We have decided to revamp the bus interior too.  In years past I've had fun decking it out like a little cottage as our frequent weekend get-away.  These days, we don't even want to get away!  We haven't camped at the bus since we moved to the farm, and the furniture inside is dingy with neglect and moisture.  Not to mention whatever cooties the guest might have left behind.  So, we took out the iron cook stove that was never used, the futon, the chairs, and sink.  We are rethinking how we want to use the bus now that our lives have changed.  It's likely that our bus visits will continue to be short day time trips that focus on being outside among the trees. 

We swept the leaves from the deck and from the top of the bus.  Brandon says the view of the river is best from up top.  I wonder how hard it would be to build a deck on the roof? 

Creepy and Gorey Story

Does Wendigo relishing the taste of a deer spinal cord put you in the Halloween spirit?  Mmm... vertebra, right?  If you like a little gore for your ghoulish holiday, you might appreciate the sight she made while disemboweling a dead rabbit.  I saw her excitedly tearing into something brown, and arrived to investigate just in time to see her slurp up the feces filled colon straight from the rabbits torn underside.  Yuck!  Would a responsible dog owner take the dead rabbit away for burial, or do like me, and pretend I didn't see what she was up to and retreat to the house?    

That night, the overcast sky blocked all light from the stars and moon, and the glow from the heat lamp in the chick brooder illuminated the greenhouse plastic with a devilish red glow.  What's that noise?!  Wendigo, is that you?  

I shouldn't think about murdered rabbits and devilish glows this close to all hallows eve.  Despite the eerie glow, I entered the dome of plastic to tend the chicks.  I also roamed to the barn and to the boy goat fence to count the glowing green eyes of the goats, who kept to their shelter, and didn't come forward for petting, like usual.  A rustle in the trees startled me.  What is that?!  Wendigo?  

I looked back to the house to reassure myself that the windows were still shining bright.  Coyotes called from the neighbors field as I went to fetch Wendigo's dinner dish and fill it from the bin in the barn.  Where is that dog?  She never misses dinner... Wendy, where are you?  

I called and got no answer.  I walked through the dark to the scene of the rabbit gut feast, and saw no sign of the rabbit or Wendy.  There wasn't even a piece of fur left as evidence.  Did she eat it all?  

I hear the new gravel on the driveway crunch, and the motion sensing lights come on.  Who's there?!  In the light I see her, sitting still and tall and casting a long dark shadow.  Come on girl, it's dinner time!  She didn't move, and sat still and staring.   

I went to her and could tell by her pitiful expression that something was wrong.  She didn't want to eat dinner and had a sorry look on her face.  Eating a deer spine and an entire rabbit - fur, guts, and all - on the same day, might be too much yuck for one pitiful doggy.  Poor puppy had a belly ache, like a kid after trick-or-treat.  For a couple of days she suffered from diarrhea, and I fed her rice water and canned pumpkin.  We tried to feed her pepto bismol, but she wouldn't have it.  She's back to her same old self today, just in time for Halloween.  No treats for her!  

Happy Halloween!

Hammock and Goat Dates

Sunday, October 21st.  I'm making a note about that date right now, so five months from now I'm not taken by surprise if Peaches delivers a baby goat.  I could tell by Peaches crazy behavior that she might like a date with Little Buck.  Brandon and I were so busy all weekend that there wasn't time for a goat date until Sunday evening.  I think the timing was good though, because they started "dating" before Peaches was through the gate and before I could remove her leash.  We only allowed them to be together for a brief hour before Peaches was returned to the girl goat pasture.  I'm not sure how many dates it takes to make a baby goat, for sure, but if she doesn't start acting nutty in twenty-one days, I think I can assume the job has been taken care of.  

Noobi, the baby that was born last March, is a pretty big animal now.  Not as tall as her mother yet, but very robust and healthy looking.  While our good neighbor was visiting yesterday (to share a deer spine from his most recent kill with Wendigo, lucky dog) I asked him if he thought a goat Noobi's size would be ready to butcher.  Not that I want to eat Noobi, but if Peaches does make more babies, and I don't want to feed them through next winter, would this be the right time to butcher.  He agreed that she would have lots of good meat and be totally worth butchering.  Similar to a young tender deer.  Maybe next October we will have home grown goat meat!  

In my chick brooder right now, I have fourteen red ranger chicks, which are big-bodied meat birds, plus thirteen leghorn chicks, which are small white birds that make lots of eggs.  In four or five months I should have home grown chicken meat and more eggs that we can eat.  I know I'm not supposed to count my chickens before they hatch, so I probably shouldn't count my chicken dinners before they mature, either.  

I also have a bonus chick, who is a pretty black and white chick that seems very vocal and bossy, like he might be a rooster.  

Check out my birthday present!  Finally, my little volunteer maple trees are big enough to support my long awaited hammock.  It's a hammock built for two, but it takes some skill for two people to use it without ending up on the ground.  

The hammock is in the side yard, with a nice view of the house on one side and the young forest on the other, and far from all hungry goats and braying donkeys.  It's for relaxing, and it's perfect.  It's also the perfect height for Wendigo to lick my face when I'm napping!

With chicks in the brooder, plus all my normal feeding and watering chores, I stay occupied every morning and evening, just making sure all my charges have food, water, and a dry place to sleep.  It's usually my favorite time a day.  Because Brandon and I are making more of an effort to car pool to work every day, saving ourselves the expense of driving his truck to town, I have to be up very early, even earlier than the chickens.  I do my chores by headlamp in the early morning hours, and admire the stars as I toss hay to drowsy donkeys and spread pellets for sleeping hens.  

We've had a fire in the woodstove in the early mornings for a few days now.  The frost killed the last of the green been vines.  The donkeys get a pear every day from the old pear tree in the front yard, which always makes more than we can eat.  It feels like fall now, and I'm already thinking about heated water buckets for the animals, and making plans for Thanksgiving.  It's all happening so fast.  

Big Ass and Small Asses

Look who was blocking the road when Brandon and I were on our way to work on Monday morning.  At first it was the two smaller horses, who seemed huge to this mini donkey owner, and then this monster sized horse joined them.  Whoa.

The smaller horses ran up the road, but the giant one turned it's backside to us and refused to budge.  It's ass was huge!  And it's feet were platter sized, and had metal shoes.  I was glad it didn't kick my little car off the road! 

After seeing that gigantic horse, Hattie looks even smaller!  She's a tiny ass.  Ha!

For the first time, Brandon and I took the donkeys on our evening walk.  We've made it a habit to take Wendigo on a walk around our property each evening as the sun is setting.  It's good exercise for her and us, but I also like to let the local predators know there are humans and a giant dog patrolling our boundaries regularly.  Wendi follows interesting scents into the brush while we chat and examine our ten acre playground. 

Rufus is so good on a lead rope.  He follows along like a well trained dog until he finds something so delicious that he pulls his head down for a bite.  Hattie still doesn't understand how to take a walk.  She wants to follow Rufus so close her nose is touching, or run ahead, or jerk the rope when there's a noise or a strange object.  Brandon got a work out holding on to her rope.  It was fun, and the donkeys were glad for an adventure and a chance to each some fresh greens.  Maybe we will make it a regular thing.

Donkey Feet

Here is a picture of Rufus's feet.  His hooves were getting too long, and were chipped.  It was time to make an appointment with the farrier, so we exchanged some texts and set up a visit for 9:30 on Friday morning.   

Here are my good donkeys, haltered up and tied to posts.  We haven't practiced much these days, so I was happy that we made it happen.  

The farrier arrived right on time.  He drives a gigantic truck that I could hear coming from a distance.  He's a strong man, as you would assume, and he wears leather chaps and steel toed boots.  In each hand he carries an object - one is a magnetic post with a wide base that his tools are stuck to, about the height of a stool,  and the other is a wide based post with a top on it that would allow a calm animal to rest it's foot, also about stool height.   

When the farrier followed me through the gate carrying these objects, both donkeys were frightened.  Hattie pulled fiercely against her post and squatted in a runners crouch.  Rufus put back his ears and danced in place.  The donkeys are not afraid of people, but they do not like objects.  Even dishcloths and hair brushes are scary, so two metal objects with tools stuck to them are terrifying.  I told the farrier that they are afraid of his tools, but he got straight to work on Hattie.  I held her head while he wrestled her feet, but every time he scooted that post of tools where he could reach it she jumped and squirmed.  

We managed to get both donkeys trimmed up in short order, but by the time we were done I had a knot on my forearm from being rammed into the fence and my toe was sore from being stepped on.  The donkeys probably had sore legs from having them tugged while they resisted, and I'm sure the farrier's shoulders got a workout.  The farrier said with bigger animals he would "get onto" the owners for not teaching them to hold still better, but I guess with my little donkeys he just grabs them and makes it happen.  It only took a few minutes, then he collected his eighty dollars and was off.  

For days afterwards I would rub my sore arm and think about how we can do this easier, less scary, and less expensive.  The answer is to learn to trim them myself.  If I could patiently get them used to the tools and teach them to hold still, it might save us trouble and probably money too.  Of course, it doesn't help the farrier much, as I'm sure he appreciates the eighty dollars.  

Greens House

I hope to transform our plastic hoop house into a greens house this fall - full of edible greens!  I've used the hoop house in the late winter and early spring to start seeds and to grow heaps of lettuce, but I have yet to try growing greens in the fall with the hope of keeping them alive through the winter, but that is my plan. 

By the first of June, the greenhouse was getting away from me.  The weeds were taking over the pathways, and the heat did not encourage upkeep.  By August, the weeds were neck high and I gave up any thought of salvaging the tomatoes and brussel sprouts.  I would open the door, face the thick wall of green plants that were swarming with insects in the hot and humid dome, and quietly close the door and walk away.  A few weeks ago, I asked Brandon to cut everything down with the weed eater.  A clean slate for the fall garden!

He cut everything down to the ground except this small clump of zinnias and green beans, in the back corner. 

We saved these plants so I can save the seeds. 

The green bean managed to find it's way through the side of the greenhouse and climbed all the way to the top!  It bloomed early, out-competed all those weeds, and is loaded with beans, so I've decided to save it's seeds for next year. 

I still have some work to do before I plant the fall garden.  I rolled out this black weed suppression fabric with the thought that I could make a permanent path into the greenhouse, but I've nearly changed my mind.  Instead of using it for a pathway, I think I will cover the ground close the side plastic, where it's very hard to weed and is cramped for plants anyway.  Between the black fabric and piles of old hay and compost, I hope to suppress the weeds.  Now I just have to find the time to work on this.  I spent about twenty minutes in the greenhouse during the daylight hours and thought I would pass out from the heat!  I may have to garden in the twilight only.  

Donkeys with Hay and Flies

I've mentioned before how much I like hay.  I like the weight of it on the end of my pitch fork, and I like the way it smells like summer and tea leaves.  I even like to look closely at the individual pieces, and identify what plants it is.  The donkeys really like hay too, but they get to appreciate it's flavor.  They aren't picky about their hay, like the goats, and will eat hay that the goats have rejected.  I frequently pull all the big tough stems that collect in the bottom of the goat hay baskets and feed it to the donkeys.  They always appreciate it.  

I think Brandon likes hay too.  He likes the challenge of harvesting and storing it.  We have these circular thoughts about hay:  

We can buy hay - it's about fifteen dollars for a giant roll of not great quality hay, or three dollars for a bale, but it's a hassle to go get it.  Good hay grows for free in our fields, and we have to mow them anyway.  

With our tiny old tractor and the pull behind trail mower, Brandon can cut the hay.  It's not a clean cut with nice long fibers, like we would have if we used a real sickle bar cutter.  

We have an old hay rake that we borrowed from Joe.  Brandon can pull it with the jeep, and make long rows of cut hay in our fields.  He doesn't have as much control with the rake as he would if we had a powerful tractor.  

Once the hay has been raked a few times, we can scoop it up with pitchforks, and pile it on our wagon, then transfer it to the hay racks.  It's more labor than we would have to do if we had a strong tractor with a baling machine.  

Just imagine how much hay we could harvest if we had the right equipment!  Just imagine how much hay we could buy for the cost of all that equipment!   

Our hay racks are working out okay.  The original tarps we bought only lasted a year before they started to disintegrate.  This year we ordered a giant used billboard tarp. It advertises Planet Fitness on one side, and is black on the other.  Its very heavy duty material, and we got enough to cover all four racks from one big tarp.   With the billboard tarp draped over the top of the rack, our hay is staying dry.  We have a plan to upgrade our hay storage for next year.  

In this picture you can see the bald patch on Hattie's face were her tears run down.  She rubs her wet skin on things because it itches, which wears the hair off and makes her skin raw.  I think she itches because the wet skin attracts fly bites.  The vet says she has no tear ducts (I'm still unconvinced).  But, I think Hattie and I have figured out how to manage her leaky eyes better.  I've been rubbing coconut oil mixed with drops of lemongrass and eucalyptus essential oils on her face, twice a day.  It's the same concoction I use on myself to repel mosquitoes.  I hold a treat in my left hand and while she tries to pry it from my fingers with her lips, I rub the oil under her eyes and all over her face and on her ears.  She's not a great fan, but she's greedy enough for treats to allow it.    

Our little treat and face oil ritual is nice.  It guarantees that I spend a few minutes each morning and evening with the donkeys, feeding treats and giving hugs and pets.  They love to have their chins scratched and sometimes we end up in a big pile, with arms and necks draped over each other.  We all appreciate that the oil isn't toxic, and doesn't burn, too.  

To make sure we don't have more than our fair share of flies, I've maintained my monthly subscription for fly predators.  The box with tiny cocoons arrives in the mail each month, and I distribute them around the farm.  The teeny little wasp like insects that emerge from the cocoons are supposed to lay their eggs on the fly eggs in the manure piles, and kill the baby flies before they ever get old enough to bite Hattie on the nose.  I also ordered a couple of these sticky fly traps, which were recommended for stable flies, the kind that bite the animals on the legs and make them kick their feet.  

The traps sure have captured lots of insects.  Most of them appear to be flies, but there are a fair share of beetles and other bugs stuck to the trap too.  I really hope none of these are my fly predators!