The Take Back

This is the story of a girl who asked for a take back.  A re-do.  A what was I thinking - I made a mistake.  She's a sweet girl who really only thought she had her family's best intentions in mind.

Picture it - the ranch, early December of 2012.  A wife and mother decides to sell the family horses.  The reasons are still unknown.  Being the saleswoman that she is - she sells June Bug for a hefty profit and is quite pleased with herself.  That is, until they load her up in the horse trailer and drive off with her.

Then the tears begin.  And they go on for a while.  When they are still going on by the next day, she begins to wonder if she has perhaps made a great mistake!  What can she do?  Is the horse lost forever? No, the horse is not lost - one quick text and things are in motion to get the horse back!

Turns out the gentleman that bought June Bug got a call on a different horse not 2 hours after making the purchase.  Said other horse was the one of his dreams!  So when the beautiful wife and mother contacted him to see if it would even be remotely possible to get her horse back, the gentleman was more than happy to oblige.

But he kept her saddle.  No worries - it was an awful heavy thing anyway.  Or so the pretty woman in the story has said.  ;-)

Safe and sound - right where she belongs!

New Fowl

About a month ago, we decided to harvest most of our remaining chickens.  If you remember, we lost all but one of our producing, baby chickens during this summer heatwave.  So we were down to one egg a day.  The older chickens that survived the heat had decided to stop producing.  They'd been slowing down, but with the heat they just decided to stop all together.

So we decided, rather than let them stick around, eat up all our food and basically have a free ride, we'd harvest them and start over with some pullets (juvenile chickens near laying age.)

Well, this past Friday we re-stocked.  Not only did we bring home a few new chickens, but we also got more ducks!  I know, you're thinking to yourself - didn't Fergus the dog kill your last chickens?  Yes, yes he did.  But we have a new plan.  These ones are going to live in the coop until they are big enough to move in the corral with the pigs.  That way, they can be free range - but not free enough that Fergus can hunt them down again.  :-)

JL loading up the new cargo

The kids are so excited!

Isabel was set on getting a Golden Chicken.  By the luck of the draw - that's exactly what she got!

Wyatt with Chuck the Duck

James holding Grammy's Ol' Gray Duck

Scoping out the new arrivals.

Heatwave

The end of June on the ranch was brutal.  A nice big high pressure system parked itself over our state for about 3 weeks.  Bringing with it temperatures in the high high 90's to low 100's.  The heat indexes were soaring to the 110 ranges.  It was awful.  Especially for one pregnant girl that I know.

But I wasn't the only one dying from the heat*.  So were our chickens.  Literally.

Yup.  I'm sad to report that 3 of our 4 baby chickens that we raised up from infancy died during a week span.  It was tragic!  Of all the chickens to die - I would have much rather have had the old girls kick the bucket!  They are not very reliable and only lay maybe an egg every 4 to 5 days.  But the babies were regular little gals.  Each giving us an egg a day.  Beautiful olive green and tan eggs.

But, as most of this stuff goes, this was a really good learning experience for us.  Apparently, chickens regulate their body temperature through their feet.  Our theory went something like this:


-  Why are the old chickens surviving while the young chickens are dying?


-  Why are the old chickens constantly kicking their water bucket over?  Don't they know they need to leave that thing alone so they don't thirst to death?


-  Why is the older chickens' water pan constantly dry but the babies don't seem to be drinking as often?

Come to find out, the older chickens were smart enough to kick their water over so they could STAND in the cool water/mud all day.  Meanwhile, the baby chickens were standing on the hot, dry ground soaking up a ton of heat.  They were still drinking, don't get me wrong, but it wasn't enough to cool their body down.

So how did we stop the death and destruction and save that last remaining baby chick?  We put a few pans of water in the coop.  That's it.  Something for the birds to STAND in all day. 


Information we could have used 5 weeks ago!

For now, the plan is to wait until fall and replace the young girls with 6 month to 9 month old chickens.  Some that are regular layers and can immediately start to produce again for us.  I'd love to raise up some more chicks, but it takes 6 months for the eggs to start, plus, I'm going to be a tad busy come fall time.


*The loss coupled with the extreme heat was too much for me to handle, and I found myself needing an escape.  But that's another story.

On to Greener Pastures

I have sold the goats.  Why?  Well, let me tell ya.  They were great to raise up and have as we started our ranch, but eventually - they just got too annoying!  They are terribly mischievous, they were getting to be downright rude to the pigs, they were tearing up our new corral, and they eat and eat and eat.  What do they eat?  My roses, mainly!  

So, off they went to 380 acres with 150 other goats.  There they can freely eat all the weeds/landscaping their little hearts can dream up.   Now, I talk tough, but I'll admit I was sad to see them go.  Not because I'm terribly fond of them, but more because they represented the start of our ranching life.  They were one of the first animal additions we got, and I must have been more attached to the little buggars than I cared to admit.  Still, I think we made the right choice.

Luke & Bert moments before they were carried off.

Luke showing me what he thinks of my plan.

Gosh, they are kinda cute.

Off to new adventures.

Coincidentally (but not related to this event at all) we got a new animal this same day.  You can read about that here. 

A New Arrival

I know. I said no more animals. But see, June Bug was getting lonely. And we can't have a lonely, depressed horse on the ranch. So, we simply had to get a friend for her!

Introducing... Buffy! Our new Miniature Horse.
I took Izzy Doolittle out with me on Buffy's first day here. She helped me brush and welcome Buffy to her new home.




Buffy may only be 3 apples high, but she's big on adorableness and spirit!
She's a great addition to the ranch so far!

Big News!

Yesterday was a big day here on the Clover. Our baby chicks laid their first egg!!!

Rooster Cogburn spent the day in their coop and POOF - by the end of the day we had our very first egg! 6.5 months of caring for and feeding these little guys and we finally have our first pay off!

Here's a picture of it next to an egg the big chickens laid. It's just a mini-egg, but it's a great sign!

We're pretty sure the biggest black/white chicken (Little Lee) laid it.

I have read that production will be sparse at first, so we aren't sure when we will get another egg from these little guys, but we can't be too far off now!

Horsepeople

When it comes to June Bug, we all get in on the work/fun!





James. Our resident Cowboy.
Izzy at ease on the saddle. She is our future Barrel Racer
June showing off her new saddle and tack.

June Bug

Two days ago - we welcomed a new addition to our Buffalo Clover family. She's a 12 yr old Appaloosa Mare named Raiders Little Girl. She's beautiful - and she fulfills a life-long dream of mine to own a horse!

Isabel and I went to check her out at noon on Tuesday. A few walks around the track and Izzy was hooked! The previous owners were very nice, and gave me a lot of information about her. I thought she was the prettiest horse we had seen! I loved that she was spotted and had a mohawk main!

Her previous owners offered to deliver he to us, but she wouldn't get to us until about 6:30pm. The five of us rushed through dinner and then went outside to wait for her arrival. Unfortunately, they were delayed, so once it got dark, the kids had to go to bed. Somehow - they bottled their excitement and went without much complaint!

8pm arrived and I received an e-mail that they were just down the street! I opened our gate and stood outside of it waiting for them. I could hear the diesel as it came around our street and my heart just started to race! She was so close - it was like Christmas morning for me! I was so excited, I was shaking!

Once she was off the horse trailer, JL got to see her for the first time. I could tell he was just as taken by her as I was. :) We walked her around a bit and then lead her back to her new home. She was a bit uneasy (it was pitch black outside at this point) but she went without a fuss.

Love at first sight
I remember that night was so long! I couldn't wait until dawn!

Once the sun was up - JL and I were outside visiting her. Without about 10 minutes, James came running out (in his PJ's) yelling "Is the horse here? Is the horse here?" After 2 seconds later, Wyatt was out the door doing the same! It was sooo fun to see their excitement!

She's a super sweet girl who likes to kiss Isabel (our horse whisperer!) She's only been here a few days, but already she is warming up to our family. I can tell she's a big fan of kids, which is exactly why we got her. She walks right up to them when we enter the corral and stands very still for pets and loves. :)

We decided "Raider" just wasn't girly enough - so we renamed our sweet girl: June Bug
Izzy is June Bug's #1 fan, which says a lot because we all love her so much!
First ride - Isabel has NO fear!
Little Izzy DoLittle
James is our horseman! He has no trouble riding bareback and staying upright. He's a natural!
He enjoys it so much, he wakes up early just so he can get a ride in before school! (And this boy loves his sleep!)
Standing for loves
I'm smitten!
Wyatt likes to ride with Mom. He pets June Bug, but I think her size is a bit overwhelming for him right now.
"Ride on June Bug!"
JL taking his turn :)

So far, the kids have ridden her every day, multiple times a day! It's tons of fun, and we are enjoying her tremendously!

Our New Corral

We decided a few months back that we were going to need a corral. Currently, the goats and pigs have been occupying our garden. It was our intention to let the animals roam free on our fenced 5 acres when we first got them. Come to find out, the goats just love to eat my roses, climb on my van, and basically find mischief of one kind or another. And the pigs, given the choice, would hide out and never be seen again. So, they ended up in the garden.

It was a temporary way to contain them. And it worked great. During their stay, they cleaned the garden of its weeds, churned up the earth, and fertilized, fertilized, fertilized. But, the time had come to relocate them and reclaim our spot for our coming strawberry and carrot plants! :)

Originally, this was going to be a JL project. However, through a bit of advice from our local farming friends, we decided to hire the work done. Our ground is basically rock. Rock with a tiny bit of sandy dirty sprinkled here and there in a thin layer on top. Digging the holes for the fence posts would have most likely sent JL into an early grave. So we had a local company come out and give us an estimate. Turns out, they could do it for about the same cost, and in a fraction of the time!

The main reason we hired this project: To have a cool Tractor parked on our ranch. KIDDING!
Actually, it took a tractor to dig into our rock dirt! I'm so glad JL didn't try to do this with only a pic!
Although, once he saw the tractor, all he wanted to do was drive it!
What does it take to dig in our soil? 5,000 lbs in each tire, and a bunch of torque.
Tah-Dah! We had 15 of these.
We got our estimate on a Tuesday, they began work on Wednesday and by Friday they were mostly done! They had 2 other jobs over the weekend, but bright an early Monday morning they showed up and completed their work. The animals moved in that afternoon!

Isabel was the first one in to test out the new space.
Shot from the south side, looking into the smallest of the two areas. This is where the goats/pigs will live from now on!
JL doing a quick walk through. He removed the protective coverings we've had on our perimeter plants. They were suppose to keep the deer from eating them, but instead the deer just ate around the covering. With the billies going in by them now, we figure they might as well have at 'em.
James doing his impersonation of a goat.
The billies took to it right away.
Shot from the front - looking up along the longest side of the corral.
Everyone tried it out! Turns out, a corral is great for kids too!
At this rate, I figure we won't need a babysitter. Ever again.
Luke saying hello.
After a little encouragement, the pigs are loving their new home too!