Entry Way Irrigation

After shopping around locally for the particular plants that I wanted to use for the farm entrance landscaping, I found the cost to be prohibitive.  I planned to use an ornamental grass called Pink Muhly to cover the entire area. Along the short brick retaining wall, I wanted to plant a single row of tall daylillies.  There's a daylilly farm close to us and I planned on buying the plants from them.  When I priced them, the bare root plants were going to be nearly 300 bucks.  Ouch.  And I needed at least 42 of the Pink Muhly.  So, I decided on a cheaper route - mail order.  Much less painless on the pocketbook, and they all arrived quickly.

I bought the grass from Spring Hill Nursery.  I've bought plants from them before and my experience has been that their survival rate is right about 50%.  That's not very good, but I thought I'd try again.  Besides, I had a coupon.  If they don't survive, I'll definitely be taking advantage of their guarantee.  I ordered the daylillies from White Flower Farm.  I haven't ever bought anything from them, but they had what I wanted and they had a special on them.

I couldn't wait to get everything into the ground, although even after all that work, since the grasses are just sprigs and the daylillies haven't started growing yet, there's pretty much nothing to show for it.  **sad face here**

There used to be a sprinkler system out there that was controlled from the house, but it had been broken or disconnected somewhere along the way and Husband couldn't find the break as hard as he looked.  When he dug the area out for me, he just pulled the whole system up so I could put a stand alone system in.  I intended to use a drip irrigation system, but it didn't quite work out that way.

Lowe's had Mister Landscaper products in stock, so I stood and stared at them for some time.  The instruction flyers that hang on the shelves claimed that the installation was super easy.

But, when you're standing there, not knowing a thing about installing the system, looking at about 60 (seriously, there are 60 parts on that part sheet in the picture) different tiny parts that you're going to have to figure out what to do with, and you're already just making a barely educated guess on how much area you need to cover...things aren't looking very easy.

I almost did like I often do, and that is, get discouraged, decide this trip to Lowe's was just a fact finding mission, leave empty handed, ask for Tom's help when I get home.  BUT, I told myself, "You are not leaving here without what you came for!"

So...I bought a KIT.  Yay for kits!

And, it was easy.  Everything I needed was in the kit.  But, that's how I ended up with misters instead of drippers.

 

Following the step by step instructions on the box, I attached the Back Flow Prevention valve to the faucet.  Well, I had an extra little step in there because we have those quick connect things on our faucets and I had to add that to my valve first.

Then I pushed the poly tubing onto the Faucet Fitting.  The fittings have these locking collars on them that you just screw down over the tube and the fitting and it holds them together without letting water leak.

I ran the tubing from the faucet, behind the column and into the flower bed.  Since I have two sides of the driveway to irrigate, I used a poly Tee Fitting to run the tubing in two different directions.

Then I ran the tubing through a little gap I had left between the column and the concrete brick edging, then under the cattle guard to the other side.

On each side, I ran the poly tubing the length of the bed.

To close off the ends, the kit included two of these Poly End Crimpers to crimp the end of the tubing and cut off the water flow.  It just so happened that when I installed the concrete block edging, I couldn't put it flush with the brick column because the column's foundation sticks out a little.  That worked out well because the tubing fit right into that little gap and it holds the tubing in place, preventing it from curling up.  That was a lucky break.

Next, I used the hole punch (the largest orange item in the first picture) to pop a hole in the 1/2 inch tubing.  Above is the Misting Stake Assembly.  On the end of it's tubing, there is a Flow Controller barb that snaps into the hole that I made with the hole punch.  These Misting Stake Assemblies can be attached anywhere on the 1/2 inch poly tubing that you need to put them.

I covered all the tubing up with mulch.

This is a sad little sprig of Pink Muhly grass.  I wonder how long it will take for the grass to fill in the whole area?

There are all kinds of little attachments for the irrigation system, like half circle sprayers, full circle sprayers, spinning sprayers, center strip sprayers, goof plugs (in case you punch a hole in the wrong place), elbow fittings, etc.  I'm going to have to go back to get four more Stake Assemblies to complete my project, but I'm very pleased with the kit overall.  At least I know what to buy when I go back and I won't be overwhelmed with the array of choices.  The only real problem I had was that the poly tubing crimped in several places when I was trying to straighten it out from the coiled shape that it was packaged in.

Green Egg!

I'm still hoping for some blue eggs, but I'm so excited to finally get a colored egg, that I'll settle for green.  Well, kind of turquoise.  The other eggs are the various shades of brown that we regularly get. 

I had just about decided that my Americaunas weren't really what they were supposed to be, but I guess they are and it just took them longer to start laying than the other hens.

Goat Bucket

Some of the baby goats were jumping up on the hay bale that I hang from the wall in a hay net.  I was afraid they were going to get tangled up in it, so I strung it up higher than they could jump.  Then I put a big red bucket in the stall with them, upside-down, so they would have something to play king of the hill on.

That was a mistake.

Son just happened to look into the stall and snap this picture with his phone.  Daisy has the bucket handle looped around her neck.  I guess she would have had to sleep with a bucket around her neck all night if nobody checked on them before going to bed. 

Guinea Egg Stash

I knew our guineas must have been laying eggs somewhere since they aren't laying them in the coop. Tom found the stash in our brush pile as he was chipping wood for mulch.

There are 27.  There's even an white one.  I wonder if that means anything?

Successful Hatchery

Daughter-in-law's broody chicken project has been successful.

Broody chicken was faithful to her eggs and she sat for many days keeping them toasty warm.  Daughter-in-law fixed up a safe, quiet place in the loft of the barn where she could sit in peace.  Hatching time is normally 21 days, but this hen sat longer because DIL switched out a group of non-viable eggs (because of the hard freeze we had) that she had already been sitting on for a few days, for eggs that had a better chance of developing.

She started with eight eggs.  Only two hatched.  A couple of them got squashed along the way and the hen abandoned the last two after the first two hatched.

Little puff is learning to drink.  DIL stuck it's beak in the water to help it learn.  It must have been pretty thirsty because it took several drinks.

Momma hen is teaching them to scratch and peck.  They watch her closely and do whatever she does, and they run under her body for warmth or safety.

It's been fun watching them.

The End of Kidding Season

Finally!  This has been an exhausting and long season.  I was able to be present at the labor of all but one of the does and saw all but four kids born.  Sixteen kids, eleven boys, and five girls.  Last year I got lucky and had mostly girls.  It's difficult to sell the bucklings.  Most people just want one buck for their herd, but several does.  So unless someone is looking for a herd sire, it's hard to find a buyer.

This was the last doe to kid.  She's one of the does that I bought from a dairy last year.  She's a couple of years old, so I assumed she had kidded before.  But, I noticed towards the end of her pregnancy that her udder wasn't getting nearly as big as the older does.  So I started thinking that this might be her first time.  She had a harder time giving birth than the other does and had to push very hard.  Then when the kid was born, her behavior just confirmed to me that it was her first time.  She seemed shocked that a baby had just appeared and was unsure what to do about it.  

She finally figured it out and was an old pro by the time the third one appeared.

A boy and a girl.

And this little boy.

Since the doe is kind of an unusual color (registered as grey, but she's actually kind of a taupe color), I was hoping for some kids that looked like her.  I was disappointed that all three look very much like the sire.

Go Pro

Tom bought me a GoPro video camera for my birthday in January.

It's a cool little gadget, measuring about 2 1/4 by 1 1/2 inches.  I thought I might like to video some of my experiences around the farm, but so far I've done nothing video-worthy.  Or, if I have, I've forgotten to bring the camera.

People attach them to all kinds of things to video their activities.  I've seen videos from GoPros attached to surf boards, helmets, bikes, animals, all kinds of vehicles, etc.  I opted for a gadget that straps onto the head so that the camera is pointed at whatever I'm looking at.

Tom has used it more and familiarized himself with it more than I have.  Unfortunately, I don't really like to learn to use new gadgets.  I just want them to work and be intuitively useful.  "Point and click" is the way all techno gadgets should be.  That is not the case with the GoPro.  Well, you can just point and click, but your results won't be very good.  

As cool as this gadget is, I must say, it is made for young people who are techno savvy and have good eyesight.  Seriously, I've had to get a magnifying glass to see the settings on the tiny little screen.  But, I shouldn't complain...how big can the screen be on a camera that's only a few square inches?

Most of our videos so far are of either Tom's face or my face, up close and personal, just trying to see if the camera is on.  As one might imagine, once the camera is on your head, supposedly looking at whatever you are looking at, you can't tell if it is on or if it is aimed into outer space or your feet.  There's also the problem of turning it on, putting it on, then forgetting if I turned it on.  So, is it on or is it off?  Is it recording or is it not recording.  **sigh**

Fortunately for us...there's an APP for that!

You download the app onto your smartphone and then you can operate the camera with your phone and also see on your phone's screen what the camera is looking at.  Very cool.

So, here is my first official video using the camera and the app together.

I still have to learn how to edit it and other things, but consider this a test.

My moonspotted doe wouldn't let her kids nurse, so I had to go in several times a day to hold her still for them.

I'm Seeing Moonspots

Hey, more babies were born yesterday morning.  See, I was waaaay off on the due dates (21 days!) for the two does that I bought last summer.

I had to go to court for my CASA volunteer job in the afternoon, but I could see that she was in early labor in the morning when I went to the barn to take the goats out.  Also, she didn't want to go out, which is very unusual for her.  So, I spent the morning watching her.  I was afraid I was going to miss it, but she had her first one about 15 minutes before I had to go get ready to leave.  Thankfully, daughter-in-law was willing and able to take over my midwife duties and she made sure the second was born safely and I didn't have to worry about losing any.

First one born.

These babies were from a doe with what is called "moonspots".  People who have goats seem to really like the moonspots.  The are pretty cute.

Second one - black like Billy, moonspotted like the mom.

 

Aw.  I *heart* him.

Will have to come up with a flower name that also has "heart" in it, but all I can think of is a Bleeding Heart.

Oh yeah, and...

The guineas started laying eggs this past week.  The eggs are about half, maybe three quarters the size of chicken eggs.  I haven't eaten any yet, so I don't know how they compare.

Yum, Bacon

Because everything should taste like bacon.

We have this shop in town that is a discount grocery.  The owner buys up lots of products from other retailers that, say, might be ready to expire, or the packaging might be damaged, etc.

He gets weird and unusual stuff and it's fun to shop there every once in a while.  I can try out different products without risking too much money if the product is no good.

I bought this bacon salt yesterday.  Had it on my popcorn last night and, oh yeah, it was good.  So, I had it on my egg this morning.  Also, yummy.

I had a bit of an intestinal problem this morning, but didn't think much of it.  As I was eating my bacon flavored egg, I got to thinking, "How do they make salt taste like bacon, anyway?".  I read the label.  Which is something I always do before I buy something, but for some reason, I didn't even think about reading the label on this impulse buy.  Uh, mistake.  Ingredients:  seat salt, paprika, corn, syrup, wheat flour....  Who puts wheat flour in salt?  

J&D's Down Home Enterprises does, that's who.

And, yes, people, apparently just a few shakes of seasoning salt containing wheat (gluten) can mess with a celiac's gut.  

Ugh.

Entryway Landscaping

I'm finally getting started on the landscaping for the farm entryway.

This is the before picture.  When we had the columns rebuilt, we discovered landscaping timbers, long buried, from the original owners landscaping 30 years ago (you can see the straight line in front of the columns).  Tom pulled those out, then dug out all the weeds so I had a clear area to work with.

I used 8x12x2 concrete blocks to edge the area that I'm going to fill with plants.  Hopefully, this will keep the grass from encroaching too much into the planting area.

I'm going to fill it mostly with an ornamental grass and could use some suggestions.  I just need one kind of grass - one that looks feathery and soft and grows about two feet tall.  I thought I had it figured out and was going to use Mexican Feather Grass, but apparently, that can be invasive because it reseeds itself.  Livestock doesn't eat it, so I can't have a grass like that reseed itself onto our pastures.  I need something that will grow in clumps, but not be invasive.

Any ideas?

Who Vacuums Their Barn?

I do.  Yep, don't be hatin' on me.

After hours of mindless waiting, sitting on a stool or standing by the wall watching goat's behinds, it finally occurred to me that I could actually be getting something done while I waited.

Those of you who know me, really know me, know that I love to organize.  Give me something to organize and I am a happy camper.  I don't like mundane, ordinary house cleaning, but I like to take a big mess and make it orderly.

So, my mind started thinking, "Which big mess, out of all the big messes in this barn, can I tackle and actually get done before the kids are born?"

I considered the tack room.  Oh, how I'd love a tack room that I can actually walk into and find what I need.  I could actually store...tack, or feed, or other livestock stuff.  But, sadly, that is a project for longer days and requires men to move boxes. 

 So, we have this little shelf right outside the tack room that Tom has been piling things on for five years.  It was covered in dust and debris and spider webs and I didn't know what else because I have always been afraid to touch anything lest I touch a spider.    

So, I dug around in the spider and junk filled tack room for one of the old drawers I saved from the old kitchen and I hung it right above the little shelf; stacked Tom's cans of stuff on that, rearranged stuff, threw stuff away, cleaned the webs and dust off, and voila! Nice and tidy.

I was on a roll, then.

Dust covered spiderwebs abound up in the rafters and they coat the stall walls.

**shudder**

I couldn't take my shop vac into the stalls with the goats in labor, but I vacuumed what I could reach. Just look how clean those poles and rafters are!

Clean stall doors!  Aaahh, that feels good.

Now that some of the goats are out in the pasture with their kids, I can get in there and vacuum the rafters free of their spiders...and hope one doesn't land on my head.

But, before I can do that, I have to wait until Tom finishes his task.

Cleaning a mountain of poopy bedding out of the stall.

More of That Long Sixteen Hours

Next up was the grey Kiko.  Last year, I thought she didn't get pregnant, or might have miscarried because she never did get big or look pregnant.  But she surprised me and had twins.  This year, she really surprised me and had triplets and she still didn't even look pregnant.

Thankfully, I recognized her signs on Friday morning and stayed in the barn, ready to assist if necessary.

**Warning:  Graphic pictures ahead.**

This is after a few minutes of pushing in earnest.  What can be seen at this point is the sac containing the baby and the fluid.

What we should be seeing here, within the sac, is little white feet (the kid's feet always have little white caps on them that fall off later).  We are not seeing the feet here because...

oops, this baby is breech.  She came out rear end first, but it didn't seem to bother the momma.

Now, here you can see the little white feet.  This was barely four minutes after the first was born and momma barely got the face of the first one cleaned off before she had to push this one out.

And, plop, he landed on his head, but at least momma wasn't standing (as they sometimes do).  As you can see, he is fully encased in the sac.  Sometimes, the sac breaks before the baby is all the way out or as the baby pops out.  Sometimes, it doesn't break at all and, if the momma is busy with the previous baby, she might not get to the other one, just born, and not able to breathe.  That sac is tougher than it looks.  I ended up breaking this one and clearing the face just enough for it to cough, clear it's nose, and start breathing.  Then the mother took over.

About 20 minutes later, surprise!  She started pushing again and out came a third.  She was standing for this birth, so I kind of caught the baby on it's way down.  Her sac broke, but it broke across her back, leaving her head still completely covered.  Momma started licking her, but as soon as one of the other babies made a sound, she was instantly distracted and left the newest just lying there.

This one, just minutes old, started nursing while momma was cleaning up the third.  

And, that distracted Momma who went back to licking the nursing one.  Evil goat showed some uncharacteristic tenderness and helped clean the newest one, who, coincidentally, looks exactly like the baby that Evil lost, although I doubt that means anything to a goat.

Just a few hours later, everyone is cleaned up and dry.

A Busy Sixteen Hours

As predicted, Evil goat went into labor on Thursday night.  When I went down to the barn at around 9:00, she had triplets.  Sadly, one of them had died.  It was completely encased in the sac, so I'm sure it must have suffocated while she was busy cleaning up the first two.  She had triplets last year and did fine without me.  I think I have finally learned my lesson...even though they do fine with multiple births during one kidding season, that does not mean they will do fine the next time.

As usual, she positions herself between me and the babies.  

Evil was in the stall with Buttercup, who was, herself, in the first stages of labor and aggressively trying to steal the babies for herself.  I had to get Husband to help me move her to another stall.

Having learned my lesson about leaving them to labor alone, I stayed with Buttercup (aka Butterball, Buddha, Big Bertha) until her babies were born.  She had her standard chunky twins.  They're almost identical.  Hers came about 45 minutes apart, so there was no danger of neglecting one.  I helped clear their heads from the sac anyway, just to be safe.

More Kids

Well, just when I think I might know a little about animal husbandry and goat kidding, the goats have shown me that I don't know as much as I think I do.  I was congratulating myself on pinpointing the exact date of the first goat's kidding, but I'm completely off on all the other goats.  Daisy the Nubian kidded yesterday, the 12th.  She's the only one I thought I wasn't sure about.  I had estimated she was due either on the 3rd or the 11th and was supposed to be the last to kid.  Ha.  None of the other goats have kidded yet.

In previous years, Daisy has always had triplets and sometimes some of them die.  I wanted to try my best to be there at her kidding so that I could make sure the babies survived.  It was a long ten days of checking on her every 2-3 hours.  Finally, when I checked on her at 7:40 in the morning, it was obvious that she was in labor.  So, except for a few quick dashes to the house for a bite to eat, I stayed in the barn with her until the kids were born...

  the first one, a male, at 1:45 (not quite dry and trying to suck my finger*)

and the second one, a female, at 2:00.

  No triplets this year?!  Too bad, because I have a buyer for two of this doe's little girls.

 * Daisy's teats are so enormous that it's hard for the babies to suck right away.  So, each year, as soon as they start trying to nurse, I help them by holding the teat at an angle that is easier for them to get their mouth on.  I have learned that this is as good as bottle feeding them, without the actual hassle of bottle feeding.  They end up associating me with feeding and it makes them very sweet and tame.

I call this wide load Boer doe Buttercup, but Buddha or Butterball, might be more appropriate.  She has got to be at least two feet across.  Even though she is pregnant, there is no reason why this goat should be this big.  She's pretty enormous during the summer when all she gets to eat is pasture.  I think if a Boer breeder sees this, I might get hated on.

And, here's Evil the Kiko.  I can't believe how big her udder is this year.  It looks like she could be carrying a kid or two just in her udder.

She'll probably have her babies tonight.  Some signs that labor is imminent:

(1) udder fills up.

(2) the spot right in front of her hip bone hollows out (you can see that in this picture, see the indentation right in front of her hip, below the spine?)

(3) doe hunches up like she's going to urinate, but doesn't