Chickens, Fencing, Steers and Horses

I was talking on the phone with my momma the other day and were were comparing chickens. I was trying to explain the breeds and the birds that I have, so I went out and snapped a few photos. The light was fading and I didn't get pics of everyone.

Einstein is bigger than I thought he was. He's turning into a very handsome rooster.

The White Plymouth Rock Rooster is Captain. I'm super happy with both the boys. Gentlemen, they both are. The White Rock behind him is a hen. 

This is the Red Ranger that I just couldn't butcher. She's so big and fluffy.

One of the Easter Eggers, the the Buffy Red Ranger in the background. This is the EE that will come over and eat of my hand. 

Two of the other Easter Eggers. 

This is Spur. One of the original hens we started with. She has spurs like a rooster. Her and the other other black hens are Black Australorps. I was told they were Jersey Giants, but the other birds are bigger than they are. Australorps we decided. All four of them are molting and look terrible right now.

This poor girl doesn't have any tail feathers left. Just some scraggly bits.

The fence has been working beautifully. Scott did a perfect job on it. None of the cows have gotten out, the horses are happily out on pasture and not eating the winter hay. 

Ben and Fox behind the new gate and fence braces.  

This is the corner brace that gave us such a hard time getting into the ground.

Bacon, the steer, is starting the grow in some woolly hair. He's looking like a fine tasting fellow. Soon we'll bring both the steers back up to the round pen and start feeding the crap outta them, getting them ready for the butcher. 

Norman was out stuffing himself on grass and didn't want to come out the the fence to get his picture taken. Give him a trunk though, and he's look like a baby Woolly Mammoth. 

I promised Heather pictures of the new mare. Here's one of her favorite boy, Ben, too. 

Ben

Hancocks Gaelic Fox. Her topline isn't really that funny looking, Ben is hiding behind her and you can just see a bit of him by her withers and neck. 

Hancocks Gaelic Fox and Benjamin Brown

Fox

Scott on Hancocks Gaelic Fox

Scott and Fox

Upside Down Fire, New Fences

In my cruising around the internet, being and armchair homesteader, I found a link, or a pintrest post, or maybe it came across my facebook, for a fire built upside down. There really is no telling where I saw it. Somedays I've got seventeen different tabs open on my computer and I'm nine subjects away from what I started looking at. I thought for sure that I had posted a pic of the upside down fire I built out in the fire pit in the front yard over the summer, but I have no idea where I stuck it. Honestly, the pics are probably still on Scott's phone because I never figured out how to use the damned thing and send them to my phone.

But back to the upside down fire. When I was taught how to build a fire it was most likely the same way every one else was taught. A little tinder, paper, or something else easy to catch fire, then your little sticks in a teepee around the paper. Some larger sticks, then some small split wood, then light and hope like hell to starts burning. You baby sit that for a little while, slowly adding bigger pieces of wood until you have a rip roaring fire. What really happens is you sit there and blow on it, trying to get the twigs to catch. Ten minutes later you're kicking yourself in the ass for forgetting to add larger sticks, and now the whole damned thing has gone out, and you have to start it again. Or you forgot to add the big logs and it's burned to ash and you're hoping there is enough little coals to get the effing thing going again while you sit there and your butt cheeks freeze to the ground.

Forget all that. Chuck that whole thinking out the damned window that is probably still open from when you opened them since it was such a nice day out, but now it's 64 degrees in your house and you're dreading trying to get a fire built in the fire place.

I stacked this totally bassackwards. Two split logs on the bottom. Crumpled the pages out of an old phone book (See, I'm recycling, reusing...) and stuffed it down in between the spaces between the logs and the walls of the wood stove, and crammed even more in between the logs. Stacked my larger kindling cross way on top of that, and then my little kindling back the same way as the logs. I lit the paper, and walked off and forgot about it. Seriously. I came back ten minutes later to shut the door I had left cracked open because it was putting off too much heat already. The center of the fire had already turned the logs into a nice coal bed. Stacking the kindling on top of the logs leave plenty of room for air to get drawn in and let that sucker start burning.

I was so impressed with myself I took it upon myself to share with any one who would listen. Even people who didn't really look like they wanted to listen. Heck, now I'm even putting it out there in that thare interweb thang so people can share with their friends, or just random people walking down the street. Everyone needs to know about this. I should win an award for helping mankind or something.


The damned cows are finally back out on the pasture again. I wrote last month here about them tearing through the fence and having to be up in the round pen. We thought we were going to pull out the old tee posts, dig a few holes, make a sturdy corner brace and string some nice tight wire with a ground. No problems, a weekend project. NOT!!! What a pain in the ass, and not even my ass. It was miserable hard work for the guys. Basically I bought a $50,000 rock pile when I bought the land here.

The acreage sits on a lava rift that goes clear to Jerome and almost to Fairfield. Little fingers of it branch off and just manage to snag the corner of my property, and then pop up again in the back half. Right where I wanted to build the house originally, and right where I needed to put in those three corner poles in the front.

It took Scott and his friends Larry and Pat, six hours with a 90 pound jack hammer to dig the holes deep enough to concrete in the poles. Six hours of them breaking rock into gravel and dust, then Connie and I used a plastic cup to scoop out the powdery crap. Grind, scoop, grind, scoop... Then we had to give the concrete three days to cure before we could start stringing fence. That turned into the next time Scott had two days off a week later. The holes for the new gate went in no problem. Tractor with a fence pole auger, and zip zip.

The ground up in the front corner never gets irrigated so it's all sand. No conductivity from the fence through the animal to ground. Scott sunk some rods into the ground and connected it to the middle wire on the fence. Now when the cows try and push through they hit both wires and get lit up. The fence meter reads 8k and all the pretty red lights are lit up. They don't try the fence anymore. Every one is getting fat and happy on all the grass out in the front pasture. 

Bucket and Jar Score, Canning Green Beans

We camped out in the yard last night, Scott and I. Threw up the tent, had a fire and everything. We really don't have the extra cash right now to go anywhere, or the extra time. Last night was a great night for throwing up the tent in the yard though. It wasn't too cool with the cloud cover. There was clouds and lighting in the distance we could watch through the door of the tent. The new fire pit The Boy dug for us made for a great campfire. We blew up the air mattress, brought out the blankets and pillows from our bed. It was even better than camping since when I wanted a midnight snack I could raid our fridge.

The only downside is we pitched it right next to the round pen. The steers are in the round pen right now since the fence is down. Whoever said cows are stupid never met my steers. Out of three Jersey steers, My steer from last year, not Andrea's steer, has figured out that the irrigation water doesn't make it all the the way down to the front corner of the pasture. That means nothing grows in the corner.Why the hell the cows want to be out in the corner in the first place, since there isn't any grass growing is beyond be. The ground is all sand so there isn't any conductivity from the fence to the ground, which equals no zap. So now the fence is torn apart, the cows are in the round pen, and come daylight, they were mooooing in my ear. The roosters were crowing behind me in the trees. It was kind of a noisy morning. Wouldn't have traded it for anything.

Connie got us a hell of a score the other day. I asked her to ask at the grocery store what they were going to do with their frosting buckets. They gave her all 6!!. They have lids with gaskets so they are airtight. The buckets are 3-1/2 gallon buckets. WOOT!!! I already have one filled with rice, and one three quarters of the way filled with pinto beans. Flour is next. I'm going to keep going back and asking for more. They are food grade and perfect for home storage.

Scott's friend Pat was going through the storage in his garage and came across a bunch of old jars that belonged to his mother. He asked if I would be interested in them. Heck yeah I would. There were boxes and boxes of them. Scott and Pat loaded them all up and brought them to my garage. I did one whole load in the dishwasher and there are still boxes out there. 

And last for today is the green beans. I've had green beans coming out my hiney. The stringless beans we've been eating as fast as I can pick them. I have two small batches out in the freezer. I planted two rows Kentucky Wonder Bean. They were supposed to be a pole type bean, but we never put up a trellis for them. They just grew wild all over the place like a chaotic version of the green bush beans. We started picking them last night. I have mounds and mounds of Wonder Beans.   

We shelled out some of the beans out of the biggest pods.

And then from THIS SITE, The Canning Granny, I love her site, we canned beans. Seven Quarts, and Nine pints. 

What's new at Everstuff Ranch?

Summer shave down season is here, so work has been crazy busy. I went from grooming like 4-6 dogs on a good day, and maybe 6-8 on Saturdays, to 6-8 a day and 10-12 on Saturdays. Add that to all the stuffs that need to be done around the house, and make for me being a tired unit. We got a Jersey, bull calf from the dairy down the road. It's over at the neighbors. She'll raise up the two calves, and I'll raise up the two pigs. We got the nod from Pete that they are ready to go, just need to finish the pen.

 I went out Sunday and put in the temporary poles and fence out in the pasture. We're going to try giving the horses a smaller area to eat at a time, and make them eat it all down before moving on to the next place. Had to walk the whole fence line to figure out why we were getting a drop in power. Of course after walking the whole perimeter, I find the wire touching a tee post where there is a missing bracket. Didn't find it when I first started walking in knee high grass. 

Today was start the garden day after work. I got in ll the plants what were already plants, and got them all watered in nice. Three different tomatoes, two peppers, cauliflower, broccoli, cucumbers, melons, strawberries, eggplants. Tomorrow will be everything that has o start from seed. Pees, carrots, more cucumber, radish, lettuce.

This is Bacon, the calf. The pig with be named Tasty. Then I'll have Tasty Bacon, and Eggs with the chickens.

This is where the nest boxes with go for the chickens

Building the shelter end of the piggy pen

Got the rabbit hutch moved to the back of the house. Now it needs a good cleaning out and some rabbits. 

 Some random photos

Jess watching Scotty solder some wires onto clips, trying to fix the solar charger. It's dead btw.

Mike over next door

Andrea bought a horse trailer. We let her use Engine 9 and we get to use the trailer. Winning!

Mike with Lance working on Will's 4wheeler

 Ponies in the grass

Bastard cat is nosey

Will came over a few weeks ago and had Scott help him weld a bracket back on for the shock on his truck

Winter break is coming to an end. Time to get my outta shape butt back to work

Most of the winter I sat on my butt. I waited eagerly for my Star Wars game to come out. I shared the computer with Scott and played on his nights at work. My horses thought they were never going to have to work again. I think I've taken Patches out just once this spring. Jess has ridden Ben into town a bunch of times. All that came to a screeching halt starting this week. Holey woefully out of shape I am. Panting and wheezing after just a little work. Shoulders and arms burning from digging a few little holes. No pictures of me since I was the one manning the camera, but i was in proper hillbilly gear. Teeshirt, shorts, boot socks, and of course cowboy boots. I was stylin.

Scott brought some shipping crates home from work last year. This year he put a coat of oil based primer, and two coats of latex on one of them. It's going to be the bottom of my chicken condo. The old dog house we had, he gave the same treatment, and it's going on top. Now he just has to build some outside access nesting boxes, and set it together. He scored some wood from work, and has all the stuffs to make them for me. I'm very excited for chickens this year, and Scotty's building me a great chicken condo.

Mon after work he drove us to Uncle Mikes to borrow the tractor again. He was out there Mon night in  the dark making my garden look like a garden again. Last year Jim came over from the dairy and rototilled everything up. This year Scotty did it all for me. He even widened the garden area. We're sitting at 75ftX40ft now. I hope I can get enough plants growing to fill it all in. I've got three types of tomatoes, four different peppers, broccoli, eggplants, and a couple types of flowers, all started in the kitchen like I did last year.

He also re tilled the round pen. Those fat ponies are gonna have to put some work into it now.

I spent a good part of the early afternoon learning to drive the tractor. We had the arena rack on the back, and I drug and drug that sucker over the pastures, breaking up horse turds and ripping out old grass that didn't burn.Boy those things don't have any shocks. Scotty wanted to show my how to find a higher gear than second so I could go a little faster. No thank you. I thought I was gonna bounce my spleen out through my ears as it was. I didn't need a higher gear. Going down the field wasn't too bad, but crossing over all those corrugates..... Rattled what brains I had left, loose. I did Andrea's pastures next door too. 

Dave is gonna grow alfalfa out back, so he has the horses penned up while he sprays to kill the back, and for weeds in front. Scott and I went out first thing yesterday morning and loaded the hay he hasn't fed yet this year, and moved it over into our yard so it was easier for us to throw it over while the horses are penned. We also took out the sagging, falling down, crappy assed, barbwire fencing in the corner that wasn't holding anything up anymore, but the weeds. Three new poles in the ground, and a temp hot wire fence till Dave builds a good fence between the properties. I thought I was gonna die trying to help Scotty dig those holes. The first foot or so isn't bad cause you can still use the shovel. Once that stupid post hole, clam shell digger comes out, bleh. I couldn't force it down hard enough to get into the dirt, the bottoms can't close all the way, and I ended up dropping more dirt back into the hole than I got out of it. And man I was out of breath. I need to get my fat ass on a treadmill.

What's blooming already in my yard?

Some random pics I found on my camera...

The wind blew the ice up on the pond as it froze.

Making laundry soap