Tis the Season

Tis the season for snakes and breeding.  Farmer Girl picked this one up and waved it at me.  You can imagine my response.  Thankfully it was already dead.  And also, especially thankfully, its a harmless scarlet king snake and not a coral.  (Coral snakes are more predominately black than red).  I can only assume that Angel is the one that took care of this one.  It clearly was dealt a fatal blow.  It sets my mind somewhat at ease believing Angel will take care of slithering foes, but on the other hand, I don't want to lose Angel to venomous bite suffered during the defense of her territory.  I've read that to administer anti-venom, you must know the species of snake that bit.  But injectable vitamin C in high doses can save animals (and people) when the species is unknown.  I've been on a local hunt for this magical goodness called Injectable Vitamin C to no avail.  I think, before snake breeding season carries on much more, I will hit the all-providing internet to acquire such a spectacular potion.

Another snake-bite preventative motion is to attach bells around an animal's neck.  The loud clanging alerts snakes that this is a large animal not suitable for a meal and they slither back to protect themselves.  I can't imagine the racket that would be heard if I attached bells to all 10 of the 4-legged creatures.  I think instead I'll just be cautious (as I've done other years) to make sure the sheep are keeping up with the height of the grass and I scope out the yard before releasing the kids to play each morning.

Bella and Zuma

 Meet the newest additions.  This little nubian is Bella (I know we already had a Bella, but hey, we like the name).  She's a 1 year old doe with good genetics and very sweet disposition.  She's a bit skinnier than we were expecting so we're taking this month to condition her and we'll breed her to Copper at the beginning of July.  She's our replacement for Doby and our means of milk through the winter.  She'll kid in Nov/Dec.  Dulci will kid in Feb/Mar and Helen in June/July.  Milk flowing all year and Helen still gets her nice long vacation.

 Bella's a quick study too.  After only 1 day of leading her to the milking table, she knows right where to go and the patches of nicest leaves when she's finished with her grain.  Like the other goats, she doesn't much care for tethering.  She doesn't like to be away from the other goats, even if it is so she can have the best forage without competition.  I guess most anorexics do it for social reasons, right?

And this is Zuma.  She's a Suffolk/Hampshire cross ewe.  She's 5 years old.  Her previous owner was a local middle school student and wasn't going to be able to continue taking care of her as she went on to high school.  Zuma has been bred twice before and gave twins both times.  She's a good bit bigger than our Khatadin sheep.  The twinning genetics and the size hopefully coupled with Valentino's fast growing genetics and we have a winning combination.  Zuma is also very sweet and tame.  When she first arrived, she was scared and rather scary.  The other animals ran when she came near.  Now, they're exercising the we-were-here-first attitude and shoos her off the hay until they're done.  We're working on keeping a collar on her and we'll soon tether her as well, but I want her to get used to us first.  Scared animals are dangerous animals.

And meet our Eastern Black Swallowtail caterpillars.  There were 10 of these guys on my fennel plants.  They're missing now so I assume they've gone to metamorphosize.  I hope so.  Farm Girl would love to see a host of swallowtail butterflies dancing outside our living room window.  And thankfully she's not skillful enough with her net to catch too many either.

Goings On

1) A big event is on the horizon!  Sunday, October 10th there will be an alternative energy expo as the Marine Discovery Center in New Smyrna Beach.  But its not limited to alternative energy only but anything that will help us on the path toward a more sustainable existence.  And another cool aspect is that the businesses represented are all LOCAL!  If you have or know of a business you'd like to see there, let me know and I can connect you with the organizers.  Anything from bat boxes to builders to landscapers.  Very low vendor fee.  Great opportunities for everyone! 

See you at the Marine Discovery Center, 162 N. Causeway, New Smyrna Beach from 11am to 3pm.

2) Bringing back home, last Sunday, late afternoon, we were all outside.  The family was playing on the swingset, sheep were grazing nearby, turkeys running in the pasture... and the dog went on red alert.  A casual attempt to try to figure out what she was jumpy about sent us into a panic.  I (with my less than perfect vision) thought it was a BIG black wild pig running up our neighbors driveway.  We went running with the kids to the house, Husbandman grabbed the sheep, I herded up the turkeys and wondered if I should grab Dobie, our small, not quite yearling goat.  I called everyone on the street with kids, guts or amo.  Husbandman went out to check over the area with a, um, .22.  He didn't see anything then but the more we got talking about what we saw, its shape, the way it moved and its sheer size, we determined it was more likely a bear, its brown face tricking my near-sighted eyes into looking like tusks.

I started researching and the more I learned the more it must have been a bear.  To sum it up, black bears don't attack people, even little people, unless provoked.  They will eat chickens, turkeys and even small goats and sheep and come back night after night.  The dog may be enough of a deterent that it could pass by and not even come on the property.  But just to be safe, we've decided to hold off another year on starting honey bees just to make sure this cub kicked from the nest isn't making its home near us.  The smell of honey is strong and luring.  We could easily protect the hives  but not everything else that a hungry bear would find delectable!

3) So instead of honey we're thinking of rabbits.  What started out as a conversation of getting the little farm girl her own animal/s to care for, show at the county fair, pet and play with, ended up being a full-fledged rabbit operation.  The more we read, the more we wondered why we're raising chickens.  Now I'm not ready to give up on poultry all together.  We'll always raise egg-layers, but it would be nice if we could, between the turkeys and the rabbits, replace the meat bird operation.  Turkeys and rabbits are all things we plan to breed here where chickens... just not going to do a rooster again.  More thinking and planning to do.  We won't be doing anything until well after Husbandman's exam next month.  And the new barn needs to be finished first.  And we're thinking of creating a "bachelor pad" or breeding pen mostly because Copper has been jumping on Helen since the moment that baby came out.  A farmer's work is never done.

a different kind of egg

I've had lots of luck with those upside down, topsy-turvy planters... just not with growing plants! Instead they have become quite the wildlife hub. The last one I took down right at the end of winter was housing 3 enormous frogs. This one I took down gingerly (lest a frog come leaping out onto my head). I also knew a bird had at one time lived in there. I peaked in and saw nothing. I poked around a bit and still nothing. So I proceeded to dump its contents into my herb bed that I was re-doing. I was very sad to see 5 tiny little bird eggs. 2 broke. The other 3 were intact. I removed the nesty stuff, dumped the compost out, replaced the nesty stuff and then replaced the 3 remaining eggs and rehung the planter hoping mama would come back and save her babies from my carelessness. It was very sad as you can clearly see blood vessels had formed. I can't guess what bird it was- blue jay, mocking bird, robin... I don't know. The only times I saw anything it was zooming away too quickly and too far away for me to tell. Sorry, mama bird, I will hang this in a secret place in the woods where it can be your home and not be an eye sore for the snooty man down the street.

Sherlocking

While I'm not a martial arts expert as the new Sherlock Holmes movie depicts, I've been applying my own powers of deduction to our newest predator.

1) The hole is LARGE with distinct paw prints.

2) Most of the dead chickens had no blood on them. Their necks were broken indicating opposable thumbs.

3) One survived chicken has a single puncture wound on its back that looks like it could have been made by a claw of a deft little hand. Not a tooth or there would be a second nearby.

4)A neighbor saw what she thought was a possum, but was brown, had longer legs, and a stubby pig-like face and a very round belly like a pot-bellied pig.

5)Another neighbor saw a family of racoons leaving the woods beside our house a week or 2 ago.

My thought: it was a jagaurundi (otter cat) and a racoon. The jagaurundi is part of the cat family, is capable of digging holes, kills for sport, etc. This is likely what the neighbor saw. It looked like a pot-bellied pig because it had just had a large chicken dinner. After the jagaurundi dug the hole, killed a few, and had a good meal, the chickens were wandering the yard and a coon or 4 moved in, killed a few more as they were scattered about the yard, injured one's neck, punctured one with a claw and ate a couple more in peace deep in the woods.

The jagaurundi will unfortunately not be made into slippers as they are apparently endangered (or at least 4 of the 8 subspecies are). We'll just continue to protect our birds as we can and hope it finds greener pastures. I've heard of this thing killing a neighbor's rabbits a few years ago. Gee. Endangered yet we can't protect our livestock from it.

unexpected

as much as we say we need to expect the unexpected, i got caught blindsided again. its hard to deal with the unexpected with 3 little ones. this morning i ventured out into the frozen tundra early enough so that i could get it all done before farmer hub left for work in the big big city and save the layers and layers of clothes to pile on 3 kids. I was greeted by a few chickens...smiling at me... from outside their pen. I quickly saw a large hole ripped thru the chicken wire side. a few more chickens roamed freely. a few others stayed in the pen by choice. we set up the baby gates and a piece of plywood and loaded the birds in there. in counting, one was missing. and sure enough we noticed a trail of feathers all the way to the woods. what's funny is yesterday morning i thought something looked funny and did a head count. sure enough a buff colored rock was missing. i figured she must have died in the summer and i just didn't remember. had a serious case of baby brain for a few months in there. anyway, now i'm wondering if the critter didn't manage to get her on a previous night without doing major damage to the pen then came back for more and really ripped it up. a neighbor said he saw a big grey fox roaming around. we haven't seen coons work this hard for food before so my assumption is it was a fox.

so, all that meant i still needed to do chores, this time with farmer hub running late and the kids rather unsupervised inside. bundled 'em up, complete with gloves this time, and out we went. the littlest hated it. ended up trying to repair the pen with him in a mobi wrap... very difficult. finally got it apart, figured my parts list and loaded the car for the not-quite-so-big city. 5 stops later we're home with 3 sleeping but hungry kids. got them fed and tucked in for naps and ran back out desperate to finish as my normal to-do list was still beckoning. then discovered that the home depot helper that had spotted my 1" PVC elbows gave me threaded ones and I never noticed. ug! so i did all i could with what i had, woke up the boys, reloaded them and drove a mile down the street to my friend's handy hardware store. the 1" elbow box was empty. i could have cried. she announced she had some in the back so i stood guard at the front of the store, keeping an eye on the kids whom i hadn't unloaded from the car given that it was CLEARLY visable from inside the store and someone was always there to watch. well, in walks mr. do-gooder who rips me up one side and down the other saying that the police will come and lock me up and take my kids away for leaving them in the car. he repeatedly told me that he worked for the court system and that they'd definitely be locking me up. quite frankly, if i'm the worst criminal that they're coming after with such vengence, then please, lock me up because it means they've turned a blind eye and its far safer in jail. anyway, my friend had mercy on me and ushered me out the door and away from the continuous stream of wrath with my two elbows without paying. i drive away with 2 kids screaming that they wanted to see little hardware boy (the owner's grandson who totters about the place most days). we get home, i dole out the snacks, wipe cold, runny noses, put the shoes and jackets and gloves back on, feed the baby and try again to finish the pen. this time it went rather smoothly (aside from the little hands wanting to help glue the PVC together), but it was also almost 4pm. i finished and tossed the chickens from their cramped little makeshift pen back into their real abode and set about trying to prepare for the subfreezing temps again tonight.

for detail sake, i replaced the chicken wire with hardware cloth as i figured that will go farther in keeping out the wiley little critters than chicken wire. the other 2 pens are already done up in hardware cloth.

and my pet frog survived the night. he's now living in my utility sink. i run warm water on him every so often. ran a load of laundry in the drier tonight to boost the temp inside the garage a bit. prbly won't last long against 26 on the other side of that thin garage door, but its something.

and now i still have laundry to fold, dishes to do, diapers to deal with, a floor to wash, bathrooms to clean... and i'm so mentally exhausted i could fall asleep standing up with my eyes open.

but the boy is sufficiently nursed now and almost sleeping in my arms. its a pleasent feeling after all that.

just wish i could linger here a little bit longer...

26... ish

woke up at 3 to a reading of 41. i did a dance of joy. woke up at 6 to 36. no ice around when doing chores at 7:30. very hopeful that the forecast would be better than the 27 it said before. i did not want to pull out the blankets and sheets.

too bad. forecast now says 26 with strong northern winds. boooooooo!

so, i bundled the kids and we all went out. thanks to a neighbor who purged her linen closet a few months back, i had just enough coverings. i have things laid out ready come dark. i turned the goat shed so the opening is pointed south. i put blankets over the northern sides of each chicken pen as wind breaks. I gave everything a good drink.

And I checked on my poor pet frog that I found yesterday. :-< Yesterday morning I saw a BIG frog hanging onto the side of a rain barrel. I figured the water would be the warmest place for him, but alas, a couple hours later I saw him spread out, dead, at the bottom of the barrel. Then I found another frog barely moving, near frozen, in another barrel. I scooped it out and set it in a bucket of water. Then I added warm water to try to bring its body temperature up. This was late in the afternoon so I brought the bucket into the garage. This morning I thought it was dead, but it blinked. I added more warm water and am hoping for the best. I know its pretty silly. And likely futile. But just because I hack the heads off chickens doesn't mean I want to see every bit of wildlife die a slow and painful death. Besides, frogs eat bugs.

So, tonight being the worst night forecasted thus far and as far as the almight radar can see, if all our little plants and froggies can make it tonight, we'll know we're doing alright. Good luck to everyone else out there. Stay warm!

More Garden Woes

I staggered through morning chores today... and the sight in the garden almost knocked me down completely... 4 tomato plants eaten!!! Not just the leaves, but eaten down to the half inch stalk! What animal (that we have around here) would get over a 2' woven wire fence to eat fibrous foliage? Coons get over anything, but they don't eat foliage. The rabbits can't get over the fence. Same for the gopher tortoises. We've seen deer out a lot on the highway, but I've never thought of one coming this close into town. No damage to the fence either. Its baffling. Guess its time to get the hubby to... ahem... add an extra measure to the fencing. Too bad its in the front yard. For those who don't know, urine is a fabulous barrier... it just washes away a lot quicker than a fence does!

Still waiting for the baby. Gonna go curl up for a nap and pray he comes this evening.

The Snake Hunter

The snake hunter came yesterday and laughed when she got out of her car. She shook her head and said, "where do I start?" We're completely surrounded by the perfect habitat for every venomous snake in Florida. Well, duh. I know that. BUT, after almost 2 and a half hours of hunting she only found an empty hole and the skin to a rat snake. I didn't know if that should comfort me or disappoint me. This morning though, a neighbor said they saw a coral snake go from our front yard into the woods across the street. The end decision: we just have to be careful. It seems they are out very early in the morning (which means my schedule of not going out until a little later in the morning works well). We have "nesting spots" everywhere... the goal is to clean them up as best we can, but just act with caution around them. Its more likely it was a pymgy rattlesnake that killed our goats... the lesson learned is to make sure that the goats are keeping up with the grass and we don't allow it to get too tall. I check the yard before the kids come out with me and I watch them like a hawk that they don't get too close to brush or venture into un-checked territory. Its a bit of bother, but the alternative is to move to a condo. And that would SOOO not work for me. I'm learning its just an unfortunate part of working and enjoying the outdoors. Rather than thinking of every possible way to be snake free (and get overconfident and careless), its better to just know they're out there and be vigilent. Its a bit sad for the kids though. Yesterday late afternoon while I was preparing dinner, farmer boy #1 went tottering outside to play in the backyard- which I can clearly watch from the kitchen window. It used to be normal. It used to be a pleasure to allow them some late day romp time before dinner and bed. But I went hustling out to bring him back in for fear of something sneaking around in the grass. I'm sure this new lifestyle will become habit just as the old did and I won't have to carry an active boy back inside crying for his slide. But until then, its caution, vigilence and trust in our Good God to keep us safe.

And maybe praying for the hawk population to increase.

A Lesson on Snakes

I made about a hundred phone calls and God graciously led me to a wonderful snake-hunting lady who does this for free... for fun. Her only request is that we visit her in the hospital if she gets bit. If you're in Central Florida and are contending with a venomous snake, e-mail me (floridahomestead(at)mail(dot)com) and I'll give you her contact info. She's coming over Thursday morning for some hunting, but has given me a wealth of info over the phone recently too. Here it is:

1) Mid-August to mid-September is snake breeding season. They are particularly active so be vigilant. Watch where you step. Keep your grass short. Inspect areas before kids run out to play. Hot afternoons are a bit safer as they are hiding from the heat so if it doesn't matter when you go out, go out then.

2) Black snakes do NOT keep away venomous snakes. In fact NOTHING does. People make lots of money selling spray-on snake repellents that do absolutely nothing but give you some unwarranted peace of mind. The best thing to do is keep the areas you use free from their hiding places be watchful.

3) King snakes (the coral snake look-alike) are extremely rare around here. If you see a red,yellow and black banded snake, you can count on it being a coral snake. The good news is they are incredibly tame. A little girl was recently bit by a coral snake... after several minutes of playing with it. Don't take chances, but know they're not hunting you down.

4) Snakes can't see worth beans. They attack by the movement you make. If you spot a snake, slowly back away and they won't be able to "see" you.

5) If you have a snake-haven you'd like to dispose of (like our massive piles of pine scrub in the pasture), do so in cooler weather when they're not so active. And still be careful.

6) If a bite occurs, tie a band tightly around the appendage that was bit, just up from the bite. This keeps the blood from flowing so quickly to the brain. Keep it low to again prevent rapid blood flow. Make a criss-cross cut in the skin over the bite. Suck out blood, venom and fluid and spit it out. Do so until an ambulance arrives. If you have an open wound in your mouth, you'll be putting yourself in GREAT danger so weigh that when you're making the decision on who should do the sucking.

Hope this helps everyone to be safe outside in these later summer months.

Potential Answers

Cocoa, who had seemed to be doing so much better after the apparent lightening jolt, died suddenly Wednesday afternoon. Tuesday I was right there to witness what appeared to be a seizure. Today, while mowing the lawn where their fencing was, I noticed a strange hole in the ditch... where we have standing water for a few hours after a decent rain. I started to wonder about snake bites. After doing a bit of research I discovered that the black snake my husband saw a few weeks ago could actually have been a water moccasin, that they will live in dry areas such as pine forests (what surround us), and that their bites produce these symptoms (aside from what would be visible except on a furry little goat):

diarrhea
burning
convulsions
fainting
dizziness
weakness
blurred vision
excessive sweating
fever
increased thirst
loss of muscle coordination
nausea and vomiting
numbness and tingling, especially in the mouth
rapid pulse
altered mental state
shock
paralysis
breathing difficulties

All these, aside from maybe the breathing difficulties, complete paralysis, nausea and vomiting, Cocoa was displaying. I'm now wondering if, with all the rain, a snake came out of the woods to swim in the newly flooded ditch and was disturbed by the goats... which would explain why they weren't under any shelter. They were probably bit well after the rain had ended.

Now... how do I find and eliminate this threat and make the yard once again safe for my kids?