Our version of fencing!
Fencing supplies from Premier One.
Hubby pounding t-posts.
Baby boy helping. Sorry the photo is blurry. I was disappointed when I went to download it. 
End product – fenced in pasture for Miss Moo! And we need to move it again since she has just about sufficiently cut this pasture down. Since she respects the electric fencing, we only needed to put up one strand of fencing compared to three strands or 4-7 strands for escapee horses and goats!
A couple weeks ago we had a visitor land on our car. It was a homing pigeon. It has a tag on his leg that one of my daughters looked up and determined it was a racing pigeon from Nebraska. It is very friendly and allows the children to handle it. It has taken up residence with our broilers, which concerns me because it is eating 18% grower feed. What if it gains so much weight it cannot fly? Is that even possible? If it’s too heavy, how will it fly back home to its owner? And why has it decided to “vacation” here? Lots of questions. The children are loving “their” new pet though.
What is a Homing Pigeon?
When I googled homing pigeon images not many of them were the color of “ours”.
According to HomingPigeon.com a homing pigeon is:
Homing Pigeon – Aves Columbiformes Columbidae Columba Livia
Sixteen ounces of muscle and feather, at times on the wing for twelve hours, flying at sustained speeds of 30 to 60 miles per hour.
Why?
To return home where a special relationship exists between man and bird.
Wikipedia states the sport of homing pigeons was established 3000 years ago. The American Racing Pigeon Union says that in the late 1800’s homing pigeons were imported from Europe. More information about American racing pigeons can be found on www.pigeon.org
I don’t claim to be a homing pigeon expert but I hope that wets your appetite to discover more about these charming birds.
This is a photo of our farm at sunset when we got the hay field cut. The hay is all baled and stored except for the few bales that got rained on. We got pretty close to 600 bales of hay for our first cutting and that was just our share. We split it 50-50 with the farmer who cut, raked and baled it for us. No exchange of money, which we liked. Some hay guys will charge you a certain amount on top of each bale, even if they are getting 50 percent of the bales.
It was very hard to find someone to do our hay. Someone who said what they meant and meant what they said. Mr. L. came out to our farm to look at the hay field the same day we called him. He cared if the hay got wet or not, though we didn’t miss the rain altogether due to the amount of time it took for the hay to dry with the thicker weeds. We had a few hay guys give us the run around, didn’t come out when they said they would etc. We are very thankful to Mr. L. for doing our hay for us.
It was a lot of work to get the hay unloaded and into the barn. Our children now say they hate hay! lol! We kept asking them what are you going to do if we get another cutting? What are you going to do if we get three cuttings next year? Though some say three cuttings is rare, especially if you don’t have your own equipment, which we obviously do not.
Now that the hay is in we have fencing to work on. Thankfully it is suppose to be nice all week and not too too hot. 70’s and 80’s slowly moving back up to the 90’s again.
P.S. By way of a wee update….Mr. L. picked up his last two wagons today and told us he had to bring in someone to fix his baler but he wasn’t accusatory like it was our fault or anything. The guy that planted our field refused to hay it, #1 he was backed up with other haying jobs but #2 he said it was all weeds and there were too many rocks in the field. When we told Mr. L. this he was matter of fact, “Hay fields have rocks….” We feel bad his baler broke but blessed he didn’t blame us/our hay field.
He also told us our pasture grass is coming back nicely and we can probably look at a second cutting mid to late October! Hoorah! The kids are going to love us! 
Nope, it isn’t me that’s having a baby. It’s little Miss Moo! Well, hopefully. We had the vet (Dr. M) out on Saturday for a meet and greet. Kind of ridiculous but we have three vets, one for the horse, one for the cow and one for the cow and dog. Anyways, we’ll figure that all out later and hopefully narrow it down to one eventually! I wanted this vet to look at Miss Moo because we’ve been having a hard time putting weight on her. She came to us thin and while she’s gained some, she still isn’t where she should be and we’ve had a friend telling us she’s too thin and of course people driving by call Animal Control. So now I can say we’ve had her looked at by two vets who say while she’s a bit thin, she’s fine or she’s healthy and happy. Whew! That’s a load off my plate. Not only do I have children to worry about but now I have our animals! Oy, oy, oy!
A May Baby
This week the calendar indicated Miss Moo’s heat was due. We were kind of disappointed to find out that it takes a week to get bull semen straws for AI (artificial insemination). Then as “fate” would have it I get into a conversation on Facebook with Miss Moo’s second owner, who shared that she still had a straw left in Dr. M’s tank (they freeze bull semen and keep it in a freezer tank that he carries around) from the last time Miss Moo was bred and would I like to buy it!? I said sure, of course.
So when our daughter “B” told me yesterday that Miss Moo was showing signs of her heat cycle I put in a call to Dr. M. He came out yesterday afternoon checked her and confirmed she was in heat, he AI’d her with “Grumpy” a Guernsey bull that two of our cow friends have recommended.
If the AI “sticks” we will have a May baby calf! We are kind of hoping for a heifer calf (female) as Dr. M suggested thinking about replacing Miss Moo since it takes a couple of years. Miss Moo is such a sweet cow we’d love to have one of her heifers so that’s what we are praying for! We want to try raising beef sometime in the future too but have to finish our fencing, which is a whole ‘nother blog topic or two!
For now, I told my husband if I’m not having any more babies I’m going to be excited and plan for farm babies! He just kind of looked at me like I had horns growing out of my head. Nah, just kidding! He likes Miss Moo too. 
Yesterday we received something in the mail. I knew it was something to do with our farm when it was addressed “Resident” in sloppy handwriting. You have to understand the location of our farm to get why we receive these kinds of things. We are on a very busy rural road. It was one of the pitfalls of moving here. We almost didn’t move because of how close the house is to the road and the traffic we get here.
Anyways, back to the topic at hand. This is what we received:
This isn’t the first time something was dropped in the mail or mailbox but part of me wonders if it doesn’t constitute “farmer harrassment”? Have these people actually raised poultry? Have they tried a free range, no soy, organic egg? Or are they just being an overly concerned suburbanite? It baffles me the nerve of some people.
Our chickens and turkeys quite often are out of their portable coops. They have been getting braver or more curious and going closer to the road – silly things! Otherwise they are happy as they free range around the property all day. We have people telling us our eggs are some of the best they’ve tasted and we’ve been selling out of eggs for weeks. There’s a reason for that….they are not cooped up all day on a dirt floor because we have space for them to roam. They get fresh air, sunshine and all the pasture delights they can find! We haven’t seen but two ticks all year and we believe our chickens are the reason.
P.S. The FDA is trying to force free range egg producers to restrict hens from outdoor access or go out of business. Read more at Cornucopia Institute.
Peanut butter popcorn has become a favorite treat for our family. It is so very yummy! And pretty easy to make.
3 quarts of popped popcorn
1 cup of sugar
1 cup of honey
1 cup of peanut butter
Heat honey, sugar and peanut butter until bubbly. Remove and add popcorn. Spread on wax paper. Let cool. Enjoy!
This is Brutus the Hog. He is a heritage breed Tamworth pig. We met him on one of our trips to a local farm to purchase turkeys. His owners said he climbs into his water trough every day to do this (see photo below) and makes a ton more work – because the trough has to be washed out every day rather than weekly or however often the farmer deemed best. We thought it was hilarious that Brutus did this.
Then what does our cow do a week later? Yes, Miss Moo climbed in her 25 gallon water trough and cracked it! Argh! Those stock tanks are not cheap. Thankfully, we had purchased ours used, but still they are hard to come by in good shape even when purchasing them used. So she now has to use her hay bucket for water.
My husband is interested in raising some heritage hogs. They are really fun to observe. Not sure at what point we’ll get to raising hogs but thinking of all the bacon we’d get from a hog makes our mouth water!
Last week one of our customers on our farm Facebook page shared this video:
I was laughing a hearty laugh by the end because we technically started with a flock of 30 laying hens….Well, we actually started with a 27 year old horse, but he was not onsite until THIS year. Then we got our dog, our turkeys, rabbits, ducks, cats, a cow…..and there we have it a complete farm!
Since we lost 70% of our Narragansett turkeys, I went on a hunt for more locally. I found nine poults, plus five eggs, which we are hatching out. An Amazon gift card helped pay for an incubator. You know you are farm-crazed when your spare money and gift cards are spent on farm stuff! We also have some Midget White eggs in the incubator too. Our hen, Brownie, is also sitting on three. I want to see if she can hatch some herself since she’s so broody.
Here are our 6 week old Narragansetts, probably closer to 8 weeks now, we purchased from a local farm who hatches out their own eggs, quite successfully I might add:
The first two…
The last two…
Then we got 2-3 week old Narragansett poults a week and a half ago from a little farm that also hatches out their own eggs:
This next photo is of Junior holding one of the 2-3 week old poults:
Our Bourbon Red turkeys have finally started laying. I believe we have a 2-3 eggs to add to the incubator, making that a total of 13-14. We’ll see how many hatch.
Never thought I’d become a heritage breed turkey farmer, but here I am with 25 turkeys, plus the additional 13-14. Turkeys, turkeys, and more turkeys! They sure will be tasty this winter!
We are having an extremely busy summer. So busy that I am taken aback that we are nearly half way through July! Summer has always been my favorite season, though I enjoy the others. My birthday is during the summer and my mom always made birthday time FUN! From sleepovers to camp outs to a day on the lake, I always had a blast. Summer on the farm is fun too or not so fun in some instances, as we’ve had a couple of disasters (our sized disasters that is, as we realize there are much worse disasters happening). We lost 17 of our 29 broilers on the way to processing due to them overheating – expensive. Our new batch of turkeys were shipped over the 4th of July and we lost over half of them. Now I am struggling to find a local source for turkeys to save on the stress of having them shipped.
On the brighter side, our egg business is growing. We have been selling out of eggs for the past 3 weeks. So we started to increase our flock again. We purchased 6 month old Rhode Island crosses, much like our Red Sex Links. Not a heritage breed like our original flock but very good producers. We also purchased 13 Silkies. They have poofy hair and feet. Our youngest daughter asked for the baby chicks, who are not so little, so she’s been taking care of them. The mamas are very broody so we are hoping to hatch out some more eggs! Here’s to hoping for the best.
Due to the shipping fiasco with our turkeys, we purchased a breeding trio of Bourbon Red turkeys. This is a heritage breed and may be a little bigger than our Midget White turkeys. We now have five “pet” turkeys. Our neighbor hatched two of our Midget White eggs and we would have had an additional two turkeys, but during a mating session the Tom smothered them beneath Brownie, our hen. Lots of death around our farm lately. One of my children’s words not mine. But I quite agree.
Animals are not the only thing that has been keeping us busy. Berry picking has too. We found some mulberry bushes (more like trees to be honest) at the back of our property and we’ve been picking those pretty regularly.
Then we have been visiting area berry farms to pick strawberries and raspberries. Next on the list is blueberries! Next year we are planning on planting more berries here on the farm, as most of our plants did not produce much due to us moving them from the townhouse to the farm in the spring.
We have also been working hard to get all our fall planting done or most of it, as we will be planting more greens in a month’s time. We bought some transplants from friends’ farms to make up for our spring greenhouse disaster, which will hopefully help us have some veggies in late July/early August. The pepper plants are from one friend’s farm in Wisconsin. They were a little stressed since we did not get them planted right away. Our little ones even help in the garden.
We enjoy growing our own organic meat and vegetables, but it certainly is not without its challenges and hard work!
How’s your summer going?
If you click on the photo it’s not so blurry. I don’t know why the editing program does that to photos!
This post was inspired by http://www.repeatcrafterme.com/2013/05/wooden-pallet-herb-garden.html?showComment=1372278599739&m=1 but I did not originally hear about it from her. I can’t even remember where I learned of this unique way to recycle pallet and plant a wood pallet herb garden. All I remember is seeing the idea and liking it. Then when we got our bags of soil, still on a wood pallet, I told the family I wanted to keep the wood pallet for an herb garden.
This was very easy to do. I just took a small roll of landscaping fabric and stapled it to the bottom of the wood pallet. Then my husband and I filled it up with about 2.5 bags of organic soil mix (sorry cannot remember the size of the bags right now), added some perlite and then planted our herbs.
We planted from left to right: rosemary, chives, curly leaf parsley, oregano and basil in the last two rows. These plants all came from a friend’s farm. She specializes in transplants, has a greenhouse; and since we never got our herbs planted from seed we got these from her. I’ll have to let you know how well the plants grow in this wood pallet herb garden, as this is the first time we’ve tried growing something this way.
We still have fennel, more parsley and oregano to plant, as well as all our fall planting…amidst everything else – one monthly market, a weekly market and possibly a corporate market for just five weeks this summer. Oy!
So much to do and so little time….We cannot wait to cook with our own herbs and share them with our CSA members (Consumer Supported Agriculture) and customers! Here’s to hoping the plants yield enough for all.
