Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Grandkids on the Farm




This was just Too much!!! TOO cute!!! Mady-our youngest granddaughter(she'll be 2 in January), was out with me this afternoon feeding the calf with the help of her sister-4 year old Cayden. Cay Cay and I were busy holding the bottle, when Mady walks over and gets a finger full of calf slobber ( I'm SOO sorry;) !)-and before I could stop her-she put it right in her MOUTH!!! Never thought she'd do it again-BUT-before I could stop her-she did it AGAIN!!! Kids-you never know what they'll do next-or eat!!! And her mom was right there to almost catch it on camera!! Julie did get a picture of all 4 of us feeding Freckles.

Monday, October 27, 2008

Weekend

Had another pretty busy weekend around here. Friday was Mom's birthday-so we took her and Shorty-my step-dad-out to eat Chinese food. Saturday morning we had to go into Cleveland to the bank and then take a dozen eggs out to a guy Jeff works with-he has a hen setting and wanted to try to set some eggs under her. Then we headed into Coldspring to Mom's and cut and split firewood all afternoon.Took one truck load home-and still lots more to go! They wanted us to come back Sunday morning and go to Church with them-so we did. They were having dinner after the service and of course-Mom cooked for an army!! Jeff made some yeast rolls and I made a casserole. We had a great time and enjoyed the fellowship!! Afterwards we went to Wal-Mart and got some shopping done-getting a few things for Christmas everytime I go in!!! Got back later than usual-Everything here was bawling to be fed!!! They are used to being fed @ 5:00pm everyday-so if you're a little late-Boy they sure let you know!! All the animals here are SO spoiled!!!

Friday, October 24, 2008

Varmits Caught!!!




I know that I put the details at the bottom of this posting-BUT we caught 'em!!! I woke up yesterday morning around 3:00am to a noise around the bitties cage-I got Jeff up-and he went out with the 22. He shot 3 (!) coons-the 4th got away. (I apologize to critter lovers-but I can't have wild things eating my stuff!! ;( ) Then last night while we were out feeding-our son, Randy, says, "Mom-when did ya'll catch the possum?" Sure enough-there was one in the live trap Jeff had set on top of the shed to catch what we thought was coons getting the chickens. Boy, little did we know we had a coon and possum problem. Hopefully they've all been taken care of for now!!

Angel Trumpets




I just had to post the pictures of my Angel Trumpets-they look and smell so good this year. And this is the first time they have both bloomed at the same time.

Chicks And Bottle Calf




Well-better late than never!! The eggs in the incubator DID hatch!! We got 12 of 17-which I was very happy about-these eggs had been through ALOT!! They were layed during Hurricane Ike-then put in the incubator-and for some reason rolled around in there for the 21 days-the incubator somehow(?) got unplugged for at least 12 hours and did cool down to almost 70 degrees. But 12 did manage to hatch-although we did lose the last one :( ! We kept them in the house for a few nights-then outside they went into a cage with a light on them to keep them warm. And lo and behold-I get up the next morning to check on them-and 5 have been eaten through the cage wire!!! I was SOOOO upset!! We also had lost ANOTHER one of the older layers-so the war was on!!!! We set 2 different live traps in both locations and of course-never caught a thing nor did anyone else go missing-thank God! Then we went last Saturday to Tomball and picked up a bottle calf to feed out for the freezer next summer. I named him Freckles and the kids are having a ball feeding him. The picture shows Jeff-our daughter-in-law Kim( this is her first time to feed a calf ) and our oldest granddaughter-Hailey.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM!!!!!!

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Animals-#2

Here are the pics of our pigs-On the left are the 2 feeder pigs that will soon be made into sausage-and smoked right here in our smokehouse-YUMMY!!! Along with pork chops and sometimes we make bacon-Really GOOD stuff!! The ones on the right are our breeding stock-the sow is now bred and should have her litter around January 17th of next year. It takes 3 months, 3 weeks, and 3 days for gestation.
Here's what my little garden now looks like. We have eaten several cuttings of the lettuce and the brocolli's growingnicely. There are snow peas that will soon be big enough to start up the fence. I really need to get that grass out of there!!!

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Farm Animals

Momma Cow and "Baby"
Rainbow (Momma Cow's calf-Born 12/26/04) She's had 2 calves-A bull we put in the freezer and the heifer calf we lost this summer.
Momma Cow-She's the one Jeff can milk-She'll let me milk only if he's in the barn or if I have LOTS of really good feed!!!
These are the young pullets and rooster that I hatched in the incubator in March of this year.

Another view of the pullets and rooster.
These are my older layers-now I'm down to 5 and the rooster.
I forgot to take pictures of the rabbits-so I'll try to get them and the pigs uploaded later!

Peppers


I picked peppers AGAIN this morning! They just won't quit this year! So we now have 4 more pints put up.

Early Morning Visitor

The eggs we got today-the one on the right is from the pullets!

When the alarm went off this morning, Jeff said something was messing with the chickens! Sure enough, a coon had managed to make his(or her) way into our layer pen. He had lifted the edge of the tin on the roof up and climbed on in! He did get away(drats!), but not before killing one of my older hens. I didn't think I'd get any eggs from them today-but did get 2 so far!! Got 1 from the pullets.

Monday, October 6, 2008

Busy Week

And has it been one!! I have to get myself in gear and figure out how I got everything done while working!!! I subbed at the school four days last week and on Wednesday, Jeff had a Doc appt with a new Doc(the jury's still out on him). After that I went and started training at my second part-time job-just 3 hours. I have to work Wednesday and Thursday this week at at another office in the County. Jeff and I went out on our date night on Friday-ate Chinese food and went and bought groceries!! Saturday we went up to my Mom's and picked up our cows-all 3 of them :) ! They were at their place being bred-I hope!! We did lose 1 of the calves while they were there-no apparrant reason-she just layed down and died. So we are down to the 2 momma cows-1 of which Jeff can milk and her heifer calf. I'll get some photos taken asap. Saturday night we went and spent some time with our best friends and grilled some burgers over the fire. We rode the 4-wheeler and their Gator down to the river to see the c abin Alfred has built down there. It is just great-we can't wait for cooler weather so we can spent some time in it! Yesterday we went to Conroe to the Trade's Day event they have twice a year. Nomally they have people set up EVERYWHERE-but it was slim this year. I guess due to the storm. Mostly there were chickens-but no calves, horses-lots of goats, peacocks and doves. Jeff was really wanting to get some turkeys to put on the pasture-but there were only 2 toms-nearly grown and a few Very small chicks. We decided to go ahead and buy the toms, but they'd been sold when we got back around. Waited too long!! One more week of turning eggs in the incubator-we did have 1 rotten one that cracked-Boy did it stink!!! The pullets are teasing us-We might get 1 egg-One day last week we got 2-then none for the next 2 days!! I do have 2 aracaunas in there-so I'm really waiting on a green egg! We got 3 eggs from the old hens yesterday-so I guess their trying to catch the slack!! Maybe they know their soon headed for the stew pot??