Ducklings

Continuing on our bird theme, we knew the farm would not be complete until Smoosh had some ducks...and not just any ducks.  When we first started our farm hunt almost 3 years ago, we all excitedly talked about the animals each one would get.  Smoosh wanted runner ducks.  They are a breed that, well, run!  They stand straight up and are known for being excellent slug hunters.  And, just in case anyone was wondering, they are hilarious animals.  They run around quacking night and day.

Our friends had earlier ordered lots of ducks and were able to sell two to us for an early b-day present for Smoosh.  A mating pair was selected and brought home. 

 The great thing about waterfowl is that they imprint on whomever is taking care of them.  Smoosh was quick to grab his ducks and start showing them around the place.  They happily followed him, quacking all the way.

 On one occasion, he took them tramping all the way through the corn fields, perhaps forgetting they were baby ducks and not quite puppies.  They followed him but were definitely glad to get back to their hutch for some R&R after their very long adventure.

They, too, have outgrown their "baby" living quarters and are now in with the other birds in the chicken coop.  This does not, however, make them exempt from being grabbed and loved every once in awhile.

The Turkeys

I certainly have a difficult time with the killing of any being for food.  It's certainly not something I look down on others or criticize others for doing; it just is part of who I am and I can't kill something or eat something that was once alive (though, admittedly, I might kill mosquitoes and ticks...).  As we populate the farm, the conversation regarding which animals to raise and for what purposes has been ongoing, lively, and, at times, colorful.  Otter has decided to be a vegetarian, except on special occasions or when he knows the animals have been raised happy.  Smoosh just does not like the idea of where meat comes from, but forgets quickly about the origin when faced with a plate of chicken or bacon.  Bean has been a vegetarian for almost 3 years now.  Squeaks would eat the meat raw off an animal if so permitted.  Clearly, there is a wide range of thoughts and opinions on the matter, all of which are treated as respectfully as possible.

After much thought and consideration, we all agreed that raising turkeys for a Thanksgiving dinner was an idea all of us could have some peace with.  I would most certainly prefer my family eating meat from birds we have raised and loved from the get go.  We found a local hatchery and ordered our first batch of turkeys, Bronze turkeys, a pretty generic breed that should give us an easy start for our novice poultry skills.

Squeaks claimed ownership of the turkey poults (as baby turkeys are referred to).  She was the one who provided the food and water for the first few days, as well as several loving songs and lullabies.

She named her little turkey poults, Rose, Crystal, Flower, Headband, and Birdpot.  Admittedly, I love the Birdpot name.  It's right up there with the barn cat that she named Catsoup.  I think we have about 10 different things named Rose around the place, ranging from fish to chickens, and now turkeys.  As we are finding with most baby animals, turkey poults are stinkin' adorable.  They make the cutest little sounds and have little brown spots on their heads.  They have already grown quickly and now have a home outside in the coop with the other poultry. 

River and Tree make three

As previously stated, we found out that geese like to flock and will flock with whomever is around.  We couldn't just sit by and watch as Gaia went from being a goose-pig to a goose-dog, so we searched out some appropriate flock mates for her.  Surprisingly, a farm right down the road specialized in her particular breed of goose - the Pomeranian.  The Pomeranian was a colonial goose kept in the early years of America. Unlike the colonists, we could easily acquire these goslings from Craigslist.  We ordered two goslings and excitedly picked them up one Saturday morning back in the early spring.  

 The girls were there to help pick them up, therefore, the girls named them - River and Tree.  We have one girl and one boy, not sure which is which as of yet.  They flock alright, but at the beginning, they flocked with us and were adorable.  They would follow us up and down the driveway, hang out in the gardens with us, and were just overtly cute adorable additions to the farm.

 Everybody loves baby birds... 

..everyone except for the resident big bird honcho, Gaia.  They tried to flock with her, but she just was not that interested.  Maybe when they are older?

For now, Willow is content to flock with them.

Introducing the New Animals....Gaia, the goose.

It is eternally frustrating to me to try to figure out how to get one technological piece of equipment to talk to the other.  While I was very excited about getting a laptop that might actually function, I did not anticipate the difficulty in uploading piuctures from the camera to the new laptop.  I've been working on this for the past few months, though clearly it has not been a top priority.  Outside has been.  Oh, and caring for the 20 million new animals that have found their way to the farm.  SO, for the pics that have uploaded I can at least show some of our new animals.  The first one to join the farm (when we actually did not see snow) was a Pomeranian goose.  This was a freebie from another farmer.  In her previous life, said goose was living as "one of the pigs."  Geese like to flock, she had lost her other goose friends to either coyotes or dinner, and had flocked with the pigs.  Like a pig, she had learned to live in the muck and was quite happy waddling around in their stalls.  When we picked her up, she was a brownish goose.  As soon as she arrived at the farm, we set up a pool for her and watched as she happily splashed around.  Out from the pool emerged this beautiful, white goose.  Thankfully, she had Willow there the whole time to help her figure out what to do. 

 It wasn't long before we found out she makes an excellent security alarm and "big sister" on the farm.  She honks whenever someone drives up, hangs out on the deck with the dogs, and will let us know if the dogs are wrestling or misbehaving in some other way.  She likes to be around people, but just not too close.  Several times I've been gardening just to look up and see her there, just hanging out, a few feet away.  Awkward at times, but still always worth a smile.

Sandbox

We have spent months of winter reading, planning, learning, and dreaming of what our farm is going to look like.  I have written lists of plants and calendars of chores to do.  When the sun finally hit and the snow started to melt, we could not wait to get outside and start tackling all of our ambitious "To Dos."  The first on our list, the most important task of all that would make it possible to accomplish all the other work, building the sand box.  One thing we've learned in our few years of parenting, entertain the kids and work can actually be done.

First step was the planning, which included me spending time on Pinterest looking up ideas - such as old boats, covered boxes, boxes with slides, etc.  We settled on a box.  With benches.  Just like our friends have.  Next, trip to Home Depot by Daddy and Squeakers to acquire the building supplies.  Third, all hands on deck as the actual construction began.

Thankfully, Joe had very close supervision of his work....

...very close supervision.

Willow stood guard and provided the security detail.

We even had safety precautions on site.  

Working...

...guarding...

....working....

...taking a break from all that tough guarding.

And in comes the sand!

Then the toys!

Last all the kids!

Now we can start moving on to some real farm chores!

Visiting the Doc's...Smoosh Style

We've made a few more than normal visits to doctors' offices as of late.  In addition to the normal annual checkups, we've had a few other afflictions that have brought us to pediatrics.  For some reason, the kids seem to have the abnormal stuff hit after 3 pm on a Friday when our regular pediatric office is closed.  Its actually a good chance for me to spend some one-on-one time with the kids.  One visit with Smoosh was in particular fun as he did some artwork that left one doctor and several nurses in stitches laughing.  He immediately saw the chalkboard in one office and guess what he started drawing?  That's right - squids.



The doctor walked in and commented on the artwork.  "Are those balloons?"
"No, they are squids."
"OOohhh...I see, is that a boy squid and a girl squid?  I can see the dress and bow on the girl squid."
Laughing a bit haughtily at the silly doctor, feeling sorry for the poor man and his obvious squid ignorance..."Nooo, that's a Humboldt squid and a vampire squid...and a sperm whale being attacked by a squid."
"Oh, I should have known it was a vampire squid, I can see the cape on it now."
Smoosh gave me a look of "really?  is this guy serious?"  Then, ever so patiently, in his best...silly adult, you have no idea what you are talking about voice, he explained,  "Um, that's not a cape, the tissue is fused between his tentacles.  His a deep sea type of squid"
At this point, the doctor looks over at me with a confused look.
"Yeah, that's a real squid species.  He's a bit of a squidophile and knows these things."

To prevent any further confusion from the medical staff, Smoosh had me label the drawing so it would be obviously clear to everyone what the artwork was.  He also let the nurses know the drawing was now labeled so they could learn about squids if they wanted.

I think that cleared up the drawings quite a bit.

We had to hang out at the doc office for a bit longer than normal, so one of the nurses let Smoosh pick a toy from her "secret box of toys" in a back closet.  He went straight for the chess and checkers set.  He was further amazed when she said he could keep the set and bring it home.  He thanked her up and down and every nurse or doctor that entered the room then on out he told them about the chess set.  We set it up on the patient table and I began teaching him how to play.

We spent the evening learning the pieces and moves.  Ever since teaching my good friend how to play chess years ago and then promptly having my butt whooped by her, I will only teach the game and then refuse to further engage anyone.  But feel no sorrow for the Smoosh man, once he brought it home, a whole wave a chess hit the house with all of the kids picking up the game and spending evenings and good chunks of the day playing.

 It certainly was a great payoff from a long visit to the doc on a Friday night.

Little Rock Stars

Admittedly, it is tough to manage everyone at all times in my house.  There are times when Sesame Street gets thrown on and then after an hour or so I noticed I haven't heard from Smoosh or Squeakers in awhile.  This happened this past week.  After coming up from a lesson with Beans, I thought "hmmmm, it's oddly quiet in the house."  Always a bad sign.  I found a trail of cut cardboard, duct tape that had restuck on itself, and yarn.  Following the trail led me to the cutest sight of the week:

That's Smoosh and Squeakers, giving a concert to an audience of attentive stuffed animals.  They watched on Sesame Street how to make their own guitars and proceeded to do so, mostly on their own.

I must say, they had a very captive audience.  Beanie soon caught the rock star fever and was quick to join them in the merry making.

Thank you, Sesame Street, for proving to me that I don't really NEED to watch my kids all the time and a little bit of screen time here and there isn't so bad.

The Greenhouse

In our old house, the downstairs storage room was dubbed “The Grow Room.”  Without surprise, this title raised a few eyebrows here and there.  It was the room where many seeds were planted, seedlings tended, and bulbs forced for indoor growth.  The clever man I share my life with had installed lights for all the little plants I started in the late days of winter.  They brought sunshine into our lives when the days outside were still short and dark and cold.  When we moved, we lost our Grow Room but gained a permanent greenhouse in the backyard.  A bona fide, real live greenhouse complete with tables for seedlings, large under table storage, and a heater to keep us and plants toasty as winter works its very slow way out.  It was our Grow Room, all grown up! As with most things on this farm, it wasn’t as easy as just starting up the heater and starting to grow things.  First, we needed a door.  Found at ReStore.  Installed on our 10th anniversary.  Done. 

Next, we needed heat.  We tried lighting the pilot of the heater, amid my own silly fears of blowing up the greenhouse, to no avail.  We called the propane company to fill up the tank, to which he just confirmed that the heater was not working.  We (we, being Joe) learned about thermocouplers and successfully installed one to get the heater running again.  Done.

Ready for growing?  Not yet.  We still needed to stabilize the temperature so it would be safe enough for the plants.  Joe is great at thoroughness.  Me, not so much.  I would have thrown the plants in and watched them all die as I wondered why.  Joe, however, is not like me, thank goodness.  We placed the thermometer in and began to monitor the cycle of the temperatures.  With lows of 19 degrees and highs of 109, something had to be figured out.  A fan entered the picture, as well as fidgeting with the heater settings switch.  Finally, over a several-day monitoring period, we found a consistent temperature range of 60 to 70 degrees.  Much more pleasant for the plants.

Now, it was time for soil, seeds, and happy planting!

Getting her herbs and flowers planted!

 Smoosh decided enough planting for the day.  He built a habitat for the polar bear.  And then it melted in the heat...great hands-on learning of global warming!  He let me know that now the poor polar bear would have to swim to find the next iceberg.  Oh the learning that goes on in the greenhouse.

This man looks good playing in the dirt.

Now, it's time for the plants to do their job!  Grow little guys!! I already making big plans for vermicomposting and some chicken ladies in there.  There is plenty of room now for us to continue to grow.