Dispatches From The Farm

Giving Up On The War Against The Grass

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

We are uniquely cursed here on our place. We have grass growing here that I cannot remember the name of, but it is a blended type that when cut short serves as a wonderful lawn, and when left to grow long serves as an equally lovely pasture. It is a curse because I have burned holes through it with burn pits, I have tilled it to death, and I have even in the distant past used grass killers on it in places. In every instance, within two years of letting up these attacks, the lawn has been back, and by the start of the third year, the place where it happened has been completely indistinguishable from any undamaged part of it.

This is a great place to be if your life is about your lawn, and cheap upkeep, or if it is about grazing cattle, and you want an easy pasture to keep.

It is not so great when your wife wants a flower bed, and so you till and prep and cover and till again, and by the end of the year the flowers have all but succumbed to the weeds, and are followed the next year by a lawn that will choke out even them.

We have put in raised beds with no bottoms, we have put in raised beds with cardboard bottoms, and we have put in raised beds with plastic bottoms, and the grass has come up through and overgrown the tops of the beds. I have pulled raised beds out again, too. I am in the process of doing that, now. The only place where we have succeeded has been where the raised beds have been covered at the top with cardboard or plastic and mulch. We have done a fair job of keeping the grass at bay with those efforts. So that is the direction we are looking now.

So this year we begin anew with a different approach to the flowers. We have a couple of beds where we have flowers coming up through plastic, and mulch all over that. We also have purchased half barrel shaped plastic tubs that will sit on beds of plastic and mulch, filled with flowers. It is not necessarily the look we would like, but then, neither is “pasture choking petunias to death.” It is just too grim.

I have a bed right in front of the house that I would like to till, surface with the appropriate slope, cover in plastic, and mulch today. It is not too big, so that should be an attainable goal. There are five tubs for that space. I am not going to win against the now two Russian Olives growing there, but I suppose I can trim them back till I can get my dream tractor with a hoe, and dig out the stumps.

There is work to still be done in the herb garden, but we have got to the point it could be easily said it is half way done. We were working out a watering solution for it yesterday, then I went with a shopping list to the stores down in Logan, and while I was at one of them, I spotted a pair of copper-toned sprinklers that were about three feet tall, and decorative, almost Celtic, and got those to put up in the garden, along with feeder hoses that worked out really well. I could not decide between a green one and a red one, so I got one of each, and while I had other plans for them, they worked for the sprinklers to the point that the green one now sits across the grass, and the red one across a mulch bed of nearly the same color. I could not believe it.

We have a space under the kitchen window that needs doing, and against the back of the garage where Missus would like a she-shed, or a space where she will be able to sit outside and work in the future. By, ‘in the future,’ I mean after that noisy goose finally dies of ole age! But then, a quick Google search suggests that he may be with us for another 20+ years… Maybe it is time for him to move to the water across the street! Apparently he is not like to leave us anytime soon.

With the flowers in place in the spots I have discussed, I think that planting season is about done here. If anything is to get root, and flourish it needs to have been in by now, or at least sooner than we can afford more. I can see a couple more trees going in, and I will be putting in the potato starts in either today or tomorrow. I have about 330 feet of potato rows to plant into in 11 rows. I may be out doing that tonight at sunset, or after, when it is cool. I know it is getting late in the season, but that is fine, as Missus prefers New Potatoes anyway.

We have a short, almost cool spell on us till around Friday, so it is a good time to get some mess cleaned up and sorted out. I would like to see the girls and myself picking up firewood down at the Logan City Dump on Friday. I am pretty sure we are all stocked up for the coming season, but I would like to get a trip or two in before summer’s weather is hot in earnest, and then go back down again in the autumn for the rest of the following year’s supply.

Our rejected goat has been staying in the duck run, and making friends out there in the daytimes, and coming into a crate in the house at nights. We are bottle feeding her milk from the fridge, same as we drink. In the days since we brought her in, she has started walking correctly, and even becoming more playful, and she has gotten fatter across the mid section where he backbone was starting to show before. She likes to follow us around in the house. It looks like she is becoming a part of our family! She’ll have to go back out with all the other goats when she is better, and when she is big enough to take a full hit from her mother and either withstand it with no problem, or even deliver it back to her.

Poorly Doeling

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

One of the young does is having a rough start of it in the pen with the others. I noticed a couple of days ago that she was more mellow than the others. Then she started to walk with her hind legs tucked in further under herself. That was a curious sign, but the final straw was seeing her mother rejecting her on the teat. My suspicion is that the baby has been selected by mother to be left off because of math. She has three babies and two teats. I think the little one has been trying to eat too much hay from the mother’s feed to supplement for the milk she is not getting, and has caused her bowels to tighten up, or plug altogether. We are treating her for that.

This is also an opportunity to bottle feed a baby goat! We have done that before, and that particular goat has always been far more content to be close to humans than the others, so I am looking forward to the adjustment to this baby’s disposition. Obviously, we have to get her to survive her childhood first. I have taken her from the pen, then put her back, and her mother has come to the point of not just actively walking away from her, but also charging at her and hitting her with her horns, which is completely unacceptable, of course.

When we bought our first goat, and had to bottle feed her, we were also sold goat’s ‘milk replacer,’ which she was not taking well to. We were advised by someone more knowledgeable that milk replacer is a good way to kill a goat, and to just use the whole milk we buy for our family. We did that, and signs of scours quickly vanished, and she grew up to be just fine. So that is what we are doing here. We are feeding cow’s milk to a baby goat in a human baby’s bottle. I’ll probably look into some grains to supplement the lack of fat in the milk, especially as baby is so young still.

So far, so good! Little one is eating herself to tired, and then resting at feed times. She has a nice bed in a crate we have temporarily in the house, where she can be observed and kept from the others. I suspect that I will be trying her in another pen where some older kids are, and see if they won’t treat her nicely, and like just another goat rather than abusing her.

I am glad to have recognized this situation before the goat’s health deteriorated, in hindsight, there are things I will watch for in the future that might indicate a problem to me much earlier. Those indicators include a goat isolating, and being less active. Then they turned to the leg tucking, and slower walking, and finally the mother stepping away from her when she tries to feed. I suspect it is the mother’s instinct to provide good health to the two she can manage feed for, rather than mediocre care for three. Of course it is not human to think that way, but then, goats are not humans, are they? Lucky for baby there is a human around to look after her.

The Day of Rest

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

The last few days Missus has been off work, and wanting to get some things done in the garden. We did. We planted the Gothic Garden along the side of the drive to the back yard, and she did the planting she wanted done in her herb garden. I helped with digging and paying plastic, and the like. I also did the run to the store to get lots of mulch, which meant lifting and loading there. It has been a ton of work, and then she went back to work yesterday, and I got to go get animal feed, which meant more lifting and loading. The last few days have taken their toll. I made Missus her breakfast this morning, and refreshed the coffee maker, and now, I think there is a day of rest warranted; after the morning chores are done, of course! I just hope I still feel like resting it all off after morning chores. Usually that gets me going for the day, and I want to get things done.

There is some paperwork that could do with updating on the computer. Maybe I can talk myself into doing that, and keeping off my feet for a bit. I have a hankering to go buy stuff for the farm, such as gates and feeders and new watering solutions, but if I do that, I will be setting our finances a bit behind, and I will have more work to do. It could do with waiting to see where we are next payday! So focusing on getting our pricing up to date on our feed order sheets for the local feed supply would do me some good and help me better estimate the costs of buying feed.

I bought feed yesterday, and the cost for all of it was nearly $100 higher than it has been in the past. I was caught a bit off guard with that. Our animals cost us $375 for a month of feed just this month alone. That is not factoring in hay or electricity on their safety lighting, or water, or new equipment & repairs or anything like that. I have to warn you that if you are a new homesteader, this is where the path of Chicken Math leads you!

Well, I have got to have the day off! There is nothing else to it! I need to rest this old body of mine. I just need to fix the water delivery tank so I can top up water for some animals that are far away on the farm, and I have to get a gate in, and I have to replace the posts the gate will be mounted to, and I have to get that paperwork up to date, and I could do with making a list of what things I want properly sorted out before winter comes. And maybe if I have time, I could get the oil changed in the truck, sort out the chainsaws ready for cutting, then get the long firewood cut down to size.

I have my doubts about this day of rest.

Llama Shearing; Flossy & Shire

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

Well, it is that time of year again. It is time to get the llamas out of the pen and onto pasture, away from the hay and on fresh grass. It saves us some money on hay, and we can shear and sell fiber. It is a practice I am getting better at, and this is the first year I have got the shears to work since lending them out to a guy who dulled them beyond usefulness on their first use. I have new blades and I have learned a bit more about proper tensioning.

For sure, they are not to be leant out again. Anyone who knows the right way to use them probably has their own, and anyone who needs them likely has their own to use. I need to work on that assumption, and keep them out of the hands of novices.

Now, to be fair, it includes me, when I say novices. But after lending them out to someone before I had ever used them, only to have them returned to me unworkable, was a costly mistake on my part. I never got to learn how they were supposed to feel new, and sharp, so I ended up fighting with them unnecessarily while trying to work them out.

I only sheared two llamas so far today. It has got up to 81 degrees out now, and is a bit much for working with hot fiber and in sunlight. I could do with a shady spot to work on this. but I don’t have one at the moment. Maybe one day.

The exciting part is that the brown and white one has a lot more hair in her fiber mix, and is a bit undesirable as spinning fiber, I think. So this year she got her first ever shearing, and while she fought it, and I had to only do a saddle cut on her, I was able to blend it with the shears so that it did not LOOK like a saddle cut. She will get to have her first cool summer, and we can get a closer look at her blend of fiber and hair.

The black llama would not let me down at her belly for much cutting, so she looks a little unkempt there, but she is shorn well all over the rest of her, so that was again, good!

Honestly, I am not sure how I can get the males to volunteer to come on over for a trim and a shave. They have long, beautiful fiber that is ready for a good cut! I will try later, maybe later this week! At least they are predominantly lighter colors, and will suffer a little less in the heat.

I am no fan of fighting llamas in a small pen, but I don’t have them a setup that would allow me to drag them apart by the front and back legs like some shearers do. I am getting just old enough that it might be a good idea, though.

New Baby Goats, Again!

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

I woke up this morning to learn that we have two new baby goats from the other mother. I would guess they were born early in the morning, maybe just before I came down, based on the mother goat licking them clean still.

The goat above is called Spot after the white spot he has on his head. And yes, he is a boy! That is two of the goats born this week that are boys.

The little beauty above is a female, and I managed to squeeze in a name much after that tradition of the llamas we have called Flossy and Pearl. This little one is called Fern.

There was an all black goat born too, but we did not know about it right away. It was dead when I found it. I gave it some stimulation to see if it would come out of it, but there was nothing there. I don’t know how it died, perhaps it suffocated on the amniotic sac when it came out?

Even thought the other goats were only born four days ago, the difference in size is amazing! They pop out, hit the ground, stand up within the hour, and walk around just fine, then grow and grow and grow! Sure can tell they are a prey animal!

So, five new goats this week. That’s a busy one! That puts us up to a total of eleven goats! My, how fast the herd grows!

More Firewood At A Great Price

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

I was so worn out yesterday when I woke up, and did not feel much up to going to get firewood. I was up late the night before talking to our oldest as he was down to pick up the two vehicles he had left in our field over winter when he thought he was going to have to move house. It was good to see him, and to catch up! He towed the first one off first thing in the morning, and while he was away, I gathered up the girls and went on down to get the wood anyway!

There are scales on the way in and on the way out at the city landfill, so I was able to weigh the truck and trailer both times, and we had an increase of 3,200 pounds between entry and exit. So I figured that that was my exercise for the day, lifting that into the trailer! Well, almost. I got more than half out again when I got home.

Firewood can be a lot of hard work. But at fifty, I need some kind of exercise, and let’s face it, most forms people participate in bore me with their constant repetitions and gym views. My hips will not allow me to go running, and cycling is bad for me because that one; that one is hard to turn around and go home in time from before the sun sets. I do love me a good bike ride with lots of sun, air, and scenery! Failing that, I will lift firewood, and move it around, which I do enjoy!

The price down at the landfill is still a pretty good one. Free! I will hate the day they decide not to do that anymore. I am remiss telling about it just because who wants the demand for the wood go to up?

I pick up whatever wood I can find there. If it is too fresh, I will just put it on the pile to season for next year. If it is dry, I will put that in the pile to start burning this year. I have the space and set-up to do it. When I cut from the mountains, I loved getting maple wood, because it burned longer and hotter than the other species up there. The heat from the stove could be described as being of a higher quality from maple wood. It felt like it radiated from it better, and more intensely than the other species. I see people down at the landfill fretting over what kind of wood is best to burn, and if they should get this or that, laying about down there. I have been asked what burns the best. My answer is that any of it will burn better than my furniture will! I’ll take what I can get to fill the quota. This is the main heat source in my house all winter long, and I sometimes cook with it, and I can do so many other things with nothing more than a radiant box of fire, that having the wood to burn for the whole of winter is far more important than what kind it is. Yes, I would love it it someone would drop a whole maple grove down there for me to pick up. It is extra work, usually, but it is worth it! The branches and trunks are usually smaller, and require a bit more sawing and splitting, but that heat quality is really that much better. But I will gladly take any heat over none at all. I have been there, done that.

I moved the feeder in the pasture yesterday to get it away from the gate. It was right next to the gate, and the horse would come along and stand there and block the gate, even when there was nothing in it. That got to be too much to deal with, as I want access to the pasture without having to fight her off. She is not of the same disposition she was when she was younger, and even then, it was pretty spirited. But now, her go to response to any interaction is to threaten to kick. I brought with the new lunging whip yesterday, and that made a huge difference! She remembers the sound if that!

If you are not familiar with the tool, don’t panic, when I first moved into the country, I was not either. While it is called a whip, it is never used to strike the horse. It makes a sound that the horse can hear, and it can be directed. I bought a bright yellow one, so it could also be easily seen, and it allows me further reach than trying to run around after the animal. This lets me get control over her better than just standing there openly exposed. She will keep a distance, and the kicking behavior is much less of a threat. It is true she could use a lot of time in a round pen establishing a relationship, but we just don’t have one, so I have to just use the whip for keeping control and maintaining safety. I am no horseman, admittedly, but I have this one old mare that needs me to keep a sound human/horse relationship with her.

So the pasture is clear of the two old vehicles that were being stored in it, just as promised, and right on time, too. I have got to give out kid credit for being a man of his word on that. I doubt he will ever understand just how important that is to me. Folks live and die in my estimation of trust based on their word, and if they will keep it. He said he would have them out by spring, and he did. I am so proud of him for that.

So that is a basic roundup of what has gone on here this week, and what we have been up to. We are going to be sorting out some of the herb garden during the next few days. There is a little shopping to do, and a lot of work! Frankly, I think I would prefer the shopping! But this is the life we lead!

A New Set of Baby Goats

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

Our black and white doe delivered her baby early this afternoon while I was out in the barn dropping off some things that did not need to be in the garage anymore. I heard a very high pitch goat cry and thought, “that’s not one of our babies!” I was wrong. It was one of our babies! It was the first of a set of three from that mother, who had delivered a stillborn only six months ago. This time, three! And she did it all on her own, and just fine.

The other expectant mother stayed to the side, perhaps settling into a nest for herself, or perhaps to preserve her colostrum for her own babies when they come, which I expect to be in a day or two, most likely. After all, the father is fast at his work, and even this set indicated that the black and white mother took in three days of being put in with him. They were put in at the same time.

After momma cleaned them all up and all had their first feeding, a quick check of their undersides shows they are two females and one male. The brown one was born first, and we are calling her fern. Then came Oreo, the belted one. The one that has about as much white on him as his mother is Echo.

Looks like I am not the only one to be cleaning out his shop today!

I won’t at all be surprised if the other mother delivers tomorrow. She has done it a few times before and has been very successful at it, so I think she will do fine whenever they come. Goats, kittens, and newly bought chickens are just some of the reasons that springtime is always an exciting time on the farm!

You know? I spotted the boy as soon as he popped out! How could I tell? He was the one that hit the ground, coughed up his fluids, and turned and looked around for his food on mom’s underside right away. He found it before the two that were born before him!

A Few Photos In May

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

I was out and around the place yesterday and took a couple of photos of some of the animals we keep here on the farm, and a couple of spaces that I find interesting to the eye, every time I pass them by.

The first of these spaces is a window on the house. It stands in a wall that has only one other window in it, and has a curious appearance as an opening into the lives lived inside, and a wall with an otherwise unbroken pattern in this one area. I may take a deeper interest in it because it is closest to there I stand when I am working on the firewood for the season, and I have the time to stare over at it, and allow it to intrigue me.

The next space, below, is looking back at the granary. There is a mess next to it, it’s true, and I hope that by the end of this season that will be cleaned up and the granary will look much cleaner, maybe even painted, soon. I have always been fond of that building, and how it was put together. It would still do its job well if that is what we used it for. It is fairly rodent tight, and where it isn’t, it could be fixed easily. It also stays cool, even in summer.

Here is one of our two pregnant goats, due to deliver about a week and a half after this picture was taken. The picture below is her daughter, also due about the same time. The black and white goat delivered a couple of weeks early last time, and lost the baby. Any time after this picture was taken is her taking the baby closer to term this time, and exciting! Finally, the goat below whose eye only you can see is the one we bought at a pet shop in Pocatello a few years ago, and bottle fed from then till when she was old enough to wean fully. She was promised to be a fine goat, and able to breed. She has never taken.

The picture following is of our Chucker, and one of our new Buff Orpington laying hens. The Chucker is a type of partridge. The hen is due to start laying around mid September. We have a dozen new hens in our egg flock.

Finally, this is one of the peacocks. He is the dominant of the two males, and had assumed the role of mate to both of the females. With any luck, they will one day lay an egg, sit on it, and hatch it. But I suspect we will have to let them live out, in order for them to do that. Right now they live in the egg coop with the laying flock.

Our little place is not a farm in the sense of a place that provides food for many people, but in the sense that it is where we live, and it provides some of the things which we need. It is also a place where we get to live how we want to, which includes a large craft space for Missus, and for me the ability to heat and cook and such on a wood stove. Our eggs are usually fresh as can be, and sometimes so are our vegetables. I imagine I will soon pick up a Holstein bull calf or two, and raise them for beef. I have done it before, and it was so rewarding, and provided a sense of security for the time we had the beef to eat.

I am taking the year off of gardening, and working on getting some other things done around here that require reworking. Honestly, I am hoping to pick up a small tractor later this summer. I read somewhere once that anyone who wants to make any kind of serious effort with farming absolutely has to have one. I have tried for a few years to do the work around here without one, and I can say for sure that the person who wrote that was absolutely correct. Plus, I am not getting any younger.

Satisfying

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

Mowing along the side of the road is very satisfying. It makes the land look well kept and requires only a little time and effort on the riding mower.

We own land on the opposite side of the street from our house. The house in the middle of this photo takes out a cookie bite from our llama pasture.

In addition to a clean looking place, it helps to keep the weeds from taking over, and lets the grass grow lush, and thick.

Hedwig is our youngest, most eager male llama.

The llama has less motivation to try to get through the fence if there is short grass on the road-side of it. The fence is a five wire electric fence, so it is usually not a problem, but if it grounds out, I may find out about that when I find the llama in the road, which is not ideal.

Two rows wide, this pile of rounds is what I picked up on Friday, giving us a decent little start to the year’s supply of firewood.

I picked up firewood on Friday, and when we unloaded it, it make a pile of rounds two rows wide. I think we must have got 3/4 of a cord or so. I am also cutting into some large trunk pieces laying in the field across the street, finally cleaning it up over there, and giving us wood that is dry, and ready to burn.

I used the riding lawnmower to test a concept, and cut some of the field on the back of the pasture down to three inches in length. It should be easy to find. It is in the form of the word “hi.” Maybe Google will give our greeting to the world this year!

The Llama & The Electric Fence

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

Early last year I was tilling away in a llama pen to try it out as a garden space. We grew some corn in it, but did not have the luck I had hoped for. Anyhow, when I was done tilling, I noticed the pile of hay that had been left on the ground in the gateway, so I decided to level it off with the tiller as I passed through at the end of the job. Well, darn the luck, I hit the jumper wire that carried the current for the electric fence from one side of the gate to the other. That killed a small section of fence between the llamas and where I have their hay stacked a couple of feet in front of their pen. Low priority repair to make, especially as it was spring, and the llamas were just moved across the street.

Fast forward to today, new bales of grass hay are stacked in that spot, and the grass across the street is not long enough to support the llamas at this time. When I went out to get the hay for animal feeding, I noticed a sizeable chunk missing from the bottom bale. Our brown and white llama, Flossy, stuck her head through the fence and partook right there in front of us! Priority repair now!

The fence left of these gates was not electrified because the wire that jumped from the right to the left was cut by the tiller.
This is a better view of what my guilty llama was doing, pushing through the fence wires and eating into that bottom bale.

My eight year old got a lesson on voltage and amperage, and what the job of an insulator is as we put in a new jumper wire under ground from one side of the gate to the other. We put tension back on the fence, too, and then turned the electric back on and sat and waited a few minutes till Flossy returned to the scene of her mischief.

It did not take long till Flossy came back to rob more hay. She put her head through the fence, then stepped forward. When her neck finally pressed hard enough for the fence wire to reach through her fiber and into her skin, she twitched a little, then pulled back, put her head up, then shook it. I don’t think she liked the bite of the fence, but she does like hay though, so she tried again with the same result.

This is what a mischievous llama looks like; well, up close, anyhow.

We knew then that it would work, so we packed up our tools and put them away. That served as a first part of little one’s homeschool lesson for the day, and then we came back out to go through her flash cards with her sight words on them. She got through them fairly well, and not once were we distracted by a llama trying to get through an electric fence to get to the hay. That means it is working properly, and doing its job.