Well, we knew this would happen sooner or later. Blind Madison came across Dexter's sideways basket bed and found it very much to her liking. So she settled in for a long nap, leaving you-know-who to stare at the bed thief and wonder when he was going to get it back.
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June 28, 2012
June 26, 2012
Potatoes
In case you're wondering what we're doing with the rest of our spare time, here's an example: one of our potato patches. I took this photo on Sunday afternoon, after I had finished "hilling" the potatoes ... drawing up the soil around the base of the plants as they grow.
I planted this crop over Memorial Day weekend, when Alayne and I had spent all three days of that long weekend preparing seed beds and planting, planting and planting -- over 1,000 feet of potatoes, 144 winter squash, 422 beans, 44 zucchinis, hundreds of carrots, and hundreds of corn seeds. Then, late on Memorial Day night, we had torrential downpours from a severe series of thunderstorms, and we lay in bed wondering if three days worth of work was going to be washed away. The heavy rain kept coming for 24 hours. When it was over, we had lost half the corn, about half the bean crop, and nearly all the zucchinis.
But then we had to see if anything that hadn't been washed away would actually still come up. The weather turned cool and wet for ten days, making it even worse. We nervously waited to find out if the seeds would survive the waterlogged soil and finally sprout.
Amazingly, most did -- starting with the potatoes. When I saw the first green potato shoots poking up through the soil several days later, I was elated. We're experimenting with different varieties to see which work best for this particular farm. Of the potatoes, we planted the following varieties: Green Mountain (the first to come up), Elba, Salem, Katahdin, Kennebec, Red Pontiac, Sangre, German Butterball and Yukon Gold. The common theme here is actually storage -- these are varieties that are "good keepers" and store well over long periods. We have a root cellar to keep them in over the winter.
We ordered the seed potatoes from two sources in Maine -- Fedco (Moose Tubers) and the Maine Potato Lady. (Yes, we know about Johnny's and High Mowing Seeds and all the others, too.)
Even now, we're not done planting. Alayne just finished another round (green beans, zukes, etc.) on Sunday while I was hilling the potatoes and mulching the winter squash. And, of course, more heavy rain arrived yesterday and will pretty much continue through most of this week. After the Memorial Day storm I went to work on adding yet more drainage (we had already done a lot last year) -- ditching and channeling -- around the fields, which has really helped. But we have more drainage to do.
A lot of the crops, like the potatoes and winter squash, are for the carbohydrate portion of the dogs' diet, along with the veggies. Ultimately we want to be able to produce all their food if we can.
Our neighbor Jim, who was born and grew up on the family farm down the road from us, says no one has farmed here in more than 50 years -- and maybe longer -- so we are in the process of bringing this old farm back to life. Now, if only we could control the weather just a wee bit better....
June 24, 2012
This Will Work, Too
Dexter started having some leg issues a couple of weeks ago -- his left front leg is kind of gimpy, and though he's been better with treatment, he still thinks he's just fine, of course, and doesn't know what the fuss was about. So we've been trying to make sure he doesn't overdo it, but some habits are hard to break ... like jumping into his favorite basket bed.
Naturally, a little platform to step up on would be the obvious solution, but you'd have to convince the Dachshund that this would be the obvious and best way for a lame boy to get into and out of his basket. But Mr. I'm-Fine-Thank-You would, if it suited his fancy and frame of mind at the time, choose to try and jump into the basket anyway. So Alayne's simple solution was just to turn the basket on its side. This seemed to suit Mr. I'm-Fine-Thank-You just fine.
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Yes, we got the haying done. It was a terrific learning experience, though some "learning" we could have done without -- like struggling with quirky hydraulic fittings on the side delivery rake. Our draft horses, Bill and Bob, did great with the mowing, tedding and raking. Those boys worked really hard and we were so proud of them! After finishing loading one full wagonload of loose hay, Kate and I looked at the 10 acres of mowed hay in windrows spread out before us and realized that trying to put it all up loose was, well, going to cook our goose. So I conceded defeat and had our neighbor, Jim D., bale it for us. That was a lot faster and easier, but left us with 330 bales to pick up out of the field, stack on a trailer, and then unload and stack in the barn that afternoon. That was just the warm-up, though, because every day we unloaded and stacked the hay that Jim was baling on his farm for us. By the end of the week we had over 2,000 bales in the barn.
June 19, 2012
June 14, 2012
Sniffer Dogs
Alayne got this shot earlier today of some of the gang in the front yard. As it happened, three of them had their noses down, sniffing around. When you have this many dogs sharing the same space, there's always something interesting to sniff (apparently ... I can only assume!).
That's Mad Max on the left, Penny the blind Yorkie on the ramp in the back, Billy the blind Beagle, Belvie the Dachshund next to him, then Dexter with his nose down, blind Sophie in the center, and Daisy on the right in the foreground. In fact, come to think of it, that photo captures the entire Dachshund brigade at the farm at the moment. Belvie and Daisy can both see; their problems are spine related, and though both are fortunately still mobile, they are incontinent. Dexter is elderly but otherwise able-bodied; he is here due to a moment of "Dachshund weakness" a few years ago.
Others in the yard or on the porch at that time but not in the photo were blind and deaf Spinner, Clyde the blind Yorkie, and blind Fuzzy. Pip, Wilbur and blind Madison were in the living room.
The other dogs, including the rest of the Beagles, were in the three yards directly behind the house. All of which makes it a ... full house.
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Please Vote for the Farm!
The new Shelter Challenge started Monday, April 9 and ends at midnight on June 17. Grand prize in this round is $5,000, plus $1,000 for weekly winners and $1,000 for state winners. There are also other categories ... please see the Shelter Challenge website for details.
*** We are now LISTED UNDER OUR NEW NAME, ROLLING DOG FARM. State is still NH for New Hampshire. ***
Please remember, you can vote every day ... consider bookmarking the voting page to make it easy.
We just won $1,000 as a weekly winner for Week 4 of the last contest, and thousands more in the previous contests. The Shelter Challenge really does bring in a lot of money for the animals here!
You can vote in the Shelter Challenge here.
Thank you for your votes!
June 12, 2012
Haying
One of the (many) things we're learning how to do this year is to make our own hay -- and at the same time, learn how to use draft horses to make the hay. For over a decade now, we've purchased hay, and it has always been our single largest feed cost. Like a lot of agricultural commodities, hay has continued to go up in price, year after year. So an important step for us in our drive to be more self-sufficient is to put up our own hay crop.
There's a lot to learn about the haymaking process, and of course you have to do it in the very small windows of time that Mother Nature gives you with the weather. Kate and I, with the help of our wonderful neighbor Jim D., took some of the equipment out for the first practice run today.
That's Kate in the photo above, using the horse-drawn sickle bar mower. The blade is low in the grass and you can't see it in this shot, but it extends out to her right side about 7 feet. I had already made the first pass, and she's now driving the horses down the mowed section and cutting the swath on the right.
Here's a photo Kate took of me just after I got underway earlier:
Next we tried out the tedder, which picks up the mowed grass, stirs it around, and drops it back on the ground, fluffing it in the process. All this helps it to dry. Here's Kate on the tedder:
Another view of her coming back down with Bob on the left (in the foreground) and Bill on the right:
And finally, here's a photo of me tedding:
If you click on that photo for a larger image, you should be able to see the grass being swirled around.
We still need to try out the side delivery rake, which picks up the grass and fluffs it again and forms it into windrows.
Our plan is to put up loose hay, the old-fashioned way, rather than baling it. This summer we will see how we do!
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Please Vote for the Farm!
The new Shelter Challenge started Monday, April 9 and ends at midnight on June 17. Grand prize in this round is $5,000, plus $1,000 for weekly winners and $1,000 for state winners. There are also other categories ... please see the Shelter Challenge website for details.
*** We are now LISTED UNDER OUR NEW NAME, ROLLING DOG FARM. State is still NH for New Hampshire. ***
Please remember, you can vote every day ... consider bookmarking the voting page to make it easy.
We just won $1,000 as a weekly winner for Week 4 of the last contest, and thousands more in the previous contests. The Shelter Challenge really does bring in a lot of money for the animals here!
You can vote in the Shelter Challenge here.
Thank you for your votes!
June 10, 2012
Hey, It's My Job
The beautiful girl framed by ferns is Gena. She was actually "on the job" when I took her photo this afternoon. Gena is a livestock guardian dog -- a Maremma, one of several breeds developed in Europe over the centuries for protecting livestock from predators. Gena had spent her life guarding goats and producing puppies for a Maremma breeder in Vermont, and when she became too old (at the age of 7) to have any more litters, we picked her up and brought her to the farm last fall.
We had established a small meat goat herd last year and wanted to have an experienced livestock guardian dog to protect them as they wandered our fields and forests. Ironically, we have more predator pressure here than we did at the ranch in Montana, with coyotes making themselves at home in our woods. (The first summer we were here, Alayne chased a coyote in broad daylight as it darted out of the woods to grab one of chickens -- right in front of her!)
Why meat goats? Well, it's part of our humanely raised pet food initiative. We have some dogs who need "alternative protein" diets, and rather than continue to buy the (very expensive and highly processed) commercial products, we wanted to be able to produce our own, right here on the farm. Here's the herd of Boer goats in one of their paddocks today:
Having meat goats also is a perfect fit for managing the land, because a lot of what we have is woods. Goats are browsers rather than grazers -- they eat a variety of plants, including leaves, blackberry brambles, weeds, ferns, and shrubs, in addition to grass. They actually prefer eating all that "other stuff," which makes them an ideal livestock for much of the habitat on the farm that would otherwise not be productively used. Because of their browsing, goats help keep woodlands opened up, which is healthier for the trees.
You can see how dense the undergrowth is -- and this is goat heaven, with so many different plants to browse:
This is Sage, happily stuffing ferns into her mouth:
In that kind of terrain, you can see how vulnerable they might be to coyotes. Rather than trying to shoot, trap or poison coyotes, the humane and far more effective method is to have a livestock guardian dog on duty. The simple presence of a large dog -- one who has been bred for exactly this kind of work -- deters most predators. So generally what Gena has to do is hang out with the goats and enjoy the scenery.
We take the herd out to their browsing paddock every morning and return them to their pen at night, and Gena never leaves their side.
Alayne took this shot of Gena and me this afternoon, just before we led the herd back to their pen for the evening:
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Longtime blog readers will ask about Margaret and Daisy, our two Nigerian Dwarf goats who really didn't want to be goats but household pets. They were adopted in 2010 by a wonderful couple here in New Hampshire, who were recommended to us by our vet.
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Please Vote for the Farm!
The new Shelter Challenge started Monday, April 9 and ends at midnight on June 17. Grand prize in this round is $5,000, plus $1,000 for weekly winners and $1,000 for state winners. There are also other categories ... please see the Shelter Challenge website for details.
*** We are now LISTED UNDER OUR NEW NAME, ROLLING DOG FARM. State is still NH for New Hampshire. ***
Please remember, you can vote every day ... consider bookmarking the voting page to make it easy.
We just won $1,000 as a weekly winner for Week 4 of the last contest, and thousands more in the previous contests. The Shelter Challenge really does bring in a lot of money for the animals here!
You can vote in the Shelter Challenge here.
Thank you for your votes!
June 05, 2012
I'll Try A Different Way
Just a few weeks ago I had written a blog post about how Holly likes to steal Wilbur's food dish from his "apartment." She began by picking up his bowl to lick it clean, but only after it was empty. I had mentioned that we now have to put Holly outside while he finishes eating because we suspected she had started to help herself to his dish before he was finished.
Of course, she would only do that if we weren't around, like down in the other wing in the dog room feeding the rest of the gang. We'd come back and be surprised that Wilbur had finished so soon. "Wilbur, how did you eat so fast?"
Oh, if only they could talk!
Anyway, we caught on and now Holly is banished while he enjoys his dinner at his own pace.
So that may be why she tried another approach the other evening -- getting into Wilbur's apartment before dinner time and see if she can score that way.
Um, no.
We removed the Shar Pei mix and replaced her with the appropriate Chihuahua.
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Please Vote for the Farm!
The new Shelter Challenge started Monday, April 9 and ends at midnight on June 17. Grand prize in this round is $5,000, plus $1,000 for weekly winners and $1,000 for state winners. There are also other categories ... please see the Shelter Challenge website for details.
*** We are now LISTED UNDER OUR NEW NAME, ROLLING DOG FARM. State is still NH for New Hampshire. ***
Please remember, you can vote every day ... consider bookmarking the voting page to make it easy.
We just won $1,000 as a weekly winner for Week 4 of the last contest, and thousands more in the previous contests. The Shelter Challenge really does bring in a lot of money for the animals here!
You can vote in the Shelter Challenge here.
Thank you for your votes!
June 03, 2012
Hello There
The other day Alayne heard Wilbur start snorting and saw his blanket start moving, and then he popped his head out from under one end of his fleece blanket. His eye looks a bit peculiar because of the absence of the lens, so you're seeing the light from the camera flash illuminating the fluid inside the eye, with the retina in the back. And yes, that little tongue is usually hanging out to the side like that -- actually, it's often sticking out a bit more. After he had his dental when he first arrived here and lost all but six teeth, his tongue sticks out on the right side of his mouth. He still has an upper canine tooth on the left side, which must be what keeps it from hanging out on that side.
Here he is with Pip, showing his more usual "tongue-look":
A couple of weeks ago when we were taking dogs to see specialists in Burlington, we had our internal medicine specialist look at Wilbur's mouth and tongue just to make sure everything was okay with it. And it is - the tongue is just one of his many endearing features!
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Weekly Winner for Week 5 -- And $1,000 For The Animals!
Yes, we were the most recent weekly winner, and thanks to you, we just won $1,000 through the Shelter Challenge! Thank you so much!
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Please Vote for the Farm!
The new Shelter Challenge started Monday, April 9 and ends at midnight on June 17. Grand prize in this round is $5,000, plus $1,000 for weekly winners and $1,000 for state winners. There are also other categories ... please see the Shelter Challenge website for details.
*** We are now LISTED UNDER OUR NEW NAME, ROLLING DOG FARM. State is still NH for New Hampshire. ***
Please remember, you can vote every day ... consider bookmarking the voting page to make it easy.
We just won $1,000 as a weekly winner for Week 5 of this current contest, and thousands more in the previous contests. The Shelter Challenge really does bring in a lot of money for the animals here!
You can vote in the Shelter Challenge here.
Thank you for your votes!