Category: A Week on the Farm

This week has been all over the thermometer.  We had a high near 70f one day and this morning when I went out to feed, water, and let the critters, dogs and chickens out, it was 18f with a windchill that probably dropped it to near zero.  The chicken’s water tub and container were solid, I couldn’t even open the container to add warm water.  I think today’s agenda will include the purchase of a second smaller tub that I can fill each day.  There was a light dusting of snow which the pups love.  Rooting their nose along the ground and tossing the flakes into the air. The sun is out but there are still sparkling flakes blowing around in the wind.

Our neighbor is gathering his herd to cull the ones that are going to the stockyard. One which they wanted to keep has become somewhat rogue and we found her, another heifer, and two young bulls in our yard a few days ago, having broken through the fence in the sinkhole and wandered up for a graze.  I helped her chase them back down the hill and home, sealing the fate of the  young heifer, who is now slated for the stockyard and sale.  Didn’t get any pictures of that, but it was probably quite a site to see two 60 something women chasing 4 young cattle around our back field.

This week, we ventured away from our usual riding stable to take a lesson and 2 hour ride with a natural horsewoman on her Tennessee Walking Horses.  We learned quite a bit more than we previously knew and thoroughly enjoyed the ride on her smooth gaited horses.

That particular day was very cold, so we made a stop at the local Tractor Supply on the way over and I purchased a new barn coat to go with the new barn boots that hubby gave me for my birthday this past week.

This greatly improved the comfort of the ride and was a welcome layer this morning doing chores.  It turns out that the instructor and her husband have much in common with us and resulted in a dinner invitation to their lovely home last night with two other couples.  It was a wonderful time with a great meal and new friends.

One afternoon after taking the pups out, still working on getting the big beast to get in the back of the SUV willingly, we drove on out the road past our house, up the hill and took this photo of the house, which you can’t see from there in the summer time.

The week has been a good one, this week we will have one of our children and family here for Thanksgiving.  Life is good on our mountain farm.

Clear beautiful sunsets with mild days.

Rainbow before an Arctic storm.

Snow showers.

Frosty morning, sunny morning.

Fog and smoke from wildfires and the start of firearm hunting season for deer.

The gamut of weather this week, trying to keep the house and farm critters safe and warm.

Life is good on our mountain farm.

After a half week in Northern Virginia babysitting, this afternoon is the best of this season.  Azure skies, wispy white clouds.  Mild mid 50f temperatures.  Knowing that the season is moving on toward winter, threats of snow showers to accumulated snow in our forecast for mid week, I decided it was my opportunity to plant the garlic for next year and put the rest of the garden and orchard to bed for winter.

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The last of the broccoli was harvested, the cabbages still hiding under a row cover. The garlic was planted in two square beds, about 85 cloves, a combination of three different red hardneck varieties.  They were heavily mulched with straw then covered with row covers, not to protect it from the weather, but rather to protect it from the chickens.

While mulching, the grape, berry and other vegetable beds were given heavy layers of straw as well, mulch placed around the now dormant fruit trees.  While I was working on this, the chickens were free ranging and trying to undo my work as fast as I was working to put the mulch down.  The tomato cages and garden stakes were put to use to hold down the straw in the beds.  The fruit trees may get rings of fencing if tomorrow as mild as predicted.

The chickens were given a bed of mulch in their pen to give them something to scratch in for entertainment to try to keep them out of my work.  In spite of the nights that are consistently freezing the top surface of their water tub, they are still providing me with 5 to 8 eggs each day, except for the one who lays green eggs, she seems to be on strike, not having produced an egg all week.

For the past week this blog has been silent as we left home on October 19 to drive to Virginia Beach, spent the night at our youngest son’s home with his family and all left the next morning to drive to Baltimore, Maryland to embark on a week long Bahamas cruise together. Their two children believed that we were taking them home with us after their parents left on the cruise and were surprised when the ship horn blew to leave the dock with all of us still on board.
Two days at sea followed by one day in Port Canaverel, Florida with an airboat ride siting 2 alligators and hubby getting to hold a 17 year old dwarf alligator upon our return, he was only about 3 feet long.
The following two days were spent in Bahama ports of Nassau and Freeport. Very touristy, docked in industrial areas and requiring taxis to get to a beach, but an excursion on a semi sub over a reef by all of us was fun.

A short day in Freeport with a beach trip.

Another at sea day and a half and we returned to Baltimore.
While away, our doggies were in camp and a neighbor chicken watched for all the eggs she could carry home. It was our first cruise, maybe not exactly what we expected, but fun and with the use of Bonine and Sea Bands, I only got queasy once when the ship was cruising at 24 knots in windy conditions.

This has been another slow week as far as farm chores go. My garlic for the garden still has not arrived, so the garden has been neglected. A few beans have been picked, just enough to eat, not to freeze. The broccoli is ready and needs to be harvested and frozen.

The meat chicks have mere days to gorge, and indeed that is what they do, before they all go to freezer camp this weekend.

They don’t quite look like small turkeys this time, but several are substantial.

The daily egg hunt continues to amuse me, especially when 1 is very round or very pointed or speckled, this girl had a faulty dyer yesterday.

My shawl is coming along.  I’m on the last lace panel and it will be done. I’m hoping is blocks out larger than it appears now. I’m considering adding a final border to make it a bit larger.

Life is good on our mountain farm.

This has been a rest week after last week’s marathon mowing of the 30 acres. The garden is waning, with only beans, broccoli being harvested and waiting for the cabbages to head and reach cutting size.

It needs weeding and a fall cleanup, but I was hoping my garlic would arrive soon and I could plant it at the same time.

The chickens are funny animals. Whenever they see me in the side yard, they gather under their coop then follow me to whatever end of their pen I am working near, yet they won’t let me touch them except as they exit their coop in the mornings.

Cogburn and his harem getting some free range time, their favorite time of the day as they forage for bugs, seeds and fresh grass.

They are consistently providing us with 3 plus dozen eggs each week, yes one of them is green. The last pullet to mature appears like she may add another to the 6 to 8 we get each day very soon.

Yesterday’s soap making solo, seems to have been successful. The two molds, a simple mold from Michael’s Arts and Crafts and a silicone baking pan, produced a generous number of bars, now curing on a mat for use in 3 or 4 weeks.

My needle crafting has been in a doldrum until this week. I was making my daughter a black lace sweater to replace one I made last year that was ruined. I’m not a fan of lace knitting, nor knitting with black yarn, so I procrastinated, knitting very little on it this summer, but it was finished, washed, blocked, dried and shipped off to her this week. No pictures taken. Perhaps, she will send me one of her in it. Once it was finished, I picked up the Traveler’s Companion Shawl that I had been working on and seem to be making pretty good progress on it. It is being knit to go with a long travelling skirt I own.

Getting yarn dyed especially for me to match a hat I designed, now I need to design the scarf to go with it.

Learning cold process soap making with a friend. Now I can do it myself, but it is much more fun making it with a friend.

Mowing the 30 acres for fall. There are still 4 or 5 to do and a gorgeous weekend to get it done.

An end of week harvest, more beans for dinner and the freezer, the first two heads of broccoli also for dinner and one for the freezer, tomatoes for the freezer. A dinner that came entirely from our garden except for the ground beef from the farmer’s market.

A daily 6 to 8 eggs from the flock, but oddly, they will line up to use the same nesting box when there are 6 from which to choose, occasionally one will use a different box, but not often.

Life is good on our mountain farm.

A Week On the Farm – September 20, 2013.

Fall harvesting

Pasta sauce for the freezer

Free ranging and learning that my best layers are the Red Stars, not the heritage breeds. Hmmmm.

Doggie walks off the farm

Wild Asters

and Bee Balm

The week has been cool and gray with more rain tonight and tomorrow. A horseback ride on a different horse, just reminded me how little I know, I guess I had gotten comfortable or complacent riding the same well schooled gelding all the time. Some doggie walks and another session with the doggie behaviorist, still trying to get the big guy comfortable again with strange dogs. He loves people and cats, but not so much, new dogs.

Life continues to be good on our mountain farm.

As the week and the summer draw to a close, the fall garden is beginning to take off as the summer garden is almost gone. Today, we picked our first batch of fall bush beans and enjoyed them for dinner while preparing 8 more meals of them for the freezer to enjoy this winter when the days are cold and the snow falls.

The tomato plants are all brown, the last of the tomatoes ripening or being attacked by grasshoppers and stinkbugs. The only ones left are small yellow, orange plum and Roma tomatoes. The volunteer that is sprawled through the grape bed, is producing the best crop right now.

The potato growing experiment was less than successful. We tried growing them in half barrels putting a couple inches of compost in the bottom, planting the seed potatoes and then adding more compost as the tops grew a few inches. We were hoping for a couple of barrels full of nice potatoes, but only got about 10 lbs. They are tasty though, we had some mashed with dinner tonight.

Today, for the first time, the hens produced 8 eggs. That leaves only one who still hasn’t figured out how to lay an egg.

The freezer, in spite of the cool wet summer, is beginning to look like it will hold us through the winter months. If the beans continue to produce, the peas make it to production size, the cabbages and broccoli are heading nicely, the chard is developing this time, we will be able to put more away and enjoy some more fresh produce. Today only reached the low 70’s and it is going into the 40’s tonight. The weather “prognosticators” are threatening us with an early and snowy winter, I hope they are wrong for a while.

The 4 1/2 week old meat chicks are tightly snugged in the chicken tractor with a tarp covering most of it and a heat lamp on to help them through the cold night.
On the craft front, our daughter in law asked me to make two Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle hats for two of our grandchildren as part of their Halloween costumes. One of the hats is almost finished, pictures will follow next week once they are finished.
Life is good on our mountain farm.