Varmint-palooza

Busy night in the barn last night. Trudy was having one of her all night bark-fests and, having seen the cat food bin moved a good eight feet across the barn the night before, Christian thought it might have been varmints. He put on his boots and went out into the darkness. (I slept through all of this. I am a really good sleeper.)

Anyhoo--within an hour he had relocated two possums and set a trap for this guy.


This morning the plan was to, well, shoot him. I mean - he could really do some damage around here to the poultry or even to the Trude, so we though it best to dispatch of him entirely.

Yeah, right.

Christian went to do the deed and had to come up with a Plan B when he stuck the muzzle of the gun into the cage and the little guy went right up to it and sniffed it. ...come on, man! Not fair!

After chores this morning Christian took the lucky varmint a few miles down the road and let him out into a big open field. It would seem that we still aren't fully up to the varmint killing task.

Turkey Update

The turkeys are almost three months old and both are VERY interested in performing their part of the mating dance. I have been told they will not be sexually mature until around seven months of age, so I guess this is kind of like having a first grade boyfriend/girlfriend right now.

Here a a couple pictures I got this morning. (Click to enlarge if you want) The first is the two of them together. Thanksgiving is just starting to puff up and be macho. The second one is his full-on turkey look. I hope to get a couple better ones of him doing his thing soon.

Also - take a look at their coloring. Christian said he thought they were supposed to be Bourbon Reds, but I think they may be American Bronzes. Not too sure. Whatever they are, they are getting pretty.

And just as a point of interest, the ducks really do not like watching this. We have no idea why, but it really seems to upset them.

A surprise in the dog food bin

Went out scoop out Trudy's breakfast this morning and found this.


I will admit that I screamed just a little. An involuntary little yelp. I'm not afraid of 'possum, but geez...I was not really expecting him.

Either my yelp or my coming at him with a plastic scoop made him do the fainting thing. He woke up for C to relocate him, though. Just a little guy. We let him go in the front pasture. Guess I better start making sure the lids are on the feed cans.

Busted!!!

Houston, we have a bed goat.

We have a name

This just in...biggest baby ever will now be known as Cardinal Wilt Chamberlain.

Maybe it's just us, but we think it's funny on many levels.

Biggest. Baby. Ever.

At about 1:00 today Maybelline gave us the single largest kid we have ever seen.
It's a boy and we are going to keep him for breeding since Maybelline is such a good, strong milker. But since he was an only child he may have to live in the house for a while.

...darn.

Here are some piccies of the little dude fresh from the oven.

Before the first bottle:
After the first bottle:We'll try to name him soon.

No good deed goes unpunished

Yesterday was our monthly market at Home Sweet Farm. It is always a fun one for us. It's a nicer, more scenic drive, a shorter market day and - most importantly - it's on a farm and not in a 1000 degree parking lot. It was great.

On the way back we saw a few roadside stands with melons. It's that time of year and I had been thinking how great a watermelon juice would go down. (I throw chunks in the blender with a little water and fresh lime juice...yum!). After passing one truck, we stopped at the next. I got my giant watermelon and the guy said he had one cantaloupe left - did we want one of those, too? Christian loves cantaloupe, so I said sure.

On the way home I had the warm fuzzy of having been able to support micro-scale agriculture by buying things from people who have a garden, but maybe not the resources we have to go to organized markets.

So a couple hours later I get ready to cut up the canteloupe. I turn it over and there is a sticker on it. The kind of sticker that goes on a supermarket melon. With a PLU code and everything. I peel it off and bring it to Christian.

"I think the guy just sold us a supermarket melon," I said, with astonishment and disappointment. So much for "micro-scale agriculture". The sticker even had a brand name...King Fisher. It got even more disappointing. Christian googled it and found a recall notice. Now granted, the possibly infected melons were only recalled in Canada and no illnesses were reported yet, but still. Bummer. We're still deciding whether or not to take our chances, feed it to the pigs or just toss it.

I am not inclined to buy things from truck stands again. And that is the biggest bummer of the whole experience.