Monday Morning Round Up ~ April 12th

It’s snowing!
😂😂😂
We spent the weekend getting ready for this storm, because it’s been predicted for almost a week and we knew we had to get things ready…

Hubby finished re-furbishing the former pig house.
Our last pigs were savages.
Literally.
The big male was chewing on the wood sides for fun.
They had toys, endless food, giant stumps to throw around and he still loved to just chew the wood off the side of the shelter.
He was something, that boy…and he was the *nicest* pig of the 3.
The girls were crazy assed bitches.
I have never been quite so happy to send animals to Freezer Camp as I was those pigs!

Anyway, Hubby got the shelter re-furbished, wood on the sides and a new door…then he fixed the gate to that yard and it’s now the permanent duck yard.
We didn’t replace the pallet fence yet, but it’ll be fine for another year yet.
Then we moved ducks.
How did we get sooooo many ducks??
😂😂😂
Oh.
Yeah.
It’s because we let the hens sit nests.
Speaking of…
Our best mama hen, Ripple, has 22 eggs under her.
Fingers crossed that she hatches them all (or most of ’em).
She seems to have adjusted to moving her and her nest fairly well.
We initially left her in with the turkeys, but turkeys is assholes and they were beating her up, trying to force her off her nest. 😡
So Hubby and The Kid caught her and moved her in with the rest of the ducks…gave her the eggs she was sitting in her own little space, and this morning, even with the storm wailing around outside, she was happily chirruping at The Kid whilst sitting on her new nest.
We are hopeful.
❤

Then everyone got new straw.
We’re working off the last round bale we bought in the Fall for the horses…so that means wheelbarrow load after wheelbarrow load moved to the poultry houses.
But it works well, even if it can be time consuming.
We just do what we have to, to make sure all the critters weather the storm safely. 🙂

Hubby pulled a new bale of hay out of the garage.
We’re at that point in the year where we start using the ones we have stored for next year…but because weather is so odd (she said while looking at the snow/rain coming down outside her window) we pull 1 at a time.
We pay way too much for dried grass to waste *any* of it!
And never, ever think I am disparaging our Hay Guy!
Oh. Freakin’. No!
He makes amazing hay that keeps my Merry Mares fat and sassy throughout the coldest of colds and wettest of wets, and he stands behind his product.
No complaints from me.
But I won’t waste a stem of it if I can help it, because hay is a precious commodity and that’s all there is to it.

Chicks got another light…
Thankfully we had an extra, so now they have 3 heat lamps…but really, there’s a lot of them, and they’re 3weeks apart in age and the Little Red Shed isn’t insulated…so we give ’em heat lamps to cuddle under…and everyone was doing awesome this morning.

Speaking of lights, my grow light is up and over my tomatoes now.
The peppers have been growing gangbusters, so are in need of transplanting. Especially the Shepherd peppers, where every single seed seems to have germinated and they are packed into their little cells.
lol
No complaints, I love roasted red peppers, so I’m happy to grow many, many peppers.
This year the plan is to smoke a bunch, dry them and grind them as spices for winter.
That’s part of the reason for the diversity in heat levels too…

And today we’re watching the precipitation come down.
Maybe we’re not too chuffed about it being snow, but it’ll be melting by Saturday and the land needs the moisture.
Like I wrote last week, Lake Midnight never appeared this year, that’s how dry it’s been.
While that seems awesome, that means not enough moisture in the land to get a good start on the growing season.
And here, the growing season isn’t just the garden, it’s the grasses that we eventually cut and feed to the animals too.
Nothing was greening at all. Just brown, dry and crunchy.
This will change that.
And hopefully, our May 1st celebration can include a Beltane fire.
We didn’t get to have our Samhain Ancestral Fire because of crazy wind and weather, so I am hopeful that this moisture will give us the chance to celebrate Beltane with fire.
As it should be.
🙂

Chunky Monkeys

It’s been a bit of a dull winter for photos, so this past weekend Hubby suited up, pulled out the tractor, cleaned some 💩 and then made the Merry Mares run.

Okay, so he doesn’t *make* them run, they just know the game…he shakes the tractor bucket, they get silly, (running, bucking, kicking and rearing) and I take pictures.

Then, when it’s all done, there’s rub downs for sweaty horses and maybe a cookie or two.
And wine for the photographer. 😉

Is it time for cookies?
We’re ready for cookies, y’know…

First Snowstorm on the Farm

It wasn’t a huge storm, but just enough to cover the Farm in white and make having to pull the tractor out to clear it away necessary.
Hubby will do that in the morning, while I can up some kidney beans…I’m 33 jars away from putting up 300 for 2018.
Looking forward to what I can do in 2019 when I have a full year to work with. 🙂

While things are quiet, I’m working on my design for this year’s Christmas picture with the Merry Mares.
I didn’t do one last year (no surprise there) but I have an idea in mind for this year (and next) so I hope to get ‘er done tomorrow.
It’s supposed to be chilly, but the sun will be out and there’s not supposed to be any wind.
So nags must make with the pretties.

Our CinderBella is doing pretty darn good.
Had a few days where she needed previcox to ease the aches and pains of the arthritis, but things settled down for her as the weather did.
I was worried about how her jaw would handle the hay…but as long as she has enough to chew all night she does great.
It’s when they run out that her jaw stiffens up and she doesn’t want to eat. Of course, the best way to loosen things up *is* to eat, but horses don’t understand that. All she knows is it hurts.

So, we’ve gotten a big round bale of oat straw from friends, and that’s going out in the pasture for everyone to chew on as they please.
It’s taken us a bit to figure out exactly how to put it out for the nags…
I can’t put a round out in a feeder, because Sable.
I can’t just put the round out and let them eat, because it’s net wrapped and because Sable.
I don’t want to roll it out and have them using it as a toilet, because while there’s not a ton of feed value to it, there is roughage and chew/entertainment value, which makes a huge difference a. for arthritic jaws, and b. when it’s really effing cold (because horses keep warm by eating).

Finally, we hit upon 2 med. squares as the base, and the round placed flat on top. Cut the net wrap and let ’em chew.
That way they don’t soil the whole amount and they can pull off what they want to eat.
Fingers crossed this works well for our Sable.
The other two are so chunky…lol!
And, considering we’re headed into the coldest part of winter, fat ponies is no bad thing. 😉
We can whip ’em back into shape come spring.

Brrrrr!!

It’s been a chilly week!
But things here on the Farm are still chugging along.
🙂

The chickens are starting to lay with a little more consistency.
Finally!
We’ve waited a long time to get these eggie chicks to the point of lay. Soon enough, I should have some eggs that I can sell again.
That will be nice!
I’ve had a few green shelled eggs from the easter egger hens, but not many. I have 4 hens that should be giving me colours (maybe 5, I’m not 100% sure) but I’ve had 3 green eggs…and the easter eggers are older than the brown egg layers, who are getting a little more regular…

One morning last week though, it was really cold and I figured I best check the auto waterer to make sure the Merry Mares water hadn’t frozen over on them…imagine my surprise when Daphne dives under a board in the long grass…I’m thinking “oh shit, she found a skunk!!” but with no immediate stink blast, I figured that couldn’t have been it.
Nope.
Turns out she chased one of my little black hens off a nest of eggs…

16 eggs!!

Stinker had been out all night, instead of coming back to the coop, and was just plain lucky *something* didn’t find her in the night and make a meal of her!
But, she had 16 eggs under her, 10  of which were green.

Not knowing how long they were there, I took them away and float tested them. They seemed like they might be alright, but I still wasn’t sure. So, I cracked them all open.
Turns out, they were fine, though only a handful were fertilized.
Even if the all had been, it’s not a great time of year for chicks anyways…but I now know which hen could be broody in the spring. She, and a few other hens, will get separated off with the one rooster we keep to lay and set eggs in the spring for flock regeneration. Honestly, I’d love to get away from buying hatchery birds for eggs, if I can. And if I can get hens to do the hatching work that’s even better. I have no real interest in using an incubator.
I scrambled the 16 eggs and gave them to the chickens as a treat…their excitement at that made the sting of losing 16 eggs a little less painful.
lol

And then, there was Daphne and her stick…

“I want this one!”

Pulling the stick out of the hobo barrel fire pile…

“MY STICK”

She was rather proud of herself for getting it…

“I am triumphant!!”

*sigh*
My dog is weird.

Bobbing For Apples

Hubby was given a whole lot of apples.
More than 50lbs worth.
Nice apples too.
So, I sorted into “wine,” “eating” and “livestock” piles.
And then, we sent the Merry Mares bobbing for apples…

Astrid thought this was pretty awesome…until she snuffled in a nose full of water.
Then, not so fun!

Pretty Sable…I love her natural black eyeliner…looks so good on her. 🙂

😍😍😍😍

Sable looks disgusted at how deep Ruby was willing to go for an apple. lol

Got it!!
Nom nom nom

She’s rather dedicated when it comes to food.
😉

We still have half a 5 gallon pail for the horses, a crisper full for humans, and I just pulled the bag of apple mush out of the fermenting wine. That made little piggies very, very happy!

Next wine prospect…
Either concord grape or banana.
Or, maybe I’ll mix the 2.
Because that might just be interesting.
😉