April 18, 2009
74, cloudy, slight drizzle

Things are moving along around here. After last weeks' tilling up of sod, we let it rest a few days in order to let the exposed grass roots dry out and (hopefully!) die. Today we rented a tiller again in order to go over it all one last time. Now that the root layer of the sod is broken up and beginning to decompose, we can go through and reach deeper. This worked pretty well in most spots, however we did discover a fairly wide swath in our future veggie patch that contained a trove of treasures. Birkleigh has now opened up her own museum from the artifacts we have dug up. Her display includes two forks and a spoon, can lids, pot shards, and other flotsam. We also unearthed half a mile of chain and wire, all previous dog anchors. This place used to be a dog farm. Well, not quite so nice a place as a dog farm, really. it was a place dogs lived on chains, under cars and an old bus. I was actually here once, in a professional capacity.

But that was then, this is the hereafter. Our little piece of the world is now only occupied by very happy and very well trained dogs that choose to ignore their good training on a regular basis. Because we are so gentle and generous, we only laugh merrily at their adorable antics such as jumping up on old people and excavating out all the bulbs I planted 6 months ago just as they are about to bloom.

Back to the garden! We have pried out long lengths of chain, pieces of glass, two basketball sized boulders, enough wire to start a Radio Shack franchise, and the remnants of an old fire pit. It brings up a mixture of surprise, adventure, mystery, and a re-working of our garden layout. Probably not a good idea to put the potatoes where there seems to be an old brickyard 6 inches below the surface, etc., etc. Maybe we should put them closer to the compost pile this year, and put the corn over there. Potatoes can be grown in containers, but we are wanting to grow a whole lot of potatoes. We'd never have enough containers.

Anywho. This was the third tiller we've used in a week, and I can't say I liked any one of them enough to say I'd buy one. After the Italian job, we used a Snapper. That was easy to maneuver and the controls didn't wear one's hands out, but it didn't have the weight to power through thick grass roots without lurching forward. The one today was enormous. Not in the width of the tines, they were maybe 24 inches wide, but it was built heavy It had a huge front end. While the extra weight did help hold the tines in the ground when it came to churning through those sod roots, it made for a very exhausting excursion around the beds. It was tooo heavy to want to have as a member of the Prairie Fire Farm stable.

At the end of the day, the beds were as tilled as they were gonna get, we loaded the tiller back up onto the trailer for the return to town tomorrow. That's a good feeling. The rain is going to start tonight. The next two days, in fact, it's going to rain. I wish we could get at least one more sunny day to rake the beds smooth and get some more planting done.

We did manage to get a raspberry patch started up near the hay field. Took some before and after shots.




Spring is really quite underway. The grass is greening up very nicely, the birds are singing their little heads off, the first flowers are blooming, the buds are just beginning to swell on the apple trees. We've had a few very nice warm and sunny days, and then we slide back down into chilly cold days. Looking forward to going through our first Spring here on the farm!

Sod Bustin

Oy, my hands are sore. Arms and shoulders, too, for that matter. And my elbows...don't even bring them up. These are times when I miss having a bathtub as much as my Piscean partner does. A good long hot soak would sure do me good right now. You see my friends, this weekend was sod busting weekend. When we bought these 8 acres, the area around the house and outbuildings was all grass. I'd guess we had about an acre and a half to two acres of lawn all together. It took me about two hours of solid mowing on a 20 hp 46" cut Cub Cadet, consuming about 2 gallons of gas to cut my grass every week last Summer. I don't mind cutting the grass, really, it gives me some of that zen time I like to think about stuff. And I can't help myself, I really get a great deal of satisfaction in a beautifully mown lawn. To me, it really pops out as a great look. The neighbors all appreciate nicely kept homesteads (as do I).

But I know that lawns are also a waste of good soil sometimes, and they require lots of petro inputs, etc., etc. You won't find me on the short list of people who want to abolish lawns, no way. I love a good lawn. But I approach my lawnphilia with a common sense approach, I hope. One that allows for plenty of weeds. Heck, some years, in some places, if it weren't for the weeds my whole yard would have gone brown from drought. At least it still looked green from the street! Ha.

But this is not really a post about my lawn. It is actually a post about killing my lawn. I have gone and chopped it up into little bits, but it is all for a higher purpose! Karen and I have been merrily plotting and scheming and graphing and collecting bits in order to put in our first 'real' garden this year. So, much of the lawn has been sacrificed. We did manage to hastily dig up a bit of a patch immediately after moving in here this Summer, and we did get a decent crop of lettuce, radishes, beans, carrots, cucumbers and squash. But that little patch needed to be expanded by oh, I don't know, a million-fold or so. Why not?! We've got the land, we've got the willingness, we've got the seeds! We just didn't have a rototiller.

But have not fear, friend Lindsey who is a young farmer into digging veggies and working at the local co-op said she'd loan us her awesome walk-behind machine. Lindsey delivered the blue beast on Saturday. She showed us all of it's amazing features. I noted it was made in Italy. Hmm. The Italians are known to me as being fine cooks, vintners and artists. They can make some world class espresso machines and of course, some really nice slippers. But machinery? Yeah. Well I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, so off she went, and off we roared to the bed in the backyard. 32X32 sq. feet for asparagus, strawberries, onions, and flowers and I don't know what all. Got about two rows done when there started a terrible grinding noise from the gear box. Karen and I banged, pushed, yanked, tightened, oiled guessed and cursed...but the dang thing just got worser and worser. After several hours of physically fighting with this thing we were exhausted and frustrated. Sore muscles, bruised hands, and frustrated. I put the Italian Job in the garage.

Then today we rented a tiller from the local hardware store. Smaller in width, but at least the tin was painted a respectable red color. However, as alluded to in an earlier post, those of us who work in concert with the good earth must deal with her changes. No turning up the heat or flipping on the lights out here. You just get what you get. And of course what I finally wound up with on the last day I had off was a wicked soup of clouds, wild easterly winds, and plummeting temperatures. I pulled the engine to life and threw her into gear, and the red tiller and I attacked my previous lawn with a gnawing, churning vengeance. Sometimes it would hit a dry spot and lurch forward at 50 mph, yanking my shoulders and yes, my elbows out of their sockets. Despite this, it was a kinder, gentler machine to commandeer over my sod. After a couple of hours, I had managed to go over all 3,000 square feet of our future garden patch twice. It had started to drizzle a bit, but that wasn't hitting the ground since the wind was blowing it sideways. When the dirt would periodically clear from my eyes I'd look up and make sure I was traveling in a relatively straight line. This was not always as easy as it may sound, since we had pigs on part of this ground last Fall. Though they were good at tilling up a lot of the grass, they were also very good at building ditches, swales, berms, and gullies. So the tiller and I pitched and rolled along, churning up the dirt into a rough loose soil.

After I finished the 3,000 sq. ft. bed, it was time to move up the hill and break ground on the future melon patch. This one was only 11X25 or so, I don't remember anymore. Why a separate melon patch? Why because we ran out of room in the first patch, that's why. Where else are you going to put all that sweet corn?! And I refuse to go without a fresh melon, besides. Just as I finished up tilling that patch on the hillside, the drizzle turned white and chunky. They had forecast a high of 56 today, and a chance of rain. This was not one of their proudest moments.

Be that as it is, by god, I got the whole damn thing tilled. At least the first round!

In the end, we will have created a win-win: more food for us to eat from our own efforts, and less lawn to mow. More of what we harvest will be powered by human hands, and less will be clipped by me on my Cub Cadet.

I just hope I can get all that thinking done on my smaller lawn.

It's been a while since I've been able to bring myself to sit down and post, I guess losing Frances sort of put a damper on things. Like Karen said, she really was the best chicken I've ever had. I realize that folks who have never owned chickens will really have no idea how in the world a chicken can be entertaining or endearing, but people who have raised chickens understand. They really are not simply silly, clucking, feather-covered automatrons that lay an egg a day and are otherwise regarded about as friendly or useful as a housefly. They can be real cool. As Birkleigh is discovering, chickens can be as engaging and entertaining as kittens. And I have yet to meet a kitten that would leave me anything I wanted to eat.

We've been staying busy here. I did pick up some cukoo marans chicks at the swap. I was so sruprised to see them there. A rare breed, they are prized for their super dark chocolate eggs. I figured mixing in some dark chocolate eggs with our light brown, white, and olive green eggs would make for some very colorful egg cartons. The marans chicks are doing well and growing fast. We needed to keep a heat lamp on them the first few weeks at night due to the cold temps, but now they have all their feathers and they don't need the extra heat. And yay! says our electric bill! I'm still looking at them with a squint eye and trying to determine if I have 4 hens and one rooster, or 3 hens and two roosters... hm. Either way, it'll be fine.

Our Spring chicks will be arriving in a month! Birkleigh is very excited about baby chicks again.

And we started our tomato and peppers in the house a couple weeks ago. Karen did most all the selection of varities, and she chose some old heirloom tomatoes that sound pretty cool. Some will be for fresh table eating, and some are a bit drier and more suited for canning and making into tomato paste, etc.

We're still in stocking-up and getting equipped mode on this new place. In the last month, we got our meat grinder/sausage stuffer so we can process more of our own meats into sausage. I'm still on the hunt for the right materials to make a good smoker out of. Speaking of smoking...I made some truly fab ribs a few weeks ago, and I had plans to post about it. I took pictures all through the process, so that'll be another post unto itself.

Karen also finally got the grain mill she's been wanting. It attaches onto her Kitchenaid mixer, and it grinds the hard red wheat we get from a neighbor, who grows it organically. It's kind of fun to watch the wheat get turned into flour. And then Karen really goes to work, setting the kitchen apoof with flour and pans and baking stones. She's made some great breads and the best bagels ever! And let me tell you...slathered in the butter we made from the whole milk we get from these same neighbors is heavenly. The cows are grass fed, and you can taste the difference.

Other recent projects include me making Karen an arbor out of an old woooden ladder for her birthday, planing down some barn doors, raking and cleaning up the yard, protecting the bulbs from the dogs' paws, going to auctions, and oh yeah, those taxes.

It's been too wet to till the lawn up into what will be the garden yet, and this situation has made Karen beside herself with anticipation and frustration. She knows it is going to be a great big garden, and take lots of work, and she is as eager as a spaniel at an open pheasant field to get going on this! But the damage that can be done to the soil if it is worked too soon is substantial, and will affect your crops for the rest of the year, so it must be avoided. It's been a mixture of empathy and amusement for me to watch her experience her first real taste of how tied we are to the weather and whims of Mother Nature. We can till when She lets us, and only then. It will be on Her schedule, and not ours. And the right moment will most certainly come at a time when it is impossible for us to comply, such as the middle of a work week, particularly if we will be out of town. Unless of course, it comes on a weekend, which usually means we will be suddenly laid up with a bad back or the car is in the shop and we can't get to the tiller rental center. When we can get there, everyone else will have gotten there first, and the tillers will all be rented out until the next rainy day. I believe this is keeping Karen tossing and turning at night. I, with all my wise and sage farmer experience, instead decide to worry about things I can control, such as the world economy and whether it even makes sense to buy a tractor with an internal combustion engine if we face the end of oil in the next thirty years. We make a great pair!

Letting go

Yesterday just after posting I went to check on Frances. Red called to go over our checklist of supplies as she was getting ready to leave work and come back from town. "Go check on her"- I didn't want to. As I suspected she was dead. I tried to call my ex in Michigan to ask to speak with Birkleigh to tell her. She's there for spring break. When she asked Birk, whose feeling yucky with a cold, Birk's response was that "I don't want to talk to Mama- she's going to tell me Frances is dead." I suggested they could tell her I could just read a story to her and not discuss chickens. We're so honest about stuff but I guess in this moment, my kiddo is telling me she needs me to protect her a bit. She'll know soon enough.

We have some feathers saved and enough blue eggs to dye for easter.

We're going to miss her.
Karen

Frances

So just after that last post, Frances, the strutting golden hen in the pic, became one sick chicken. (Although we realise some symptoms may have been seen a week before that). We've been trying everything- thought it could be gapeworm. (gross). and then we thought it could be pneumonia. But the rest of the flock, including the new babies, are totally fine. It started with me noticing wheezing and if I think back- the day a certain naughty spaniel broke the fence and chased her she was breathing real heavily even an hour later and doing this honking thing. I thought at the time that she was still real pissed off about the whole thing. But when I really knew she was not right, the wheezing was audible and unmistakable and by the next day- it had become gasping. She opens her beak widely- throws her head into the air and whistles and gasps for air. This was Tuesday and after a preliminary round of research and thinking it was this gapeworm thing, I was in a barn cleaning frenzy. We finished a real thorough cleaning this past weekend since we got it well underway and it was time anyhow- but on that Tuesday it gave Birkleigh and I something to do and especially for my big girl farmer- she was really proud. My kid was wielding a pitchfork and (in a modified way) pitching straw bales. She was very focussed on doing all she could to help her chicken. On Friday after a number of remedies showed no improvement, I for some reason was feeling around and felt a huge rock that turned out to be her crop. I ran into the house, did 5 minutes of internet research to conclude that it must be impacted and ran back out to the barn to massage her. Instantly, pulling the crop downward, and massaging it while pushing it's contents (I hoped anyway) down and out- for the first time in days she was suddenly -and I mean suddenly - breathing. It felt wonderful- we were going to save her. A few hours later I checked on her- and it was the same *?x(#@ thing. Gasping. I massaged again. Breathing normally (but all poofy and obviously not feeling so great.) And one more time- but then Saturday morning, I did the massage and it didn't help. We've been putting olive oil down her to help soften up that crap in the crop- and then I started to wonder if I got it down her airway. I barely understand chicken anatomy (although I know ALOT more now.... including what a chicken tongue looks like when it's distended.) I'm so incredibly sad and feel so helpless. I know that we will deal with lots of losing critters on this farm. It's been many close calls- right? But Frances- is our favorite and even Red says she's the best chicken she ever had. We are contemplating home surgery- and I didn't tell Red this but today I called the vet just to see how much it would be- (they are closed today so didn't find out) of course we can't afford to pay hundreds of dollars to extend her life- and morally I'm not sure it's the right thing to do- I mean- the great thing about living with animals is this wisdom in letting life and death happen as it should. Being reminded that we can't control it. I remember my favorite dog's death leading me to contemplate even further the absurdity of extending life with crazy heroic measures even though losing him was so hard.

But this is really challenging somehow. We don't want her to suffer- but it doesn't seem right to kill her - it feels like she might pull through but then she's obviously not comfortable - and so finding a way to treat her is about taking the misery away.... I don't know- there seem to be no easy answers and we are taking it one day at a time.

That was written mostly this past weekend. I called a neighbor known to raise show chickens and asked everyone we've been in contact with - hoping that someone would say 'yes, I've cleaned out crops before- let me come on over and show you'. But no dice. Maybe I can feel proud that I know about several nasty things that can happen to poultry that old farmers have never even heard of- but I know they are thinking we're goofy for putting so much into futzing with a chicken we should just cull.

Today, Monday, it's obvious that we need to open her crop or do something. So I knew farm life may involve unaesthetised cutting into animals- but we're banking on all that we've read assuring us that somehow it doesn't seem to stress them out. It should be quick and easy. Maybe gross. You dab on some iodine or betadine, make an incision from 1/2 inch (some say) to 1 1/2 inches- clean out the crop from it's offending gunk that's blocking it, and sew her back up. So right now I'm going to check to see if she's still alive before we collect supplies to do the deed. Wish us luck!

good day at the chicken swap

 

 

 

 

We're all a bit tired after a day of going to swap, finding the cuckoo morans that Red was hunting for and arriving home to get the chicks set up and then diving into as many spring projects we could get our hands on. It was finally a warm day and we got our first sunburn of the year I think. Sounds lame for like a high of 50 maybe? but we savored every minute. Birkleigh was as high as a kite on farm livin' - dancing around and saying how lucky she was to have real baby chicks and live in this place. At one point she was so cute- "Tell me I'm not dreaming... this can't be real!" Maybe it was the delirium of waking at 4:30am this morning, but it was really great to have her verbalise all this joy that we all felt.... enjoying all the hopefulness and gratitude of springtime ... how can you not be elated when you live in the midwest and have those first spring days! but also remembering how we went to a swap last year this time (my first! strange venture into this phenomena) and this WAS all a dream. And now, we have 5 new chicks and more days like this ahead. And there were steaks on the grill from our friend and neighbor's steer. I've posted some pics from today (all in the barn- we need to change our main picture soon!) and included some of the more mature girls as they checked out the new arrivals. Tom is the buff polish, and Sam the lace winged one, and then Frances, the americana. Billie was prancing her fancy pants outside. Who wouldn't?

chook chooks

Well we have had some progress since our last post. Billie recovered completely and on March 1st laid her first egg, and then has given an egg every day since. And the day prior we had our first white one, which came from 'one of the polish' and we believe it could indeed be either of the polish' because we are pretty certain that our potential rooster is really a hen. She may be a bit on the butch side? The tail and neck feathers, the comb and wattles, all look distinctly different than the other polish, but instead of hearing the crowing we expected any day, we walked into the barn and she pounced into a crouch. Now I'll explain the crouch for those who don't live with chickens.

We have a dog in heat right now and we can't get over how just downright cranky she is. She is the sweetest girl in all the world but with this, her 3rd heat, she was quite the hormonal mess. She spent her days stomping around the house growling at her sister for looking at her the wrong way, looking glazed and distant and not at all affectionate with her people, and the remaining hours spent in compulsive efforts with our nuetered lab/basset Luka. But the chickens as they matured have become much less skittish, they love it when Birkleigh picks them up (we could hardly believe she was just scooping them up) and they love to be stroked. Yes, it's a very matey kind of thing. They crouch down, pump out their wings into an arch, and the tail either points down towards the ground or raises up. And they coo and coo while you stroke their backs. Birkleigh can tell you all about their vents. Her midwife mama is proud that she is so matter of fact about how bodies work. It's so much easier to lay the groundwork for all this stuff when you've got farm animals! The point is, given how much work I've done in the arena of human reproductive hormones, it's been interesting to see that there are distinct behavioral changes in a sexually mature chicken that make them quite sweet, and some in a Welsh spaniel that make them quite not. And from all these signs we now know we have 4 girls and no rooster. And we are getting 2-4 eggs a day. Finally we can accumulate enough to bake something!

Speaking of chicken behavior- I spent my day today intermittently searching high and low for what I thought for sure was going to be signs of our first loss to a fox. We had a very windy stormy night last night and with the changing weather and perhaps the shifting of our old barn, our doors don't latch- but rather get lodged into the wooden frames to have them close. It's not perfect but seemed secure enough and I even made extra certain last night that they were tight. But this morning, the door was wide open and every time this has happened (a handful of times that through forgetfulness or weather or small people who made one last trip to the barn) we make the journey to the barn with held breath and make the head count with relief. But today, there were only 3. I looked everywhere and the only reassuring sign was the absence of feathers scattered in the telltale pattern that indicates struggle. I covered our land and our neighbors' first thing with no luck and then got my workday started. Several times more I checked everywhere- clucking as I went. For these long walks I got to practice my clucking pretty well. I was carrying my phone with me to officially be 'at my desk' for as long as my cordless phone would reach. I would stop clucking for calls, of course. :)

When I picked up Birkleigh I told her the news that Sam was gone, and likely taken by a predator. We both cried a bit and she was cheered slightly by the fact that I didn't check for eggs (she loves this ritual more than anything! and everytime is so proud and excited to share exactly who laid today and where.) When we got home, she gathered her eggs, I looked some more, and then we let Frances out as the day had warmed some and she loves being out. My concern about the missing Sam was more than just being down a chicken but also that if a fox knows we've got chicken, our whole 'free ranging' will be too risky to continue. I really just want the chickens to wander about- and we aren't agreed upon making a mobile pen. Red had one before and said that they are too heavy and cumbersome and a lot of work and expense to make. I, of course, want to find out for myself ;). So we let out Frances with my fairly constant watching from our kitchen window and after about a half hour Birkleigh wanted to check on them again. And in the barn there were now 4 chickens. Sam was back, none the worse for wear. I still have no idea where she blew off too (the winds were really crazy) but I'm glad she's back and the foxes still aren't on to us.

We are all ready to get our seeds started, and hope the muddy mess that refroze with this frigid night and day will eventually dry enough to work. I want to get our soil test and we've got so many things to do they are all swirling in an endless farm 'to do' list. (ok- about 15 lists to be exact- I'm feeling a bit scattered). Fencing for the asparagus and strawberry patch loom as a big project and we will build an enclosure for the chickens. But we have all our seeds ordered and most are here but we still need to get our asparagus and onion sets (and where is that potato order?) And I think I finally have our garden plotted out and I've marked up our calendar with what gets started when and planted when. I realized we have perfect salvaged window frames to make a cold frame but we still need some more straw bales. We've got lots of exciting things (and work) ahead. But we are having our first spring on the farm. Last year when we were dreaming about this and looking at frozen farms, Red told me that she would never smell spring mud the same way after farming. That the smell of it brings such longing. I think she's right. It's my first year of really really smelling that mud. It's good stuff.