Ulog #4 – Catching Up

Hot Summer Day!

It feels like forever since I’ve made a post, and it has been! August 27th to be precise. Between the heat and prepping for the Poultry Processing Day on September 2nd, I have been too exhausted to do much more than upvote and the occasional comment. I’ve got an enormous backlog of photos also!

We are still experiencing the unusually high temperatures for days at a time here in Western Mass. The lucky thing was that we were given 2 small AC units the day before we had to return the big one, one we had stolen from the cold room, back to it. We had to use the cold room for the processing day.

The small one struggles to cool the house and there’s no dehydrating that can be done, unlike with the big one. But it provides some relief from the unending heat.

On August 29th, the first day of cleaning at the barn, I saw I finally had a sunflower open. I had started 13 of them, but the chipmunks ate all but 5 in the cold frame. I planted the remainder and put some seeds in. The chipmunks ate the sprouting plants. But the 5 survived.

Over the next 3 days another one opened and a 3rd started to. So I finally have sunflowers.

These wicked hot days I chop some of the cukes that got too old and put them in a giant Tupperware bowl and fill it full of water and freeze it. This goes to the layers in their coop to keep them occupied and to provide extra cool water for them. They have been laying wonderfully through all this heat, around 65% ROL, all summer. I think this extra goodie for them has helped maintain that.

This was taken on the 27th. The New Herb garden has gone wild this summer. I have not been able to water during this last heat wave, and many plants are struggling now. Today I have started watering the veg gardens. We haven’t had rain in quite while, I can’t remember when. Over the next few days I will try to get all the gardens watered, and hopefully things will survive.

The Back 40

I was gifted a designated photographer for the Poultry Processing Day as I never find time or energy to do it. The Back 40 and Mown parking area are her work. This was not a real hot day, only got to mid 80’s by mid afternoon.

The mown parking area, turnouts, and middle pasture

Before moving the pasture pen

One of the things we’d not been able to do in the heat this summer is keep up with the mowing and trim work. We finally got to it. My husband also had to mow a swath of the middle pasture because the cows are over on the 10 acre piece and won’t be back on our farm for a month. The grass was hip high and we hated to do it. But the broilers’ pen had to be moved there, so….

The first pass with the weedwacker and bush hog, as the grass was too high for the mower.

Before my son was home and finished the weedwacking around the layers’ and pigs’ areas.

My husband waiting for me to stop fooling around with the camera. We’ve taken down the circus tent and the pen and moved them to the new spot. Now we take the equipment out of the coop and push the coop to the new spot.

The pasture pen in the new spot. Lots of happy birds chasing bugs.

Our pen moving supervisors

It’s a hard job, but someone has to do it. A cool morning so they were out “working hard” as we moved the pen.

My husband named this bird “Stupid Bird” when she first started getting out of the layers’ pen weeks ago. But it turns out she’s not so stupid, but the name has stuck. She’s an Omega bird and getting out is how she escapes the low end of the pecking order.

We’ve seen the fox around the barn off and on, the last time about 5 days ago. She’s managed to survive all this time. This bird gets out most days, lays her egg next to the cat food bowl on top of the feed bin, and supervises all goings on at the barn.

She had a grand time supervising the prep work for the poultry processing, and running around all during it, keeping everyone in line.

So this is one of about 5 posts I need to write, updating what’s been happening on the homestead for the last 2 weeks.

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