A Snake In The Grass--Temptations

Yesterday The Boy burst in the back door.

"Mom!  I think I saw a baby poisonous snake." The drama of the moment slightly elevating his deep, subsonic rumble of a voice.

Snakes are generally my duty.  I am the most comfortable around them of our family.  I know which ones I want to keep around (the green snakes that are harmless and eat bugs, the king snakes that are harmless but eat the venomous snakes.  Even the rat snakes that keep the mice and vole population down). I know which ones need to be killed on sight.  I am not afraid of snakes at all (wasps? Terrified.  Snakes?  Not remotely).  The Wonder Sweetie takes care of the stinging bugs and I take care of the snakes.

Me, hopping up from the computer to grab my shoes
"Is it in a cup?" (Thinking he and TWS caught it for me to identify)
"No"
"Does dad know about it?"
"No"
"Where was it?"
"On the walk between here and the barn.  I'll show you."

This was troubling because we have seen no venomous snakes up near the house.  There are rare copperheads in the fields, but we have not seen any up close.  To be on the walk between here and the barn means it was very close and if it was venomous, we will have to be a lot more careful.

We went along the path and searched for the baby snake to no avail.  This meant we still didn't know if it was a danger or a nuisance or a benefit, if my babies and dog and ducks were in danger or if we had little slithering allies to eat any vermin that would spread disease or to eat venomous snakes that would hurt us.

So we spent over half an hour googling images of baby snakes with The Boy commenting "It was more reddish than that.....almost like that but the head was more blunt.....no, that has more splotches, this one had more diamond shapes...."

We still don't know what snake it was.  As ar as I can tell, it sounded like a baby copperhead.  One baby means more babies.  It also might explain a sudden swelling in a hind foot and general malaise in our dog the past few days.  The leaves are thick on the ground right now, providing wonderful hiding places.  I am going to have The Wonder Sweetie, blow/mow all the leaves away from outbuildings and yard and we are going to be especially watchful.  No lifting logs or rocks without careful looking at where our fingers are.  No wandering around barefoot where we can't see.

This reminds me much of tempting thoughts.  There are some potential sins that, for each of us, we are fairly untempted by.  I have no desire, for example, to rob a bank.  However, I do have the temptation of fear sometimes or pride sometimes or anger sometimes.  Like this baby snake, sometimes other people are better equipped to see our temptations and wrong actions or thoughts when they are small and we can avoid them.  They do us a great favor by coming to us in love and saying "Honestly, your anger at this person is making you bitter" or "Your anxiety is not healthy." or "That tone you use with your children sounds really really mean.".  We might not like the idea that there is a tempting snake in our mental yard, but we can't fault the person who points it out to us.  What we have to do is to be diligent to listen, thankful for the care someone is giving, and be earnest about ridding the dried leaves that allow the temptations to hide close to our hearts.

For example, if our problem is snarky tones with our husbands or children, then getting rid of those leaves might mean to stop watching snarky television shows or unfollowing snarky facebook pages.  If our problem is bitterness, we might need to actively pray for those to whom we feel bitter.  If our problem is alcohol, we might need to ensure that we keep none around.  If our problem is gluttony, we might need to ensure that we keep no tempting foods.

It disturbs us when someone points out a snake in our grass, but they are doing us the greatest kindness.  That baby venomous snake means more are around and they will grow until their venom poisons our mind and bites those around us, the people with love, withering their hearts and bodied and spirits and minds.  Let's not lash out at those who say "I don't know if this is a problem, but this is what I see".  Let us thank them and the Lord who brought us wisdom and knowledge that we did not have.

PS Here is a cute picture of a duck to keep the idea of snakes out of your mind if you are afraid of them :D

A Summer Most Fowl

Morning :)

We have a mixed marriage.  TWS raises Japanese Black Tailed White Banties.....

 

I raise Saxony, Runner, Cayuga, Appleyard, and Welsh Harlequin ducks.
(My second batch of ducklings back in May <3 )


The banty hens lay a LOT of very small eggs (I need to master the 18 egg omlet).  Here are two hens who have decided to be broody together and nest share....NOT in the fabulous nesting boxes that I worked hard on, but in the corner of the coop xsighx:



While they were awesome at hatching out eggs (well, them and Victoria who is very sensible and did use the nesting box), they are not so great at raising biddies, so we pull the hatched chicks and put them in the brooder:



My ducks aren't laying yet--too young.  So I mail order mine :D

I tried to take adorable pics of my new ducklings, but after two tries, I realized it was an exercise in futility. 

But I did manage to get two marginal photos of a Welsh Harlequin and a Cayuga






They will join my other 15 which consist of Indian Runners (the bowling pin ducks), Saxony, Silver Appleyard, and one Cayuga.  Because drakes are really difficult on hens (proper term for a female duck is actually duck, but that gets confusing, so many folk just say hen), you need a ratio of several hens per drake.  5:1 is best, but I am going to try to squeak by with about a 3:1.  If that does not work, then I will have to get rid of some drakes (OR order more ducks :D).  This last batch is 10 hens.

(Ok, I admit it, the biddies are SO cute when they are starting to get their big boy feathers!)


So now we have two brooders on the screen porch, one containing biddies and one containing ducklings.  One smells worse than the other (but is also filled with more cuteness, but don't tell TWS I said that ;) ).

The ducklings will stay in the brooder for about another week, then we will turn them out into one side of the chicken run so they are safe from the bigger ducks but everyone can get to know everyone else.  I will try to post pics when that happens :)

We also have more hens going broody (or the same hens....not sure) so we might be overrun with Black Tailed Whites here soon...anybody want a chicken?  I need to make room for my ducks.

  "Um, excuse me ma'am?  My chicken was a little under done...." :D

Not A Barn Cat

This is Saint-14. Or, as I call him, Squinky Pinky Dinky Pants.


He is not a barn cat. (Don't adjust your set, he does not sit still for my dreams of taking adorable kitten-in-berry-pail pics, the blur is all his fault.)


He is supposed to be a barn cat. (This is him hiding under The Boy when we tried to take him outside that one time.)

But, y'know, he prefers to be inside watching tv. (He really does watch tv.  And 'helps' you play video games....maybe we should not have given him such a geeky name.)

And being loved upon


And snuggling with Precious who has a Fabulous Robe.

And eating the dog's food. (My poor Brisco just sits there and waits for him to finish.)


And terrorizing my other cat.


He is a bit emotionally high maintenance and does not want to be in a room without other people or critters. ("But I LOOOOOVVVEEE you!  Oh look!  You're eating!  I love eating, too!  Wanna share?")

So now we have two indoor cats and a barn with mice. (See the barn in the back?  He isn't in it.)

It's a good thing he's cute.  xsighx

Living Lawn Ornaments or "My ducks have lost the ability to 'even'"

Good Morning!!

Let's catch up a bit!

Our four Pekins have turned into fabulous lawn ornaments.  They look so lovely laying on the bank of the pond.....under a tree....in the shade....

Ahem.  Apparently they are afraid of the water.  xsighx.  No amount of coaxing will get them into the pond.

In the morning, I have to lead them from the chicken coop run where they spend the night.  I herd them to the pond.  They hang out on the grass.  Then at about 7 pm, they meander back to the run where we have to lock them in.  They will not go to their duck houses.  They will not go in the pond.

In fact, the other day we forced them into the pond and a bream touched one on the foot.  YOU HAVE NOT SEEN PANIC IN A DUCK until you have seen a duck walk on water.  You could almost hear him shrieking "SOMETHING TOUCHED MY FOOT!!  SOMETHING TOUCHED MY FOOT!!".

I have 16 more ducklings that are supposed to be here possibly this week.  Hopefully these are actual, you know, DUCKS and not just lawn decorations that I need to feed and put up at night (it's a good thing they are cute!).

The ducks heading back to the coop after a stressful day of absolutely nothing at all. :)

Ducks Have No Lips Part Two

Hey!

So we are, hopefully, going to have 20 ducks by the time this is all said and done.  Because both sets are straight runs (you get what you get in terms of male and female), I see some rehoming in our future (let me know if you might want a drake.  :D ).  You have to be careful about the balance of males to females because the males will overmate the females and kill them.

We don't have a fence and that is a bit of a concern, but we do have an acre pond. We are hoping that, by putting the ducks on the pond at night, they will be more protected from predators.  If not, we will have to come up with a plan B.

TWS has already built two duck habitats.  One of them is just a floating platform with ramps so the ducks can get up into them.  The second is a floating duck chiki with a roof, no walls, but with a nifty solar powered light.  It freaked the mess out of the dog the first time he saw this glowing THING on the water!  They are both anchored with old tires that are bolted together and are partially filled with concrete.  We needed some underwater habitat for fish anyway since our pond is flat and featureless on the bottom of it.

TWS will also build two actual floating duck houses.  These will (hopefully!) be where the ducks nest.  Each platform will have a "box" with four openings and inner walls.  These two houses will be attached to a cable that we can pull on shore to fetch the eggs (though, to be honest, I find the idea of paddling out in my canoe to get eggs to be fabulous!). 

Here is a picture of the Duck Chiki.  You can see the copper cap and the black solar receptor on the top, plus the walking ramps.

Solar Light

 This is the anchor that keeps the platform and chiki from floating too far.  It was a very delicate operation to float the anchor into the middle of the pond using a canoe and the flat platform!

Testing Duckling Videos

Just wanted to see if this video posted :)

Ducks Have No Lips Part One

Good Morning!

We have added a new facet to our diamond-in-the-rough farm:  ducks!

I wish I could say that we decided to add ducks because it was a prudent and reasonable thing to do, something we had researched thoroughly and wrote out a plan for, knowing it was going to contribute income and to our farm, etc, etc, etc.

Eh...the truth is that I have a pond and the pond looked like it needed ducks on it.  A pond with no ducks is pretty.  A pond with ducks is pretty AND happy.  I'm greedy; I wanted both :D.

Thankfully The Wonder Sweetie was too distracted to think it through swayed by my brilliant idea and ordered ducklings for me for my birthday.  Originally it was going to be about 3 ducks.  But then you need spares (farm life realities) which makes it 6.  Then you have minimum orders which brings you up to 10.  But then that is just an awkward number for some reason, so it became 14, which became 16 for reasons I am not sure of.  So, 16 ducks are now on order.

However, my ordered ducklings would not arrive until May and this was sometime in February/March.  That is a REALLY long time.  Like, WEEKS.

So I thought "Hmm....ok how about we get a couple of local, feed store ducklings, y'know, just to practice with, to make sure we know what we are doing (we don't, btw).".  So we pestered our favorite locally owned feed and seed for a few weeks, but they didn't get any in.  Our local Tractor Supply Co store had had Rouens, but they were sold out.  Another TSC nearby did not carry any, and another one only had Mallards (which migrate.  I wanted "all year round" ducks).  Eventually we found a TSC that had Pekins (PekIN, not PekING--Peking Duck is the meal you make with Pekin Ducks :) ).  After a lovely drive in the country to a town we had not visited before, we came home with four itty bitty, cute as a button Pekin ducklings that all fit in a little box.

Can I tell you how thankful to the Lord I am that we decided to do a trial run with just four ducklings???  Holy Moley what a learning curve!  Some things we learned:
-Ducks grow FAST
-Ducks don't get feathers as fast as they grow.  This means that they can be as large as a relatively well proportioned housecat who may on occasion terrorize a certain dog, but STILL can't regulate their own temps enough to be outside without heat.
-Housecat sized ducks do not fit in a homemade chicken brooder for very long.
-Ducks smell.  Ok, the ducks themselves do not smell, and actually their poo is not too bad.  What DOES smell is the water and poo soaked shavings around the waterer.  Ducks make a HUGE mess of water.  They have to drink water when they have a mouth of food or they can choke. 
-Ducks have no lips.  When they drink water, it literally squirts out of both sides of the back of their bills.  This means they get water EVERYWHERE, including on the shavings.  We have to refill their waterer several times a day.  The water/food/shaving/poo mixture really starts to smell.  This means cleaning out the brooder (when they were in it all day) at least once, sometimes twice a day as they grew.

Thank the Good Lord our weather is changing to actual spring.  We have passed the blueberry winter and the dogwood winter, and hopefully will skip the blackberry winter this year (These are names of cold snaps that seem to hit when the blueberries, dogwoods, and blackberries bloom).  The huge ducklings spend their days outside in a wire dog pen, and just come into the brooder, which is now on the screened porch, to sleep.

In fact, today we are going to move them to one of the chicken runs today that has a plug for the brooder (which is now on blocks so they can sort of fit under it).  More pics to come!

Part Two coming soon!....

Our "Farm" Kitty

Hello beautiful one!

I had forgotten that I had not finished posting about our kitty and his food issues!

I have a pet cat named Scout.  He is a tuxedo cat and the oddest one I have had.  He literally melts in your arms and sleeps so relaxedly that his lips droop.  He prefers to be upside down (I think his gyro got installed wrong ;) ), and completely trusts you to a)hold him like a baby and b)when you are done, turn him over end in a reverse summersault to the floor. 

If I may...this is his little story:  several years ago we lost both of our cats to kidney disease (more on that below).  I want a cat in the house, one who is loving and people oriented.  Howitzer, my big cat, was a wonderful people cat.  He adopted any little baby who came into the house (including letting our other kitten nurse off of him!  She had a strong suckling urge and he let her actually nurse off his little boy cat nipples.  Poor thing had furless raw patches up and down his tummy, but eventually he weaned her :) ).

 Hummer, my little female, was shy but not aloof.  We got her from a box in front of a grocery store and she was only as long as my hand--I remember riding home and marveling at how tiny she was.  She would pat your back and snuggle if you were crying.  Her purr was loud like a chainsaw and you could hear her purring down the hall, but her meow was so quiet that often you would see her mouth open but no sound came out or you would just hear the tiniest little squeak.  They were wonderful.

And then they both were gone.

It was time for a new kitty and I went to the shelter to find one.  I was thinking of getting a little tortie--I had had them before and liked their color.  The worker was surprised that my torties were well behaved because many, apparently, can be aggressive.  They did have one available, and we took her in the little room to get acquainted. 

The worker was right--she was aggressive and not at all inclined to make friends.  She was not acting shy, she was acting angry.  Not the cat for us.

But there was a mom and two half grown kittens that were tuxedo cats.  The worker assured me that the male was a love bug.  She was right again!  He was so snuggly and so sweet that when they injected the ID and gave him his shots, he just purred louder.

I was still nervous.  I wanted to get the right kitty.  I wanted to know he would be a good fit.  I prayed that the Lord would let me know as I walked to the front desk to finish the paperwork.  Not a few seconds later, the lady at the desk told me his name was Scout.

Why is that remarkable?  Because we were in a phase of naming all our pets after military somethings.  Scout was military enough that I knew that this was the kitty for us :)  The Lord blessed us with the silliest, snuggliest cat I have ever had :).

Ok, back to the present and his present issues....

He has been on friskies wet food for a couple of years now.  He was on dry, but then had bladder blockage issues, and for some reason stopped drinking his water out of a bowl after surgery.  So we went to wet food.  All seemed fine.

Then last week he started getting ill when he would eat.  I was upset (he is one of the niftiest cats I have ever had--very cuddly, plays fetch, etc).  But I was also confused.  Not to get indelicate, but his constitutionals were still fine, the problem seemed to be only upper GI.

This weekend it got very bad, so I made him some chicken and rice and cooked egg.  He kept that down fine.  Then I bought some organic food for him, and he kept down the poultry based foods, but NOT the beef (though the problem was much less severe).  Then I tried him back on poultry--fine.  Tried him on liver--he refused to touch it.

I am seeing a pattern:  poultry is fine, beef and beef related food is not.

So I went to the Pet Depot to see what was available.  Honestly they are just so expensive!  I did buy a few cans of food just to try.  I avoided science diet (per the worker) and a few others.  I have also decided to avoid Natura and related since they are having a lot of recalls.  I asked the worker (who is extremely knowledgeable regarding food) if it would not honestly be better if I just made him chicken and rice since he tolerated it so well.  She said that that would be best.  She said use brown, not white, rice.

So now I will be making my own cat food on the big cook days.  I will freeze it in muffin tins and pop them in a ziplock and microwave for his meals.  I have not finalized the recipe yet, and still have some research to do, but I am pretty confident that this will be a good way to go.  I will see if there are trace minerals that he might need.

DISCLAIMER!!!  I am NOT a vet.  I am NOT a nutritionist.  In fact, it was only about 10 years ago that I stopped arguing that poptarts should be considered a fruit serving because there is a picture of a cherry on the box.  PLEASE.  DO.  NOT.  TRUST.  MY.  METHODS.  I am in no way responsible for anything that might happen to your pet if you choose to try what I am trying.  If a couple years pass and my critters are doing fine, then I might have more confidence, but for now, please feed your pet at your risk and not with my "research" :)

Is it perfectly scientific?  Nope (but I am going to try to make it so!).  But knowing what junk can get into the foods, and knowing that my cooking process will not result in recalls, I feel that he will get the best he can if I make most of his food.  I will keep some organic food (I am liking Newman's at the moment) around for emergencies, camping, and in case I am behind in my cooking :).

After doing some research using http://catinfo.org/?link=makingcatfood and http://www.pet-grub.com/part1/how_to_make_your_own_ground_egg_shell_calcium_supplement_for_dogs_and_cats , I have a better idea of what I will need to make sure my little scamp is healthy.  He will definitely need taurine, fish oil, vitamin B complex, vitamin E, and lite salt (which has potassium in it).  I will be using egg shells, as I have no desire nor inclination to have a raw food diet for him (as much as he drags food around the house, no way raw chicken is going to be in his bowl!).

My only question is whether I will include brown rice or not.  On the one hand, I think not as he is a carnivore.  On the other hand, I am not so much sure it will hurt him since he also eats plastic (and obviously is not too choosy in what he swallows).  I do know that meat will be the majority of his diet, with rice as a filler.  I have no problems with a little filler--which is why I end up eating more breadsticks than necessary at the Olive Garden.

I guess my thing is that I am not afraid of FOODS for my critters (though I will never feed meat to an herbivore--that is how mad cow got started).  I am wary of pathogens, melamine (Howie and Hummer that I talked about earlier:  Two completely unrelated cats, one male and one female, three years apart in age, from different towns, and they just happen to get simultaneous kidney disease right when the melamine-in-pet-food stuff came out?  I find that a bit of a stretch.), aflatoxin, and other nasties.  I figure if I get the pet food about right in terms of making sure I have the minerals, etc, then it is as good as I can do. :)

I am sure that TWS won't mind if I don't get to his breakfast biscuits because I have to make food for the cat, right? ;)

This is our silly boy.  It is hard to tell from the pic, but he is really limp.  You can continue to flip him over to his feet and he does not mind at all!

Fish Pond Management

Good morning, hon!

I trust you slept well and have a blessed day just waiting for you to seize it!

Today the project is to focus on fish pond management.  We have three ponds--one large, two small.  The large pond (the one you see in the photos) has mudcats (flatheads), largemouth bass, and bream.  We have seen one or two crawdads (I have only seen small crawdads, but Sooper has seen a larger one).

The upper pond has a different type of bream and I need to identify what kind.  It does not seem to have any bass. 

I am not sure what the back pond is...we know it has a box turtle and some minnows, but we have not been able to fish it.  There has been someone who fished it when the previous owners had the house, but that was without the owners' permission.

Apparently mudcats are not the best for a home pond.  They tend to be voracious (to which I can testify--it looks like a feeding frenzy from Shark Week when we put food out for them).  There are differences in how people think they taste--some do not mind, some prefer channel cats.

We also have, I have discovered, too many largemouth bass.  The result is that none of them are getting big and we have very few bream (but the ones we have are LARGE.  Well the one we have.  He is sort of my pet now lolol.  I have seen a couple others, but not many.).

I tried to write our fish biologist for our district.  A very neat program is that they will come look at your pond that is of a certain size and has both bass and bream in it, and evaluate it for you.  However, the reply I got from the gentleman was...terse.  I don't need the stress.  So I am going to work on the ponds on my own.

I am going to try to finish my crawdad trap today.  I will test it and see if I get any crawdads in at least the front two ponds and the canal.  I can then evaluate the size of them.  My thinking is possibly making either the upper pond or the back pond a crawdad fishery.  I wonder if I can make the upper pond a bream and crawdad habitat?  I love to catch and eat bream.  I have the fondest memories of going fishing with a bobber and crickets at my grandma's and catching sunfish on a cane pole :)  I still get a rush when I see the bobber go under the water.

For the main pond, I am thinking about fishing out the mudcats almost entirely, introducing channel cats, fishing out some of the bass, adding in either bluegill or redear, and adding a couple of grass carp to the back ponds, as the ponds are very reedy and vegetative. 

The farmer's co-op is having a fish sale in June, so I have a few weeks to get my act together.  This will involve:

a)Catching a few mudcats and seeing if we like the flavor. 
b)Catching out a lot of the bass, again, seeing if the family likes the flavor.
c)Finishing the crawdad trap.  Testing to make sure it works, then trying each water body.  If we have an abundance, I might make a couple more crawdad traps.  I am putting together a post for that :)
d)Catching all the mudcats we can (we will be able to dipnet a ton) and spending a day processing them and putting them in the freezer.  If we do not like the flavor, we will be making dog food with them.
e)Fishing out a ton of the bass and doing the same with putting it up.  I do not want to waste any fish.
f)Finalizing what fish will go in what pond and buying them from the co-op.
g)If the family does not like the taste of the mudcats, I will need to find a dog food recipe.  Probably a good thing anyway since Little B has the tenderest digestion (gets very stove up) and could probably benefit from homemade food.  Plus it is probably a ton cheaper.  Anyone know of a good dog food recipe?

The crawdads are a different thing.  I do not want to introduce a species if it is not normally here.  I might just have to research what crawdads need and create a situation in one of the ponds that encourages whatever stock is there.  I have some folk who will buy the crawdads, and we will eat it ourselves, so it is a good idea to start heartening the supply.

You know, it is not entirely unpleasant to see that this farm task requires a ton of fishing ;).  Now that I have the filleting board and we have some plastic tables and some good quality knives, this is going to be a fantastic chore :)

This is me unhooking a mudcat.  This scene is not actually this wide, but for some reason blogger turns the photo on its side then when it reverts, it makes it very wide. 

 Catfish have poisonous spines on their top and side fins (dorsal and pectoral)--they won't kill you or anything, but apparently they really hurt (but to take out the sting, you are supposed to rub the belly slime of the catfish on the wound...thank you, but I think I will stick with dermoplast ;) ).  By flipping him upside down to secure the top fin, and sliding my hand on his belly so that my thumb and ring finger are pressed up against his pectoral fins and my pointer controlling his neck, I can pick him up and remove the hook without care.

 

Wish you could see my snake boots better--they are awesome pink cammo ;)