The Visitor

Sometime the middle of last week, I was outside doing chickens chores when I heard a faint sound coming from the field across the road.  "bob whhhite"  "bob whhhite"  I've never heard a bob white quail singing except on a recording, but the sound was instantaneously recognizable.  I had to call Mike outside to listen with me because I could not imagine what I was hearing was true.  We don't have quail that live around here in northern Ohio.  At least I've never heard any or even talked to anyone who has heard any.  The explanation is easy though.  There are quite a few bird dog owners around and they will often raise quail and pheasants and use them to train their dogs.  Pen raised birds do not survive long in the wild, but occasionally one that is let loose will travel and stake out a territory.  Well, at least until they end up dinner for a hawk or coyote or a fox.  That is the fate of the wild quail too, but the wild born ones seem a little more adept at avoiding being a meal.

Friday evening our visitor Mr. Bob White came closer.  He was still in the field across the road, but was so close I thought maybe I could use my binoculars to see him in the mowed grass where he was sitting.  I couldn't.  Saturday morning I awoke to his song drifting through my open bedroom window.  He serenaded me all morning while I was doing my chicken chores outside.  In the afternoon I walked outside to get something from the garage and heard him again.  He was just as close, but this time was on our property.  It took me a minute, but I finally spotted him singing from atop a fence post alongside the pasture.

A little later, Mike and I found him in the driveway taking a dust bath.  He scurried away when I went out to start evening chores, but a half hour later he was singing his song while sitting underneath one of the tractors.

I was kind of sad thinking about how he was singing his song to a world where there were no other quails to hear him.  But I also know that his life will not be wasted.  In nature, not much if anything goes to waste.  I'm glad that little quail came by and blessed our farm with his song even if for a very short while.

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I looked back in my blog from last year and except for some late started broccoli plants (which we don't have this year), the transplanting was finished on July 1st.  Well, we are not quite finished this year, but we are down to one wagon full of flats.  It won't take long to finish, but it also won't get done until after the holiday weekend.

The meat birds are almost 8 weeks old now.  Normally we would be butchering them next weekend, but half of our butchering crew is out of town or busy so it will be two weeks before we butcher.  The cockerels especially should be huge roaster sized chickens by then.

And last but not least, one of my favorite wildflowers, Ox Eyed Daisies, are in full bloom around the edges of the yard and fields.  I know they are non-native, but I love these flowers.

It's time for planting, not blogging

Farmers have 2 times of year when they are the most busy: planting and harvest.  Although quite delayed by the wet spring (the tv news reported last week that we are running about 11" above normal for rainfall), we are finally in the midst of planting.  The good news is that we have made a LOT of progress in the last 9 days.  What it also means is that blogging has been pushed aside a bit.  My weekdays go something like this.  Slide out of bed sometime between 5:30-6am, do my morning chores (feeding chickens, cats and dogs), eat breakfast, get ready for work, go to work at the clinic, work overtime because the clinic is incredibly busy right now, come home, sit down for 20 minutes to catch my breath, do evening animal chores, tack on some kind of farm chore or mowing the lawn or walking the dogs (which is a BIG priority in my book), waddle into the house between 8:30-9pm, make dinner, relax a bit and then slide into bed around 10pm.  Last weekend was filled with an all day volunteer activity and then a family cookout the next day.  Nowhere in there was there a spot for blogging.  Or house keeping for that matter.  I'm thinking of hiring an armed guard to stand at my door and keep people from coming inside and seeing the total clutter that exists right now in the house.  OK, it hasn't quite reached that level, but you get the picture and it ain't pretty.

On to the progress in the farm.  As usual, my vantage point standing next to the pasture fence at the edge of the garden, shows no progress.  Once again, I remind that this will be the last area to be worked on this year.

However, by walking straight forward, you come to where all the transplanting of the greenhouse started plants has taken place the past 9 days.

A week ago this past Monday, I got to ride the transplanter with Melissa while Mike drove the tractor.  We planted all the tomatoes, all the watermelons and most of the eggplant.  Here are Melissa and Mike filling the water tank on the transplanter as we get ready to plant the VERY tall tomato plants.

And here I am after a day of transplanting.  It's not very physically demanding work, but it is VERY dirty work.

The tomatoes on the left and the watermelons to the right are coming along nicely a little over 1 week after being planted.

And there the cucumbers are starting to grow well too.

And because all the flats of greenhouse started plants that are not yet planted are up off the ground and sitting on our hay wagons, the hens are now off house arrest and are allowed to freely roam the yard once again.  They are very happy girls.

Progress? Yes, if you know where to look

Progress is slow but steady.  We've had a few rains that have slowed us down and today was market day.  The fields are finally prepped for transplanting.  24,000 feet of plastic has been laid.  Now we just have to wait for the availability of the transplanter and a few dry days.

5 days ago this was the view of the progress of the garden.  Doesn't look like anything much has been done, eh?

This is actually the last part of the field that will be planted.  So I took a little stroll straight ahead and found Mike on the tractor.

Busy working the new tiller and getting the field ready for the plastic laying machine.

I haven't taken a stroll back to the fields since the plastic has been laid.  That will be on tomorrow's agenda.

I did also saunter past the plastic where some cucumbers had been planted and lookie here.  A baby cucumber plant.  I love cucumbers.

On a totally different subject, last week we had an example of how nature and farming sometimes collide.  Every year this seems to happen on at least one of the tractors.  Turns out a robin built a nest on a tractor that wasn't being used yet because of all the rain.  One day while the guys where working fixing something on the tractor, they accidentally crushed a robin's nest.  Felt kind of bad about that one, but it happens.  The tractor then sat for another week or two and then last week when Mike started using it again, he found another robin's nest. This nest didn't get crushed, but a moving tractor is not a good location for a bird nest.  Mike left me the nest in my little red wagon as a present.  Those eggs in that nest sure are pretty.  But that robin definitely needs to be more selective when it comes to choosing a housing location.

And last but not least, a few of the 16 week old Gold Buff pullets (young hens) started laying this week.  Good girls!  Here are 4 pullet eggs next to 4 eggs from the older hens.  The pullet eggs are much smaller, but in a month or two, the eggs will be near normal size.

The pullets are getting a little braver every day about venturing out of the barn and into the yard.  Last night when I went to shut the pen door for the night, I had to "rescue" one that was walking AWAY from the barn and it was getting quite dark out.  All the other pullets had gone back to their roost in the barn on their own.  Or so I thought.  Then this morning, I found another one that I had missed seeing last night and she was loose outside and trying to get in the coop where the older hens stay which is a totally separate building.  So I had to catch her (not all that easy) and carry her back "home".  I'll see if I have any wanderers tonight when I go to lock them up.

That is the weekly round up.  I looked back on last June's blog and we are totally even with when we were transplanting plants last year.  The difference is last year we had more sweet corn and beans and such planted by this time then we do now.  Fingers crossed for a good planting week coming up.

T-storms and turtles

About a week ago we had a pretty impressive squall line come out of Canada, across Lake Erie, and dump over an inch of rain on our farm.  The line was making its way across the lake as I was outside feeding and watering the baby chickens out on pasture.  I could feel the energy in the air even though I could not yet hear thunder or see the storm clouds.  I am always happy when the storms hold off until after I do my morning chores.  For some reason, wild turkey gobblers LOVE to gobble in stormy weather.  Across the road on the neighbor's place, I could hear a turkey gobbling almost non-stop.  He was gobbling when I stepped out the door to start my morning chores.  I could hear him while I was feeding the baby meat chicks in their outdoor pens.  And I could hear him as I was turning off the hose and finishing up chores about an hour later. 

Mike in the meantime was in a hurry.  He had prepped one section of the field for planting beans the evening before.  Not expecting the storms to be rolling through so soon after sunrise, he had anticipated a more leisurely morning before jumping on the tractor.  But the storm was moving and Mike got on the tractor as soon as it was light enough to see well.  Out to the fields he went to plant beans before the rain came.  The wind started whipping around and thunder was rumbling when I heard the tractor coming back up the lane toward the barns.  I grabbed the camera and took a few pictures of the approaching storm.  The cloud pattern was spectacularly beautiful. 

Fortunately we had no damage from the storm.  A few trees were blown down around the county, but nothing serious.  Quite the spectacular lightning show accompanied the storm as well.

As I left for work in the morning, the backside of the storm was still raining on us.  Just down the road from our driveway is a low spot in the road where a small streamlet goes under the road through a culvert.  In times of heavy rain, this low spot has been known to flood the road.  The road was not flooded this morning, but there ambling down the edge of the road was a very decent sized snapping turtle.  It was quite coincidental since just the day before I was reading an article online about how the area's female snapping turtles were on the move looking for places to lay their eggs.  Unfortunately, the storm made the lighting pretty poor and the only photo that turned out was one with a flash.  It was a cool sighting though.

Little did I know that would be the first of 3 snapper sightings in the next 4 days.  The following day, Mike was out in the garden digging up some onions when he came across this not-so-little lady hanging out right in the middle of the onion patch. 

Then 2 days later I was again on my way to work and came to a bridge over a larger creek about 1.5 miles from the farm.  There was another snapper walking across the bridge on the yellow line.  I guess the article about turtles being on the move was correct.  3 snappers in 4 days was pretty cool.