Poisonous Snake vs Big Mower, snake loses.

Yesterday I was mowing knee-high tall grass on the far side of our pond and behind the bee hives. Look at what I ran over. The grass was so tall, I did not know it was there, and I had been walking around looking for big rocks and tree branches before mowing - glad I didn't go too close to the bee hives. And good thing I always wear 10" high leather boots when working on the farm. I was driving fast as I mowed around the bee hives to avoid agitating them. I thought I had run over a stick because of the sound of the blade hitting something.

 On my next pass around this area I saw a big black thing slightly moving on the border of the tall and short grass, midway between the two hives. I wish I had taken a picture of it, but instead called for K2 to bring a shovel from the barn in case I needed to cut it's head off. No need. Apparently it must have raised it's head just before the blade swept over him and chopped it right off. We examined its head and could clearly see the "cotton" sacks in its mouth and it had wicked long fangs (although slightly bent). A big guy at over 3 feet long. Chucked it over the fence onto the dirt road - it was gone this morning, so some scavenger had a meal. K7 can be seen in the background carrying water for the recently planted pecan trees.

We are located right at the northern edge of its range. Just think, if we had bought a farm a few hundred miles further north...or maybe on the east coast. The good news is that our snake was a Western Cottonmouth, which are small at 3 feet compared to the Eastern Cottonmouth who reach 6 feet. 

I normally keep the grass shorter in the orchard and around the pond, but it didn't get done while I was gone the past 3 weeks in England and Oklahoma. Its happening now. We get all the big rocks out of here this week, and should be able to use the riding mower for most of it. 

You would think that after seeing the big bad poisonous snake just before this picture, that "Joe Cool" would have put on his leather work boots to complete his ensemble. No, he is more worried about a snake dropping on his head!

Ram sale

We had a lamb round-up last week to catch the biggest ram to fill an order. It turned out to be K8's ram. Thank you Heather and Jim of West Plains area.

During the round-up, the boys noticed that some of the rams we had previously banded were still intact. Oops! Got to fix that problem. But didn't we lay them on their backs last time? That didn't work out real well, so...

...lets try the "standing up method" we used on the bull calves. Success! 

Wanch Dairy Temporarily Closing

Darlin is about 8 months pregnant, so we need to dry her up before she delivers her new calf. We will have to buy milk from the store for a month or two. The boys will rake out all the old flooring of straw and pine chips, wait a few days to air dry the ground, then put down new bedding. Looks like Jimmy the cat will lose one of his favorite napping spots when we use some of his straw.

K8 is adding a teaspoon of sanitizing powder to 4 gallons of hot water. We run this through the milk machine system before bottle feeding the 5 calves. The tank hangs upside down from the ceiling and air dries, and is ready to be used for milking when boys are finished with calves.

After the boys are done milking Darlin, they have three steps in the clean-up process. First is to run 4 gallons of hot soapy water through the system and tank...

...then 4 gallons of clean rinse water...

...followed by 4 hot gallons of the sanitizing solution. They have to empty the stainless steel tank after each load of water, which means they have to first carry the water buckets from the house, then carry the tank out of the barn to dump it. Let's see, that comes up to be four separate 4-gallon buckets in, and four more 4-gallon tanks out. Do the math on how much 4 gallons of water weighs, and you can see that K7 and K8 will be building lots of muscle over the years. 

The boys don't know it, but after they leave home in several years, I'm going to install a tankless water heater in the barn and put a drain in the floor! Hee hee hee

After all that rinsing and dumping, we hang the tank and claws upside down from the ceiling to air dry for 12 hours before doing it all over again. And you thought our delicious farm fresh milk was free! It is paid for with dedicated farm boy muscle. Why all the sanitizing? Because if you don't, your fresh milk will sour in a day or two, as we found out this spring when the temperatures warmed up and the bacteria started to grow in the system. Winter time milking was so much easier when the barn stayed cold for 6 months, 

New calf

No, not born on the farm or bought from another farm. This new little girl, the one with white markings on her side, belongs to some friends at church. They moved into a home in a nearby town and couldn't keep her in their yard. All five calves are happy and healthy. 

The boys halter and tie them up on the hay feeder each morning and evening to feed them a special calf powered milk.

After the calves are fed, we bring Darlin into the dairy shed from the pasture and get her milked. Then return her to the pasture before releasing the calves.

We plan to stop bottle feeding them by the end of May, and put them on grain for a short while as they transition to an all grass diet. It will take over a year to get the 3 girls old enough for breeding with Red, and almost two years to fatten up the 2 bull calves for market. Long term investments!

Baby Ducks

K2 is home from his first year of law school, and unwinding with a few small building projects. He made a giant brooder box so we could move the newly hatched ducklings out of the basement and into the barn. Mom got out her electric incubator box last month and loaded it with fertilized duck and chicken eggs.

There are 9 new duckies (and 3 new chicks in a smaller brooder box). I need to order some female turkey eggs.

Lizzy the cat is showing a lot of interest in her new room mates...

...but don't worry, K2 has a plan to keep the little guys safe.

K2 has also cleaned and reorganized the barn. You can see the bikes hanging in the back corner with the weed eaters on the wall to the right of bikes. We have since moved the duck brooder out side next to the pond because these little guys are so hardy. We let them swim around the pond for an hour each day. One of the adult female ducks is also sitting on a nest of eggs under a bush at the base of the giant oak tree next to the pond, so we may have more ducklings soon.

Back from England

I spent the past two weeks in England helping my Aunt as she recovers from serious illnesses - one of which is mouth cancer, so I never took any photos while at home. As I got on the plane, I realized that I had taken only one photograph during the entire trip, so I pulled out the camera and started making up for lost time. This is the Manchester Airport.

The weather was pretty much cold, cloudy and rainy most of the time. In fact, April 2012 set a record for the most rain ever recorded in England and they had massive flooding problems. I had to cancel my planned trip to the North Somerset Farm Show because that area was the hardest hit. We had a few sunny days in May.

Lifting off and heading back to America and the farm.

Once away from the cities, everything is beautiful green

Reached our cruising altitude of 40,000 feet. Check out the temperature outside the plane - minus 85 F!

I liked this US Airways plane. It had TV screens in the back of every seat, so I had my own personal entertainment center.

I could choose from dozens of movies and TV shows. I watched the latest Mission Impossible and Sherlock Holmes movies going over, and then watched Warhorse coming back. All three were very good.

I also read newspapers and a book while listening to music when not eating or sleeping.

You could follow the flight path across the ocean. The various maps were loaded with interesting geography information.

Maps included a few historical sites like the spot where the passenger ship Titanic sank in 1912 after hitting a giant iceberg...

...and where the U.S. nuclear submarine, USS Thresher, mysteriously sank in 1963.

Here is the only picture I took while in England. My Aunt is blessed with a few wonderful neighbors who look after her. This is Kathleen, an 84 year old Irish Catholic and retired nurse who lives directly across the street. I accompanied her to the grocery store on one of the few sunny days.