I Got Nothing!

I have nothing for you today! Nothing! nothing exciting happened (except for that my laundry hanging on the line finally dried, but I didn't get it off and it's supposed to rain, so scratch that!).

My chickens continue to be escape artists and find their way out of the pen, so that's nothing new. I think I know where they're getting out though, it's somewhere around the pen.

And the best..... NOTHING is scheduled for this weekend. This might not be a good thing being as how the hay supply is far short of where it should be this time of year.

Normally, we'd be scrounging for a spot to stack all of the hay, moving and restacking just to fit 50 more bales. But not this year. We haven't had 3 or 4 days without rain all summer (well, except for the week that I was on vacation and not around anyway).

Hubby's been scouring the county (I personally think it's an excuse to ride his motorcycle and visit all his good old boys) in search of anyone who has extra hay that we can buy. Not good, he's coming up empty.

Cherries should be in, so I'll hopefully get a couple of flats of those this weekend and put them in the freezer. Then, some cold winter weekend, I'll dig out the strawberries, rhubarb, cherries, and whatever else I stash between now and then and make all of my jams and syrups. YUM!

So basically, this weekend is FREE!!!

Now I need to make a list. An outdoor list, and an indoor list (in case it rains). In any case my son's room needs to be vacuummed and dusted - he's flying out of Baghdad tomorrow! Yipee!!!

I need to fix his sign. I have a really cool sign in my yard that says "Home of a Soldier", need to spruce it up and get out the yellow ribbons. That will be first on either list, it needs to be done anyway.

The garden desperately needs to be hoed, or in this particular case, rototilled between the rows. Have to stake up more tomato plants.......

Got work to do in the barn and chicken coop, hey, I found an egg in the chicken coop yesterday, which lays to rest the "I don't know how to get from the pen into the coop" look I get from my birdies.

Still have a baby buk buk who thinks he's a cow, but that's ok for now.

Maybe I'll try to find my mower, although I'm trying really hard to not use any more gas than necessary. I've been pulling weeds for the chix and using my push motor (the old fashioned kind that doesn't use a motor), but it just won't go through some of those weeds!

And... I need to finish up my stealth knitting project. My knitting time really decreases during hockey's off season!

So that's how I spend a weekend off..... planning and making lists, and actually getting quite a bit done! Gotta do it now though, who knows, if the weather turns we'll be haying the rest of the summer with not a second to spare!

I really do love this life, but once in awhile..... oh forget it, I just got back from a week of margaritas on the beach vacation.

Strawberries and Chickens!

So, the strawberries didn't happen. As usual, I'm a day late and 3 weeks early, or something like that.
We went to get them picked and found that they had already been picked out. It would be easy if it were the same every year, but with the wacky weather lately, they were late as it was.
I can still go north, to get some, but I think I'll concentrate on the cherries over on the west side of the state. Have a friend who lives over there who will keep an eye on it for me, then we'll go to get bunches of those. The sweet cherries are about 1.5 weeks ahead of the sour cherries, but both are just yummy! Cherry syrup and jams and stuff are just as good as strawberries, but the strawberries are local. Oh well, maybe next year. Actually, I'm going to make a note of that in my really cool portable brain that I can't live without, to start inquiring about strawberries around the 1st of June.

Got our first "batch" of hay in last night, well, when I say "we" it wasn't me helping. at all. this is a first!
I was daddy-sitting, so didn't get to partake in the festivities, but not to worry, there's LOTS more hay to be got!

Stupid coffee pot! Just got up to get a cup of coffee and realized that it never turned itself on. grrr.
OK, I'm over it.

So anyway, in my scattered little brain, we've covered strawberries and cherries and touched on hay. Let's go to my awesome chicken self feeding system shall we?
The items needed for this include as many 5 gallon buckets as can be rounded up (on the farm, this isn't a problem), a shotgun or drill to drill lots and lots of holes in the sides and bottoms of the buckets, A way to suspend them above the chicken pen (sticks work great, as does left over binder twine - the plastic stuff) and as many dead critters as you can get your hands on. Again, around here, shooting possums, raccoons and stuff that attack my critters are plentiful, as are fish guts from hubby going fishing, so usually don't have to look real far.
Hang the buckets up above the chicken pen (pre shot or drilled for holes) and throw in the dead critter. Within a matter of days, the flies will swarm and lay their eggs. The maggots will fall out of the holes and chickens will eat them up. It gets a bit aromatic, but if there's a reason for it, well.... it's easier to put up with.
See? Self feeding chickens! Works great!

A bit too redneck for you? Well, it works, and around here, we're all about making these critters pay for themselves, even the dead ones! If you happen to like the idea of this system but lack dead critters, leftover garbage, especially meat scraps would work too, just not as quickly. But we don't have a lot of that, the leftover garden scraps and vegies go to the chix and the leftover meats go to the Bu-Dawgh, with the exception of leftover chicken and turkey, which the barn cats will happily relieve you of.

And the most exciting news of all? I got a heifer last night! This brings my cow total to 4! She hasn't come to live with us yet, but hopefully soon. You know what this means? a constant source of calves as I have a friend with an awesome bull, and an almost constant source of milk and cream for drinking, cheeses, yogurts, butter and ice creams. All organic and natural and everybody with no antibiotics or growth hormones, no pasteurization or homogenization, nothin' but milk, grass fed, right from the cow! Life is great!!

Tonight? more garden work and more chicken pen work, it's supposed to rain, so that will put a halt to the haying, temporarily. And if it rains too hard, there is the hayloft that needs to be organized before we bring in any more hay! The sound of rain on the tin roof of the barn is just one of the best sounds ever!

I love the farm, can you tell? Now, to make it pay a salary that I can live with....