"Small Time" Odds and Ends

Rooster continues to monitor the goings on at the farm.  It's an important, yet sometimes over looked job of the "Watch Doggie."

The phoebes have returned for another year of nesting.  They started building a nest above the front door, but I managed to put in place some "scary string" things which stopped all nest building.  Yeah!!!

A big investment in farming equipment was our little plow.

We are able to move the plow where we want it, turn it over to the blades, hook it to the back of the go buggy, and plow out little plots of corn or what ever.  It's a beast in terms of weight and the sharpness of the blades yet it gets right down to business.

We needed a rain catcher drum so we could have water for the small cattle/bull area.  We've had only a couple inches of rain since we installed it (attached the gutters from the barn) and it's full.  It'll take a while to empty the 1550 gallons it holds! 

Here it is attached to the trough.

This is a cattle feeder.  Hmm...

This is a mineral barrel.  Cows come by and lick the hard stuff inside and get whatever minerals they need.  Another hmm...

So what's going on?  All of this preparation for something...  Stay tuned...

Update And, By The Way, We Have A Tractor

I could show some more pictures of deer and raccoons, but you've seen all the "players" before.  We miss not having any cows to watch, but with each passing month, we are getting closer to having our own.  This spring we are working on trying to get grass for hay growing.  Last spring's sprigs basically had a tough time and less than half made it.  So we're going through the process (and expense) again.  We've sprayed for weeds, then we'll plow up the ground, resprig, and fertilize.  At that point, it's a game of dice with nature to get the right amount of rain, sun, and warmth.  Too much or too little of any one of those items means we will doing the same thing all over again next spring.  Due to rain and mud, the garden still is not in!!  We have a couple weeks and hope the ground dries a bit by then...

Tractor???

Yes, we finally have a tractor.  It's a compromise of what Peg wanted.  Her RED tractor would have cost 20-30 percent more and essentially been the same.  So we have "Big Blue" to help with all the present and future farm chores.  The good news is we know how to make it go forwards and backwards and raise and lower the bucket.  Honestly that's all we know.  The manual is an inch thick and does not cover any of the other things we got with it--shredder and bale spikes.  So we're doing a lot of studying and I'm afraid we're going to have to call in some "seasoned farmers" to help in this learning process.  We'll keep you posted...