Smart Chicken...

We have a local chicken processing plant that bills there chicken as "Smart Chicken".

I think we have one of their top "scholars" living at this Hillbilly ranch....

We have four goats that are in milk right now, so we - or THEY - generate a good amount of milk. We end up making cheese at least once a week.

There's nothing better then fresh Mozzarella cheese made from goat milk...

Anyway, this cheese making process creates a nice supply of whey. We usually give a bit to the dogs - even though they don't like it much, and send the rest to the cats and vultures....er....chickens.

On one of my many scrounging trips, I came home with several crisper drawers from old refrigerators. Some of these are metal, but most have been plastic. I use them for storing all kinds of things.

I also use them to feed things to the cats and chickens.

The one drawer I use for feeding the whey is a large plastic one. it has a flat bottom for the most part, but it slopes up about 8" from the back. The best way to describe it is a small "swimming pool" it has a deep end and a shallow end.



Over the past few weeks, I have probably filled the drawer with whey 9 or 10 times. Every time, the chickens and cats come running. A few dive right in. I've also begun to give the cats theirs in a separate dish because the vultures chase them off....

After the whey is gone - it usually takes about two hours - the drawer is abandoned to await the next feeding frenzy.

A couple of weeks ago, I wanted to mow where the drawer was, so I went to move it. As I reached down to grab it, I felt it MOVE...

Now, I KNOW that it had been sitting upside down like it was for at LEAST 3 days, but thought nothing of it.

I looked in through the transparent drawer front and saw the captured villain - one of my Cornish Cross Roosters. I tossed it off of him and he scampered away - albeit, not very thankful. He probably thought I was responsible for his near demise. The three days he had been in there were nasty hot and humid. I'm surprised he wasn't fried.

At any rate, I set it back upright and even filled it with whey later that afternoon. I figured that that was the end of it.

Nope.

It happened AGAIN last week. The Chicken Trap sprung once more - on the SAME bird-brain.

This time, I think he was only under there over night. The stupid bird is a gluten for punishment. He'll do just about anything for that last little tidbit.

Then, this morning, as I was walking out to milk, I looked over and saw --



I was thinking - "Naw, it CAN'T be..."

Well, it CAN be...



Once again, Mr IQ was under the trap.

Evidently, he doesn't have the sharpest beak in the coop...

While I'm not sure how long he was under it this time, I DO know it rained last night. Water ran down the slope and under the drawer, he was soaked and bedraggled when I let him out. Naturally, he blamed me.

The badge on the front of the drawer says it all....

"Chilled Meats"....

While Mr Genius may have the brain the size if a pea, at least he's a survivor...

I guess I'll have to find a new dish to feed the vultures.

Leapin' Lizards...

Ok, so it MIGHT not be a "lizard", but the leapin' part sure fits.....

For the past three weeks or so, I have been separating the two Kinder moms from their kids at night.

This, understandably, did not go over well with the two kids....

At first, I just put the two little boys in a separate stall for the night. This was working fine until they discovered that they could sneak around one end and shimmy through a hole. I patched the hole and all was well again....for a few days.

One morning, I came out to the barn and found one of the kids in the stall with his mom. He had - once again - escaped his stall and broke INTO his mom's. So much for THAT mornings milk from mom...

I found that he had pushed his head through the bottom of the gate of his stall until he forced his way out. As for how he got in with mom - that's still a mystery. I have an IDEA, but it's just a theory.

I decided that I'd just pen the two kids in a stall, then let ALL the moms out into a different part of the barn at night. That way, he'd have to get out of his pen, then through another gate to get to mom.

And THIS gate goes almost to the floor, has a full frame, latches tightly, and the mesh is too small to "feed through the fence". I finally had him snookered....at least with emptying mom's tank at night. He was still getting out of his stall, and waiting for me in morning.

Last night, I put everyone to bed and was figuring on heading to the house when I heard some noise coming from the little boy's stall. I looked just in time to see him jump into the hay feeder, then up ON TOP of the stall divider, and tightrope it out to the aisle.

I fixed the little so-and-so by moving a screen partition further over so he couldn't get to the top of the divider. This divider, mind you, is made from a 1x6, and he was running along the EDGE.

I went to the house with confident knowledge that I had solved the problem.

Of course, this morning, he was standing in the aisle, wagging his tail and laughing at me....

I had visions of Bar-B-Q dancing in my head as I reached out to catch the little (expletive deleted). After I caught him, I realized that he'd only make about 8 good sized hamburgers, so I gave him a reprieve. It was tempting though...

I returned him to his stall and proceeded to get the milkers ready to go. I had three of the four milk ladies in the aisle (one of them being his mom), when I turned to get the forth. I checked to make sure the two hooligans were still in their stall, turned my back to open the gate, let the last goat in, then turned back around to see little Mister BBQ sucking on his mom. My back was turned for MAYBE 10 seconds.

I hurriedly latched the gate and "unattached" him from mom. He wasn't too happy about breakfast being interrupted, and let me know about it. He was also bound and determined to FINISH breakfast.

No sooner did his feet hit the floor of his stall, he turned around and JUMPED over the stall fence and into the aisle. He didn't even climb, he just jumped over the fence that is 44" tall - from a standing start.

I grabbed him quick and put him back inside the stall. This time, I stood right there and waited for him to try again, which - sure enough - he did so right away. This time, as he jumped, I put up my hand, palm open, in his flight path. His head and my hand had a mid air collision right above the fence. The shocked look on his face as he landed back in the stall was priceless - he was in NO way expecting to hit something head-on.

I decided that it would be a good idea to milk his mom first...

While this mystery is solved - and easily fixed by adding a board to make the fence taller - I still don't know FOR SURE how he got INTO his mom's pen before.

Although, it's begining to become more evident that he just "flew"....

Hay There....

AT LAST! The weather this week has decided to co-operate! It has been DRY all week (well....up to Wednesday night...), so people have been haying and cutting wheat while they can.

We managed to cut some hay down for a neighbor on Sunday. It was THICK Brome, with a few other goodies mixed in (like Red Clover...).

We knew from the git-go that it would take three to four days to dry, due to how tall, thick and full it was. That's why we had been stymied for so long on getting it cut.

I ended up with several nice flat rows out of the haybine:




Since it was going to be in the 90's, and even a little BREEZE, I left the hay dry until Tuesday afternoon, when I raked the haybine rows over so the bottom could toast in the sunshine.

By noon on Wednesday, it was ready to bale.

I Hitched up to the baler, and headed north. That's when I hit trouble....

The baler has a "movable" tongue. You pin it to the right for "transport" mode, then move it left for "field" mode. Usually, I have no trouble with moving it either way. THIS time, however, it decided to fight me. I positioned it so I'd be pushing up hill, then blocked the tire with a 4x4 block.

Unfortunately, the baler decided that it would ride over the 4x4....

After going around in circles a couple of times, it decided to stay blocked and gave in. The tongue moved to field mode.

The hay was in single windrows, but still pretty thick, so it was slow going on some of it. I just let the baler "chew" the hay inside, then moved ahead. It was a small field, so it didn't take a LONG time (it always seems like it takes longer then it does, though....).

We weren't able to use the bale basket, because it was such a small field (1.5 to 2 acres), so I dialed the baler down to make the bales small and light. The neighbor helped us load until he had to leave. As it turned out, the bales were nice and "crispy" dry, and easy to work with.

All-in-all we started baling at 1:30 pm, and the hay was in the barn by 4:30.

The man cutting wheat didn't get to the two fields I will bale for straw yet, but he will next week. At least straw is (usually) nicer to work with then hay. We don't know how many straw bales it will yield but, it won't be tons. I'll need about 25 bales for winter - it will be enough for that, and I'll have the rest to sell.

I love baling hay. I am always thankful when it's done - and spend the next 2-3 days in pain - but it is one of my favorite things to do. The loading and unloading of the hay rack is a "back killer", but what has to be done, has to be done...

It always seems that the day you choose to do hay, the weather turns out HOT, HUMID, and NO WIND.

Last year, we were over at Deb's parents house when her dad had some hay down. Naturally, the weather was normal for haying. After baling, we loaded the bales onto a low trailer, and headed for the barn. Her dad uses an Allis-Chalmers Rotobaler, so the bales were small.

(an interesting side note - the original design for the small round baler was drawn up by a man from Seward County, Nebraska - in 1910. He sold the rights to Allis-Chalmers in 1940)

At any rate, when we backed up to his barn, I couldn't believe my eyes!

There, in all it's glory was the most INCREDIBLE thing....

SHADE!

I made the comment to Deb's dad and brother that it was the first time in my life that I had unloaded hay into a barn in the shade. It is usually 102° and nasty hot.

Somewhere along the way, I - sarcastically - made the comment that "it's just not right to load hay in the shade, you have GOT to cut down those trees."

Unfortunately, her dad took it seriously. The trees came down last fall...

Yup. I really enjoy haying. My favorite part is probably raking, them baling, and third, mowing.

Now - if I could only find a couple of nice strong High School boys who would work for food.....

Another side note....
Happy Birthday to my niece, Bonnie! She's living in New Jersey and was born on July 4th!

A Big Hog Fan...

Sometime during the last week, God decided to turn up the furnace (and the humidifier...) in these parts.
Livestock are dropping from the heat all over the region.

It's one of those times that you're glad someone invented air conditioning....

The worst part is - while it's been hot and muggy - there also has been little breeze to help with SOME relief. Also, the low temperatures at night have only been getting down to the high to mid 70's.

While that's better then 98°, it still is hot - at least in my book!

The other day Thursday, I think, we went to the Big City to do some shopping and other things. Naturally, it was HOT and nasty out. We left right after chores in the morning, and were gone until after 5:00 pm. It was a long day in the heat.

We unloaded the car, ate supper, took care of the animals and were both glad it was time for bed.

Even with the air conditioning on, we usually run an oscillating fan in the bedroom for air movement.

That night was no different. It was still after 10:00 when we finally made it to bed.

As we were laying there, talking, we heard.....


PIGS!

It started out soft and squeaky ...."oink, oink, oink, oink....", then a few seconds pause, and "oink, oink, oink, oink...."

The sound grew louder and less high pitched as it went along....

Fearing for our lives - thinking it was a scene from one of those Alfred Hitchcock movies - I lifted my head out of my pillow to see what was truly going on.

At once, my fears of being eaten alive by a rabid porker were assuaged.

I laid my head back down and asked my lovely wife:

"Why does the fan sound like a pig?"

She listened until it made it's "oink" sounds again, then burst out in laughter.

Even as tired as we were, this was enough to keep us "in stitches" for quite awhile. Now, instead of attack by roving killer swine, we feared not being able to go to sleep from laughing every time the fan made it's piggy plea.

This went on for a good 20 minutes, then, as suddenly as it started, the sound mysteriously STOPPED.

I am happy to report that we were able to get some sleep (after laughing a bit more about it....) without being assaulted by noisy hogs. The fan hasn't made the sound since, so we MIGHT be safe now.

I don't know what caused the fan to oink, either, I took it apart not long ago and cleaned it all up, so dirt SHOULDN'T have been a problem. Maybe it was some sort of subliminal messaging by the Pork Producers, channeling through people's fans in a heat wave.

That might be a good idea - the worse the heat, the more fans in use.....hmmmmmm...

What ever caused the fan to be possessed by pigs might never be known, I'm just glad the porkers have decided to leave.

Hopefully, they won't return....

Finally....

Well, the Weather Gypsies happened to be CLOSE to right this week. We actually got two days almost RAIN FREE!

Like the saying goes - "Make hay while the Sun shines....".

So we did.

I managed to cut a little hay on Monday afternoon. It took awhile to get started because of:

(1) HUMIDITY - It was NASTY out. You almost needed swimming lessons just to be outside.

(2) HAYBINE - Since this was the first time I had used this haybine with this tractor, we had to do a little "trial and error" in order to find what works best.

(3) RAIN - It rained Monday morning about 3/10ths. Sometime about 3:00 AM. The Gypsies didn't expect that one...

(4) MYSTERY BREAKDOWN - I was going along great when, all of a sudden, the haybine quits cutting. Everything moves, except the cutter bar. It took me about 20 minutes to find the culprit - a bent tooth. It was bent enough to catch, but not enough to find easily. I bent it back, then went on my way.

All-in-all, though, it wasn't a bad day. I got the hay cut in about 2 1/2 hours, then was able to relax a bit. My old New Holland 469 Haybine has cut a LOT of hay in it's time, and is still going. It has it's little troubles, but is a good machine still. I was also cutting a field that was previously never hayed. It had a few sticks in it to make noises and kick up.

Deb took my camera and made a short video:



Since it is really fine Native Prairie Grass (with some wild flowers mixed in...), it takes a haybine to cut it. It also doesn't take long to dry.

By 11:00 on Tuesday, it was ready to be raked. Some of the field had been cut about
2 1/2 weeks ago - when the weather gypsies said it wasn't going to rain. I had cut about an acre when the clouds formed. It didn't rain that day, but it rained the next. I managed to pick up what I had cut, but had been waiting for good weather ever since.

Here is a video of my 1949 Ford 8N pulling the Dearborn 14-42 rake of the same era:



Now it was time to hitch up the New Holland 273 Hayliner and get ready to go bale.

We let the hay dry until 3:30, then dove right in. I hooked up the homemade "Bale Basket" to the rear of the baler. I use this to catch the bales as they fall off of the baler chute. The basket collects them, then dumps them when I pull a rope attached to a lever.

It makes it REAL handy....it leaves the bales in piles of 8-10, instead of having singles dropped all over the field. Picking up the bales this way is a lot easier and less time consuming.

Here is a video of the baler and basket at work:



I had one bale in the basket that had a broken twine. Somehow, the baler tied it to the next bale in line. I stopped later and rebaled it.

It's nice having the hay in the barn, not in the field. We had it picked up and put inside by 7:30 last night.

Of course, right after we finished, the breeze came up and the humidity went down.....

I have some more hay to bale in a few days - weather permitting, and then some straw when a neighbor gets his wheat cut.

Even though it was HOT, I have always enjoyed haying. My back, hips, and knees won't let me enjoy it like I USED to, but it is still fun. I won't get much done in the next couple days - I'll be recovering.

But it was worth it.

So.....

....there I was.

I had just spent the better part of the last hour servicing the tractor, servicing the sickle mower, and getting the mower hooked up. I even decided to replace a couple of bolts while I was at it.

I wanted to be READY to go mow the roadsides by our place. I was even gonna be nice and mow our new neighbors. They live in the Big City and are only here on weekends. They don't have a sickle mower, so I thought I'd zip it for them.

Yup I was GONNA be nice.....

Well - after all that work in the hot sun (89°), I gets all hooked up and head for the road. Just as I hit the end of the driveway, I look over my fence and I see it....





The mowed road sides that someone ELSE was nice and mowed for me.

I went over this morning at 10:30 to feed our neighbor's cats while they're gone, so I KNOW it was needing done then....

While I was working on the tractor and mower, I THOUGHT that I heard a tractor go by slow. I didn't think much of it because it happens all the time.

I think I know who cut it for us - he and his dad have cut it before without even being asked. I was all fired up and raring to go at it, but it was sure nice to have it done for us!

I think I'm gonna go hook up the haybine - and take awhile doing it - in hopes that someone will start cutting my hay for me.....

Short Changed...

This evening, I was out getting everyone settled in for the night. I usually tend to the goats first (they riot if the milkers don't get hay at night...), then do the chickens and feed the dogs last.

I got all the nannies into their private quarters - and the two dejected little boys into their room by themselves. They aren't real HAPPY with spending nights away from mom, but seem to be getting used to it. At least they aren't crying and carrying on like they were the first couple of nights.

In the mornings, however, they let me know that I'm taking ENTIRELY too much time milking their moms....

Everyone was tucked in, so I headed for the chicken house. I found the hen with her chicks in the corner of the brooder house, with all seven babies tucked under her wings. The other hen with 5 newborns (last night) was still in her nest, so she couldn't go far. I closed everything up and went to collect eggs.

Now, these hens get all kinds of food - beef fat, corn, layer pellets, garden scraps, whey when we make cheese (twice a week), dried bread, and other assorted things. They even get to go scrounge around after the goats and get what they drop.

And this is how they repay me....





SOMEBODY evidently thought it would be humorous to short change me on an egg!

I closed up the chicken door, then proceeded to see if anybody would own up to it.

I stepped inside the coop and asked for their undivided attention. Most were sitting on the roosts facing me, but some had the gall to turn their backs and face the wall.

I figured one of those was the likely suspect....

As I passed the tiny egg under beak after beak, nobody uttered a word (at least, not a word in English....). The only one who got extremely nervous was one of the young Roosters.

I decided that he was probably NOT the culprit...
(Though he MIGHT know who did do it.....)

At any rate, I got nowhere with direct interrogation.

So, it looks like I'll have a "diet" omelet for breakfast.

Either that, or I could dye it blue and confuse one of the Robins we have outside....