16 guineas

This is one of the best parts of farming.

I love it when the new ones come to the farm.

These are the chicks from the guinea nest that Odin found.

They hatched out this week.

What is really funny, I have three standard, one pearl and two lavender guineas.

I really don't know which is male and which is female.

But as you can see I have chicks of each type.

Although the best I could tell,

 it was a standard guinea that was setting the nest.

Standard guineas are all brown,
Lavender ones are the light gray,
And the Pearls have white breasts.

16 Little guinea chicks

Chuck and Charlie

When I can get them alone I like the new mommas to have a full share of all-grain.

The ewe needs the extra because she is nursing.

After awhile she learns to linger back, both for the extra feed

and also because she watches the little ones so well.

Momma getting a full share of oats.

Chuck giving momma a hug.

Chuck is very curious.

I like to handle the lambs as much as I can.

They need be comfortable with me and the dogs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Odin finds a Nest.

In the late summer, I noticed that I was missing one of the guineas.

I was down to four. It made me a bit sad but that is the way it goes sometimes.

I was watching out the window one morning

and noticed that Odin was very interested in a spot in the field.

As you know they sometimes run a chicken and catch it. So I thought I was off to save a chicken. 

 Odin had found a guinea nest of about a dozen eggs.

And the lost guinea had been nesting the eggs!

I gathered the eggs, as there was no way that Odin was going to leave them alone.

And I put them in the incubator.

I had no idea how long she had been setting them.

But I figured they would hatch when ready.

 And this morning they were ready.

 Right now I am at one counting, more are pecking out.  

The little one looks like she may be a "pearl", one with a white breast.

Guineas have begun to hatch!!!


 

Watching over the herd

   new lambs with ewe                                        herd                                                                   Luna and Odin                         

It may be hard to see, but the new mom and twins are to the far left in the bright sun, the herd is in the middle, and Luna and Odin are in the shady grass to the  right.

Actually, what is very funny, when I let the dogs out with the herd, Luna and Odin ran off and the herd was walking and grazing far down the field. When I came back about an hour later, this is where I found them. I just can't believe it! This is the way it is suppose to happen! 

Odin is on guard

This picture was taken yesterday, about mid-morning. The ewe had taken the lambs down to the lower pasture to stay with the herd. Luna and Odin were very curious about the lamb. But after being told a couple of times by the mother that she did not appreciate their help, they got the idea and stayed back.
Both of the dogs have been around the lambs as they have grown up. What I mean is, I was feeding Lily a bottle when I got Luna, so she was very used to little lambs, but she was little herself. And Odin came to the farm in May when he was 7 weeks old, and has grown with the spring lambs. But they have never been this curious or watchful before. They want to stay close to the herd now.
I think this guardian dog thing may actually work!!

Odin is on Guard

New lambs

Every morning as I go to make coffee, I look out towards the chicken coop to see how the our world is fairing. The morning was cool and foggy. The sheep herd had gathered at the coop gate as always. Luna and Odin were at the gate also but were not barking. I looked to the west and one ewe was standing alone. Well not alone, she had two little ones with her. I quickly made coffee and told John that we had the new ones. I dressed and went out to see her. The lambs were clean, but not dry. So I think they were about two hours old. They were still searching around for their mother, not sure which way to go.

After checking to make sure all was well, I went back in for hot coffee. Hard to start my day without it! John left for work and I went out to finish the morning feed. I fed the chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, and dogs. And then took the bucket of all-grain to the sheep. I kept a little still in the bucket and went over to the new momma. I poured it on the ground and as she was eating, I was able to check the little ones. The one with darker marks is a ram, and the one with lighter marks is a little ewe lamb. (I will name them Chuck and Charlie for a friend of ours who is having a baby tomorrow. His little girl will be named Charlie after his father, Charles. And this is the "C" generation of lambs.)

The picture was taken this morning at the feed trough. It is amazing how fast the little ones have to get moving to keep up with the herd. She had them down at the lower pasture last night and John and I slowly walked her up to the night pasture. Sometimes I had to nudge the little ones along, as she reminded them to stay close and follow her.

Chuck and Charlie

Under a bucket

Luna is 9 months old and Odin is 7 months now. They are really good at catching chickens. But surprisingly they have quit killing them. They just "play" with them. I have had to rescue quite a few in the evenings. The roughed up chickens now share the young hens pen until they are back to their old selves. Well the other morning as I was feeding the chickens, I noticed that Odin kept going over to an overturned bucket. I sometimes contain the dogs in this pen so they have a food bowl and this bucket for water. I thought he was thirsty and started to turn the bucket over to fill it and out POPS a hen. Scared me! She ran right over to the chicken coop door and I let her in. She ran right to the watering bowl. Most times it takes quite a bit of chasing a hen to get them to go into the pen. I don't know how long she had been under the bucket but at least for the night. And she was thirsty!

Life

It has taken me a month to return to this page. The farm is a little dim right now. My son asked me if anything was happening at the farm. He noticed that I had not been posting anything lately.
Something is always happening at the farm. There are always chores to do. Animals to feed. Sheep to let out into the far pasture or close in for the night. Even if you don't feel like it, it has to be done. I guess that is what keeps people going, the things that have to be done.

I have begun bee allergy shots. I don't want to give up my bees so I need to protect myself. And also there are so many wasps around the farm and I am allergic to them too. They give me 6 shots a week for 9 weeks until they build up immunity and then I get one shot a month for the rest of my life.

We have begun putting hay in the barn for this winter. The weather has been so good this summer that everyone has gotten two cuttings. We now have over 190 bales. That should get us through the winter. We don't have a lot of cattle and sheep eat it too. John was at the Farmers Coop the other day and a REAL rancher said he had put up 3000 bales! That is the kind of rancher that has to sale his herd during a drought. We made it through the past two years of drought with most of our breeding cows. We have a few new calves this summer. We will sell a few of the older calves before winter. We don't like to run too many older calves through the winter. It takes too much feed when we do that.

We did take a bull to the butcher two weekends ago. He is our first. We have always just sold the cows at the sale barn. This bull we kept for two years on pasture and the last three months on extra feed as finish out. I like the idea that I know where my food comes from. We know how he was raised and what medicines he has had through his life.

I have incubated chickens too lately. I have 10 straight run chickens that are now three months old and 23 chickens that are about 3 weeks now. I just started a new batch this morning. It takes 28 days for a egg to hatch and about 5 months for a chicken to start laying eggs. The chickens I have now are over two years and need to be harvested. I have to replace them first though as our family and friends enjoy the farm fresh eggs. Straight run means that they are both male and female. So the ten older chicks that I have, half may be males. The males will be harvested when they are about 8 months.

Luna and Odin are growing like weeds! They like to go up to the small lake and then they settle on the front porch. It is cool there. Luna barks a lot at night as warning. Sometimes I hear Odin too, but I think he is letting her do most of the work.

I guess that is all for today.

A Death in the Family

On August 13, 2013

 

Joseph A. Sutliff died.

 

Our daughter's love. 

 

Our son and brother.

Our beloved friend.

 

 



 

 

 

 

  

So a couple of weeks ago we gave the donkeys away.

So a couple of weekends ago we gave the donkeys away.

 

Our fencing man, Junior, told me who to contact to get the donkeys last year.

Junior came to the farm a few weeks ago because we need some more fence built.

I told him that I needed to find a good home for Jack and Jerry.

He said he might know a couple of people who would take them.

 

Junior found a nice man that has goats, horses and donkeys!

 

They came with a cattle trailer and backed it up to the corral.

John and Joe and Sara were there to help and say goodbye.

They all moved away from the corral.

Junior and Mr. Elbert watched from afar.

 

I got a bucket of oats and called to Jack and Jerry.

Jack and Jerry followed me into the corral.

John closed the gates as we passed through them.

We went into the chute that leads to the trailer.

 

Joe encouraged the donkeys forward.

 I put the feed bucket in the trailer.

Jack and Jerry followed the bucket.

(I have found most animals to be food motivated.)

Very anti-climatic.

I told Mr. Elbert that the donkeys really weren't that tame.

He said as long as they would follow a bucket, that they would all do just fine.

 

So a couple of weeks ago the donkeys found a good new home.

 

Mexican stand off

Odin is big enough now to stay out of his pen during the day, and at night too, as long as he is with Luna and not able to get to the older ewes. Luna and Odin sleep with the young rams, under the big oak.

The first night he stayed out I closed his pen door. I found him the next morning sleeping in front of the closed door. So now I prop it open so he can go in if he wants. This morning the three Emden geese went into his pen. He quietly went to the door and laid down. The geese peered around the corner and then honked at him. They pulled back. He put his head down and waited.  They eventually became this brave. And then Luna came to see what was happening. She got Odin's attention and the geese got out of the pen. He is still afraid of them so I don't know what his plan was if he caught one. I would have like to have seen that.

Odin caught a mallard duck yesterday. They are still quite young and don't know to fly to safety yet. They get confused and run to a corner and then Odin or Luna can catch them. Well I saw him with this one and saved it. And of course he got a stern lecture. Luna hasn't killed a chicken lately. Her number is still 2. Odin may be a different challenge. He has a mind of his own. I don't know what his number will be before he understands that the poultry are not his to eat.

Someone wrote on Facebook the other day that her two year old Great Pyrenees had killed a baby chick and wanted to know if she should put her dog down. She thought the dog was a chicken killer and couldn't be trained otherwise. The uproar from Facebook was interesting. Of course everyone told her not to kill the dog!! She panics about one chick and I wonder how many chickens or ducks I am going to lose before Odin understands. His number right now is zero.



Goose! Goose! Goose!

Turkeys in the Rain

 So I have my first turkey story.

 

The turkeys perch each night on the top rail of an old chicken coop.

It doesn't have a roof. Just the rail at the top.

It's one of those small three hen coops I had before the farm.

(You can see it in the picture.)

 

It has been very hot and sunny here lately.

I asked my husband to help me put a tarp

over the turkey day run to provide them with a bit of shade.

That was last Tuesday.

 

Last Wednesday evening, we got a much needed rain.

Because of the ability to provide the turkeys with cover from the rain,

I moved the old chicken coop so it was under the tarp.

Wasn't that thoughtful of me?

 

I waited out the storm, lightening you know.

And then went to check on all the animals.

 

The turkeys were fine.

Except they were jumping up in the corner where the old chicken coop had been.

They were trying to get up onto something that had been moved!

 

I moved the old chicken coop back to its original position.

The turkeys jumped onto their perch.

Good night!

 

 

 

Sunning themselves after the storm

Stealing honey!

We started keeping bees in 2008. The farm needs the bees for good pastures. The clover needs pollenated and my cows love clover. So I bought one hive that summer. I have bought others and caught swarms. It has been a fun hobby. At one time I had as many as 8 hives. Right now I have four hives. I went into the winter with 6 but lost two to these unknown reasons that have been killing all the bees.

I have found myself allergic to honey bees!  I have been stung about 20 times and I had hoped that I was building up an immunity to the bees. But it turns out I have been working up a reaction to them. I got stung last fall, first by a honey bee and then the next week by a wasp. I broke out with hives each time. The first time I went to the hospital and the second time I went to town just in case I had breathing trouble.

Everything turned out fine but because of this development I was not going to mess with the bees and honey this year. I am getting tested and may do allergy shots. (I do not want to give up my bees!!!)

I talked to a friend and he said his bee hives were full! More honey than he had seen in years. It has been a very good spring. Lots of rain and lots of wildflowers. Wildflowers are still on the fields. (This time last year we were in a drought and the grass was brown. We had no flowers left. I had been feeding the bees since May.)

My son-in-law, Joe, said he would help. He loves the honey! We suited up, got the smokers smoking, and headed in. The first hive we opened was FULL! So many bees! All four hives were all full. We stole a total of 20 frames. I have averaged about 3 pounds of honey per frame in the past and these frames were as heavy as I have ever seen. So we should have 50-60 lbs. of honey! Or more!

Joe had never stolen honey and processed it. After a short explanation of the process, he de-capped and spun the frames out in the centrifuge. He watched the honey hit the sides and drip through the filtering screen and into the holding tank.

We picked the prettiest comb and cut it to put into the pint mason jars. We filled the remainder of the jars with honey. Most folks don't know that you can eat honeycomb. You can spread it on toast or just eat it out of the jar.

Now I have to get the capped honey bear bottles, 1 lb. bottles , and 2 lb. bottles to process the rest of the honey. Like I said, I was not going to steal honey this year so I did not prepare my equipment. I will let you know how much we get this year. Enjoy the beauty of the comb honey for now.

What kind of bird is this?

Does anyone know what kind of bird this is? It has white tips to it's tail feathers and no other color that I can see. I know it will be a standard bird that I should recognize but I don't.

What am I?

Never before Turkeys

We have never raised turkeys before. And when I say we, I mean my whole family. I don't believe my grandparents even raised turkeys. I never heard any turkey stories. And wouldn't there be turkey stories? I am waiting for stories of my own. I have duck and chicken stories. But would these stories stand the test of time? Will my grandchildren (when I have some) remember the stories to pass on? Maybe these stories are only important to me. And my guess is that is the way of it. But I am having a great time collecting stories.

Well, I was told to keep the turkeys in a small cage until they are about 4 months old because they are very delicate creatures. I lost 4 turkeys during the big storm a couple weeks ago due to the rain and cold. I did not expect such a cold night after the rains. But I also lost 4 turkeys in the brood box.  And the ones that I let out to the large pen are having a blast. They get on top of their "coop" and roost. They fly down and then run and chase each other. They hunt for bugs and scratch in the hay. I can't see how a cage would be better than that. So like everything I do on the farm, this too will be trial and error. And the poor animals will suffer through my learning about them.

I have three kinds of turkeys, Standard Brown, Bourbon Red, and Royal Palm. The Reds are the light brown ones in the pictures and Royal Palm are the white ones.  They will actually be white with scattering of black. I believe they are all heritage breeds, which means they have been around a long time. They are not "Butterball" turkeys. They are more like wild turkeys.

I hope you will like my turkey stories as they develop.


Turkeys-Brown, Bourbon Red and Royal Palm

Loving the sun after a big rain storm

Finally figs

My mother's parents, Granny and Gramps, had a farm when I was young.
They raised 7 children and a very large garden.
Gramps worked at a local factory and farmed.
Granny ran the house and the garden.
Gramps had apple and pear trees, strawberries and blackberries.

My father's parents lived in the city.
But like most folks back then, they had a small kitchen garden.
Grandpa was a barber.
Grandma was secretary of the First Baptist Church.
Grandpa had plum and pecan trees, muscadines, grapes, and watermelons.

We ate fruit in season.
Strawberry ice cream in the summer.
Pear cobblers in the fall.
Apple butter all year round.

And my Grandma had figs.
I loved figs...warm from the sun...tasted just like honey.
I would break one in half to see if the ants had gotten to it first.
But I would pick them off and eat it anyway.

I have wanted to grow figs of my own since I was young.
I have tried to raise figs for years.
I tried in town and for the past five years, on the farm.
So last summer, a good friend, Katie, introduced me to a great nursery.

I got three fig bushes. (two Brown Turkey and one Celesta).
Eva told me where to plant them. (northeast side of house).
John said they looked fine. (he accepted them!)
And they have grown like crazy!

Finally Figs!!


Brown Turkey Figs

Spring hay for winter feed

This has been a good year so far for hay production and grazing. Just enough water and sunshine to produce very nice fields. We have been excited to see all the hay being cut and baled. The countryside is just littered with all these big bales of hay. Looks like beautiful pastural paintings. We hayed all but three of our pastures. The cows were on two and the sheep had part of another. We hayed and baled 114 round bales. It will take more than that to make it through the winter but it is a great start. We will hope the drought doesn't return this year and everyone can get another cutting. It was so dry last year that everyone was feeding hay in August and selling off their herds. But that was last year....we will hope for a better summer.


Hay in field five



Luna and Odin playing

I try to let Luna and Odin out twice a day to just play with each other. They come up to the house and play on the porch where it is shady and cool. Odin starts out pretty white and by the end of the time his neck is wet and dirty. She is very easy with him but like I have said before he is just a stinker. He growls and grabs her fur and hangs on and she bites at his neck and paws him. I think they shall be good friends. Neither of them is food agressive, even when they get kitchen scraps. They both like to chase the chickens and lick the bottle as I feed the calf.

Feeding the chickens (and Luna)

When I am feeding the chickens the scraps from the kitchen

 Luna checks it all out to see if there is anything interesting for her.

In this mix there was corn on the cob.

I tried to get a picture of Luna with one of the cobs in her mouth.

She picked one up and carried it for a bit.

 

Feeding the chickens (and Luna)

Meeting the family

Odin has been meeting all the animals on the farm. He loves to chase the chickens. He seems to do this a little bit more than Luna. I hope this won't be a bad habit. Hopefully he will get use to them like Luna has and not kill any more than she. Odin met Matilda as we were going for a walk. Matilda followed us along the way. On the other end of the pasture, Lily came over to see the new dog. Lily doesn't come over to see Luna and me as often as she did before but the new dog seemed to interest her.

Luna is pretty much free range when it comes to the daily workings of the farm. She comes in close at night. I don't want her to be coyote bait. And now Odin will begin his training. Mainly he will be loved and exposed to the everyday workings of the farm. We will go for walks among the sheep on a leash like Luna did, but with Luna walking with us. They are both in training and will be for about a year before they will be able to guard the sheep day and night.



Meeting Matilda

Meeting Lily