Get your priorities straight.
Posted on | October 11, 2009 | No Comments
Sometimes you can really do it all. Calm down, men. I am not about to tell you how to multitask. I’ve been married for 10 years. I concede that men cannot multitask. Even if they wanted to (which they don’t). I’m talking about prioritizing. A farm may be plagued by disasters, overpopulated, out resourced, and have occupants alternating between panic and apathy. All before 7am. But it can be beaten into orderly and productive submission with a Type A bludgeoning. I am just the Type A person to do it. So you don’t have to choose between replacing that piece of tin over the brooder room Read more
Backyard Chickens
Posted on | September 15, 2009 | 2 Comments
So, you wanna raise chickens? Sure, everybody’s doing it. The people have spoken, the city leaders have relented, let there be backyard chickens! I applaud the efforts of this uprising and, in appreciation, offer some of the tidbits I have learned during my years with chickens. Gather ’round and listen close. You won’t find this important information in Storey’s Guide.
Everything starts with the chicken coop. If you build it, they will come straight home from the local feed store and make themselves at home. Read more
Goats in the Toolbox
Posted on | September 4, 2009 | No Comments
It isn’t hard to convert a duck barn into something more useful. My husband and I looked it over and decided that with a bit of tweaking the barn would hold our expanding goat population quite nicely. Out with the nest boxes, some side boards over the wire, a couple new doors, raise the water trough, move the feed cans, take down the roosts, change the bedding, build a hay rack, remove the floor pallets, hmmmmmm……….Better set up the crockpot, it’s going to be a busy day.
But the hardest part of barn renovations isn’t the chore list. It’s the goat supervision that will cause you to pull out your hair, throw your hammer, and shout those ridiculous Southern cuss words like “Sugar Honey Iced Tea!!!!!!” in front of your kids. I don’t mean the farmer’s responsibility to supervise the goats. I mean the goats’ need to supervise anything that happens in their section of the barn yard. Read more
Never Work with Dogs or Children
Posted on | August 12, 2009 | 6 Comments
I’ll leave out the part about getting everyone into the car. Honestly, I cannot even remember that part. I must have blacked out. But I do remember crossing the parking lot. Fear has lodged it into my memory. I am not sure if it was the terrifying sight of Little being dragged in front of an oncoming car by our Labrador. (For the record, I objected to him as dogwalker. No one listens to me.) Or it may have been turning from rescuing Little to see the German Shepherd still in the car, peering out the driver’s window with his huge, goofy paws on the gear shift. Had I rushed out of the car while it was still running? Did I set the parking brake? Before this concern can result in action, Big flings open the car door, releasing the Shepherd, but failing to grab his leash before his exit. And now he is gallivanting around the parking spaces, eagerly greeting shoppers with a toothy grin and a couple paws on their chest. There are not a few screams. I do not accept responsibility for this. What moron envisioned putting veterinarian offices in strip malls as a good idea? Address your complaint letter to them, not me. Read more
Show and Tell
Posted on | July 12, 2009 | 2 Comments
There’s not many things a a parent won’t do for a child. Take me and my husband, for example. This week we worked diligently to provide an eight inch square section of a yellow jacket nest for our child to take to Show and Tell on his first day of school. The nest even had a live yellow jacket still in the bag with it, buzzing around angrily for close examination. Not just any parent can pull that off.
I started the search for this amazing item by putting in a perimeter fence along the property line. I planned to do the fence in the winter when the woods weren’t full of snakes, spider webs, and ticks. But if my kid needs a splash to start the school year in July, an incredible Show and Tell item that Read more
The Weaker Sex
Posted on | July 6, 2009 | 1 Comment
So, I arrived last night at my friend’s farm to milk and guess what I
found? 8 happy males loose in the all-female (obviously) milking herd. Turns out
the little stinkers (and I do mean stinkers—they like to wear their
own urine as cologne) broke the bottom hinge on their gate. The small
Nigerian males slipped right through, leaving the large Nubian males
behind to sulk and fume. As cool as it was to see the little guy come
out on top, so to speak, the exasperated looks on the girls’ faces let
me know it was time to put the boys back in their proper pen.
Now the milking herd has a large pasture with lots of outbuildings and
trash mountains to play in and on. There are tons of things to climb
on or under out of the farmer’s reach. This is not a problem as, being Read more
Little House on the Prairie (of Death)
Posted on | July 6, 2009 | No Comments
C’mon, you know that’s what it had to be like. I know it had to be like that and I only have a couple breeds of poultry and live on just 4 acres. But since the day I started farming I spend as much time dealing with dead animals as I do collecting eggs and filling water buckets. You think I’m exaggerating, but be careful, my friend. Get over an acre of land and a sack of feed corn and you, too, will be riding in the circle of life, going fast, downhill, and trying to keep a brave face for young ‘uns!
We started this peaceful Sunday morning with a trip to the car to check the mousetrap. Yes, that’s right–the mousetrap in the car. Apparently if you drop enough goldfish crumbs, animal crackers, and cereal bars in between the car seats and park at the top of your gravel driveway in the woods you Read more
Operation AdoptAKeet
Posted on | June 13, 2009 | 1 Comment
I wanted to share a story with you but figured you needed a review of the terms listed below:
Woodland Pond Farm Glossary
“broody”–physical/emotional state of a hen or duck in which is she is prepared to sit on her eggs until they hatch. Can also include the time during which she is raising her young ducklings or chicks. Generally involves the duck or hen viciously attacking you should you come near her eggs or her young and can include you and all 4 children needing to work together to pry her out ofthe nest box in order to remove her and gather her eggs.
“setting”–when the hen or duck is actually sitting on her eggs in order to hatch them. Why isn’t it called sitting? I have no idea. Perhaps, to make farming seem like a fancy inclusive profession where normal people cannot understand the terminology while in reality no sane person wants to be tied down to their house every single day in order to let the ducks and chickens out at dawn and lock them back up at dusk. Read more
End of Grade Test
Posted on | June 8, 2009 | No Comments
Word Problem.
(Involves Reading Comprehension, Critical Thinking, Environmental
Studies, Social Situations, and Mathematical Analysis)
You own a small free range duck farm. You have not completed permanent
housing for the flock. Breeding and hatching season has arrived.
Resolve the following scenarios:
1. 5 ducklings hatched out in an incubator. YOU are their mother.
Ducklings cannot be placed outside without a mother duck until
temperatures never drop below 50 degrees. They are, therefore, under
your dining room table. When can the NC Piedmont region expect
temperature consistently above 50 degrees? Will the ducklings be placed
outside before YOU are forced to clean their nasty bedding 3 times a
day or begin living only in the upstairs part of your home to avoid the
stench?
2. One mother duck has hatched 12 ducklings and must be moved with
her brood out from under the deck stairs. During the move, one
duckling hides under the stairs in a 4 inch high space. What is the
likelihood that there is a black widow spider living in that space? You
have 3 seconds to answer before your 5 year old child reaches in to pull
the duckling out. 1…2… Read more
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