The spring waiting game

We are waiting on.....

Red the New Zealand rabbit, who should have a litter of kits by the end of this week, just in time for Easter.  But...yesterday she started gathering hay to make a nest and didn't make one after all.  She is the mama who had 12 beautiful, perfectly formed babies in January, but made a late-in-the-game nest on the wire floor of the cage and doomed all of her little ones to get chilled and die.  It should be considerably warmer when (if!) babies are born this week, but still, she needs to build a respectable nest for their chances to be very good.  

Waiting on....

The sheep, Iris and April, who are looking more and more chubby.  I did the responsible thing yesterday and researched what to watch for and what to do when a sheep has lambs.  It's good to have that knowledge so that my brain can wake me up in the dead of night and play out all the worst-case scenarios for me.  Yes, that's what happened last night, at 2 in the morning.  I couldn't sleep because I had read all the positive outcomes along with the stories of lambs that died despite everything.  My tired brain grabbed hold of the sad stories and had to pretend that my incompetence would cost us all of the potential lambs. 

The good side of this is that, if April and Iris are carrying lambs, we have one more month to prepare for their arrival.  Jethro, the "stud" black ram, came for his extended visit in the middle of December, 4 months ago, and the gestation for sheep is about 5 months.  May or June COULD be lambing months for this terrified new sheep owner!  And once we have successful births behind us, the next time it won't be so stressful.  :)  

Waiting on.....

The order of 100 chicks.  10 of them are Barnevelder, to start a new flock.  The other 90 are assorted heavy breed chickens, to raise for meat or for extra laying hens.  We'll only keep a small flock of Barnevelders through the winter, unless the new chicken coop is roomy enough for a few of the more interesting or friendly hens in the bunch.  The chicks were supposed to be hatched and delivered already, but cold weather has pushed delivery back to May 20 or so.  Since the new chicken coop is still under construction, this delay was a blessing in disguise.  Imagine housing 100 chicks in a sunroom or garage for 4 or 5 weeks, chick dust everywhere, mess everywhere.....  This timing will work out much better.  

Waiting on....

The new feeder piglet to be old enough to pick up from the breeder.  He is half guinea hog, half Kune-Kune, and we'll need to raise him for a year before he is big enough to eat.  Pig roast, anyone?

Also...waiting on a breeding-quality male guinea hog to put in with Miss Bea (also known as Anna Suey) the guinea hog gilt (female young pig), who we hope will provide us with our own purebred guinea hog piglets in early summer of 2015.  The breeder boar will be accompanied by one of his brothers who will no longer be developing as a boar (meaning, he's been snipped), and who will also be raised for a year in preparation for pork and bacon in nice white paper packages....

Waiting on....

The Cayuga eggs from our own 6 Cayuga ducks to hatch in the incubator.  They are one week down, 3 to go...  We'll keep them in a brooder box with a heat lamp for a week or so, then graduate them to the barn in a PVC and netting enclosure.  With any luck, the local people who contacted me about buying a few ducklings will still be interested as well.  If not, we might have quite a few duck dinners in our future.....

Waiting on....

The geese to start laying again.  After the goose abandoned 15 non-fertile eggs (after sitting for 2 weeks), I'm not sure we'll get any goslings from our 3 screechy American Buff geese and their gander.  But the fault might not lie with the gander after all.  I've been watching the Cayuga male harass the female geese.  Since he grew up with them, he seems to be a bit confused as to whether they are "his", and it's even worse because the gander is not chasing him off.  (Picture this:  4 light brown and stately geese, letting out earsplitting screeches and dashing clumsily around the barn or barnyard as a much smaller black duck waddles full-speed after the prettiest goose, chasing her into a corner and being a general nuisance that the geese can't seem to free themselves from.)  It's kind of amusing, but I'm tired of the unnecessary squawking and am about ready to isolate that one male duck from the other waterfowl.  (His name is "Randy", by the way.....somewhat descriptive and fitting as I watch him in full mating mode this spring--no offense to anyone in the reading audience, of course.....)

And last, waiting on.....

Our future Babydoll stud, a black ram lamb whose Daddy (Jethro) is the father of any lambs that April and Iris might be carrying.  If he's as friendly and prolific as his daddy, we'll be very thankful.   Jethro fathered most of the lambs born at Hillbunker Farms before our friends brought him here to spend the winter with April and Iris.  

Jethro's son is already named "Brock".  No, not short for Broccoli.  No, not for the newswoman on Chicago nightly news (I let out a cry of dismay when her name was posted during the news last night).  But for....the Pokemon trainer, "Brock", who is a skirt-chaser/romantic in the Pokemon TV shows.

Also in May, we will monitor Bessie the Dutch Belted cow's fertility cycle and call the vet at the appropriate time.  Rather than bring her to a bull, the vet has registered Dutch Belted bull "stuff" in deep-freeze storage, held for Bessie's artificial insemination.....  That quality bull (who so graciously shared his genetics) will hopefully become the donor-father for a new calf.  We're aiming for a "dry" period (milk production stops about 2 months before a calf is born) in December for a short vacation, and then a calf in February.  Not the warmest part of the year for a calf, but it's part of the plan so that we have even the slightest chance of getting away for a short family trip around the holidays.   

The month of May will bring lots of new critters to the farm, and with them comes the potential for future piglets, lambs and other farm babies bred from our very own DykstraZoo farm.  

Exciting!  Feel free to ask about coming out to see the babies in late May/early June.  

Laura
http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/

Clothes on the line

It's nice enough outside that I hung clothes out to dry on our make-shift clothesline.  It's mostly sheets, which are always nice and fresh after hanging outside to dry.

Half of the pasture needs to be seeded (I'm mentally breaking it up into manageable sections:  I picked up sticks and trash in the lower half of the pasture yesterday, so that's the half that gets seeded today).  I will provide some country amusement to any local farmer who drives by and spots me out there with my low-tech, walk-behind grass-seed broadcaster, trying to seed a pasture.  :)

We had just enough rain last night that the ground is nice and soft, so it will be a perfect sunny but cool day to put some fresh seeds out there.  Except that now I see the ducks and geese waddling through the area that I wanted to work on!  It will have to wait until hungry mouths aren't waiting to eat the expensive seed.

Trash in the small grazing area around the rabbit shed was bothering me, so that got picked up today.  

Yesterday I was out in that area too, pruning the ancient apple tree that had 5 main trunks, each one trying desperately to choke the life out of the others.  I cut all but two, making sure to leave the one trunk that was the only successful fruit-bearer for the past 3 years.  Little, shriveled up, blotchy and misshapen apples, maybe a Golden Delicious type.  Even the cows had to be convinced that they Hopefully, that one trunk will bear decent fruit this year, with a little help from coddling-moth traps and the unfruitful branches all around it cut away.

A couple dozen Cayuga duck eggs are ready to start in the incubator today, with hopefully a good amount of them hatching in 3 or 4 weeks.  The goose abandoned her nest after 2 weeks of faithful setting, and I found out that none of those eggs were fertile to start with.  I'm hoping that the ducks are doing better in their baby-making attempts.

 Lunch today was nice, and home-made, which makes it even better.  I opened the first trial jar of a garlic dill pickle recipe, and could hardly stop eating them.  (Cukes were from our own garden, surprise, surprise, and recipe from Carla Emery's book "The Encyclopedia of Country Living".)  

I made cottage cheese yesterday with a gallon of milk, and the cheese was so fresh it was squeaky (think tiny cheese-curds, with cream).  Today....that cottage cheese was delicious and no longer squeaky.  Perfect for lunch.  

And....last fall I canned apple slices in cardamom pod-vanilla bean syrup, using local apples from the orchard that's just 2 miles from here.  We had some with dinner last night, and I finished off the rest of the jar with my lunch.  

Top it all off with a glass of cold milk from Bessie, and I was feeling quite proud of myself, the homesteader wanna-be.  :)

And now I'm off to the feed store for rabbit and dog food.  The wind is picking up and clouds might be rolling in.  Hopefully the sheets will still be on the clothes-line when I get back!

Laura
http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/

Spring projects and plans

Photos:  Work getting accomplished on the new chicken coop.  

On to spring-y type topics on this blustery 60 degree day:

The daffodils are starting to poke through the matted leaves in the garden, now that the snow is gone.

Michael cut down a spruce tree that was getting quite large and looking really nice....except that it was right where the next raised bed for veggies needs to be installed.  (See the Christmas tree story for photos)

The manure piles are smelling f-r-a-g-r-a-n-t, and not in such a great way...but much less of a "sharp" smell than when they first thawed.  Maybe when flowers start to bloom, that lovely scent will cover up the composting-manure scent.  Wishful thinking.....

The composted manure from last year is rich, black, and crumbly, perfect for gardens and for rejuvenating tired lawn soil.  So there IS hope for all those rotting piles that are smelling up the air......  The real problem is that I couldn't move the manure and bedding far enough away from the barn this past winter, so the blustering wind is whipping right over the piles, around the sides of the barn, and into our driveway and yard.

  

The snow is finally off the driveway, leaving behind mud and the squashed remains of the few pumpkins that didn't get fed to the animals before that first big snow.  We should probably get a truckload of crushed gravel to re-cover the driveway this summer.....but that's not exactly at the top of the to-do list right now.

The piles of dog stuff all over the yard are slowly disintegrating, which means we won't be gathering them out of the yard before they become fertilizer.  We'll have a nicely polka-dotted lawn, assuming any grass grows back out there at all!

The new chicken coop has a floor and one wall built, all on top of an abandoned but still usable foundation that matches the existing chicken coop dimensions.  

A dozen turkey poults will/should arrive in early April.  I ordered White Holland turkeys this year, a heritage breed which was very popular before the broad-breasted white turkeys took over the grocery-store scene.  We only want/need to raise up half that many, so.....does anyone want a few baby turkeys to raise?

New Barnevelder chicks will be arriving before the end of May.  A shipment of hatching eggs (Barnevelder) should be arriving sometime in April.  The Barnevelder flock will be recreated, and housed in the brand new chicken coop where there is no trace of the deadly chicken virus.  A new chicken yard will be fenced off, keeping the few remaining infected chickens in the barn far, far away from the new flock.

With the snow gone, we can see where deer came into the yard, bedded down under bushes, and trimmed many black raspberry canes and other bushes, trees, landscaping.  Thank-you, deer.....I think!  I had been wondering why the bushes looked a bit more tidy than usual.

Buddy the guinea hog "feeder" will be one year old in June.  A new piglet (KuneKune/guinea hog cross) will take his place as the resident "feeder", as Buddy heads off to be......someone's dinner.  That won't be a fun day, as I've grown to like the noisy and boisterous hog.

A breeding-quality guinea hog male is reserved for us from the same Wisconsin breeders where our Miss Bea (guinea hog female) came from.  The male hasn't been born yet, but could be ready to come here by the end of July....hopefully we will have our own guinea hog litter by late spring 2015.

A black breeding-quality Olde English Babydoll ram lamb is reserved for us at Hillbunker farm, where our ewes Iris and April are from.  If you read the story of the sheep getting stuck in the snow, the black ram (he looks chocolate colored) is the new lamb's daddy.  (You can see a photo of the baby ram-lamb on my Facebook page)

We are hoping for lambs from Iris and April next month, but aren't sure if they are pregnant or just covered in very thick wool!  (Iris was in the photo of the sheep in the snowdrift, the dirty-wooled white one).  I wrestled with both of the ewes to get the wool trimmed away from their eyes.  They had so much of it bunched up on their faces that they could NOT see a thing, and bumped into my knees, the wall, the partition, each other.....as they tried to avoid me before I caught them.  Now they gaze at me warily, but at least they can see again.

Prince Charming, the steer calf that we brought here in late May of 2013, should be heading to greener pastures to graze all summer at a friend's place.  Target date?  Mid-May of this year to leave our farm, so that he can fill out for 6 more months before.....um....becoming white-paper-wrapped packages of beef to fill our freezer and the freezer of our friend....  Sad, but true.

Hmmm.....not much else to report.  The manure management is certainly going better than last year, although there is more of it to deal with.  I have sections of the barn cleaned and scraped already, and, with fewer chickens out there this year, it should stay much cleaner and much less dusty.  Spring cleaning!

Time to rig  the electric wire around the cow's area, so that I can contain them before seeding the pasture.  Charming and Caspian have gotten used to walking right through the wires that were electrified last year, and Charming even munches on them when he's bored.  It will be a rude awakening when the "zap" is restored.....

Laura
http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/

Midnight's courageous last stand

It happened about a week ago.  Rocky (the husky) and Midnight (the 16 year old black house cat) came face to face in what they both wanted to see as the battle to end all battles......   Rocky cornered the old cat, Midnight hissed and yowled, Shadow (the lab mix) tried to join in.  But with just one swipe of the paw, Midnight left a claw embedded in Rocky's nose, dangerously close to his eye (hmmmm....no more wondering whose claw it was that almost cost Shadow her eye a few years back!)  Rocky blinked in surprise and moved back just enough for me to grab his collar and haul him back to the kitchen where he belonged.  Midnight stood her ground and won, as always.  But it was the last time that we could afford to let them come face to face, because she started a rather rapid downhill spiral just a week or so afterward.

We said a long and heart-wrenching goodbye to our formerly spunky kitty this weekend.  She became more and more frail before our eyes, surprising us when she was still alive morning after morning.  This morning (Monday), she has finally given in.

  

Midnight came to live with us when Michael was one, Carrie was 7 and Chris was 10.  A long time ago in a place far, far away.  She was barely 8 weeks old and we still lived in Palatine.

There was a tiny flea-bitten motel on highway 14 in our neighborhood.  It was the kind of place with a small office and numerous tiny, individual buildings, like cottages, but very dated.  It didn't last too long after our story begins, but it was there long enough for our first family cat to come into our lives.

Our neighbors let us know that there were kittens there, and asked if we wanted to go and look.  Just to look.  I said something along the lines of "Don't expect to bring one home.  Dad would NOT be happy."

The kittens weren't tame, and one was so terrified that it hid behind the couch.  Not wanting to go away without seeing ALL of them, the couch was pulled away from the wall and a tiny black kitten was scooped out.  Of COURSE it was black.  Most of our house-pets seem to be in the black color scheme.....

Our neighbor assured us that we should have a cat.  (She was right!  Thanks, Fran!)  :)

Chris carried that kitten all the way home, holding her close so that she didn't escape.  She was "free", until you took into account the kitten shots, the supplies, the vet visits, the spaying.......  

We arranged everything that the kitten needed in Chris' room, so that she wouldn't be overwhelmed by the activity of the busy household.  Little did we know, we were choosing for her to become Chris' cat.  She still chooses to sleep on Chris' bed and purr on Chris' lap when he comes home.  With the rest of us, she is much more stand-offish, not much use for us unless SHE chooses to curl up next to us during a nap or some such show of rare affection.

Our old dog Clarabel wanted to be friends, but the new kitten would have nothing of THAT idea.  Friendly Clara came up to sniff the little ball of fur, and the kitty immediately began a growl that was much too big for her tiny size with every hair standing on end.  Clara whimpered and cringed, and never again tried to be friendly with that cat.  This was the dog who went on to delight us by shepherding numerous litters of foster kittens around the family room, but no, Midnight would NOT be friendly with the big black dog. 

When Chris moved to the basement bedroom in Palatine, Midnight's home-base was still the old 2nd floor bedroom, but she could sometimes be found sleeping on Chris' bed, high up off the floor down in that basement room.  She would perch wherever she wanted to be, and look out through half-opened eyes as if to say "Bother me if you dare".....

We moved to Woodstock, disrupting the cats' routine.  Sly (the 2nd black cat) did just fine, and was soon dashing outside to explore.  Midnight was 13 years old by the time we moved, and spent most of the first 6 months in the back of the basement.  She finally worked her way up to the 2nd floor, much to our relief.  Living in  a dark basement is no life for a cat!

She settled in and would come downstairs only when the dogs were closed inside the kitchen, or in their cages, or at night when they sleep by our bed.  Rocky the husky doesn't shrink back from her, and when Rocky gets riled up and won't leave her alone, Shadow the lab-mix forgets the "leave her alone" command and joins in.  Midnight would perch at the top of the 2nd floor steps and glare down at the 2 dogs, with her front legs crossed and her "I'm so superior to you" expression firmly in place.

If you've been to our house and noticed our cats, we've probably warned you "The cat with the collar is the nice one.  If you pet the other one and her eyes get big and black, leave her alone".  Midnight is the one without the collar, the one we would have warned you about.  It was a very special person who could win Midnight over.  That cat was like a shadow when she didn't want to be seen, slinking slowly and deliberately through a room to avoid being noticed.

The vet was concerned about her last summer, because she had lost so much weight.  

She has gone through bouts of not eating and then doing just fine again over the past year.  

We've gotten used to vomit and other messes on an almost daily basis.  (Luckily, the floor upstairs is wood and much easier to clean than the cheap carpet in the Palatine house....)  

I started paying for canned cat food because Midnight no longer paid any attention to dry food---nothing more than a disdainful sniff and then a slow and dignified turning away.  The canned food I bought might agree with her for a while, and then she would start leaving messes as it came back up.  

Sometimes she came downstairs to use the litter box in the basement, but more often she would find a blanket or towel that had been left on the floor upstairs and relieve herself there.  You can imagine that the 2nd floor has not been the most pleasant place at times, because of "cat" stuff......messes, smells, black fur, you don't always know what you'll find anymore when you go upstairs or when your feet hit the floor after waking up in the morning......

All of this has become the new "normal" over the past year or two as she lost more and more weight.

When she turned her nose up at the special food I bought for her last week (a top brand, expensive, "specifically formulated" for cats 7 years or older), I supplemented with a can of tuna here and there, or a can of cheap food (which she ate ravenously and then later deposited on the floor of Jeremy's room).  :(

She came downstairs in broad daylight on Thursday, meowing for water and acting confused.  She NEVER comes downstairs during the daytime, because the dogs see her as a challenge when she deigns to descend from on high....

I weighed her on Friday when she came downstairs again, wobbling on her feet and not interested in a freshly opened can of tuna.

I called our vet from Palatine on Friday afternoon, (who has remained the vet for all of our house pets and even for the barn kitties).  She wanted bloodwork done at a local clinic and possibly x-rays.  Midnight didn't last that long.  I knew she wouldn't be going to the local vet for any testing as I hung up the phone.  

Sometimes, situations like these remind you of the compassion that is part of who your children are:  Jeremy and I set up a nest of blankets for her, which she has used on and off over the past few days.  Jeremy helped to search for her every time she crawled off and couldn't be readily found.  Michael set up a pillow for her one night, complete with comfy towel over the top of it and bowls of water and milk (in case she wanted one or the other).  I cried when I saw that little act of kindness.  Everywhere she went, it seems that I opened a fresh can of tuna for her, just to entice her into taking a lick or two of liquid.  There are empty cans all over the house now, eagerly finished off by Sly when Midnight could not rally herself to touch them.

I didn't think I'd be sad when her time came.  You know, cleaning up cat vomit and other messes doesn't make for a happy house-keeper.  Smelling canned cat food every time you come in the front door, or getting blasted with "oops, I didn't make it to the litter-box" smell when you walk upstairs.....that gets old after a while.

But she's been part of the family for 16 years.  She's seen a lot, been through a lot, lasted through the years of Clarabel, hated Sly from the moment he joined the pet family, put up with Shadow who was never scared off like Clarabel was, and holds Rocky at bay until cat claws are sticking out of his face when they're done fighting.....she has been endearing in a stand-offish sort of way.

Much to my surprise, this has turned into a weekend of tearful goodbyes, plural.  We said goodbye to her so many times, and the next time we checked on her, she was still hanging in there.  We debated putting her out of her slow misery, and when it came right down to it, couldn't bring ourselves to end her life in any way.  We continued covering her with blankets and following her through the house making her comfortable.  

Hers was the life of a mere cat, but I would like to think that we gave her as much dignity as possible as she faded away.

There is a pet graveyard under the redbud tree out in the front yard.  She'll join Charlie, the barn cat who was hit on the road (and who she would have hated with a passion!), and numerous pet rabbits, and we'll search the property for a white quartz stone speckled with sparkly gray and black highlights to commemorate her life.  

Too many memories are welling up right now, but suffice it to say, despite the years of cat messes, the slightly-stressful naps with Midnight on top of the covers sending the silent signal "You'd better not even THINK about moving or I'll claw your ankle", the stains on carpeting, the loads of extra laundry because "I don't feel like using the litter box today", the unexpected flare of black eyes that meant "You'd better NOT be thinking of petting me right now", the cat claws left hanging out of dog faces.....she was part of our family for better for worse, and it will feel a bit empty for a while without her.

  

Laura
http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/

Too much freedom

Photo:  Jethro and Iris, stuck in a snowdrift on their first day out of the barn while April looks for grass in the background.  Fright takes flight!

The south double-doors are finally unstuck.  No water is pooled outside in the south yard.  No ice dams or snow banks to keep the doors firmly in place.  No trickle of water is freezing under the doors to keep them jammed in place.

I wedged a shovel underneath, lifted the door just a bit, and sure enough, it had thawed enough since yesterday that the doors could slide in their cement "track".

So.....time for some freedom!  It was cause for celebration, and I thought the animals inside the barn might like to join me on the OUT side.  (It did not occur to me that fright might be something to consider, when there was a whole, safe, fenced and supposedly familiar pasture of freedom and fresh air waiting for the cooped-up critters.)

The doors have been frozen since about the time Bessie's calf was born, back in November.  With all the snow and frigid temperatures this winter, that meant the doors STAYED frozen shut, and that the ducks, geese, chickens, and 3 sheep did not get out of the barn.  Until today.

The door creaked open.  I tugged it inch by inch, until I could wedge myself in between the two doors and push hard enough to make an opening between them that a roly-poly sheep could fit through.

I waited until I knew that the ducks and geese had ventured out into the sunshine, figured that the sheep would go in their own time, then went inside the house.

Jeff came to the door just a little while later (he'd been out working on the chicken coop).  "Umm.....you know how you wanted to trim the wool around the sheep's eyes?  This would be a good time.   They can't move."  

"WHAT?!!"  Not sure what he meant, I looked out the back door.  

Iris and the borrowed black ram, Jethro, had wedged themselves into the last remaining snowdrift in the middle of the pasture, completely immobilized and docile, with both Caspian and Charming (the steers!) sniffing them curiously.  Bessie was watching with mild interest and chewing her cud.  April (the other sheep) was bleating some distance away, but at least I could fool myself into thinking that SHE wasn't quite as dumb as the other two.

First things first, I gave Bessie some grain in her stanchion to keep her away from the stuck sheep, then lured Charming to the post where I secure him in the mornings during milkings.  Caspian isn't quite so brave without big foster brother Charming to get into trouble with.

It was kind of funny.  The two sheep were wedged in tightly, shoulder-to-shoulder, black/cocoa wool next to dirty-white wool, with front hooves not even touching down, chests resting on packed snow.  They must have been running full speed and just plowed in.....  When we approached, they looked bashfully away.

Not knowing if Iris is pregnant or not, I tried to hoist her carefully, but that just wasn't going to work.  I had to grab fistfuls of wool on either side of her shoulders and yank her out of the snow so that she could get all 4 hooves onto solid ground.  She plowed into the pile of brush in the firepit.  That was my first clue as to just how wool-blind she had become with her winter wool covering her eyes.  Carefully, I hoisted her again and directed her to solid ground.

At least Jethro could see to move away from the snow when I yanked him free, but he, too, plowed into the fire-pit and had to be rescued twice.

I herded Jethro and Iris back to the barn, noticing how poor Iris bumped right into things as we tried to direct her path.  They were glad to be back in familiar surroundings (one-foot high winter bedding, soggy drywall, chunks of melting ice from frozen water buckets, abandoned chicken roosts, a bit of hay left that they didn't eat earlier, smells of the barn wafting into "their" area).  Home sweet home. 

Out in the pasture, April had tried to follow the 4 waddling geese, and gotten lost in plain sight in the middle of the pasture.  She was wool-blind, too, veering TOWARD every tree trunk and dark object, as if she was searching out dark-coated Jethro for safety as she tried in vain to locate something familiar.  I had to eventually grab her by the wool as well, and drag her back to their barn entrance.

Poor things.  If they ARE pregnant, I don't know how careful I should have been with them or if today's escapades will have a negative effect.  Certainly, getting them back to their imaginary "safe zone" should count for something.  Continuing to bash into things in the pasture or getting hung up on a simple snow drift and stuck there for hours would not have been good for a pregnancy, for sure.  

And if they are pregnant, how will they react when I go out to trim the wool from around their eyes and they freak out at that?!!!  Because it's obvious now that they need some trimming in order to see like they should.

I thought about how a sheep-dog would have come in handy this afternoon as I closed the doors just enough to keep the sheep in, but to still allow the geese and ducks to come and go.  It wasn't hard to imagine sheep stuck in a snowdrift becoming dinner for a predator, or to realize that sheep dashing blindly at full speed could really get themselves hurt.  Strange to think that poultry with their tiny brains just MIGHT be smarter than sheep!

Being relatively new to sheep-keeping, there was a valuable lesson in today's antics.  Sheep don't need the whole pasture at the end of 4 months of being enclosed.  Even though the "whole" pasture is only an acre, it was too much.  They should have been introduced very gradually.

Next time, they will be able to see where they're going (safety step #1), AND they will get freedom, just not too much at once.  A little at a time.  Just enough for a tiny sheep-brain to process before a mad stampede into a waiting snowdrift starts.

Laura
http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/

Bessie's milkshake (brings all the boys to the yard)

Actually, it's "Bessie's manure piles bring all the birds to the yard".  

Photos:  The 2 steers, Prince Charming and Prince Caspian, lounging on soft comfy manure piles; and the current 3 poop-making machines

There are mounds and mounds of winter-bedding-and-manure-piles, moved just as far away from the cow-shelter as possible.  Which isn't that far, given the snow cover and temperatures of this past winter.  Working with man-power (mine), a pitchfork and a wheelbarrow, it was usually possible to plow through the snowdrifts for just a short way before the wheelbarrow dumped over on its own accord.  Mounds of composting bedding, which the steers think is the perfect spot to perch, play king-of-the-pile, take a nap....

On a different note:  I've noticed flocks of birds migrating through recently, and the return of many colorful birds:  purple finches, cardinals, slate-colored juncos, chick-a-dees, maybe even a cedar waxwing or two.  The annoying starlings are in the area, migrating through to go farther north, thank goodness.  Sparrows are arriving.  

Here's where the two ideas (compost piles, birds migrating through) collide:  

Yesterday I went out to the cows' area, and stopped to watch Bessie's steer-calf for a bit.  

He was distracted, ears perked forward, ready to bolt at the slightest frightening scenario.  The cause?  Some little birds that were making a racket in the big spruce tree by the manure piles.  Had to stop and think for a while, but....he was born in November.  This was his first baby-experience with birds other than pigeons.

The birds were waiting for him to move along, so that they could swoop in and glean bits of cracked oats and corn from the composting piles.  Usually, the chickens, ducks and geese would have eagerly taken care of that, but....poor birds, they are stuck inside the barn along with everything else until the south doors can be opened.  Bessie gets grain to keep her contentedly munching while I milk her, and also to keep milk production up.  It doesn't all get digested, to the great delight of chickens or other foraging birds.

The piles and piles of manure are feeding a multitude of wild birds which scatter when I walk out there, or when the cows plod through, or when the steers kick up their heels and frolic in the muddy pasture.  

To paraphrase a sort-of-popular song from a few years ago:  

"Bessie's manure brings all the birds to the yard"!  :)

I've always been someone who wants to put bird feeders up to attract the birds and who loves watching the flocks of birds as they enjoy the banquet.  

Who knew that owning and cleaning up after a cow could provide the same bird-watching fun, without the extra effort or expense?!  :)

Laura
http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/

A shower of filth

It felt like spring a few mornings ago, so, after finishing the barn chores, I started ripping out more drywall and insulation from the barn.  I'd been filling in the dirt pit at the southwest corner of the barn, and noticed that the 15-year old drywall was a bit soggy around that section of the barn.  So I started one day, and today I was ready to do more.

It seems like there is enough moisture in the barn that the drywall nearly fell off as I tugged on it.  The new roof is keeping out the rain and melting snow, but the dirt pit has water standing in it and the run-off from the driveway is seeping under the front barn door.  There is plenty of moisture in the air!

A note about the "dirt pit".  We don't know what it would have been originally used for.  Our realtor suggested that it might have been where a cistern for where rainwater was collected.  There are rocks in a circular pattern just under the surface of the soil, so that could be what is was intended to be.  There is a matching dirt hole under the elevator on the opposite south corner of the barn.  Old barn plans that I found on-line also show a similar-aged dairy barn with manure areas at two corners of the barn.  That's probably most likely:  When the cows would have been lined up for milking, any manure left behind could have been scraped into a corner and left until there was enough to clear out.  Just a guess.

At any rate, the dirt pits are about 10x10 feet, and the dirt level inside of the pits is now below the outside ground-level and are well below the floor-level inside of the barn.  When the snow is melting outside of the south end of the barn, the run-off works its way under the double-doors on the south end, into a crack in the cement floor of the middle section, and into the dirt pits on either side.  In warmer weather with a heavy rain, the water runs down into the middle of the pit and disappears.  In winter, with freezing temperatures, there is a sizeable puddle that freezes INSIDE OF THE BARN.  Not good for many reasons.

A note about the foundation wall on the south side:  It is obviously 100 years old, if the rest of the barn is that old.  It has been cut into (destabilized) to widen the doorway in the center.  It has some cracks that have been patched, but that seem to go all the way through the wall in several jagged places.  The double doors are off-kilter because of the slight tilt of the wall.  The interior paneling is bowed.  The support beam that runs from north end to south end dips down as it gets toward the south end.  With eroded dirt inside of the wall, and old cement-yard and occasional standing water outside of the wall, the water situation is causing the foundation wall to shift ever-so-slowly so that the top is tipped slightly outward and the bottom is rotating in.  

Worst case,  nightmare-quality scenario?  The south end of the barn could collapse as the foundation wall gives way.  If that happened, any and all work and money poured into preserving the barn would be lost.

Probably more likely?  The wall will hold past our lifetime and something else will fail first.

That's the background for the "filth" story.

So, back to the unbelievable "shower"......

I've been filling the pit in question with anything that will compact over time and become, well, "filler".  It SHOULD be filled with gravel, and then topped with cement, and there should probably be heavy-duty cables or something to anchor the foundation walls into the "filler".  Or, to do the job right, we should lift the wall, pour a new foundation, and re-set the wall on top of the new/improved/stable foundation.  For now, what I have to work with is used straw, compost, and fragmented drywall.

  

I was merrily ripping into the drywall ceiling above the pit, when I caught a glimpse of nibble-holes in the insulation sandwiched between drywall and the old ceiling boards.  Rat droppings were visible on the edges of the insulation section.  The brown paper backing looked like Swiss cheese once the drywall was taken away.  That's when I know proceed with the demolition a little more carefully, no longer ripping and tearing with delight, but treading carefully and tentatively.  

Half-a-century's worth of lime white-wash flakes falling down from above where you're working isn't pleasant, but a quarter-century's worth of rodent droppings is about as bad as it gets.

I carefully ripped the brown paper backing of the insulation away from the staples that have held it to the ceiling boards, eased the section of insulation out of the ceiling channel, and had to hold my breath as a shower of rat droppings rained down.  Luckily, I was not directly under it.  

We know there has been a rat infestation, and that alone would be reason enough to remove each scrap of drywall and insulation.  Where are they hiding?  Just about everywhere.  The drywall and foam insulation in the wall, and the fiberglass insulation in the ceiling afford the most beautiful rat-tunnel escapes, perfect for scurrying out of reach of the barn cats and making as many nest sites as they could ever care to use.

This shower of filth?  This must have uncovered the rat HUB.  For years and years the rats must have been using this as their family outhouse.  The carpenter who lived here probably put up the drywall and insulation at least 20 years ago.  The rats must have found the perfect place to expand their tunnel system soon after that.  Right above the dirt pit.  Where no cats could follow.  Where no human being could suspect the absolute enormity of the filth just above the innocent-looking drywall ceiling.

You would have thought guinea pig families had taken up residence, that's how big some of those droppings were.  Grandpa rats lived there with their entire country-cousin families.  Old straw that predates our 3 years of living here had been used for years of rat nests.  Insulation gnawed to the point that it was hardly there at all came down in dirty clumps.  The filth extended into the wall, where damp straw and a century of wheat husks and rat mess filled a rotting area that had been hidden by the soggy drywall.

When I finally had to leave to get a breath of fresh air, the cats were moving in, sniffing curiously for fresh scent.  If for no other reason than to remove the hundreds of safe places for rats to hide from being hunted, the insulation and drywall MUST GO!   (But beware of the still-living rats watching intently from undiscovered vantage points, tittering with glee at the humans who try to avoid getting showered with their left-behind filth!)  I've had a half-grown rat jump at me from within the insulation that I was tearing out, more than once.  The drywall has to go.

Today:  The points are in my favor.  I'm sure the rats will set another "trap", an abandoned and even more filthy hide-out, and one day the rats will be rewarded when they can laugh at my expense.  But once that drywall is removed, their avenues of escape will be few and far between!

 

Laura
http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/