 So far they have laid 4 eggs, 3 weighing only about 1/2 oz each. But one egg was 1 oz and was a double yolker (they were tiny ,but still delicious!).
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Technology hasn't always been my friend. When Brandon was alive I would go to him with some problem and the first thing he would ask was"has this happened before?" OR " What did you do right before it happened?". My answer was mostly "I don't know...but it doesn't work"
Brandon use to try to convince me that I was more computer literate than I thought. I try to keep that in mind when technology bites me in the butt. The latest snafu has been with Facebook....OYE....but so far my account is still viable. I did manage to send an email to Facebook about the attack on my account and didn't hear anything. Since the account is still active and hasn't been taken down I guess my email did something....who knows. Anyway I am working on making this website more interactive, even though many people have suggested to move from Facebook to Instagram. But I am full up on technology and really am not ready to tackle anything more. News from the farm: # 14 chicken who I removed from the flock of black sex links because she was being pecked almost to death is now much better and LAYING EGGS! She is hanging out in the first barn and is in a dog crate at night. Her feathers have not grown back yet but her wounds are all healed. The rest of her flock seem to be healing as well, but many of the girls who were picked on died due to the harassment. Henry Hen Pecked is in the old hen house that is attached to the barn and is alone, but not harassed by the flock. The new Layers who I call the Redheads have settled into the older of the two portable chicken trailers and have finally started to perch at night. They still have a month and a half till they start laying. So my total egg production is about 6 doz a week till the red heads start laying.  Brandon was born on June 5, 1955, I was born on June 30, 1956. We were married on June 29, 1991, if Brandon were still alive on June the 29th, of this year it would be our 33 rd wedding anniversary. The celebrations of birthday's and anniversaries are now bittersweet, but still I honor them. My friend Heidi came over on Brandon's birthday to have dinner with me , it was nice and a comfort. Earlier in the week she had helped me move the old mattress and box spring that Brandon and I slept on for almost 20 years, We both cried when we found two unmatched shoes of Brandon's under the bed. I was grateful for her help as I was getting a new mattress and box spring for that room which had become my second guest room . The room was just too big for me and the bed too big as well, so I moved into the back bedroom. The back bedroom was formally our library..which has been moved downstairs. My bedroom is now for sleeping and a place to keep my clothes and do my exercises. I live my life in the rest of the house which is still an ongoing project.  My cave.....it is much like my cabin I spent 10+ summers in at camp when I was head of gymnastics. My friend Heidi and her dog Mojo had finally gotten settled in and less than one month later she is moving! Her new house is only minutes away and not hours. The best thing is that it is just what she has always wanted since she was a little girl....a house by a lake. I am very happy for her and Mojo....let the fun of moving again begin?????????? Last week Heidi helped me to plant 3 Nanking cherry bushes and some Siberian Iris. With how wet the weather has been I haven't got much gardening or yard work done. I am still working on shaping up the inside of the house and that seems to eat up quite a bit of time, but with not a lot to show for it. One mess gets sorted and then the problem of where to put things, what to give away,donate or throw away begins. That part of the cleanup for me can be satisfying but emotionally exhausting. Enough complaints..it will be hot soon and things need to be done,so let's get to it!  We had so little winter, this winter, now mother nature is trying to make up for it! This storm may be as bad as the last one with heavy wet snow and rain ,plus high winds. I was very lucky and have no big trees that are in danger of hitting the house or any of my farm buildings. But losing power is no fun...but if it happens we will deal with it.
So the news here on the farm is my former neighbor Heidi has moved back from NY state. She had sold her house in NH 6 + months ago so had no place to move when her job was so rudely taken away from her. She was fired in a political kerfuffle within the organization she was working for and she was collateral damage . So she has stuff in storage and brought with her the minimum...that only a quilter/knitter can and her big tall dog Mojo. Zorra is dealing with it, but there are many things she hasn't had to deal since our dog Mabel and Brandon Died. So we are on a learning curve. Luckily Mojo is young and listens to me....somewhat and Zorra Corrects him when she needs to.  The biggest issue with this snowstorm was the freezing rain and ice that formed on the trees and power lines. Nothing like the ice storm of of December 2008. But with such a mild winter, the utilities and towns were taken by surprise. I was lucky enough to have such a kind neighbor who cleared part of my driveway and my mailbox. My car was encased in ice and he had shoveled a path to the drivers door....he deserves a medal! As a card I received from a friend of mine says"plant kindness and harvest gratitude".
It is sunny today, and has helped the cement like snow to be easier to cut through. The snow that came off the roof would have made great snow blocks for making an igloo. But not much fun to try to cut and shovel.   Spring is trying to arrive....but is still finding it difficult to get a foothold. I found this pot of what I believe are daffodils in the debris I was cleaning up in the front yard. The fact that it survived is amazing to me, between all the disruption of the siding and windows being replaced last fall...I am lucky to have anything growing in the raised beds next to the house.
Here is the middle of the month update on the farm: 11 of the Sexy girl laying hens were killed by a weasel three weeks ago and only the sexy girl who was in the basement survived. She was in the basement as she had been sick and is just now improved enough that she can venture outside. With the loss of the 11 sexy girls I have ordered 20 more laying chicks...they are Rhode Island Reds which I have had before. But with the mass death I have had to rethink my chicken house plans. I decided that the old chicken house where the sexy girls were was not secure...obviously, needed to be replaced. But because any structure on the ground will become a haven for rats unless the ground is dug out and filled with stone...otherwise it won't be rat or weasel proof. I talked to my friend Patrick who did all the work on the house and barn and asked him if he could build me a chicken trailer,like the one I bought in 2018. He said yes!!!!!!!!! The new chicks will arrive at the beginning of April and will live in a brooder in the basement for at least a month. Hopefully the trailer will be done by then and I can put the new chicks in there, otherwise I will need to move them into a bigger brooder in the first barn till their new home is ready. Update # 2: Sparkle the donkey is doing much better! I think after December of 2022 when she had abscesses in her front hooves and was severely under weight we began to feed her low carb senior horse food (along with treating the abscesses) . Unfortunately I didn't notice the signs of the lamintitis even after her weight was back to normal. So I kept feeding her the same amount of grain and that really caused the problem as carbohydrates can cause the inflammation in her hooves to get worse. Now she only gets a taste of her grain and she is feeling much more like her old sparkle self! So, as my parent's would say"onward and upward"....we will hopefully march into spring and not have a late freeze like last year.  The month of February was somewhat stressful, but less than last year. There were 4 live lambs born and one lamb who died during birth as she was so big and her mother was a first timer. I dealt with treating the sheep for lice and had to get a coat for Lady as she lost her own coat due to the lice and needed the protection. Two of the ewe lambs needed coats at first but both grew out of them(literally) and are now coatless. The last lamb born is a ewe lamb named Tempo and her mother is my oldest ewe named Rhythm.
Sparkle the Donkey had a health scare....she developed lamintitis which is inflammation of sensitive layers of tissue (laminae) inside the hoof in horses and other animals. It is very painful and Sparkle needed to be treated with pain killers and no grain to eat..... But she is better now and starting to act like her old self. I still need to be careful and keep her bedding on the soft side. Sparkle is not a young donkey at the age of 24 but not elderly either. Donkeys can live 27-40 years and I will try to keep her healthy and happy from now on.  The snow is really pretty and this last storm left everything coated with snow !
Luckily it is just cold enough to keep the snow firm, but not iced over. Zorra doesn't like it when it gets so cold that the snow hurts her feet,especially when we are walking on the road going from snow to slush. The 3 lambs are doing fine, Thief and Music are sleeping together in the mineral feeder. I need to give them back their rubber tub with hay it it. Snow is out with the flock for the first time, but doesn't wander too far from mom,which is good, cause otherwise she bellows! I still have 3 old red layers in the lambing area and now that they are roosting high enough at night I haven't lost anymore(I started with 7)! Things were going along fine.....then it snowed....I went out to check on the young sex link layers and there had been a massacre. 6 out of the 24 hens had been killed and 3 of those were decapitated. It was definitely a weasel.....I know they need to eat, but only three heads is not much of a meal and leaving everything else is a waste... But with this attack it means the young layers can't live in the barn coop as it isn't secure. That meant I needed to move the layers around to safer quarters, that meant moving the 7 old red layers from the chicken trailer. So I moved my oldest group of layers, the red girls who were in the chicken trailer to the first barn. Luckily today(Tuesday) they are now settled into the tractor bay and lambing barn with the sheep and the donkey. On Sunday after I cleaned up the carnage , I spent most of the day cleaning out the trailer and then in the afternoon I moved Henri Hen Pecked and his girls into the trailer. Between that and the snow...I was pretty tired. I never did get any snow shoveling done. It was too my great relief on Monday Morning and my heart felt thanks to my neighbor who had plowed out the front of my driveway and mailbox while I was still asleep on Monday morning....it made me cry... We are having heavy snow this evening that is supposed to turn to heavy rain later tonight. It is making all the snow on my metal roof crash to the ground and as I write Zorra is sleeping on my feet...she doesn't like when the snow comes off the roof! I am just hoping that the high winds that are predicted don't knock the power out. Hopefully the weather report is correct and by late tomorrow morning it should be sunny. I have to say we haven't gotten the worst of the weather that the rest of the east coast has been getting, tornadoes , flooding and high winds and blizzard conditions. As they say the climate is changing.....hold on to your hats!  |
Mary Will Sussman Archives
July 2024
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