See what happens?

I post twice in one day then don't get this next days up until two days later....

It was the last warm day today.  All the ducks and chickens were out free ranging and enjoying the puddles.

 

These are both Wallace Homestead hatchlings:

Runner Juvie, and Muscovy Juvie.

Freezer Camp

New Leghorns & Mallard 9/25

Today is the day...sad day!

Duck Stew (younger drake) and Hen, and 8 of our older layers (including our 1st Buffy) are all going to freezer camp.  We are very solemn about this (despite how we describe it) as we know these wonderful birds will feed us this winter.  They have been loved (mostly) and we hate to see them go.

We also picked up from really inexpensive roos and hens from a lady about 20 minutes away, yesterday.  They are white leghorns (white layers).  The roos will also go to camp, and the hens will go into the flock.  She also gave us a cute mallard cross.  That brings the duck breed count up to 3.  I need to update the sidebar count. 

Boy & Mal

More beans....and it is HOT!

We are still harvesting beans and zucchini and anxiously awaiting tomatoes and peppers.  I am disappointed with the amount of cucumbers we've gotten this year.  Usually by this time we have had cucumber and tomato salad about 47 times....only twice this year....Sheryl:  The secret to the salad is to premake it and leave it in the fridge for about an hour (at least)...and sssshhhhh the secret sauce is.....italian dressing from the packet made up instead of from a bottle.  :)

It is supposed to be 98* today...with I think 150% humidity.  I don't mind heat it's the "stupidity" I don't like!!  But we need a few heat days so the tomatoes will start changing color. So....

The juvey chickens are doing well as are the young turkeys.  I let them free range yesterday and they came back to their coop last night.  We haven't had any more raccoon killings since the dogs have taken their posts.  I think it may be time for the cats to live near the house....I keep hearing mice in the house, and we've caught 2 in the past two days.  I have seen Tommy carrying a mouse so I know they are doing their job out in the barn.  Timmy (formerly Molly) is very shy and that's perfect for a barn cat.  Tommy is shy in the morning...but then in the evening, he'll come up to the gate to wait for us to come out and do chores.  He will climb up on the wood pile and get up onto my shoulder (I'm the only one not allergic, so I'm the one they climb on.)

Funny thing is that now Drake (the older male duck) is now following us around when it is chore time.  If you were afraid of ducks, this might freak you out as their way of communicating is hissing.  So he is always bobbing his head and hissing at me.  But this is not because of meanness....he wants dog food.  He will eat the "fowl" food....but yumm....if he can have some kibble....his life is complete!  So I made the mistake of feeding him some as I took food to the working dogs...and now every evening when we are getting everyone put to bed....he follows me everywhere...and I give in and give him a few morsels...pretty much guaranteeing that he will be back tomorrow!

So I get to go pick up my kid from camp in about 2 hours!  Woo Hoo!  And then we have a day of running around town doing errands (not his favorite thing to do....but I'll get to hear everything about camp!)

Oh...the carnage...and the miracles!

What a title, right??

I mentioned about the stupid critter (s) the are in our area....well more carnage in the past few days.

On Saturday, one of the white delawares.
On Sunday, Raindrop, our half-blind Comet that we nursed back to health...the second.
On Monday morning...poor Rooster BooCoo was not found...neither was three of the "guard guineas".  One or two of the guineas are the "loud-mouths" that call everytime something is amiss (in their estimation anyway-sometimes a shiny car is enough to set them off!)

The hens (turkey, guinea, ducks) will not sleep in the hen house now.  They are too freaked out, so they have been sleeping on the woodpile, the gas grill, the TOP OF MY CAR (!!!), on the wishing well, and who knows where else.  So I did some rearranging.  I moved the 16 juvenile birds that are about 2 months old, into the bigger moveable coop.  There were 3 new guineas, my new flock of turkeys (5), 4 new Buff Orpingtons, and 4 new Americaunas.  They were doing great in the little moveable coop, but with the forcast of storms, I wanted them to have more room.  So off to the bigger coop. Then Iona was moved to right outside the big hen yard.  Boy and I waited until dark and moved all the birds that were out nesting in the various places into the yard.

Next morning....ah, no dead adult birds.  Went around to the back of the hen house to the moveable coop..Oh my stinking head!  6 dead.  2 guineas (those must taste really good), 2 turkeys, 1 buff and 1 americauna.  And the guinea that is left, I will be surprised if it survives as it has a terrible wound across the back of it's neck.  We think it is a opossum because it only seems to eat the heads (Opossums are the zombies of the animal world!!)

Last night (Tues) Same routine, Boy and I waited until dark then rounded up the big birds.  Put Iona on her chain by the big hen yard.  And now Danny has a farm job!! He was hooked up to the moveable coop.

Hooray!  It worked....for now.  I didn't sleep well.  I kept having nightmeres of "something bad" happening to Boy's dog and being the worst-mom-ever.  But it went alright.  Now Kristl is the only 'slacker' on the farm!

Iona on guard duty

Oh, and the miracle....I almost forgot!!  Remember I told you we had 3 duck hens on nests.  The morning of the great carnage, I went out an found 11 ducklings running around the hen yard!! Yellow ones, black ones and both black and yellow! 

But wait...I figured it was the hen that had been out under the rabbit cages.  I went out to the barn, and low and behold...she is still on her nest....what?!?!  Back out to look at the flock.  Come to figure out...one of our original hens (a grandma as Boy says) who was unique in that she has one brown eye and one green/blue eye was out there....I realized I hadn't seen her in a while.  Quack (her name) had hidden REALLY well and she is the mama! 

Quack is the one with the white chest

And as soon as I said it...

We lost 3 ducklings last night and a baby chick too.

Bummer!!

And now the other two are gone too. 

You don't get emotionally attached to crops....this is hard.

New Babies!

I can't recall if I ever mentioned that three of our Muscovy hens went broody this spring.  They are all ducklings that were hatched out by one of our ducks Brownie.  So they are "first generation" to our farm.  After the first went broody, we calculated her hatch date sometime around Memorial Day. 

On Memorial Day Monday, she hatched out 2 ducklings.  Unfortunately, one didn't make it right off, and the second drowned the next day.  (You must be careful around water, wear your safety gear)

The same morning we found the poor unfortunately duckling that had not made it out of the pool, we discovered the other duck had safely brought her clutch into the world.  5 ducklings.  It's officially been a week today and we still have 5.  We are calling this one a success.

The last duck is still patiently waiting.  Her nest is under one of the rabbit cages in the barn.  It's the rabbit cage that the kittens go in to eat their food (The big chickens LOVE kitten food).  It's very cute as we have the door ajar and a blanket hanging over the door.  The kittens climb up the blanket to get in to eat.  A few weeks ago, my Boy brought me Molly...now known as Timmy (I told you...we are not cat people!) and all the hair was missing from his tail...and it looked raw and terrible!  The duck apparently had nibbled all the hair off as his tail hung down in front of her face.  The cats and the duck are good pals now as they share a water dish, and I have seen Timmy curl up next to Mama3, the only one that seems to be able to get near her without getting snapped.

Anyway....back to the babies.  Boy has made a moat through the chicken yard.  And frequently fills it with water.  We have discovered that the new babies love to swim in the moat under the watchful eye of Mama2, Mama1, and the Daddies (Drake and DuckStew).  Sometimes the Maiden Auntie (the only female that didn't go broody this spring) will also watch.

Here are some pictures to enjoy.

Quick Saturday Updates

So here it is the end of April...obviously it wasn't this month that I posted faithfully as promised in my 101 list...May...May will be the month!  (Oh, and there are updates on the 101 list-I'm slowly working on it as health allows.)

I wanted to do a quick list of what is going on here at the farm, in our little world, etc..(my BFF did a bulleted list and I thought...what a great idea!)

• Boy's play is today.  It is so cute.  He ended up being "Fozzy bear" from the Muppets.  I've had several mom's tell me that they knew he wanted to be Elmer, but that he was the perfect choice for Fozzy...."Hey..Ker....mit! Wakka, wakka, wakka"  They did it yesterday for the video cameras...today for an audience.
• My parents are back from their winter hideaway.  Glad to have them home.
• Easter was a quiet affair this year, because I got signals crossed.  So Boy cooked his first holiday meal and did a great job.
• I've had 3 more doctor appointments since I last posted.  Still have TN.  Still have depression aggravated by having TN.  Went to see another Dr last evening...changed meds yet again.  I'm sure they will figure out the right cocktail soon.  Another appointment next week (?) to be referred out to the neuralogist (sp?) as the attacks are still doing a number.
• We have two ducks sitting on nests.  They were the from the clutch of ducklings from last year.  We still have two drakes, but "Duck Stew" is going to be going to the processor soon along with a few of the hens.  I've never had duck, but have heard that Muscovy is the least 'greasy' of the ducks. 
• We are now getting about a dozen and a half eggs a day...along with a few random guinea and duck eggs.  But it is an egg hunt on a daily basis.  They have picked a few odd places around the farm that they all seem to like to lay, so we have to check the corner of  Boy's club house (horse stall), in the rabbit nest boxes (that are in storage), the corner under the rabbitry, oh and 2 out of the 12 nest boxes.
• We still have both kittens.  I took them out of the chicken brooder and put them in their own cage.  We I went back later, I apparently didn't latch the cage well because they were both gone.  After hunting through the barn (in the dark--only with a headlamp) I gave up and went to check on the baby chicks....only to find the kittens in the sleeping pile of chicks...Oh well!
• The garden is about to go in.  We've been working (in between the periods of pouring rain) to get all the stuff yanked out.  I'm going to try a different method of planting this year.  I was told by a local, that if you till the soil, it restarts the horseweed (otherwise known as ragweed!),  So at least in the tomatoes and peppers, I'll only till the rows where the plants are going and leave the rest untilled.  
• The root veggie patch will still be completely tilled.  I've chosen a new area to add corn.
• We are about to add some bigger animals.  We will be using Joel Salatin's model to have moveable pastures to grown broilers (chickens), a dairy cow and a few mowers (goats).  Possibly even a "salad bar beef" (Grass fed meat) cow, and a few pigs.  Also, we are scheduled to go look as some meat rabbits. (New Zealands this time.)
• This week will be getting the rabbitry bleached and sanitized for the new rabbits.
• Both the push mower and riding mower refuse to start and have taken the last spin, so we are looking for a cheap mower until the animals can get the fields under control.
• We have gotten a set of solar panels that we are excited to figure out!
• I have found some crazy ideas on the internet that I am going to see if I can make work here.  I'll keep you updated on this...but one of them involves lots of pop bottles, another a bunch of cans!  Good thing we like soda pop!
• We watched a DVD the other night, Food, Inc that reinforced our position of eating locally and in season.  I am still going to the grocery store...and I know our sodas are not healthy or local, but that seems to be the only thing I am buying there anymore.
• I changed the 1001 cupcakes on my 101 list to 800 jars canned.  And I have some unusual recipes for new jellies this year!

Well, my bulleted list is just as long as a regular post. And I'm not done!!  No, I'm not wordy at all!!  :)  I WILL POST EVERY DAY in May!!   Even if it is only short.  Tune in.

Ducklings getting big!

Our first clutch of "surprise" ducklings are getting so big.  It's fun to watch them dipping for water under the watchful eye of Brownie, their mama.

Second clutch of ducklings.

Blackie our Muscovy has been sitting on a nest....forever!

Finally she hatched out 7 ducklings (1 didn't make it)
Here they are just a few hours old.

Unfortunately, within about 5 hours of the last hatch, we found Blackie dead on the floor.  What a dedicated mama that she waited until all were hatched.

Blackie the Muscovy

The topflight has gotten knocked off the top of our chicken/duck run.  Most of the chickens don't even try to get out anymore.    But the ducks...that's a whole different story!

This is Blackie, one of the female Muscovy ducks sitting on the gate into the chicken yard.  All of our ducks are VERY docile.

Isn't she pretty (well, for a Muscovy at least)?

All of the pictures on this entry taken by Boy.

More New Additions..

Today we went and picked up 4 full grown Muscovy ducks. 1 Drake (boy) and 3 hens.  The plan was for ducks to be much later this summer, but there is a move afoot to make Muscovy ownership outlawed after March 31st.  I had to get them before the end of the month so I could be "grandmothered" into the regulations.  If you have them before 3/31 you can keep them for food production.  There is a large group of unhappy duck owners that are already working to get the regulation reversed, but in the meantime.....

The drake is the big one on the left.  He was not happy coming home.  He wouldn't fit in the dog cage with the hens so the breeder just zip tied his legs together and plopped him in the trunk.  Then further indignities, he had to be pulled to the coop on the wagon.still.zip.tied.

The one in the middle has one blue eye and one brown eye.  Then the tan one is a rare color of Muscovy.

The Muscovy's are for "Slug Patrol".  We have a problem with Moles.  The guy at the feed store told me the best way to get rid of moles is to get rid of the slugs as that's what they prefer to eat.  Muscovies LOVE slugs.  They are unique duck in that they don't need a pond/lake.  And they do not quack.  The drake hisses and the hens wimper.  They aren't the cutest things on the farm, but they'll do their job.  Plus I've heard the eggs are great for baking and they are the leanest meat of the ducks.