Dispatches From The Farm

Make It Five

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

The little sickie of the half dozen chicks we bought today was lay down and breathing hard when I went out to check on it. I held it and tried to see if some water and feed would help it along, but to no avail. It finally looked up at me and its leg stretched out, and its eyes lost their life. It was so small, it only took about five minutes for the rigor to set in, and I was sure then that had definitely passed.

Silver Laced Polish chicks resting in their brooder.

It is sad to have such a frail little life go right in the hand like that. I had hoped for these chicks to be pets. I was hopeful it would recover and live out a long life here, but alas, it was not to be.

So we will carry on with the five which remain, all seeming quite energetic and strong. I had predicted this one would die while we were on the way home with it. But the others give no sign they are on such a path. They appear well. The one that died bent its neck back a couple of times before it went. I don’t think it was a sign of rye neck, but it may have been, so I will be watching the others for symptoms of it.

Our Brooder in right in the egg layers coop, along with peacocks and a Chucker Partridge.
The Chucker Partridge.
One of the Peacocks and a Cayuga duck in the chicken run in the background.

We Bought Some New Chicks

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

Silver Laced Polish, Straight Run

Today has been off to a get-er-done start, putting away the animal feed while we were out to do morning feed. After that, and arranging some of the new feed we bought to raise meat birds, we wiled the rest of the morning away, then went to do our grocery pick-up. We stopped at IFA on the way and had a look around at the chicks.

I noticed there were Silver Laced Polish on offer for $3.49 a bird, and knowing right off what those were, I thought they would be lovely in Missus’s ornamental flock, so I picked up the half a dozen they had left. On the way home we stopped in to get gas in the truck, and I had a look in the box, and right away noticed one of the birds to be laying down, so we give it a closer look. I don’t think it was just tired, I think it is either a day younger than the rest, or even a bit of a runt.

I suspect our runt will not make it to adulthood, or maybe even the night in the brooder. I could have separated it and kept it apart, but there is no strength in that, and I don’t really have a good place to keep it and to warm it as necessary. So I put it into the brooder, where it will live as it has done in the store brooder, and hope that the feed and access to water will help it grow and survive. If it don’t…

Anyway, we have some Silver Laced Polish chicks now. Five, at least. They are a straight run, so could be anything from all male to all female. We’ll see! I just Googled both the roosters and the hens, and be danred if I can tell which is which.

So, about that meat flock. I will have to run those through the assembled brooder on the floor with a light I will have to buy. That’s fine. They would outgrow the suspended brooder quickly anyhow. They will need to get out into a run quickly, too. It is sure going to be a different experience raising birds that grow up in only two months!

A Little Hard Work Today

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

Today I did a little more than I usually do on a Friday. We were too low to make it through the weekend on the animal feed we had on hand, and I wanted to do our first of the season firewood run. So, we did both today. I took the girls and went down to the green waste section of the dump, picked up some wood, then went to Walton West to get animal feed for out lot.

Truck and Trailer loaded with animal feed and firewood.

The dump was the same as usual. Once up on time, they opened a green waste section in the dump, and allowed people to drop off trees they have cut out of their yards, and from the looks of some of the trunks and large branches, pros are dropping off bits too, or maybe the city, because some of those pieces are huge. At length, they had so much dropped off that the managers dropped the ten dollar a trailer load fee, and have been allowing the firewood to leave for free in order to reduce the piles. Unfortunately that seems to only be keeping them from growing too fast.

We got our free load, and they smiled us through the exit gate, nothing to pay, and we picked up probably three quarters or more of a cord of wood. I cannot guess easily when it is all piled into the trailer as it was. We only get to do runs every other week this summer, as we will be spending the odd weeks with our grandson, and that may prohibit the time. It should still allow for enough. Much of what I picked up today was already seasoned, and dry enough to burn. Some isn’t. but we can set it aside into next years cords.

The trip to the animal feed was more expensive than usual. We made it up to $340, rather than our normal cost of just about $300. It may have been due to the added cost of chick starter and meat bird feed, though, so that is okay. We will be prepared for the meat flock as soon as I find some Cornish Rock hens on sale.

After arriving home, I decided that we had done enough work for today, and parked the truck ready to offload tomorrow. Missus and I played a couple of rounds of Age of Empires on our computers, and now we are calling it a night.

It was a busy enough day for this old man. The neighbor asked me to mow his lawn when I get a chance. He pays me a little for it, which I have told him he doesn’t have to, but I have learned that it is best not to argue so a person can feel square, and that is a contribution to the meat flock! I don’t think I will get to that tomorrow, as I have the unloading to do, and a trip to town to pick up our grocery order. And of course, as always, animal chores to do. It’s no good over doing it.

Two Days Of Wanted Rain

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

The view out the window yesterday and today reminded me very much of England!  It has been cool, but not cold, and rainy since yesterday morning.  It has been cause to keep a fire burning in the stove and to keep indoors, too! 

The rain seems to be letting up for now, and is forecast to have gone by tomorrow, leaving only a little cloud, and green grass!  I welcome it! 

Just as the rain has been preparing the environment for spring flowers to blossom, I have been preparing the kids for a summer of gardening ease, with little to do for plants, and more to do with plant beds and the yard, and animals.  While I look forward to a year off gardening, I feel a little empty already at the thought of growing nothing!  Something should be in the ground and something should be beautifying the place!  I try to console myself with the thought of getting the last trees for our orchard, and getting them started. 

Our focus will be shifted from the gardens to the overall shape of our space, and hopefully updating ‘how we work.’  We have an expensive repair to do on the house in the next couple of weeks, and I plan to spend most of the summer paying that off.  First, I did order a new laptop computer, because Missus and I like to play a particular computer game together, and that is our Friday night unwind, but my current computer, which is set up to be my weather station, is not configured for gaming.  I also want the freedom to sit in the smae room as her, so we can talk back and forth, rather than having to stop and type or to talk via headsets.  Yup, I’m 50, a hobby farmer, and someone who will be playing the same old video game I have since the early 2,000’s.  Well, we have all got to have a way to unwind! 

I also foresee the computer helping out with this blog, and with office type stuff on the farm, so no harm, no foul for buying it. 

Our grandson will be visiting us through the summer still, but only on every other week, so I will use the odd ones to get firewood, starting this Friday morning with a trip down to scope out the situation where I get it.  We are nearly down to four cords of wood, and need to start piking some up for the coming year, to get it split and dried as best we can in a single season.  Then I can get to work in earnest on next year’s wood, and be a full year ahead, at last! 

I had hoped to have a tractor in the yard by this year, complete with tiller and back-hoe, and a loader ready to lift gravel, hay, animal fodder, and firewood.  The big repair has got to come first, so any hope of a Tractor is shot till fall at the soonest.  There was so much I needed to get done this year, and it looks like it will have to be done by hand, or with the help of a neighbor, if he is willing. 

I may have been confused in the clouds yesterday, but it looked like the mountain was almost completely clear of snow already, which is a bad sign for irrigation this summer.  The western drought is very apparent here in southeast Idaho!  It is a huge reason I am glad the rain has just picked up again!

The weather ought to clear up this week, starting tomorrow, and we are forecast to see low 70’s by Wednesday. I expect to find soem time to get some things done, provided I am not too distracted with a certain game machine.

This weekend we had a son over to visit, which was lovely. In addition to enjoying his company, he helped up to set up two new beds for our daughters. Their room is nearly reset in a way they should be able to keep better organized and clean. That meant the stuff they temporarily dumped into my den got removed! I have a nice little space that is almost all my own, except that it is also a passage from downstairs to the bedrooms, and sitting room upstairs. Some people have a “Man Cave,” I have more of a tunnel.

Farm Kids Amaze Me

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

I grew up living the city life. Roadkill was something one would call the city to remove, unless one was brave, and in posession of a shovel, or the animal was a beloved pet.

Our second son came by today to pick up his son from a night over. As I walked him, his wife, and their son out to their car, he noticed that one of our cats had been hit by a car across the street. Damn! Second one this week! I said I’d get my pitchfork since I knew it was close, and my twelve year old daughter said she would go check which cat it was. I got the fork, turned around, and saw a look of absolute horror on our son’s face.

My twelve year old daughter prodded the cat with her hand, then picked it up and casually took it to the garbage bin and tossed it in. Son’s wife says, “She is badass.”

Yes. Yes she is.

I Have Been Eying One Of These

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

Summer’s are hot and working in the garden is miserable in the heat. The cool of the evening does not last long enough before it is too dark, so I have been eying up a lantern to light up the work after dark. Gardening can be done quietly, unlike working with the log splitter, so it is reasonable to want to do it after dark, when it is late. Just take a nap in the day, when it is too hot, and work like mad into the night. I wanted a Coleman lantern, but did not want yet to lay the money out for one.

Yesterday we went into Logan to see the antique stores, and on one of the shelves I spotted a new looking Coleman! And it was less than $20! We had the cash, so we got it, and I have brought it home, looked up the direcions and some how to repair videos that really showed me what’s inside and how to get things working, and between them, I figured out how to work it, and what appeared to be wrong with this one. The man at the shop said it would probably need a new leather in the pump, but by the time I got this thing apart and looked over, and the “fix” done, I realized that even though it was a 1973 lantern, it was in new condition. It looks like it may have been light once or twice, only. It needed new mantles, and I have them coming, but it is doing exactly what it is supposed to be other than being light.

So, I am excited to have this one bought and out of the way! I am also excited to have picked it up, then found others, looking much worse in another shop, for more than twice the price.

1973 Coleman 220H

I wished I looked as good when I was 48 years old! But then again, I don’t think this lantern has gotten as much use.

Home School Meets Homestead

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

It was a busy one today coming back from spring break and starting back into home school with our eight year old. I was in no mood for it, and I had a few things I still wanted done before getting at schooling in earnest, so it was a combo day.

I took little one with me to town after chores, and she helped me to get a new bar nut for the one missing on the chainsaw, and to get some nuts and bolts that were missing from some garden furniture we found stored in the barn from years past. She had to help me find the right thread, and size, and to count out the right number of bolts, washers, and nuts. Then when we went to the register I said to the cashier that it was a shame they didn’t charge by the pound rather than by the unit, and he said that he could if they were from the open top bins, which everthing was. I was expecting over ten dollars on the bill, but by the pound, it was only $2.12 for it all. When we got home, little one and I worked out our savings together! It was close to twelve dollars!

After the hardware store, and the chainsaw shop, we went to the farm store and bought a dozen of their older buff orpington hens to start us a new egg flock for the farm. When we got home, little one helped me set them up in their box with food and water, and we talked all bout the way we raise them and why we like to buy older chicks rather than downy chicks.

Little One also helped me to put together that garden furniture, and she was a part of getting the blades off the lawnmower, using a long cheater bar to help her turn the center nuts, and then we sharpened the blades with an angle grinder, and balanced them out best we could, then she helped to put them back on again. Finally she helped me to put the deck back on for the summer, and then clean up after ourselves.

We are ready for cold weather tomorrow with the possibility of snow. It’s just one more reason I like more mature hens better than starting the really young ones. Our weather is too unpredictable, and the box they live in is in the coop already.

We put the two white cochin hens from the egg coop where the peacocks live, to the pen the broody goats are in. That will allow us a much smoother transition for the chicks when they are ready to go on the floor of the coop.

I also put grass into the egg laying boxes to see if the peahens will pey eggs up there and then nest on them. Hopefully we will see chicks from them soon. It would be nice to get them out of the coop, but we don’t plan to till then so the peafowl are protected as they are a steep investment.

Little one also read her sight words in the car on the way back from town as practice. Home School on the homestead is nothing, if not pratical!

It’s Spring Alright!

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

Yesterday was a nearly perfect day, with temperatures rising to the 70’s, and plenty of sunshine to keep us going. And go we did! Well, alright, it is not like I am a twenty-something workaholic, but I rounded up my two daughters and got some chores done. They were good about it, too, and argued over who got to go with me in the afternoon when I asked for someone to volunteer to come help. “You go!” “No, you do it!” So I let them both come out and help!

In the morning we did the usual animal feeding, then started working on the other projects we need to get going in order to set our little farm back to being a farm again, rather than a petting zoo. That’s my one main farm goal this year, to get the place producing protien, and not producing a pet feed bill that does not get reimbursed by what the animals are good for.

For the rabbits, this means we had to dig the little portable cage out of the storeage and then rotate rabbits through it while we move their cages from seperate spots in the back yard to a place in the big chicken run, where their cages will be incorporated into a fence and set so the rabbits will have a run, and the chickens will be able to get under their cages to clean up after them. If any two animals can look after eachother in some practical way, they should! One less job for the farmer! We got two of the big cages moved yesterday, and just need to move the three little cages today, then we can start building the fence for the bunnies in preperation to let them take tunrs by gender running around for a few days at a time.

For the chickens, I set up the homemade brooder in the egg coop where currently four peacocks and a pair of white cochins and a chuckar are residing. Getting that brooder in there means getting it out of the way of anywhere else on the farm, and putting it where the droppings and mess will fall to the floor of the egg coop, alone with all the other mess in there, which means still one less cleaning job for me! I need to get a couple of parts for it, and dig out the feed and water trays for it, but I could in theory easily get birds into it today and get them going, so whenever I see them on sale, that’s the time to buy. Or anytime, really, because of chicken math.

I was informted by my twelve year old of a pig problem I have. Our potbelly boars were found outside of their cage yesterday. She cooly put them back onr own, but I suspect they will be out again today. I sure wish I had a backhoe I could dig their perimiter with, and plant their fence into the ground a couple of feet to prevent them digging under it. It’d be a big help! Then I could attach the normal fence to the top of that for above ground! Luckily they were not inclined to go far, so they were found bedding down in the llama pen, in which their pen resides. I like pens in pens for animals prone to escaping. It gives them a second stop and usually they explore there and find it sufficient to satisfy their want to move on.

We have a cat problem as well. Two of the barn cats gave birth recently. One did so in one of the goat pens, so her kittens had to be moved to allow me to rotate goats around to get the billy away from the two does that will deliver late next month. As soon as my daughter put the kittens someplace perfectly safe, their mother decided my shop was even safer and moved them there. We have not gone looking, so they could feel settled.

The second cat problem has come with the other mother putting her litter down on a stack of large hay bales, that I have no means of moving, and some of the babies apaprently dropped down between the bales, for they were missing, and that is all we can figure out. There were no sounds by the time we realized they were gone, so we stuffed the gap with loose hay to prevent her last one from following, and I expect I will find the others when I get to that bale and get it apart.

Lastly, yesterday we had a weird one in the chicken run when my youngest daughter pointed out to me that one of the hens started flailing around for some reason, possibly related to a stampede of birds, though I have no idea! I said it looked like it would be dead pretty quick, and we went to the shop to grab a tool and were back within five minutes, and she was as dead as a doornail. We still have no idea why. There was no blood. Chickens are strange that way. They can be tough as nails and dead as doornails just as easy. I decided it was time to se ehow the eight year old did with dead animals, so I asked her to pick up the hen and throw her in to the big pig’s pen, and she did with no hesitation at all. I might have finally found the kid who will take over the farm!

Now, to answer the obvious questions just raised in the last paragraph;, who deals in livestock deals in dead stock also. It is just the nature of things on the farm, and to think otherwise is horribly naive. While American life is now largely insulated from death, out on the farm it is just part of the natural circle. As for feeding meat to the pig, our big pig is a pet, and she is used to till land and dispose of things that are manageable. She is good at what she does, and she is loved like some folks love their dogs. Without practical purposes though, it would be hard to justify her expense as a pet. Coming in at and 400 pounds, she is a big eater. But she has uses alive rather than just as the traditional plate of bacon. We are quite fond of her for that, and for her big puppy-like personality.

Today I need to get the female rabbits moved into their new spot, and if the urge takes me, I might go up to the local farm stores to see if they do have any chickens on sale. I got a plucker this week, and am pretty much ready to process meat birds. It would be helpful to fix the barbeque to heat water on it to scald the birds as a part of processing them. That will require getting a new propane tank on it and seeing if it is indeed water in the old tank that is causing the regulators to freeze over. If I get to it, it would be good to get the hospital pen cleaned out and ready to take either any ill animals or baby calves we get. It is currently being used as a dump for some of the things I needed out of the way in the autumn. I will have to get whatever comes out of it to the dump though, or out of the way if it is still useful, because I would like to get some firewood next weekend and start processing it, which reminds me, I need to get the Service Yard tidyed up and ready for work. Then when all that is done, I can start the annual barn cleanning and try to get it further prepared to become my new workshop.

So there is where I am at this fine Saturday morning, and now that my mind is awake and back in the game, it is time to get a good breakfast down me and get at it all. I wonder which kid will volunteer to help out?

Today I Moved The Weather Station

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

I moved the weather station at about noon today from the back gate between the llama pasture and the garden to the gate at the service yard. It is about nine feet up still, and it is facing north with the solar panel faced south. I have not verified the direction other than to sight it off Sedgwick Peak. This puts it closer to the house, and all I can do is hope that that does nto obstruct the anenometer or the vein for speed and direction of the wind.

I had to make this change because of the new pivot irrigation line that went in on the neighbor’s farm last year. I had moved it then and thougth it was far enough that his last head would not fill the rain guage, but, I was wrong about that. Being one who is not going to say no to free water on the yard, I let it go, and let him keep spraying the place. I am sure I can give a reasonable estimafrom last year’s records of what the rain equivelant is of his sprinkler head, but having been out there and sprayed by it myself, I can tell you it is like being hit in the face with three or four gallons of water from eighty feet or more.

I won’t be collecting water in the rain guage from his irrigation line this year. It would take a pretty good wind to carry it in now, and if it does, it probably deserves to be there. I am almost out of good places to put the weather station without putting it across the street.

The weather station appears in good working order, and operating correctly. I think it would be a good idea to order a replacement battery now so is here at the ready when the one in the station fails and needs replacing. I expect to be able to tell when it has based on weather not reporting in the nights from the station to the reciever inside the house. I don’t want to miss records, so that is the rationale behind this.

I have set up categories on the blog in order to be able to find weather station maintenance records herein.

Welcome Back!

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

After a little thought and some consideration on how the site had been going before changing hosts, and before I personally reached a lifetime milestone specific to those people who live half a century, I decided to archive the site, and start all over again. Mostly this is because of how the site integrates with the host we chose, and how much more easily WordPress works now than it did on the old host, and certainly much easier than it did when I first started using it all those years ago, and had to install and configure it for myself using an ftp client on the back end of the host. It all seems especially funny when I consider that a WhoIs search of both the new and old hosts provided the same corporate address.

I want to arrange the site differently than before. I hope to keep the blog posts as a journal of the farm, but I also hope to keep useful information in static pages on the site. Such useful information was ending up in the blog before and was not useful there, at all.

Our little farmhouse is part of our homestead, a seven-ish acre plot in extreme southeast Idaho, in the Rocky Mountains, where the winters are often harsh, and the summers are short. We are small, and our farm is intended to help support a craft business run as a side hustle by my wife, hereafter known as Mrs. Bacon. We are in a home that has hosted families for more than a century now; originally part of the Cassandra Whittle Homestead, and built here by her son, William Whittle. The home is storied, and so are the families that have lived here. For some time, we are now a part of each other, the home and our family.

Our family formed in 2002, when Mrs. and I married and lived in the UK for eight years, where she is from. We came here to America in 2010 to help my grandmother with caring for her ailing husband, and we ended up with the house as a part of that. Both grandma and grandpa have passed on now, and we are forging ahead with our little farm. As of this writing, our family at home consists of me, Kelsey Bacon, my wife, Katrina, and our two daughters. We have older sons who are grown and moved out now, but who show up here from time to time.

We are happy to have you along on this journey with us, as we experience life in our chosen manner; more on that soon!