Category: A Week on the Farm

Sunday Thankfulness/Week on the Farm – September 8,2013

This is a combined version of two of my weekly posts. This week just got by me somehow. We did get a weekly horseback ride, looked at and rode a gaited horse as a potential buy, mowed the yard and cleaned the house in preparation for weekend house guests.

Yesterday, we made our semi annual visit up the Blue Ridge Parkway to show our guests Mabry Mill. This is always fun as they have an old restored water wheel mill that served to grind grain and as a saw mill, a blacksmith shop, a cabin with a loom and several spinning wheels, a cabinet maker who demonstrates building chairs using only non powered hand tools. There are short walks through the woods back and forth across the creeks feeding the mill. Our fall trip always allows me to stock up for the winter on locally ground grits, corn meal and buckwheat flour. The photo is of the mill, but an earlier trip with our daughter and two grandsons instead of this weekend’s guests.

From there, we ventured to the Poor Farmer’s Market in Meadows of Dan for our annual apple purchase for the freezer. Peaches, white sweet potatoes, and cheese we also purchased. We made a stop at Chateau Morrisette for a wine tasting, purchase of a few bottles of wine then back to the town of Floyd, we stopped for a light late lunch at Dog Town Wood Fired Pizza and tap house for a shared pizza and a pint of their own brew.

Because of our previous night discovery that our grill no longer works, our dinner was all prepared in the oven, roasted veggies, pork chops and we were supposed to have beans that we had purchased at the farmer’s market earlier in the week, but they proved to be old and tough, a disappointment as they came from one of our favorite vendors. We ended up pulling a package of the beans I had frozen and subbed them instead. One of the bottles of Chamboursin was opened and enjoyed with our meal. After a busy day, the evening was spent visiting and playing with the pups, but otherwise just chilling out.

Our guests had requested that we make reservations for brunch today at Mountain Lake Lodge. A bit of strolling the grounds, some photos for them to show that indeed, Dirty Dancing was filmed here, we found out that with the new management,the weekly brunch has not been held this year except for Mother’s Day and was just being re-instituted this week. The spread was much reduced from prior years, but the food was varied and delicious and none of us left hungry. Our guests left after brunch to return to the coast and I moved on to prepping the goodies for the freezer and getting some of the other neglected tasks accomplished.

Just prior to their arrival, we realized that the 15 three and a half week old meat chicks had seriously outgrown the brooder box they were in. They really are too young to put outside as they aren’t fully feathered and the nighttime temperatures are dropping to the upper 50’s, so a decision was made to move them to the chicken tractor anyway, but to hang their heat lamp inside and drape a tarp over the structure during the night. So far they seem to be doing ok with this and seem to like the added space. Early this week, I am going to make a temporary pen of 3 foot fencing and poultry net surrounding the chicken tractor, so that they can get out into more space.

The hens and rooster wondering why they can’t get to those chicks.

Eighteen cups (a peck) of pared, sliced apples, vacuum sealed for the freezer.

More diced and crushed tomatoes, peeled and vacuum sealed also for the freezer.

The winter’s supply is looking better each week. The beans are blooming and we should soon begin getting a second crop for enjoying and freezing. The peas are ready for the trellis and hopefully will give us more to eat and freeze. I haven’t lifted the row covers over the cabbages, broccoli and chard, but they seem to be developing well. The potatoes are dying back, so they will soon be dug, the sunflowers are ending their season and the little birds are flitting around the garden enjoying the seeds.

Life is good on our mountain farm and we are enjoying the cool early fall weather.

September 8, 2013
A Week On the Farm-August 22, 2013

The chickens are getting supervised free range time these days. The nine pullets are laying 5 eggs each day now, 4 of the girls still haven’t figured it out yet. Once they are all laying, we are going to have many eggs to share with friends. Selling a few dozen eggs will help with feed costs.
The summer is winding down, the weeds in the garden have the upper hand, the flowers are fading, the evening temperatures are getting cooler. We have had a couple of days reprieve from the rain.
Since hubby started the summer off with knee surgery, we aren’t planning our usual week of skiing this winter, instead will take a week long cruise with our youngest and his family this fall. This means that the fall mowing is being done a bit early this year. The task was started this afternoon and it was a challenge because the rain has resulted in a very thick stand that has grown tall quickly.

Some of our neighbors have just gotten their hay in, they will not have to do a fall mowing. Our hay was done in June, between rains and our fields will require a fall mow. One of the plants that we fight constantly is an invasive imported plant called Stickweed. It is a fairly attractive plant, but neither cows nor horses will eat it. It is a perennial and comes up anywhere in the yard that isn’t mowed at least once a month.

Mowing in the late afternoon has benefits and hazards. Our farms seems to grow rocks. Areas that are mowed regularly have been cleared of rocks or we know where the rocks are, so we can avoid them. When the ground is damp, sometime a rock that has been level with the ground will be flipped up to the surface by the tractor tires which results in the brush hog picking it up on the next round and either throwing it out or rattling it around the brush hog housing. Each mowing results in the collecting of more rocks being removed to safe piles.
One of the benefits is having a deer wander out into the yard, stopping to see what is going on, then moving on to a safer location. The evening skies are lovely to watch as each round is mowed.

August 22, 2013
A Week on the Farm – August 15,2013

Half of this past week, we left our farm and traveled about 3 hours north to celebrate the 90th birthday for my active and vibrant Dad and to have two of our grandchildren baptized. The site of these celebrations is where our family began vacationing 57 years ago. I have not been a regular for all of those years, but all three of our children were baptized there, our daughter was married there 3 years ago and her children were the grands baptized there this year. The gathering was 4 generations, my Dad and step Mom, hubby, both of my siblings, one of their spouses, cousins, nieces and nephews, their spouses and children, two of our children and their families. The eldest, my Dad was 90, the youngest was a nephew at 17 months.
It was a wonderful gathering, though we missed a few family members, we did get a group photo taken of those in attendance. We returned home last Saturday and our daughter and her family left Sunday. We really enjoyed having them here for 12 days and wish they lived closer than the 13+ hours away that they do live.
The week allowed us to add 256 ounces of blackberry, blueberry, and black n’ blue jam to the summer production. Half of that returned to Florida with our daughter.

Finally, the tomatoes are turning red, though with this week’s highs in the 70s and lows in the upper 40s, production is slow. What we get will be put away for winter.

This is 3 of today’s eggs, typical of the variety we are collecting. The Silver Laced Wyandotte and the Delaware are laying the normal sized cream colored eggs. The Red Rock crosses are laying the larger dark brown eggs and one of them is laying the dinosaur sized eggs, often with double yolks. The dogs love when I cook one of them for their breakfast supplement. The number of eggs collected is exceeding the number we are using. One dozen was gifted to a neighbor, another will be gifted to my cousin. Three dozen were sold last night at my weekly Clicks and Sticks knitting group. We still have 4 gals that haven’t even started laying yet.

This morning started with a call from the Post Office that the fall meat chicks were awaiting me to come pick them up. They are now safely, securely bedded in the brooder with food, water, and their heat lamp. They are so cute at 2 days old, but this breed grows so quickly that they will soon not be so cute.

We have recently begun seeing a dog trainer that trains without the use of treats, to try to make us the alpha members of the pack and to get the 185 pound Mastiff to defer to us instead of being stubborn. We are also working to curb his recent anti social behavior toward strange dogs. This is as far as he got after we returned from today’s training.

The last news of the week is the return of our bear friend. He was seen last night and again this morning on the south edge of our farm near the woods. I guess we must be in his current territory. Unfortunately, he will likely be found and hunted down when the season begins, by someone on the mountain who will likely hunt him not for his meat.

August 15, 2013
A Week on the Farm – August 3, 2013

This week has been delightful, the weather is mild during the day and cool at night. The rain has abated with only the occassional shower.

On Wednesday morning, our daughter with her husband and kids, along with one of their friends arrived. We are really enjoying having our kids and grandkids here. Their dog is getting along with our dogs fairly well. There was really nothing scheduled, we picked wild blackberries on Wednesday afternoon and made a batch of 6 half pints of jam.

Today we all went to the local you pick berry farm and picked nearly a gallon and a half of blackberries and about 3/4 gallon of blueberries. Daughter and I have spent the better part of the afternoon making 2 batches of blackberry jam and 1 batch of blueberry jam for our pantry and for daughter to loves the blackberry jam, and this was her first time making jam.

It has been a week of pickle making, a couple jars of jalapenos put up, but still no tomatoes. The hens are now laying a fairly consistent 5 eggs a day. Four of the girls still haven’t figured it out, but I am seeing more mature signs from them.

August 3, 2013
A Week on the Farm – July 26, 2013

Finally a week of sunshine, moderate daytime temperatures and 50s-60s at night. It couldn’t be better. The garden is giving, we are eating and storing. Every couple of days, a meal with fresh green beans and a couple more meals worth in the freezer, a cucumber salad and a couple jars of dill pickle spears.

A few small yellow tomatoes (funny, I don’t remember planting one of them, must have been a mixup at the nursery), the red varieties, just beginning to pink up.
We have flowers to love, to cut, to tempt the hummingbirds, butterflies and bees. Sunflowers, yellow butterfly bush, petunias, brown-eyed Susans and Purple coneflowers. Marigolds, Comfrey, Daisies and a couple I don’t know the names of.

This week we were visited by the usual deer and turkey, but also this fellow came by to say hello. He has been seen in the area for a while and as we don’t leave garbage or birdfeed out, he was just passing through.

Yesterday, we deemed it finally dry enough to mow. The grass was up to my knees, especially in the orchard which I walk through to get to the chicken coop. About a third of the way through, the brush hog picked up a piece of left over construction debris, a 30′ long section of black electrical conduit. It was in an area that has been mowed before and it was never seen, but yesterday, it wrapped around the brush hog drive shaft so tightly we couldn’t get it off. A call was made to our farmer/heavy equipment operator neighbor for help. He was in West Virginia but said he would come by on his way home last evening. He managed to free it from beneath the brush hog, put the brush hog back on the tractor for me and get me back in business.

The orchard has to be mowed with a gas powered push mower, unless I want to remove the electric fence every mowing session and it took forever to push through the tall thick grass to get it done.
The chickens are still only producing 2 eggs a day, and this week we discovered that the largest and most beautiful Buff Orpington is a rooster. Dang, I thought we got rid of all of them.

We have had a couple of power outages lasting from a few hours to a few days this year, so Asplundth is out with a crew doing a job I would never dream of doing. A tiny helicopter with a huge dangling power saw composed of what looks like about 8 circular saw blades that spin and make a racket is flying over the power line right of ways, trimming back the branches from the lines. It is noisy, dangerous looking, yet totally fascinating to watch.

July 26, 2013
A Week on the Farm – July 18, 2013

Harvest

Hiding from the heat

Laying eggs (finally)

Seed starting for fall garden

Lovin’ life on the farm!

July 18, 2013