Month: May 2024

Success!

Posted on by Farmers Blogger

Hello friends!

I am happy to announce that Nellie has been vaccinated and she was such a good girl about it! You guys! 

She not only stood like a champ and only flinched when I first poked her (which, to clarify, is completely fair because I would too) and then she continued to stand perfectly ladylike. Honestly, I was more wigged out about the whole thing because, ya know, needles.

And then! I totally expected her to decide I was mean, which would have been fine, I’d get it, and it’s what’s happened in the past, but she’s since let me love on her and kiss her nose, and she’s let me love on her neck still, even checking the injection site. Which, side note, I’m getting better too I think, because it was pretty quick and I think about as painless as I am capable of making it. I’m gonna have to just allow myself a little bit of ego about it for a few days, and then I’ll get humbled by something and we will all be back to normal.

But seriously, I’m just so proud of that girl. I’ve given her a couple days off of practicing “pokes” so that if there is any bruising or tenderness I’m not just being mean. But I’m planning on casually integrating that with our liberty work often enough that it’s not a big deal next year. I’m just so so so proud of her.

We are finally starting to get things cleaned up around the farm. I’m unfortunately still battling the last remnants of being sick, so I do a little, get super winded, sit a bit, do a little, get winded, ad infinitum. But I’m helping where I can. We finally decided it was time to upgrade the trimmer situation on this farm. The last one decided to burn itself up, as did the one before that, and I finally realized we really need something heavier duty for the Jurassic weeds on this farm. So we are the proud owners of a commercial weed whacker. I just about had a heart attack in the store but I’ve actually been very impressed with it so far. And I am very pleased that a couple hours with that tool saved me about a week of hand digging thistle and weeds. So, an investment piece? Yea, let’s call it that.

We ordered some bark for my out of control garden beds too, so that will hopefully be nice for weed management. It’s amazing how quickly flower gardens get out of control. Hopefully I’ll have some fun pics and videos of the bark next time we chat, I just gotta clean up the detritus from trimming and lay down the weed guard first. I think it’s going to look nice too for the summer when we have family over and just for us, because it’s nice to have a tidy space.

The vegetable garden on the other hand is still in flux because we are dangerously close to freezing still and I haven’t gotten the potatoes yet. 

The magpies sure have gotten aggressive this year. I’ve chased them off attacking Honey for her food and Joe for just existing in the yard and they’ve royally annoyed the horses. Used to be the magpies would quietly sit on Nellie’s back in the shade while she grazed, but now they are so fussy she shakes or crow hops until they leave. Can’t really blame her. They’ve tried chasing us off the porch, but I refuse to be bullied on my own property. They’re ornery little birds. Too bad too, they’re so pretty. They’ve been chasing off the doves and songbirds as well, which is equally distressing. 

Such drama in the bird community, who knew?

Anyways. That’s about all that’s happening with us right now. I know it’s not much, but things have been just weird lately, mostly in the weather department. We are finally seeing 70s, which is amazing, but also, there have been lots of days where I’ve still been wrapped up in a blanket for work. Both my girls have not been enjoying the huge temperature fluctuations, tends not to be great on the joints.

Anyways,

Until we chat again my friends!

We had a pretty good…
…storm cell roll through…
…with winds and hail and…
…lots of thunder and rain!

Hanging in there

Posted on by Farmers Blogger

Hello friends!

It has been such a silly spring it’s truly unreal. So remember how I said we were having warm weather and I was stuck inside last update? About the time work started slowly ironing out, the temperatures plummeted and we went back into winter time. It only started warming up again this last week, and unfortunately I’ve earned myself a case of walking pneumonia so I haven’t been able to be out in it much yet.

That said, we got a few things done around here. The garden beds are starting to get cleaned out. It’s slow going, but we are separating bulbs, weeding, planting and replanting, and laying down some weed control and bark. It’ll be really pretty when we pull it together. And a little easier to manage. We are looking for pretty ground cover that flowers or stays nice all summer, or for a series of flowers that will bloom one after another and every year, so they are always attracting pollinators. I’ve been looking into chaos gardening, but I’m not quite ready to commit yet.

As you saw in the video, from three weeks ago, The canal was burned and cleaned out and it started filling up about a week later. Really stressed out the girls because they started filling it in the middle of the night. Very unusual, I never did hear why. But it also filled super slowly, I think it sat at halfway for almost a week. Probably because it started freezing again. Craziness. It’s full now though, and just so pretty. Such fun to have that “babbling brook” sound while you’re working around the farm. 

The girls have had a lot of lazy days lately, although we had the big vet day. All but Nellie got vaccinated, but the vet agreed that there’s two issues at play with Nellie and we need to address them separately. First she’s terrified of the needle, so I’ve been working on that with her for a few months and while the vet call and my getting sick set us back, we will probably be able to vaccinate in a couple weeks (the vet isn’t really worried because right now they don’t really interact with a lot of other animals, so we can prioritize making it a good experience.). We realized that the second issue is that she’s still just terrified of new people working with her. She panics before we can even get to the checkup. That ones a little harder to solve, but we will get there. I’m still so proud of her, and all the animals on the farm, they all did fantastically. It was Honey’s first big kid checkup, and other than turning me into a pincushion, she handled it like a champ. She was a little mad at me for a couple days, but she quickly decided we could be friends again. Didn’t help that she needed her rabies booster, that makes all the critters unhappy.

Nobody has gotten a garden in yet, almost any time we’ve gone to plant, it’s frozen overnight again. As much as I really wanted a big garden this year, I think it’s much more reasonable to get some potatoes in the ground and start prepping for next year. I hate to give up, but this spring is proving a battle, and I think it might be the smartest to work within our constraints for now. Plus potatoes are dope so I’m excited to be growing them. Lots of potato based recipes I want to try. For my fellow Psych fans out there, I wanna get brave and try “fries cuatros quesos dos fritos”. For my non Psych fans out there, go watch Psych, the first seasons especially will explain a lot about my humor haha.

We found some more Easter eggs today in the garden. I’m honestly surprised we haven’t found more, but it’s a running joke that I find Easter eggs all year long around the farm. We hide so many throughout the gardens, I figure there’s a few that are probably composting out there at this point.

Did anyone get to see the northern lights? We got them really faintly here, but they were so cool. Amazing to see them all the way down here. This far south, it’s a “tell the grandkids one day” moment. Very very cool.

Anyways, I wish I had more of an update for ya. I’ve kinda come to the conclusion that this spring is just a bit rough around the edges. Hoping it means there’s a great summer around the corner.

Until we chat again my friends!