Latest edition

Some of you have been following my art blog about the painting I was working on in exchange for a guardian puppy. Well Here she is! The painting turned out fantastic. Brooke, the owner/breeder was thrilled to see her favorite goat in oil paint. We took a drive to the panhandle and picked up our puppy, Lilly! She loves to greet all the visitors when they arrive. Make sure you come and meet her soon!

Turkey Pick up day

We had a wonderful, busy day with friends coming to pick out their fresh dressed turkeys the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. The weather couldn't have been better either. I forgot and let the chickens out that morning, so they were part of the party too. A great big thank you to everyone who made the journey out to the farm. A big thank you to Sissy for help on the decorations,(never my strong suite) and to all my kids and soon-to-be-kids for helping spread mulch.

On another note, God has provided again. With this cold weather now upon us, we needed a windbreak on each tractor. As you can see we are stylishly color coordinated in blue. My mom and dad came with gifts from Clearwater and one of them was a giant pool cover someone had thrown out. It just happened to be the right size to make six strips to cover the backs of the tractors with one to spare. Oh, thank you Lord! Now I can sleep at night not worrying if my babies are cold. We can lift the edges up in the daytime if it is warm, and slide them down at night. Perfect! Another recycled item put to good use.

Turkeys

It's sad to see them go. We've watched them grow from day old chicks to grown up gobblers. Bill built them a mobile roost he calls the TRV the turkey roosting vehicle. They've done wonders for our pasture and they are eating things like cactus and blackberry leaves. But, you know what happens to all good turkeys on Thanksgiving. We've enjoyed them so much this year, that we're already planning when the chicks can come again. We want to try some heritage breeds this spring. Maybe we'll even keep some breeding pairs.
On another melancholy note, we had to say goodbye to the sheep. It was with many tears. We simply don't have the fencing yet on our farm to protect the sheep or move them from pasture to pasture. Maybe the sales from the turkeys this year can help with that. We were able to sell the sheep back to our wonderful, understanding friends the Cox's. The money went to a freezer. Another one. How dull. Our house looks like an appliance store already. Bill was right. We needed it. I can see that now as the twenty pounders go into the new freezer and just about fill it to the top. But I still want to farm with my heart, not always my head. Most of the time my heart wants something warm, fuzzy and cuddly.

New Roof on the Egg Mobile and a New Ram

Today Bill and I finished up the roof on the egg mobile. We had to take off the old tarp because it was tattered after less than a year. We've been using recycled billboards now and they are so much stronger than tarps. Would you believe they sent us one that was our laughing chicken green? Kansas City Power and Light uses the same green. Who knew? Thanks guys! The words that show under the roof are "Innovative" and "Dynamic". Just the kind of inspiration I need to see when we go collect the eggs. Soon our new flock should be laying. Our market regulars will be thrilled. They've been lining up for the few dozen we bring and I hate to disappoint people when we run out.

Our new ram arrived on Sunday afternoon. Lewis and Janice Cox brought him to us and I am so grateful because we don't own a livestock trailer. He was especially enamored with Pearl this morning. Here is a picture of him whispering sweet nothings to her. The two of them cuddled all day. So sweet. The lambs should come in February. Oh, to hold a new lamb in my arms. Is there anything better? Sigh.

Blueberry the troublemaker.

Getting ready for church Sunday morning, checking on everyone before I go. "Baaa Baaaa BAAAAAA!" What is going on? Blueberry Muffin is tangled again in the electric netting and wearing it like a necktie. How do you catch a sheep without breaking a plastic net? As soon as I got close to her she started dragging it and raking it against the chainlink on the dog kennel. I caught hold of the net, worked my way to her and jumped on top of Blueberry. She yanked and kicked. I wrestled her to the ground and we both took a breather. We must be evenly matched wrestling partners. I eased her head and legs out of the netting and yes, she broke a bit of it, but not badly. As soon as she was free, we both stood up and shook the dust off. Some whole corn lured the three of them back into their night time kennel. I gave them a big flake of hay to chew on until we got back from church. The net could be untangled later. I was just glad to have found her before we left. She would have been baking in the sun with no way to get to the water or rolled tighter into the net. Thank you Lord for watching out for us!

One step forward, two steps back.

Here we are on our 18th batch of chicks this year. That means we've had over 2000 chickens live out happy lives here. Whew! That's a lot of chickens! Recently we've had a frustrating development. The last 7 or 8 batches have had migets in them. It started out with one small one running around under the big guys. We thought it was cute and kept her as a pet for a while and let her run around with the laying hens. Then we saw three and four in the next batch we received. Now we're up to 17 t0 20 tiny sized chicks to a batch and it's not cute anymore. We've tracked the situation, called our hatchery, sent pictures, switched hatcheries and still this is happening. Here are pictures of the last batch of chicks the very same day they arrived in the mail. You can clearly see a difference in size. The other picture is of two 4 week old birds from the same batch. These small guys just don't grow. ....but they love to eat! We've switched hatcheries once again to find a different gene pool. It seems many hatcheries get their eggs from the same source in Arkansas. Ideal hatchery in Texas hatches out their own, so we'll see if the big stuff really does come from Texas.

It's been so frustrating because the summertime is when we usually get our bigger growth and this year it just hasn't been there. The birds are still healthy, but dress out much smaller. I've even given some away on freecycle when they were too small even for our Mini catagory. Such is the world of farming. We let the last batch of chickens grow for an extra week and they did get big enough for some Mediums and a few Larges. The next batch we dress out on Monday looks like it could be a mixed lot. We'll see.

On a happier note, The turkeys are growing like crazy! They love to eat grass and I even heard a gobble this morning. Our list of customers wanting one is growing too. It was a scary thing ordering the chicks without knowing if they would sell, but God is blessing it. They are so much fun to raise. I may see if I can sell them next summer too.

The Trap

Okay. We're getting serious now. I lost my last duck yesterday and it's not funny. We think there are 12 chickens gone now. Haven't seen all the casualties, we've just seen the empty spaces in the egg cartons. A dozen eggs a day less adds up. This predator is costing us. So.....thanks to our friends John and Margie Knot, we now have the big trap set where the chickens used to be. We moved the egg mobile and as soon as we can inch it up towards the hot wire, we'll get an electric net around the flock.

The trap worked right away. Just like it was supposed to, but we forgot to tell the chickens that they are supposed to stay on the outside and whatever is eating them is supposed to go on the inside. Good thing we found her.