Everything is Just Ducky

I am home sick from work today with a killer cold.  My head feels like it is going to explode.  This is day 2 of this nasty thing.  I went to work yesterday and my ears were ringing all day, my throat dripped and I yucked up enough phlegm to cover the parking lot.    Last night I almost choked to death on all the stuff I was coughing up, so I deemed it smart to take the day off and not subject myself to 4 hours of traffic, office germs and unnecessary stress.  However, just because I am sick doesn't mean I have no work to do.

I crawled downstairs and let the flock out.  They are so thrilled that the snow is gone and the grass is still where it is suppose to be.  When I opened the coop door they shot out like rockets and headed to their favorite grazing grounds.   I headed to the kitchen for hot tea and aspirin.

When I reemerged from the house I noticed the flock was gone.  No sign of them.  Garden and water ditch were empty.   I called them. No answer.   Very unusual.
I checked all their usual hiding places.  Zip.

It was then that I felt that little chivver of fear go up my spine.

I walked up the road to see if perhaps the ducks had finally discovered the pond.

No flock.

Now it was time to put Mavis, the wonder dog, into action.

"Find the flock Lassie."  I said.

She started running down the road, past the house all the way to the nearest street sign.

Her tail was way up while she ran.     Always a good sign.

It took me awhile to get where my faithful farm dog was as I was sneezing and blowing foreign objects out my nose ( excuse me).

As I got closer, she started wagging her tail and her nose was pointed east.   She wasn't going anywhere else.

I called the flock.  No response.

All that was in front of me were brambles.

I looked at Mavis, took a photo of the brambles and headed home.

Mavis stayed with the brambles.

I walked back to the brambles, took another photo, just because I need to show my friends how un-farmdog Mavis is, and headed home again.

 On my fourth step I heard a leaf rustle and stopped.

 Then I heard more leaves moving and soon my waddling, hissing feathered farm mates reluctantly came out of the brambles like the 7 dwarfs.

 They vogued for my camera.

 And then started to continue their grazing.

 They had nothing to say. (my ears are too plugged to hear anything anyhow..)

  They gave me the stink eye for discovering their new hiding spot.  

(Good dog Mavis!)

 And then went back to enjoying the sun, grass, bugs and occasional worm. Thats is what is vital to the flock and these 2 hen pecked ducks. Not as delicious or plentiful as the snails, slugs, japanese beetles and other garden pests from this past summer that they totally eliminated.

 

 Now that the flock had been found I headed down to the cows to fill their water tank up and do a "pre-rodeo" of capturing several weanlings.

Every November the spring born steers are sold.

The same family picks up the steers every year. 

The pick up date, depending on the weather, is this weekend.

Since the barn fire the only way we can capture the cattle that are leaving, is by enticing them into a corral made of portable panels.

These burned panels are the only thing that was rescued from the fire and we use them all the time.

So today I was going to put some beautiful 2nd cut hay in the corral and hope I could get a few of the steers to come in.

As I refilled the water tank, a few of the calves came over to see what all the sneezing was about.

 

So as all the adult cows ate from the round bale, I dropped the fence and carried over 1/4 of a sweet bale of timothy clover hay from my neighbors farm in the next town, and dropped it by the salt block in the middle of the round pen.

Its always the hardest getting the FIRST steer to come right into the corral.

This is where having gentle, curious, calm livestock really comes into play.

I jumped the fence and went back to the driveway and watched the clock to see how soon the first one would go in.

Tick tock, tick tock....

tick tock, tick tock....

8 minutes. 

 

 Red Sox Slider came to the plate first.

 

 The first one gets the most, and will attract a few others.

How long will it take to get the next one....

(pick a number)

 

tick tock, tick tock

tick tock, tick tock

56 seconds

Got 2

 

Garrett and Slider

 

 How long to get 3 ?

( guess)

tick tock, tick tock

tick tock, tick tock

44 seconds

Got 3 

and another one close by.

 

 tick tock

tick tock

59 seconds

Got 4.

Full House.

 

I do hope I can repeat this capture success just before the trailer comes this weekend.

With that task done I went to the next one.

A visit to the greenhouse up the road.

The owner made me a special wreath for my coop and  I needed to go get it before someone else wanted it.  Ester phoned me and said it was ready to go.

She made it just for my fowl friends.

 

It is customized with 3 yellow chicks and a big moose.  Much more beautiful than the photos show it.

 

I barely had enough energy to hang it on the coop.

It looks good.

Will look better with a little snow (and a Christmas pony tied to the fence.) 

So, are your coops and barns decorated for the holidays?

What are you using for decorations ?

Have your weanlings gone to new homes ?

Whats your best remedy for a head cold ?

~ 

BARN FIRE

Every farmers nightmare.

At 6:45 am this morning, I heard screaming downstairs in my house.

A woman was yelling "Janis the barn is on fire!"

This woman had driven over to help a friend and saw the barn on fire and came running into my house. 

I jumped out of bed, dressed fast, ran out of the house, jumped into my truck and flew down the icey road.  The sun wasn't quite up yet and it was barely 4 degrees.

THANKFULLY, I live just 1/2 mile away from my beloved cows.

As I came around the first sharp turn in the road, my heart stopped beating....

This is what you do NOT want to see, ever, in your life:

All the fire trucks were taking up the entire length of the driveway, so I slid down the rest of the road to count heads and make sure all cows and calves were accounted for.  

Rest assured, they were.   No one burnt, no one injured, so far.

Amazingly, they were bunched together.   All out in the lower field, most chewing their cud and watching the fire.

None of the usual animosities were present.

It was the First time I had actually seen the 2 black monster cows " Mean and Meaner"  AWAY from the hay rack. 

 As I stood with the cows, listening to the crackling of the fire, I felt helpless.

I did count my blessings....and my cows one more time.

The fire department was trying to keep the fire away from the garage, the house and the other barn.  Luckily, there was NO wind this morning.  A rare thing.   That is what really saved us.

You have all seen the photos of the barn on this blog. Its big. Its fairly new.

And every possible piece of farm equipment was inside it, including a wonderful tractor with the forklifts to pick up the rolled bales of hay and deliver them to the herd.   Bush hog, all the hand tools, miles of zip fencing, dozens of fiberglass posts, electric net fencing, seeders, irrigation pipes, hog feeders, canoes, frost free water pumps, water hoses to reach the water tubs, 20 years of agricultural supplies and all the stuff you need on a farm seasonally and for the important day to day functions.

The barn was already fully engulfed when the electricity went off in the farm house and the farm owner saw a flash of light outside. He opened his front door and this is what he saw:

The fire department let it burn for an hour and then left to go on another call.

They have had 3 fires in 12 hours.

It was obvious that we needed 3 things pretty quick.

Electricity for the fence charger, water for the cows and fencing to keep the herd in the field.

Farmer Chip and I immediately started re-fencing the area, since most of the zip fencing had melted.  All his fencing supplies were destroyed in the still smoldering barn.

We scavenged fencing and posts from another frozen field and set the posts close to the barn, since that was the only area that had warm ground for the posts to go into.

The entire village had no electricity because of this fire.  Peoples homes were getting cold. The local electrical company responded immediately and started replacing the mile of melted and downed wires as soon as the sun was up. 

Those lucky cows stayed away from that end of the field when all the heavy power lines came down during the fire.  They must of had a flock of angels watching over them.

The phone company came quickly to replace their destroyed cables since the farmer did not own a cell phone and needed to call his insurance company as well as other people, for assistance. 

We started digging to find the electrical wire that ran under the driveway to the barn, hoping we could dig it up ( it was inside a condiut pipe )  redirect it to a safer spot and use it to plug the fence charger into.  

Its very disorienting after a fire. He thought the wire was in one area, but didn't have any familar marks on the barn to direct him.  Finally he had to go inside the smoldering barn to find the electrical box and then eyeball where the wire would be on the outside of the barn.

We ran into all kinds of complications and had to stop what we were doing.  I suggested he call the power company to request a temporary pole be placed on the cows side of the barnyard and then string his house electrical wires TO that pole so we would get power for the fence.  He used my cell phone and made the call.

It was about this time I noticed my rubber boots were malfunctioning....( melting )

I took a walk down to the cows to cool the rubber off and see how they were doing.  It made me feel good to hug my cows and know that they were safe.

Feeling their body heat helped warm my frozen fingers and calm my racing mind.

I was thankful that I did not have to transport all of them off the property and relocate them to another farm.  That has always been my disaster plan.

There are enough fields here to move them to instead.   There was massive flooding and a landslide shortly after I arrived and we moved the cows away from the flooded areas.  I haven't allowed them to venture back to the lower areas because of that incident.

As soon as the fire wasn't "as hot" the cows ambled back up to the hay rack and continued their munching and the calves had a well deserved milk break.  Good thing they live in the moment.

Good thing our hay is in the white hoop barn and the cows have easy access to go in, lay down and chew their cud tonight.

As of 3 pm we had the area re-fenced, but still have no electricity.  The cows have lots of hay, so I do not anticipate them leaving the field.

There is limited water for them, but lots of snow for them to lap for a little while.

Tomorrow brings a new day, sunlight and more help to get a water sytem and the electricity working.

The salt blocks were rescued, but the bags of loose mineral salt were lost in the fire, along with the kitten food that I was feeding the feral kitten I found under the floor boards 2 weeks ago.    I hope she escaped.

Make a plan if a disaster should hit your home or your barn.

Lots of info under "disaster preparedness" on the Internet.

Make a plan BEFORE disaster strikes.

Also, if you have a barn, take a look at this check list and fix any issues you have in your barn before its too late.

Keep your animals safe.

http://www.firesafetyinbarns.com/Fire_Prevention_Checklist.pdf

Most winter barn fires are caused by electrical problems.

What do I think caused this particular barn fire?

Here is my guess:

  I saw a new extension cord coming out of the barn yesterday morning.

 I was thrilled when I saw that I no longer had to spend 20 minutes, twice a day, breaking up ice in the water tub.

A little pleasure that has caused a lot of pain.

#1 Do not overload your electrical outlets.

#2 Do not park and plug in your tractor in a good barn.  Park it away from your good barns and then plug it in. I heard the firemen say that this is frequently the cause of barn fires.

It can cause a great tractor that looked like this yesterday:

To become this pile of metal today.

I hope tomorrow is a better day.