Vaughnshire Farm

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 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.   

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. 

I can always tell when there is something up in the barn yard when the boys come in the house with this certain “look” and rocket speed scrambling to find dad.  They don’t tell me because usually that type of news upsets me….and they know that from experience.  They just head for dad. 

One morning recently, our 7 year old runs in the house in a frantic bee line to get to daddy.  He had something important to tell him.  He and his big brother had been in the barn collecting eggs when they noticed that their prized hen named “Fluffy Feet” was not sitting on her nest and making a stink about something.  She is the broody hen that hatched out several chicks a while back.  Well, she is sitting on more eggs.  The boys picked her up to put her back on her nest and there to meet them was a very large black snake curled up in the chicken nesting box.  Yikes…This is why I don’t collect eggs or stay in the barn very long.

So after the 7 year old gets out all the exciting news to daddy, he and daddy go running off to the barn.  Daddy comes back to the house to show the rest of us the big snake he caught.  We could tell the snake had eaten 3 eggs, not only because the boys knew how many eggs were missing, but also because you could see them bulging out of the snake’s belly. 

…and no, he didn’t kill it! 

Update:  Fluffy Feet hatched out 6 new baby chicks this morning!  I guess we didn’t down size for long…

Update 2:  Fluffy Feet has 2 more baby chicks….  grand total is now 8 new chicks.

Since moving to the farm, we have had a crash course with the concept of food going from the field to table…family style.  I will be the first to admit that at first it was at first very strange concept.  We, like the majority of Americans, were completely disconnected from knowing where our food came from.  However, lately we have had plenty of opportunities to get use to the age old idea of family food production. 

Yesterday, we took our steer to the butcher.  He weighed in at 1,080 lbs!  I was surprised he weighed so much!  We also loaded up a pig weighing in at 205 and two lambs that each weighed 50 lbs.  Had we of known the lambs were only 50 lbs, we probably would have waited a little while before processing them.  

We were concerned about loading up the animals on the trailer.  Our last experience with loading up an animal to take to the butcher was traumatic.  Traumatic only because the pig would not hop up in the trailer like we were expecting him to. Only after lots of dragging, pushing and ear deafening pig squealing, was the 300 lb pig finally in the trailer. That day we found out that they don’t just hop up in the trailer when you want them too. 

However, we learned a few things from last time.  First, don’t feed them before you load them up.  You will want them hungry so they come to the feed you lure them in with.  Second, park the trailer in the field the night before and put a feeding trough in it.  They will want to check it out. 

The guys put a feeding trough and feed in the trailer the day before.  They left the trailer open and in the field over night.  The next morning our 12 year old went out to the trailer and put some more feed in the trough.  He then ran up the hill to go find the cows and bring them down.  When he arrived back at the trailer, to our great astonishment, the pig was waiting for him.  He was lounging in the feed trough inside the trailer.  WOW, that was easy!  Our steer wasn’t as easy, but compared to what we were expecting… 

Now we were ready to head off to the butcher.  We had about an hour and a half truck ride with 8 children and a trailer full of animals.  We arrived at the Yoder’s butcher shop and went inside to fill out our order.  They hand you a sheet of paper for each animal you bring in and ask you how you would like him.  Roasts or Steaks, thick or thin, tenderized or not, medium or hot sausage etc. etc. etc.  After we filled out our orders, it was time to drive around back and unload.

The boys help unload. 

Here they try to coax the cow off the trailer and into the weighing station. 

Little ones look on with great interest. 

Still trying to coax the cow…only this time out of the weighing station.  I became a bit concerned when the executioner began to yell at the cow, “HOOO, YHAWW, I don’t have all day cow!” 

Maybe I should get the children back in the truck??

The Yoder’s butcher shop is quite large.  The children look on at the work taking place.  Our 3 year old asked, “Is this the place where they take the cows apart?” 

It was a great field trip…that is…for those who enjoy loading and unloading messy animals and watching people cut up meat.   We will return in about 3 weeks to pick up our meat. 

The children harvested some of their corn today. 

 It was a very exciting site to watch.  The older ones picked and the younger ones shucked. 

I explained the art of shucking.  The 3 year old was the most intent.  She kept saying, “..but his corn hairs keep touching me…”

Corn shucking proved to be an excellent attention keeper for those 5 years old and under.

Never mind cooking…she ate a cob before we got it in the house…and took a few bites out of some other cobs. 

I don’t know about all boys, but our boys are attracted to mud like bees to honey…. or flies to fly tape… or chickens to clean porches…

Our very large mud puddle ( soon to be my beautiful garden pond one year)  is a favorite stomping ground for two highly energetic boys.  Here I find them yelling at one another, “Clean as a baby!” and then whack…a hand full of mud is hurled through the air…then a chorus of laughter…and the game repeats itself for an hour.  Who needs outside toys with a mud puddle like this! 

…for a young entrepreneur

It is a blessed sight to see a young man be about the business of men instead of being idle.  The problem with having boys pursuing the work of starting up businesses is that it ultimately affects me in ways that my flesh would rather not be affected by. 

This morning, I attempted to finish up my growing pile of laundry all the while working around a big box of chirping birds at my feet.  That’s the box of 104 new baby chicks that arrived early this morning!  That’s 104 more birds to add to the other menagerie of birds wandering around in the yard.  That’s a 104 more birds that weren’t my idea!

The boys had been in and out of the house finishing up the last minute details on the chicken brooder before the noisy birds could be taken out to the barn.  Inconvenience yes…but more than that is the picture I see out the back door…that of the ever increasing myriad of animals roaming the back yard, the bright orange construction fence they put up around one of the chicken pens, the pile of wood they insist is important building material, their Thanksgiving turkeys that shower poop all over the girl’s playhouse on a daily basis and … well, must I go on?  I go back into the house and shut the door and pretend I just came in from a stroll in my beautiful southern garden.  I am a very exact, like-every-book-strait-and-my-cans-in-the-pantry-alphabetized type of obsessive person.  I can’t figure out why God gave me that type of personality and then decided to bless me with 5 boys!  He knew I needed to grow up, learn the meaning of patience and self-sacrifice and have layers of selfishness knocked off; so He blessed me with children!

The point is that having boys pursuing entrepreneurial endeavors and learning how to be about the business of men is messy!  I have to reevaluate my expectations of a perfectly manicured lawn (HA!) and a reasonable amount of laundry and come to grips with the fact that these things just aren’t to be at this season in my life.  After all, things are messy in a construction zone.  It isn’t until after considerable time, effort, dust and hard work refining, building and creating that the construction zone, one day, turns into a beautiful work of art. 

If you could have know how farm illiterate/challenged we were just a few years ago, you might appreciate some of the farm stories all the more.  I remember driving by a neighbor’s farm not long after we had moved from out of the city and looking at all their “goats” in the field.  We had been looking for some goats to clear some brush and they seemed to have an abundance of them.  Maybe they would sell us a couple of them?  So we pulled over and asked the elderly gentleman about his “goats”. 

He starred at us a while, looked back over at his “herd” and looked back at us and said, “Well, Dem ain’t goats, Dem are sheep!” 

Minor mistake.

Back then, telling sheep and goats apart proved to be a challenge for us.   Did you know there was such a thing as hair sheep–they don’t look like the typical woolly sheep.  

My, how far we have come! 

A couple of weeks ago, our 5 year old comes running in the house after being outside for a while working with the big guys.  He mainly observes and hangs around the boys when they are working.  He still gets distracted with honeysuckle, ant piles and lizards. 

So I asked him what he was up to and he says, “Well, I was just watching daddy and the boys cut up one of the rams and put cheerios on the other ram.” 

Hmmm….I had no idea what he was talking about. 

After some more inquiry and vague 5 year old answers, I found out that daddy and the boys were castrating the baby rams…and he had been watching them.  They decided to do the old fashion cut on one of them, like last year’s pig and use the handy dandy elastrator banding tool (using cheerio looking rubber bands) on the other one. 

You know…just a regular day in the life of a farm boy.