Farm Update ~spring 2016

Recently I heard a song, Fall Away,  which made an impression on me.  These are some of the words: "...when you're happy the years fall away, but when you're blue, days go by 'a draggin..."  I must be terribly happy; this year is rapidly falling away!

Our winter was not so cold this year and we both made it through with not so much as a cold.  I had dreaded my "new" job,

thinking I would have to stand out in the snow and ice when I waited at the gate while the farmer put out hay for the cows.  But I had a heated side-by-side to sit in while I waited, and we had no snow anyway.

Now we're a month into spring; the early garden seeds have been planted, irises, foxglove, daisies, and columbine are in bloom;  the third flock of chickens for the new year have been started.  We've sent calves to market and vaccinated cows and small calves.

There was a rash of cattle rustling in our county during the winter, which made all the farmers around us watchful and uneasy.   The farmer decided to use branding on the cattle as a means of identification.   (I hate having to be a part of this.)

There are a lot of new baby calves.

I try to spend an hour or two in the afternoons to work on the quilting project, until I hear the farmer's footsteps coming down the hallway, and he asks me if I'd "like" to do this or that. lol  I'm on the 9th row of twelve rows.

 

"When you're happy, the years just fall away."

Drab

seems to be the perfect descriptive word for the month of February and the beginning of March.  Can't even see the mountains (this is just a hill) and I think I've only seen the moon two times since the new moon.  We've had a little snow, enough to make the ground a sloppy mess to trek through while doing the feeding.  But, we've lived with it, knowing full well that it won't be long until we're wishing for rain and cool summer breezes.  "Que sera, sera!"

The Farmer had asked for extra time out before getting chickens again, to give his leg time to recover.  (By the way, it's o.k. now.)  I think "they" gave us two or three extra days, just long enough to make me want to retire, so yesterday we filled the houses again.  (You're saying, "Oh no! not another picture of chickens!")

There were twins this week; what a cold, cold time for babies.  I don't see how people can raise cattle in the northern states where it is so much colder.  We have them in the barn with their mother.  (Terrible picture of them :(; too dark inside the barn)

This morning the Farmer sent off a load of hay that was purchased last summer but only now being picked up; sometimes we wonder if we should have kept it since this winter more hay has been needed.  This load went up the mountain in all this fog.

So, there you have it: my life these days.  There have been some quilting projects tucked into a few hours most days that I want to tell you about; a wonderful Christmas surprise gift and a fun tradition my girls and I have going; some crochet work ~ just give me a few days to catch up.  Writing a blog post takes up so much time because I sit and wait and wait for the pictures to load. 

Until next time, be happy!

Charlotte

Farm Life ~ August

This has been a busy week here on the farm.  We've baled hay, 100 plus big round bales on Monday,

 and then on Tuesday we hauled the bales.

Wednesday we got the chicken houses ready for baby chicks.  My job was putting together the cardboard feed trays which are about 3' x 4' in size.

Thursday morning we ran feed into the boxes, drained water lines to flush out air, and triggered the nipple drinkers.  A lot of the nipples were stuck so the chicks wouldn't be able to get water from them.  Then after lunch the chicks came, 67,200 of these little yellow balls of fluff:

So my two weeks off from chicken work is over.  I've been working on the August and September additions to the hope chest ~ and ~ there is a new chore:  

She's twelve days old now and I feed her three times a day.

Her mother was a young heifer (a teenage mother :) who had nothing to do with her from the very beginning.  The calf took the bottle the  first time it was offered to her and is doing so good on the milk replacement I feed to her.  When the milk is all gone she wants to keep sucking; she needs a pacifier! :)

My sweet kitty came to get acquainted.

Now I'll settle back into the routine of being a farmer with a little time snatched now and then to put needle and thread to fabric.

Charlotte

A New Start

We got baby chickens around noon yesterday;

69,800 peeping babies spread out among four houses.

For the first two or three days the chicks stay close to the feed trays and water lines.

After all these years of raising chickens, I'm still amazed at how quickly the babies learn to drink from the nipples.  One chick sees a drop of water and his curiosity leads him to it, then others have to see what it's all about.  Oh my! to think that when we first started in 1972 we used jugs to water the babies; the jugs had to be kept clean and filled often.

So today I start over again in my role as "Mother Hen".

Now the day is over, night is drawing nigh.

Shadows of the evening steal across the sky.

When the morning wakens, then may I arise,

Pure and fresh and sinless in Thy holy eyes.

Charlotte

Winter Farm Update ~ 2014

Brr-rr!!  This morning we woke up to the coldest day of the winter ~ so far!  The temperature had fallen to around 3 degrees during the night.  I knew it was cold, because in spite of putting more covering on the bed, I was cold all night!  We haven't had rain, ice or snow this go-around, for which we are very thankful because that would make the farm work so much harder to get done.

We have a good supply of wood for heating, but I'm so fearful of fires now since everything is extremely dry and the wind has been very strong; yesterday morning when I cleaned out the ashes, I heard a slight roar in the chimney and smoke billowed out like crazy, so I didn't put more wood inside the furnace just then.  On pretty days we replenish the wood pile; the logs are hauled in from a field we had cleared a couple of years ago.  The farmer saws them up into chunks,

then uses an attachment for the BobCat to split them into sizes for the furnace.

The cold weather has been very hard on the old, weaker cows.  We have lost around eight I think.  Our chickens are twelve days old and will need to be kept at about eighty degrees for a while longer.  We start them in only one half of each house; this means only half of each house has to be heated, saving heating fuel.  Then at eight days we turn them out over the entire length of the house and by the time they are 4 1/2 to five weeks old they are giving off enough heat from their bodies that the heaters are not needed unless it is extremely cold. 

Saving fuel has become very important.  Before these chickens came, the farmer had our 10,000 gallon propane tank filled to 80% at a cost of $1.46/gallon.

This was the reading this morning, after only twelve days of usage.  We hoping we won't have to buy more!  Yesterday we heard there is a shortage of propane and the cost is now $3.90/gallon!  Of course this is bad for farmers, but what about people who use propane for heating their homes and cooking their meals?  This could get serious!

Think about it,

Charlotte

First Monday of November

We got baby chickens for two houses early this morning; the other two houses will come tomorrow morning.  I was glad there were only two houses to dump because my breakfast was gone and I was getting tired by the time we were finished.  We usually keep the chickens about fifty days which will make these be that age on Christmas.  Someone else may have to fix Christmas dinner this year.

Remember those low-hanging limbs?  The results ~ a wonderful crop of nice pecans!  I haven't even bothered to try to scare away the crows and the squirrel; there seemed to be plenty to share, although the nuts in the tops of the trees must be gone because the crows were scouring the ground this morning.  I've also shared with friends.  Now ~ if I can get the farmer to help me pick out the nuts inside these shells...

Charlotte

August Eighth on the Farm

Thunder rumbles and lightening flashes, rain softly treading on the roof ~ the sights and sounds I awoke to this morning.  I didn't want to get out of bed, but I knew the farmer had been up and down, in and out, a good part of the night setting up the chicken houses for catch time today.  He needed a good breakfast before the catching crews got here.

It's been a rough week for chickens, and the growers.  Temperatures in the 90s aren't so bad until one factors in the humidity.  When there is so much moisture in the air the cool cells don't work as well as they do when the air is just hot and dry.  They work much the same way as the old time window air conditioning units: water flows across pads and up to twelve big fans per house pull air through, and as the water evaporates the air cools.

On top of the heat factor, we got a load of bad feed which sent two houses into a tizzy.  It's frustrating to put almost seven weeks of work, seven days a week, have a good chicken, and then something out of our control happens.  But after forty one years at this work, we've come to expect the unexpected.  While there are chickens in the houses, they are never far from our thinking, even at night, and it takes a few days after they're gone to remember we don't need to listen for fans or make sure the water is still flowing, or that we can rest our minds for a couple of weeks.

But there's always a little brightness to cheer up the day; one sweet zinnia has responded to the rain, in the midst of tattered iris and day lily fronds and the yard needs to be mowed again this week.  Maybe the drought of 2013 is over; maybe during the two weeks without chickens I can finish cleaning out the flowers beds and hope for a lot of zinnias in 2014.

Charlotte

Hope you have a pleasant weekend!

Circle of Farm Life

There's a small touch of spring in the yard, and the circle of the seasons begins again.

We get baby chickens tomorrow, so the circle of farm life begins again,

 

with an early, cloudy morning delivery of rice hulls and shavings for new bedding for the chicks. 

 

 

Things have come a long way since we started raising chickens, 41 years ago; we used to use a scoop shovel to push the shavings off the back of the truck, then spread them over the floor by hand.  Oh my! the next day we were very sore!  Now the new bedding comes in spreader trucks and we don't have to do all that hard work.

 

 

I'm always amazed at the skill men possess to be able to back the trucks into the houses; and it isn't always men who do this.  The wife of the man we buy the bedding from, backs in with just as much ease as the men.  Way to go!

 

And so, the circle of farm work continues.....

 

Charlotte

 

 

To Explain Some Things,

regarding yesterday's post about the chickens: It seems I didn't do a very good job explaining that we don't grow the chickens for ourselves, but rather we are in a contract with Tyson Foods; the poultry industry is the main farm operation in our county, with many growers just like us. With the help of these pictures maybe it will be clearer:

Each farm provides their own houses, electricity, fuel, and water, and is responsible for good litter management and taking care of the chickens. We aren't considered Tyson empolyees; we just grow the chickens for them. We have four houses; this one is 400 feet long by 40 feet wide and can hold up to 21,000 chickens. Tyson Foods places baby chickens in the houses and brings feed for them.

On delivery day, the chickens are brought to the farm, from the hatchery, in trucks like these.
They are taken into the houses (as shown in yesterday's post) in boxes containing 100 chicks each.

In about a week the chickens are already beginning to get feathers,

and by seven weeks they can weigh almost seven pounds average.

At this age, Tyson Foods sends out a crew to catch the chickens,

and off they go to the processing plant and then to market. We get about two-three weeks to get the houses ready for another batch, and the whole thing starts over. Usually we will grow six batches a year, somewhere around 420,000 chickens, just from our farm alone. But it takes a lot to feed the world now. No longer can people just raise a few chickens in their backyard and provide food for this vast population.

I hope this has helped; now when you have delicious, golden fried chickn, think of me.

Smiles, Charlotte

Baby Chickens

O.k., so we're starting over again; new baby chickens, little yellow balls of fluff and little bright eyes. Even after almost forty years of growing chickens, the babies are still cute to me. This picture shows the way they are taken into the houses; 100 chicks in each of these boxes, and that's only for half of one house, and only the first of four houses, for a total of 68,000 chirping babies. We take each box and dump the chicks out between the feed and water lines.

In just a matter of minutes they begin to eat and drink; by morning they will be scattered.

It's not a glamorous life, but it's my life, and this must be my calling, working to help feed the world.
Charlotte

Farm Babies

I've been out of touch for the last couple of days, helping get ready for another flock of chickens. We were out almost three weeks this time but Popa worked most of those days, putting in more fans, caulking and foaming cracks, and installing a new entry door. So today was the big day, getting up at 5:30 to do the finishing chore of draining water lines. Before the sun came up we were unloading the babies.

For the first day they stick close to the feed pans where the heat radiates down the most and by the second day they begin spreading out into the middle of the houses.

It's really amazing how quickly they find the water.

And this is another farm baby, the first of the fall calves.

I have other farm babies, kittens; however, Callie moved them again so no pictures of them.

Farm life has a lot of hard work, but it has its rewards too.

Charlotte

RAIN

We got rain last night -- 3/4 of an inch!! Then we've had two small showers this morning. The skies are beginning to clear from the north so that will probably be all for now. I just wanted to let those of you who have sent comments to me, following my complaining, that God is gracious to us, and we give him thanksgiving for these showers.

This morning is being spent in the chicken houses getting ready for baby chicks coming tomorrow afternoon. Maybe this afternoon I'll get a chance to piece more string blocks. I have about 70 so far and five wonky house blocks. My daughters thought the house blocks needed a small border around them to set them apart from the string blocks. I added a border to them and it did make them show up better. I guess the little bear in this house would rather read than sew. :)

Have a wonderful day, Charlotte

A Hot,Stressful Day

We reached a high today of 102*; little showers built up to the southeast of us late this afternoon but none for us. The chickens are 53 days old and will go out tomorrow. The first houses will be caught in the morning but the others won't be caught until afternoon. I expect a lot of them will die from the heat and the stress of being caught because there's probably not going to be any relief from the high temps. We've kept the houses as cool as possible for them with cool cells and the misting system, but when they get this big some just can't take the heat. It would be nice to take a few days for ourselves; however, the company is bringing chicks to us again next Friday! :( Popa plans to clean out some of the litter to put on the fields and get new shavings. Then the equipment (feeders and water lines) have to be let down, feed boxes put out and step, step, step! My feet hurt already; no rest for the weary!

From the Farm -- May 4th

This has been my work day so far:

After doing the basic housework and listening to my Bible lesson, I went first to the barn to feed Mead, the bottle calf. He's growing by leaps and bounds and eating sweet feed now. He has done exceptionally well for a bottle calf. Next I went to walk through the chickens; they've gone from this --

to this, in eight weeks. Really it's more like I drag myself through them instead of walking.

When I come out of the chicken houses, Edgar Allen Crow is always waiting for me to give him a hand-out --

Then it's on to feed Princess Calico; she's just had kittens but I haven't seen them. She's the only cat I have left and each day I fear that dogs will kill her too. She loves for me to pet her but she won't let me hold her.

A trip to check cattle was next; these two mother cows seem to be baby-sitting.

And finally, there's a new baby on the farm.

So, that's been my day -- so far! There are still at least three hours of daylight and I know I'll be feeding Mead again, but for now I think I'll go sew for a while. Hope you've had a good day!