Photos from the Farm #28

Welcome back!

It was chilly yesterday, wasn't it! Matt put Clover's coat back on. She was shivering because she was so cold. I wore my winter coat to the barn because it was so cold!

This week we've had fun cooking outside.  I've had fun with my new sewing machine. What have you done? Have you learned anything new? Have you played a new game, learned a new song,  learned some new math, or read a new book?

I sewed some beanbags on my new sewing machine! They aren't filled with beans, they are filled with rice. Quin loves them!

We baked bread on our new smoker grill! It was delicious! Did you know you can bake bread on a barbeque grill?

We even decorated with eggs for Easter! Quin is holding our ostrich egg.
We don't have any ostriches. My friend gave it to me and we get it out every year when Easter is close. I thought you might like to see how big an ostrich egg is.

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We've been working on our building project, too.

Bryon used the post hole digger on the back of the tractor to dig the first hole. It is much faster to use a post hole digger than it is to dig a hole with a shovel. Do you see the post hole digger jumping around a little bit? We have a lot of rocks in the soil! Watch closely and you will see some rocks coming out with the dirt.

The hole is about 24" deep. If you have a ruler you can measure the size of the tiles on the floor of your classroom. Then you can see how deep 24" is.

Bryon put a yellow post form into the hole. Then he, Tim, and Matt mixed up some cement to shovel into the form. A form is like a mold. Ice cube trays are molds for water.

Next he put a post into the cement.

He used a level to make sure the post is perfectly straight. If it isn't perfectly straight then the what he's building won't be straight and won't last very long.

Ask your parents if they have a level you can look at. It's an interesting tool! I always had fun playing with my dad's level when I was little.

Do you have any more guesses about what we are building? It isn't a hay barn. It isn't a train track.

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Matt found a nest of eggs under the wagon! Silly chickens! In the spring we have an Easter Egg hunt almost every day. The chickens hide their eggs in different places and sometimes they hide them very well!

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 I took some videos for you this week, too.

We're sorry to tell you that Charlie, the rooster, has gotten very mean. We had to send him to a new farm last week. He was attacking people! We don't keep mean animals on the farm. We like visitors! If you watch the video you'll see another rooster in the back. I think I'll name him Peety. He's just starting to crow. He is orange and white.

Quin can tell the difference between roosters and hens by looking at their 'hat'. That's what he calls the comb (red part) on the chicken's head. Quin says, "Charlie has a big hat, mama hens have a little hat."


Do you remember the chicks that were born during Fall Break? Petty is one of those chicks. We've been trying to teach him good manners. Charlie didn't learn good manners even though we tried. I hope Peety does!


I was so excited to get a little video of Echo mooing! She doesn't usually make any sound if she can see us. She only makes noise when she can't see us and wants her breakfast. Can you hear the other animals? What other animals can you hear on the video?

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I thought it would be fun to start a graph of our chicken eggs. I'll write down how many green, brown, and duck eggs we get each day. You can make a graph, and I will make a graph. In a few weeks I'll post my graph and you can see if our graphs look the same.

Friday, March 27 I collected 6 brown eggs, 2 green eggs, and 2 duck eggs.

Saturday, March 28 I collected 4 brown eggs, 3 green eggs, and 2 duck eggs.

Sunday, March 29 I collected 9 brown eggs, 3 green eggs, and 2 duck eggs.

Monday, March 30 I collected 5 brown eggs, 1 green egg, and 2 duck eggs.

Tuesday, March 31 I collected 4 brown eggs, and 2 duck eggs.

Wednesday, April 1 I collected 4 brown eggs, 5 green eggs, and 2 duck eggs.

Thursday, April 2 I collected 5 brown eggs, 6 green eggs, and 1 duck egg.

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I hope you enjoyed the post today!

Next time I have some videos to share about the ducks! I also have a video of the goats for you.

Have you watched the snow on the mountains? It's melting. The days are getting longer. Spring is here. It's not quite time to plant much in the garden, but it's time to get the seeds started indoors.

I hope you have a wonderful Spring Break! We'll be building, and cleaning more of the barn, and planting some seeds indoors. I'll send some little plants to your classroom so you can watch them grow, too!

Friday Photos from the Farm #4

Welcome back!

This week I was sick. Do you know what happens on a farm when someone is sick?

The same thing that happens every other day.

The animals are hungry and need to be fed. They need clean water, too.

The goats still need to be milked.

All the chores still need to be done!

No resting in bed just because I'm sick!

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Last week I promised to show you some pictures of our dog and some pictures of the ducks.

First I thought you might like to see how the chicks are growing. They are starting to get tiny feathers on their wings this week! They still follow their mama around so they stay safe and can find food and water.

Back in May while you were just finishing Kindergarten our mama duck hatched out some eggs. Do you see the fuzzy ducklings? The mama duck is the black and white one. The daddy duck (called a drake) is the big white one.

 

 

Here is a picture of them this week! They are about 5 months old now and look like adult ducks. What are things that look the same on the drake, the duck, and the young ducks?
What are some things that look different on the ducks?
Who is leading the line of ducks?

Here is Matt and his dog, Miles. His name is Miles because he has 'miles of smiles.'
He is always happy!

Miles reminds us of Dug from the movie, "Up!" He loves everyone he meets,
and he has a big, black nose.

Do you think they look alike?

These are the pumpkins that have been growing in our garden this year.
Some are small pumpkins. We will use those to make pie!
There are two big pumpkins. We will carve those for Halloween!

I thought you would like a silly picture of our goat, Clover. Her tongue is always hanging out when she's happy! What a funny goat!

Thanks for visiting again!

Next week I'll show you what it looks like to make cheese!

Make sure you ask your teacher good questions and I will do my best to answer them.

Spring Gardening

Spunky and I were out in the garden today. We planted seeds in the house in February and March, which turned out to be too early.

She said it would be a good idea to keep a garden journal, so I'm back to posting!

The weather was nice. It was clear and cool, but not cold.

Here are some of the weeds that are growing well right now. I didn't see any puncture weeds, but they often don't start for another few weeks.

Redstem filaree grows on the access road all the time. Lovely little purple flowers! But it is invasive!

We're pretty sure this is Quackgrass. The animals will eat it, but it's invasive and hard to get rid of in the garden

Mallow weed. It grows everywhere! Not really harmful to the animals, but they won't eat it if it gets too big.

Bur buttercup, bad for the animals because they have spiny burs. This also grows in our sandbox, and we can't get it out of there fast enough! We don't want little kids getting burs in their hands, feet, or knees when they are trying to play.

Foxtail, this is one of the weeds that is 'dangerous' on the farm. It get stuck in animals throats when they eat it, it works it's way into paws and ears on the dogs, it spreads like wildfire!

Broadleaf Plantain. This one isn't too bad, but it does take over the garden if we let it. I'm not too fussy about the lawn, but it also tends to take over the lawn.

Shepherd's Purse. It multiplies by seed.... and one plant can produce between 500 and 90,000 seeds. It's everywhere!

You can find a good link to common weeds at the USU Extension site. There are two PDF booklets to download. We usually take care of the weeds the way the extension service recommends. Sometimes we use 2,4 D, most often we dig them out roots and all.


My favorite hoe in the garden is the Winged Weeder. It's sharp on both edges and cuts through weeds in either direction.

We tried vinegar as a weed killer one year. Although it knocked the green leaves out for a while, it didn't kill the roots. In fact, since our soil is so alkaline it seemed that the vinegar was a good fertilizer!

Spunky and Squirt planting. Spunky said that Squirt stepped on every single plant she planted! We planted celery, spinach, kale, and some onions. The weather should be mild tomorrow, so today is a good day to get some plants in.

Our lambs ear looks great! The bees love it, so it's planted in the garden not very far from the hives.

The lavender looks dead in the photo, but it's starting to sprout. The bees also love lavender, which is why it's also planted in the garden near the hive.

Yay! The peas are up! They've been planted for about 3 weeks and have just started to sprout. We planted peas two other times.... but the chickens got them right through the fence! This time we put up some climbing fence in the middle of the garden and gave them another try.

Egyptian Walking Onions. This is their third year and I'm sure we will be able to harvest and use them this year!

New royalty purple raspberries. We bought some berries last year and thought they were wonderful so we decided to try to grow some this year.

Hubby and Vet2Be extended the grape arbor this year. It works so well! By the middle of the summer it is completely covered with grapes and makes a fun play house for Squirt while we are working in the garden. We planted the celery on the north side of the arbor so that it will be in the shade when the weather gets hot this summer.

 

Molasses for Fertilizer?

This was one of the signs at the demonstration garden that we visited on Saturday.

I'd never heard of using dry molasses as fertilizer. Here are two links I found that have information:

Dirt Doctor

Bob Webster's Gardening

I haven't found any locally.... yet. Here's a link to a place to buy it online. I'm sure the shipping charge will make the cost higher than I'd like to pay so I'll keep looking and asking around here.

Kandy Kid Dried Molasses

If you've used dry molasses for fertilizer, please let me know how you liked it. Especially if you have used it on pasture where you have animals.

Visiting The Gardens

My Aunt and Uncle came to visit for a few days. It was wonderful to see them! She's never been to our home before and I was a little nervous that our house might not be clean enough for guests since I've spent so much time this summer doing things other than taking care of the house and yard this summer.

I spent quite a few days cleaning! It seemed as if every time I turned around there was more sheet rock dust to clean up!

We had a lovely time while they were here. We visited a local garden that was beautiful! Lucky for us the gardens were having a tomato tasting! In our state we don't have wine tasting (we might, but I don't know of any) but we have tomato tasting! Yum!

These are my favorites! I hope to find some seeds and grow some next year.

All the tomatoes are heirloom varieties. Here's the tasting table.

What the tomatoes look like before they are cut up for us to taste.

Here are photos of the gardens.