Homemade Breakfast

Lisa made sausage out of the plain ground pork we got from the pig.

 Pork and spices in their respective bowls.

 These are the spices, the quantities of which are a closely guarded secret. There is also a secret ingredient that added to the wonderful flavor.

 Spice combination rate, mixing time, pressure applied by fingers and degree of sausage squishiness are all closely guarded secrets.

 Sausage patties!

 Almost there.

  Fresh eggs from our chickens, homemade bread for toast and sausage from Nelson's farm. It couldn't be more of a country breakfast if it tried.

 It was warm yesterday so the girls got baths. Satin was hoping I had come to rescue her.

 Piper and Luna had their baths. Paige is the only one that missed out on bath day. She's big and has bigger hair so she takes longer than the others.

 I got the DVD player hooked up. Our old one broke several years ago and we never replaced it. We only have four or five DVDs and no bluerays. This has a nice FM tuner and plays CDs and has surround sound. We were watching Michael Flatley for St. Patrick's Day.

 It got cold out and rained all day. I got to wear the awesome scarf that Katie made.

Ram Fights

These are the fence "plugs". I posted a picture of me cutting them from a cattle panel a few days ago.

 The bottom of the fence is high here and it's loose enough that a predator might push under.

 The ends poke down into the ground as far as we can get them.

 Lisa then wires the tops to the fence. Ally  is a curious and busy little lamb.

 Darryl brought the hens over to see what we were up to.

 Some of the gaps around the rock formations were too big for a standard plug. Plus, there is no way to poke the ends into the ground over there. We picked up loose rocks and stacked them in the gaps. Ally stuck her head through the fence for kisses.

  The other three lambs aren't as pushy as Ally. From left to right the lambs are Penny, Connie and Darcy.

 We finished by surveying the rest of the fence for gaps. I made two more plugs today.

 We're worried about Speedy again. He is acting weird toward Duane. It started a couple of weeks ago and usually only in the early evening hours. The ram has an important job to do and we don't want the llama to block him.

The Pigs Came Home

Pearl and Bacon have come home from Flemingsburg. The boxes toward the back are ours, the others are Andy's. The blue packages are plain sausage. Lisa picked up Nelson's while she was there, he got a whole pig. We still have some ham and bacon  that hasn't finished curing yet. We're having pork chops for dinner tonight.

Big Hay

We found some round bales on craigslist. They were in the Avon area near the Army Depot.

 He called them 5x5 rolls but they were closer to 6' diameter and 5' length. We thought we would need three of them until we saw how big they were. This should get us through until the grass starts growing.

 We got them here. You can see them stacked by the corn crib.
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 We came home by way of Briar Hill road through Clintonville.

 We didn't think we could get them off so I called Nelson. He came over with his loader to help us out. He's a good neighbor.

 Speedy wanted a kiss.

Relocation Project

It was time. We usually don't move them this soon but there is a lot of them this year.

 The Barred Rocks are getting big and have abundant wing feathers. The one on the right is a new Rhode Island Red, she has white wings.

 A lot of chickens for a small tub.

 Piper was enthusiastic about the move.

 This chick doesn't like a crowd. It jumped out once before after which the lid was added. Piper tried to herd it back into the clump but it wouldn't jump back in.


 All in.

 We added a piece of plywood on the side and on top to help hold the heat in. It is supposed to get cold this week again.

 I cut up some more cattle panels to block the gaps in the fence.

 We put them in spots where predators might gain entrance to the sheep pastures.

 Lisa was adding stuff to the burn pile and found this hole.

 I think it's a gopher hole. Gophers are bad when you raise hooved creatures.

Chick Day Part Two

We had hundreds of questions about the chicks so I decided to do a follow up post. I'll try to answer some of the questions most frequently asked.

They were in the box from the store in the earlier post, now they are in the old sheep water tank. Lisa washed it and it's in the front bedroom with the heat lamp until they get big enough to go outside.

The ten dark ones are Anne's, she'll pick them up when she comes up to visit in the spring.

They do have an aroma which is not entirely pleasant.

The smell of chick poo will have dissipated by the time anyone comes to stay in the guest room.

Piper and Luna are the only two dogs that pay the chicks much attention. We think Piper would like to herd them and Luna wants to carry them off and put them with her pile of toys.

The sound they make is peep peep, not cheap cheap.

They do not taste like the little marshmallow Easter candies which they closely resemble.

Hi Bill.

Chick Days

It feels like spring when the baby chickens come in at the feed stores. Even though it's in the low thirties with sleet and snow outside, we know spring is just around the corner.

 The dark ones are Anne's Barred Plymouth Rock hens.

 The yellowish ones are our White Leghorns.The little ones are the bantams. No telling what breed or gender they are.

 The bantams lay a small egg but they are larger in proportion to their body size than the bigger hens.

 Anne likes the rocks.