Front garden update

The corn are growing! We still don't have actual corn growing but the stalks are growing and getting thicker. Only two beans survived so we'll see if we can actually get any beans from them (I hope!) The squash and pumpkins are growing and I'll need to thin them out tomorrow. I think I'll put some of them in the bean box I'm making. Today I was able to add another four raised beds to the front and hopefully I'll have everything in the ground tomorrow.

Items to plant tomorrow:
celery
lettuce
pickles
watermelon
beans
asparagus
articokes
melon bushes

I'll post pictures after I get the boxes planted. =)

Epic Fail 2010

So this year has been the year of epic fail when it comes to plants and trees. Between the pigs, goats, chickens, geese, ducks, guineas, and the cats the only trees that have seemed to thrive have been the ones up front. The almond is bearing fruit, the apple tree has grown over 3 feet, the citrus trees have grown or have started to sprout new growth. But other than that....

At last count I think the ash and the poplar in the back are still alive, the sycamore closest to the house is still mostly alive, as is one of the olives. The willows have been munched and snapped as have the cherries, nectarines, apricot, and pears. The pigs had a field day with the evergreens and the chestnuts (all gone) and so really, we're down to just a handful of trees. I think I'm going to pick up some eh trees today at home depot just to get some fruit trees going. I'll go ahead and order some trees from Trees of Antiquities this next year so that we can get them started. We're hoping that those apples and other heirloom trees will grow well in the back yard. As long as the goats don't get out again we should be good with the new trees and hopefully they should be sturdy and strong enough to survive a lot longer. Sheesh.. and I was hoping for some fruit this year. =P

Oh Almond tree, oh almond tree doo doo doo dooo do do do

I walked out into the front yard yesterday so that I can water my corn and plants and I noticed that we seemed to have almonds opening up and getting ready for harvest. =) I look forward to picking(shaking) almonds and storing them, if not just plain eating them until I'm sick...

Dog days of summer

I woke up yesterday thinking that I could go let the animals out and then get back to bed... boy was I wrong.

I looked out and I saw something duck under the tall grasses and so I went out to investigate. I found Sassy, our left neighbor's tiny dog in the back yard. When she saw that I was looking she ducked down and was trying to hide. I walked over and I picked her up and walked her over to her back yard and tossed her over. (It's a routine.) And then I went to go open up the chickens. I opened up the coop and was going to walk over to the other animals when I heard them squack. I looked over and our right neighbor's dog had broken the fence and was trying to play with the chickens. He is not a tiny lap dog, hence the breaking of the fence, but a 150+ dog that is very happy to play. I ended up getting a hold of his collar but did not have anything that I could attach to his collar so that I can take him back home. I ended up moving him towards the front yard and was trying to get him to his house but failed in that he ended up running down the street in the completely wrong direction. I went and knocked on my neighbor's door to let them know that their dog was out. I was going back when I heard the chickens squack again and looked over to see that the dog had gotten back into my backyard and was running around. (Good thing I hadn't let the cats out yet.) I walked over and saw my neighbor walking down the street and he lifted his arms up in a questioning manner and I pointed to my yard. He started walking back just as his dog pushed the unlocked gate open and ran out to play. Our neighbor was able to get the dog back into his kennel and then we fixed the fence.

So much for sleeping in. =)

Shadows

As I was leaving for work this morning I passed by the duckie room and I saw two shadows walk up to the door from within the room. One was a bigger shadow than the other. ... So I opened the door slowly and both ducks had jumped out of their broody box and were running around the room. The female (jumbo) was the bigger shadow and male(standard) was the little shadow. They slowly backed up and then as soon as they saw me enter the room they ran for it. I was able to catch them and put them back into their box but it was amusing that their shadows would creep up to the door just as I was walking past. =) I have little creepy stalking ducks.

Images of the goats =)

Since some of you haven't seen Bugger in a while, here are some images to tide you over... and some images of Ramses posing or prancing and of Lucy, our newest member (A Toggenburg!!!)... and Little Rosie... and our future dinner Big Goat.

Captain Sack-Up visits the farm

Today's conversation:

*Blue Andalusian rooster beating up Dorking rooster*

Jed - Why won't the Dorking understand that the Andalusian is about 2/3's the size of him? He should just sack-up and get back there and give him a beak full of claw.

Rosie - ... Did we just get a visit from Captain Sack-Up?

In the image the Andalusian is the White rooster and the Dorking is the fancy looking one.

Chicks from the 80's

While Jed and I were looking at the Polish chicks he mentioned that they had 80's style hairdos... I was actually thinking the same thing since I had seen a cover of a Depeche Mode cd earlier that day. =) We'll start getting worried when we start getting chickens with Flock of Seagulls style hairdos.

All in all, the baby chicks are really taking off. The giants are adorable looking as they lumber about with the others. The Sumatras are interesting looking as they are more of a heritage jungle fowl since they are a bit more ... not domestic.. (good thing I majored in English) and the Buttercups are really catching our fancy. They have very neat markings and their (surprise) buttercup combs are interesting looking. We'll see about getting another batch of Dorkings next year just to make sure that we can maintain that breed. We'll keep the good meat and egg layers of this group but we might also look into some darker egg layers.. or just get some keats next year for some more guinea hens.

The little ones are really growing so we're going to put them in with the big birds this weekend and see how they do. We might find that the uppity chicks will have their egos cut to size.

Flailing away

I got home and found Jed just waking up. The evening was actually cool (88 degrees) and so we went outside to be with the animals. Jed took pictures of everyone and I brought the mustard harvesting system over to the bridge to get some more. We started flailing and stomping on the mustard plastic burrito and then started sifting. This was from a batch that we had already started harvesting so we weren't expecting much... we ended with another about cup and a half of seeds.

We then moved on to the wheat to see if the flailing would help separate the berries. It worked fairly well and we were distracted by turkeys that would come over to see what they could eat. They would eat out of our hand and sometimes take pieces of plants that we held up for them. One kept jumping up on my lap while I was sifting to see if she could get into the basket for more grains... too bad they're not very friendly.

Baby duckies

I picked up two baby Pekins yesterday. A jumbo female and a standard male. They look really cute together, we'll see if the male can even mate with her if there is that much of a drastic difference in their sizing. They seem to be about the same age as the baby chicks but I'm not sure if Rainbow would take them on as adopted babies. That and they might be a little too big for her to cover. We would also like them to be a bit friendlier so we'll see about working with them so that they can get used to use just like the turkeys did.

Here comes Trouble

So the kitten is still around and her name is Trouble. Her new best friend is Calvin who she spends most of the time fighting with. She hides around corners and jumps out at him. Calvin and her are best buds and Calvin protects her from McGee. She likes attacking our indoor tree, climbing the screen door, chasing her tail, getting nommed by Calvin, doing backflips from attempting to surprise Calvin or McGee, and waking Jed up in the morning.

McGee would desperately love to have a baby kitten that just sleeps and likes to snuggle with McGee so that he can just clean and sleep with... Trouble is not that kitten. McGee is up to fuffing here with Trouble and I've seen him drag her by her throat into the room I'm in just to let me know how done he is with her. I don't even have to look around any more. If I hear McGee's annoyed sound but it sounds kind of muffled I just have to tell him to let go of the kitten and then he walks over with the most annoyed kitty look on his face... ever.

McGee is having a hard time with Calvin and Trouble so now we spend a lot of time hanging out with McGee since he's having issues. My poor buddah belly baby.

Bread oven

When the goats escaped they ended up running around near the house and doing kick flips off the base of the bread oven as well as attempting to do 360's off of it. Well, in the process of doing stunts off the base they ended up kicking off some of the base border bricks. I'll have to reset the bricks and I was going to see about mixing up a batch of adobe to surround the base and so that it looks like a smooth transition from the base to the actual oven. I picked up 30 half firebricks and they are waiting for me in the back yard. I wasn't sure if I should cover the base with adobe or if I should make a frame and pour concrete all around it. What do you guys think? Adobe or concrete? I can shape the adobe, and it will be fun the play in the mud...

Turkey-lurkies

The turkeys are doing well. They are still babies in the grand scheme of things, but they are adorable babies that are bigger than the chickens. They have a tendency to follow us around and to stay by our side. If either Jed or I walk outside they follow us around to see what we're doing and if we're going to let them back into the house. They are growing well and we hope that they don't get blackhead and that they survive and thrive.

Projects

List of big projects:

Bread oven
Duck/Geese pen (with roof)
Turkey (possible guinea) coop for them to roost
Awning to back yard
Raised bed for veggies and herbs (about 5 to start off with)
Goat pen and lean-to
New pig enclosure for future piggy needs
Taking out vanity in master bathroom and putting in a pedestal sink
Put in cast iron bathtub and tile into hall bathroom
Finish painting inside house
Start irrigating system
Sectioning off back half of yard for possible goat/sheep/cow cycle
Extending pond

Did I forget to mention the geese?

Yeah, we have geese. We have three French Toulouse (2 geese 1 gander) and we might look into getting another gander as it seems as if one couple is now mated for life.

I picked them up from Los Osos and they seem to be doing all right. They eat a lot of feed but they were used to only eating grass and if you know Paso during the summer you know that we're kind of lacking grass. We started watering the yard to see if some grass will grow for them. For the moment they are staying in the old coop but we'll see if we can set up a pen for the ducks and the geese to chill in.

Oh, and it seems as if we've lost the camera again so we'll see when I can post pictures.

Harvesting Mustard

During the scyth-a-thon we ended up picking some mustard as well and peeling it to get the seeds. Needless to say that took forever and we didn't get many seeds. After thinking about it, I came up with a different method to harvest the seeds and we were able to try out the technique today.

I cut off some stalks of mustard and put them on a blue tarp. I then rolled them up like a burrito and started stomping on it. Jed was kind enough to build me a flail and we started working together on harvesting the seeds. After we flailed the mustard we lifted the blue tarp and scyphoned the mustard into a glass container. We then moved the seeds into a metal pot through a sieve, and finally we winnowed the seeds between the pot and a basket.

To put the harvest in prospective... One day of harvesting by peeling the pods = 1/2 tablespoon of seed for 4 hours of work.

One hour worth of collecting, flailing, scyphoning, seiving, and winnowing = 3/4 lb of seeds

That was just with a few sections of mustard.. we still have the whole 1/3 of the back yard to go through and collect the seeds... I think people are going to get mustard for 12th Night presents this year.

Well that was totally awesome

The forecast stated 90's for the weekend.

What I got this morning at 6:40am was thunder rolling over the hills and then a downpour.

I got to go outside in the rain and check on the goats. I decided to let the geese out so that they could enjoy the rain but they just stayed in their coop. The rain did stop but for the brief 20 minute period it was awesome. It's been so dry and hot that most of the plants have died.... that and the animals help that along.

Good thing I only had a blanket outside drying. I'll have to wait until that dries and maybe a few hours for the grains to dry again and then I'll go out and play. I'm thinking I'm going to have a busy home day. Yaaaahooo!!!

Apparently, Jed was not on crack...

Back in June we had the great chicken massacre of '10. We left town to go to Crown and ended up coming home to a back yard full of dead chicken. We lost most of the Dorkings and the White Faced, Black Spanish, it was devastating to say the least.

But back to the story: After the massacre I had not seen one of the Rainbows and I commented to Jed. He kept assuring me that Rainbow was out there and that he would see her periodically. Every night I would go out and close up and every morning I would open up the coop and still no Rainbow. After the second time I mentioned this to Jed and he would assure me that Rainbow was out there I decided to drop it and just assume Jed was on crack...

On Friday we were walking around the back yard working on things and Rainbow was walking under the coop... not only was she walking under the coop but a tiny day old chick was following her under the coop. I stopped dead in my tracks, pointed at the baby chick, and said something intelligent like, "Uaauahah!" Jed looked over and snapped me out of my stupor by stating, "See, I told you Rainbow was out here." I had to point out that Rainbow had a tiny shadow following her. Once he noticed he also made and intelligent sound and we went over to investigate. It turned out she had a tiny Dorking/Ameraucana cross following her. It was great to watch her protect her young... I now like her a whole lot more knowing that she's a good brooder and a good mother.... and because she does flying kicks of death at big goat's eyes whenever big goat gets too close to her baby. Later that day we saw another tiny baby run out this time a Blue Andalusian/Ameraucana cross. Jed found the nest later that day and we moved the next, mommy and chickies to what used to be the old duck coop. Mommy and babies are now moving around undesturbed by any other chickies, ducks, geese, goats, or humans. =) I'll post pictures when I can.

So for our first set of chickies... 7/9/10 - 2 chicks, mother: Rainbow (18 eggs in nest only two have hatched so far)