Backyard Wildlife

No pictures for this post. Perhaps we need a night-vision camera set up outside. Last night the howling of coyotes woke us up. The howling was not unusual, but the proximity to the house was out of the ordinary. We peered through the window in time to see a coyote, startled by the reflection, bound off across the yard just feet from the house. The kittens hadn't come in for the evening yet, and I feared the worst. This morning, peering out the window again, this time to see any sign of the kittens, we spied three deer grazing in the exact same spot of the yard. They were 2 and 1 points and were sampling the flowers and trees under the cover of a heavy fog. When they meandered back down the hill to the thicket they call home, the kittens could finally come out of their overnight hiding spot. This balance between farm and wildlife will be a delicate one.

Fall Preparation

There is something satisfying about breaking new soil for a garden. I am not sure if it is creating order out of the chaos of weeds, the anticipation of discovering what kind of success one might have growing plants, or it might be part of the fun of planning before the hardships of implementing the grand scheme. I have heard that one of the reasons a farmer plows a field is for the satisfaction of creating straight furrows. I have not been able to do that, but I find the challenge causing me to be persistent.
We broke the sod and flipped the soil over four weeks ago. This week we shaped some raised beds with the plow, rake and shovel. We are going to plant garlic in four beds this fall. The others will be ready for early spring planting; they should be drier than the surrounding field and we will be able to work them sooner. We have visions of strawberries on a couple beds and radishes along with leafy greens on another.
After shaping the beds, we spread lime and compost on the surface before covering it with a weed barrier. We planted garlic through a weed barrier last year and it worked out great. We cut an "X" every six inches and planted each clove through the cut. We had to assist a few garlic leaves through the hole, but a lot of the work stopped there and we did not have to weed. The initial investment of time was considerable; we had to make 600 cuts through heavy material, but we lifted the material during harvest and now can reuse it this fall and hopefully a few more seasons.

Little Mousers

An entry on an animal other than chickens! Our other girls, the kittens, are 5 months old now and our parenting plan for them is to become expert outdoor mousers. But, seeing as we live in coyote and hawk territory and close to the road, they still get to come inside at night. So far they have brought us three baby mice right up to the door. The first mouse was still alive and ran right inside. That caused a little chaos, but it was quickly caught by deft hands and disposed of outside, much to the kittens' dismay. Good thing Vince's welding gloves were close at hand. The second mouse was pronouced dead at the scene without a scratch on it, and the third was left as a gift for us to find right under the door when we arrived home yesterday evening. Their names are Coughball (yes, that's right) and Smudge. They go everywhere together and their mischievious ways make them the big entertainment of the farm lately.

nest boxes

Our 24 chicks turned out to be 21 hens and 3 roosters. We are going to keep one or two roosters so that we can raise our own chicks in the spring. The 23 hens now have a place to lay eggs. These are community style nest boxes that should give the girls plenty of nest space. Anna is excited to have a lid on the nest boxes so that we can retrieve eggs from the outside of the coop.

The hens that are laying right now are constantly "flying the coop" and we are finding eggs in the grass along the fence line instead of in the nest boxes. Maybe they are looking for a safer place to lay eggs where we will not steal them. I need to do some reading to find out what a good solution would be.

Fruit

Our fruit trees are finally laden with fruit! When we moved in April, we could only guess which types of fruit trees we had aquired. When a new septic was put in just prior to our move, many of the roots were damaged and we weren't sure the trees would make it. We were even warned by our friend Joe, "You can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear." (They appeared in bad shape.) But...after picking the cherries in the spring, we were looking forward to more fruit. About 3 weeks ago, we drastically pruned the branches of the cherry trees and trimmed the water shoots off of the others. The trees have not been maintained in a long time and so have grown unruly and too large. Despite all of these hardships, our little "orchard" is producing well; we have plenty of Italian Prunes, and Asian Pears and Apples are set, but not quite ready yet.

A farm: one building at a time

We are truly "building" a farm here. We purchased the land without any out-buildings, barns or sheds and quickly ran into a storage problem. After the hoop houses in the spring, the storage project this summer was a small shed. Vince purchased it off of craigslist, tore it down, and with two friends, put the full walls, trusses and floor on a trailer with ends hanging out over the road, and drove it down the street to our house. Putting it back up required making it our own, including new door cut-outs, siding, a new metal roof, extended eaves and artistic pieces to hide unsightly mistakes. All construction was done in between other jobs and farm chores. After much help from our fathers and their construction "expertise," it is finally in a close-to-completed state but is already filled to capacity. Visions of a barn, equipment shed, market stand and garage dance in our heads, but the cost of materials slows down construction considerably. So for now, our curing garlic shares a space with the bikes while chicken feed hides among tools, lawnmowers, and other odds and ends that belong in a storage shed.

deer rub

Our neighbor is in the process of restoring a ditch that ran through the base of the hill. He was walking through the adjacent properties to survey the old ditch and found some markings on an alder at the property line. He told me that there was a bear in the area. Anna and I were excited so we went down last night to inspect the tree that had been clawed. I was a little disappointed to find this deer rub. Despite my dismay, the chickens were relieved to hear the news.
The top picture is a close-up where you can see the hair left on the tree from the deer's head. Maybe he is marking territory or perhaps alleviating a severe itch.

The ditch restoration has been a pleasant surprise. There is an area of wet ground at the base of the hill on our property and it must stay wet down there all through the winter. Apparently there is an old ditch that has fallen in due to lack of maintenance over the years. The neighbor is retired and he has the ear of some old timers in the area. One of these people is on the ditch commission. In his extra time and influential way, he has convinced the powers that be to restore the old ditch and they are to dig it back out next year. This should allow me to access the bottom portion of the property year round and make it feasible to raise some livestock in the back of the property.