Awaking from a Long Winter...

The time changed last weekend marking the end of what felt like an extraordinary long winter.  Now it is lighter in the evening and this opens up the possibility of doing more than simple chores during the week.  It is still dark in the morning during feeding time but at least one is treated to experiencing the sun come up during the feeding round.

The place is becoming greener and the animals have a spring in their step - particularly the largest gander who will run completely across the orchard to hiss you off.  A defensive sweep with a trash can lid catching him on the side of the head has not seemed to deter him.  I am actually spending time in the garden!  With the garden being smaller than last year and mostly using raised beds, the workload has reduced significantly.

Here is a shot of the typical menagerie - An escaped (and thus free ranging) NZW rabbit joins some Guinea Fowl and Buff Orpington Roosters for breakfast.  All these creatures live on their own and seem to be doing OK.


This time of year chicks and ducklings abound.  The geese have a nest of eggs they are semi-sitting on and the rabbits have had litters.  Can't tell if the goats or Henny, the registered AGH gilt in with Beau, are pregnant yet.  The remaining hogs born last fall are getting fatter but not ready for the butcher yet.

Lost a few of the White Leghorn chicks over the last few weeks to an unknown culprit.  This afternoon just before dusk I saw a possum in a branch right over the Poop Coop.  Thinking this may be the varmint, I ran off to get a shot gun.  The noise of the shot and the crash of the plummeting possum to earth caused a commotion with the hens.  On inspecting the possum I found six babies still attached to her and one on the ground.

 

Flora and Fauna

It is one week into spring and already the temperatures are pushing 90 degrees.  Flora and fauna alike are growing fast.  Here are some spring moments captured on camera.

Winston, the Jack Russell, after barking at everything including his shadow for nearly 8 years finally treed something – a groundhog known in these parts as a woodchuck.  This was right off the back deck which slopes down quite steeply.  At first it looked like a beaver until you realize this thing is about 30 feet up a tree.

While on the subject of dogs, Jessie (whose thyroid problem makes her look like a black version of Moby Dick) is taking some stick in these next pics.

 Here is a moment of natural pest control with a spider eating some bug on a plum tree.

The new crop of baby chicks finally went outside.  These included the Buff Orpingtons hatched from eggs along with some White Leghorns (as in Foghorn Leghorn - "Ah say, ah say, boy, that girl's like the road between Fort Worth and Dallas..... No curves!"  or "Ah say, boy, that girl reminds me of Paul Revere's ride - a little light in the belfry!" or "That boy's so dumb he thinks the Mexican border pays rent!") and Rhode Island Reds bought as day old chicks.

The first Aylesbury duck egg.  Notice how the natural dirt markings resemble the letter “A”.  This omen clearly means Alabama will be National Champions again in 2012.

 

The following is an example of companion planting.  This is based on the Native American technique known as the three sisters.  On a raised mound of earth four stalks of corn are planted.  Once the corn is about 6" high alternating bean and squash seeds are planted around the edge of the mound.  As the three plants grow the corn stalk provides a natural pole to support the beans while the Nitrogen-fixing bacteria in the root nodes of the beans provide valuable Nitrogen for the corn.  The squash plants radiate over the mound acting as a living mulch to suppress weeds and decrease soil water loss through evaporation.  Different combinations are being tried this year to see what works the best.  One of the combinations includes pumpkins instead of squash.

 

The Spring Equinox and Easter are Fast Approaching

Today is the first day of March and the winter is quickly coming to an end.  Soon it will be spring and then Easter.  The Christian festival of Easter has its roots in pagan traditions.  For the tribes of Scandinavia Eostre was the goddess of dawn.  Her name derived from the word “East” which is the direction of the rising sun.  Eostre’s special festival was the spring equinox – the dawn of the sun’s reign in the northern hemisphere.  A human victim was selected as the “Year King” and was sacrificed as winter turned into spring.  His body was buried in the fields which would come to life again with the rising grain.  By eating the bread made from the grain, everyone would share in the miracle of the rebirth.

According to the Old Farmer’s Almanac, this year spring begins in the northern hemisphere on March 20th at 1:14 A.M. (EDT).  This is a time of longer days, warmer temperatures, and rebirth.  As spring and Easter approach, here are some photos of Hereward farm emerging from the long but mild winter.

Baby rabbits in the nest box.  The doe  pulled out her own fur to add to the shredded newspaper to make a warm nest for her kits.  Unlike other animals, rabbits do not sit on the nest in the wild.  Compared to a conspicuous doe sitting atop a nest, leaving the kits to burrow down and hide in relative comfort avoids drawing unwanted attention.  An earlier litter was kindled on a cold night. With no heat from the mother they sadly all died.  With this litter the nest box has been brought inside on the few cold nights since they were kindled.  The doe does not seem to mind and feeds her kits in the morning.  The kits in this photo are just a day or two old and already growing fur (and reading the Financial Times).

Modern icons of Easter - eggs and chicks.  Just hatched Buff Orpington chicks in the incubator and then a few hours later.

Even though it is only the first day of March, the plum trees are already flowering.

The beavers emerge from winter and begin to eat the cambium of living trees.

When regular just won't do - Super-Size!  When this tree falls it will definitely make a sound in the forest.

Even the cats appear to be casting off their winter depression.  This is the first actual evidence that one of the cats has actually caught a live mouse.  Of course, there is the story about a blind squirrel finding nuts occasionally.

Undesirable Creatures

Recently ran into some less-desirable creatures.  While moving the chickens' water dispenser there was a black widow spider in the gap between the stones that the dispenser was resting upon.  The red hourglass can be clearly seen.  I am not sure what bothers me the most about these spiders.  The fact that it is the most venomous spider in the US or the fact that the female eats the male after mating (hence the name black widow).  I feel better thinking this one was a virgin.

Just before bedtime last night I was out checking on the chickens and found the culprit that had been digging the small deep holes in the fields.  Clearly this thing had not escaped from a petting zoo nor was someone's lost pet.

The armadillo is one of those creatures that one has a really hard time trying to see the beauty in.  In fact, it is down right ugly.  It doesn't help that armadillos carry the bacterium that causes leprosy.  About 1/3 of the few hundred cases of leprosy a year in the US have been found to come from contact with armadillos.  Oh, and they may also carry rabies - nice!

There is plenty of land for it to forage on so no plans to have it/them removed unless they start coming near the house. 

Things that go Bump in the Night...

Yesterday was Halloween.  In earlier cultures the precursor to modern Halloween was associated with the end of the agricultural year and a night when the dead were thought to walk among the living.  Here's a few pictures of Hereward Farm with a distinct Halloween/Samhain feel.


First we have the obligatory straw bales and pumpkins.  The Cinderella pumpkins growing near the orchard are not quite ready.

While on the subject of Halloween, this next pic is of a clay face mask that was found in the shrubbery at the front porch when we first moved in.  Leaning over and seeing this face staring up at you was a little unnerving.  I am not sure exactly what this mask is supposed to be but the plan is to bury it in consecrated ground with an ample supply of Holy Water as soon as possible.

The next pictures show what really walks the farm in the dead of night.

The signs of deer have become more pronounced recently.  Given the scratchings I had this image of a huge buck walking the fields.  The wildlife cam caught a picture of a deer recently.  Rather than a large buck this looks more like Bambi with an eating disorder.

The next pictures show the distinctive tracks of a raccoon.  These tracks were found around the chicken run on the top field this morning.  Such evidence of raccoons underscore why we must lock the chickens up in their coop every night.

Beavers

So the other day I was minding my own business in my office downstairs when a truck pulls up outside.  Now Hereward Farm is not exactly a place you just happen to be passing.  You have to take not one dirt road but two.  Actually, the second dirt road may not meet the official criteria to be called a dirt road.  In fact, this is almost one of those “you can’t get there from here” places.  The guy in the truck must clearly be here for a reason.  After exchanging the usual pleasantries he came right out and asked me if I would mind if he destroyed my beaver dam.  Well, in my line of work that is not a question I am used to hearing.  The first thought that crossed my mind was that he was from the Environmental Protection Agency and he was trying to entrap me into destroying a beaver family (similar to what the ATF did to Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge only this time destroying a beaver was involved rather than cutting the barrel off a shotgun).  After nervously scanning the perimeter for snipers, I asked him for some additional background. 

It turned out he was a contractor working on the adjacent property upstream of the creek trying to install a culvert for a bridge across the creek.  The beaver had built the dam so high that the water had backed up to the point that he could not add the culvert despite pumping out water.  He insisted in walking down to the creek and showing me the dam.  As it turned out, there was another dam downstream of the farm that had caused the creek to back up so that my beaver had to build his dam even bigger.  This must be the beaver equivalent of keeping up with the Jones’.  To cut a long story short, I agreed that he could disrupt only the corner of the dam so that the water level would fall sufficiently enough to complete their job yet be something the beaver could easily fix.  This evening I finally had the time to go down to the creek and have a look at what was going on.

The first picture shows the dam and the lodge.  The white flags are not the beaver surrendering but where the contractor marked the position where the dam was knocked down.  The level of the creek has fallen significantly as can be seen by all the mud.  Walking in the mud I of course saw beaver tracks all over the place.  These are much bigger than I thought.  The footprint with the Toyota key is about 3.25 inches across.  That’s about just under half of my hand size.  If hand-to-body size ratio is fairly consistent across mammals that means the suckers could be nearly half my size.  Upon that thought I decided to leave not wanting an upset family of large beavers with even larger teeth to mistake me for a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) worker.  The final picture shows the creek downstream of the beaver dam.

So all humor aside, if the beavers are doing no real harm and a simple workaround solution appeared to work, then why not leave them alone?  Of course, if they flood my field I may think differently!