Teresa & Mike CHS - Our journal

[Baymule]

Skunks will eat bee, a problem if you are a bee keeper. But they also eat yellow jackets that nest in the ground and attack you in mass attacks. And that is a good thing.

 

[farmerjan]

It took us all day but we attached chicken wire to the woven wire fence to keep the chicks in and other critters out. Hopefully that will also keep the skunk from going through the fence as I would rather keep it out as put it down.

Can't agree with you on that @Mike CHS , except for the smell.... as skunks are carrying more and more diseases.... and they are often rabid here in Va. I will tolerate/ignore them up the road, in the pasture away from here, but here at the house......NOPE. If I was going to be staying here this one would have been caught and disposed of.... now I just don't care. Next persons problem. I agree with keeping it out.... but they are notorious for digging.... a big part of their diet is grubs and stuff.... I sure hope this solves the problem for you.

 

[Mike CHS]

Sassy and Lance finally got released from their exile to the porch this afternoon. They finally got a bath where there was no skunk smell after they were dry but we lost track of how many baths they have had since the skunk got them.

We picked our last cabbage this afternoon that was so big that it wouldn't fit in the vegetable crisper in the fridge. And another small basket full of beets that we will process tomorrow.
The squash of all kinds is some of the most productive that we have had but they are all in a bed that has been idle since mid summer last year and it has been where we have been composting all of the sheep manure that comes out of the lay down areas.

 

[CntryBoy777]

Hopefully it will be their last time in "exile"........give em both a good rub and pat for me........that is a pretty big cabbage.......did ya weigh it?.....our tomatoes are burnin up and the fruit is getting smaller.....squash is gone and it never produced, only had male blooms on it....never have seen that before, but all the commercial fields are finished for this season....we'll get a better start for next year....wouldn't mind some of that compost down here, but @B&B Happy goats said we could have some from her "goat pile" and 80mi sure is better than about 800....🤣

 

[farmerjan]

I could send some real good green grass cow manure, but if they opened the box they might arrest you for receiving some sort of serious national security infraction..... don't want to get you in the hoosegow for receiving suspected contraband that might blow up!!!!!!

 

[Mike CHS]

We didn't weigh the cabbage but it's the biggest I have ever grown. I loved the early planting that you get by living in Florida but I also didn't like the short growing season because of the heat. Our temperature here gets up there but it's not that unbearable heat you get there. I wouldn't even think about growing cabbage as a spring crop down there but it always did good in the fall.

 

[Mike CHS]

So far letting the vegetation in the paddocks grow has worked well. I cut the paddocks too short too early last year which caused us to start feeding hay in early October (two months early). Each paddock where the breeders are gives them almost two weeks of good grazing before moving them so all I'm doing now is topping the old tough and tall growth that they won't eat anyway. Even though we had almost a month with no rain, the lower grass is still doing well.

The Game Hen that we brought home to help our friend finally decided to join the rest of the hens in one of the coop.
We first put her in a small coop below the chicks we hatched but that was just for the first day. The second night we caught her and her four chicks and put them in the nest boxes in the main coop. We went out this evening to see if we had to round her up and was happy to see that she had her chicks all comfy in one of the boxes so evidently she is adjusting. Being a Game hen, she is much smaller than our other birds but they give her plenty of room and don't dare mess with her chicks.

 

[Baymule]

I’ve had game chickens before, they laid well, brooded lots of chicks and were some hardy chickens.

We got a hard rain last night! We sure needed it, especially after spreading composted sheep barn clean out on 3 small pastures. It was very dry, our sand was powder.

 

[Mike CHS]

We are definitely in our summer routine. I think the rain stops to pick up a load of fertilizer on the way down as the grass needs cutting every 5 days on the lanes outside our perimeter fence as well as the dog play run and house lawn. I need to spray herbicide on both the interior and perimeter fences or they are going to start grounding the hot wires. We have have had afternoon showers for the last 4 days with more in the forecast for the next 4 so probably no point in wasting the chemical. We have been wanting to go out and get some fishing in but that forecast has stopped that also.

We worked the ewe lambs this morning to pull fecals and gave them a dose of garlic and as we were starting, the garlic jar got knocked over. It's a good thing a garlic smell doesn't bother us since it is STRONG. We will move the ewe lambs out to fresh grass tomorrow after we look at the fecal samples then rotate the breeders back into the shop paddock so we can check them out. The ram seems to be doing his job as most are noticeably with lamb and all except one are in great condition. The one that is not in condition is one of the remaining ewes from our original bunch. We will separate her when we work the rest and put her with the ewe lambs so I can give her some extra feed and then send her to market.

 

[Baymule]

What a terrible problem to have—too much grass! Your sheep thrive on it. Y’all have done a lot of work on your pastures and now the sheep reap the rewards.