Portage River Farm

We have been anticipating the day that our hens would start laying for a long time. Unfortunately we are still waiting. Tomorrow they will be 21 weeks old and it's seems high time for some eggs to appear. The young roosters have been making their clumsy attempts to move things along much to the annoyance of the hens. They invariably get chased, squashed, clawed and have a few feathers yanked out in the process. So much for avian romance.

As with everything else, I have been overdue in providing the hens somewhere to lay their eggs. Every few days, I have scouted among the weeds for eggs but their brown color decreases my chance of finding them. Perhaps they have been standing around with their legs crossed and holding their breath waiting for me to get the maternity ward in order.

Last weekend, I finally managed to put a few hours into this task. The pictures show the result. I copied the design from a sketch that I found in the book "Barnyard In Your Backyard". I'm not sure why the ceiling of each nest box needed to be so high but I think they'll suffice. The book claims that this three nest unit will accommodate up to twelve hens. Since we have thirteen, I'm hoping I can stretch that number by one for now. We hung it on the wall just inside the coop doorway at the recommended height.

I lined the bottom of each nest with a square of cardboard and then added straw to make a comfortable nest. Per the advice that I have seen in a few books, I placed a golf ball in each nest to act as a clue for the hens of what the boxes are for. Each time I have been in the coop, I have picked up a few hens and placed them on the roost at the front of the box.

After getting over being rudely handled by the brutish human, they stand on the roost and peer at the golf ball in the nest with interest. Each hen eventually has stepped into the nest and poked about in the straw for a minute or two before making their way back down to the floor. I have no evidence to date that these little training sessions are of any use, but if they start laying golf balls we'll be rich!

In all of the hustle and bustle of daily life, it is a challenge to find time to slow down and smell the roses. I have written here of my restless pursuit of projects around the farm and my frustrations of always feeling behind in my work. Part of that comes from the fact that my part-time hobby doesn't take into account that weeds grow and things fall apart around here at a full-time pace. The rest of it is just my naturally ardent nature.



There is one sight that breaks my stride at least once per day and causes me to stand and reflect with a smile on my face. It may have been late in planting and a bit too weedy in patches, but my garden gives me great pleasure and a sense of accomplishment just the same. There is something so satisfying about seeing those plants spring from the soil and grow big and beautiful before your eyes. When measured against the reward of vegetables for the table and the aesthetic pleasure that it brings, the labor to plant and maintain the garden seems well spent.

I have had an interest in wild plants for most of my life. Throughout my late teen and college years, I spent countless hours (that I probably should have been studying!) wandering the fields and woods with identification guides in hand. I still have hundreds of pages of notes logging my finds from those days. Since then I have headed out any chance that I could to collect wild plants for food and medicine. Gradually, I'm passing that knowledge and the love of wild plants to my children.


One of the herbs that the family has taken to whole-heartedly is jewelweed. I have been able to find it just about anywhere I have ever lived and it grows in great abundance in the woods behind our house. Anyone who has ever taken a walk with me in the woods has been subjected to a demonstration of how the plant got its name. The leaves are covered with a nearly invisible layer of dense hairs. By holding one of the leaves underwater, the plant shimmers beautifully as if transformed into silver due to the layer of air trapped in the hairs.

Our favorite use for this plant is as a remedy for itchy skin. It has a succulent stem that reminds me of very watery celery. If you crush the stem between your fingers it yields a clear sap that when spread on the skin will relieve mosquito bites, rashes or poison ivy at least as well as anything in the drugstore shelves. During the summer, our household puts this remedy to work a number of times each week. Late evenings will often find me walking out into the woods with a flashlight to retrieve a stem or two to ease someones itchy skin so they can sleep.

The other name commonly used for jewelweed is spotted touch-me-not. It gets this name from the little black spots on the orange flowers and the way the seed pods react when touched. In the fall the plants produce little pairs of seed pods where each flower had bloomed. These pods are attached to the stem by a ingenious little spring mechanism that propels the pod several feel away when disturbed. It is fun to walk through patches of jewelweed at that time of year and hear the little pods springing off in every direction as you pass.

Even the simplest of requests can take forever to complete when they are added to my pile of projects. Quite early in the spring, Janet requested a clothesline be set up somewhere in the yard. It seemed a little thing but I just could never manage to bring it high enough on the priority list to get it done. There was always something that demanded more immediate attention, something so far behind schedule that I couldn't spare a few hours to get the clothesline done.

As spring passed into summer, I had still not manged to make much progress. To my credit, I did purchase the posts, rope and hardware, but had left them sitting in a neglected heap as I walked around them on my way to more pressing things. Janet continued to use the dryer but longed for the fresh smell of line-dried clothes. Being resourceful, from time to time she accomplished the effect by draping the linens over the deck railing.

As if in sympathy for Janet's suffering, the dryer even did it's part to move the project up the priority list by breaking down. It refused to generate enough airflow to get anything dry. Unswayed by these strongarm tactics, I strung a temporary clothesline across the driveway from the front porch to the gazebo.

Further to Janet's credit, she withstood the embarrassment of having our laundry hanging on the front of the house and overlooked the apprehensions of visitors who were afraid to drive beneath the ropes. They worried that the clothespins might scratch their car roofs or that they would lose their radio antennas when they become snagged on the line.

One summer day, I awoke determined to finally get this item off of my plate once and for all. I used the tractor to bore the post-holes, poured in cement, added the cross members and hardware to the top. Once the cement had set up I added the ropes and we were finally in business! Janet could not be happier with her new clothesline and I am relieved at having something completely crossed off of my list.

Sunset is my favorite time of day. The long shadows and yellowing light signal that the work of the day is drawing to an end, whether you are ready or not. The countryside takes on a dream-like quality as the sky puts on a dazzling and fleeting display.

I glance to the horizon as I scurry about to put away tools or push myself to get just a little further on a project before it becomes too dim to see. At times the sights overwhelm even my desire to get one more thing accomplished and I rush into the house to retrieve whomever is at hand to join me in the front yard to watch the last of the light show.

During the summer evenings, the colorful skies serve as a backdrop for a display of beauty and skill by our resident barn swallows. Their flight paths take them in swinging arcs over our heads as they turn to make yet another pass low to the ground above our hayfield. Their graceful acrobatics are so pleasant to watch as they dart back and forth across the meadows scooping insects from the air in their beaks. How they can see the insects at that speed and in that dim light is beyond me.



To my pleasant surprise, I have discovered that I have the ability to schedule a command performance by large numbers of these aerial artists whenever I wish. The simple act of firing up my tractor and beginning to mow the hayfield brings them from far and wide at any time of day. As I make my way back and forth across the field, I can watch several dozen swallows zip through the air at daredevil speeds. As they swoop and glide, it is as if I were watching warplanes reenacting a dogfight from the best seat in the house.

I have yet to drive into any trees as a result of my swallow-watching but a careful observer may note that my mowing cuts tend to meander a bit more than they should. To me, the flight of these little acrobats is no less captivating and graceful than a pod of dolphins playing in the surf.

Photo by IanF, http://www.birdforum.net/

Over the holiday we drove down to southern Ohio and visited my parents. It was relaxing and nice to catch up with family and friends. I attended a class reunion, we watched the fireworks, ate lots of great food and played lots of badminton.

My parents' garden and landscaping are beautiful and far ahead of anything we have going on. During a conversation with my father about my ambitious gardening plans, he offered to let me borrow a gadget that they had in their shed for dealing with weeds.

We walked to the shed to have a look. That particular shed is a point of pride for me. A few years back my father and I made a project of designing and building it. Work obligations meant that I had to head back home before the project was done, leaving much of the completion work to him. Just the same, whenever I see that shed I feel proud of it and recall nice memories of us building it together.

Once we arrived in the shed, he showed me a Toro Garden Cultivator. It is kind of like a mini rototiller with a little two-cycle engine. After being assured that they were not going to need it for a while, I gratefully loaded it into the back of the van for the trip back home. I had seen these things advertised before and wondered if it would be worth the investment. Now I had a way to find out.

A few days later I was out at my shed and eager to give it a try. Unfortunately, I was unable to get the thing to start. Dad had mentioned that the priming system wasn't working but he managed to get it started anyway. Since my skills at getting small engines to do my bidding aren't as great as my father's, I decided to do what I could to eliminate its handicaps.

After a few hours on the Internet, I found all of parts that I needed. I impatiently awaited the UPS truck each day until my little pile of parts arrived. I replaced the priming bulb, the fuel lines, the spark plug, a bolt for the muffler and a clamp for the handle that had fallen off. Having all of that complete, I filled it with fuel and gave the cord a few yanks. To my delight, it roared to life and was ready to start tilling.

Dad had mentioned that it seems a little light for the job and right away I was in agreement. The tines were eager to dig into the soil but unless the soil was already soft, there isn't quite enough weight to let it really dig in. After a few trials, I found that it performs amazingly well if the soil is a little damp as it would be for a few days after a rain.

I have been happily using the cultivator and my garden has never looked better. It makes quick work of the weeds and is small enough to get up close and between plants. It also does a better job of keeping the weeds away than a hoe because it gets the plant out all of the way to the roots. On the down side I would have to say that it is noisy enough that I wear earplugs and it leaves me stinking of exhaust. Just the same, one of these is definitely on my wish list for gadgets to buy next year.

The second handy device that we recently procured is a power washer. Despite my native cheapness, I decided to forgo the usual hunt on Craig's list and Ebay and actually purchased a new one from Lowes. I felt that the pump on a power washer was vulnerable enough to abuse and expensive enough to repair that I really didn't want to buy somebody else's worn out junk.


After lingering a long while in the store comparing the features and prices of the units, I finally settled on a gas-powered Troy-bilt model. I decided that the gas-powered one was better because I could imagine applications all over the farm, such as the barn and chicken coop, where a need for electricity could be cumbersome.

We put it to work as soon as we got home and had it assembled. As you may have seen from some of the pictures on our website, the cracks in the driveway are rife with weeds. This unit has enough power to blast the plants out of there, roots and all. Next we'll have to do something about filling those cracks so the weeds won't come back.

Last weekend saw Janet working away at the weeds in the driveway while I cultivated them out of the garden. The farm has become a bit noisier with these additions, but also is really starting to shape up.

(The mention of the brand names in this blog article is not intended as an endorsement of any particular product or company.  I have had no contact with either company.)

At about 2:30am on Saturday evening I was awoken from a sound sleep by Finn, our Labrador retriever, barking in the front room. If you have been reading my blog for a while you will already know that this is not an entirely uncommon occurrence but generally leads to something interesting enough that I can't resist getting out of bed to investigate. Upon joining him in the living room, I could tell by his actions that he was reacting to something that he could hear rather than something he had seen. He wasn't looking directly out of the windows but was instead raising his head toward the ceiling and barking more in the way that dogs react to distant fire engines.

I reached for the sliding door handle, hooked his chain on his collar and we walked out into the night air. From the moment that I slid the door open, I could hear that there was a very loud noise outside. My first impression was that of a siren similar to a tornado warning but more low-pitched.

The noise seemed to be coming from the front of the house so I walked in that direction. Finn came along with me as I strained to pick out the sound over the din of his chain being drug along the boards of the deck. We finally reached the front of the house and the limit of his travel. As I walked further away from him and along the driveway, the origin of the amazingly loud sound became clear.

The noise was not coming from a siren at all but instead was the incredibly loud bawling of a cow. It was clearly coming from the farm across the road from ours. I stood in the darkness, listening to the noise and wondering what was wrong with the animal. This was not the occasional moo of a cow calling to the herd but instead was a nearly continuous calling out by the animal punctuated by fleeting gaps as it drew in another lung-full of air. I was greatly impressed by the sheer force and urgency of the call. I honestly wasn't aware that cows could produce that many decibels. It was easily the loudest animal noise I have ever heard.

I tried to imagine what the cow must be suffering to cause it to call out in this way. Was it being killed by something? Was it somehow painfully caught in a fence and dying? As I stood there trying to decide if I should walk down the road to see what was happening, the noise suddenly stopped. As the last echoes died away, I returned to the house and sat on the front step with Finn. We listened for a while longer but no additional sounds came to us. Eventually we headed back into the house to resume our slumbers.

The mystery was solved on Sunday afternoon during a conversation with our neighbors. They mentioned that the cattle across the road had been calving over the last few days. Finn and I had been witnesses to the late night labours of a cow delivering the latest addition to the herd.

We hope to get cattle of our own over the next few years. If nothing else our late night experience has prepared me for just how distressed a cow can get in her last stages of delivery. When that time comes for us, I'm going to try to remember to slip some earplugs in my pocket!

The major project of this weekend has been the replacement of the shed door. One of the doors had been badly damaged before we bought the farm and most of it was missing. The previous owner explained that the wind had caught it during a violent storm and broke it in two by slamming it back against the side of the shed. The remainind portion can be seen lying on the ground in front of the shed in the picture.

Yesterday morning, the boys and I headed out into our woods to pick some black raspberries. I had noticed some canes coming up in the springtime in the woods near our chicken coop but had not been back in that area since.

When we arrived at the edge of the woods our eyes opened wide at the abundance of raspberries everywhere we looked. Since they are wild they are relatively small but the moist soil at the edge of our wooded wetlands has provided them the conditions to grow in abundance.

A part of our master plan for the farm is to plant a large berry patch with just about every variety that you can imagine. My experience with domestic raspberry varieties thus far has been that they are much larger but much less flavorful than their wild cousins. Now that we know about this wonderful wild resource at the edge of our woods we plan to incorporate its preservation into our plans so that we will always have wild raspberries for our table.

Last spring in my gardening classes at the local extension office, I was singled out as one of the few people attempting true organic gardening. The instructor explained that for most people organic gardening was a matter of degree and that they follow some of the rules and ignore others according to personal taste and convenience. Among the packed room of classmates, I was clearly holding down the "purist" extreme of the spectrum.

Thus far I have stuck to my guns and intend to carry it through. This has meant that I have paid more for my seed stock and potting soil. It has also meant that I have been keeping careful records of everything that I have done including keeping the labels off of everything I have used for eventual inspection by an auditor. I have also called the certifying agency a number of times to get advice on what I can or cannot do.

This has meant that I have been extremely cautious about what is placed in the garden or used on the plants. It has also led to some minor problems such as when Janet came home with a few basil plants that she had picked up from the grocery. Because they had no paper trail to prove where the seeds came from or what might be in the potting soil, I would not allow them to be anywhere near our food production areas. In the end I stuck them in the ground along the edge of our shed to be treated as second-class citizens on our farm.

Up until recently the garden had been pretty exclusively my problem to deal with. It is true that Sean and Aidan lent a hand during some of the planting but the rest of the work had been done by me mostly late at night when I could finally find some time to get to it. During a recent trip by the children and I to visit family, I was surprised to hear from Janet that she had spent considerable time weeding the garden. In the past week her participation has led to a couple of evenings where the entire family could be found heads-down in the rows. My smile could not have been broader at the sight.

A few nights ago we were all together among the vegetables when Aidan observed, "The cabbages are getting eaten up by something." Up until this point our plants had been completely free of insect pests. My experiences with growing potatoes in Tennessee, for example, has left me amazed at the sight of our great big healthy potato plants without a single potato beetle! I walked over to the cabbage and saw that Aidan was absolutely correct. Every single cabbage plant had holes nibbled in its leaves.

It didn't take me long to find the culprits. A close inspection of the plants revealed that imported cabbage worms and cabbage loopers were both happily munching away at our plants. I am very familiar with these pests from previous seasons. They arrive in the garden daily as little white and grey moths to lay eggs on the undersides of the leaves. Unless something is done about them, the green caterpillars that emerge will quickly reduce the plant to a hole-riddled skeleton.

I have dealt with them many times before using a tried and true organic method. There is a wonderful line of products made from a soil bacteria called Bacillus thuringiensis or Bt. I have used it for years in powder form. A light dusting of the plants prevents any further problems with the worms. The nice thing about Bt is that it has been in use for nearly 100 years with no known issues for the environment or human health.

Bt is nice to use because it only affects a few species of insects, primarily moths and butterflies, and only those who decide to eat the plants on which I have applied it. A light dusting of the cabbage plants now and then is enough to keep them completely free of the pests. The problem is that I can't find Bt anywhere!

I have spent a number of days calling and visiting every garden supply store and greenhouse in the area. Each visit has found me standing in the store explaining what Bt is to employees who have never heard of it. With enough effort, I can generally get to the point that they will offer to special order it for me and have it available in a week or two. My problem is that my cabbages are getting eaten right now!

In one phone call, I did manage to find an employee at an Ann Arbor garden supply store who actually knew what it was without me having to explain it. Regrettably, they didn't carry it in the store either. In my frustration I asked the man, "Why can't I find this stuff anywhere? Isn't anybody else doing organic gardening? What are they using to combat cabbage moths?". He sheepishly admitted that it is very rare for anyone to really be concerned about using anything other than the standard toxic stuff from Ortho. One application of that stuff would be enough to cause an organic farm to lose its certification for three to five years!

In the end I ended up asking my local hardware store to special order a couple of containers for me. As a hold-over measure until they arrive, I have been hand picking the caterpillars off of the plants and feeding them to the chickens. This morning I consulted my new organic gardening guides to make sure that it wasn't just a case of me being out of date. They confirmed that Bt was the solution of choice. I'm just left wondering how much longer these companies will continue to manufacture products that so few people are buying.

Where the heck are all of the other organic gardeners?

Yesterday was a very pleasant day weather-wise. It was cool and breezy with a solid cloud cover that kept the roasting sun at bay. I spent much of the late evening with hoe in hand trying to make gains in my struggle with the weeds in the garden. As the light grew increasingly dim, Aidan returned to notify me for the third time that it was time to come in and read his bedtime story.

Making my gradual way to the house, I stopped by the coop to bed down the chickens for the evening. They came out of their huddle in the corner to accept my offering of feed and fresh water with appreciative little honks. I counted them, said goodnight and closed the door behind me.

I found the house pleasantly dark and quiet. Freya had gone to bed early and Aidan was sitting in his bed awaiting my arrival. I stopped by to briefly check in with Janet who was comfortably curled up with a book in the bedroom. She was enjoying the stillness and the cool night air that came in through her open window. She was in the final few pages of a very long read but patiently endured my interruption to receive a good-night kiss.

I retrieved a chair from the kitchen and sat down next to Aidan's bed to pick up the story of Tom Sawyer where we had left it the night before. Tom was taking advantage of a surprise visit from a local dignitary to his bible study class to force his teacher to present him with an award for memorizing verses that he hadn't earned. He was smitten with the visiting judge's daughter and was trying to make a good impression. The judge was unknowingly praising the badly behaved boy as "a fine young man". Tom was on the verge of getting caught in the lie by being asked to recite when our story was interrupted by a call from Janet's room.

Janet asked, "Did you put the chickens away?". I replied that I had. Then she said, "I just heard a really strange noise coming from the coop." "It sounds like something is killing the chickens!"

I raced around the house preparing to head out to investigate. I flipped on the outside floodlights in the hope that it would discourage whatever was out there until I could get my shoes on. I grabbed my LED headlamp and burst out of the front door. As I rounded the corner of the house the coop came into view in the white-grey light of the floods. I could see nothing out of the ordinary but I grabbed a weeding hoe from the shed just in case.

About halfway to the gate of the coop I was collected enough to finally turn on my headlamp. It is a little marvel that puts out a surprisingly bright white light. I sped along the edge of the garden toward the coop and scanned the area with my light. It was then that I caught sight of something that stopped me in my tracks.

About thirty yards to my left the fencing of the chicken enclosure turns a corner toward the woods. Next to that corner was a large pair of bright green eyes looking directly at me. They were wide-set and triangular, clearly belonging to something fairly large. They were very still as the creature watched to see what I was going to do.

I resolved to scare it off, whatever it was. With a rising sense of indignant rage that this thing would dare invade our tranquil little farm I began running down the fence row toward where it was standing. The ground there is very rough with leftover ruts from the spring plowing and before long I had tripped and sprawled to the ground.

I quickly jumped up and resumed my pursuit. With a half roar, half growl emanating from my throat I charged through the weeds to the property line. A quick scan ahead showed me that my quarry had fled across our neighbors field and had paused at the safety of the treeline to stare back at me with those bright green eyes once again.

I continued my growling pursuit, running as fast as I could across the recently mown hayfield to where it had been standing. Arriving at the spot, I checked my pace and stood barking a threat into the dark of the forest. I could hear it crashing through the brush, moving in an arc away from me through the woods toward the southeast. After a short walk into the woods and a bit more growling and waving my hoe in caveman fashion, I convinced myself that it was gone.

I returned to the coop and verified that the birds were all healthy and safe. I'm pretty confident that no predator can get to them once they are closed inside, but I just wanted to check to be sure. They were stirred up by all of the commotion but otherwise unharmed.

After I returned to the house, I spent some time exploring the Internet for any clues to the identity of our invader. My assumption had been that I was chasing a coyote and the websites confirmed that their eyes shine green-gold at night. One other possibility came to light as well that I admit was a bit of a surprise. According to several conservation groups researching the subject, we have a sizable population of cougars in the state. For example, click here. According to them, cougars have been spotted all around our area including a sighting only ten miles away two weeks ago.

I know that coyote is the far more likely culprit. We know that they live near us and they are certainly more plentiful. At the same time, when I think back to the sight of those ghostly green eyes I find myself not so sure. The placement of the eyes seems very broad, suggesting a large, wide head. The eyes were also rather triangular in shape, definitely suggesting something more feline to me.

I'm sure I'll never know. I went out this morning in search of tracks but found nothing remarkable. If nothing else we can just chalk it up as another exciting adventure here on our little farm.

Late last week, the sky opened up and dumped one quarter of a million gallons of water on our little farm. Rest assured that it came down slowly and gently over a number of hours but it came just the same. The roof and gutters dutifully routed it away from the foundations and the sandy soil quickly drained it away to somewhere beneath the surface.

I watched the rain from the front window, thinking to myself that it would be good for the vegetable and wildflower gardens. It gave me a good excuse to remain indoors for the evening and I worked on house projects instead. Little did I know that we were getting much more water than we needed.

After the storms had finally passed, I took a walk to survey the results. The wheel barrow had been left out and accumulated an impressive amount of water. It was at least six inches deep. I turned it over, releasing all of those gallons to soak into the yard and join up with the rest of the water somewhere below.

My inspection tour moved on to the gardens. The wildflower garden had only been seeded a few days earlier and had yet to sprout. I found myself peering at the heavily washed sand and wondering if all of those expensive seeds from the wildflower mixes had been washed away. A repeat inspection a few days later revealed that small seedlings were in fact coming up all over the place and everything seems to be fine.

The vegetable garden looked none the worse for wear but looks can be deceiving. After standing at the edge of the garden I decided to walk into the middle to have a closer look. Stepping off of the sod into the saturated soil, I found myself half-way up to my knees in sandy mud that was exactly the consistency of pudding! Seeing the potential for doing irreparable damage to my long-suffering seedlings, I quickly retreated to the solid safety of the untilled yard.

A couple of days later, Sean came home and asked to have a friend over to camp out on the farm for his thirteenth birthday. The boys selected a spot for the tent between the double rows of evergreens that crown a low ridge in our front pasture. Due to the high weeds, they asked if I could mow the area before they started setting up.

We hooked the bush hog to the tractor and I mowed a path through the high weeds to their selected spot. I carefully maneuvered my way through the trees and must say that I did a mighty fine job of prettying the area up for their camp. The job being accomplished, I began the drive back to our side yard where I customarily park the tractor.

Had I gone directly to that spot and quit for the day this tale would have a very different end. Instead, I emerged from the trees into the front field and surveyed the high weeds with the thought that I could quickly mow it as well while I was at it. I swung the tractor along the treeline and began mowing the edge of the field.

As I was rounding the far end of the field the tractor suddenly stopped moving forward. Looking down, I saw that it had sunken to the axles in mud! It took only a few minutes of attempting to back out of the mess to convince me that there was no hope of freeing it.

The transmission casing between the rear wheels was resting on the ground and preventing the big tires from getting any purchase on the muck. I walked back to the house all the while shaking my head at myself that I had not thought about all of that water that had saturated the ground only a few days before. This is not the first time that I have gotten the tractor stuck but it is certainly the worst.

I figure that I'll give it a week to dry out before giving it another try. Until then, there's no shortage of other things to do.

A few nights ago the quiet of our home was suddenly shattered by an eruption of barking from the front room. The children had just gone to bed and I was in the back of the house having a conversation with Janet. Aidan came running down the hall with alarm in his voice telling me the obvious fact that "The dogs are barking!!" The commotion even stirred Freya from her bed who came out to follow me down the hall to see what was going on.

In our old house in Ypsilanti, the barking of the dogs was a nuisance noise that elicited little more reaction from the rest of the family than a half-hearted scolding to "Be Quiet!" from elsewhere in the house. The world outside our home was a busy place with families walking their dogs and mailmen cutting through the yard on the way to our porch. Finn and Sirona would spend much of their time gazing out the front window or "dog television" and rarely let anyone pass by without a giving out a bark or two.

Life on the farm is another situation entirely. The dogs still look out of the window but the green world outside rarely presents anything worthy of comment. Occasionally Finn will alert us to the passing of our little deer herd but usually his barking is an indication that somebody is coming up the driveway.

On this particular evening, his barking was especially insistent. I looked out the front window but saw no cars nor people. With Freya cautiously in tow, I walked out into the front yard and shined a flashlight into the dark. In the hope of stirring some movement and probably a tiny bit to settle my own nerves, I shouted a warning "Hah!". After a few more minutes of looking around, I concluded that whatever had peaked Finn's interest had moved on. We returned to the house and our evening went on as before.

Around two-o-clock in the morning, we were again disturbed by frantic barking from the living room. As far as I know nobody else stirred but I rocketed out of bed to investigate. This time I found Finn standing at the back window barking and growling excitedly. I grabbed a flashlight and a dog leash and we headed out to have a closer look.

Immediately upon passing through the doorway into the cool night air, Finn puffed himself up with all of the hairs on his back and neck bristling. Clearly on the trail of something, he sniffed the air and pulled on his lead. We raced across the yard toward the chicken coop while I encouraged him to "show me what's out here boy!".

We searched around coop, we headed a little way into the woods and we circled the house. All the while Finn sniffed excitedly at everything. In the end we failed to track down or scare up anything. I found myself wishing that he could talk and could tell me what it was that he was smelling.

The next morning, I was going through my usual chicken-feeding routine before heading off to work. I had pretty much forgotten about the adventure of the previous night until I approached our shed in the backyard. I found that our nocturnal visitor had chewed a big hole in a fifty pound bag of chicken feed and had spilled much of the contents on the shed floor. I moved the remaining feed into a trashcan as I should have done from the start and cleaned up the mess.

At the end of the day, Aidan and I were working on the garden when we discovered a couple sets of tracks in the mud near the shed. I retrieved one of our field guides to animal tracks and we sat down to determine the identity of our visitor. Right away I could see that two very different animals had been there.

One set of tracks were easy to identify as raccoon. This was pretty much what I had expected since neighbors had been warning me that the raccoons could be a nuisance. The second set of tracks, however, proved to be a bigger identification challenge.

The field guide that I was using was meant to cover the eastern half of the country so I knew it would include some animals that didn't live in our area. As I scanned back and forth through the pages, one particular animal stood out as the best match for the tracks. I would look at the track and tell myself that it was the best match but that it had to be something else.

I methodically worked from one animal to the next and made certain that there were no other matches. It was too big for a skunk. It had too many toes to be a fox or large cat. The clear separation of the toes from the central pads and the close placement of toes ruled out raccoon. The deep claw marks ruled out a number of other possibilities.

In the end I had no option left but to return to the original track that seemed improbable, that of the badger. Unsure if it was even possible, I consulted the Michigan Department of Natural Resources website. To my surprise, it told me that badgers are indeed in our area although they are rare.

Weighing all that I have seen, I have concluded that the raccoon was the culprit who was disturbing our sleep. A little more observation around our home led me to the discovery that an old bird-feeder had been knocked off of the deck railing just outside of our back sliding door. I imagine that he was after the bird seed inside and the resulting crash alerted Finn to his presence.

Thanks to the racoon's clumsiness, Finn and I had a few minutes of adventure during the night. More importantly, he raised our level of curiosity and observation of our surroundings which led directly to the discovery of our more rare visitor, the badger.

We have not had any more losses since Sean and I fortified the coop. All of our efforts of late have been put into the garden and the coop remains a bit of an eyesore due to its less-than half-built nature. Despite this, it has been holding up well to the rainy weather and nightly probes by predators.

The birds have settled in well to their new routine. At sunset each evening I head out to bed them down with a pail of mixed feed and scratch in hand. As I approach the chicken-yard gate, I always call out saying "chick...chick...chick" to let them know that I am coming. During the day this call will bring them running from all directions to gather excitedly at my feet. In the late evening they will have already gathered indoors. Rather than venturing out, they simply answer my call with squawks and clucks.

Unfortunately they have picked the corner behind the door as their favorite site for their nightly pile-up. It is amazing how tiny of a space twenty one chickens can cram themselves into. While it is inconvenient to get through the door when they are packed so tightly behind it, I can't really complain all that much since I have yet to equip the coop with proper roosts. I actually went to the store a few days ago to pick up the recommended two-inch dowels but upon seeing the price they were asking, I told myself that I would find a way to make something more economical.

After scooping the wood chips away in a few spots, I pour the feed out on the floor. This brings them out of the corner and makes them easier to count. After making sure that they are all present, I leave them to their dinner closing them in securely behind the coop door.

In the morning the routine is similar. I lay out their breakfast outside while they excitedly gibber and squawk to be let out. Once the door is finally open they come charging out in an exuberant race to be the first at the buffet.

The rest of the day the chickens require no attention at all. They wander through the tall weeds in search of bugs, they nibble at plants, they take long luxurious dust baths and stretch, flap and run to their heart's content. From my vantage point as their chef, handmaid and butler, I have to say that they've got a pretty good life.

The past weekend was dedicated pretty exclusively to planting. Sean, Aidan and I started at the south end of the garden and worked our way north all weekend. I'm not sure how many hours were expended other than to say that it was many.

I started by going to the farm calendar on our website and looking through the months to find all the items that we would have already planted had we not been so behind schedule. We worked our way forward, starting with the peas that were scheduled for March 20th. Those we planted in the first row and then worked our way chronologically through the calendar and across the garden. As of late last night we had worked our way forward to May 2nd which meant that all of the beans (lima, black, Jacob's cattle, wax and pole beans) finally were poked into the waiting soil. In all, 29 varieties of vegetables were planted or transplanted from where they have been growing under lights indoors and about one third of the garden was used up.

It was a very satisfying feeling to straighten my back and look across the garden to see the work we had accomplished. Of course, I realize that having our schedule so far out of whack means that some things will not turn out all that well. I anticipate that a couple of the cold-weather crops at the southern end of the garden will bolt in protest of the hot summer weather. As well, some of the long season crops may not have enough time to make it to maturity before the frosts come in the fall. Some of my co-workers have mentioned that their gardens were all severely damaged by a late frost at the end of May so I may accidentally come out ahead.

Sunset last night found me poking the last of the pole bean seeds into the ground. As the light shifted from yellow to red, the thunderstorm that had been threatening all evening finally arrived. The roiling clouds in the last rays of the day made a dramatic display overhead that was quickly followed by an impressive lightning show and torrents of rain. I ended up getting caught for the worst of it while ushering the chickens into the coop for the night.

We rode out the storm together in dry comfort beneath the temporary roof. I sat on the floor in the dry wood shavings enjoying the rest for my tired muscles. I sat with a satisfied smile on my face as I listened to the thunder overhead and watched the chickens all about me busily pecking at their dinner. It was a golden moment. It just doesn't get much better than that!

Two evenings ago, Sean, Freya and I headed out to the coop to put the chickens in for the night. I had asked them to join me in preparation for an upcoming evening when I would not be home. I wanted to show them how to round up all of the flock and get them safely closed indoors before dark for fear of predators.

This is an easy task for the bulk of the birds as simple bribery with a little chicken feed is very effective. Unfortunately, there are always a few stragglers who seem to prefer taking their chances with the coyotes. If you make the mistake of trying to grab them, they will happily lead you on a wild chicken-chase that will leave you flustered and empty-handed. I have found that the best remedy is to patiently wait by the coop door until the desire to be in the evening pileup with the rest of the flock overrides their thoughts of freedom and independence. One by one they eventually poke their heads around the corner and cautiously make their way to the door to be let in.

Having completed the task, we closed the gate and started walking around the end of the newly plowed garden and toward the house. Glancing at the soil in the sunset gloom, my mind registered that something seemed out of place. There was a large dark patch in the otherwise dried out soil just a few feet from the edge of the garden. We walked over to the spot and found a very large snapping turtle partially dug into the dirt. It had a shell that had to be at least 17 inches in diameter.

After the initial excitement, we retrieved one of our field guides to verify the species. The book said that the female turtles would leave their watery haunts in June and lay their eggs in sandy soil. We let her go about her business undisturbed and resolved to mark the spot with stakes so that we wouldn't harm the eggs. According to the book, she will have laid between 10 and 96 eggs about six inches beneath the surface. They will remain there until hatching in 55 to 125 days.

It would be amazing to see them dig their way out of the soil but I suppose our chances of being there to see it are slim. In any case, she added a little excitement to our evening and served as a reminder of the wild animals that share our farm as well.