August 27, 2012

The problem with roosters…

…is what to do with them.

For years we have had chickens and that means invariably, we have ended up now and then, by a mistake of sorting sexes at the hatchery, with a rooster. There are a lot of reasons that we don’t need a rooster- two are that they don’t lay eggs and the hens don’t need them to lay eggs.

There are also reasons we don’t want a rooster- they rip up the hens in an endless passion for mating, they crow all day and all night (no, they don’t only crow at daybreak!), but worst of all, they attack almost everything that moves, including us farmers.

And roosters have no ethics or mercy when it comes to attacking. They need no reason except that they see you. There are no rules of engagement. They don’t give you a warning, or a chance to move away. Roosters don’t negotiate. They lack a Quaker gene.

And then it is how they attack. They wait till your head is turned. You can be ten feet away, or a hundred feet away –but if your head is turned, or worse yet if your back is turned, they seize the opportunity of surprise. With wings flapping they jump up from the ground, lean back in the air, and strike with the sharp, hooked spurs that have grown out long from the back of their legs. The spurs cut like knives. A really aggressive rooster can send its victim to the emergency room for stitches.

Over the years we have dealt with the problems of having a rooster in different ways.

For a time there was a young man who we were put in touch with who used the roosters for breeding (at least that’s what he said he did with them). Whenever we needed to unburden ourselves of a rooster, we’d get in touch with this young man through a series of contacts and he would pull up in his car and somehow catch the rooster and take it with him. At some point, the web of shadowy contacts dissipated and we never able to get word to him again.

At that point, we turned to Craigslist  to advertise that we had a rooster to give away, free to a good home. We would get replies from Craigslist from all kinds of persons, but then no one ever showed up to claim their feathered bargain.

A few years ago a friend of a friend had a friend who wanted one of our roosters because they liked to hear them crow. We asked if they knew what a rooster was all about and word came back to us that “yes they did” and this was not their first rooster. So we gave our rooster to our friend who passed it to the friend who passed it to their friend – transaction complete. Just recently we were told that the rooster met its end. Apparently the rooster became so increasingly aggressive that the people were scared to leave their house, so in a moment of bravery fueled by frustration they literally shot their way out…

Last year, I bought a small, chain link dog kennel and that is where we keep our current rooster. In this way, he has his own space and he can’t get to us or to anyone else. Once a week we allow him conjugal visits with the hens. It’s not a bad life. I also got an incubator so that I could breed him and hatch chicks. I assumed that my chances of getting another rooster this way were probably the same as if I bought sexed chicks. So far, of the five chicks that I’ve hatched, two have turned out to be roosters.

I can’t put these two with the current rooster as they will fight, and so now I am back to the original problem of what to do with the roosters.

Can’t re-home them, Craigslist doesn’t work, and we can’t keep them…

… so this time we are setting the oven to 375.

August 3, 2012

Maybe this isn’t such a bad deal. He doesn’t ride me too much which is good cause I ache in my joints. If you listen, you can hear me creak as I walk. I remember all those days I was at some camp and was saddled and bridled for the entire day.  See my nose? The hair is permanently rubbed off from wearing a tight bridle for so long. It never came off. This aint the worst it could be.

But anyhow, being the bigger horse at these camps I had to carry the bigger people. Then I was leased to a fat kids camp. One of those camps where they say they give rich fat kids exercise and healthy food – I was the one who got the exercise while some Big Mac sucking kid bounced his blubber on my back, and then as for food….well, I was lucky to get any grain – mostly I just got some moldy hay.

That was when I was getting older, and my knees began to hurt. Sometimes I hurt so much I couldn’t lift my feet high enough and I would trip, falling to my knees and the kid on me would panic and yell. If I could have, I’d a bucked him off just to get a bit of relief, but I didn’t have it in my back legs either.

I coulda been a race horse. I just wasn’t as fast as my dad, Whitey’s Fella. Dad was fast. He won a lot of money in his time.  (He also had a lot of kids, which I cant, cuse I got my nuts whacked off.) I was compared to him, but I just wasn’t as fast. I was fast, but a few tenths of a second behind meant I was slow. Its amazing that a matter of one or maybe two tenths of a second determined my fate. Most people don’t even think in seconds. I was judged by them. I was judged by tenths of a second. But I was fast. Still am. Even at 25 years old and with arthritis in my knees I am faster than Zipps and Patrick – hell, I was faster than that dork Jake who used to live here and torment me - a thoroughbred that bullied me to no end. He liked to come up on my blind side – yes I am blind in my left eye – and bite my butt and try to chase me. I could out run that dork even if I was trottin’! I’d be waitin at the other end of the field waiting for him to get there. He too, was supposed to be a racehorse. Whatta slow putz. He couldn’t out run one a the chickens round here. But that’s not important. Ya see, being fast isn’t fast enough in the racing biz. I got auctioned off. I never saw Saratoga again.

Instead I saw trails. I don’t even know where I was, or where I’ve been.  I don’t really remember. But I saw a lot of miles of trails. Being a trail horse wasn’t so bad – people were nice, and at the end of the ride most people would sneak me a treat – a carrot or peppermint. Some people were jerks though. They had seen too many westerns and would yank the reins and kick me thinking that’s want horses needed. Dumb farts. Sometimes I’d get so mad! Then I would – and I am not sayin I am proud of myself for it – veer a bit off the trail and walk under a low branch…that knocked the John Wayne right out of em. Hell, all us trail horses did it.

One time, I forget where I was, but I was in a paddock, a man came and shouted at us. None of us knew what he wanted. Then he’d hit us, and I mean hit us. I still shudder about being hit. If I only knew what he wanted I‘d done it – so would have the others. To this day I still get flashbacks of those beatings and even sometimes I snap at people – I can’t help it. It’s a reaction I can’t always control. It just comes over me. Sometimes I snap at people who are good to me. It’s like a defense mechanism…I can’t shake what that man did to us. Its not like I can go to a shrink. They don’t have shrinks for horses – there’s this lady named Temple Gradin, but I just gotta deal with it. At least I don’t snap as much theses days. No one hits me here so I don’t have that trigger. But sometimes I just snap. It’s a tick in my brain, like an instinct I shouldn’t have. I can’t help it. We all have our ghosts. This man is mine. I wish that’d never happened.

I oughta get back to what I was sayin. My knees would just give sometimes. Or I would trip. Trails aren’t smooth – there’s all kinda things in the way . Like logs, rocks, puddles, and whatever. Things that the fat kid on my back couldn’t walk over. But I had to. And lets face it, I wasn’t getting any younger. I couldn’t keep up as well. My eye was losing sight, and my breathing was getting a bit shallower…my nasal passage had collapsed a bit. I was just getting older, that’s all. Couldn’t help that. No one can.

I guess I wasn’t worth much after that. No one wanted me. So I went to auction. Its not the kind you are thinking of, where people are bidding and fighting over the horses. That was the kind of auction I had been at when I was young. But this was different. These people were haggling to get the price lower. Ya see, it costs the buyer all kinds of money to truck a guy like me – and about twenty others at a time – way down to Mexico. Something about profit margins. Its also why they like guys like me. I’m sorta big, and in Mexico they pay by the pound…so I was worth the cost, cause I would bring a profit at the plant.

But some lady took me. She had a petting farm, more or less, and thought I could pull a cart and look cute or something like that. She also thought if she didn’t buy me, I’d go to Mexico. She didn’t want horses to go to Mexico. She didn’t know about my knees or my brain snaps – how could she? But she bought me and took me to her farm. It wasn’t a very pretty place, but she was nice enough to me. She fed me. She put me together with a little horse named Hershey who didn’t tease me. But in the end, I wasn’t what she wanted. She fed me, but didn’t take the best care of me. She figured she’d sell me and let that person pay a vet. She sold me.

And now I am here. Like said it aint such a bad deal for an old guy like me. They fixed me as best they could – got rid of my infections, my feet problems, even got my teeth looked at. They give me stuff for my knees, and asprin when I get stiff ! All that stuff. They don’t ride me all day either. Just every now and then. In fact they sorta let me roam around. I free range like those dumb chickens that are always in my way! Friggin chickens! Do you know how hard it is for me not to step on those pecking feather dusters? They are always under my feet, catching grasshoppers and stuff. I gotta side step every where! Its like walking on eggs! Get it? Chickens! walking on eggs! That’s a good one! (I still got my sense of humor!) But if that’s the worst thing I gotta worry about then its ok. I am kinda fond of those damn birds though, which is why I dont step on em.

I mean I get my own field where Pat and Zip cant sneak up on my blind side and bite me. And I get to wander in and out of the stable as I please. Sometimes they leave the hay out and I nose thru it- I get the good stuff and then Pat and Zip get the stuff I don’t like! I can deal with that! And then I get itched almost anytime I want. I just walk up to those guys cleanin the stables – yeah, I get room service- I just bump em a bit, and they get my brush and start massaging my hot spots. I make these funny faces and they like that! So I make more funny faces and since that entertains them they keep brushing me. I got em wrapped around my hoof. These people are so easy to train. Ya know, I got em so well trained that if I sorta gurgle at them, they go get me a treat! imagine that! and I get Gatorade when its hot, a blanket when its cold, and then I get this rock that I can lick for salt. And my own feed bowl. I never had my own feed bowl before.

I can be happy here for a long, long, time. Sometimes I hear them say I am retired. Sometimes I hear them say I am spoiled. Oh well, here they come, I gotta gurgle a bit…I hope they got peppermint today. Or one of those orange gumdrop slices, or ginger snaps… think I will walk over and see what they got….

June 25, 2012

Not everything is yellow....a photo essay.

June 5, 2012

I always knew that Kath and I are different.

Here we were Sunday driving back from “Just Kiddin’ Around” farm north of Allentown with four young kid goats we had just bought – three in a homemade carrier made out of scrap plywood, hardware cloth, and two by fours, strapped to the bed of our pickup, and one goat, the smallest, inside the truck tucked up and sleeping on Kath’s lap…

I know it’s not what most people did Sunday afternoon. Most cars on the roads were filled with beach balls, beach chairs, etc either coming back from the shore or going to the shore. But like Kath said, its not so much that we are different, its just that this is who we are…its that we love the farm life, albeit ours is a very small farm, and we are meant to have a truck full of goats rather than one overflowing with beach chairs.

I have resigned to the fact that I would miss the animals and CSA more than I’d miss other things. It’s why that after we get home from our full time day jobs we head out back to weed, plant, harvest, clean stalls, water and feed the chickens, horses, and goats, etc. Usually we don’t get in till it begins getting dark, then we eat dinner…and in the morning we put on muck boots to go out and clean and feed and check on everybody before going to work. Many times I find myself sharing a fence rail with Patrick looking up at the stars, well before the world awakes…I don’t think that we would have it any other way.

The following are pics of our new purebred Boer doe goats. I am planning to raise them for eating brush and vegetation for hire – more or less a natural way to clean up overgrown areas. Our new venture is called “Quaker G’Oats”…Even if this venture doesn't pan out, I will still have four new friends! Its a win-win no matter!All four goats are a little over 3 months old now. Lucy is about half the size of Irene, Frances, and Mary because her mother ran dry early. We’ll catch her up on grain and she’ll grow out fine.

Lucy

 

 

 

 

 

Irene

Frances

 

Mary

Honey bee swarms…

Late spring is swarm season. A swarm occurs when a hive gets too crowded. A new queen is raised and a swarm of bees, along with the older queen, leave the hive to find a new home. When the swarm leaves, it gathers somewhere, usually on a tree branch. Scout bees leave the swarm to search out a new home, and when one is found, they lead the swarm to it.

A swarm is both good and / or bad depending on how the beekeeper looks at it. If the beekeeper can catch the swarm and re hive it, it’s a free colony! On the other hand, the amount of bees in the original colony is reduced, so honey production goes down. For me, it doesn’t matter. It’s a wash.

The first swarm I saw was two weeks ago. It gathered about 15’ up in the maple tree and since it was pretty much impossible to get to, I let it go. The next day it was gone – the scouts found it a good home somewhere.

The 2^nd a 4^th swarms were easy. They occurred about ten days apart, and both gathered on the beach plum bush in the front yard. This bush has been a popular gathering place for years for unknown reasons, and I have caught about 5 swarms from it. #2 and #4 swarms gathered on the branches two feet off the ground so all I needed to do was put a hive box, or super, under the swarm, then shake the bees off the branch so that they fell into the super. For the most part, it was that simple.

Very easily I went from having four hives to six with a few shakes of a branch.

Swarm #4 in the Beach Plum

#3 swarm was a whole different story.

A week ago #3 swarm formed about 20 feet high up in the young elm tree that we had planted four years ago in the front pasture. Last year I re hived a swarm from the beach plum bush and set the hive more or less underneath it. I am pretty sure swarm #3 came from this hive.

Up there 20 feet, I decided, like I did for the one that had formed in the maple tree earlier in the spring, that it was too high for me to reach and I’d just have to let it go. That was Saturday. Sunday it was still there. When I got home from work on Monday it was still there. Same thing on Tuesday. Of all the swarms I have ever let pass, most left in a day – I had never seen one stay for this long without finding a new home. When I came home from work on Wednesday…

… it was still there, but not doing too well. For five days now the swarm was getting smaller as bees that were weak from the weather and lack of food were dropping off. Five days without food is a long time for a bee, and also having been exposed to three rainstorms and cold temperatures during these five days decreased this swarm’s chance of survival. I looked up and could hear bees dropping down through the leaves, too weak to hang on. The swarm was also beginning to split into separate clusters, and beneath the main swarm, a number of bees that had fallen from it clung together on a branch below. On leaves beneath that lower branch, there were a few more small clusters.

I figured that at this point, I would have to try to re hive it. Better to try than to let it starve.

I put together a plan – Allen could raise me up in the loader bucket as high as it could reach and then with my pole saw, I could reach higher and with it, hook the branch and pull or bend it close enough for me to reach. With the super on the bucket with me, I would then clip the branch and then shake the bees into it.

The plan worked great for the lower cluster.

The main warm was too high for me to balance every thing and stay steady enough to grab it. Kath stayed on the ground and used the pole to hook the branch, but at her angle it pulled it too far from me to reach. So Allen jumped on top the hood of the tractor and took over the pole duty. He reached it up over my head about 5 feet, hooked the leader and slowly pulled the swarm to me. I stretched out as far as I could and reached as far as I could, and grabbed the branch holding the swarm. I clipped the branch from the leader and …the leader, under so much tension, released, slipping off the pole saw, and whipped back

I didn’t really know what had happened. I remember that I was holding a small cluster of bees in my hand as another cloud of bees descended on me, then on Allen, and down to Kath who was standing in the pasture watching. I started taking stings, but holding the little cluster and up in this bucket I didn’t have much choice but to submit to the assault  and hope that it would be just a few bees. It wasn’t.

Kath took off, wiping bees off her as she ran off down the pasture. I was getting pummeled, and so was Allen. I somehow managed to get the small cluster that I was holding into the super, and jumped down out of the bucket onto the hood with Allen, who was still holding the pole. I almost knocked him off. We both jumped down and hurried away, with angry bees stabbing our skin and more in tow.

We all were stung up. When it was over, Kath had gotten quite a few stings, Allen more, and I even more than them. I couldn’t even estimate how many times I had been stung – my arms, neck, face, ears, and head were burning and I couldn’t separate the pain into each sting – I just burned all over. In  pain, a bit exhausted from the stings, we all just stood at the bottom of the pasture “licking our wounds”. This had never happened before.

Kath saw what had happened: the cluster was actually gathered around two branches – one we couldn’t see from where we were. When I cut the one branch, I was left with a cluster, but the other half, still clinging to the hidden branch, went flinging through the air when the leader released, and that got them very riled up.

So there we were. Out in the field the tractor was running, a super in the raised bucket, and a small cluster of bees now higher in the tree, but too riled up to go near. And the three of us so stung up it was hard to move or to think bout anything else but the pain.

But I couldn’t leave it at that.

A half hour later the bees had settled down and since I wasn’t sure if I had gotten the queen in the previous clusters, I decided to go back and finish off the job. Allen and Kath reluctantly helped. We set up again, and this time Kath on the ground got a better angle to pull the leader to me. I clipped the branch, dropped the cluster in the hive, and that was it. All calm. As easy as buttering bread.

I put the super in the yard and fed it sugar water, then went in for the night. A very uncomfortable night as the burning wasn’t going down.

To make a long story short, I ended up in the doctors office the next day as for the first time ever, rashes began rolling across my body and I felt very warm. I had never had a reaction to stings before, nor even multiple stings. Turns out it wasn’t really serious – but simply my body reacting to a bit more than it could handle. The doctor, who was fascinated by the story as he wants to keep bees sometime in the future, put me on a few meds to calm my body down. (Luckily, Kath and Allen didn’t get the reaction from the stings that I got)

When I got home from the doctors, I checked on the hive. The bees had left.

There they were, back in the elm tree. All that for nothing!

And now it is Sunday, eight days later and the bees are still there. Maybe a quarter of them are left, weak, but with enough sugar water to sustain them for a few more days. I hope.  

Remnants of swarm #3 in the elm tree.

I have decided that it is what it is. I won’t try to re hive this swarm again. I have done all  that I can, and have taken all I can from this swarm. Nature will need to care for this swarm now. It won’t let me. Good luck swarm #3. I wish you had chosen to gather on the beach plum bush….

April 26, 2012

The other day I took my camera with me to Still A Hill when I went there to see Zipps. I have been going over there at least once or twice a week to see him. I halter him and take him out on a lead for grass. We just browse around the lane and the area around the stables for about an hour or so – he gets out, gets a bit of grass and I get to relax – I am not at work, not at the farm – Me and Zip have an hour without any expectations put upon us. We all need that every once in a while.

Back to my camera….so I took a few shots while there. It wasn’t easy to stay steady with a camera in one hand and a horse on the other, but I tried. I would have liked to have taken more too, and I will try to the next time I go.

For now, these are some pics I took that day- 

 

April 7, 2012

Last night as the clerk of my Quaker Meeting, I took part in the areas ecumenical Good Friday service. This is what I said:

What I want to share is a leading…a leading, in Quaker speak, is when God speaks through you. Its something that you cant shake off, ignore, or just forget about. It comes to you, into you.  It stays with you, everywhere you go…..a leading is god speaking. A leading is Gods message. Its God telling you what to do…God has given them to you…. This is a leading that God gave to me.

My leading is a poem. Ever since Pastor Tom sent me an email and asked if I’d like to say something at Good Friday, this poem has surfaced in me and wont leave. Fact is, this poem is always with me, but when it usually comes to mind once or twice a day, now it won’t sit down. It just repeats to me all through the day, each day. It is God speaking. God wants me to share it. I don’t know why. But I know God wants me to, so I trust …

The poem was written some some 600 years ago, by the Sufi mystic poet, Hafiz…

This is the poem –

“So Thirsty”

First the fish has to say

Something ain’t right about this camel raise

And I am so thirsty

This poem can be interpreted in many different ways – which is why it’s remembered all these years – it survives change. It can be interpreted as just a simple lyric that is just for fun – a fish on a camel – of course he’s thirsty! Or about becoming lost…the fish is definitely lost. Or maybe all this silliness isn’t silliness at all

To me the poem is about searching for God, about leaving what we know to search for what’s missing – it’s our thirst for finding God.

Its can go deeper than that too. The fish would not be thirsty had he not left the water he once lived in…something isn’t right, we need God to survive

It is also about faith….

Faith.

It takes faith to say something isn’t right…it takes faith to admit you are so thirsty. It takes faith to seek God.

Jesus had faith.

Jesus was always moving towards God…. by faith. That was what Jesus’ life was about.

And maybe that’s what God is trying to tell me…to keep moving towards God. To keep my faith. To let my faith carry me back to the water where I belong.

Didn’t Jesus say?

“Seek and you shall find”

First the fish has to say….

And that is my leading…it speaks to thy condition. It speaks to thy condition every day. …thanks for allowing me to share my leading with you on this Good Friday…Amen.