I never claimed to be a genius

We had a watermelon growing in our garden for several weeks.  We kept watching it, waiting to cut it off and eat it.  Finally the day came.  Just as I broke the watermelon from the vine I realized that the watermelon didn't have a hint of yellow anymore... it was ORANGE.  

It wasn't a watermelon!  

I had planted the watermelon and pumpkin near each other and the storms that washed away most of our soil must have messed with the placement of the watermelon and pumpkin plants!

Here was the "watermelon" the day I cut it, and realized it was orange...

And here is our pumpkin - five days later.

The good news is that there are two more growing, and this time I will be smart enough to leave them alone until they're ready to be harvested - as pumpkins.

Poopers' final resting place

A few days ago we made Poopers stepping stone to place over her burial site.

And here is where it's been placed

One man's trash...

As we clean out the woods of 50 years worth of trash, I'm always fascinated by the things we find.

This bottle must have gotten so hot, the thing is completely melted

I WISH we could figure out what this said... 

This is a chair... the seat is at ground level, so the legs are buried in the ground

Washer and Dryer anyone?

There were 4 stoves - so far

J&J, Jergens, and Hydrogen Peroxide

Does anyone remember Crass Soda?

How about a 1965 glass Mountain Dew Bottle?

Yes, he was in the woods too.

A horse from a swing set

Bennett Elementary signs

How many people own an outhouse?

When I bought this property there were a few "shacks" just behind the treeline.  We sneaked up to them and took pictures of them because I was actually fascinated by them, but before we could close on the sale of the house, the lender said they had to be torn down for insurance and safety reasons.

The seller tore down the three shacks that were visible and left a huge pile of debris behind.  He didn't touch the two buildings that were 100 feet away and about 10 feet deeper in the woods.

I thought one of the buildings looked like an outhouse and I joked about it.

About 6 months after moving in, I had started to clear out the debris by burning it in the fire pit we built and cutting down the grape vines that were growing like crazy in the woods.

Little by little I got closer to the narrow building that I called the outhouse.

Finally the day came where I was able to open the door.  And yes, it really was an outhouse.  There was even a roll of toilet paper inside.

No, it doesn't smell despite his worry

How many people have a real outhouse on their property?

It's been 7 months since we uncovered the structure, and it is still standing.  I realize I should probably just tear it down and burn it too.  But I also find it funny when people come to our home and we're standing in the yard and I can say....

"Oh, and if you need to use the restroom it's right over there..." 

I can't find the guinea

I asked my oldest son to go make sure the birds were in the coop tonight.  He's done this all week since I've been really sick.

This is a simple job.  He goes out, peeks in the coop to count the chickens and roosters (5 total now that we've sold four of the cockerels) and counts the guinea that perch on a board in the chicken run (7 now that we've lost Poopers).  When he comes back in, I ask how many birds there were, and as long as he says 12, we're fine.  He always says 12.

Tonight, he comes back in and says "I can't find the guinea."

He's serious. I pull my boots on, grab a flashlight and head outside.

I grab each of us a long piece of wood to help shoo them once we find them and we start walking to the treeline.

I've read about guinea.  They will leave a coop.  They will fly up into the trees and roost if they need to.  If they don't think they are getting enough food at this home, they'll find another home (in the wild, in the woods, wherever).

Since all of the birds have been wandering further from the coop and actually going around the side of the house eating all of the bugs, I figured that maybe they went over near the tree that had fallen down and when it got dark they just went into that tree to roost.  But I didn't want them to think this was okay and I didn't want them outside of the goat pen at night where any creature could get them.

We started at the garden, worked our way around the driveway, and then made our way around the house to where I thought they would be.

They weren't there.

So we made our way around by the bonfire pit and our outhouse (I'll have to tell you about that later).  They weren't there.

We were about 100 feet away from the coop and I was worried.

How far would they have gone?  Do we need to go into the woods to look?  What if they went out onto the road?  Did one already get eaten by something?  Did I scare them too many times when I took food out to them today?  Did the lawn mower freak them out today?

Then Johnathon says, "I see them".

I look to where his flashlight is pointing and walk over to the chicken run.

There they were, the entire time.  Perched on top of the coop, where they have been before.

I turned around and went back in the house.

Our Coop

Our coop started at a $10 shipping crate that I found on Craigslist.  Unfortunately I don't have a picture of ours but it was similar to the ones in the middle of this picture:

I started by raising the lid to create a slanted roof so that it wouldn't hold snow and rain and the gap was needed for ventilation with chicken wire keeping other creatures out.  We used a pack of shingles on the roof.

Then I used hinges and some hooks and handles to create a door on the back so that I could lift it up to retrieve eggs, and lower the bottom door when I needed to clean out the coop.

Then I built a simple shelf for nesting boxes 

and cut the hole for the door to the chicken run.

After a few weeks I installed some plastic storage bins to create more nesting boxes and our coop is complete.  (Yes I know the one on the far right is lower - I did that for a reason).

We use pine shavings in the nesting boxes and on the floor.  I also put in some lime and some "DE" to help with the odor, moisture, and flies.

There is a water feeder and a feeder with grain for them inside the coop, as well as everything outside of the coop.

Frustrated on the Farm

I bought the 8 chickens from someone I thought was a friend.  I told him I wanted a specific breed of chickens, he said they were.  I found out the day I picked them up that 3 were purebred and the other 5 were mixed with the breed I wanted.

It's been about 5 or 6 weeks now and I just found out that NONE of them are the breed I wanted.

Oh wait it gets better.

There are only three females, and 5 males... plus I bought the white male rooster so that's 6 males.

Roosters are like typical steroid gym guys at a bar - they'll fight over the chicks and try to show who's more powerful.  That also means that I won't be getting many eggs - chickens lay (on average) 2 eggs every three days.  So in a week I'd get about 7 eggs with my current batch.  I had been planning on getting about 18ish every week so that I could share with friends.

This all came about because I'd decided to name them and I took pictures to help keep them separated, and then after some research with the pictures I found out the truth about my bunch...

So I'm looking for new homes for 5 of the guys and when the fair comes to town in 2 weeks I can buy some new females since I saw them selling last year.

Here are the men:

The rooster that we are keeping - he already crows

Both of these are boys

And here are the girls:

The girl is the one in the back

Death is just a part of life

One of our guinea died today....

Poopers was the only bird that we had named so far, and the only guinea that will ever get a name since they're so hard to tell apart.  Poopers was the baby chick that had a protruding vent when she was a week or two old and we had to clean her rear end several times a day in order to help her poop, which she needs to do in order to survive.  That's how she got her name.

Shortly after she recovered from the protruding vent issue, she hurt her leg.  Unfortunately, it was broken, and it healed the wrong way.  She was already smaller than the other birds because of her previous health issues, and now she wasn't able to keep up with the birds and it was hard for her to walk.

The vet came out today and I asked her what we should do.  The other birds had begun to attack Poopers and go after her pecking at her for no reason.  The vet also said that because she was walking on her elbow, she would end up getting cuts and infections and they would be very painful and would eventually cause her to die.  Basically the most humane thing to do was to put her down.

I asked them if they could do it, because I am not country enough to take care of that myself.  I also asked them to do it somewhere that I wouldn't be able to see.  They took her back to their truck and gave her a shot to put her to sleep.

I explained to Jeremiah why they needed to put her to sleep and after a moment he said "and then they will bring her back?"...  I had to explain that she would never wake up from this sleep.  He was quiet and after a minute he walked about 50 feet away and sat down to cry.

This was the first time I've ever had to deal with an animal in my life dying when I've been around.  I've had dogs die, but it was after I hadn't seen them for a couple years and they lived with the parent that I didn't live with.

The boys have never known anyone or anything to die besides bugs and snakes, although they know that the animals at the barn are killed for food.

Poopers is in this video - she's the bird on the bottom right corner next to the brown block of grain treats... She's slow to move but when she does you can see how she has to hop everywhere...

We dug a hole tonight, wrapped her in a large piece of pink felt and tied a yellow ribbon around it, and then buried her next to one of our big trees.  We'll be making a marker for her tomorrow.

RIP Poopers...

Who's the boss

Three days ago when Jeremiah came into the goat pen to help put the guinea away, Carrie went on the attack.  She was head butting him and with horns that are pointing out away from her head I'm sure you can imagine how this could hurt.  She even got on her hind legs at one point and was walking towards him.  Jeremiah was freaked out (understandably) but I also knew that if he didn't stand up for himself it wouldn't stop.  Spanking her didn't stop it, nor did yelling at her so I googled.

I quickly found the same information on each of my go-to goat sites.  They said that Carrie was trying to make it clear where her place was on the pecking order - above Jeremiah.  Jeremiah hasn't been around the goats very much because he's just not that interested in them.  He's also not that much taller than the younger goats.  It makes sense that Carrie saw this as a "new" person coming around and she probably thought she could put him in his place because of the size similarities.

The solution according to the experts is that Jeremiah would need to flip Carrie over and pin her down immediately after she attempts to head butt him.  I explained this to Jeremiah and the next day I showed him how he would have to do it.

He's a bit too short and she was a bit too tall so I had to step in a little to help him grab her legs and lay her down, but once she was pinned I stepped back.  I wanted her to understand that HE was the one in control since that's where the issue lies.

I don't have video (yet) of the complete flip, since I was involved in doing it and I only have two hands, but I do have video of him once he got her pinned.  I'm sure you will notice the look on his face.  He is a bit more hurt that he has to prove his place to her and he wasn't so angry looking the second time.

Experts say that this only has to be done once or twice before Carrie will understand she isn't above him on the pecking order and she'll stop going after him.  Experts were wrong.  She's definitely decreased and now only seems to try to sneak in a side rub against his leg and then sort of tilts her head so a horn touches him.  Definitely not hurting him, but we just can't figure out if she's trying to sneak a subtle jab in or just get his attention for more petting.

  

Same video - uploaded a different way in case you can't see the first one:

He's ready to flip her and pin her down if he needs to though.

Blackberry Pie

When you live in the country you just HAVE to pick wild blackberries and make a pie!

Okay, so the neighbor had cleared the blackberry bushes and we literally found 2 tablespoons of wild blackberries.  Giant (grocery store) provided the rest.

I made my first ever blackberry pie and ate my first ever slice of blackberry pie...



Here's the recipe I found online:

             Ingredients

• 4 cups fresh blackberries
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 recipe pastry for a 9 inch double crust pie
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 1/4 cup white sugar

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).
2. Combine 3 1/2 cups berries with the sugar and flour. Spoon the mixture into an unbaked pie shell. Spread the remaining 1/2 cup berries on top of the sweetened berries, and cover with the top crust. Seal and crimp the edges, and cut vents in the top crust for steam to escape.
3. Brush the top crust with milk, and sprinkle with 1/4 cup sugar.
4. Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes. Reduce the temperature of the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C), and bake for an additional 20 to 25 minutes, or until the filling is bubbly and the crust is golden brown. Cool on wire rack.