3 fat squirrels!

That's who is sharing our chickens and ducks food. I'm none too thrilled about it but I could have so many worse predators or rodents. I guess I can live with three fat squirrels. They're always in the chicken yard the birds seem to have accepted these interlopers into the flock.

Rain, Rain Go Away, The Drought Is No Longer Here To Stay!

For all of the summer we were in a severe drought. When looking around the farm yard yesterday I had a feeling that we are no longer in a drought. I checked the state drought monitor and yes no more drought. No wonder big puddles or small ponds are popping up where once there were none. One area in particular gave me concern because the water is building up near the rabbits 3 season home. This is also a sattelite covered location for the chickens in winter. I don't want it flooded or turned into an ice rink! Since it's raining again today I decided that I should dig a drainage ditch of sorts to re-direct the pooling water around the rabbits home.

The ducks of course are enjoying any and all pop up ponds and at one point this area I'm working on may have been a good spot to encourage a pond area to form. For now it's established as something else and at the moment I don't want to (or don't have time to) change the set up so digging in the mud was my chore for this morning. Of course I got far too much help from 10 happy ducks! They love water, they love mud, they love worms that are unearthed when digging. If anyone grabs a shovel in the fenced farm yard the ducks come running begging for the ground to be dug up so they can find goodies in the soil.

My drainage ditch isn't pretty but it will do to run the excess water away from the rabbits area.

This is what I noticed happening late yesterday.

Today as soon as I started digging to redirect the water the ducks joined right in with the fun.

Angel took a break from mud play to go lay an egg. She sometimes prefers to use the chicken's nest boxes.

I think my new drainage ditch will solve the problem and re-direct the water if we get more rain before the water level goes down. 

Suddenly Not Summer

All of a sudden it's gotten cold. This morning as I did chicken, duck and rabbit chores I could see my breathe and my hands were cold. When I looked at the thermometer it read only 45 degrees. I think autumn is here even if it's a couple weeks away by the calendar. Changes all around as the days get shorter and the nights get colder. 

The gourds are ripening.

Tomato plants are dying off. 

Leeks are looking just about ready to harvest.

The corn is starting to be ready too.

 KitKat explores the changing fall landscape.

A Hubbard Squash grows bigger and bigger.

Many of the older chickens and ducks 1 year old plus are molting and slowing down their laying as they work on growing new feathers.

Nothing to see here, not a predator but the molting process!

Feathers everywhere this time of year.

Some are molting more than others, this 2 year old  Carolina Blue hen must be going for a full feather re-do!

The spring chicks are laying, taking up the slack for the older girls who are molting. The youngest of this year's chicks, a summer hatch, are getting big and exploring everywhere.

Mama Hen Snow White still keeps watch over her great big 8 week old chicks.

Some things haven't changed as much.

I'm still fighting with the electric poultry netting that I put up at night as an additional line of defense. 

And the silkies are ever broody!

A Nice Hot Summer and Tomatoes For All!

It's been a hot summer and I do enjoy the hot weather. Not something we get enough of in NH. The bearded dragons have loved getting outdoors more than usual. The heat is just right for them. Some garden crops have thrived with the hot weather including the tomatoes and corn. I'm sure we've had more tomatoes this summer than ever before and they've all been ripening all of a sudden. I've frozen, some, set out some for fresh eating and given some to friends. The chickens and ducks get any with bites out of them (tomato hornworms invaded for awhile) or bad spots.

Tomatoes for all, even the birds get some!

Sun Bathing Beardies

Best ever corn crop!

In addition to the hot weather, which resulted in a drought for the first part of summer, we've also had heavy rains and high humidity. The rain hasn't been sprinkles or showers but a deluge of water will suddenly pour down for an hour here and there. This has created tough conditions for some crops including some of our fruit trees. We won't be getting a lot of apples this year it seems. Some of the trees, even very old- been here longer than we have trees look a bit sad and not much production. Broccoli and cauliflower have done very poorly this year too.

In between have been the squashes, beans and a few other crops which have done okay, not great but not terrible. Not sure if it's weather related, predator related or something I have done wrong or haven't done that I should have.

I'm going to make some changes for next year, try some new things and maybe focus more closely on less types of crops. I know I want to have success with melons, both cantaloupe and watermelon. This won't be easy in our climate but I'll try. I also want to have a crop of popcorn, I think I planted that too late this year and too little of it, plus one particular chick would walk through the fence when he was small enough and peck at the little popcorn plants until I blocked that area off better.

This little urchin was eating my young popcorn plants until I blocked them from him with cages. He eventually outgrew the ability to slip through the garden fence and grew into a handsome silkie rooster.

I thought that when summer started and we had a good looking set of vegetable and fruit plants and trees that this would be a great year but it turned out to be great for some plants and not good at all for others. Onward to next year and to trying some new ideas. 

Helping the walking onions to walk into a different garden, asparagus too

We have two separate vegetable garden areas. One, the upper garden, is right next to the chickens and ducks fenced yard while the other, the lower garden, is much further away and kept top secret from the birds! It's a good thing that the birds have no idea that the second garden exists or we would have very few vegetables to harvest for ourselves. Not all of the birds can jump or fly over the fences between their yard and the upper garden but a certain group can do just that. Mainly the salmon faverolles, cream legbars and a few random birds plus Mo the rooster. These particular birds are all lighter weight or flighty breeds. Then there's the ducks, they have such long necks that that reach through the fences to bite at whatever has grown close to the fences.

They look so innocent but there are garden thieves among them!

These issues have led to us playing musical gardens over the last couple years. Now crops are broken down into two groups: those the chickens and ducks like (most) and those the birds don't like (a few). The upper garden is smaller and is now for things birds don't like or bother. We thought tomatoes fell into this category but we have found that the birds do like the tomatoes themselves just not the plants. It seems that the best things for the upper garden are leeks, asparagus, onions, garlic.

New Asparagus Bed in Upper Garden

The asparagus bed and the walking onions were previously in the lower garden. Both of those crops were being overtaken by strawberries so they needed to move anyway. Last spring I moved the asparagus bed and added some new rootstock. As I find more asparagus plants I'll add them to the new bed. The walking onions I'm just starting to move. I have to wait until the tomato plants currently in that spot die off and as they do I'm planting both topset bulbs and original "parent plant" onions into the upper garden.

A few of the walking onion plants for transplanting.

I planted leeks there this spring and they have done very well, the birds bothered the young plants when they were first planted (because they wanted to scratch around in the newly dug dirt) but haven't touched them as the season has gone on.

Walking onion top sets for transplanting.

I know that transplanting the asparagus bed has set it back a bit but I think it will thrive in the new location and so far the birds haven't shown any interest. The walking onions will take right off again in the new spot next year. Everything else will be designated for the lower (secret) garden and we will hope the chickens never find that garden! So far so good we're into our third year and they haven't found it yet. Wild animals have but you can't have everything!

Chicken fence next to garden fence, making it work by changing around the gardens for next year.

Lower garden- They can never find out!

Final note, the chickens and ducks are given masses are lovely garden produce they're just greedy but I love them anyway :-).

There's a bear out there!

Late in the day yesterday I was picking some blackberries for the chickens, they love them so much. I was outside of their fence to the west side where we have an abundance of berry bushes. Usually the birds run right up to the fence waiting for me to toss the berries through. I looked up from my berry picking and was confused. The chickens and ducks were nowhere to be seen by the fence. I looked further and noticed that they had all gone into the coop, into the run or or under shelters. Very quick thoughts were; it is getting close to bedtime maybe they're going in early, I do think I hear thunder in the distance even though the sky is fair, there are a bunch of wild birds causing a ruckus. In a split second while thinking those thoughts it clicked, something wild is around. I looked around and at the north side of the fence there was a great big black bear! The bear was trying to scale the outer fence. I shouted for help from the family, grabbed a metal shovel and metal feed dish and started clanging. Others came to help with noise and the bear very quickly ran off into the woods. That was a good sign, a wild bear should want to avoid the humans and the noise. Although the bear seemed to leave awhile later he was back in the same spot scoping out the fence. Back to noise making and letting the dogs out to bark in their yard. Again the bear ran off. We set up extra security for the night, electric fence on and hoped for the best. As if this morning there is no sign that the bear returned. The fences are not bent or damaged in any way. All animals are safe and sound. This is part of living here on our woodland homestead. I have no issues with the wildlife, they've as much right to be here as me. I will just keep reinforcing my fences and security measures and keep the animals as safe as I can. Oh and that thunder in the distance sound was the bear, it kept making a low rumbling noise at least with this bear we will have early warning, if you hear thunder check for Thunder the bear!

All is well in the farmyard the day after a bear visit.

Some Turnips Turn Up

While we've had a lot of pest problems this summer as well as weather issue some crops are thriving. Turnips for instance, we got some mega sized ones! KitKat and rufus helped me harvest some of the turnips and then I planted a fall crop of root vegetables in the now cleared spot where the turnips had been growing.

Mid-Summer Farm Update

Lots of ups and downs with the fruits, vegetables and animals this summer. Our gardens and fruit trees started off very strong this year then just as things were ripening all manner of bugs, slugs and critters found the bounty. We've dealt with caterpillars, hornworms, slugs, squirrels, rodents, deer, bear and more raiding our vegetable gardens and fruit trees. We don't use pesticides so resorted to natural treatments with some success. Still the creatures have certainly taken their share and continue to do so. The town mowers overstepped their bounds in my opinion and chopped down our best high bush blueberry plants, nice tall ones that have been around forever, that was a sad day.  We are getting regular tomatoes, summer squash, greens, beans and a slow trickle of fruit such as plums, nectarines and early peaches. Hoping the later ripening peach trees give us more and the wildlife less fruit!

A large patch of corn is coming along and we look set to have our first truly successful corn crop. Root vegetables are coming along well too with turnip, carrots and beets all starting to be ready for picking. raspberries and blackberries are ripening daily.

It's been up and down with the birds too. The ducks have been fine though we have had a couple wanting to go broody this year. That had never happened before and since we don't need any more ducks we haven't let them hatch a clutch. One of our sweet little silkies that we added (by accident they were supposed to be Marans) died after a good try to fight off an illness/injury/birth defect. She/he never grew well compared to her hatchmate and seemed to have a leg problem. She eventually became a house chicken and had various treatments and spoiling and love but she (or he) passed peacefully one afternoon. The other chickens while mostly healthy have had a mystery illness strike a couple. We researched and found that the culprit might be coccidiosis and so we have treated the whole flock for that. Only a couple showed signs and one bird suddenly and unexpectedly died we didn't want to take chances. The protozoa that cause coccidiosis is present in the soil of most places with animals but doesn't usually pose a problem. The hot, humid and very wet month we've been having is prime conditions for the birds to pick up a high load of cocci and the treatment is simple so we have gone that route. All birds are fit and well now as far as I can tell. Rabbits, cats, dogs and lizards all doing well.

On the upside Snow White has been a wonderful mama hen, her three little chicks are thriving and she takes them out among the flock now with no trouble. Snow White is the most aggressive mama hen I've seen and strikes fear into her flockmates should they even look at her chicks wrong!

And of course KitKat is always on the job.

Except when he's not! He does pick some funny places to sleep.