Flowers of Love.

The kids have been bringing me flowers every day. It started with dried leftover seed heads from last fall and then went to dandelions and clover and now we are seeing quite a verity.  Here is a bunch of wild roses they brought in last week. I love this time of year with all the green and flowers!! 

Early Morning Visitors Part 2. Unwanted Visitors.

The unwanted visitors, there is something dead type, are a pair of ravens that attacked the chicks their first morning out on grass. Papa and I woke up to 10 dead chicks in the pen, chicks everywhere; under the porch, in the bushes, everywhere, and Tucker laying beside the trampoline watching the ravens eat the dead chicks. Yeah it turns out Tucker has to be loose to be 'on duty' for ravens anyway. He does fine with coyotes while tied or crated, but apparently must be loose to bark at ravens. He does chase them off, we've seen him, but not while tied... strange mutt. 

Papa and the kids and I spent 45 minutes rounding up chicks, found 4 more that had been squished in the panic, and got them all back in the pen and fed. Over the next few days we lost several, I think 4 or 5, more... probably from too much stress. It's a terrible way to wake up on a beautiful Sunday morning. 

We had to re-plan our day as we'd planned on going to church and out for lunch and then to a car show that afternoon. We'd already told the kids we were going to the car show so Papa packed up the kids and took them to see the old cars and I grabbed my book and went out to sit on the lawn.. and it was good that I did. Those brave ravens came back again and again and again!! I moved myself around the yard and that kept them from landing. 

We've had troubles with ravens before but not in several years. We found that if we tied a black garbage bag on to a movable fence post and moved it around in the pen when we did chores the ravens wouldn't land. We also move our chicks every day or every second day and the ravens really don't like change so they will not attack. 

We've never ever had raven troubles the first night the chicks are out until now.

So we made this guy known as Scare Steve. He's a scare crow but he looks like and is tall like our friend Steve and the kids named him :) Tucker DID NOT like him and barked for ages until Papa brought Tucker into the chick pen and 'introduced' them. 

So far, it's been 10 days now, we are keeping the ravens away with a couple of proactive activities. We are moving the scare Steve every couple of days, we are moving the feeders/waterers/ wheelbarrow in the pen every feeding or almost every feeding.. so two or three times a day! We are spending a LOT of time outside which they don't like and we are hunting them. Well Papa is :) We are still having raven scares every day. In fact the kids and I moved the chicks across the driveway today into a new pen and within an hour the ravens were checking them out. The scare Steve is not yet in the new pen but it will be tonight. The kids are outside doing P.E. and that should throw the ravens off until Papa can get the scare Steve and the feed trailer into the pen. I'm also seriously wondering if I should get a couple of Papa's old shirts and change scare Steve's shirt every day or two. Papa and I also sleep with our window cracked so we can hear the chicks in the middle of the night. 

 Papa figures the chicks would dress out about 3 lbs right now so it shouldn't be too long before they are too big for the ravens but until then we will be doing everything in our power to keep them safe. The ravens will not go after my laying hens so at least we know there is a size where the chicks should be safe. 

Early Morning Visitors. Part 1!

There are two kinds of early morning visitors when you live on a farm. The painful 'there is something dead' kind and the 'oh look aren't they beautiful kind.' This last week on the farm we've had both kinds of visitors.

These two beautiful does showed up as Papa was finishing up chores one morning. He came into our room and pointed them out to me :) The kids were all asleep so I took some quick shots. They stayed for almost 20 minutes until the dogs noticed them and Tucker chased them off. He vibrates when he gets that excited :) 

The unwanted kind of visitors will be coming in a post soon.. 

I was going post them together but the beauty of the deer shouldn't be sullied with the horror of the other. 

G's Pigtails.. Way Too Cute!!!

I was trying to get her face in the mirror but it's a bit dark.

Smiling girl!! Looks so grown up with her hair back! 

Oh yes I am SO cute!!! 

Two little tails :) 

The Chicks On Grass :)

It's a family affair :) 

J, L and E caught almost all the chicks and put them in the crates in the barn. Papa and I put the crates on the trailer and we drove them over to the yard. This worked MUCH better then any other year and we are very glad we got the crates. This and this is how we've done it in the past both have proven to be more trouble then anything and I think we've finally got this figured!! 

Filling up waterers before letting chicks out. 

Their protected area.. which they aren't even using as it's warm enough! 

Note: the wheel barrow is how we mix feed with milk to be able to feed it to the chicks.

They love this feed mix! 

Oldest and Youngest helping :) She loves them. 

Chickens chickens everywhere!! Oh and kids :) A friend stopped by and his little girl helped unpack the chicks. 

I love this picture. If you squint you can see the cows in the back behind the house, the laying hens loose on the yard, the calves in their pen in the left and Tucker by the trampoline. If there was a cat and a pig we'd have one of each critter in this picture. 

E took this picture of  holding a chick. It's a great picture!! 

Happy chicks on grass!! 

G and Papa having a quick cuddle. 

Happy happy happy chicks.

A great picture of Tucker.. he really didn't care about any of this chick mess.. still doesn't.

We bought those crates last winter for this very thing and they worked GREAT!! 

Chip LOVES chicks. He worries over them, walks around the pen constantly and just totally enjoys every minute of them. If one gets out he worries about it until it goes back in. He loves all babies but really chicks and Papa are his too favorite things. 

Lazy dogs, chicks checking out the fence :) 

Papa and I sat in the pen and watched chicks for about half an hour after we let them out. Relaxing. 

This little chick kept getting into trouble with the fence so Papa picked it up and told it to behave and put it on his lap. I snapped this picture quickly and was glad I did as she did NOT stay long!! She had attitude!! 

We are much happier with the chicks this year. We bought unsexed Cornish Giants and we have big cocks, a bit smaller hens and only a few road runners *those little throw backs to the plymouth rocks... normally these are about 3% of the flock and take longer to grow into a good size if they ever do. 

Just one more note :) Cornish Giants are a cross breed of a Cornish game bird and a Plymouth rock. 

The same way a Mule is a cross between a horse and a donkey :) 

A Piglet Feeding :)

Ham likes to sit to eat and Bacon prefers to stand :) 

Thank you L for taking these great pictures!!! 

Rhubarb :)

A year ago today I posted this and today we made the same recipe for the first time this year. Though this time I doubled it and I remembered the sugar :) This time though J3, G and I had a nap while J, L, E and R harvested the rhubarb and washed it. When I got up from my nap I chopped it all up and we worked together to get the crisp all put together and in the oven :) I love having BIGGER kids :)

One of these gallon buckets made the bottom roaster full! 

The other two went into the fridge for more yummy crisp soon!! 

Hmm.. Now the big question is

Is this dessert tonight???

Or breakfast tomorrow???

Or BOTH :) 

Grandpa's Fish!

Ham and Bacon Update. A Piglet Story II

24 hours old.

Two weeks old.

Amazing what 2 weeks and all the milk they can drink can do!! 

And No they do not live in that tote :) They are living in the big tote in this post minus the heat lamp but added a 1 by 4 fence around the top :) as Bacon got out one day!! 

They just visit this tote when we clean out the big tote :) 

Peggy Sue

Is on the road once more :)