Just another Day on the Farm

This photos is a great example at just how hard it is to get a good still photo of a horse in motion.. so if you want to see Brandy in Motion, here is a great video of her reacting to the horses and riders going by her pasture..

She sure can move when she wants to and I love the sounds of her hoofs hitting the ground, you can just hear them in the video but in real life if the windows are open, I can hear her coming from all around the farm..

Well, its warm out, and we even had blue sky on one side of us, lots of wind and we had no rain over night or most of the early morning, the rain just hit us in the last ten min but it does not look like it will last at all.

Our Preps have held so far and everyone is good, just a few down branches, lots and lots of corn bits/leaves everywhere from the fields around us, I will see what I can do about getting a photo of it, as its been caught and filled at least the bottom 3rd or more of my fence lines, its kinda pretty in a way..

The critters are all fine so far, but Brandy is a big suck, she wanted extra cuddles and time this morning, we seem to have a ring of power outs around us in, but so far we still have power.. so how did you make the night?

So we are a fairly prepared on the farm for most things within reason, so how is it that no matter how prepared you think you are, on the day, you still find things that you wish you had or need, today we found out that despite having buckets of different nails, sizes, heads, screws etc, we didn’t have sheet metal wide head ones, so when it came time to put a few extra’s into the big barn, we were out, thankfully Dh had driven in today, as we wanted to top up the tank, it was 3/4th full but would raither head into this with a full tank and fresh cans of gas.

So what was the one thing that you figured out today that you didn’t have? or where you able to do all your prepwork without finding a single “darn” moment..  Where is you gas tank at right now.. full, with extra or ??

Here I was all busy today, cooking, cleaning, prepping, doing all the outside chores so that when DH got home, he could do a few extra’s that we wanted to do for “just in case” and somehow I forgot Tooties! Thankfully DH remembered her and asked if we were leaving her in her pen with her blue barrel shelter, and while I did her chores today,I just didn’t think of the wind/storm, so needless to say, we bribed her with food into a large crate and moved her into the extra shelter in the barn for safety, if the wind had damaged her pen, she could have got out and could have gotten lost in the storm.

I am so grateful that Dh will be working from home tomorrow, as I have no issues with him putting in the time but I am happy to have him home, instead of the commute to work and back! I also was proactive and changed a health appointment, and moved it from tomorrow to a later day, because it makes no sense to have DH home an then put me on the road on what is to be the worst day.

We have had power flicker on and off a couple times now, so I have turned off things, unplugged everything that can be, double checked the surge protectors, and plan on kicking my Dh’s rear in a good game of Zombies later this evening 🙂

So are you ready for this? If and when the storm has made it your way, and you have your power on or can find time over the next couple days, pop in and let me know that you made it though the storms, please an thanks.

If this works out well, and I end up doing larger amounts then I will break it down and most likely work out a page for it, but for now, this is proving to involve some work and I thought I would share the process with you..

So I wanted to pre-soak or pre-sprout the seeds before traying them, this is super simple, measure out the amount of pds you want, a quart jar is pretty much a pd of seed, and dump into a clean (I gave it a little pre-soak/switch of bleach water in a five gallon bucket) as it is said to help with possable mold issues, and then I filled up to twice the level of the grains and left it for a while I went and did some chores, then I poured off the top half the water/chaf/bits etc and refilled it with fresh water till the bucket was 3/4th full and moved it into a warm corner of the house, that night, I drained it and filled again with fresh water, letting it soak for a total of around a day, then drained for an hour or so, and into the trays.

Now most folks are going out and buying the thick black pastic seed trays and I think thats a great idea but they need to be the heavy duty ones and I just happened to have a idea on these, you see I am going to need to sprout these in my cellar, for a couple reason, cement floor, easy place to set up the stands to hold the trays, even warmth, not hot or cold, access to water and one of the few places that with no critter access.

Do you remember when I got that huge pile of wire trays at that amazing sale this spring, those heavy duty trays are just begging to made into sprouting tray’s, just some heavy duty garden pastic with holes for drainage added and bing, bang boom, awesome reusable and darn near none breakable sprouting trays, because the shelves also have draining, I can water the top trays and have it drip/filter down to the bottom trays, I will add them to the daily chores and hopefully I won’t have to move to a pump system but will if I need to.

Each tray at the correct level of grains holds 2 pds of grains, which should ideally end up being a “bisquit”- why do they call it this? of 12 to 16 pds of fresh fodder

So we will see if it works as I hope.. now to figure out the amounts for each day.. so Miss Piggy measures out at around four hundred pds, that means she needs 1 percent of her body weight in fodder but she is milking so that raises it to 2% so eight pds per day, and the wee ones are currently 10 pds this week, again because they are growing, they are listed at the 2% rate, so .2 percent of a pd per piglet, that would mean 1 pd per five piglets, and I think I would like to aim for .3% and will need to continue to raise it per week as they grow..

So that means for them I need 10 to 11 pds per day of green sprouts, so that means if I get a proper sprout rate, 2 pds of barley per day..

Brandy in some ways is easier to figure out as she is not expecting, growing or milking.. Because I don’t want to short her, she came in at around 1300 to 1350, and so for the sake of feeding her, I am going to move her to a flat 1400 pds..  so she needs 14 pds of fodder per day, so 2.4 pds of starting barley, or basicly one properly done tray..

Girl is measuring in at 1200 pds but she is expecting and then will be milking so she needs twices as much..  will end up with two stands five high, two trays on each level if this works out well..

Worried about the storm, getting the farm and all the critters lined up and our ducks in a row as they say..

Typically the animal I would worry about the least would be our farm cats, we have a huge barn with cat enter and exit area’s, we have a cat door into our smaller barn as well, and we tend to farm sale shop or curb shop at least once a year for older but comfy chairs, couches or futon mattress’s that are put out in the buildings for the cats to sleep on, then come spring clean up time, we throw them out and get them a new one.. (mainly because they mark them and use them as a scratch post.

I also shop at a place that lets you take your stuff in box’s and I pick up a number of them in the late summer/fall, tape them shut on the top and bottom god bless duct tape, cut cat doors and stuff them with fresh clean straw, we have a infar heater that when it gets cold that we hang over top the big couch or chair, but not all the cats like to sleep together, and so I also make winter “nest” box’s, given how happy and excited they are to see them, they must like them, and they tucked away in different sheltered spots to give the “shadow -Read Stray or drop off cats” that have found a home on the farm over the years..

I have as big of a heated outdoor dog water dish as I can buy that I keep full of water for the winter cats to drink but its a regular sight to see a few of them hanging around and waiting while I put out fresh water for the livestock and to see them balanced on the edge having a drink of the warm water. They also have huge free feeders that you just need to fill up once or twice a week that allows them all to come and go at will..

Now that’s just the outside cats, the house cats are both indoor and outdoor cats, but come winter, they are alot more indoor then out.. having said that, the worst thing about having farm cats is when one goes missing.

She is called PurrPatches, cuz she is a sweetheart that loves to purr and kneed on you, and patches cause she is a pretty Black Calico with big old orange patches and a white bib and feet.. she likes her deck time but never had gone far before, but she has been MIA since saturday..  Now if it was one of my outdoor “shadow” cats I would not be worried in the least to be honest, but she is a come in the house to sleep every night cat, and we have been over the house, the barns, the yards, and even walked the road up and down looking for her.. its fall, the cover is not that good anymore, and nothing..

So send a prayer out for her if you are willing and do prayers.. we would very much like her to come home safely to us if she could, please and thanks.

So my wee little turtle seemed to be doing fine, I now have three very good turtle books, and have what a I believe to be a good set up for her tank, resting area’s and I have started giving her safe walks a couple times a week, she is active, bright, swimming well and looks great sunbathing on her floating pad..

Only one big issue, I have not yet been able to see her eat.. I am still picking and offering fresh greens from the yard, including ones I knew she liked in her tank, I have offered her little bits of fruit, I have offered her three different turtle foods, some for young ones, some for regular and some freeze dried, and today I offered her a fresh worm..

Now she has to be eating, or I just don’t think that she would be this healthy looking, bright clean eyes, healthy skin, she truly looks wonderful but its driving me just a touch crazy that I have no “seen” her eat since she came in the house, I have tried the move her into her feeding pan, put the food, leave for an hour.. I have seen nothing, so I do finally give in and put different plant/food in her tank, between me cleaning it, and a very good filter system, the water looks great.

I can honestly say at this point, a) I am thinking about getting some feeder fish that the books recommend for her tank b) I will be jumping for joy, when if finally happens..

So if anyone brought or has or had turtles, did you see them eat or not?