Soft Weather

We have kind of dry weather lately but we are starting to get the rain, heavy dews, and morning valley fog that we normally get at this time of year. After the middle of September it gets very hard to make dry hay in our area because the morning dew doesn't burn off until after noon and it starts getting damp again by the middle of the afternoon, which doesn't leave much time for drying. We generally just make the first cutting of hay and graze everything else.

Turkey Horror Flick

Farm Store Construction Update

Knocking out the footers
Digging post holes

Drake and I began work on the store this weekend. I began getting things ready for Saturday a couple of days earlier by breaking holes through the cinder block walls and jackhammering out the "footers" (they actually only went a foot into the ground) where the posts were to go. It felt a little like a high stakes game of "Don't Break the Ice" but Drake assured me that it wasn't as perilous as it seemed. Then I ended up renting a little mini excavator to dig out the post holes, and ended up having enough time to dig the water line for the new poultry processing room (the doom room). Unfortunately the best route to a water source ran under the porch, so I ended up tearing up a porch floor I didn't feel like replacing just yet. These jobs seem to give birth to other jobs.

We worked on replacing the crumbling cinder block wall with 6x6 posts on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday we were lucky to have friend Bill to help out (he was avoiding more mundane jobs at home), and by Sunday afternoon we had replaced one wall with 4 posts.

See next post for more pictures.

Farm Store Construction Update Continued

Waterline to the house
Drake working in OSHA approved front end loader bucket
Sunday evening

Clodhoppers in Paradise

Goose Bay at Sunrise
The Clodhoppers
The Skippers Krill


Our good friends Dave and Luke Krill (both eligible bachelors by the way) recently bought a property in Goose Bay, NY, which is right in the Thousand Islands. Then they figured they might as well have a motor boat to go along with it. Last weekend we went up with them and had a great time. Of course it is not that easy to just leave farm with livestock, but we are lucky because we have a guy like Seamus who can do chores, and good neighbors who can check to make sure I plugged a freezer back in when I realized halfway up there that I might not have, and chase pigs and turn electric fences on for me when I leave home without doing it.

So when we got up to Goose Bay Dave took us out in the boat, we dropped achor and went for a swim. I got a chance to try to perfect my back flip off of the boat. The next day we went over to Mary Island. The kids went fishing and then we swam for a while. On this island there is a couple of good places to jump into the water from. One of them is about 6 feet above the water and the other is about 20. Jumping off of a 20 foot cliff is pretty thrilling. Luke, Dave and I did it twice. That night we went into Alexandria Bay for pizza and ice cream, and to gawk at the $100,000+ boats. Then on Sunday we did some fishing off of the boat, and I got to drive the boat and see what she would do. I managed not to run it aground like Dave had the week before. It is a really nice spot up there, and I hope we can get up there at least once a year. Not in January though.

Featherhead is dead. Long live Featherhead

Featherhead arrived here last summer on his way to the killing cone. Seamus got him as his free (throw away) chick from Murray McMurray. Our oldest daughter Isabel took a liking to him so Seamus gave him to her. That's when his name changed from Wayne Newton to Featherhead. Featherhead had a hard time adjusting to his new surroundings and eventually took comfort in the company of turkeys. After Thanksgiving he managed to make friends with a few hens, and everything was going great for him.

Then this summer he started falling off of stuff, and having these little fits. A couple of weeks ago I found him laying on his back with his feet in the air, all but dead. So I helped him out with the transition and buried him in the compost pile. About an hour later I found a hen on a newly hatched clutch of eggs, which almost never happens around here because we collect the eggs religiously. A couple of these chicks are unmistakably Featherheads' progeny.