Morning Pictures From Around The Farm

This morning was so nice out. I got to sleep in for an extra hour and a half. Went to grab the camera to take pic while I did chores and it was dead. I had my phone though, and took a ton of pics with that. I had the whole crew out with me this morning.

Kiki, Fudge, Fudge, Bastard, Wiley, Molly

Ashley and the chickens all came too. 

Ben is all butt hurt at us. It's finally warm enough at night that we don't need a tank heater to keep the water from freezing. I threw his fat hiney in the round pen. He spends all day pacing, so he's getting some exercise with his diet. 

He eats faster then Apache, and then would clean up Apache's hay as well. He's starting to look like a hippo. Even though he's only walking, he spends most of his day moving instead of just standing in the dry lot, or laying down. A little exercise is better than no exercise. 

Apache is getting all his hay now. He wasn't getting thin really, but he wasn't packing on the pounds like Ben was. He could stand to gain a few. He's almost totally blind now from as far as we can tell. He doesn't see anything out of the left eye any more. He still stands and looks towards the garage every morning waiting for his breakfast. When I call out Pooooneeeehs, he whickers to me and can focus in on where I'm coming from. He finds his hay by smelling for it and I shake it so he can hear where it is. 

Dave turned his horses back out from his catch pen, into the pasture last night. Apache got pretty upset calling out for them and trotting back and forth along the fence. I kept an eye on him for a few hours to make sure he wasn't going to try and go through the fence, but he settled down. I would have put Ben back in with him if he had gotten too upset. By this morning he had settled back down and was eagerly looking for breakfast. 

The boys got wormed again last week. We used Zimectrin Gold. 

Dave's horses back out on pasture with Stormy looking for breakfast

The chickens even came with me this morning, clucking and talking the whole way. They followed the dogs and the cats across the dry lot out to Dave's pasture. 

You can see the chickens off on the right hand side following us back up the road.  Kiki and Bastard were right behind me

The chickens last year never really ventured into the trees out front. This year though I think they've realized the treasure box of bugs and worms hiding under last year's dead leaves. I lost Mr. Mean, the rooster, a few days ago. He followed Rebeccah's girls back through the whole in the fence. I went out there with a few scraps of chicken wire and he hasn't made it back over again. Of course Rebeccah's girls are missing out on the buggy goodness under the cottonwoods, but... 

We got most of last year's old dead grass burned out of the front pasture. With only two horses out there, there was a lot that didn't get eaten. Burning off the old dead stuff makes way for the new grass to come up better, and adds a few nutrients back into the soil faster than letting it rot away. 

Old Man Fudge got pretty heavy this last winter

I actually had to water the flower garden last evening. I have bulbs coming up all over the place. Some of them I have no idea what they are. They came to my in a box that Shelly at work had brought me. She dug them up last fall when she was redoing her flower beds. I have Dusty Millers out there that are coming back for their third year. They said they were only an annual plant when I bought them. I have a few violas that made it through the winter and have a tiny tiny flower on them. Tulips that I bought on clearance a few years ago. Daffodils that I found growing out along the bottom of the drive way that I dug up and divided out last year. I have two hyacinths at the bottom of the bed that are coming back for their third year, and a row of grape hyacinths along the house. 

And some more random pics I snapped through my morning

Apache

Bastard Kitty

Friends

Apache and Kiki

Chicken in a box

Kiki

Bastard Kitty and Kiki

   

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

Still waiting on spring

The tulips think it should be spring. I looked down Monday and realized I had new green stuff in my flower garden, among all the dead brown stuff I hadn't pulled out from last year. I bought a lot of bulbs last year from Walmart that were on clearance. Ones that had flowered and the flowers were gone, or that had flowers sprung upon before they got tall. I stuck them in the dirt and forgot about them. Looks like they are starting to do their thing. Of course we had a snow storm blow through this morning. Couldn't see a darn thing past 100 ft in front of you. Last about two hours. Dumped three inches of snow (the forecast was for light snow, not accumulating more than half and inch). By mid afternoon it had all melted away.

Scott has decided wood carving sounds like a good hobby. I'm all for it. It makes a mess of shaving on the floor, but they sweep up so easily. He got a set of carving thingies when he was in Boise a few weekends ago, a box of wood chunks, and has been going to town with it. I even tried it a little bit.

Meanwhile I sat on the couch and worked on the hat I've been doing forever, and never seem to get finished.

Jeff made an amazing contribution to the little homestead this weekend. I was just out of the shower, upstairs checking on Facebook, and I hear Jess talking to someone downstairs. I figured Scott must be up, so I bounced down the stairs, and it was Jeff. He'd been to Poccatello, and brought back a welder he'd had in storage for Scott.

Scott used to make a living as a welder, so now we can build anything he need here. Very exciting stuff.