Happy Farm Animals!

Hanging with Harriet

We returned home from a day up in Burlington on Saturday and much to our pleasant surprise, we found "little" Harriet attached to a post on our porch, starting to spin a cocoon.  Eric cut her out and we added her to the tank.  Hopefully in the spring we'll now have two cecropia moths hatch!  

We're keeping our eyes peeled for more caterpillars as they seem to be everywhere!

Herman the Worm

Well, he's not actually a worm!  We had friends over the other day and saw this amazing looking creature on the porch.  After examining him for a little, Teresa went in search of more and sure enough, there was a second one crawling through the grass!

We did a quick google search for: "Green worm with colorful spikes" and there it was, the cecropia moth.  This is North America's largest native moth with a wing span of 5-7 inches!!!  These big caterpillars spin a silk cocoon and overwinter.  They will hatch in early summer into this large moth.  The moth has no mouth and will simply mate, lay eggs, then die.  A new batch of these guys will be born and in August and September they will be mature enough to form their cocoons. 

We brought Herman inside and the first night, sure enough, he spun his cocoon.  We'll store him in the barn for the winter, sprinkling him with snow and hopefully next summer we'll get to see this amazing moth emerge. 

 

Old ham crates = new furniture

A few months back, Teresa had a vision for a new cubby-hole organizer for the mud room.  All of the online options seemed so modern and uninteresting, so with the help of a Google search, the idea of stacking old crates came to be.  Last week we drove around stopping in antique shops looking for some old crates.  We kept striking out time and time again, but eventually found a large antique store in Quechee and our prospects started to look better.

In the basement of the store were PILES of old crates.  Most of them ham crates shipped from Poland.  They were all slightly unique and possessed so much character. 

We bought 11 crates total and Eric went to town with the nail gun when we got home. 

We ended up with an awesome looking storage shelf and another smaller bookshelf. 

Maiden Voyage

The Epic camper took her maiden voyage to Wilgus State Park!  We  stayed close to home for our first trip so we could take care of the animals in the evening, but were still able to enjoy a peaceful change of scenery.  The dogs also enjoyed their time swimming, hiking and laying by the campfire.   We even survived a torrential downpour without any leaks in the camper.  All and all I'd say the trip was a success.

Digging Pigs

The pigs continue to grow well.  They survived the week of 90 degree weather in Vermont, with the help of some cold sponge baths from Teresa.  We've extended their electric fence area and it's been incredible to watch them dig up their environment.  

This is about 2 weeks of handiwork:

Before.

After.

Here are some updated photos of the crew.

Oh Deer!

I went out to the garden the other morning to pick some strawberries and much to my horror, the plants had been munched!  I had just recently told our neighbor that in all the years we've had a garden here (6 now), the deer have never bothered our crops.  Guess I didn't knock on enough wood because there I was staring at hoof prints and MANY missing leaves.  We researched a plan of attack and settled for the old "bait and switch."  Well not really bait and switch, but we did use fishing line to fence in all the garden beds.  Apparently in the dark the deer, who cannot see the line, will run into it, thus creeping them out.  I imagine that it feels similar to when I walk smack dab into some invisible spider web and totally FREAK OUT anticipating a spider to waltz across my face at any moment, causing me to bust out some pretty great dance moves trying to avoid this potential horror.  Well, perhaps the deer don't qualify for the later part of my scenario, but if they do I will be sure to post a YouTube video of this great event.  

I'm not sure how scientific this all is, but I can attest to the fact that the following morning, no further leaves had been eaten.  I call that a success!