Novice Farmers

The vet came yesterday to castrate our young bull calves. He asked us to have them in the round pen when he arrived and he would help us sort them out. He has a portable squeeze chute and brought that along to catch the calves for the "procedure". Since we had the whole herd plus a few guest cattle, Dr. Hebel was very instructional in how to drive them around the outside of the pen and then through the chute. If the cows went in, he just let them go on by. We got the biggest guest cow and Gunslinger our bull out the other side relatively easy. Most of the cows were thru the chute when we got our first calf in there. After Dr. Hebel finished with it, he released it and said "I thought you said you had four bull calves". Ward and I looked at each.....could this vet not count? One was finished and three were still left in the pen. "There are still three in the pen"....I replied. "One of 'ems a heifer, but I can still charge you for it", he said. WHAT? But what is that hanging down? "It's her belly button.....it's an outie!" Honestly I'd love to post a picture and get everyone's opinion and see if they wouldn't make this same mistake also. But we laughed it off......and said we promised to know the difference between boy and girl calves next time.

Ward has been digging out a small pond in our back pasture since it is practically dried up. He's taking the opportunity to make it a little bigger. If it ever rains again, it will be a nice addition. If not, it will be a dirt hole.

The donkey and baby donkey "Whiskas" have been hanging out in the pasture with the cattle. I think this arrangement suites everyone well. Whiskas is so friendly. She demands attention and rubs when you come out. She will chase you when you try to leave. We're hoping her mother Annette will let us pet her eventually...or at least take this harness off she has had on since we got her. You can tell by the picture that she is tempted to get in on the action.

Something has got 5 of our broilers chicks in their pen. It is a big mystery to me. It's not eating them or carrying them off, just killing them. And there is an electric fence around the pen. No signs of digging. Can't be an owl, what owl wouldn't eat them? We reinforced the pen with more chicken wire and no losses today. strange.

What the hay

I once worked with a gal in Seattle that said "sunshine makes me angry". I honestly thought that was the silliest thing I ever heard. Now...I'm not changing my mind, sunshine is still one of the best parts of life. But the drought and parched conditions....that could spoil my mood. Everything is dusty. My house, the vehicles, everything sitting outside, my eyes and even my sinuses. I daydream of smelling a rain shower coming and feeling the air cool with the moisture.

In the meantime....the crunchy pasture just isn't cutting it for the cattle. So we bought hay. The land should be providing a bounty of rich food for livestock and they should be putting on weight to get them through the winter. The fields should look lush instead of brown. Instead we're putting out money for feed and taking a whole day to move it. Now that could make a person angry.

On the bright side, when we pulled into the drive I told Ward I wanted to ride up on top to the barn. Brings back memories of being a kid and going on hayrides, especially with the church group. It was a great view, and a very fun 10 minutes!!!

Hot and Dry into July

We had a fabulous 4th of July with a visit to Elgin Texas for the parade (1/2 block long) and a BBQ later with our kids Melissa, Rob and of course.....Mr. Andy. Our friends Jennifer and Harry from slowfoodfarm.com came by. They dropped a few lady friends off for our bull Gunslinger. Everyone is getting along fabulous so far, and one evening Ward and I noticed GunSlinger had setup table with a white tablecloth, wine glasses and a nice candle. Hope it works out for him! We've started the cows on rotational grazing. The pasture is so poor from drought that they're not staying very long in one place. If we could just get a little more rain it would surely help.

We got another batch of broiler chicks in. We don't even have to put a light on them it's so hot!

Frank the LGD has been upping his work schedule. He sleeps with the chickens and spends all but about 4 hours of the day with them also. He's still a little small to actually guard, but he's inside the electric fence with them and so far hasn't harmed anyone accidently. Ward and I have also started tearing out drywall in one of the outbuildings that we are hoping to build out as a processing facility for the broilers. It's so stifling hot to work up there with protective clothing and masks...so the work has been slow.

We've finished our organic certification paperwork. What a challenge! If you like filling out 1000's of forms, please apply for USDA Organic Certification. The good news, the paperwork is complete, approved and has been sent to the regional office for an appointment with the inspector. The inspector will come out and take soil samples, feather samples and go through all the procedures we have set in place. Wish us luck!!!

A few laying hens have fell victim to a coyote attack several days in a row. Predators can't get inside the electric fence or close to the coop, but the hens fly over it and wander around as you can see in the picture. When I go to feed them they trail behind me. You should hear them all softly clucking at the same, yet with so many, the sound is so loud ward and I can't talk to each other. During the day, we don't have a problem. It is the early morning hour right before true sunrise that they are vulnerable. Predators from the night are still out, and the hens are anxious to get an early start on breakfast. So they wander into the woods, and far out into the pasture. Ward and I have camped out several early mornings to avert the attacks. We're trying to break the pattern, and of course we will take Wiley out if we see him. Actually...we did see him one day...but he was too close to the neighbors house to get a shot off.

Taking a little trip

You don't realize what it takes to go out of town until you have farm animals. Gone are the days when someone could come by and feed the dogs once a day. We think we're pretty scaled down right because we only have 3 outdoor dogs, 185 chickens, 10 cows, 1 bull, 4 calves, a donkey and her baby donkey. This is scaled down because the cows and donkeys are relatively low maintenance. They eat grass and their water tank has a float valve that keeps it filled whether we are there or not. But those hens....not only require food and water but you have to gather eggs. And you have to put the eggs up. And you have to keep records of egg counts, refrigerator temperature, inventory and of course clean equipment....in addition to making notes on the field, weather and other unusual conditions.

But you can get away if you have good neighbors. We waltzed on up to Oklahoma last weekend and attend my family reunion (GO AYERS!) The Gonazales' were there to feed the hens and pickup those eggs. Didn't make them do all the paperwork. Here's a picture of ONE of our refrigerators for eggs.

We also have some great customers. Right now besides individuals, we are supplying Green Gate Farms, Mother's Cafe in Austin, Brodie Mart and Sarah's Texas Pantry with eggs. Sarah's Texas Pantry is a great place to stop by if your in Hutto sometime. She has loads of Texas made items. Our personal favorite is the cheese dip. Yum! Her webpage is linked if you're interested in looking at the store. She has done a great job on establishing an inviting decor and is a great person to talk to about local, sustainability, etc. Stop in and check it out!

The Taylors on the Speaking Circuit

Ward and I were asked by Green Gate Farms in Austin to give a short little talk on our farm and chickens at their kids farm camp today. We sell our eggs through Green Gate Farms and they do some neat stuff out there....like this Farm Camp. They rang a bell to gather all the kids and they came running!! The very polite youngsters sat at the tables and listened and asked a lot of great questions. When we asked them questions...we were surprised how much they knew.

There was this one time....at Farm Camp....

Heat, heat and more heat

It's hot. This is coming from Jill the heat lover. I honestly think I need a break back to the mid 90's. Just for a little bit.

Well, we moved all the coops yesterday. We try to move them every month or so to let the hens try out some near areas. The coops have an electric netting around them to keep predators at bay. Frank sleeps in the pasture at night with the girls. He is penned and is really too young to protect anything, but we're hoping the barking keeps predators on their toes. Or paws. The hens can squeeze thru the electric netting and fly over it easily. So they are free to roam the pasture. This is why we still have bird losses here and there. Hopefully when Frank is old enough, he can roam the pasture and keep everyone safe. In the meantime, we've turned our donkey Annette and her baby Whiskas out in the pasture along with the cattle. They get along well, and Whiskas is enjoying the calves. I guess we're just throwing all we have out there hoping there will be so much activity predators will steer clear.

If you didn't notice, we finally got around to naming the baby donkey. She has whiskers on her chin, so it stood to reason that Whiskas was a good name. She is so tame, and lets us and anyone else give her full body rubs. She will even follow you after you finish and beg for more. Her mother is still fairly skittish.

We used our chicken processing equipment for the first time on June 13th. The picture on this blog shows the setup. It went fairly smooth as we tried to figure out the perfect scald routine and the plucker. Ward got a routine down quickly and we processed 23 birds in 2.5 hours. Not bad from field to freezer first time. Actually they are drained overnight in the refrigerator before we vacuum seal them for the freezer the next day. Our next batch of broilers comes June 29th. We are learning quickly that the hardest part is raising the birds in large numbers. Fortunately we have friends that are sharing their struggles, and they probably don't know how much we appreciate them imparting their knowledge and lessons learned to help us ease our way. We intend on having our facility ready and our grant of exemption to process for retail within a year. Wish us luck! we'll need it............

A Birthday Bash, New Calf and Lonesome Dove

Saturday was our grandson Andy's FIRST birthday party out at our farm.

The morning started off with a surprise, while gathering eggs I noticed our homely miniature hereford "Curly Sue" sitting under the tree with a calf. At first glance, I thought she was babysitting one of the others...but realized it was too wet and small. I called for Ward and after snapping several pictures it stood up and we discovered we had ANOTHER BULL calf! That makes us four of them now.

There were lots of our daughter's friends from Austin, along with several neighbors and locals. It was a fabulous time with BBQ hamburgers and hotdogs and refreshing beverages for the HOT afternoon.....a Pinata for the kids to swing away at, and great conversations. Andy was so dirty by the end of the day. It was hilarious, you can sure tell he had a great time.

Later in the early evening while just a few of us were left, a dove flew in and proceeded to land on our chairs, hands and heads. It was disarmingly friendly and after the last people left, we finally went into the house to get away from it. Surprising, it was still there the next morning. It landed on our heads and shoulders again, and tried repeatedly to get in the house by hitting the window on the side door. Eventually, one of the dogs and two cats were stalking it and we thought this story is not going to end well. But Melissa volunteered to take it home to Austin where her neighbor raises doves. With quick hands, Melissa caught the bird and we put in a box for the trip. Her neighbor gladly took the dove and said it probably a pet. Were did it come from? who knows....