Walking around Pictures

I had the camera today with me while I was out and about. My garden is actually starting to produce stuffs that I can harvest and bring inside. I've got about half a gallon bag of snap peas in the fridge. The green beans gave me their first couple of handfuls of beans today.

Greens Beans

Snap peas

Banana Peppers 

Purple beans growing at the base of the corn

Bell Peppers

Corn

Squashini corner

I got some good shots of the steers. Norman is a big boy now, full time out with the big boys from last year.

Are you a cow too?

Norman

Norman

And I got Chicken pictures for Carolyn. I read back and counted days, and this week the Red Rangers are 12 weeks old. Pete at the feed store, told me about 8-10 weeks. I could have easily started butchering a week or two ago.I free ranged these, and restricted their feed just like I did the creepy meats. They were more active, but now their legs are getting to be giant tree trunks. They are molting and look bad, lol. I went out there the other morning and it looked like a chicken had exploded inside the chicken house. Some of the roosters are getting down right huge. I did process three last week, three of the bigger ones. I was joking last time we did them, that I found their nuts way up in there, and they were tiny. these three were not tiny.

So in this pic is Einstein the polish crested on the left. The little grey bird is an easter egger that is a week younger.

This pic is two Ranger roos, a White Plymouth Rock roo, and a 4 year old Jersey Giant hen. I was told it was a JG at any rate.

Ranger hen, Easter Egger on the pan, and another Ranger hen. They are easily the same size as the Jerseys, and as big as the White rock roo that is like 4 weeks older.

The Old Man went to the dentist

The Equine dentist that is. Benjamin Brown had an appt last Sunday with the equine dentist. A friend of ours turned us onto the man who was having a clinic at his ranch. I think we paid something like $175-ish to have Patches done a few years ago. This clinic was $75 no matter what he had to do. Ben's teeth were in surprisingly  good shape for his age and care level before we got him. Horses teeth continue to grow and are worn down by the grinding motion of chewing grass or hay. Sometimes they can wear unevenly, producing sharp edges, hooks, and such. This can cause pain when the bit is in the mouth, or cause them not to be able to process the food they eat very well and drop weight. I knew Ben wasn't having any of those issues, and I wanted to keep it that way. I also wondered his age. The horse trader we got him from said he was 18, and this was three years ago. I had him for sale last year to try and pay down some bills after my second surgery. A retired veterinarian came out to look at him for her husband, and she thought he was closer to 22 then. Going by the groove in his teeth, Galvayns Groove , as said by The Cowboy Way with pictures, is said to be all the way to the bottom of the tooth it resides in by the age of 20. This isn't totally always accurate though. I know Ben had a complete groove when we got him. The dentist pointed out to us that one set of molars actually gets to the end of it's continuous growth life at about 22-24 before it expires and falls out. You could see that Ben's set were still in there, but they were on the way to expiring. So he's somewhere between 21 and 24. He really is in good condition for a horse that old. Here's him all fit and sweaty after a ride we took before my surgery. He's always going to be a big boned horse. 

And a gratuitous shot of me and Apache

Both the boys got their feet trimmed yesterday. It'd been since before Sept 10th the last time they got done. This was looking like the last nice weekend left this fall, so I made sure I got it done before I was out there freezing. We went on a beautiful ride this last Wed. Up by Fairfield above Princess mine. I have a pic or two on my phone, but alas, it's out in the truck dead, and I'm just far too lazy to walk out there and get it right now. Instead here's a few tidbits I found hiding on Scott's computer. 

Mike and Teh Spawn at the lake-wood cutting trip

The Spawn, The Boy, Mike- wood cutting trip

Galinas summit- wood cutting trip

Dirty after a day of hauling wood

Flock of geese that landed in the pond out back over the summer

A Week late

I was supposed to write this last week, but I forgot. Sunday last week Apache got his feet trimmed. Patches got hers done Monday. All the horses got wormed Sunday last week.

Took the boys out for a ride last night. It was great. Ben didn't fight and act like a butt head. Apache didn't take a lame step. One good thing with all the smoke in the air from the more than 40 fires burning in Idaho right now, is it doesn't let the sun bake down over everything, and last night was not too hot. 78 when we headed out, and 68 when we got home.

My bosses at work made my day this week. Earlier in the year they gave me a pressure canner in exchange for grooming their dogs a few times for free. This week they brought me all their old jars. There were even a few new boxes of lids and rings. Score!

The garden is in full swing. I'm getting so many veggies every day I almost don't know what to do with it all. The first ear of corn was ready and I ate the whole thing raw.

The dairy down the road has been kind enough to let me come over and get their waste milk after they are done feeding calves. The pigs love it and so do the chickens. I leave the bucket sit all day and into the next in the garage, and wait for the milk to get chunky. I have a little pan for the chickens outside the pig pen, and they wait for the pigs to scatter their feed close enough for them to reach through the panels and eat. 

And some random pics that were laying around in my inbox from my phone from this year.

My first eggs from my chickens

 The waterer that Scotty made for the piggies. 

 Back when they were smaller

Waiting on a chicken, Teh Spawn works on the truck

Sunday was 21 days that we noticed the Traveling Chicken sitting on eggs. They still haven't hatched. I tried bringing one inside in the dark bathroom and shined a flashlight through it. I did see the ring at one end that was very light with the air bubble, and most of the rest was dark, with a darker side. If I read right this means there is something growing in there. I think I go out there three, four times a day and just hunker down and look at momma sitting there giving me the stink eye. She still gets up off them in the heat of the afternoon and goes and hangs with the other chickens back behind the house. That's when I get a good look at the eggs. No cracks, no pips. I've tried tapping them with my fingernail, and don't hear any return peeps. I was getting very sad face. Andrea next door talked to the guy we got them from and he said that I should wait 28 days for a hatch, not 21-23. This gives me hope still. Otherwise what do I do with them? Feed them to the pigs? When do I tell the Traveling Chicken enough, and keep pitching her off the nest? 

Teh Spawn wants to be a mechanic in the Air Force. I think it's great. Her older friends got her interested in turning a wrench and getting greasy. I remember when we were little and it was Dad's turn to entertain us for the day. e'd pack up all four of us and take us down to the body shop he worked for. We all got a handful of wrenches and sent off in back to the bone yard to take apart whatever we could get loose. I still love the smell of Bondo. The oil in the Ford needed changed and Teh Spawn decided she was going to be the one to do it. With little instruction from Scott she did it all her self. She also pulled off the right rear tire, and she and Scott worked on the brake caliper. I've had this rattle in my hind end of the truck. Turns out one of the bolts holding the caliper together had backed out, and was missing, and the other was working itself out. This morning I took it in and had to have the front end aligned. All better now.

Fudge the potato with legs

 One of my girls

 Piggies are getting big

Patches got a bath, feet trimmed, then off to the arena for some much needed work.

Fluffy pancake chickens and pigs misters

I have six chickens and one rooster. They were pretty sorry looking when they got here. The rooster had been amorous and pulled out some of the hen's feathers. They were picking at each other and pulling out more. On top of all that they were moulting, so they were pretty ugly. The saddest looking one was a little hen I started calling the Traveling Chicken. She was always off somewhere away from the rest. See her over there behind the house. Now she's out back with Dave's horses. Five minutes later, and she's watching me weed the garden. The other girls and the rooster pretty much just hang out together. First they were over out back by the rabbit hutch they lived in before the Chicken Condo was done. Then they mostly stayed out by the Condo, or out back in the shade under the hutch. This crazy little hen was everywhere.

 Now I've been saying that I'm only getting like 2-3 eggs a day because the girls are all still growing their feathers back. Turns out I was wrong. I thought I'd actually lost the Traveling Chicken. She usually came running when I threw out feed in the morning, or took out crusts of bread, or weeds from the garden. No Traveling Chicken. Did she wander far enough out that she got lost? Did she go to far from somewhere she could get under cover and turn into a hawk's lunch? Did the cyotes I can sometimes hear off in the distance turn her into a midnight snack?

Then Ashley, the beagle mix found her. Right out back is a Russian Olive tree. Some of the branches hang towards the ground. There are a couple of big rocks scattered around the base. Here's Ashley snuffling and she starts barking in the low branches. So off I go to see what she's found. I found the Traveling Chicken. I thought for sure she was dead. She was flattened to the ground in a little hollow like a feathered chicken pancake. Her eyes were opened, but I just knew she was a goner. But then I poked her and she Growled at me. What the Crap?! Now she's even flatter, puffed out more and refuses to move.

I've seen this before. The neighbore has a chicken thats gone broody. I had to take care of the critters while they went camping and this fluffy broody kept stealing the eggs the other chickens were laying and wanted to hatch them. She had the same fluffy pancake thing going on. Sure enough, I carefully lift Traveler's butt and she has a whole mess of eggs under her. I was tickled to death. She must have ten or twelve eggs under her. I debated picking her up and moving her and her brood into the condo, but obviously she didn't want to be in there or she would have her clutch, and any other eggs the other girls laid. Then I thought about moving her into the rabbit hutch. I know shes not going to go far from those eggs for the next 23 days. Scotty said she wanted to be right where she's at, so why not leave her? He got her a pan of scrathc and cracked corn, and it's right where she can reach out her neck and eat. Ashley I was a little worried about harrassing her, but she runs over every time we go outside to make sure the momma is still where she belongs. The cats aren't bothering her, and I'm counting the days till be have little fluffy yellow chicks. Or black fluffies. I guess I should look up and she what the chicks should look like.
                       

Speaking of chickens, I saw the funniest damned thing the other day. I like to go out with my Knidle, sit under the tree by the Condo, and watch the girls scratch, hunt bugs, and eat weeds. Ashley is the biggest mouse and vole hunting dog that ever lived. She gets more of those buggers than the cats do. So two days ago, I'm sitting out there reading and here comes the dog with a vole hanging out of her mouth. She likes to bring them to me so I can she what she got, then eats them. Well she drops this dead vole, and one of the girls caught sight of it. Quicker than Ash can blink that hen ran in snatched the vole up and ran off. The other girls saw her trying to peck something on the ground and ran over to steal her tastey morsel. It was too big for the first girl to swallow whole so she kept snatching it back up and running off with a five other hens in a line behind her. Everytime they lost intrest she dopeed it and started pecking at it which started the got the other girls intest again and started them chasing after her with the vole in her beak. I sat and laughed and laughed.

Scotty has been talking to other people he knows at work, and friends about the piggies. Around three pounds a day is what they should gain he was told, but when it's really really hot out, we can expect them to not want to eat as much and slow down a little on the growth. He got recomendations to make a cold water mash with their feed. He saw on the website for the hardware store a five nozzle, inexpensive misting sytem. So now the pigs have a mister system to help beat the heat of the day.

We spent all day yesterday fishing. Started at Ritter Island in the morning. Hit Niagra springs till it got hot. Tried Billingsly creek, but it was a moss and weed infested little irrigation ditch, so back to Niagra. I caught my first big trout in Idaho. I got two more small ones. The boy got a few, and so did Scott. We ended up with seven trout we brought home. Gutted them when he caught them, and I whacked off thier heads when we got home and vaccume sealed them into the freezer. Scotty wants to try out his smoker with the fishes. I'm excited to try it.

Mrs. Jones, how does your garden grow?

The calves are off the replacer milk, and very happy each day to see their grain and hay. Our calf doesn't have horn starting yet, but Andrea's guy has little nubbies poking through. Trimmed feet on Patches and Ben last week, but I still have to do Apache.