Category: Farm Life

Fuzzy butt, Buttercup and Buffy are the last two to lay and both have finally figured it out. Now if they will just socialize with the other girls and Cogburn when they go off to free range, I would feel better about their safety.

I’ll spare you the gory details.

From this to

This, 75 lbs of chicken in the freezer.

And this to 6 winter dinners.

Rain beating on a tin roof;
Clouds scuttering along the mountain tops and valleys from west to east;
Wind whipping the dry leaves from the trees;
Blessed relief from the past couple of days of unseasonable heat;
As the tropical storm from the Gulf of Mexico blows itself out across the mountains and plods toward the shore.

This is often a favored season. Cooling temperatures, vivid leaf changes, the start of the holiday season. This year just isn’t right. The temperatures are cooling, 40s and 50s at night, but still reaching mid to upper 70s during the day, but the foliage isn’t doing it’s part. Instead of vivid colors, the leaves are browning and dropping from the trees.

The large maple that is usually the first to show bright gold and orange is barren without ever turning. This year was unusually wet after two years of dry conditions. Perhaps that stressed the trees. Hopefully it doesn’t mean that huge tree on the edge of our woods is dying. Under that tree is where we camped the first summer we owned the property. It provided shade for our brand new 9 week old grandson, our first. It sheltered our tents and picnic table as we met with a soil scientist for the perk test and interviewed several well drillers to get water for our planned home. We were sitting under that tree when we met our first neighbor as he and his son came down the tractor road to get his half of the hay that had been mowed with his equipment by his cousin. That tree has been the focus of many photographs from blogposts.

In spite of the government shutdown, I will venture up on the Blue Ridge Parkway in route to Meadows of Dan on Saturday, to visit a friend and to purchase some corn meal, winter squash, and Ashe County cheese. As the elevation is slightly higher than here, perhaps, there will be at least a glimpse of fall color.

     We are in the midst of mowing our hay fields for winter.  The summer rains have produced very thick grass and the mowing seems to be taking longer than usual.

     The chicken project is yielding 6 to 8 eggs per day, with one pullet still not producing.  I thought that number of birds would produce an excessive number of eggs, but find with the availability of fresh from the nest eggs, that we are using many more than when they came from the grocery or farmer’s market.  One dozen is dedicated each week to one of our farmer neighbors who is always willing to help us when we need it and any other extras are gladly purchased by friends with whom I knit or spin. The meat chicks continue to grow at an alarming rate. The breed grows so quickly that some of them are already having difficulty supporting their own weight and they have 2 1/2 more weeks before they go to freezer camp. I have decided that I would rather grow a heritage breed, maybe a dual purpose breed that will produce eggs and later meat, even if they take longer to mature, but will have the sense to get up on perches out of the weather.

     Today, one of those friends, invited me to have a cold process soap lesson.  I made two six pound batches of soap under her supervision and now feel confident to make my next batch of soap by this process instead of the melt and pour process that I had originally learned.  It is so great to know exactly what goes into the products that we use for our personal use and for the household cleansing.  From these two batches, she sent me home with two molds of curing soap.  The rest of the batches will go to her daughter for a craft fair or for her personal use.

     The day ended, knitting with the group of friends that meet on Wednesday nights at a local coffee shop for some social time, dinner, and knitting.

     Each newly learned skill brings us one step closer to independence.

     Life is good on our mountain farm.

After our Horsemaster’s Club ride yesterday, we both arose sore, facing a 10 a.m. lesson. A biscuit and newspaper in town to fuel our bodies and minds, we arrived a bit early, knowing which horses we were riding today and mine being Daisy that I rode yesterday, in the top field, I dropped off hubby at the arena, grabbed a halter and rope and drove to the top field to get her. Yesterday, she was at the top edge of that very steep field, today since I was at the top, she was at the bottom, requiring a scramble down the slope to get her. The roan in the paddock with her wanted to be my friend today and tried to put her head in the halter, then followed me like a puppy as I led Daisy out. Our instructor arrived and we worked on some skills, both complaining of being sore, so she went and got a horse and tacked up and we took our first trail ride. Our first ride out of the confines of the huge enclosed and roofed arena. It was so much fun and once at the top of their property, realized that we could see the power tower that is closest to our house. As the crow flies, we couldn’t have been more than a mile from home.
A few errands to get chicken feed and we arrived home to farm work. As it is fall, the locals are either doing a fall haying, in some cases, their only haying this year due to the summer rain, or as we do, mowing the now very tall grass down for the winter. It will make better spring hay. Today was the day we began to mow our fields. This is always bitter sweet as we will now be able to walk our property, we will be able to see the deer and turkey, but the mowing takes out thousands of white Queen Anne’s Lace, Daisies, and clover; purple thistle and red clover; golden flowers of the hated stickweed and goldenrod; and the cornflower blue of Chickory. The tall seed heads of the grasses standing above the tops of the tall rear wheels of the tractor.
A dinner break of a homemade pizza with tomatoes, basil, peppers and onions from our garden, hot Italian sausage from the Farmer’s market and a couple of lumps of fresh mozarella. It was delicious.

After dinner, some more mowing as the sun deepened the shadows as the sun dropped below the west ridge, leaving the eastern ridges still glowing from the setting sun.

Life is good on our mountain farm.

     Though officially still a few days away, fall has come to the mountains.  After a cool, rainy summer, we have had a dry spell of several weeks, today is chilly and foggy with a slight chance of afternoon showers as another front moves through.  It is unlikely that the colors will be stunning this year.  After two years of dry conditions and the stress of too much water this year, the trees that normally color first are browning and dropping their leaves instead

There are hints of color change, the emerald greens of summer are now dull, hints of rust and reds appearing.
The weather lore is that the morning fogs we have been experiencing for several weeks portend early and heavy snow. Last autumn, we had a school closing snow in October. Hopefully that won’t be the case this year since I went to the effort of putting in a fall garden. We have only lived in the mountains for 8 years and I have noticed that none of our farmer neighbors put in fall gardens. As I was pulling spent summer plants, weeding beds and dumping the weeds in the chicken pen, I wondered if by now, they are just tired of their gardens, or if by experience, they know that the weather will win. Most of them don’t work to keep the weeds at bay after their plants are established. They till it all in come spring, or they put down huge sheets of black plastic, punch holes in it and plant through the holes. I don’t want my food growing in beds that have plastic leeching into them. I will continue to weed, mulch and hope for the best. Perhaps, one of the huge round bales of hay should be spread around the trees in the orchard and over the fallow beds and aisles soon.

     No, I’m not using a perjorative name for women, I am referring to the 4 week old meat birds that I am raising for my son. The ones that so quickly outgrew the brooder that they had to be put outside in the chicken tractor with a heatlamp and tarp to give them more room. They don’t have the sense to go up on the perches in the top of the structure to protect them from wind and rain. It only took them 3 days to foul the area under them so badly that the chicken tractor had to be moved today. Unlike the other chicks that I have raised, these birds are ugly and stinky. Even when they are fully feathered, they have naked spots.
These chicks, don’t have the sense to get out of the rain. The hens and rooster get under their coop or inside their coop when it rains. The chicks just sit there and squawk. The chicken tractor is triangular in shape and about 8 feet long.

It has about 12 feet of perches located across its width just above the solid roof, but they stay on the ground in the wire covered area and get wet. It is currently pouring down rain outside. Mostly falling straight down thank goodness. Once it stops, I guess I’m going to have to go out and make sure they aren’t drowned rats.
Dumb chicks!

   
 We have all seen the commercial of the camel, yeah, that one.  Yesterday, one of my hubby’s acquaintances posted an obscene version of it on Facebook.  No, I won’t share it here. I dislike the commercial on television, in fact, I dislike most commercials on television and the insurance ones are the worst offenders.
Today is hump day by definition and we had a very full schedule. Because I was away last week and did not get home until afternoon on Saturday, we missed the farmer’s market. There is one on Wednesday afternoon too, not quite as many vendors, but enough to take care of most of what we needed. We are having guests this weekend and needed meat in quantity for 4 instead of 1 or 2 and veggies as we are currently in a doldrum with only a few tomatoes and peppers ripening, the peas, beans, cabbages and broccoli are still growing and maturing. Wednesday is the day I get my bouquet from the flower share and that also involves a drive to town to pick it up from one of the two Natural Food stores. Wednesday evening is knit night and since I was away all last week, I had 5 extra dozen eggs to share and those ladies are generally ready for some fresh country eggs, so even though I had flowers and farmer’s market goodies that needed to get home, I stopped by for a short visit and sold some eggs.
As we have seven weeks at home before any more travel, babysitting, or other reasons to tie up our schedule, we requested some riding time this week and our instructor suggested today at 2 p.m. We accepted the schedule and that meant that the rest of the afternoon’s errands that couldn’t be done until after 2 would have to be done sore and dirty. We are currently looking for our first horse, and our first appointment to look at one was also supposed to be this afternoon, but we postponed it so that our instructor could go with us to look at the horse.
Every Thursday, we have training for the big dog beast, and that is mid day, messing scheduling much else, as we have nearly an hour drive each way from training. Tomorrow will include a grocery store run for coffee, cream and a few non farmer’s market items and then the house needs cleaning after a two week without one.
I did get some more tomatoes in the freezer for winter, enjoyed some stuffed peppers, the hens are consistently producing 6 or 7 eggs each day with two still not laying. We did get the yard and orchard mowed yesterday and this morning, most of the front bed weeded, but after we bring the dog home tomorrow, we will have to venture back out for fresh mulch for that bed. The wet summer has encouraged, clover, oxalis, smartweed, horse nettle, purslane, dandelions, and anything else that could gain a foothold in the garden beds.
Now, I’m tired, a good tired, but tired just the same. Time to lock up the chickens for the night and get a hot bath and some rest.