Beast Lite

Here's Beast Lite:

He's really too cool for pictures.

He just wants to go kill rodents and leave their little, bloody, dead bodies on the porch. Thanks Beast Lite.

What we found after work

We both rushed home from work yesterday so that we could make it to town before our vet's office closed. What did we find at the farm? The rooster and a hen out of the fence, and a cow in the hay field!

So much for the new fence charger and the work on the cow fence.

I was able to get the rooster back to where he belongs. It's pretty easy since he really wants to be with all his ladies.

Herding the hen and the cow was a two-person job. Sometimes I wonder what drivers think as they go by Farmer John and I chasing a cow around the barn. I'm sure it's quite a sight.

Farmer John worked on the electric cow fence for a while last night. I wonder what we'll find after work today?

Our weekend - in a few short paragraphs

It’s a busy time here at the farm. We have a long TO-DO list. So, there’s no time for lazing around – we gotta get to work! But first we slept ‘til 10, drank coffee, and talked to far-flung family ‘til noon – then we got to work! Here’s how the rest of the weekend went:

We started seeds for some warm weather crops (tomatoes, eggplants and peppers) and took care of other transplants. Our local dump offers a monthly “Dump Day.” Every family is allowed one free pickup truck load of trash. For residents of Wetzel County the popularity of this event may only be eclipsed by Demo Derby at the fair. In anticipation of the upcoming Dump Day, we felt the farm could use a mega-dose of Spring Cleaning. This meant we spent lots of time on Saturday and Sunday cleaning out several buildings. Some of the things that are ready to go to the dump are: 7 (!) feed sacks full of used bailing twine, several boxes of 30-year-old Tupperware, a broken screen door, a baby pool that we’re pretty sure is older than our parents and lots of unidentifiable “treasures” that someone in the past felt they just couldn’t live without. Here’s one of the junk piles:

In the process of cleaning out the “shop,” Farmer John found a true treasure. A brand new fence charger! The “Stockmaster” is sending a good charge to the electronet chicken fence, it packs a bigger punch than the one we’d had in place.

Another item that we crossed off the list was picking up and setting up the poultry brooder. The brooder will keep chicks warm on top, and has grower pens underneath to house the chicks until they are ready to join the rest of the flock.

This is the brooder part, with a light and heating elements.

Farmer John with the whole brooder set-up. Notice the cleaver above his head? This building was the farm’s former butchering area.

We also did daily chores, chased rouge cows, dealt with a dead chicken, worked on fencing, moved closer to a plan for a driving bridge and got ready to go back to our “real” jobs.

Things in the front yard this morning:

2 very large rocks - put there by Coco.

4 decapitated moles - the cats have been busy.

1 cow - after Farmer John chased her back to the correct side of the fence, he reported she has swollen teats and vulva. A calf may be coming soon! (Hope that wasn't too graphic for you.)

The Farm's Cast of Characters

The farm family

Farmer John and I are teachers by day and farm with any other free time we get. Coco is our Chocolate Lab. She loves to play ball, swim in the creek and help around the farm. Badger is our Husky. Mostly he likes to sleep, drink water, and sleep some more. He also loves to eat chickens, so Badger stays inside.

Here are some of the cows. They are Scottish Highlands which we raise for beef. They are shaggy. They have horns. And are ridiculously cute when they are born. So, we don't raise them for veal.

This is Beast. He's one part of the Beastie Boys duo. His brother is Beast Light - who is too mysterious to pose for photos. Beast loves to be held and purrs if you just look at him. Beast Light likes to run away. They both love to kill rodents and leave us many dismembered mice/voles/moles on the porch.



We also have chickens, which are currently our only profitable livestock. More on them later.