Toad Tadpoles-Round three..

Posted on June 19, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Last nights update:

So:  Operation “Toads Worry – Be Happy” is underway, in its modified form.  The mud hole has two to four inches of water and will be dry tomorrow unless it rains (60% chance, they say – but the radar imagery shows no rain imminent).

No photos.  Batteries died again.  Definitely buying a charger and rechargeables on Wednesday.

1)  I dug further down in one of the adjacent pits, then dumped probably 20 gallons or so from it into the main hole.  The water was murky, and the tadpoles are all beached on the edge of the water for oxygen, so it may not have necessarily been in their best short-term interests.  Hopefully it settles overnight.  Good news is – the water in the pit readily replaced itself, so the water table is not that far down.

2)  I took the post-hole digger and punched five holes, about a foot down (until, of course, I hit debris), in areas that had been wet yesterday but were dry today.  They promptly flooded.  I used the shovel to cut channels to the main wet area.  This should, hopefully, provide refuges for those that hang out there.

3)  I set up a colony in a blue tote box – mud on the bottom, a few clods with plants that I excavated yesterday, and some loose greens.  Took about five gallons of water from the mudhole, then added another five of tap water that I reckoned was about the same temperature.  Used a sieve to scoop out around a hundred tadpoles from the main pond and put them in the tote.  Covered with an old gate, since one of the sheep thought I was making a water bucket.

4)  Set up a second colony in the unused horse trough (I know I said it was not recommended, but…).  Added a few plants and dirt.  Used remnant water from the water barrels and a bucket of tap water.  Moved around two hundred tadpoles to this spot.

5)  Filled up four of the big blue water bottles with tap water and set them out to warm up overnight.  Tomorrow, I expect I’ll be adding them to the two colonies and transferring more tadpoles into them from what’s left of the pond.

This mornings update:

Well, it only rained enough last night to dampen the ground.

Tadpoles in the horse trough seem alright.  Less activity in the tote box, though that may be because it’s harder to see through that water.

As suspected, the pond has basically been reduced to my post-holes, all of which are teeming with tadpoles.  Guess I’ll be down with a sieve again after breakfast

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My Laugh for the Day..

Posted on June 18, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

My mom can tell a good yarn, she is not a gossip but she believes in story telling and does a pretty good job even now and again as stand-up at different events over the years, and to be honest, she has passed on that ability to take something funny and just stretch it a little to make it into side splitting funny..  I had a hard time figuring out as a young child the different between a mom fact, and mom story.. thankfully as a teenager I finally “got it”

So when my mom made a nicely toned dramatic statement that she was breaking out of her “cell” today come heck or high water and that she demanded her “jailor aka farmgal” give her a day pass, I just started to laugh, and its been a running joke between us all day..

So given that she was released, I figured it was a good time to wash the bed, dust and vacoom, fluff the pillows etc.. You see the two guest bedrooms are just across from each other, with the second bathroom right next door, so with the doors open, mom just needs to speak at night and I can get up and give a helping hand, but she didn’t really think about the lack of view out the window etc

So here is her “Little Bedroom Jail”

And here is her day room 😉

And she says that if I don’t stopping being a smarty, she is going to send me to the corner to think about what it, just like this poor little tike LOL (just to be clear that is stuffy toy)

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Tadpole Rescue underway..

Posted on June 18, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Turns out that we are not going to have rain for at least a week and that our little “pond” is losing water at an alarming rate in the heat, and DH is quite worried about there being enough water for our tadpoles.. so on sunday he..

“Dug two pits adjacent to the mud hole.  Both have crap – wood and such – about a foot and a half down, so somebody must have gone to a lot of trouble to fill the area up at one point.  Anyway, got down about two feet in both cases and then the shovel would hit the water table and whoosh – up comes the water, to the level of the pond.

Only linked the pond to one of the new pits, and only at the very top, due to the high sediment load in the pits.  I’ll look at doing the other one tomorrow.  The alternative is that I draw water from it and pour it in, rather than connecting it.”

That was the first plan, but after a little research, he figured out that the new water pits don’t have anything growing in them for the tadpoles to eat, so giving them water but not food is a problem..

So this morning, he had a talk with Farmer T and there is now a official tadpole rescue taking place tonight with nets and buckets and our tadpoles are being moved over into her big pond so that they have as good of chance as becoming adult frogs as we can make it.. I have asked for photos of the rescue and move..

I just love having my closest neabour be someone who thinks its awesome that we want to save the tadpoles, and is willing to come over and give a helping hand catching them for re-release.. I really do like where I live..

We will need to see if we can make our little pond a bit deeper and bigger so that perhaps this won’t be a issue next year..

 

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Now you know I came out of that store with a few things on a wish list.. these were my top ones :)

Posted on June 18, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Posted in farm | 6 Comments

Father’s Day Rifle Shopping, lined up in rows with family in tow.. they had to take numbers for who was next :)

Posted on June 18, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Wow, was there some amazing rifles in there, I will start with the sales rows, I was so thrilled to see such great rows for the black powder folks..and then work us over into the Gallery..

Posted in photography | 2 Comments

For Monkey, a few photos of the Stuffed Critters..

Posted on June 18, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Posted in Life moves on daily | 6 Comments

Happy Father’s Day!

Posted on June 18, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

I let my dad pick out what he wanted to do with me on Father’s Day, and I will let the pictures tell the tale..

Posted in Life moves on daily | 7 Comments

Hundreds of them! Tadpoles…

Posted on June 17, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Posted in farm | 9 Comments

The Big Break out!

Posted on June 16, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Looking all happy and content on his farm does he not.. I am going to try and tell this story as it came together for me..

Morning Phone call from DH: FG- How was your night hon? DH- Bad, and I got woke up with a knock on the door at 6:15 am from Farmer T as our cows were grazing in her front yard.. OPPS!

DH: Once I got the halter on Girl, they lead fine and came back to the barn, I will figure out where they broke out and get on it and get back to you..

FG- Email- Hi hon, figure out how the cows broke out yet?

DH-Email- Cows got out of their night box stall because I forgot to put the chain on the gate, then they broke down the favorite spot and got into our garden, then following the tracks (mighty tracker my man is 🙂 they ambled along the edge of our front yard, and though the food forest, across the road and over to check out the woods and Farmer T’s front yard..

FG-Email.. O, that’s to bad, well the gate part is fairly easy to fix but what about the fence part..

DH- Hauled the huge full new rolls of sheep fencing and redid that part of the fence (it was done when we had sheep and worked lovely but really needed to be beefed (get it LOL) beefed up for the cows and it was the long list of things to do, and then he put up a three strand of barbwire on the inside, as well as finished off running the top barbwire strand around the big pasture for the cows..

FG- Did you get the cows out to graze today to see if it holds?

DH- No, I was going to put them out to graze but decided that it was rewarding their breakout, so they are in their stalls with hay and water (FG picturing, slow clanging of the metal dish with soulful music in the background as the cows calls out for their jailor to being them their stale bread and water…giggle, snort)

Thankfully, they didn’t go far, they are perfectly fine and Farmer T was cool, but its still not a nice way to wake up in the morning and its not something you want the cows learning to do. Dh is working on putting up new bigger stronger metal gates today that will also be cow proof instead of just sheep proof for the one area of the big pasture, we spent all that time last year making the small pasture ready for the cows but they end up spending just as much time in the big pasture or out on their tethers in the as yet unfenced area.

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A duck named Jack or now called Jackie?

Posted on June 16, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Got a very nice email from a stranger who is friends with a friend of mine, who was looking to place a single month old duckling, breed and sex unknown..hopefully I have the story right,  this little duck was hatched out a nursey an was the weak duckling of the ones that hatched, and so this lovely lady took “jack” home to see if she could raise up, and was now looking for a new home.

Dh picked it up the next day and informed me that given the straight tail feathers that the odds are very good that Jack, is in fact a little hen, so we moved her over to Jackie..

After the Shock of being put into lockdown in a big old rabbit hutch for 24 hours to make sure she was in good health (she was not really in shock, she eat and drank in a matter of minutes and figured out the bedding right fast etc) she got moved into the bigger ducking flock and they think she is bigger and therefor a momma and are following her around doing their qaucking best to win her over, on the other hand, she thinks that she is a human and a house duck and is still adjusting to becoming a outside with a house duck with other ducks.

I look forward to getting a photo or two this little duck and figuring out its breed and I am hopeful that Dh is right that its a hen, I can always use a good hen in the flock..

 

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