Lola's First Date

I suppose that there comes a time in every dad's life when he needs to send his little girl out into the world to experience life...and to meet boys.  That time came for Lola late last week. 



She and I took a ride in the Taco up and over the Green Mountains to visit Troy, his herd of 32 milkers, and this guy...



Meet Red.  Red joined Malawi (our crew's dad) this fall as one of Troy's herd sires.  Red was VERY interested in Lola.  He was perhaps a bit too interested and his attempts to win her affection only made our Lola more unsure of him.  It was quite a display.  Since we aren't quite sure of how successful the breeding was, we might actually bring Red here to Silver Hill in the hope that we can still squeeze some kids out of this breeding season.

 

It was a fun trip over the mountain...54 degrees and sunny in December.  As a bonus, my hands smelled of goat for about a day after our mission despite many washings.

Charlie Brown Christmas Tree (# 2)

This year's Christmas Tree came right from the middle of our yard.  It's a good 7 feet tall and a little wild around the edges, but it does the trick.

This is the final pine that was due to be cut down.  I asked, "What will we do for a tree next year?" and the response was, "Go find one!"  

Neighbors beware next year, as we may get desperate to find a tree!  I like to think of ourselves as frugal though and not cheap!

Got Eggs? We do.

This may be the first (I can't exactly recall) and last "Farm Update" for 2015.  The truth is that things are usually a bit too busy to write updates when the list of things to do grows faster than the grass.  The garden is extremely easy right now.  There are parsnips over wintering in the raised bed and the garlic has been in the soil for about a week.  The rest of the beds have been tilled twice this fall and early winter in an attempt to cut down on the cucumber beetles that have plagued us for the past two growing seasons.  The remainder of the rock "crop" for 2015 has been removed and thrown into the woods.  We hope that is the only yield that decreases in the coming years.

 

Without the cows, animal chores are quite a breeze.  The goats are well acquainted to their routine and have been enjoying some bonus time in the pasture and woods thanks to the beautiful and unseasonable weather.  We (and an in rut Winslow who is acting like an absolute fool) are keeping a close eye on Lola who should soon be cycling through her second round of heat for this year.  Once that occurs, she is going for a ride to meet Troy's new buck "Red" for a little date.  With any luck, we should have the first generation of Silver Hill babies on the ground in mid May of 2016.  The laying hens have really hit their stride within the past week or two.  Our current record for most eggs in a day currently stands at 19 which occurred yesterday.  Omelets anyone?

Barnyard Selfies

Bag O' Worms

The newest project on Silver Hill Farm:  Worm Composting.

We now host over 2,000 worms in our basement in the new worm compost bag we bought from Uncle Jim's Worm Farm.  Vermont is creating a mandatory composting law by the year 2020, so we're just getting a jump start on things.  No more trash for us!

Hair dandruff or snow?

Here is the beautiful scenic view from our new favorite secret hike.  The day was perfect with an array of colors visible as far as the horizon.

Where you ask is this hike?  Well if we told you, we'd have to kill you!    

Take a peek at the weather a few days later.  No, that white stuff sprinkling the ground is not hair dandruff from a local giant, it's SNOW!...in October!...in our yard!  I am so not ready for winter yet.

 

Bumblefoot

One might say Friday nights on Silver Hill Farm are not your typical Friday nights.  Tonight's activity: chicken foot surgery.

 

After Teresa noticed a large bump on the silver lace hen's foot, Eric proceeded to perform groundbreaking foot surgery on her, a full on I&D (incision and debridement) of the wound with a utility knife and peroxide.  The Hen tolerated the procedure well and is now happily scratching in the pen with an amazing foot bandage applied. 

 

So we now say, Bumblefoot!  One might be temped to say, "God bless you," but do not be fooled, it is merely a staph infection of a chicken foot.  Nurse Teresa will check on the bandages tomorrow and observation will continue....

Happy Fall!

This has been a very productive week!  We harvested many of the pumpkins and gourds earlier this week.  Teresa once more set-up her roadside pumpkin and gourd sale.  Mr. Harvey was giving all of the pumpkins a nice snuggle.

We also dug the potatoes this weekend, picked acorn and butternut squash, and harvested some straggling pumpkins, gourds, and tomatoes.  We even picked a zucchini...those things never stop growing!  

Eric has been working on building the new Whizbang cider press.  The refrigerator is FULL of apples, waiting to be turned into delicious apple cider.   Teresa has been decorating for fall and everyone is all smiles.

Happy Fall!

Death of a chicken (or shall we say chickens)

This week we processed our 20 Cornish Cross broilers.  The whizbang chicken plucker was both fun and helpful.  By then end, it only took about 5 minutes to process each bird!  We ended up with over 100 pounds of chicken, with the largest guy weighing in at 7.2 pounds and the smallest 4.9 pounds.  Needless to say the freezer is FULL of chicken.

We're back!

Ireland turned out to be the perfect location for a much needed break.  

We managed to hike, sleep in, and relax.  

We enjoyed great scenery...

great food...

 great lodging...

 great company...

and great laughs.

 Eric is simply taking a moo-ment to moo-urn the loss of Tommy the cow and his wife, Magic. 

The great garden harvest!

Busy, busy, busy!  

The great green bean harvest happened a few weeks ago.  This is just our first pick of beans and WOW did we have a lot of beans.  Most of them ended up in the freezer.

We've also continued to have zucchinis out the wazoo.  Last week Teresa picked 9 zucchinis in one day and two days later picked 5 more.  We have become very creative with eating zucchini and tomatoes in our house:  zucchini omelets, Italian zucchini pie, zucchini bread, baked zucchini, sauteed zucchini, Ratatouille without the eggplant and only zucchini...

Two weeks ago we had a great carrot harvest and had a Pickling Party with our friends.  We made delicious jars of pickled carrots to be enjoyed during the winter months.  They looked so pretty with the garden sunflowers that I had to take a picture.

Soon to come: 

The great potato and pumpkin harvest...stay tuned!!!

The release of Timothy.

Saturday marked the release of Timothy the Mouse!  We placed his house out by the stream and bestowed upon him some farewell parting gifts.  He of course, made an appearance to say his good-byes (well, actually I think he really just wanted to eat his watermelon, but it was still nice to see him).  So long Timothy...best of luck!

P.S.  If you see Harvey coming your way...RUN!!!

Timothy being mousey.

Timothy the mouse.

Here's the background:  

Mr. Harvey has been in the habit lately of bringing home little critters.  Unlike most cats, who will kill rodents, Harvey brings them home whole and unharmed.  Last week he carried a full-sized chipmunk home!

The story:

Thursday morning before work, I look out onto the driveway and see Harvey standing in his usual "I caught something" posture.  I head outside and in the driveway is the tiniest baby mouse, eyes still closed, laying completely still.  I steal him away from Harvey and assume due to his size, that he was injured.  I placed him on a towel on the counter while I Googled "how to care for a baby mouse".  In the meantime, I have named him Timothy.

A few minutes later I hear a thump and the dogs are standing head-to-head.  Timothy is now on the floor and very much alive!  

So to make a long story short, I will give the highlights of the last 72 hours:

1. Timothy travels to work with Teresa on Thursday and lives in the 

desk drawer so he can be fed every few hours.  

2.  Harvey knocks Timothy out of his box and onto the floor Thursday 

night.  Timothy hides under the refrigerator until Eric 

can get him out.

3. Teresa wakes up throughout the night to feed Timothy his baby 

formula with a paintbrush and at 4am Timothy is once 

again gone from his box.  Time for a new house!

4. Timothy travels to work again with Teresa on Friday.

5. Eric comes home with a new house for Timothy where he'll stay until 

he's ready to be released. 

 Timothy's eyes opened today and he started to feed himself.  

He loves watermelon!

Scrabble, beer and shish kebabs.

That pretty much sums up our weekend away at the cabin.  

 

We also enjoyed tubing in the ponds, hiking around the trails and reading by the campfire.

And what would a camping trip be without roasting a few s'mores?!?!

Finally, for your entertainment purposes only:  Eric trying out the rope swing!  Izzy was sure excited to see him back on land again.

 

Chickens, chickens and more chickens!!!

If I ever questioned our sanity, now is the moment.  In the barn we are currently housing 44 chickens!  Eleven are our old laying hens.  We have a group of 13 new laying hens that are occupying one of the stalls.  And finally, in the brooder are 20 Cornish Cross meat chicks.  The barn sounds like a symphony of peeping, chirping and clucking.  We truly must be insane!

Circus Goat.



Winslow REALLY likes to eat apple tree leaves.

Eric decided to help him out a little...YUM!

 

 

Cute Abby smiling away. 

 

 

The Outside Adventure.

The chicks have been outside the past few days enjoying the sunshine.  Eric had the brilliant idea to put the chicks in the old turkey tractor.  They've been able to be outside all day long without our supervision, which has been great for them.  They are so funny to watch as they act like the hens, but are these tiny little balls of fluff.  One of the Jersey Giants found a big worm and after much chasing by the other chicks, she finally found a quiet spot to eat it.  For a second we were worried she might choke on the large size, but no, what a worm-eating champ! 

So far no obvious roosters!

Here we go again...

More ear sucking!

The boys continue to grow well.  They're out in the pasture "mostly" full time now.  Both Duncan and Elmer acquired little colds last week, complete with snotty noses.  They sounded so sad and stuffy, so we started putting them back in the barn on rainy days.  Let's be honest, who likes to sit out in the rain when they have a cold?!?!  We are such friendly cow people!

 

Out with the old and in with the new.

Last night, on the way home from work, Teresa stopped to pick up the 14 new baby chicks joining Silver Hill Farm.  Upon arrival home, Piper proceeded to lick all of the chicks and then sat next to their box wagging her tail, with a distinct expression of pure joy on her face. 

 

On the flip side, one of our Columbian hens has been going downhill fast.  She started acting a little strange about a week ago.  The past few days she was just sitting in the corner of the coop and not even roosting at night with the other hens.  Thursday morning she did not even attempt to eat the bread that was thrown into them...not a good sign.  Being the proactive people that we are, we decided we'd better process her, rather than let her die naturally and miss out on the meat!  So last night at 8:30pm we found ourselves processing one of our favorite hens while being eaten alive my mosquitos. 

 

You know the old saying, "Out with the old and in with the new!"

Pasture Life

A candid photo of current pasture life.

Release the Bees!

 

The bees have been released.  The entrance blocks have been removed, allowing the buzzing within the hives to come pouring out. 

 

Everything looks pretty good so far within the hives.  Both queens are still in their queen cages but others are working to release them.  Now I will check in on them every few days to hopefully see some comb being built on the foundationless frames so that the queen has a place to lay brood and the rest have a place to start storing honey.

The bonus?  Nobody has been stung yet.

The Italian

Pretending to be an astronaut?  Nope.

 

 

There has been somewhat of a population explosion at Silver Hill Farm.  Approximately 6,000 Russian Hybrid honey bees have arrived from Georgia via New Jersey. 

 

What is this?  A hitchhiker...believed to be an Italian strain bee (and dubbed "The Italian") who appears to have made the trip by clinging to the outside of a package.  We couldn't waste such tenacity so she got dumped into one of our hives.

 

The key to our success...one of our queens.  The bees have been placed in their hives and are (hopefully) working to release the queens by eating through the candy plug that keeps them contained to the small queen cages.  The hive entrances are currently blocked in order to allow the bees to acclimate to the hives.  Stay tuned for the release.

The Garden

We had quite the successful weekend with the help of parental hands.  After a few days and MANY hours at work, the entire garden for the year is planted.  This year's garden features two full bed for the pumpkins and gourds.  We have quite the variety, including mini white casperita pumpkins and big moose pumpkins.  Eric is hoping for a 150 pound giant!

The rest of the beds are filled with potatoes, zucchini, acorn and butternut squash, cabbage, beans, peas, lettuce, spinach, kale, beets, tomatoes, peppers, a small grouping of herbs (basil, cilantro and parsley), sunflowers, cucumbers, carrots, parsnips and strawberries.

The pine trees are continuing to do well.  I think we only lost one, so at least we'll have 9 years worth of Christmas trees:)  Some of the blueberry bushes have flowered, so we may even get to enjoy some fresh fruit this year from them. 

 

Here's a cute video of our very active farm animals!

A little large for a hummingbird, eh?

The return of the hummingbird feeder has been met with HUGE success (no pun intended).  We have more hummingbirds this year than we did last year and apparently even woodpeckers like to drink some sugar-water every now and then.

And yes, I watched the woodpecker actually drink from the feeder!

A pasture update.

Sometimes it seems like we have five goats in the pasture, rather than three goats and two cows.  Elmer and Duncan have really taken to the goats and like to follow them all around the field. It appears that the goats are teaching the cows how to graze.  I've now watched both boys licking the  dandelions and chewing on some grass.  The grass is starting to get pretty long, so hopefully the mooing lawn mowers will get to work soon.

 Winslow loves to nibble on ears and apparently Eric likes to have his ears nibbled on:)

 A final parting photo:  Elmer sticking his tongue out at me...hopefully not on purpose!

Back in Business

A few days ago as I was eating lunch out on the porch when I heard the familiar sound of a hummingbird buzz past my head!  I decided it was time to place the feeder back up again.  This morning when I looked out the window there were 4 hummingbirds vying for spaces at the feeder!  We are back in business!!

Double Trouble

Well we're either really big suckers or fate has stepped in...we now have TWO calves!!!

This is Duncan.  

Duncan was in stall #11 when we went and picked Elmer up last week.  Sadly, Duncan was headed for departure from the farm via "the meat truck" the following morning.  As we pulled away with Elmer, we stopped the car 4 times considering going back for him, but ultimately decided one cow was plenty enough.  

Fast forward to last night and we had a phone call from the farm.  Duncan was still there!  They had a few other heifers still due, so they decided to hold off on the meat truck, so they could send all the bulls together.  Apparently, all the heifers birthed girls this week!  They hated to call the meat truck for one bull calf and asked if we'd take him.  How could we say no!  

Again, fate or suckers?...we're still not sure!!!

Welcome Duncan to Silver Hill Farm!

Bullies exist even in the animal world.

This evening after everyone ate their dinner, the goats and Elmer headed out for some romping in the pasture.  It was like the goats created their own club and had decided that Elmer was not cool enough to join.  Elmer would prance after the goats, who were clearly running away from him as a group.  He'd stop when he realized he wasn't catching-up, let out his sweet little, "mooooo" and then start running again.  

We don't tolerate barnyard bullying, so we joined Elmer in the field for a little play time.