Fantastic Weekend…

Posted on by August 28, 2011

It all started on Friday. Shelly and Sarah, long time friends of ours, were coming out to the farm for the first time since we moved in. Sarah had never seen the place, only in the blog and Facebook pictures. She and Jessy are long time pals and have grown up with each other since little tykes! Shelly is her mom and my friend and we are were ready for the whole farm experience!!! Tours, livestock, petting zoo, mah jong tournament, good food and lots of chatting, laughing and silliness. Had baked chicken and fresh sweet corn and roadside stand peaches as well as peach ice tea and pepsis… spinach dip and chips… we were so ready! (Did I mention brownie bites??? Yummmm)

Well we just had a delightful evening, and even though Shelly had to go back to town… (darn job early in the morning!!!) Sarah stayed the weekend and we had a girls weekend of FUN! Of course, we had a big bon fire out at fire henge… Maggie and Sarah were our fire pyros and though they had a little bit of a rough start and needed a little girl scout fluid to getter all big and roaring… once it was right, it was perfect. We sat around and stared into the flames, laughing and giggling and just having a ball. After it got gooood and dark, we went back to the barn to peek in on the roosting chickens and Sarah got to hold her first hen and a rooster, too! Her hen was Eleanor, our most calm and friendly gal. It’s always fun to have folks realize that they are so soft and lightweight. She was in love with our little banty roo Josh, so we nabbed him for a little forced holding. He was indignant but hey, roosting chickens are like so easy to catch and hold.

Then we went out to our firework viewing bench and Maggie put on a show for us! It was wonderful…. can’t believe we don’t have anything but a fireworks store 2 miles from us! haha… That’s the country for you. Our shows are brief but beautiful. We’re more into sparkles and shooting things, than huge noises, I suppose it’s just a girl thing. We prefer to ooooooh and ahhhhhh at all the beautiful fountains of color and sparkle! Of course, a good bang or two does add to the over all ambience of the event!

Afterwards, we retreated inside for pop and treats and then the girls went off to their rooms to be silly little girls for awhile. I know they are 21 and all, but I was so happy to hear them in there laughing and being silly, and making friendship bracelets and playing with the little kittens. Maggie was so happy as well, joining right in the fray and all smiles and giggles as well. I hid out in my room for a little knitting and relaxing with a movie. It was so nice to have a whole weekend for RELAXING! I really don’t think we’ve done that since we moved here!

Of course, after sleeping in… we got up and I got a phone call from a lady off a Craigslist ad I had called last week! About a porch swing!!! I was amazed, it was still available and just about 10 miles from the house in the nearby big little city! So we decided to go get it and spend a little time there, grab lunch and shop a bit and do a little garage saling! Oh, the porch swing is so wonderful…. I feel like the farm is starting to be perfect… there is already two big metal hooks in the screen porch that I just knew had to be swing hooks and sure enough, they are. We were a little worried about sitting in it, and one by one we tried it out. It held fine and pretty soon, no one was worried! Haha… They are in a big solid board and seem pretty secure. I wouldn’t want to be rocking and swinging with three people in it hard, but that’s not really our style anyway. I spent a little time just sitting and holding Odin our angora buck, swinging in the afternoon breezes, soaking up a little sun. It was fantastic.

When we got done with our lunch and shopping, we came back to play bunny beauty parlor. Everyone loves holding and fussing with the angora bunnies, they are like bunnie Barbies and you get to do their hair and brush and cuddle them. Everyone had a bun bun and we were clipping and trimming and treating them like the little bunny divas they are.

I have to report that Odin and Grizzelda, the two mistreated bunnies we had gotten just about a month ago, they are doing fantastic. Odin, especially. He is nearly all groomed out of yucky hair and matts and his weight is finally starting to fill out his bony little frail body. He is so sweet and trusting and I was so amazed that I got a nearly two hour grooming session with him on Saturday! That was a huge thing… he was so content to just be held and treated and snuggled as I trimmed a lot of the yucky last bits out of his coat, especially on his tummy and nether regions. That is a HUGE trust thing, to be on your back and someone is clipping and brushing in your more private areas, he has finally relaxed and will allow that without a fight. In fact, he was really calm and content. I couldn’t believe it! I managed to get all the nasty fur clipped away and lots of tummy matts and such gone! He then went out to graze in the bunny tractor for a while! It was so funny to see him all stretched out in the grass, sunning himself and nibbling greens as the chickens wandered about and visited the bunny zoo.

Sarah loved holding Ozzy, our big German angora bun bun… they were snuggling and having a lovely time on the swing for a good long time. Ozzy is a real ladies man, and he loves attention from young ladies for sure! I think Sarah was surprised at how big and soft they were! She helped him with a little grooming aid, we think Gwendolyn and Grizzelda have been over grooming his cheeks a little too much and were making little fuzzy knots! They love to fuss over him all the time.

In the afternoon, our wonderful neighbors came down to help a little bit with party prep! Jr. and Carl had in their minds to patch up the pig barn loft roof! Well, okay… we were doing some chores in the back with the chickens, so it seemed perfect for a little work detail. There was a little patch of roof that had failed around the old chimney in the barn and they brought a bit of wood and ladders and managed to get it all nice and tidy in no time at all! I have to get a can of expanding foam to just seal up a little bit of it but I think we’ve saved that building from major deterioration this winter! Yeah!!! And then they got to work with a pair of chainsaws to remove a bunch of dead wood from the beautiful wind chime tree in the back! We love that old tree and now it’s all nice and tidy looking. Just wonderful! Miss Julia has been so wonderful with her glass and trash patrol… she’s been raking up and gathering bits of nasty stuff whenever she comes over, I think it’s a mission for her! I just love that she wants to help and can’t believe how blessed we are to have found such great friends!

The girls decided to make fire starters from pine cones they gathered on the farm, so that was fun to do after we were done with repairs and chores. It was like girl scout camp all over but with a touch of creativity and alchemy! We had read on the internet that chemicals such as borax powder, epsom salts and salt in the wet wax after you dip them, will create different colors in the fire! They wrapped the pine cones with yarn wicks and made a big old mess in the kitchen, laughing and dipping and creating.

We made BBQ pulled chicken sandwiches and chips for dinner and then waited for dark for another great bonfire with a little guitar singalong for fun. Ray, Jeremy and Amanda, our young friends from down the road, came over and we all had such a good time being goofy teenagers and singing silly songs and laughing at each other’s antics. I’m so thankful that I can be so young at heart that the young people don’t mind me hanging out with them. It’s so delightful that they can be themselves with this old lady tagging along.

We had a few fireworks left over from the night before, so that was fun to do. However, we had one special finale one that was the largest firework we’ve ever gotten! A 19 shot repeater!!! They had these $40 babies on sale, with a coupon for $9.99. One per customer. So I figured, why not? Wow… let me tell you, it was HUGE! And lit up the entire barnyard! And if we were in the city, we would have been visited by the cops in no time…. but out here? Oh heck, no big deal. I suppose IF we had any neighbors within a quarter mile of us, they MIGHT have been annoyed if we kept it up, but, it was only one. Haha… But boy, was it a DOOZY! Going to have to get one of those for open house party for SURE!!!!

And then we all walked out into the back pasture, far from the lights and star gazed! Sarah and Jessy are astronomy nerds and they love to watch the skies. They filled everyone in and we found the dippers and the North Star and a pair of planets and other cool constellations. You can see the Milky Way so beautifully out in the pasture. The night sky is so beautiful and vibrant, it’s like nothing you will ever see in the city.

By the time we were back in the house and snuggled in for the last of the sleepover weekend, it was just getting a little nippy. Oh, how I love this time of the year. Shorts in the day, sweaters in the evening. Super beautiful skies and just perfect perfect weather… low 80’s, 70’s and then cool 60’s for sleeping. I would have gotten a good nights rest if it weren’t for Miss Julia swapping me a book that I ended up reading all night long… that biography of Amber Frey, in that Scott Peterson/Laci Peterson murder trial of a few years back! Of course, a house of giggling girls playing games and watching silly hamster videos of their youth didn’t help! Haha… but it was so wonderful to have such a wonderful relaxing weekend finally! Of course, we still have 15 cards to finish before the party, but we decided on the drive home from taking Sarah back to the big city that it means each of us have 5 cards to finish in 2 weeks! I think we’ll make it!!! We’ll get started tomorrow for sure.

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend… can’t wait for this week to unfold… I think it’s going to be a great week of accomplishment!!!! I can feel it in my bones!!!

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Hard Days Work…

Posted on by August 25, 2011

We spent another day working hard on the homestead. That party is looming hard in our horizon and is making us work hard with a tangable deadline! Of course, we’re trying to do things at a comfortable pace… but we did manage to get 9 cards done today and still have 31 total for EVERYTHING we want to do to the homestead at the moment.

Not everything has to be done before the open house, so I think we did a pretty good amount of it all today! That felt great. And after we were done, I walked around and took a bunch of pictures. Of course, they didn’t turn out. Something is up with my camera. When I go to manual mode, it takes the shot, then says that the file contains no data. I spent all evening putzing around with photo recovery program demo, but none of them would recover them. Durn it. And I shot some really nice shots!!! Waaaa! I will test tomorrow and see if it happens with a test on the manual mode vs automatic. Or I will just borrow Jessy’s much fancier camera and attempt to take a few of the pictures again!

In the meanwhile… enjoy these shots that I took on automatic!

We installed the three cattle panels between the sheep shack and the barn. This way when we bring the sheep into the back pasture, they are not tempted to sneak into the garden or the weed preserve and then out into the neighbor’s soybean fields!!! Tricky little ewes…

This is looking west from the barn. We moved the hammock back here and our little hillbilly wire spool table and chairs. We find that we love sitting back here and watching the hens and the ewes and all. So much more fun then up front of the yard. I’m pretty sure we’re painting the little coop. I just don’t like the blue. I thought I would but something about it, I dunno, don’t like it. I think it’s going to go back to white. Weird, but I’m not digging it. Maybe red? Too traditional? Hmmm…..

This is the old foundation, directly across from the side doors of the big barn. Not sure if it was a house, or a farm building, but it seems like it might have been a house, since it has a front porch. Miss Julia and her boys worked so hard to rid this all of 4 foot high weeds! And they discovered a fish pond in there! It’s not holding water, so it’s in the plans to move all the rocks, and put down a new liner and then re-decorate it with the rocks and cool logs. We’re hoping it gets done by the party!

Doesn’t this little area just look so nice? I’m been trying hard to impress on my girls that we need to keep the place tidy and neat. They kinda roll their eyes at me when I pick up stuff they leave behind… pop cans, tarps, plastic bags from installing something, empty feed bags, whatever. But then they get it, when they see animals get hurt from junk from the past owners. Or they step on a piece of glass, or the mower flings out a shred of beer can stuck in the grass at dangerous speeds… it only takes a few minutes to pick up after yourself. And it looks so nice! We were sitting on the bench by the barn and Maggie sighs big and says to me, Mom, it’s SO pretty out here…. and I just smiled and nodded. Yep. She is getting it. I watched her pick up a little paper bag from the hardware store that got laid down while we were working and she smushed it and pushed in her back pocket. Good habits need a little cultivation. I’m sick of raking up trash and glass and crap that the previous people just left all over the place. They were loosing the place, so they didn’t care. We’ve spent HOURS and HOURS cleaning up the place like that. And have hours left.

Ahem. Sorry… on my little soap box there for a bit. Trust me, our place is far from perfect and we’ve been known to have the screen porch a mess and the mudroom… well, it can clutter up in a heart beat. And we still have a TON of sticks and weeding to do. But we’re trying really hard to watch that farm thing of just kinda dropping stuff and leaving it when you’re done. I drive by too many little places that are just cluttered with farm junk and stuff all over the place, weeds growing up over the stuff and then I drive by many places that are neat and tidy, well run and I think, there’s nothing much different about the farms… I mean, they both probably work just fine, mess or no mess… but in the end, it’s the well maintained and nice looking places that always seem to be a little more, well, professional, nicer, I dunno… they CARE about it and really work to keep it nice. Doesn’t have to be landscaped and manicured… it just looks like they spent a little time at it. And maintain it nicely. I want that for our place. It had it’s 10 years of looking like a dump. I want it to look nice, like the century farm family that laid the place down did. Can’t tell you how many natives are telling us that we’re doing a heck of a job… It’s nice to hear that. And they always add that the first family, they had one of the nicest little farms around, just super nice and so pretty. WIndhaven may have had a little rough patch there for a few years, but she’s going to get her looks back for sure. Might take us a year or two… but we’re trying hard.


The hens LOVE it when I mow the tall grass down. They follow the mower like they are on parade. There is always at least 8 or 9 of them trotting along no matter where I go. Today I mowed a few more strips in the back pasture, then all behind the little coop, under the wind chime tree and then all our nature walking paths. They run all the way to the back of the property, around the back pasture and then past the corn field and into our native weed preserve. (haha) That’s what I’m going to call it for awhile, because it’s pretty on the back eastern lot. It’s near our woodlot area that we’ve left wild for all the good things back there. Beautiful butterflies and birds, bunnies, and bats! We’ll probably eventually turn it into a big dug pond to help with the water runoff in the spring, but for now, I’m just going to call it the wild area. It’s really pretty… I’ll try and take some video of it all later on this weekend. I have one more big area to beat down and mow… around my big failed garden! I might have a few pumpkins back there but you wouldn’t know it for all the weeds and grown up grass and such. I’ll manage to whack it back this weekend… but I might need to get the weed whacker out first to lower it all for the mower!!! It ain’t a miracle worker and 3 foot high weeds is a little bit much for it!!!

We got tired of having to walk all the way back to the barn gate to then walk back to the coop yard. So we made a little gate out of a piece of cattle panel that I won at that farm auction. Just sank a post in concrete, so that if we want to some day build a cute little gate, we’ll have something good and solid to attach it to. Right now, it’s just a little wire panel, but it sure beats the heck out of walking back and forth. We figured that out one day when we had little Copper, our homegrown chick, get loose. And darn it, if that little dork figured out all he had to do was walk through the fence and we had to stop and walk all the way around. Once on the other side… he would duck back through the fence! It was funny, but let us see the flaw in our fencing design! haha…. It’s not a gate for general use, but more an occasional gate, if you need to get in or out near the coop.


Little nuggets sitting in the sun and peeking out the window from the coop. They seem very content in their little summer home. We weighed them today… only 3 pounds on average. A few were 3.2 or 2.14, pretty much 3 pounds. I also checked… they are only 6 weeks old this week… I thought they were 7! So I think it’s pretty sure that they will be able to attend the open house party! Yeah nuggets!!!

Our beautiful sheep paddock is all done! Complete with very sturdy cemented posts, a lovely 55 gallon livestock tub of fresh water, raked clean down to the dirt of trash and yucky stuff, and then filled with a whole bale of comfy soft orchard grass hay to nibble and lounge upon. Their mineral block is tucked inside their shack so that the rain doesn’t mess it all up and inside their shack, it’s filled with sweet orchard grass hay and a chicken or two for their bemusement. (The chickens just like going in there…) And of course… party lights for that festive evening ambiance. These are three spoiled ewes. I wish I could find some ram stud posters for inside, or maybe an animal cracker dispenser so they can self treat for those times I’m busy. I want to try and build them a little back scratcher… I catch them trying to rub on trees and fences but usually with only limited success. I think something built, just their height would be the most perfect thing to spoil them with! Haha… Yeah, they are definitely spoiled…

The way the gate is, when it’s open, it makes a sort of chute that makes it very easy to just gently herd them into the paddock. And the other gate can swing open to chute them into the back pasture area! Chutes and easy passage for sheep is a really good thing. They can be so spooky at times, so having nice gentle ways of getting them to do what you want is always desirable. I’ve seen those gals jump straight up in the air nearly four feet up without a single good reason! Mocha is like a springbok! She can leap sideways too! One time they thought a stick was something to be freaked by and every single one of them leaped over it like they were in the Olympics for high vaulting! So, yeah, having the gate work as a little gentle chute? It’s a good thing.


I’m so happy that Jr. replaced the rotten boards in our little bridge! We love the little bridge and when Jessy nearly fell through one, we’ve been avoiding it now. But he pulled out all the bad ones and now it’s as sturdy as anything! We’re going to give it a new coat of paint in the coming week, as we paint the outhouse and a fence and probably the chicken coop! Whaddya think…. is the blue just sort of wrong? What color would you paint it? White? Some other color? Red? Green? Light tan? Sigh….

I’ll try and take more pictures tomorrow!!!

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50 Miles of Rough Road…

Posted on by August 24, 2011


Finally came up with the best way to describe how I am feeling today…. “Like 50 miles of rough road…”

Now, mind you, even rough road is road that can make things happen, and I’m not bellyaching at all, just feeling a little worn out after the last week or so of activity!!! I’m quite sure I’m overdoing it at times and then it just plumb tuckers me out for a day or two afterwards! But when I think of all that accomplished… oh boy! That just makes up for any tuckering out that might come afterwards…

You see. I went and did it. I committed. I announced our Open House Picking Party Jam at the farm. Yes. I did.

September 11th, 2010.

Sunday.

18 days from now.


Now, you can see why I’ve been a little distant with writing and all! I’m usually so tired out at the end of the day, that I just haven’t got the energy to do so!

I’ve been putting this wonderful event off for months now. All my friends tenderly ask, prodding me a little to see if I’m going to actually ever set a date. And I would himmm and hawww…. thinking it over. I just wanted to get to a certain point in the renovations, you know, a sort of “ah ha!” point that felt right. Well at the Opry last Monday I had at least 150 people asking me… hahah… okay, at least a good couple dozen…

“So when you having your open house jam???”

Bluegrass people don’t ever miss out on a chance to pick, visit and pot luck. It’s pretty much the foundations of our whole music, you know. And I have family and such that seem to think they need a big old open house to make it right and bring in this new estate into the collective family memories.

Okay, okay. Fine. I knew it had to be a Sunday. Because there are too many jams and gigs for a lot of my music buddies on Saturday nights. And I knew I wanted it with a chance of a nice cool day and lovely night so we can bonfire and just enjoy the day without humidity and bugs and all that. Granted, there’s still a chance, because September around here can be pretty iffy in the predicability department of weather. But if I push it back too far in the month, there’s always the chance of it being a little too cold.

Yet I am competing with the 10th anniversary of that tragic day in September… and to top it off, it’s Grandparent’s Day! Well, if you wait for the perfect free day, you gonna wait forever, if you know what I mean.

You’re all welcome! Drop on by, if you’re in the area…. come and oogle the place first hand. Stop and visit and be sure to find me and say hello! We’ve got a Facebook page with all the particulars…. I’ll pop a link to it here…

PARTY INFORMATION ON FACEBOOK

Be sure to LIKE me, if you’re a Facebook fan. I go back and forth about it, but I will admit, often I will pop in there for a quick update or witty little statement or two before I will come here and write out something with much more thought and effort!!! (haha) So if you really need your Windhaven report, that’s a good way of keeping up with the Jones…. or well, the Chekals at least!

My lovely ladies…. in the afternoon sunlight.

Well, here’s a little roundup of all we have been doing.

Middle of the week, we got the house and yard all ready for a visit by Meshell and Pat… friends of mine from years and years ago!!! We hung out in high school and college days and then lost touch. But through Facebook, we’ve been chatting and texting and visiting and it’s like the time hasn’t even passed. They came out on Friday and they brought us a lovely used washer that was taking up some space in their garage!!! How cool is that? We just love these wonderful donated pieces of appliances to the farm! I always think so fondly of whom brought them when we use them and the graciousness of the offer just makes me smile and know that we have wonderful friends!

We had such a lovely visit and time to chat and walk about the farm. I never tire of sharing our plans and ideas of the place, trying to project a bit of the vision we have for this year, next year and a few down the line. So often, I just want to have it all done, as if there is some deadline, but I’m getting better at realizing, things just take time. Meshell and I have always been good at pinging ideas and brainstorming and I love how we just got right down to it, figuring out a few things, walking about and getting more ideas!!! Just wonderful!

We had lunch out in the yard under the shade of the big middle yard trees. And of course, we had about 20 chickens all watching us with curiosity and three ewes that would occasionally interrupt a conversation looking for a scratch or a hand out!!! It was really funny. I wish we had taken a bunch of pictures, but we were all so busy chatting and lunching, the afternoon just vanished!!!

Crazy thing though… just before lunch we managed to wrangle Lilly and found that the reason she had been a little skittish and LIMPING… was that she had picked up a little silver thumbtack in her hoof! It had missed the hard shell of the hoof and was pushed into a softer space!!! OOOOooooohh…. well, we got that out and she seemed relieved. I have NO idea where she got that, but then, the people before were very very careless with their trash piles and all over the place, that I’m not too surprised.

Well, after we said our goodbyes to Meshell and Pat, with much hugging, eggs and plans for another visit REAL soon… Maggie and I went out to check on Lilly again, as she was still a little limpy and I was worried about the puncture getting icky. Checked my sheep book… got a pail of real warm water and put in some Epsom salt…. got a little tube of anti-biotic cream and a couple gauze pads and a roll of livestock bandage wrap that I had for emergencies. Oh yeah and a pail of animal crackers and her halter. Haha… yeah, it was going to be a real first time large animal administering… and I had no clue what to do! I was a little afraid to try that sheep flip maneuver. Like that little picture.

Apparently, sheep have this one weakness. (Aside from animal crackers, donuts and party lights) And that is, if you can get them tipped back on their rump, they are totally immobilized. Shhh…. that is a HUGE sheep secret and I’m pretty sure they will be ticked to know that I just shared it with all of you!!! That’s how all those handsome Australian lads can flip and shear a sheep in 15 seconds flat, or something like that. It’s the flip.

Problem is, I’m looking at my sheep manual… the Storey Guide to Sheep…. and I’m reading the text and looking at these crazy diagrams and the first thing is… insert you fingers in the side of their mouth and reach over to grasp their hind leg.

What?

Fingers in the mouth?

And then grab a hind leg?

And they are suppose to just accept this ninja shepherd move that is going down on them? Huh? Hahah…. yeah right.

So I decided instead to invent the Windhaven method of sheep capture. I went in the paddock, with a big pail of animal crackers and the halter and lead in my back pocket. Of course Lilly followed me, she is such a cracker freak. After a cracker or three, I slipped the halter on. Of course, she was a little weary of that maneuver, but I let her put her head in the bucket afterwards so she was happy. Then I subtly wrapped the lead around the lawn chair I had brought and plopped myself in said chair so that she couldn’t leave. She stopped for a moment while inhaling crackers to look at me with that weird wary sheep eye, but then said, oh well, and popped down for another cracker. I got her foot up, thankfully, it’s a fore hoof and I could reach it and Maggie, my assistant, deftly plopped a bucket of foot soak underneath and we set it in the water. Lilly paused for a moment’s chewing, looked at me, looked at Maggie and looked at the bucket. I of course was talking in soft soothing sheep-spa tones and massaging the sides of her neck and then offered another cracker. She was fine with it and we got a lovely 10 minute soak outta the maneuver. Haha…

Once the soak was done, we slipped a little cream in there, a couple pads and a lovely loose but stable wrap job of her lower leg and the hoof. It was a beautiful purple wrap, and she eyed it for a moment, holding it up and pondering what had just happened. But then she popped it down, tenderly and was soon hopping all over the place once I let her loose.

But the wonderful thing… was that the next morning? I actually managed to get her flipped! Maggie was still sleeping and I didn’t want her hoof to get soft and too damp. So I just figured, darn it. If I’m going to be a shepherd, I’m going to have to learn to flip a sheep. It’s for their own good, and I’m not always going to have a halter, lead, lawn chair and cookies with me if an emergency came up. Maybe the cookies part. Cookies are always handy in emergencies.

So I steeled myself up, and walked out into the yard with a determined stride. Lilly and her flock ran over, as they always do, anticipating something good. I had a couple animal crackers with me, but not many. I offered one or two and then gave an apology to my dear gal for the event now coming. My first Ninja Shepherd manuever.

Well, I decided that the finger in the mouth thing was for whimps. So I just got ahold of her head and turned her towards me quickly. Then I reached around and caught what I thought was her hind leg, but instead was her front leg and then the struggle was on. She was on to me. She looked back up at me, still crunching her cracker, with a look of pure disapproval. I knew I had to work fast, so I rolled her back and somehow managed to get her on her opposite hip and again my knee, so I just did this weird little hop and managed to get her square up on her rump and right in the middle of my legs, with my arm around her neck and my hand holding her fore hoof in the air like some weird wrestling move. She graciously gave me her disapproval with a long baaaa and the other two hightailed it and left her to her own resources.

Sheep are really not good at sticking around for their buddies in a time of need.

I caught my breath. I had done it. I had a 50 pound sheep laying on my bum knee, staring at me with all the evil thoughts a ewe could muster. But she was still. No struggle. I cautiously let go of her hoof and it just sort of flopped down to her chest. I fished out a cracker from my pocket and at first she turned away. We were no longer friends. But then, oh, 15 seconds later, my little chow hound decided if it was going to be her last meal, she might as well take it and then I knew everything was fine. I unwrapped that foot, was happy to see that it was not soft, and was not hot to the touch, indicating infection, so said the manual. Her joint was not swollen, and the leg seemed fine, so I hadn’t wrapped it too tight! Success!

I didn’t want to keep her uprighted and feeling all exposed long, so I did a quick check of her other hooves, noted that they were nice and clean, and checked to make sure she didn’t have any weirdness on her tummy. Just a quick check for anything that would just leap out and smack me of being weird. Of course, as a novice shepherd, I’m not totally sure I would have known what to truely look for, but I can say that I have seen the tummy and udder of a ewe and it looked ah, fine to me. Of course, Lilly was a little indignant.

I just eased her over on her hip and forward and she lunged to her feet and put a few yards between us FAST. But then, to her credit, she stopped and looked at me with this weird sort of sheep smile. I’m not sure, but I think she was giving me a good grade on my first Ninja Sheep Flip. Or she was wondering if I had any more crackers. She hobbled off and found her disloyal flock mates.

I am happy to report that she seems to be doing better, putting weight on the foot, but still a little hobbly in her gait. I am hoping that she’s just babying it, and every day has been better. I’ve read a bunch and they all seem to say that sheep are good at going lame. But it’s not showing any signs of infection, or that sort of yucky stuff, and it’s not hot or swollen, so I’m hoping it’s just a ploy for more goodies.

Well, after that adventure, I decided that we needed to up our efforts in open house prep and yard cleanup. I enlisted the help of the neighbor boys and we all got busy! This is all we got done!!!

Dug and cemented the poles for the sheep paddock.
Hung the paddock gate
Totally raked and dug out the paddock and laid down fresh hay
Cleaned out the 55 gallon tub and installed it in the paddock
Picked up TWO feed bags of glass and metal junk from the burn pile closer to the house
Chopped off the tops of the branch fence!
Moved the latch of the branch fence so it works better
Replaced the rotten boards on the little white bridge
Trimmed the long locust tree branches that were hanging over the powerlines to the barn
Dug another post hole for the coop gate
Reattached the trim to the coop
Totally cleared away ALL the weeds from the old barn foundation
Found a fish pond back there!!!
Cleaned out the fishpond and gathered up all the rocks that were around it
Filled it with water and found it’s leaking, so we’ll get a new liner for it….
Weed whacked all over the back area
Mowed through THREE gallons of gas! (That’s like oh 9 tanks of the mower!)
Mowed a bunch of tall grass and all around the burn barrel and the cornfield and pasture
Hung a tire swing in the wind chime tree! (it’s sooooo cool)
Moved the hammock out near the barn
Moved a BUNCH of huge branches that we trimmed off some trees
Weeded like nuts all over
Cut down some little volunteer trees and cleared another weed patch
Added a big 3 gallon waterer to the little coop
Broke out some broken glass panes in this cool old decorative window
Gathered trash
Moved lawn chairs around
Cleaned the bunnies cages
And picked up a zillion sticks so we can mow better all over the place!

In two days!!! At one point there was six of us here all working, it was a very busy place!!!


Posts in place… gate not quite hung.

I wish I had taken more pictures, and I had but then my camera was a little funky and won’t let me recover some of the images. Darn it. I had a funny picture of one of the young chickens sitting on Lilac’s back! Pretty amuzing. But suffice it to say, we were all so busy, there wasn’t a lot of time for photography!

We worked into the late evening, finally deciding it was time. We worked again on Monday for many more hours and I was just beat! Everyone was starting to sort of droop a bit, so I think it was time to take a day or two off. Besides, Tuesdays are my Town Days… when I head to the big city for practice and a zillion errands.



I did get a few shots in the evening and this one was the cream of the day’s accomplishments… Maggie managed to catch Bucka Roo! It was pretty funny… he is really really good at avoiding capture. But he zigged when he should have zagged and she nabbed him! Funny thing is that he fussed a moment and then was quietly resigned to the indignity of being carried around for a while. He’s such a good rooster, I just love him to pieces!!! Maggie was SO thrilled… she’s never been able to hold him and so she good a good bit of time in, holding and talking to him. FInally she left him go and he ruffled his feathers a bit and cackled a pale little bit of annoyance and walked off. Of course, now, he won’t go too near to her at all! Unless she has donuts for him.

He’s a fool for donuts.


A few chicken cam shots. I love just setting the camera down on a rock or bench and taking pictures at chicken level. I think they are so fascinating. The white chicken is Floppy Chicken. She’s our only white leghorn and the only one that lays white eggs. Her comb is sooooo floppy, I wonder if she can even see outta that eye! She’s a funny little girl. She is quick and small for her breed but she hangs with the best of them, always right in the middle of the action.

I am happy to report that we have had another month of very successful chicken growing. All our nuggets are still with us, alive and getting HUGE! All my free range flock are doing well, and every night come to the roost. Maggie has been selling eggs left and right to her dedicated cast of fans and Tuesday is egg day for us! I made the mistake of using a couple in MY frig, not the egg frig and she about had a cow! Apparently, she needed the last three for her own orders and I had messed her up. With a sigh, she says, I’ll go check the ladies and see if they have any more…. and thankfully they did!!!

It’s week seven for our little meat chickens… and I guess that any time now we can take them in for finishing. I have decided that they get to stay for the party. They will be about 10 weeks when they go in for the final ride. I want them to continue to have a marvelous summer… what is so wonderful is that with the addition of our homegrown five chicks, now young pullets and cockerels, the nuggets have begun a sort of renaissance, a revival of chicken life. At first, they would never go outside, but the Bucka 5 do, so now the nuggets do. They eat grass and bugs and have even learned how to dig a little wallow in the dirt and sand bathe. They lay in the sun with the 5, and are even getting into little pecking wars with everyone, trying to be the biggest, baddest of the flock. It’s cool to see them patterning off the homegrown heritage chicks.

Still, this doesn’t mean I’m extending their executions, just giving them a little longer in the beautiful warm summer sunshine and all. They seem really happy, and just love it when we sprinkle a little crack corn out in the yard for them to scramble and scratch. But you can tell, they are just not built for it. The Bucka 5, they will run around and scratch and drop kick each other and play for hours, but the nuggets, they play a few moments and then flop down to rest. Their legs and systems are just not built for that sort of chicken nonsense. Running around doesn’t put meat on a bird. Still, I think it’s good. I like coming out and seeing the whole big bunch of them in the coop yard, picking at greens, laying in the sun and just being happy little dorks. It will make it much easier for me to take them in after the open house.

All our eggs in the incubator seem to be doing pretty well. I’ve candled a lot of them and they mostly all seem to be really viable and doing well. I know, I know, you can’t count your chicks until they hatch, but I am hoping that we get a pretty good percentage of hatch. There are over 45 eggs in there… I’m hoping for at least 70 to 75%. The little bantys were the first in there… they are on day number 13. 8 more days or so. The Marans will be about a week behind them. And the last will be the quail and the Jersy Giants. I just can’t wait! Jessy is right, we should have chicks and maybe even hatching chicks for the open house! How cool is that?

I need to keep an eye out for a nice big, rectangular box for all the babies to hang in. We’ve tried a couple things now, livestock tubs, plastic totes, aquariums, but I think in the end, a big old sturdy cardboard box is perfect. Lined with paper towels at the bottom to wick some of the moisture away and then fine shavings, it’s the perfect medium for the new chicks for a few weeks. And in the end, you just burn or recycle the box. No risk of contaminating any new chicks.

Marilyn inspecting the sheep paddock gate…

Folks have been asking us about the nuggets and will we do more and when and all, but I think we will probably not raise anymore until spring. After all, we’ll have 26 birds to harvest and I plan on giving away a few, but most are going into our freezer. One good sized bird can feed us two meals, so I imagine they will last at least 12 to 15 weeks. That will get us through the fall and into the winter. I suppose we might consider a late winter flock, since they will be inside for a few weeks… but we’ll see. I’m trying to keep winter chores to the minimum and easy on us. We’ll see how it goes. We’re so busy with holiday rock and mineral kit orders, I don’t want to layer on tooo many extra responsibilities. I suspect though, that in the spring we will consider doing 50 birds instead of just the 25! We’ll see how it goes!


We’ve been having a little trouble with Miss Evee. Our little Aussie Shepherd dog. She’s 15 months old and starting to develop a true hatred for chickens and sheep. She ripped up a window screen to try and get out to them, and then later on escaped into the yard and was super aggressive and mean to the sheep and hens. I thought she hurt a hen bad, and she ran the sheep so much, I was going to kill her. And she would not come to us, or stop, no recall, nothing, she was just in pure anxiety mode. I really think some of it is fear. She is soooo anxious about them, just really really upset. Gypsy is fine, she’s interested but her response is more like I would expect. But Evee is just over the top.

I’m not going to go into the finer details of it all, because I was so upset at one point, I just didn’t know what to do to bring some peace to the yard. So I went to the wonderful Homesteading forum and posted all about it. Thank goodness, some kind hearted and well meaning folks stepped up and really saved the day for us all. You can read all about it…

Homesteading Today – Aussie Dog Posts

I am so happy to report that things are getting better. Slowly, for sure. But better. Of course, it’s mostly OUR behaviors and actions that needed to be changed up, but thankfully, we got the hint sooner than later. I never really expect her to “work” our sheep, because I never plan to have more than 5 at the most. And since they are all like treat trained lap dogs, getting them to do anything is pretty easy. Heck, they would probably follow me down the road with a bucket of donuts and a good stick. But I want everyone to be reasonably safe and a screen ripping, freaked out dog is not safe.

I snapped this picture a few nights ago and it really captures how things are improving. Evee is sitting with Jessy, out by the coop, with the chicks around and the sheep off grazing to the left of the picture. And she’s calm. Of course, this is after nearly an hour of freaking out and Jessy just calmly sitting and not reacting to any of her anxiety. Finally, she will calm down and just watch. And that is the REWARD for us. I’m so hoping that we can reach a middle ground. I don’t mind if she’s focused, or excited to see the sheep and animals, that’s her nature, I totally get it. But I can’t have her totally berserk, out of command, and terrorizing the animals either. There needs to be a middle ground. And I think we will get there.

Well, this post is getting to be a giant one!!! And I need to go and get a little work done before this electrical storm that is brewing shuts me down. We loose power at a drop of the hat out here… haha…. it’s amazing. And if we get some serious rain like they are predicting, the satelite won’t work well. So I better get this wrapped up.

But, yeah, we’re fine! Just cracking the whip and trying to get everything done before the big unvieling!!! I finally decided that I should not freak out about it, because since so many people have NEVER been here, they won’t see all the progress really, so I shouldn’t make it so hard on myself that I dread the whole process. I want to have fun!!! So I sat down today and refreshed my MUST DO pack of cards and there are about 30 cards. So if I can get just 2 a day done, we’re doing fabulous! Maggie and Jessy are eager to help and so are our fantastic wonderful amazing awecious neighbors!!!! (Luv you all!!!!) And worse comes to worse, there are several lawn and handy man services in the area, so I’m pretty sure we will make it. After this big work adventure last weekend, I am just in love with the place!!! Oh my gosh, the back third is really shaping up and we have a little fish pond!!!! How cool is that? I can’t wait to get a liner and get some little goldfish in there at the very least. Maybe a little fountain!!!

Take care everyone…. and don’t forget… if you want very frequent little tidbits about the farm, then LIKE us on our Facebook page… haha… you’ll get frequent updates as to the fun going on here!

http://www.facebook.com/WindhavenFarmOhio

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