Wild Things Farm

A few days ago I was performing weed control behind the high tunnel (aka mowing with the tractor).  A creek runs along behind the high tunnel and while backing the mower out over the edge of the creek to reduce the area of snake habitat, I spied several cherry trees that had lots of bright red, voluptuous cherries on them.....

So tempting.....so, so, over the creek!

I did temporarily lose my sanity and turn the tractor around to see just how close the bucket would get to the tree, BUT I regained my sanity when I compared the cost of a broken bone or wrecked tractor to the cost of a container of fresh cherries in the store.  The birds are enjoying a cherry feast.

I believe George just cut the darned thing down and ate the cherries himself.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

 like those blogs that have photos of the day, and that is on my list of things to do---SOMEDAY--today's photo will be a mental vision for those who choose to read further......

Extra share boxes, row covers, farmer's market supplies, etc. are kept in the attic above the shop, accessible by a ladder and a small door.  This morning I did actually carry my camera with me to the garden, and left it on the table at the chicken house while I carried lettuce back to the house.

I realized, while at the house, that I needed two more boxes to do today's delivery so I put the ladder up on the side of the building, opened the door, crawled in the attic and started retrieving the boxes--one, two--oh well, might as well get an extra....it was really heavy for some reason.

I took the two boxes down the ladder and went back up to peek inside the heavy box and what did I see?  Not one, but TWO chicken snakes all coiled up in there.  My immediate response was "ewwwwww" and I dropped the box to the ground, ready to release the snakes outside of the building.  After I regained my senses I realized that there is a terrible mouse problem in the shop/greenhouse so I took them back up the ladder and set the box back in the attic.  I watched as they untangled and oozed out of the box into the attic.  Now I'll be even more conscious (aka paranoid) about moving things around

Get to work, my friends!

Here's a picture of the shop/greenhouse.  The attic is under the rafters in the center section over the shop.  No, it's not snowing here--

Now that the farm CSA memberships are all filled, I needed to go into the website to change the wording"there are still a few memberships available".  I went to the web hosting site, JustHost (which I love), and attempted to find the software that I used to both create the website and that I use it to edit the website--GONE--GONE--oh my gosh, what do I do now?  For a middle-aged, still-remember-learning computers when you had to type "c: blah, blah", this newer techno-stuff gets over my head quickly.  Sure I can get it done eventually, but it's easy to spend many hours that I'll never get back trying to make it work.

So, I e-mailed the technical support dept. and got a reply--"that software is deprecated"--Huh?  what's that?  A quick search online revealed that "deprecated" means something like it's tolerated but not recommended, or we don't like it anymore.  That means that in THE BUSIEST TIME OF THE YEAR I have to come up with a new website OR just keep telling folks that the website is lying and I can't stop it :-)

I think I'll go pull some weeds to calm down.

Everything on a farm doesn't have to do with dirt under the fingernails.  Sometimes it's grease under the fingernails.  The Subaru Veggie Wagon has been letting me know for the past few months that something was going on with the front end.  So, like the frugal person I am, I drove it until it had to be fixed. A few weeks ago I did get an estimate from a mechanic and from the description I gave him he thought it was an axle--about $200.

I started to town a couple of days ago and decided it was time--the steering wheel was pulling back and forth so I turned around and went home, got on Google (my favorite "how to" go to place), and Googled the problem.  A few Googles later I decided that it was the cv axle, so I watched a couple of videos on Youtube.  The job really didn't look that hard, so I drove the truck to town to get parts--$60--and I had to "borrow" a 32mm socket to take the axle nut off.

Just as I was getting all the parts removed from the car, Shane (boyfriend) pulled up and asked what in the world was I doing.  I told him I was making $140.00.  He told me I was crazy for tackling that job and started muttering things about transmission and oil, and I politely told him that I had watched the video and would get it done, so he left (yay).  The next morning the weather was cold with wind blowing but I donned the insulated coveralls and crawled under the car where it was warm (not cozy, just warm).

I'm glad there was no camera around because I had to keep coming back to the computer to make sure I was doing everything right and I'm glad no one was recording audio, BUT in spite of myself,  by 10:00 I was driving my veggie wagon back to town to return the socket and old parts!  All I can say is that I love the Internet and Youtube and it gave me the confidence to say "yes, I can" get out of my box and do something I hadn't before.

Oh, and there was a reason the guy in the video ground down a punch to knock out the pin in the axle--my screwdriver got stuck and I didn't think I was going to be able to get it out.

Seems like a large part of a chicken-keeper's life is spent protecting them from everything out there.  "Tastes like chicken" isn't a cliche--it's the truth!  Everything loves chicken.

Back in August, 58 day old chicks arrived at the farm.  25 Red Star, 25 Black Star, 5 Ameracaunas, 1 "Exotic breed" and 2 extras.  I know I've lost 3 of them to who-knows-what and  2 of them to predatory hawks.  I thought I had overhead predators foiled with fence wire and surveying flags every 4-6 feet over top of the pen but I've seen hawks circling the pen on numerous occasions.  I've tried to count the baby chickens--it's really hard to cound 50+ chickens while they are milling about the pen.  The most I can count is 47 or so.  That means the hawks are winning.

So, I have to be smarter than the hawks.  I have a computer.  I found an article in an old Mother Earth News about someone who strung fishing line in a "cobweb" over the chicken coop.  A spool of 10 pound test, about 45 minutes and tripping over several curious chickens and Voila!  I hope the hawks can see fishing line.

Another recent note on the chicken predators--of the subterranean kind.  "Gopher" rats have invaded the Happy Hens complex and have undermined a lot of rock paving put in place around the coop.  Again, I inquired of the Internet how to deal with the problem and an "old time remedy" for dealing with these type of rats (without poison) is to use a mixture of cornmeal and plaster of paris.  I used 1/2 and 1/2 and poured the mix down into the holes that the rats had made.  It turns to "concrete" in their stomachs and kills them.

Religiously, every day for two weeks, I poured a handful of the cornmeal/plaster mixture into each hole the rats had made, and finally I smelled the stench of a dead rat--yay!  Since then I've smelled that smell a few times.  This is going to be an ongoing process as rats multiply continuously, AND a continuous process keeping an "eye on the sky".  Then there are the raccoons, muskrats, weasels ........

I don't know about where you live, but this fall in Tennessee has been absolutely AMAZING!  The weather has been in the 60's and 70's, cool nights, rain every few days, and the colors on the trees are quite spectacular.

The cool nights bring on the woodstoves and fireplaces.  Many years ago a guy I worked with showed me how to make fire starters and I've been using them ever since.  Thought I'd share the handy trick with you.

Save your old candles or ones that don't quite smell like you thought they would, and melt them down.  I use a kitchen grease container on VERY LOW heat.  A double boiler would be better, but anyway, after the wax melts, pour it into paper egg cartons, let them harden, tear them apart, and voila!  Instant fire starter.  Just set one on top of your kindling and light the paper carton and it works great.

OK--so all isn't exactly as we expect on the farm.  This morning I set out on a mission to disassemble the chicken tractor and reassemble it into a chicken brooder.  Soooo, I'm working taking the tractor apart and thought I'd take a break and go in and say "hey" to the girls.  Wellllll, in one of the nest boxes was a great big loooooong snake all curled up---eeeew!  I took a stick and poked at it and it went behind the nest boxes.  Oh, yes, that's great...still in the house.  Sooo, I gathered the eggs that the girls had laid and went back to my destruction job.

A couple hours later I decided to check out the chicken house again and, oh yes, the snake was back.  I stepped outside, got a shovel, secured the snake behind its head and grabbed it with my hand.  It had an egg in it--I could see the outline of it in the snake's body---ewwwww!

I pulled the snake out of the nest and realized that I didn't have a bucket with a lid or a sack at the chicken house so I had to carry the snake all the way to the shop--seemed like a 1/2 mile but it's only about 80 steps.  While on the way to the shop, the snake regurgitated the egg into the yard (unbroken, I might add), and I realized that snakes are really strong!  It was all I could do to keep a hold of it behind the head AND it wrapped its body around my arm on the way to the shop---not cool I would say--ewwwww!

I found a sack inside a box that I had carefully closed the lid on--really hard to open a box with one hand and a snake in the other!  ewwwwww!  Got it in the sack and immediately it found a hole and poked its head out and started to escape--but I was able to keep it in the sack, get in the truck, drive about a mile up the road, and released the snake.  I sure hope they don't come back from that far away.

Sorry I didn't get a photo, but my hands were full!  Such is life on the farm.

I did get the chicken tractor disassembled and the baby chick "brooder" rebuilt.  It was a must do since I've ordered 56 chicks to be delivered August 14!

A friend loaned me an incubator to hatch a few chicken eggs, almost three weeks ago.  The eggs have been kept at a steady 101 temperature and he had told me that on July 8 I should take the eggs out of the egg turner to let the babies hatch out without getting their feet and legs tangled up in the egg container.  Well, Sunday morning I cut the tops of several egg cartons to put them in the incubator and voila!  There were two baby chicks in there :-)

When I saw that the chicken-hatching had already started I needed to go down to the chicken coop and get the utility light with the 100 watt bulb that I use for a "brood box" heater.  I went to the chicken coop, retrieved said light and headed back to the house.  I was walking along, thinking about the chickens and other happy thoughts and Hattie (the battie Catahoula) ran in front of me.  The next thing I knew I was laying on the ground, not even really sure how I got there until I saw Angus (the boxer) looking at me like I'd done something to him.  I'd rather not type the words that came out of my little mouth at this point, but Angus understood and got under the truck.  I didn't say anything else to him but I sure gave him dirty looks.

After I moved everything to make sure nothing was broken I stood up and realized that I had squashed the light and it fell apart.  After straightening the fixture out, screwing it all back together and finding a new non-CFL light bulb, I found clean shavings and a big tub to put the babies in.

Today is Tuesday and there are 12 hatchlings with one struggling to get out of its shell.  It's great fun watching them hatch and grow.  I may get my own incubator.

A friend of mine incubated some of the fresh eggs from the Happy Hens and I wound up with 13 baby chicks.  One of them couldn't walk and it just kind of stumbled around the box--couldn't eat or drink.  I couldn't stand it.  Rather than letting Mother Nature take her course and allow the others to peck it to death I quarantined the baby to its own box, complete with heat lamp, and forced it to drink every couple of hours.  I don't know how to make a chicken eat, though, so the chick had to do that on its own.  After a few days of being babied, taken on road trips, and coddled, the baby started eating on its own and then started walking.  She also acquired the name "Lucky".    I put it back in with the others and everyone did fine.

Now the chicks are about 8 weeks old and I've got a new friend--her name is now Lucille and she flies into my arms (kind of scary when I'm not expecting it) when I go into the coop to feed them.  She will also fly up on my back when I'm bending over to fill their feeder (hmmmm I'm waiting to be fertilized on the back).  Here's a pic----

The rooster is a Red Star and I'm guessing her momma is a Buff Orpington.  Anyway, she's on her way to being one of the Happy Hens at Wild Things Farm!

All the hummingbird feeders are ready and waiting.......

The bottlebrush buckeye is in full bloom

Columbine is happy, happy, happy!

The coral honeysuckle is on a quest to take over the front porch!

Surely they will be here soon.

Today is a very unsettled day here around the Cumberland Plateau.  Last night at 9:30 the temperature was 39 and this morning at 5:00 it was 60!  Wind blowing, occasional lightning and thunder, sun......  I figured out why!  The "winter-to-spring" button is broken and someone is beating on it!

Gotta keep smiling, and make sure the path is clear to the cave!

Although mud is still the most popular flooring in the great outdoors, spring is creeping through the cracks.  A couple of freezer burned hyacinths stand amidst the bones and skeletons of the front perennial garden, and the spring peepers have been screaming out their mating calls for the past several weeks.

Several sunny days have been enjoyed by the resident farm dogs, Angus the boxer and Hattie the Catahoula.  Angus cracks me up the way he sits with all his legs sticking out in front of him.  I've taken several pics of him in this position, but his "plumbing" shows too much.  I was able to catch him in the pose in the flower garden outside the greenhouse.  Hattie is snoozing in the background.  He can sleep sitting up very well!

The warm sunny afternoons beckon me to the woods for a late afternoon stroll.  It's more fun to walk in the woods right now before the ticks, chiggers, poison ivy, and ssssssssnakes start terrorizing the woodlands.  I caught Hattie posing on a bluff just above one of the garden areas:

The small greenhouse is getting full of seedlings on their way to becoming transplants, then to garden plants, then onto some lucky person's plate!

The heart of the farm flows out of the mountain bordering one side of the property.  This stream flows year round and is utilized to water the crops and happy hens that live on the farm.  A resident kingfisher enjoys the bounty of minnows in the small pond and the dogs like to play in the water on hot summer days.  Personally, I think it's too darned cold to get in.

The high tunnel is still producing great fresh veggies for sale and personal consumption.  This winter the tunnel has produced swiss chard, lettuce, arugula, and one harvest of spinach.  For some reason the spinach just didn't grow at all.  I believe the soil got too wet early in the season and just never dried out.  Next year the spinach will be elevated to new heights!

In the right hand side of the tunnel, the stubborn spinach was yanked out and snow peas planted in their place.  The row covers are handy when the weather outside is frigid, but they've only been utilized like two times this past pseudo-winter.  Early tomatoes, beets, carrots, more lettuce and spinach are going into the high tunnel over the next few weeks.

Whew, to be winter time and the "down season", I seem to be awfully busy :)

Fall is my favorite time of year–always has been. I love the colors of the trees, the cooler weather…..and putting on a jacket after hanging it in the closet last season. You know where I’m going–I put on a jacket this morning to pick peppers and tomatoes and stuck my hands in the pockets and found $6.00 AND a pair of reading glasses. I’m a lucky girl

I know we're not as dry as other folks are, but it hasn't rained around here in several weeks. Needless to say, the irrigation pump has been working overtime. A lot of the gardens have drip tape installed in them which makes watering them as easy as turning a valve.

Two of the gardens, any seedbeds, the orchard and the flower beds all require dragging a waterhose and a sprinkler. This is where life gets kinky. Every time I have to drag hoses around I'm reminded that "you get what you pay for". I've got two 75' yellow hoses that I was really proud to have purchased at the Dollar General Store, about 3 years ago, for $7.00 each. They have worked pretty good but they do kink when they've been rolled up and stretched back out. That means several trips back-and-forth as the hose is stretched out because you can stand there and twist and twist and twist and that kink WILL NOT come out! Another time I had one hooked up with a valve on the end of it for use in the greenhouse. With pressure on it day-in and day-out, I noticed one day that right at the end of the hose was a giant bubble, like 6" in diameter! I had never had a hose to do that before--it never busted, but I cut the end off and put a new end on it and it's still working just fine.

Last year I needed another water hose so I went to Lowe's. Being a farmer on a budget, I opted for a middle-of-the-road "Swan" brand hose. This has to be the absolutely WORST water hose I've ever bought. It kinks in fear when you look at it. If one were to leave it laying straight, never move it, it would be fine. Every time I use it I swear I'm going to e-mail the company to complain about the worst hose I ever bought but by the time I get back in front of the computer the rage has subsided and I forget.

The best hoses are the black ones with the yellow stripe on them and they clearly state "kink proof" on the package. I don't know the name of them but they look like a garter snake when they're laying on the ground. I've got two of them and I pledge from now on to never buy another water hose until I can afford to buy more of these. They do get a kink in them once in a while but if you just wiggle it the kink will come right out--it's magic!

While I'm gardening I prefer to not get kinky :)

Yesterday my son called and the first words out of his mouth were a question.  I must have sounded kind of short with him because he said "You sound like I interrupted something".  I apologized and after we hung up I realized that this time of year is so busy that I have to interrupt myself sometimes!

Anyway, things are rocking right along here in the kingdom of Wild Things.  Early mornings are always peaceful before the sound of the tractor breaks the foggy silence

This garden is called the Blackberry Garden and that's because the blackberries are planted over there.  The berries are just starting to show their tasty color and I've nibbled on a few of them....won't be long

This year cut flowers have been added to the crop menagerie at the farm.  The two trips to the farmer's market have resulted in violent thunderstorms, but the flowers are pretty so I'll keep trying

 

This is the first CSA season with the high tunnel.  It's really enhanced the early part of the season with snow peas and beets in the first couple of boxes, then fresh tomatoes and cucumbers in early June! 

This is one of the wierdest tomatoes I've picked.  It had folds and horns on just about every side--but it tasted yummy!

Some parts of the country are dusty dry and hot, but here at the farm it's rained almost every day.  Some folks would say well, that's good isn't it?  You're growing stuff and they need rain.  Well, it's true to some degree, but I'm worried about the tomatoes getting that dreaded blight again, I lost the only Eryngium yuccifolium in my flower bed (Rattlesnake master), the canteloupe planted in the high tunnel have drowned (groundwater level too high) and some of the green beans are hollering for help.

The weatherman says later this week hotter and drier.....I say good.

Weeding Wisdom

(random thoughts while weeding)

We call a doctor's business a practice and a lawyer's businss a practice......definitely a farmer's business should be called a practice.