Author: raisingwood

I stopped at the end of the driveway to check the mailbox. When I get back in the car, a friendly grasshopper joined me. I gently encourage her to leave out the open door. While she hopped out, two more jump in. I grab them and toss them outside and quicky shut the door. Ain’t nobody got time for that! As I make the drive to the house, there were no fewer then 20 impacts on the side of my car. The grasshoppers clunk spook when you drive past so clunk they jump right into the side clunk of the car. Clunk. As crazy hot as it is right now (111f), there are the equivalent crazy volume of grasshoppers.

Jenny and some of the kids are down sick, so I’ve got all the animals and garden responsibilities this night. Usually I do the animals and maintenance tasks around the farm while Jenny cultivates and nurtures the garden after livestock. After several years of my anarchy gardening strategy, she has come along and enforced rigid rows and strict water disciplines. It’s working, even with the onslaught of grasshoppers doing their best impersonation of locusts this year. Clunk.

Gardens are busy places. Among the tomatoes I found flowers in the pollination stage, green tomatoes leveling up, and ripe red tomatoes for harvest. In the middle was a zipper spider, ready and eager to capture and consume grasshoppers tearing through the place. Look! Even a baby spider coming along nicely.

Taking a step away from any garden helps bring perspective. The distress and violence in always in the micro. It’s in the conflict of the insects and arachnids, weeds competing for water with the productivity plants, rampaging fungus flowering in the shadows, and dismal leaves rotting from ground contact.

When you see the whole macro garden you see abundance and re-creation. You see canopies of green making life from sunbeams. You see seeds wrapped in nutrients meant to be consumed. You see nothing is wasted, even the losses cycle back into the system for new life. I see the father God in that cycle, and it’s a reminder for me how he looks at the heart of the man and not just the problems obvious in the micro view.

One nights harvest, so many melons to eat and preserve and share. Time to turn these chickens loose of the clunkers.

We built a second version of a chicken tractor for the incubator champion chickens and moved them outside to the grass.

The design is heavily influenced by the ubiquitous Joel Salatin builds from Polyface Farms. Since we had a truck bed liner salvaged from a neighbors trash, we used it for the canopy in the back.

Every day this gets moved to a new patch of grass, the food bucket is checked and the water is managed. Protection from predator and wandering off while befitting from the pasture and fertilizing the grass. Wins all around.

The chicks pecked their way out of the shells and moved cheerfully into a chick pen.

Jenny set up a brooder heater. Last year we used a traditional heat lamp and has success with it. This year we are using a flat panel heater to lower the risk of fire and burns on little fingers. It is working well, with one problem.

The problem is the chicks want to roost. They specifically want to roost on top of the heater, freely depositing chicken manure across the surface of it. Our Good&Cheap(TM) solution is a foil pan fitted to the top. It blocks the surface access without causing any new problems.

One surprise was how many different times and places the chicks managed to pry under the foil pan. We would hear distress cheeping and discover one roosting in the foil pan oven on top of the heater. The fourth iteration of the foil pan finally blocked all of these intrepid adventures.

There was another surprise this weekend. A new kitten joined the workshop. We’re calling her Blue Belle, and more on her in the next post.

The chicks pecked their way out of the shells and moved cheerfully into a chick pen.

Jenny set up a brooder heater. Last year we used a traditional heat lamp and has success with it. This year we are using a flat panel heater to lower the risk of fire and burns on little fingers. It is working well, with one problem.

The problem is the chicks want to roost. They specifically want to roost on top of the heater, freely depositing chicken manure across the surface of it. Our Good&Cheap(TM) solution is a foil pan fitted to the top. It blocks the surface access without causing any new problems.

One surprise was how many different times and places the chicks managed to pry under the foil pan. We would hear distress cheeping and discover one roosting in the foil pan oven on top of the heater. The fourth iteration of the foil pan finally blocked all of these intrepid adventures.

There was another surprise this weekend. A new kitten joined the workshop. We’re calling her Blue Belle, and more on her in the next post.

This spring we are planning on hatching chicken eggs. Jenny is actually, I’m mostly observing this project.

In planning a Hatch, there are steps. First, a daddy rooster and a momma hen… What’s that? Ok, you get it.

Because we’re American, modern, and do not have a broody hen, the fertilized eggs go in an incubator for three weeks. It’s like a spa for 22 chicken eggs that doesn’t at all remind me of humans hatching in Huxley’s Brave New World.

Now there are details to manage and this engineer farm lady is all over it. Adjust this dial to manage humidity, that one to manage temp, this one there to manage turning. Did I mention the turning and the lights? Because this little R2D2 unit is making sure it’s still busy at night on my dresser when sleep is what’s happening.

Sunday is our big day, although maybe we see some pips coming in Saturday. Who knows?? Or maybe nothing and our rooster is no good with his hen harem!

We are planning for life though and have the brooder pen ready with pine shavings, heat bed, water and feed. Give’m a month and they’ll be ready for outdoor time; just in time for the phase two hatching to commence.

Scarlett earned the nickname of “The Blimp” because she was getting huuuge in late pregnancy. Then Jenny noticed her milk dropped and the hip tendons loosening up. Delivery is coming soon, maybe, so we isolated The Blimp to her own pen.

We came home from church and found her laboring and delivering the second kid right after we put our own kids to bed. She is a champ momma and was busy trying to clean up both kids. Then Jenny noticed another tiny hoof coming out a tiny way… But no delivery labor.

We monitored for ten minutes with no movement. Jenny went and did some gentle checking and adjusting. Very shortly afterwards, another delivery and three good sized healthy goats joined the flock.

We help dry off the kids that Scarlett couldn’t get to and watched until everyone learned to latch on and get milk. Then off to bed, before midnight this time.

The next morning one of the boys charges back up to the house. “Mom! Scarlett had 4 baby goats!!”

Turns out she didn’t, a milk marauder found her way to join the fun and nurse off yet another distracted momma. Jenny fixed that and it’s been all cute sleeping and fun games since then.

We timed our goat kidding season to correspond with the spring bloom this year. That makes the feeding easier and more nutritious for the mothers and the temperatures are friendly to the kids.

One takeaway from last year’s birth season was to have the backup supplies ready on hand. So I packed up this bag with gloves, shop towels, knife, booster drench for momma and a colostrum substitute for a kid. We watched the calendar and buckled in for a season of new life.

Friday night we came home around 1130pm. Ain’t no party scene like the like take-the-kids-to-the-doc-and-24hr-cvs-two-towns-over party scene.

Step one, get the kids in bed. Step two, go figure out what the high pitch hollering down in the barn is all about.

It’s all about one new momma giving birth to twins. She birthed unassisted and took care of the first kid well. She ignored the second born, which is who we heard. Because goats are unintentionally a pain, it was the coldest night in a week and downright nippy for Texas. We had fun drying off the little guy and then convincing momma to nurse him too. Come 230am, we’ve finally accomplished all those objectives and it’s time for bed. One boy, one girl, all good!

Saturday, Sunday and Monday had frequent checks and cuddle sessions. My kids are great at snuggling the kids, and the goats seasoned with human interaction from the start are far easier to handle as they grow.

Monday morning, time for another birth! This one’s a single, and nursing was well underway when Jenny checked. Still wet though, not sure about that, so we dry him off. Come back out a few hours later and realize, we got ourselves a problem.

One of the twins muscled the newborn away and drank his milk! Just ran him off! Compounding the problem, momma was happy about it and was talking with the interloper while ignoring her own offspring! Not much else to do except separate them and hope it all works out.

Jenny goes to check a few hours later. Same story, same problem! The enterprising little one snuck through the fencing. He pushed his cousin off the milk and took up his rightful place as the adopted one again.

Jenny issued separation orders and then redid the fencing. A few hours later, same story. Restraining orders reissued and more fence changes. The problem is they are so small, think a Chihuahua, and they go through small holes.

So last night the youngest one got a supplement of colostrum for his dinner. The backup bag with backup supplies paid off. We’re optimistic about the future with these kids figuring out their own momma, just needs more time, right?

What’s that Jenny? He was in the wrong pen again this morning?… To be continued…

Spring is coming and we have done a lot of blending livestock with each other to make feeding easier this winter.

Our livestock guardian Anatolian Shepherd, Ashok, has taken to preferring goat feed over dog food. He’s also sleeping with the Kune Kune pigs and playing with the bullcalf Yum.

In his spare time he’s also started fights with his pops and eaten a chicken, so there are some problems.

Cattle in herds take care of grooming each other. We see them lick fly ridden areas on each other and rub on areas the tails can’t reach. They also give the piggies a bath. The piggies will come up and roll over for a good solid lick down and then wonder off again. Complete surprise to us.

The cats are also friendly with the kids, through the door way. No cats in the house!!

Previously we tried to season our sweet potatoes in the well house. Stays warm with a heat lamp and stays humid with condensation.

I moved the box to collect the sweet potatoes. The box tore apart as I picked it up. I muttered angry imprecations and found a surprise. The sweet potatoes had endured their dark yet tropical hideaway by sending down roots and sprouting new sweet potato plants. In the dark and through the concrete, little sprouts reaching for the dim light of the door frame.

I was less annoyed and somewhat inspired. The sweet potatoes were terrible though, I’m glad the piggies enjoy them.

Texas snow is happening. Blink and you’ll miss it. It’s enough to remind us each of the mortality of man every time and then brief enough to be fondly remembered in hindsight. It also makes a challenge for the pasture raised pigs who want to stay in their snug abode until hunger forces them out.

So they get some of the sweet potatoes that went to freeze previously and I don’t want to eat.

Pigs are rewarding creatures to have around. Always excited about gifts and abounding in squeals of thanksgiving.

They are still pigs though, so not strong on manners.