Farm Update

It's been a while since I've done a farm update. Here's what's going on in the Big Cedars outdoors.
The chickens have been on strike the past couple of months. The Buckeyes molted and looked very pathetic around November. Now they have the nicest silky feathers again AND they are all laying. The new ones just started this week. Their eggs are tiny right now, but it's nice to have fresh eggs again.

They even grew back feathers where the last two roosters wore them off with their amorous advances. The hens don't miss those two guys at all. The latest rooster has been getting busy but the red Buckeye's don't want anything to do with him. They know the score. I'm sure they've been accosted but I've only seen him on the yellow Buffs so far. He may not last long enough around the farm to win the Buckeye babes over.

 

I do like how he keeps an eye out for the hens. If he can just keep his hormones from raging so much and realize we do NOT want to hump his girls or infringe on his territory ... he might make it. I'm not holding my breath though.

The strawberry bed is just full of weeds and a few strawberry plants. At this point it's going to be difficult to weed without pulling up plants too. It sort of got away from us last summer. Hopefully, we'll be able to sort it out and get some berries this summer.

This is Gary's garden spot below. The weeds took it over as as well. The tiller will solve most of that problem when it gets closer to spring.

We did manage to get our main garden beds cleaned out, and I keep spreading rabbit droppings on them from time to time. This year, I hope to really concentrate on TOMATOES, potatoes and lettuces.
I've all but given up on the heirloom varieties. I like the IDEA of heirlooms but they just don't produce for us. We've tried three years now. I've had to buy tomatoes from my Grandma or the farmer's market to get enough to can. Maybe this will be our Year of the Tomato.

Walking out to the greenhouse the other day I came across this mess. It looked like bloody entrails for a minute. As I got closer and studied it a little more I finally figured out what it was.

Swiss chard from the garden.  Whew!

The handicap bunnies got separate rooms again because the white/gray one was chewing the heck out of the little black one. The black one is the three legged one. He sort of just waddles around the hutch. The other one isn't much better and would have likely been better off if it's flipper foot had been removed as well. They are pretty pathetic really. They are cute though and friendly.

We still have our stray cat, and I may take her to the vet this week to have her spayed if I can get her into the cat crate. I figure she'll bail as soon as I get her home, and we'll never see her again. Hopefully not. She's pretty sweet but her claws sure are sharp. Ask Grace about that. She keeps trying to pick her up.

Basically right now we are just waiting for spring to start gardening again. The greenhouse is full of animal feed right now. I haven't decided if I'm going to try to start plants from seeds or just buy them. I'm feeling pretty lazy at this particular moment and thinking buying them sounds pretty darn good.

We had talked about raising pigs again but our freezer is packed to the rim. We have enough friends that would buy them to butcher if we want to do it, and we finally have a couple of leads on where we can get some piglets. More to come on that front.

Farm on.

Niangua Groove

We're back, back in the Niangua Groove. It's not quite the same as Ace Freley's New York Grove, but it's what we do out here in the Big Cedars.

The car is cleaned out and ready for work, breakfast muffins are made and frozen, ready to heat up for two weeks worth of traveling morning meals. The clothes are washed and I'm ready to go back to work. Well, mostly.

Getting up in the morning at 6 or 6:30 am in the dark is the hardest part I think. I sure do like sleeping in late, but I've had a good long run and I think I'm actually ready to face a new year. Bryon goes back to work tomorrow and Grace goes back to school. One thing about life is if you don't like change, you are not going to fare very well because things change constantly.

Garrett sights in his rifle for youth hunting next weekend. He hit it right on four our of six times.

Shooting clay pigeons.

We had a really fun New Year's Eve with three families of friends coming over. One family spent the night. We shot guns down Bryon's shooting range, then rode out to the field to shoot clay pigeons (I'm pretty sure I was the winner, but I do have a honking bruise on my shoulder for a trophy). We rode four wheelers, played Just Dance II on the Wii and ate and drank.

Watching the Green Lantern in 3D.

Hanging out.

Cats playing poker.

Why we don't do these things more often, I have no idea but we sure had a good time. So good in fact that I forgot to close the gate to the chicken coop and sometime in the night, two of my new Buff Orpington hens got killed. It was a bummer. The chickens have been VERY reluctant to go to roost in the hen house the past two nights and I've had to carry three of them back in there.


I actually thought I'd lost another one yesterday sometime because I only had six in the hen house (two of which I had to take there) and I knew I'd seen seven earlier in the day. Thankfully Bryon found her in the garage this morning. She had hidden herself very well.

So now that leaves me with six hens and a rooster. None of them are laying yet. The old ones molted and quit laying a couple of months ago and the new ones (only two now) should start in February or March. I have had the light on out in the coop and the heat lamp is on for them tonight since it's so cold so that might spark the old ones back up. I've been buying organic eggs from the store but they sure aren't the same.

I hope they resolve to lay more eggs in the new year.