Well the !@#@#!!! dogs returned! They mashed down the 6 foot tall chicken wire I put up and attacked the chickens again! There is one hen and one chick left. I am just glad they didn’t go after the rabbits this time. I am angry, sad, tired, disgusted and depressed. My world and my life that I am trying to build are falling apart.
Another Skunk!
November 8, 2009 at 2:15 pm (chickens, rabbits, skunk)
After shooting the first skunk the other day, there was evidence of a second one digging holes all over the garden and trying to get into the chicken pen. Well I have been trying to catch it out and shoot it and this morning I did. I discovered it was living under the house and shot it as it was going to go down it’s hole. So now the house is a bit smelly, but at least I don’t have to worry about the skunk.
Because it was digging all over the garden I hadn’t bothered planting any more seeds, now that it’s gone I’ll be planting up a storm to make up for lost time,
I also need to work on the greenhouse and finish the fence around the back garden. I also have to get busy and fix things so the rabbit & chickies in the house can go ahead and live outside. I’m hoping to get that done today.
SKUNK!
November 4, 2009 at 2:53 am (chickens, dogs, skunk)
Well, I put up some chicken wire and made the hens enclosure bigger, including the rabbit cages and space for the little chicks. Well I know it won’t stop a dog but at least it will slow them down a couple of minutes.
Tonight I heard the little chicks squaking out there and there was a !@#@#!! skunk in there, with a chick by the head. I shone my flash light on it and it went out and I brought the chicks in. The hurt one probably won’t live the night. The others seem ok, just excited.
A few minutes later I was in the kitchen and could see that the skunk had returned to the scene of the crime, so I got my gun and shot it. 
yeah, one less skunk in the world.
Tally Ho!
November 2, 2009 at 3:41 am (Beans, corn, eggs, squash)
Well, here’s the numbers for October:
Eggs, 107
Produce, 45.19 pounds. Mostly beans, squash with some pepper, tomato, eggplant and sweet potato. Also our Bloody Butcher corn. Still have to shell out and test our popcorn.
Since there’s been so much trouble with the wildlife there won’t be much to harvest for awhile, need to get busy planting.
Season Review
October 31, 2009 at 2:49 pm (Beans, birds, corn, cucumber, gardening, peas, sorghum, squash, strawberry, succesion planting, sunflowers, tomatoes, watermelon)
Well since summer seems to be gone, I thought it would be a good idea to think about this past year and make some notes for next year.
It seems that last spring I could have planted more lettuce, radishes, beets & carrots later in the season. This would have helped with the gap in late May. While the kids enjoyed the baby corn, it seems they really wanted regular fresh corn.
I definately need to plant more melons. Plant less small tomatoes and a lot more large ones. Give the large tomatoes more space, they probably need a good 24 inches each. I only had about 2 doz large tomatoes, could probably use upwards of 75-100. It takes a lot to make sauce, ketchup and other tomato based things.
Twenty to thirty row feet of snap and snow peas are probably enough, since I don’t like the way they are when you freeze them. But we could use 50 or more row feet of shelling peas for freezing little green peas and probably 25 feet or so of the Blueshokker soup peas.
Since the Lima beans didn’t set pods until late September, they could probably go in a lot later than they did.
I need more bird protection, especially in the summer and fall. Not only did I lose a lot of seedlings to the birds, but also a lot of sunflower and popping sorghum seeds.
I need more rat/squirrel/rabbit control, they got some melons, tomatoes, squash and other things.
I want more peppers of all types. The amount of squash was fine, as we don’t eat much, especially of the summer types.
We would probably eat more spinach type greens, but mustard and turnip greens were a bust at the table.
We could probably eat more dry beans. The amount of green beans might have been too much, they weren’t a big thrill for the kids so I anticipate the 21 pints I canned to be more than enough. Though I will plant less yard long beans and more Kentucky Wonders.
We could use a lot more strawberry plants. Nobody likes Huckleberries, so I will just invest in more blueberry bushes.
We needed a lot more cucumbers. So this year watch out for the aphids and try to get rid of them ASAP.
I really need to work on the succession plantings. Not keeping up lead to a lot of gaps this year.
chickie update
October 29, 2009 at 1:59 pm (broccoli, cauliflower, chickens, dogs, rabbits)
Well some good news. the two hurt chickies seem to be doing better. One has been up walking around for a couple of days. The other one that couldn’t stand at all was standiing up this morning.
Some bad news. I didn’t put small enough mesh wire on the rabbit cages and a little bunny fell out and died. Also, the 50 or broccoli and cauliflower seedlings that were ready to go in the garden were sitting on top of one of the rabbit cages that the dogs tore apart, so now I have to start over there too.
SLAUGHTER HOUSE
October 27, 2009 at 12:54 am (chickens, dogs, rabbits, slaughter)
I came home to a slaughter house. 3 big dogs, somebody’s pets! tore open a rabbit pen and killed one of my bucks and injured another one. They got in to the baby chicks and killed most of them. There are only 5 left out of 14 and 2 of them are injured; I”m not too sure they will make it.
The worst thing is that my gun jammed so I couldn’t get even one shot off at them, or they would be dead dogs right now.
Be sure you keep your dogs at home because if they come to my place they aren’t gonna leave.
Peas
October 24, 2009 at 5:51 am (peas)
I grew six varieties of peas last spring and have written a review of them. You can read it here:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2294959/6_pea_varities_on_trial.html?cat=32
In the Garden
October 21, 2009 at 3:39 am (Beans, birds, food, freedom, gardening, grow your own food, squash, tomatoes)
The garden continues to produce, though at a slower rate than before. The summer crops are winding down, but the fall and winter crops are a little slow taking off. It doesn’t help that a flock of quail helped themselves to the radishes and lettuce seedlings.
Here are the King of the Garden Limas, finally! I picked 1 1/2 pounds the other day, which shelled out to about a quart of beans, cooked them up with bacon & onion, delish! Even Liberty liked them.
Here a Trombocino squash {seeds available from www.freedomseeds.com} hides in the Red Currant tomato
The bed at the bottom of the picture has baby carrots, the one farther away, Golden Globe turnips and parsnips. The bigger green plants are hollyhocks.
Broccoli and cauliflower seedlings wait in the wings.
Kabocha squash volunteers have run over quite a bit of the garden. The one in the front isn’t quite ready to pick. The ones in the back weighed 7 & 10 pounds each. The other one is twice as big, can’t wait to see how much it weighs.
Lovely Hopi purple pod beans. These are yummy as fresh or dried shellies.
Tractor Work
October 11, 2009 at 2:34 pm (Uncategorized)
For more than a year we have worked towards putting culverts in the dry wash so we could drive over to the other side. That project got a big push in the right direction this weekend when our friend brought the backhoe in and started leveling the area on the other side.
Once all the tractor work is done and culverts are laid we’ll be able to work on some other projects, such as a work space, guest trailer, green house, gardens, animal pens.
