Docks, Ducks, Dogs

Nathan and Brandon built us a dock! Well, technically a wharf since it's on land. It is awesome! It will be nice in the spring when the sun comes out (those are some brilliant dogs walking on the ice) to sit out there. The dogs are going to love jumping off of it, and I'm sure the ducks will hang out up there, too. They built it in one day! Very impressive.

We are still in search of a farm name. We really need to come up with one so we can start marketing our pork, etc. Website, logo, signs...they all hinge on that perfect farm name. I think this is one area where our perfectionism has not gone away. We've both come to terms with the fact that farm buildings, etc., are all about function and not necessarily form. The name, though...that has to be perfect. We keep thinking of a name and then mulling it over and deciding it isn't quite right. We even bought a domain name, then returned it, then bought another, and returned that, too! 

On another note, Nathan was on his way home the other day and when he was about a block away, he thought to himself, "hey, turkeys on the side of the road! funny.". When he got home, he noticed a distinct lack of "GOBBLE GOBBLE GOBBLE" and quickly realized they were our turkeys, out for an adventure. When he ran down the street to get him, they all ran towards him, snoods a swingin'. 

Turkeys vs. Ducks.

Wandering turkeys doesn't work so well with our turkeys for Christmas plan, so this morning we trimmed their flight feathers. No more big adventures, turkeys! In the two days that we had them confined, the males started really going after each other. They seem to do much better out foraging and being turkeys. I did read something interesting, though, while looking up the reason for one of the turkeys' swollen wattles (from fighting another male); one site said "don't worry if you see a male seemingly choking on another male's snood during a fight - this is normal". Errrr. Nobody said turkeys weren't entertaining.

Look at the size of that snood!!

We (well, mostly me) are debating whether to keep a turkey or two longer (they go to the butcher Dec 17th) to eventually turn into a bunch of turkey sausages. Mmmm.

And also mmm, I made this last night. Our butternut squash, roasted and stuffed with pork sausage, apple and chanterelle stuffing (our own pork). It was really tasty.

The dogs have been enjoying the cold fall weather and so have I - there was so much less mud to deal with! Now it's back to the typical wet November.

The puppy is the only smart one, here.

Run!

Duck protector:

Duck protector..and duck stalker:

Ten year old Abby is in fine form:

Notice the turkey photo bomb - they follow us all over the farm:

Fall Fun

Look at what we found!

All of that mushroom hunting finally paid off with 3 lbs of chanterelles. It was pretty exciting to find so many at once...and I don't even like mushrooms! Actually, I'm starting to like them more and more. Maybe it's because finding them was so damn hard...

We've had a whole lot of rain lately but with a few sunny days thrown in. It has been nice seeing all the grass come back, though. The manure that we spread seems to have done a good job so far and that field is looking particularly improved. 

This photo is from a few weeks ago - those brown spots are all green now.

We moved the sheep and goats to the upper pastures since they are very gravelly and dry. The lower pastures would just become mud pits over winter if the sheep were constantly walking over them. This way we could also easily split Thomas/goats in one area and the ewes/lambs next door. When they share a fence like that, they don't mind being separated. It's nice to be able to walk in amongst the ewes again without worrying about being rammed. It also means we've been able to let the ewes and goats into the driveway to do some tidying up.

Saul strutting around.

That photo was pre Oprah shearing. She still had that woollen toupee that stubbornly wouldn't fall off...so we cut it off.

The driveway! So new and exciting for everyone!

We have to be on constant guard duty...or those strawberries and raspberries would disappear in about 0.01 seconds.

Guard duty. What a hardship.

Yummy fall grass.

Ram lamb back when I could still lift him:

The turkeys are getting so big and hilarious. They "reflex gobble" whenever the dogs bark or if you hit something with a hammer. They also gobbled at every runner who ran by in a recent half marathon along our street. 

I swear I wasn't playing with his snood....

Our friend Brandon came and visited the last two weekends and helped us out a bunch. We moved the greenhouse from over the aquaponics to over one of the garden beds. It was great...until a HUGE windstorm almost flattened it. Luckily Brandon came back the next weekend and helped put it together again.

Greenhouse, version 1.0:

Greenhouse, version 2.0:

I raked our big pile of compost flat and seeded it with rye. It's a bit late to plant the rye, I think, but hopefully it will still germinate and we can till it in before planting in the spring. 

Goat snuggling:

The pond has filled incredibly fast and it's at least 3 feet deep in most places. 

We started letting the ducks out for supervised pond time. They waddle out and head straight for the pond, eat a bunch of duckweed, then waddle back out and come back to their house for some grain. It seems to be working well (so far!). We clipped Victoria's wing so that she can't fly over any fences.

Yup, pond is still full of duckweed:

Dogs have officially discovered the joys of a fire:

Meet Vic

The Gender Ambiguous Young Duck.

We are optimistically calling her Victoria, which is the name of the street where she was found wandering as a stray. Yup, a stray duck. She was unclaimed in the middle of a shelter full of dogs, so we brought her home and stuck her in a quarantine coop. She is a lucky duck, and we are lucky that she happens to be a Muscovy (same breed as the new ducklings) and that she showed up a few days after we brought home our orphaned ducklings (not really orphaned, but taken away from their mom at their last home). 

Although we really did intend on keeping her quarantined, Miss Victoria (see how I did that? the more I refer to her as a she, the more likely it will become) was very lonely in her new home so we let her out to waddle the farm with the chickens after a few nights with us. She must have heard the ducklings cheeping...because she waddled right over to their coop. As soon as they saw her, they rushed up to the fence making excited, adorable cheeping noises. They hadn't done that with the chickens that walked by. Victoria seemed just as happy to see them, so we cautiously let her in with them. They took to each other like a long lost family. It was probably one of, if not the, cutest event to happen on our farm yet. 

It has now been over a week and they still follow her just like they would their mother. She takes them to their food, then for a drink, and then into their pond for some duckweed (who knew that ducks go absolutely crazy over the duckweed that grows rampant in our pond?? guess the name might have tipped us off). 

We had friends staying with us for Thanksgiving and the girls redid the duck house while the guys spread seed over the pastures and burned and demolished stuff. 

So much food...so much EARS!

Seriously, ears. These are pissed off ears during muzzle training at a canine first aid workshop.

And this is "I will kill you in your sleep" face during the eye bandaging portion of the workshop.

After a few afternoons of tractor work, we have a cleared area to turn into pasture!

The ducks are going to be so excited when they have some more feathers and we let them out to that duckweed filled pond...

Fattest Chick Interlude:

Speaking of getting fat, Preggers 1 and 2 are steadily gaining. Because of our new farm/letting pastures recover/Zeb leaving Thomas without company/goats being too whiny to keep Thomas company without the ewes also there....we are expecting winter lambs. Not ideal, but with heat lamps and cozy barns we will manage. 

Grain recall training...their recall is better than 99% of the dogs I work with.

We planted blueberries in the new hill beds and Nathan put landscape cloth around them with some fallen leaves over top. It is so much prettier out there than it used to be! Those chickens love scratching around in the driveway and luckily it has been a long time since any of them went out the gate. 

The turkeys, on the other hand, are...dumb. I am not quick to label any animal "dumb" and I really wanted to give the turkeys a chance at proving themselves. I am led to the dumb conclusion by several supporting arguments.

1) 9 out of 9 of them will fly over a fence, and on average 7 of them will fly back out. The 2 (and not always the same 2) that are left will have *no clue* how to get back out. They will spent hours running the fence line, panicking, until one of us helps them find their way back out. Two of them flew out onto the road the other day and then couldn't find their way back onto the farm.

2) They forget where their coop is every.single.night.

3) Possibly related to point 2, they forget where their food and water is constantly. They'll be out running around and will run towards us like they're hungry...when we lead them back up to their coop (again, where they sleep and eat every.single.night), they act like "OMG THIS IS AMAZING THERE IS FOOD HERE!!! AND WATER!!!! WE HAVE NEVER SEEN THIS EVER BEFORE EVER EVER!!!". 

4) They never hide when predators fly over head. The chickens race for cover even if there is a plane flying overhead. I'm pretty sure an eagle could land on the ground with the turkeys and they wouldn't even notice. 

So yes, turkeys: very entertaining. very dumb. 

Speaking of ..um...not so brilliant...Nathan has started foraging for chanterelle mushrooms. This makes the dogs very happy since it means lots of bush whacking:

This also makes me happy until Nathan failed on his very first mushroom find! When you get a text at work that reads "ate poisonous mushrooms", it in't usually a good thing. Nathan accidentally ate a cousin of the Chanterelle, and luckily didn't experience the nausea that it could cause. I'm just glad he hadn't decided to make a mushroom omelette or something for me...

The Newest Flock

Muscovy ducklings...so cute! They were raised by their mom for their first 2 weeks on another farm so they're a bit confused right now at their new home. Poor lil' guys kept trying to follow the turkeys as they walked by. 

They'll be for eggs, bug control, and to make use of the pond. Lucky ducks!

Farm Dog in the City

I went to the mainland during my days off last week to visit friends. Zoey came with me since it's good for her to have lots of 'off farm' experiences while she is still young (Abby and Ryan are pretty happy to stay on the farm with Nathan).

Zoey seemed to adapt well to city life...

She did exactly what she does on the farm; lounge on the deck and gaze at everything down below. Tyler was happy to join her.

I got to bring Loic to his second week of Kindergarten. KINDERGARTEN. How did that happen so fast??

Maelle is so grown up, too. 

I came back to a tractor on our farm! My boss was so generous to lend us the use of her tractor and husband for a few weeks. Yesterday he filled the garden beds along the hillside in front, and the garden bed next to the house. Now he's pulling up most of this grass - I think it's called quackgrass? - so that we can try and seed some pasture grass here. 

The turkeys were so excited to find this pile of compost and bugs.

Back to farm dog life!