Mason and his new puppy above. My sleepy puppy here.
Category Archives: Cats, dogs, chickens, and other critters
Routine
I’ve been working on Mt. Mulch in the rear garden. Mt. Mulch is the truck full of mulch that we had someone deposit on the grounds in order to mulch in the paths in the various gardens and around the trees. The first load, which was up front, I had some help to finish off from family. This time, it’s only me hacking away at it. It’s good exercise, really, but it takes a toll on your traps, from squeezing together armfuls of it to toss into the wheelbarrow. Why pick it up by hand? Have you ever tried using a shovel on a big pile of mulch? That’s a one way ticket to exhaustion and sore everything (and lots of cursing). It’s faster to do it by hand. The only downside is that while the top of the pile is dry, it’s wet under that layer, making it a chore to carve out a chunk to move to the barrow.
Goal: six barrows a day loaded, dumped, and spread, in order to get the back garden finished. That’s about the limit my morning shake gives me in terms of calories/energy, but it works out well since I can generally get one eight foot long section mulched at about an inch per barrow load- which in turn gives me one full row done on the long side of the garden. It’s a lot of mulch, but I only have four rows left, plus the large non-row area where there is currently nothing but which I’m considering for containers. I should be able to finish the mulching of the back area this week and then move on to the berries on the easterly fenceline to get those done.
After the daily loads, it was dog shaving time, something I did in bare feet on the front porch instead of getting dog hair in my boots and socks. They’re so cute with their cuts, but I suspect they were pooped after the excitement/stress of it all.
Tomorrow: more mulching. More flats to go under the lights. More something else. There’s always something else.
Pooped out puppy
The air up here
Bad blogger, bad! No posting on a regular basis, what is wrong with you?
Nothing wrong, just incredibly busy around here. Our season has lasted well into the winter, and we’re still harvesting peppers. The tomatoes that showed some promise going into fall succumbed to massive worm damage, so once again this year, like last, no tomatoes (although for wildly different reasons, given that last year it was a cancer of a different sort).
There’s a monarch butterfly chrysalis attached to the upended cooler by my garage, which is right near the butterfly bush I planted for the other monarch caterpillars that graced us with their presence before moving on to whatever secret place they chose to attach themselves. I’m hoping to capture it as it emerges, whenever that happens to be, and I have the plant cam set up on it.
My dreams have been invaded by images of paintings I’ve never seen hanging in galleries I’ve never visited (or heard of). My subconscious is probably trying to tell me something.
My puppy had to have the top part of one of his (non weight-bearing) toes amputated because he tore the nailbed right away from the bone on a ball-fetching excursion. It’s sad to me that he was in pain, but good that he’ll heal just fine and he’ll be right back to his duties.
The bees have been ordered, and should ship to us in May. We’ll be able to put these things to good use.
Most of this will be gone from the new barn when spring arrives, as they’ll be set up as homes for the three packages of bees (and queens) we’ll be receiving. Everyone is pretty excited about this, including me, and I’m looking forward to spring even more than usual.
Seeds for the new year were ordered and have arrived (mostly), and the next two weeks will be seed starting time in the small barn, under the lights – which I need to rerig for the pulley system I came up with to make things easier to wrangle under them. As with years past, we’ll be attempting a good variety of tomatoes to see what we like, or is we can just get any to maturity and get a harvest. This year will be better planned than previous years, to be sure.
The garlic went into the frames in late October, and is doing wonderfully thus far. By my estimate, I planted out over 2000 individual cloves this year, which will give us plenty to use and some to save as seed for next year’s planting season, I expect. I’m hoping that we’ll be able to sell some as well, since this is not the usual garlic found in grocery stores.
Here’s hoping the new year will be better than the previous years. Be sage, be happy.
Evening sun
Captured on the Lazy Dog Ranch timelapse cam that is currently awaiting the unfolding of a sunflower, from March 27 near dusk.
Early morning visitor
He is much less innocent than he looks.
This is why I overseed when I’m putting down pasture seed. In the patch this guy was grazing, there is buckwheat, clover, and alfalfa. Since he can’t possibly eat it all without bursting like Mr. Creosote, I’m hopeful that this will begin the rebuilding of the soil in that location. Once the growth is established in this area, I’ll be able to move along to the next area, put up my portable fence, and begin again. This is much the same process as I used to develop what was once the wild area at the rear of the property to turn it into the beginnings of our orchard (although since the dogs were not allowed back there, no fencing required). Pictures of then and now in that area to come.
“I can eat fifty eggs”
Someone will have to, eventually.
The days are getting longer, the girls are a bit older, it’s warmer, and apparently they’re beginning to hit their stride. They must have heard our nefarious plan to replace them, and kicked things into motion. I suppose we’ll have to keep them, and when the new chicks start laying as well, we’ll be getting a lot of eggs in any given day. Hopefully people around here will be ready to have fresh eggs always on hand.
Oh, the quote: if you’ve never seen Cool Hand Luke, you should.
Chickens? Check.
At some point last year, we decided that in addition to keeping chickens as layers, we’d get some to raise for meat. Me, I’m all for it, as I’m very comfortable knowing where my food comes from and how it manages to get from the barnyard to the store (or, in our case, the farmers from whom we purchase our meats) to my pots and pans and into my belly (not that I eat a whole lot these days).
Still, I’m perfectly fine with raising and processing and freezing our own birds, and I thought other people in the family were as well, even if they didn’t actually participate in the processing portion of it. Now, though, my mom is questioning whether she could eat an animal that we raised, so it appears we’re just down to me on the farm to human really, really local food chain.
Instead of bringing to the ranch a group of chicks to be raised for meat, I ordered eight chicks destined to live out their lives laying eggs instead. Worst case, figuring a 50% loss in shipping, we wind up with four birds. Best case, we wind up with eight, who should lay enough for us and extended family. They’re due for delivery in mid-March right around my birthday, which gives us about a month to get rid of the current girls and clean everything up for a group of peeping fuzzballs. In a strange twist, it appears that the oldest of the girls, who had not been laying at all, has started laying once more, as if she’s on to our nefarious plan to give away this group for free to anyone who wants to come get them (most likely for the stewpot, since they’re older, and erratic layers). If anyone local to the greater Jax area wants them, let me know.
No more mutt chickens, though. The group of replacements we got last year are of indeterminate heritage, and although docile, not tremendously consistent in laying – the very reason they have to be moved out for more productive birds. I ordered four each of Red Star and Delaware day old chicks, a good mix of medium to high production layers, and both breeds are friendly, docile, and easy to manage. Maybe next time around I can convince everyone that having our own meat birds is nothing to shudder about.
Such a life
This is the good life. A crazy happy puppy face.
Sleeping peacefully after a long hard day of playing fetch, barking, eating, and…sleeping.
Going around the bend
Tomorrow, another visit with the oncologist to see what the results of the testing say – hopefully, there will be results and this won’t be another trip into town for nothing.
Today, though: planning. Planning for next season and next year. This afternoon, I managed a tour around the rear garden to see the pitiful state of affairs. Blight has taken hold of several frames of tomatoes, and the bugs are munching on the cukes and zucchini like it’s their personal buffet (although I did manage to squash a few during my brief stay outdoors). The corn is dead, for yet another season, and I’m of half a mind to just give up on that altogether. The new round of lima and green beans are not thriving, as they say, and are either dead or dying. Some of the transplants I managed to get into the frames before going into the hospital are still alive, and even thriving, including a new round of Cherokee Purple tomatoes and some bell peppers. The watermelon and butternut squash transplants don’t look horrible, but they’re skinny things and I’m hoping they make it through.
The other part of planning involves chickens. We decided before I went in for surgery that next year we’re going to raise our own chickens for meat in addition to those we keep as layers. This is not without logistical issues, of course, and it’s likely that only my brother and myself will be able to actually butcher the birds, but that’s fine. Other family members can handle the less gruesome parts, like packaging the birds, whole or pieced out, once they’ve been dressed. That seems like a fair enough division of labor to me.
Since the birds are generally processed at about 12 weeks, and the chicks are available year round, we could do multiple groups per year if it turns out to be worthwhile. I can’t imagine it wouldn’t be, as how often do most people really get the chance to raise their food almost from start to a very definite finish? We’re not quite on the path to hatching our own chicks here, and probably never will be since that would require a rooster, and that simply isn’t happening around here. I’m content enough with ordering chicks even though it isn’t as completely self sufficient as would be the case in a utopian universe. Now, if it really comes does to the end of the world as we know it, complete with zombies, we’ll rethink that part of the equation. Until then, we plan for stocking the freezer with freshly butchered, pasture raised chicken, right off the property. There are, no doubt, worse things in life.