spring is in the air

but all I can smell is burnt rubber, as the soles of our shoes (boots) melt from the constant running around.

Farmer Jon here and boy have we been busy. Which has become our new normal since we moved out here but lately we've been even busier than usual. Here are a few examples:

Our dark cornish chicks are a few weeks old and growing a little every day

 Our Pekin ducklings arrived on Saturday and some of them are already HUGE!

The Khaki Campbell ducklings are doing well and can be moved to their permanent home soon.


The broiler chicks are doing really well. We were expecting more issues since they are a commercial breed but they have actually done really well so far.

  And of course, we're still moving the sheep around.

And the bulls...

  And the yearling steers and heifers...

And the cows and calves...

And don't forget ol' 14. She's still hanging in there.

I've had two equipment failures while trying to lift her up twice a day but I hope she will make some good progress this weekend. 

 Jamie's been working hard on the garden.


Here are her strawberries!

Did I mention the turbine was hit by lightning AGAIN! My renewable energy dealer/repairman thought I was joking. He said that has never happened. Luckily, I know how to take it down now. So I lowered it last night but I still have to wait for the part, now that the wind is blowing like crazy today...

See that little white thing. That's what needs replaced...

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The Love Ducks

I never told you about the Love Ducks, did I?  Since it was Valentine's Day this week, they popped into my head.

The Love Ducks were a pair of ducks that decided that the only thing in the world they needed was each other.  One was an Indian Runner duck and the other was one of my pet ducks.  The Indian Runner ducks had taken to roaming through the pastures to both of our ponds.  Sometimes they would come back at night and sometimes they would stay down by the ponds.  One day, we noticed that they stuck by the house more and that two of them were swimming in the pond by themselves.  After investigating for a little bit, I noticed that the Indian Runner duck was limping.  I tried getting closer but both ducks quickly slipped into the water before I could catch them.  Something was wrong the Indian Runner ducks leg and it wasn't able to swim very well.

I really wanted to bring both ducks back up to the house, but they were having none of that.  I gave up and let them be.  And darned if my pet duck stuck by the Indian Runner duck until he/she was healed.  Every day that I left for work and on my way home, I would check and make sure they were still there.  And they still were...just swimming around by themselves.  It just made me think about what made my pet duck stick around with the lame Indian Runner.  They were very vulnerable down by the pond, especially at night since we have LOTS of coyotes.  I decided that they must be in love, hence the name The Love Ducks.

Both Jon and I knew it was a matter of time before the coyotes got to the ducks.  And this story doesn't have a happy ending.  I wish I would have been able to capture them both and take them back up, but they were just too skittish.  One day the Indian Runner duck was gone....and it was just my pet all by his/herself.  And then one day that duck was gone too.  The Love Ducks were no more.  Makes me sad just thinking about it. My little pet duck was so devoted to that Indian Runner, always sticking by his/her side.  The animals in our world aren't so far off from us...

Since I neglected to take a picture of the Love Ducks, I will just share with you my own little love duck...

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Farm Report

First off, WE HAVE EGGS! Not exactly sure who's laying them but we've had about one every morning for the last four days. Of course, they are in the yard in front of the chicken coop rather than the nest boxes but we'll work on that...

Here's the view from our front porch. It was time to move the cattle off of the warm season grasses and back onto the cool season. So I moved them across the farm to start the next round of grazing. Of course, moving them across the farm turned into a five hour event - I had to trim and/or cut down cedar trees, pull up old barbwire and other junk, create a gate in my existing electric fence, put up posts and polywire to create an alley and then set up a water tank. All I need to do now is put up posts and hi-tensile wire and I will have a new permanent alley to move cattle around the farm.

I had to snap a pic to show our critters living together so well, with the ducks in the cow pen and the chickens in the pig pen.

I aspire to take pictures as great as Jamie's but, for now, they are a work in progress... I hope you can still enjoy them.

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Bob is in rehab...

Bob had a rather unfortunate run in with Max.  Max nearly killed the poor duck.

We pulled up late on the 4th of July and I could see Bob right up by the porch by himself.  The headlights shown on him and he didn't even move a muscle.  I immediately knew something was wrong, because ducks do not like to be by themselves and his feathery hairdo was all askew.

As I walked up to him, I saw the damage.  Max had ripped out a huge chunk of feather on his back and sides.  He even ripped out some feather on his head.  I started to pray the Prayer of All Mothers "Lord...give me strength....", because that dang dog had done it again. 

I picked up Bob and took him inside to wash him off as Jon scolded Max.  Poor Bob's skin was all bright pink where his feathers were missing.  I hoped that by washing off some dog slobber that Bob would have a chance.  And don't think that I didn't want to smear triple antibiotic ointment on him, because I did.  But I also didn't want to mess with his digestive system if he started to clean his feathers.

So, we put him in a cordoned off area of the shed and hoped for the best.  I should also say that poor Bob was in shock the entire time.  He didn't even move at all when I set him down or picked him up.  The next morning he was running around and a little bit and his skin wasn't so bright pink.  I took that as a good sign. 

This Bob when he was little...wasn't he the cutest!  Now keep in mind, that I just assume Bob is a male, I don't actually know.

This is Bob now.  You can barely see a few spots where his feathers are starting to grow in.  Oh, and right at that moment he was falling.  He is walking with a huge limp, which is why he is in rehab, aka "The Duck Pen".

He was all alone for a couple days, but I couldn't stand to see him lonely.  So, I captured a few stray ducks.  I could tell he immediately brightened up and started to shake his tail feathers.  Lonely animals are sad to see, because all they really want to do is be by each other.

So, hopefully Bob is on the mend and we scared the crap out of Max so bad that he won't do this again.  But you just never know with that dog...

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What a nice summer day...

A little relaxing in the hammock...



Watching a few duckies stroll on by...



Admiring some pretty flowers...



Smiling at the spunky kitty...

AND THEN BEING ATTACKED!!!!

By a puppy who really really wants to play...

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Butchering ducks

So, we butchered 8 ducks on Monday.  And boy was it interesting!  Pinfeathers suck...enough said.  We thought we had timed it right so that our ducks would not have any, but we were wrong!  Next time we've decided to try duck wax to help with those ity bity pinfeathers.  I won't get into all the details of butchering, because there are many websites out there that do a great job.  Here are a few highlights...

Our table setup



The ducks waiting patiently.



What bright fun buckets! 

For such a sinister use...

Jon and his dad getting the turkey frying/scalder to heat up.

This here is a duck plucking hat....Goooo Big Reeeedddddddddddd!  (I was frying in the sun, as evidenced by my pale skin and needed a good hat.  And the only one I found quickly was Jon's Herbie Husker Hat.  Have you ever seen Jon dressed as Herbie Husker?  It's priceless!)

That was one exhausting day.  Thank goodness for awesome family!  Jon's dad and stepmom came up to help and worked their butts off.  Without them we would have probably gotten two ducks done in the same time.  Thanks Kirk and Wanda!

I definitely have a new found appreciation for what it takes to put meat on the table.  It is hard exhausting and emotional work.  It's difficult to reconcile the feelings of caring for animals and then killing them, but we are not vegetarians.  I wish more people would be able to take part in butchering.  I think we would appreciate our food so much more.

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Weekend Report

Greetings Everyone,
Well we didn't get as much done as we hoped but Jamie's little sister stayed with us, so it's ok. She's a bit of a city girl so it was good for her to experience the joys of country living. And of course we threw in some chores, for good measure.

The first poultry shelter is finished and in operation. We put the Pekin ducks in it, rather than move them back into the "coop" for the night. Which worked out perfectly because my cousin had just finished cleaning the nasty bedding out of the coop and those ducks like to splash and make a mess.

Which brings me to a "soap box moment". My youngest cousin lives nearby and will be a senior in high school next year. He wanted to help on the farm and a gladly agreed. A big part of "sustainable agriculture" is minimizing the money spent on big machinery and expensive equipment. However, in turn, it is often much more labor intensive. I'm not here to debate which is better for a successful farm but I would like to point out how it can benefit rural communities. If a fourth of the farmers in a rural county/area embraced this strategy, there's a good chance it would increase the population by a good 25-50%. A farmer with a thousand acres could easily (I use the term loosely) support 2-5 employees. 20+ would be on the conservative end for more intensive operations (such as large scale produce production). With numbers like that, it wouldn't take long for nearby towns to flourish to past heights of prosperity. As long as everyone wasn't farming the same thing, there would be unseen stability for the community. It's a much healthier population influx, as opposed to one large employer coming into town and then possibly going bankrupt or moving out in 10 years.
(stepping off soap box)

Lawn mowing troubles took up a good part of my weekend AGAIN. But I'll spare you the details. We have a Grazing Conference in Tecumseh Thursday and Friday and we are very excited. The speaker is Greg Judy and he is a very good speaker and quite the expert in Holistic Grazing. I went to Junction City, KS earlier in the year to hear him speak and I look forward to a two-day event to get even more information.

FYI, we will be butchering some 7-8 week old Pekin ducks this weekend. These are the ducks that we have been taking out to a pen to hang out in the grass and sunshine all day, so they are "pastured". What they don't get from the grass and bugs we make up with organic feed that we have made for us, so they are also "organically raised". The carcass weights should be between 4-6 lbs and the price is $5.50 per pound. If anyone would like some, please let one of us know.

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I'm still here!

I've been wrangling runaway turkeys...

Playing with cute puppy dogs...

Taking care of baby chicks, baby ducks, baby turkeys and a few guineas as well...

And taking care of some BIG, noisy ducks...

I know people say that you can't brood ducks, turkeys and chickens all together, but it's worked out great for us!  We did lose a couple turkeys when we first got them, but they are notoriously hard to raise.  So far, everyone gets along great.  Although I did see one little Bourbon Red poult pecking on an Indian Runner duck who finally got tired of it.  So, he turned around and whacked the crap out of the little poult with his beak.  It was pretty funny...

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Turning a Corner

The weather looks like it's finally going to stay warmer. It shouldn't be long before we start complaining how hot it is.

We have started turning our attention to more permanent solutions on the farm. We are still very much in "survival mode", fixing things as they come up. But we are at the point where we are moving towards more long term solutions, in particular, with the animals. The poultry are growing quickly and we are running out of space. The Pekin ducks are about a month old and need to be outside. We have debated whether to give them free range and to bring them in at night or to try the "pastured poultry" approach. We've decided to try the pasture approach and will be building movable shelters/tractors for the Pekin ducks. That will allow them be outside eating grass and bugs as they please while providing protection from predators and weather. We will probably do the same with the turkeys and possibly some of the chickens. It's the more labor intensive option but we think it makes sense. The egg laying chickens and ducks will likely be free range around the farm during the day and cooped up at night to keep them safe. If we encounter problems with this scenario, we will go to an egg mobile (a hen house on wheels) with portable poultry netting.

The garden has been on the back burner, a bit, but Jamie has been diligently growing her seedlings and we hope to have them in the ground this week. There was a large garden here previously and we have asparagus growing like crazy. We were told there are 400 crowns of asparagus and I believe it...

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