V&B

Rex & Fiona and kids

Victor & Bridgette

Happy 5 month birthday to these two! They turned 5 months on the 28th :)

Our baby swine are no longer babies. They are growing out really nicely and are still so sweet.  Bridgette is quite the bossy little lady and will push her brother out of the way when it comes to food. However, poor Victor doesn't fight back, he is pretty chill actually. He' like, "Okay Bridgette, whatever you say" so passive. 

It's hard to say exactly how much they might weigh, but they are looking bigger all the time. That could be because of the fallen fruit from the pear trees. They don't seem terribly interested in their evening meal recently. New plan, just put out food for them and see if they are interested after filling up on pears and grass and clover. 

We are still planning to process Victor come winter time, we'll see how he looks in January or February. 

We Couldn't Break Her

Over a week ago Tom put Betty into Broody Jail. She was in jail for the amount of time that we leave hens in jail that usually sufficiently breaks them of wanting to sit on eggs.

Not with our Betty. She went broody really fast after being released back into the general population. When we figured this out, it was Friday (August 21st). During our evening after dinner routine I had enough of her wandering around and making her broody noises. I broke down and said we need to give her eggs since she has found her calling in the chicken world. A world that has NO rooster by the way...I gave her duck eggs. Again. Last year she hatched out a couple of ducklings in May and then again in late summer. from the four that she hatched, we still have one.

Betty with Walter & Leona

We started something with her by letting her sit on the eggs and it appears that she is not willing to end her mothering ways. Granted she is a good momma. She takes REALLY good care of her babies! So well, that we are not allowed to come within grabbing distance of her or the babies. Let alone look in her general direction - sometimes.

Back to the eggs, we (I) gave her three. She also has a nest that is better for when the ducklings hatch and she'll be able to get them out of the garage whenever she likes. Last year she chose a storage tote that had some straw or and pine shavings in it to set up her broody hen shop.

This is what she has this time -

An milk crate placed in a storage bin that is on its side

Her very serious look

If she continues to be broody, I might just let her be broody. Depending on how things go with the turkeys she might be our ticket to adding more White Holland chicks to our flock. However, she is so protective that she might not allow the poults to join their own kind once they are hatched. We'll have to watch the turkeys and see if they will be broody. Turkeys raising turkeys would be my first choice. However, if we had to, we'll turn to Betty for her incubating services.

Farm Life, Best Life with a broody hen!

Just a Slacker

My last post was July 20th?!

Yeah, I'm a slacker. There are days that I think that I'll pop on here and post something just to update a little, but it doesn't get done. I might have too many things to do.

So, what have we been up to here? Well, nothing and everything!

We FINALLY tagged Miss Bridgette's ear and I sent in the registration form electronically on Tuesday. We'll get her certificate in a few weeks - she is now officially counted in the AGH population. Before we could submit anything we needed to tag her. If we don't then it will never happen. Case and point - I have had the tags and the pliers for about a month. These both were moved out into the garage and as we all know, out of sight out of mind. So finally last weekend I decided to retrieve the pliers and at least bring them into the house. Plan A was to get her tagged before last weekend was over. However, the junior swine had both spent the majority of the weekend in the wallow since it was so hot and they both were muddy like all over! So, plan B - we wait until Monday and see just how much mud she still has. Fortunately, it wasn't as hot and they didn't mud spa a ton so it was time. Before we did anything, Tom watched several videos on how to tag a pig's ear (where would we be without YouTube?) We had eaten dinner and were ready to head outside for the evening and gathered up our supplies and got to it. Bridgette is a good girl, not real squirly at all and she let Tom touch her ear and use an alcohol swab and stuff. After he had cleaned her ear she plopped down on her belly. That was a good thing since I would be the one attempting to keep her from moving around. She didn't really move or make any noise until the tag was applied and then there was a medium squeal and then it was over. Tom DID it and Bridgette is now bonafide!

Our girl is officially Windswept Bridgette

Since my last post we lost one of the turkeys. My suspicion is that it was one of the males and it was sparring with one of the other males and somehow got tangled up in the netting and ended up strangling itself. This was a very sad thing since I LOVE the turkeys so much. They are so sweet and not mean at all. They are so curious and when they are happy and exploring a new place like my garden, they making a really cute chirping sound. This morning I saw that we have two lil Toms. DANG IT! I was really hoping that we only had one. They both were strutting around and looking for some sort of reaction from the girls. Just like real guys...right?

They spent a lot of the day in the garden. Surprisingly, they didn't destroy anything. They spent a lot of time picking at the weeds and taking dust baths. Plus, it's a good play pen for them. They just do their thing, chirping away and find a little shade when they get too warm. They are so curious, so when they see something new they will examine it and then proceed with caution. Once they feel safe then it's back to happy chirping and exploring. Everyone should have turkeys!

Oh, so let's address the garden. This year's garden sucks. BIG TIME. I don't know what happened, but it is so very discouraging. The only thing that is really doing well (better than decent) would be my Salvaterra tomatoes. With everything out of control everywhere else, why not my garden too? 

The bunny population has been higher than I've ever seen it in all the time that we've been here. Even the larger bunnies are able to squeeze through the fence and we suspect that they have been nibbling on the tomatoes that are lower on the plants and probably topped all of the bean seedlings. A suggestion from a friend was to attach burlap to the bottom of the fence to keep the bunnies out. It's worth a try, so we now have 100 yards of 12" wide burlap. We'll see if it is effective. 

Three pounds of tomato goodness

Even though garden boxes are doing MUCH better than the crop garden, there are still a couple of things that are not working out great. As soon as I'm able, I'll harvest the ripe veg and then pull up the plants that are in the boxes and get ready to do some greens for the fall and winter. I will still need to protect everything from the stupid chickens, but that a small price to pay for fresh eggs daily. 

While I'm completely disappointed with the garden this year, I think back and realize that not every garden was a lush and productive as last year. One year I couldn't even get flowers to germinate! There's always next time. 

Yesterday I did a canning project. My friend Lorna came over to learn and help and we had a wonderful visit. We talked and laughed and did enough work to get the jars filled and into the canner before she had to leave. She is a treasure and I wish that covid wasn't a thing anymore so we could do more stuff together. Maybe in the near future we could do dinner or something. She is far more comfortable with not practicing physical distancing - where I am not, but with her I'm okay with it.

Today, Sunday, might be another day of canning. This time I will get the pears ready for canning. Hopefully the pear that I picked last weekend are close to being ready. It should be a nice project for a not so hot day. 

I've decided to make a long weekend so I'll be home tomorrow as well. So far the whole weekend has been filled with projects and activities - today & tomorrow will be no different.

Farm Life is a Full Life!