Vaughnshire Farm

Stay tuned for more details on our great giveaway starting in September…

These are the famous super buffs.  For those who haven’t heard the story…this little boy nursed these two back to health with an eye dropper of water and lots of patience. 

Our 12 year old receives a magazine subscription to Backyard Poultry.  In it, he discovered a photo contest.  Soon after reading about the contest to his brothers and figuring out they could all enter it….they were off trying to catch their favorite chickens.  

They are optimistic evidently.  The 7 year old has asked me just about every day if we have received an email yet telling him he is the winner. 

Super Buff is quite a heavy bird. 

…. loosing balance!

Well now…. we regained control and have balance.  How long can you balance a chicken on your head?

We haven’t posted any pictures lately of our growing leghorns.  They are getting so big!  We were just talking the other day about the differences in the different breeds of chickens we have and different characteristics they exhibit.  We found a chart a while back that details these differences — temperament, size, egg laying abilities, personality etc.  The chart said that the leghorn breed was flighty—We have found that to be true! 

This would be my nice mixing bowl in the yard……

One of the girls stops to pose for a picture.  I am not sure how many leghorns we have…somewhere around 90 birds as we have lost a few.  AND…we ended up with a rooster…two roosters actually out of the bunch.  These hens will have the job of supplying eggs to a couple of local restaurants in town.  They will be laying big white eggs…which, we have found, is what restaurants ask for. 

Our 12 year old loves taking pictures of the farm.  He captured this picture one full moon night of a bunch of his leghorns camping out on the hog panel fence. 

The next big project will be building some sort of egg mobile for these hens.  Right now they are in smaller chicken tractors and running around the compost/garden area. 

We have an appointment this week to go look at a few hoop houses and green houses from a nursery that is closing down.  They boys can’t wait for that field trip as they are thinking they might be able to make a grand chicken home out of these.

It’s been a full, busy, tough week.  While we have had many victories we can rejoice in, this past Saturday we experienced a big loss here on our farm.  We lost our milk cow, Bonnie. 

A combination of her curiosity and determination, a left open barn door and a feed bag, ultimately caused her death.  While, in retrospect, we could kick ourselves for not having the feed more tightly secured and the barn door shut tight, we did learn a lot on Saturday.  Paul and the boys spent a large part of the day trying to save her from bloat.  They even resorted to sticking a water hose down her throat into the rumen to release the air.  I was so proud of my two boys for their hard work that day…even though it was hard.  All and all, the vet said that what happened was bloat leads to toxicity.  She died before we could treat her with antibiotic shots.

Loosing your milk cow isn’t quite like having a chicken die.  We have chickens come and go on a regular basis and although they are part of our farm like Bonnie was…there are so many of them running around here and they just all blend in the chicken flock the same. 

Bonnie was our first family milk cow.  She, in a lot of ways, threw our family immediately into living real farm life!  We learned soo much from her.  Bonnie gave us lots of fresh raw milk, cream and butter and for that we were so thankful.  She was a great big Guernsey with lots of personality and attitude to boot!  People have been asking us the question…”Well, are you going to get another milk cow?”  And, Yes…we will…eventually… and we want a big brown Guernsey….like Bonnie Blue was. 

Today we were quite busy.  We took a trip to the butcher shop to pick up our meat.  We took all the coolers and freezer bags we had and still needed more…so the children ended up packing some of the meat in plastic bags and putting it inside boxes.  We froze on the way home with the air conditioner on high!

Here the boys are unloading the roller rack and packing our hamburger patties.  We are very glad we opted to have 1/3 of our beef put into patties.  They came out very nice…and are sure to be a convenience for me cooking. 

They loaded the coolers on to a roller cart to take out to the trailer. 

Almost ready to go…It took quite a while to pack over 600 lbs of meat. 

A very proud 11 year old stands by the lamb meat he raised. 

 A very busy 2 year old pushing carts. 

After a big day, we finally get the last of the meat into the freezer.  We still have a lot of rearranging to do, but at least we have our own beef, pork and lamb stocked at home in our freezers!  And Wow..that is an amazing feeling to raise your own food!  Anyone wanna buy some meat?!!

Today is Friday, August 22, 2008.  Late morning, I noticed the thermometer said 79 degrees.  It is a beautiful day out.  We aren’t without water this year and we have green grass for the animals. 

Last year our thermometer said 110 degrees.  It is good to remember and give thanks. 

It seems like the weeks are passing even faster now.  We almost have a 3 month old who is still well shaping our world here…  Last week, he caught sight of his first chicken and followed it intently as it pecked its way across the yard.  That was exciting for us for some reason.  I guess it was something “farm like” that our 11 week old (at the time) was doing–watching a chicken.  He’s well on his way to being a great farm hand!

His personality keeps us intrigued and we are enjoying lots more smiles and laughs and fewer screaming responses.  That makes me happy!  Right now, he looks around at everything going on.  He especially likes watching his siblings and gets all happy and excited when they are bouncing around near him.  Makes him wanna get up and go — which in turn causes frustration for him because he can’t make his body just get up and go like they can…or do all the neat things they do…like sit up.   

Our first carrots…

We have never been successful at growing carrots….however, we were able to finally grow a few carrots this year.  Next year we will plant a lot more! 

Comparing tomatoes— one of the boys took some pictures of the tomatoes we had from our Beaverdam Creek veggie basket. 

It happened again.  Another snake caught stealing our eggs…

…..only upon further examination, the boys figured out that the snake didn’t eat a chicken egg….but had in fact swallowed the golf ball that was in the chicken laying box.  Chicken eggs crack when squeezed….and golf balls don’t!

Since I married a man who likes non-poisonous snakes and in return has sympathetic boys, we couldn’t just let the snake die.  That was my idea.  They decided to squeeze the golf ball back out of the snake so it wouldn’t die.  One of the most disgusting, I-can’t-believe-I-was-suckered-into-taking-these-pictures moments of my life. 

It was dark outside, so the boys are holding flashlights while dad squeezes the golf ball up the snake. 

The boys said it was one of the coolest things they have ever seen.  The topic of conversation over supper was…yes…all the snake encounters they have had since moving to the farm. 

At this point, I am saying…”It is going to bite you…I know it is….”  I was assured that it wouldn’t bite—it had a large golf ball stuck in its throat. 

A close up shot. 

Finally, getting it out of its mouth.

A close up shot of the ball coming out of the snakes mouth.  So gross.

Loud accolades of “WOW…that was so Cool!” and examination of the slimy, stinky, swallowed golf ball. 

Wow…That was amazing.  Amazing for the guys that is…  And no, they didn’t kill the snake.  They took it across the road so it could find its way to the creek.  I was reminded that these are “good snakes” that eat the bad snakes.  Somehow knowing that is supposed to make me happy.