rachels.haven's Journal

Senile_Texas_Aggie

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Miss @rachels.haven,

Geez, Louise, you can't seem to get a break! There is a YouTube channel I watch called "GP Outdoors", who is located in Ontario, Canada. The guy who produces it encounters black flies which bite. He wears a face and body covering when the flies are out. If I can can locate a video showing him wearing one, I will post on your journal. He said he got his at a sporting goods store.

A link to a hat with a mosquito net is here.

Good news for your barn build -- lumber prices are falling. Here is a YouTube video produced by a guy who works for a wood products wholesale company you may find interesting.

Senile Texas Aggie

 

rachels.haven

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I put one of those hats on order. Thanks!
We got another site work man to come and look at it. He lives about 5 doors down and used to be a cattleman, now does pumpkins and landscaping, demo, building, site work etc c. Waiting for an estimate now. He says because of the cement floor upstairs it will be high. The other house will help pay for that, I guess.
He also suggested trying to restore the barn and get a little more time out of it, but it's deteriorating fast (although not in super noticable ways). The back wall and floor under it is down another half an inch. My eyes about popped out of my head. That floor used to be flat...er.

More electric fence came today. This weekend I want the does and if possible the bucks in their winter quarters.

Trying to upload a picture of my mom's and sister's Muscovy. They are out of my flock and they finally let them hatch and these are the spawn...but the phone keeps telling me "parsing failed response" so I guess that will have to wait until I get home.
 

rachels.haven

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Offspring of my duck flock in TN.

2de6a69bf25807cb175ae4bf2bcbb40aebbf048b-94.jpg
 

rachels.haven

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We'll hash through it. Selling the last house when we did created a good sized windfall. We need good people related resources badly. At the very least I'd like the barn down. I don't really want to watch it fall down slowly. That would be depressing. IDK if a building has dignity, but, you know.

The neighbor who did the site work is also apparently a town powerhouse so he went and found out who complained to animal control for us since we were so inhibited. Turns out, contrary to what the ACO said, it was not ALL our neighbors calling her, complaining and saying they hate us and don't like us et c.. It was one. One of the big box McMansion people to the left of the property, the only one that was living there at the time. Whether they were calling night and day, I don't care. He also says we shouldn't worry about it. We need to register as a farm with town hall (that is unfortunately understaffed because of a town scandal when everyone decent quit because the town admin was abusing power and other things I don't want to hear about) As soon as we CAN do that we will, and believe me, come Monday we will try (neighbor came Friday evening, got back in touch via text Saturday). Right now there is no one to register with, no ag administrator, no ag inspector, and no ag council or ag anything. Then after we do that whenever someone tries to pull that we tell them, sorry, we're a food producing farm (our own food) and we need our working dog to work. We still plan to lock her up at night for the duration of our stay here because we only have one lgd and predators are thick here so she can have a break but we won't be uptight about it. We are partially having issues because the ACO is trying to take over the Ag department and our huge house neighbor is trying to protect his property value from our farming... Neither issue is in our hands or particularly our fault and we will just keep rolling.

Neighbor also confirms the story that a few years ago the small coyotes here were indeed replaced by very large ones (he says 70+ lbs) and he (and the state police officer down the street) takes them out whenever he can, especially when he hays his various properties. And he also warned me that we have a ridiculous number of large, bold bobcats as well. Both used to take his calves if he didn't lock them up in the barn for calving (bite onto back and rip up their sides with their claws). So locking up at night is probably a good idea anyway. Mass has wildlife problems.
 

farmerjan

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And the wildlife "problems" are out of control in Mass BECAUSE of a..holes like the McMansion neighbors that want to stop all the hunting and all the tree hugger idiots that just "love the wildlife".... until the deer start eating their expensive shrubbery...:barnie:he:smack

I feel for you up there in that cluster......k.

Sounds like the neighbor that looked at the barn, and has good farming background, is a great person to know. That is good for you. And a practical person to be "dispatching" any and all the predators that they can. The thing is with the bigger coyotes and all... they become a possible problem with the people too... kids and smaller mammals. Yeah, probably smart to keep the goats penned at night for their own safety and giving the dog a break.
 

rachels.haven

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farmerjan

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If these people would just use some common sense they would realize that if humans keep expanding their territory, and the wildlife keep losing their territory, there is going to come a time where the wildlife is going to lose their fear of the humans, they are going to get more bold with raiding garbage, they are going to attack the smaller dogs and cats,,,,,, and lo and behold, they are going to get aggressive towards bigger prey, namely humans. There is only 1 solution for an animal like that... plus many times if they start to get too aggressive it is because of them having health issues.... fleas, mange,worms, and then even rabies....
Other than humans there are no other real predators of coyotes... so they are left to be able to multiply and then the next thing you know there are too many for the habitat.

But.... oh, they are a part of nature, we can all live together.....o_O:hu:th:barnie:he:duc:smack:smack Glad that she was able to get rescued... what is going to happen with the next time with a littler kid......
 
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