Pictures From the Flood

The creek- that sand bar is usually above water.

New pond at the edge of the upper field

Wet donkey

Happy duck- her bill was caked solid with mud just before the picture.

Flooded duck coop

Dad in the lower field- from the height of the debris in the tree, the water was almost waist high. Our road was flooded at the creek, too.

Good thing we have the fence now. The sprayer tank was at the top of the field before last night.

Our newest offering- Farmer's Mud Soak- featuring our specially formulated, nutrient rich muck.

And as of 1:00pm it's raining some more! another thunder storm headed this way this evening, too. Plenty of mud to share- come get some!

Crazy Storm Last Night

We continue to have atypical weather as fall continues. It's been unseasonably warm with only a few cold nights that actually feel like fall. Last night, a huge storm pushed across the U.S. and hit us starting about 9:00pm. There was wind, rain and a spectacular lightening display all followed by a tornado warning with the rotation about 8 miles from here in downtown Mocksville, at about 11:15pm. Crazy!

This morning, I walked the farm- the whole coop was flooded. The ducks had the worst of it and now have their very own 2-4" deep mucky muddy pond in their coop. The chicken coop faired better with only a bit of standing water at the low part near the door, but the whole rest of the floor is damp. I pulled tree limbs out of the fences all along both paddocks. In the goat/donkey paddock there used to be a dry creek that is now gushing. It bunched up a huge mound of brush where it passes a fence post- like we had beavers move in. All the animals are fine. Dinkey Donkey is soaking wet, not sure if he chose to stand in the rain or if Roscoe wouldn't let him in the shelter. The ducks and chickens will be enjoying the smorgasbord of worms and grubs that washed to the surface. Yummy!

In general farm news, the goats are only being milked every other day as they continue to produce less. Scarlet has now been bred so we'll be expecting babies in late February from Merry and late March from Scarlet. Once we dry them off completely we'll put all the goats and Dinkey together.

The rabbits are now all together in the moveable pen (also flooded and full of debris). If nature plays along we are expecting baby bunnies this weekend. We'll see. I'm just glad they're all getting along and can get out of the hanging cages in the coop. Chuck and Willow are eagerly awaiting "bunny nuggets".

More deliciousness on the way in the form of ducks. The Pekings will be processing age in 3 1/2 weeks. They grow so fast. They have their underbelly and wing feathers and are starting to get the last of their back feathers in. They have moved out of the baby brooder; spending their days in a small paddock and their nights in a separate coop area. The older ducks now get to free range during the day since I'm not as worried about creepy crawlies if I have to climb down in the creek to get them. So far they've been happy with their pools and coming up to root around in the fish pond. Hopefully they won't find the creek today since it's very high and moving way fast; I'm not sure how far down stream they'd go.

I'd really like for the weather to normal out a bit, and am wishing for a drier and milder winter than we had last year. Cold and wet is not a fun time to be a farmer.

Baby Pekings on their first day out of the baby brooder.

Chicken trying to see if she can get away with eating my new mum.

It's Fall!

What a hot summer we had! It seems that the front that brought us 8ish inches of rain last week also brought us more typical fall weather. We are definitely trying to take every advantage of it, too.

Today we spent the morning processing the last batch of meat chickens. We only had 8 roosters so it didn't take very long at all with 6 of us out here. Thanks to Sue, Crendell, Keith and Alli for helping out! Hopefully we'll be having a lot less rooster drama now and the hens will not be pestered all the time. Most of the chickens watched from a safe distance today- except Brenda. She was the first to come investigate all the various by products of processing. She stuck her head in the innards buckets, watched blood drip from the cone and picked at anything that happened to hit the ground. Eventually the others followed her and as I type they are eating the blood from the ground around the killing cone. Dinosaurs- the lot of them.

The lucky rooster that gets to go live at our neighbors house.

Keith and Alli also brought us some more adult Peking Ducks. There are 2 females and a male. We're hoping to raise our own Pekings along with the Ancona and Indian Runners next year.

New Pekings- the male is the one with the bright orange beak. His name is Spanky.

Also in duck news we have our 9 Peking ducklings growing in the brooder. These are all for meat to replace the turkeys we lost. From adorable to delicious in 10 weeks! I increased the size of the duck pens for the new guys. They are separate right now , but I'm hoping they'll all get along and hang out together soon.

Peking Ducklings- 3 weeks old

The goats are feeling the effects of fall as well and are producing MUCH less milk. I've gone to milking them once a day and getting about a quart. They'll probably make it through October and then we'll let them dry off. Mary has been in the paddock with Roscoe and that seemed to go very well. It's on the calendar and in 145 days we should have baby goats again. It will be nice to have a little break from milking, even if it means buying milk again.

Muscadine grapes are still coming in still. They're so yummy! We've dug sweet potatoes and those did really well this year, and we're starting to get pumpkins and other types of winter squash in.

This fall we'll spend adding compost and nutrients to the raised beds so hopefully those rops will do much better next year, and continuing to beef up the goat fence strength to keep Scarlet in. She should've been named Houdini.

For now though, we're enjoying the mild weather and a quiet afternoon on the farm.

Chuck in the hammock with Hayek