farm report

[paul wheaton]

This morning my wife wakes me up and tells me there is a fire in the north forest, but it seems sort of self contained ... Last night we had a big lightning show along with some rain. A tree was struck and it looks like its roots burned all night long. Since the surrounding bushes were wet, the fire did not go past the bushes. By the time I saw it, it was smoking pretty good, but I saw no flames. The fire department came out and made sure it was completely out.

Yesterday was my daughter's 11th birthday. We took her and some of her friends to the new Harry Potter movie (I thought the first two were better). Then we went to horseshoe lake and swam to the waterfalls on the other side of the lake. It takes about 45 minutes each way to make the swim. The waterfalls are a cascading waterfall with pools. Each pool is sort of like a jacuzzi.

Last weekend we upgraded the water tank on the trailer. Before, we hooked a pump up to the tractor and pumped water out of the tank. Now we have a gravity feed system that goes much faster. The only catch, of course, is that you cannot sit in the tractor seat and shoot water simultaneously.

We also expanded on my portable chicken coop design. A wire cattle panel is bent into a U shape and chicken wire is attached. Several of these will make an area for chickens to be outside in the sun and on fresh grass. We move the portable coop every day.

My son and I also made some new portable chicken roosts.

Speaking of my son: he and I have been learning about putting in a 240 volt socket for a stick welder. We now have the socket wired and the wire in place, but we need to staple it down properly and then patch it into the electrical box. Sometime in the next few days we will get a chance to try out the new stick welder.

I hooked the bush hog up to the tractor and cleared away some brush in the north forest. I found a spot for a future pond where we can take the trees that are there and prep them for next years log projects. We will probably do that this weekend.

A new boar arrives tomorrow.

A pig that "left" a couple of weeks ago will be coming back and going into our freezer.

We're raising turkeys for the first time this year. One died this morning. We were foolish enough to leave a bowl of water out for them (instead of a poultry waterer) and one of the turkeys drowned!

[Helen Thomas]

Hope those lovely "kids" you posted pictures of months back haven't "left".
[ July 01, 2004: Message edited by: Helen Thomas ]

[Gregg Bolinger]

This would make for a cool weblog I think.

[Helen Thomas]

I hooked the bush hog up to the tractor and cleared away some brush in the north forest.

I guess that's farm speak for some kind of implement that eats brush and not a real hog. A hog here is a big pig.

[Steve Wink]

Originally posted by Helen Thomas:
I hooked the bush hog up to the tractor and cleared away some brush in the north forest.

I guess that's farm speak for some kind of implement that eats brush and not a real hog. A hog here is a big pig.

I'm glad you cleared that up, I was getting strange mental images.

[Jeroen Wenting]

Originally posted by Helen Thomas:
I hooked the bush hog up to the tractor and cleared away some brush in the north forest.

I guess that's farm speak for some kind of implement that eats brush and not a real hog. A hog here is a big pig.

Don't pigs eat brush?

[Helen Thomas]

Originally posted by Jeroen Wenting:


Don't pigs eat brush?

Not when they are hooked to a tractor I don't think.

[Jessica Sant]

Originally posted by Paul Wheaton:
We're raising turkeys for the first time this year. One died this morning. We were foolish enough to leave a bowl of water out for them (instead of a poultry waterer) and one of the turkeys drowned!

Wow... I thought that was an urban myth kind of thing. Thank goodness Ben Franklin didn't get his way and make the Turkey the national bird!

[paul wheaton]

A bush hog is like a six foot wide lawn mower. The blade is about a half inch thick. It hooks onto the three point hitch on the back of the tractor. Bushes and small trees are mowed as if they were grass.

We sold some of the little goats and still have quite a few.

Pigs do a pretty good job of clearing brush. We've been moving the pigs around the farm to do just that.

Steve, the new boar, arrived last night. I'll have to pop down and take a look at him.

And I had a ham sandwich for lunch today with some ham that also arrived last night. Sooooo good.

[Helen Thomas]

Originally posted by Paul Wheaton:

Steve, the new boar, arrived last night. I'll have to pop down and take a look at him.

The Boar is the 'Charlie Brown' of the farmyard, the original nice guy but he likes to date a lot before finally settling down. Steve's a good choice of name for a boar.
[ July 03, 2004: Message edited by: Helen Thomas ]

[paul wheaton]

I met Steve yesterday. "He Steve! Here's some treats! Come get some goodies!" Grunt. "Yummy goodies! Come get them!" Snort. "Come on over here Steve, buddy, and say hello." Grunt.

Steve was comfortable where he was napping.

And then I made Steve noises. Grunt. Snort. And he raced right over. He ate the treats and visited for a while.

Today I cut down two really big trees. I limbed them and then used a draw knife to remove the bark. It's bizarre how different a freshly skinned tree is from the logs you would see in a log house or log furniture. The wood looks like ... you could take a bite of it like it's an apple. It's wet and has a sort of skin to it. It reminds me of those pictures of people without their skin and you can see their muscles.