Miscellaneous

 One long post about several completely unrelated topics. 

My hero knew about some wild elderberry trees and snagged me a pile of berries.  The girl child and I sat in front of  a movie and tediously picked them off the stems and I made some syrup for eating or for helping any sickies get better this winter.  Yummy stuff!

 Meet my new soap bazookas.  2" PVC with a cap at 1 end.  Little bit difficult to fill with no extra hands around.  (Correction... no extra hands around that would actually hold it still).  My main concern was how I was going to get the soap out.  I planned to make a plunger of some kind, but I ended up not needing to.  First of all, it takes at least a week for soap to set in these things.  So I poured it and left it in a corner for a good long while (I'm good at that).  Then I stuck them in the freezer for a day.  Then I pulled them out, let them thaw some (because of interruptions not because I know its necessary- it may not be) and they literally just slowly slid out.  It was great!  So now I have nice round bars that look a lot nicer than my lopsided cuts from a casserole dish.

 Here are a couple kids picking wild grapes.  We have a whole mess of nice, big, juicy, cultivated grapes to pick and they opted to pick the wild ones.  The next day the other 2 kids (unpictured) decided to shove said grapes up their noses.  I bulb syringe got them out, but not without some kicking and flailing and one boy being quite certain he was not coming out of that situation alive.  Now you can understand why the addition of 1 more toddler boy has completely wiped out every thought of spare time I ever thought I had.

And just a post to say I love my dog.  Angel has been accompanying me on morning runs while its dark and creepy.  She alerted me to a stray dog up ahead where I would have run straight into it before knowing there was something needing to be avoided.  And she's gotten to where she simply trots beside me instead of crossing back and forth in front of me in her drive to explore.  And the really funny part is when she comes home she's too tired to chase the goats to the milking table in the morning.  She just flops and lets them walk.  She's a great dog.

And something that has no picture as of yet, eggplant.  Last year I had big beautiful plants and no fruit.  So this year I tried a few more varieties... meaning I have about a dozen different plants.  And they are all going gangbusters this year!  I can't give away all my eggplant!  I've made eggplant parmesian, eggplant balls, eggplant lasagna, stirfried eggplant, battered and fried eggplant, every eggplant anything I can think of.  There are worse problems to have, but I wish I had okra to through in there too.  But Dulci has figured out how to easily escape the pasture and ate my garden down to nubs.  She's now clad with a cow bell and housed with Copper and his 7' fence.  Its time for her to be bred anyway, but we'll have to do some major fence overhaul before letting her back with the others.

And I think this catches me up on the main goings-on.  We're starting our homeschool year next week so it may be the last post until that somewhat new endeavor finds its groove again too. 

Bad Puppy

Rough day on the 'stead yesterday. After finally getting a grumpy, over-tired 2-year old to actually stay in bed, I was desperately trying to catch up on my chores when I noticed a lump in the front yard. Hmmmm... it looks like that lump has feathers. Closer inspection revealed it to be a half eaten turkey.

We've been day ranging the turkeys in the back yard. The plan is to day range them in the pasture but I didn't want to throw them out there until they were used to the drill. I set up some baby gates around the door of the pen so they had more space where they wouldn't get bothered by the dog, but they usually chose to just fly over and roam. And Angel (the dog) would chase some, but not too badly unless they strayed really far from the pen. She's a fast dog so if her desire were to catch, she'd have no problem whatsoever. In the evening, they come home to roost, we lock them up and they are safe.

Yesterday morning while working in farmer girl's "pretty patch" we noticed a turkey straying all the way into the front yard. I took it back once and not too long later it was back, assuming it was the same bird. Angel was chasing it, I caught it again and again returned it to the secure area. Late afternoon, upon discovering the half eaten turkey, I ran to the back to see if the others were safe. I counted 7 (where there were 10), locked them in the pen and went hunting for the others. I soon found another one in the woods towards the front, alive and well, and another barely alive. I locked up the good one with the others and transferred the injured one to the dog crate. It appeared as though her leg were broken or maybe she was spraddle legged. I put a call into a bird rescue place to see if they could talk me through saving her. Meanwhile I'm trying to decipher what took place. I was home the whole time. Inside and busy but I would have thought I would have heard Angel barking if an unwelcome animal were visiting. I had no other option but to deduce that Angel must have killed the turkey.

I decided to follow the folk wisdom... tie the dead bird around the dog's neck for a couple days. I took the half eaten bird by the remaining foot and Angel immediately pulled against me by the wing, staking her claim. I then had little doubt that Angel was the culprit. I tied it to her and went back to the injured one which I then found dead also.

The bird rescue lady said the deaths were likely caused from stress. The story I'm spinning is that the birds strayed to the front yard, Angel chased them incessantly to get them to the back (she doesn't bark unless there's an unwelcomed animal around), the one died from stress and, being dead, Angel decided it was a meal. The second one was still alive which is why Angel probably didn't go ahead and start munching on that one too. Either that or she was full.

Later that evening we were debating about how to protect Angel from critters wanting the rotting meat- she's just not a fighter. She's an alarm, a scary alarm, so animals don't challenge her, but if something vicious were to decide she had what they wanted, I don't think she would fight at all. Anyway, that dilemma was solved as we noticed that she had eaten the rest of the bird though I thought I had tied it high enough to disable her from reaching it. We had already disposed of the other bird. This morning she merely reeked of rotting meat and has likely not learned her lesson. So she's spent most of today in the 6'x8' kennel. Tomorrow she'll have her usual reign, but I'm certainly not letting her around the turkeys again. She'll have to be kept tight until the turkeys are ready for the pasture... or should I say the turkey PEN is ready for pasture. I need to wrap the pen in barb wire to prevent the goats from rubbing against it and destroying it. Then I think they'll be fine to set out. Still a bit nervous about it, but given that they even come "home" when it starts to rain, I think they should be ok.

We have the rest of our lives for pretty

Sorry again, Mr. Snooty. This is a living, breathing, PRODUCTIVE homestead. We just don't have resources for pretty right now. This is our latest testimony to the value of zipties. Goats were climbing over this section of fencing... and the farm girl really likes her neon zipties that were in her Christmas stocking. So here's the fix. If you don't like it, look through the other part of your bifocals.

This other eye sore is from Angel, the very good guard dog. We hardly even have a squirrel cross the property lines anymore, but she does have some nasty habits we can't seem to shake. One is that she loves to "play" with the sheep and put her mouth on their legs. She never actually bites, but its quite unnerving to watch. Secondly, she loves to chew on plant pots and will dump out plants on occasion to get to those pots. And thirdly, she will sometimes dig these holes that are deep emough to hear Chinese voices. Any advice is appreciated.

General Update

Ok... maybe not general but at least a lieutenant worthy of salute.

Its been slow going here at the homestead. While spring is marching in fast trying to catch up from a month of lost time, I, on the other hand, am as hindered as I was this fall fresh from childbirth. Last Sunday night I went to bed fine and when I woke up, I couldn't walk. Its been up and down from there- my left hip just being out of whack. Been to see the chiropractor yesterday where she chastised me for coming so late. Live and learn. I'm young... sorta... I expect to just heal. And I don't think that's a bad expectation to have.

Anyway, sprouts are outside and enjoying it. Got 6 zucchini plants transplanted and only 1 looks worse for the wear. I'll need to re-seed some watermelon, cantaloupe and cucumber seeds. I had tried to seed them in egg cartons- and egg hole per seed. Got very poor results. Again, live and learn. I'm going to direct seed once we hit the waxing moon and pray for the best.

Button is doing well. While she's still not letting me close to touching her. She comes just close enough to allow her room to bolt. That's a huge improvement. One huge lesson learned is to not buy any more animals from large herds. In our arrangement we need animals who are at least moderately comfortable with human interaction. Button also has learned that Angel, the dog, just wants to play. Button continues to sit and calmly stare into the distance when Angel comes bounding up wanting to herd.

Angel is right now at the humane society getting spayed. I have no idea how I'm going to keep this hyper BIG puppy calm while she's healing. Poor girl will go out of her gourd kept in the kennel, but I certainly can't run fast enough to give her exercise... even with 2 good hips.

Our post-molt birds are really producing! This is GREAT! Out of 4 birds we're getting 3-4 eggs each day. One sad bit of news is that I noticed a bird acting strange a couple weeks ago. Others were pecking her so I pulled her from the pen where she continued to sit and not run from me. I could tell she was sick. I jumped online and guessed it may be botulism. I administered Epsom salt water to her and as I was doing so, I noticed a huge bulge near her rectum. Then I remembered egg binding. Again, the internet to the rescue. Sure enough, her symptoms were exactly what they were describing. I did as I was told. I greased up her rectum and tried to massage out the egg. It seemed to have turned sideways but I was able to work out the egg. When it was over I took my hands off her... and she didn't move. I nudged her. Nothing. I set her in the sun and started trying to find out if birds will pass out from pain. No one knew. Evening was coming fast and I didn't want to feed a coon, but I also didn't want to bag a live bird. But by the time we really needed to know, she was stiff as a board. Too bad. I'm 0 for 2 on my midwifery skills.

We got our redneck pallet wood garden fence down and partially replaced it with standard 28" fencing. We're still being cheep though. We're discovering all the uses for electrical conduit. We have standard posts in the corner and we'll use 1 piece of conduit (about $2) to make 3 posts. Should work well and save a bundle even with spacing them closer than we would space normal posts. Wouldn't recommend it for animals but for unruly squash vines and hungry gopher tortoises, I think it will hold up fine.

Looking forward to next week when the moon will be phasing right and the weather should be good. Just praying my back will be back in action as well. If not, farmer girl's going to have a lot of work to do!

Angel

Here's a quick picture of Angel. She's very good at what she does and very unsure of what she's supposed to do.

We purchased a shock collar to help with her training. I've heard great things about these tools, but I'm hoping it gets better than our first experience. She was completely unresponsive to it until she was wimpering in pain. Its clear she wants to please us so I think its just going to take more time until she recognizes the lighter tingle (or better yet, the sound) as an indication that she's doing something wrong.

With that said, let me share a story from yesterday. Sunday night, Noel went flakey on us. She started to leave the pasture in her normal 3rd place milking turn, but then bolted deep into the pasture. Normally she lets me approach her and scratch her ears, etc, but not then. It took Farmer Hub and I both to catch her to milk her out. Monday morning, same thing... only Farmer Hub was already gone to work. Angel was in the pasture but Dulcinea doesn't let her get too close to the goats... in fact Dulcinea, being rather big, is quite mean to Angel. Another issue to figure out. So, I locked Dulcinea in the dog kennel so Angel could work with me. Keep in mind, this dog is basically completely untrained. She could tell I was chasing goats so lit in chasing Fudge and Copper. But she quickly figured out that I was only after Noel. In a matter of a minute or less, Angel and I had her cornered where Angel then chased her straight into my arms where I had a leash waiting. I tethered Noel to spare her the stress for the next milkings. This morning, she was very cooperative!

And now with THAT said, it seems she doesn't have a few characteristics I'd like her to have. For example, she frequently gets ganged up on by Dulcinea and Copper and she just runs away. This morning, I look out the window to see a strange man walking across the yard. It was only the meter reader, but there wasn't a single peep from Angel. How do I train her to be at least a BIT more guarding? Do I soak pictures of coons in blood and wave them under her nose? Any advice will be appreciative. I still think we got the right type of dog, that is herding vs. guarding... I just need to know how to train her to do what doesn't come naturally.

A Puppy and His Boy

So after Farmer Hub crunched the numbers and valued a laying hen at about $80 a bird, we decided a dog would quickly earn its keep in a year. And thus began the adventure. We started reading about Border Collies and Australian Shepherds and decided to go with a Border Collie. We didn't go with a more protective dog for several reasons... we didn't want a MASSIVE dog. 50 lbs is about my limit, let alone that big dogs flat out eat more. Secondly, we haven't heard of a good guard dog that can really handle our heat. I don't think I'll mind it coming into the air conditioning on a REALLY hot afternoon, but I don't want it to need that to thrive. Thirdly, we're not dealing with coyotes, wolves or anything really nasty. We need something to chase off racoons, possums, jagarudis, a fox and very rarely a bobcat.

So, why a BC? The "care bear stare" as I've called it, began looking more desirable versus nipping the more I got considering that it will want to herd our children as well. I've also read that Aussies tend to be a bit more hyper on the watch dog end... meaning it could bark at every little thing that moves. BC's are supposed to be a touch smaller than Aussies also.

The hunt began... and quickly ended. I checked an "Ocala 4 Sale" and found 2- 7 month old border collies being given away. I called and other than them not being fixed, they sounded great. The owner wanted the 2 to go together. Her hours had changed and the dogs were stuck in a crate for 10 hours a day. Knowing we wanted only 1 dog, we still took both thinking we could at least give it a better temporary home while we found a permanent home. We also thought they would help each other through the adjustment from being total inside pampered dogs to total outside working dogs.

I was wrong.

We headed out Friday afternoon, crossing almost the entire state, to retrieve these 2 dogs and some sheep (for another post). The adventure began. Little Farmer Boy #1 happens to LOVE puppies. His birthday followed a few days later. I was so busy with the acquired animals that I had no time to neither bake his birthday cake nor construct his tire swing gift. I made a quick batch of cookies and we decided the puppies would be his "gift" (though the tire swing will hopefully be constructed tomorrow). The pictures are of him interacting with said puppies. The top picture is Angel. The darker faced dog is Saint.

We've decided to keep the female (whom we re-named Angel)... who just seems a touch more intelligent. She's also a bit more wiley, but does her job with MUCH less barking. Saint (the male) is a joyful, affectionate handful. He's WAY too into his new job. When we first let them into the pasture, they immediately herded the goats to about a 50 square foot area. Then I was able to keep them separated by a poorly constructed dividing fence for a couple days. They soon found a way over the fence and continued to torment the poor little goats. Angel alone allows the goats space. Saint, alone or with Angel, now insists on the goats being ALL the way in the BACK of their little shed and then proceeds to BARK CONSTANTLY. We end up just putting him back into a chain link kennel (which has been graciously lent to us by some neighbors). I read bits in a dog training book where it advises ignoring the dog for bad behavior. Right. That's like giving public high school students "the eye" to get them to obey. Its gotten me a big fat nowhere. Besides, the dogs are so distracted by one another that I can't work with them at all anyway. We're really hoping to find a new home for Saint as soon as possible, but honestly, would rather see him put to sleep than used as bait for dog fighters (the fate of many dogs listed for adoption).

But as for Angel, we're making headway. She's been tested for heartworms (negative), has had her rabies shot, has an appointment to be spayed in several weeks and has a proper dog house and training collar on order.

And what to feed them? Well, we can't do anything by the book... or at least not conventional books. We didn't quite believe all we were reading about commercial dog food being the best food for a dog. That they can't digest and will get horribly sick from raw meat and bones. So we read what Weston A. Price had to say on the subject: Feed them raw meat and bones. A vast many health problems stem from them NOT eating what God designed them to eat. So... I fed them a couple big raw beef bones I had for broth. They LOVED them! And this from dogs that have shown almost no interest in food at all, including these prized "doggie treats" that dogs are supposed to love. Then, yesterday as we were slaughtering chickens, we fed them each a chicken neck. Angel was enjoying it so much she was thoroughly PLAYING with her food! They ate them quickly and were begging for more! Now, I'm sure any dog owners will freak here and say that chicken bones are too splintery and will puncture their intestines. Please, read the article linked above. It was QUITE convincing that this is a lie that almost everyone has come to believe. My midwife doggie-sits for a family who feeds their dogs an entirely raw diet comprised of mostly chicken parts. So... we saved the wingtips and necks of the chickens and have them in the freezer for future meals. We'll be making their change slowly so as to not totally disrupt their system. We also may not be able to make ALL of their food, but hopefully commercially processed food will be only a small fraction of Angel's standard diet (given that Saint will be gone before we are fully into a raw food regime).

And there's the start of yet another adventure... and hopefully the end to loosing chickens to predators!

Puppy Love?

After a LONG weekend saga with friends wrapped tight into the Haitian orphan adoption situation, I'm gradually recovering and getting on with daily life.

The 5 remaining layers are doing well. Even the one with the crooked neck. She's moving around, clearly eating and drinking, and even laid an egg the other day. We bottomed the big layer pen and moved the meat birds into it so we can eventually take down the electric fencing. However, I simply cannot even BUDGE that pen. With 24 fat birds, the weight of the birds is over 200 pounds. Then take a large amount of poop caked around the wire and the ground... its just not going anywhere. We're hoping to slaughter the roosters this Saturday to ease the load a bit, but this is just NOT going to be a sustainable option.

So what do we do?

My vote is get a dog. Randy's warming up to the idea. So, holding true to our absolute nerdist ways, we've researched it thoroughly. We've decided a border collie is the dog for us if we do go with the dog plan. Given a job to do (and I'm always thinking of jobs this pup could do for me!) they are supposed to be tremendous animals. Can it water the fruit trees for me? If I turn on the water will it take the hose to one tree, wait for my signal then take it to the next tree? Gloria can do that, but she gets bored doing it everyday and it becomes a battle of wills. I win when I engage mind you, but she'd much rather being doing things with me instead. Can this dog roll empty chicken waterers to me? Can in run into the pasture and retrieve hay baskets and empty feed buckets for me? Will it collect the sticks that litter the pasture and drop them on the burn pile? Will it read all the great literature I miss reading out loud to me as I hoe the garden?

The toss up was between a border collie and australian shepherd. Aussies seem to bark a bit more, being better "watch dogs"... as in it will bark if an armadillo enters the yard. They also love to herd children... sometimes by nipping. I'm all for our dog herding our kids and keeping them out of harms way, but I'd prefer them using the "care bear stare" method instead. Maybe a few barks to let me know something's amiss. Aussies also have such a need for human interaction, they may not be satisfied sitting outside on duty while we are all inside doing school or inside chores. I'm NOT going to have a house dog. Porch, garage, no problem, but a furry creature will not be in bed with us.

So the bottom line comes down to if the expense of keeping a dog is worth its service. Calculating, barring the unexpected, it should cost around $300 a year to keep a dog of this size. That's like losing a half a pen of meat birds every year. Do we just let it go and take the risk of predator loss or do we essentially "buy insurance" against it?

Randy asked a very good question- if we do get a dog and its just not filling the role we want it to fill, will we be too attached to get rid of it? I don't think that will be a problem, but I also remember having "Rooster" and how sad I was to see her go. "Rooster" was one of our first laying hens that started the horrible habit of egg eating. She got the boot from the pen every morning and would lay her egg in the scrub every afternoon. We called her Rooster because her comb was enormous. She followed me around like a puppy. I really enjoyed it. This went on for a few months then we found fleas in the house. We assumed it must be from the day ranged chickens as those were the only animals anywhere near the house. It was so hard to chop off Rooster's head. I hated it. Especially when it later dawned on us that we were just given some furniture from a friend of a friend... who had cats. All that to say, no, I won't be chopping the head off a dog who doesn't pull its weight, but it could be a little hard to see him go to another family.

I think I'd really like a pup if we get one. I've heard border collies are rarely pushed to their potential which causes some very destructive habits to be formed. Though it would be a while before a pup could perform its duties, I think I'd rather do that than shock a pampered pooch into work-life AND have to break its bad habits.

I'd love some people's perspective on this topic. Please leave all opinions, for and against. Also give any other thoughts of other jobs to give it to keeps its mind properly employed or other concerns we may not have yet considered. Thanks in advance.