Quail Anyone?

Of all the many different kinds of animals we have raised/taken in here at our farm we have never had any experience with quail. A friend of ours started the hobby of raising quail. He became too busy to care for them so we took over and here we are with a quail pen in our yard!
The pen was set up to encourage the hens to lay. They were doing a great job too. Now that the days are shorter they have stopped laying altogether. When they were laying we would gather the eggs daily and put them in the incubator.

As they hatched we put them in this smaller pen that was kept in my LAUNDRY ROOM! We learned an important lesson in a terrible way. We put the younger quail in with the adult quail too early. They looked almost the same size so we thought they would be safe. We kept a check on them for a couple of hours and all was fine. However, the next morning when we went in to feed them the older quail had pecked the younger ones in the head and they ended up dying. We knew to watch for this because chickens will do the same thing to the young chicks unless a mother is there to protect her little ones. We felt just awful about our mistake.

Now you may be wondering what we are going to do with all these quail. Trust me, I wondered the same thing ;-) However, my guys had a plan all along. They are raising the quail to release them in the field behind our house. Then they want to go quail hunting. We will, of course, be eating the quail. Our boys have been taught by their father to treat all animals humanely and with respect. Also, they know that when they go hunting to kill an animal it is to provide food for the family.

I remember a time when Brandon killed a squirrel without asking his Dad. Guess what Brandon ate? Yep. He had squirrel for supper. He didn't mind though. He thought it was pretty cool because he cleaned it and cooked it over an open fire outside.

Have you ever eaten quail?

A Summer Re-cap

Summertime always seems to fly by too quickly for me. Before I know it, it is time to hit the books again with my boys. This summer was no different. We worked, we played and we visited friends. We were not able to have a family vacation but we did manage to take a couple of weekend get aways and day trips.

So here is a quick look at some of the highlights of our busy summer.

We bought a pregnant Saanen dairy goat the first of this year and by late spring we had two does born! There is nothing quite like having baby goats. They are so much fun. They can be just as much a pet as a farm animal. Just look at these two! We named them Sugar and Spice. We chose the right name for Spice because she does have a "spicy" attitude ;-)

We learned how to milk a goat, how to prepare the milk and I was very busy finding ways to use all of the wonderful milk we were able to get! I began to hear complaints every time someone opened the refrigerator. "I can't find anything in here for all this milk!" was a common remark.

So I began making yogurt, shown below, and a yummy soft cheese, sour cream, buttermilk and ricotta cheese. Talk about busy!! It was very rewarding though.
I was fortunate to make a trip to the farmer's market with a dear friend. She suggested going along with me for my first "buying experience" and I am so glad she did! It can be very overwhelming. There are so many vendors and they will negotiate with you on their prices! What fun! I bought this box of tomatoes for only $5.00!!! Aren't they beautiful? I had planned to can them but we ended up eating them all fresh. They were so delicious.

I also bought corn from the farmer's market. This was my first attempt at freezing corn. Brooke went in on halves with me so she came over and together we put up creamed corn....whew.....sore fingers and a messy kitchen was our sacrifice. Speaking of messy kitchen, even now, months later, every once in a while a speck of something will catch my eye in the most unusual place in my kitchen and I will wonder, "What in the world is that? Oh, of course, CORN!" Next year this will be a back porch job!!

Our summer garden didn't produce as much as I would have liked but we were able to get a few good pickings of peas. We did get lots of okra. It seems every year we have a good crop of okra that continues producing through the entire summer.

Here is our pea sheller. What a time saver!

There was time for a little R & R. Brooke and I had girls' night out with a couple of friends and we went to see Mary Poppins at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. We really enjoyed ourselves and this was something that no one else in my family envied me for going to see. This was most definitely a "girl thing" to do, according to all my guys!!

How was your summer?

And Like A Good Neighbor...

Our little town has changed so much in the past ten years. Being born and raised in this area, I can tell you that it has gone from a small, quaint little community where everyone knew everyone (well almost) to a place where I can be uptown all day and never see a person I know! This can be somewhat depressing to me and some days I really dislike where we live and I allow myself to become discouraged.

Now let me clarify, I absolutely love where the Lord has allowed us to raise our children, out in the country (well, as much "out in the country" as one can get in our town) with lots of room to let four boys roam. This home has truly been a blessing and answer to prayer for us. If I could just pick up my house and move it somewhere that is so far out that, as my dear friend, Kay, would say, " you have to pump sunshine in" that would be the place for me!

Well, one particular morning a few days ago, I was out doing my morning chores and thinking about how things have changed so around here. I was trying to be content but at the same time I was daydreaming about going out to feed our farm animals and then working in my vegetable garden in perfect 72 degree weather while seeing our cows grazing contentedly on the rolling hills of our "property". After being outside a FEW minutes and wiping sweat from my forehead in the humid 95 degree weather, I noticed that I kept hearing someone yelling "Hey, Hey!". The calling would stop and then a few minutes later I would hear it again. I didn't think much of it and just dismissed it as the road crew that had been working out on the highway in front of our house several days earlier. I just assumed that they were back.

While I was in the goat pen, my dear husband suddenly appeared. He was talking on his phone and promptly let the person on the other end know that I was okay. He then explained to me that our neighbor that lives across the pasture that is behind our house (it is probably 4 or 5 acres across) heard someone yelling and called my hubby to make sure that we were okay. See the tin roof in the middle of this picture? That is his barn. He had pulled his truck all the way up to the edge of the pond that is in his backyard and had his binoculars out looking to make sure we were all safe. That is when I felt the Lord gently reminding me that He had provided this place for us and that He is still in control. I was feeling pretty humbled when suddenly I remembered our other precious neighbor, a.k.a. the gardening guru. He is an elderly gentleman and like a second grandfather to my boys. He lives next door to us and Monroe has seen him fall out in his garden and rescued him on more than one occasion. This is where he lives. Note the rows of corn..beautiful garden ;-)

"Quick, call Mr. Willie's house and make sure he has not fallen out in the garden!" I said. My hubby didn't wait to make a call but ran down the fenceline and through the little gate we put in for visiting. He went down the garden rows looking but thankfully, our dear neighbor was inside his house.

Next, Monroe called our neighbor across the highway. They have a farm with many animals and citrus groves. After talking to this neighbor our mystery voice was solved and no one was needing help. It turns out that this neighbor was yelling at his hunting dogs! I'm not sure what he was trying to get them to do, or not do, but he had stirred up all of his neighbors in the process!

Now this may seem like an unimportant story to you but for me it was huge! I felt like the Lord knew I needed to be reminded of His perfect will and peace. It is not unusual for us to hear police sirens going by in front of our house day and night several times a week, sometimes several times a day. This is not the same neighborhood!

However, I am keeping my trust in Him. I love Psalm 91! It is about God's protection over His own. Yep, been reading that over and over lately!!

I just had to share one more picture. Each morning when I go out to feed the goats all of our cows are standing outside the goat pen with a pitiful look on their faces. They stand around patiently waiting. Then when they hear the grain hitting the bottom of the goat's feed bucket they can take it no longer! This is what I see almost every morning. A big snout sticking through the fence and this long tongue just barely able to reach a few pieces of grain, but oh how delicious it must be. So, I must assume that not only is the grass greener on the other side of the fence but the feed must be better too! What a hoot!! Have a blessed day!!

Our Fingers Are Crossed

We have been waiting for quite some time for our Rhode Island Red hens to hatch some new chicks for us. Each spring we get excited because when we go out to gather eggs we will find a hen sitting on her eggs. Unfortunately, she would lose interest after about a week and we were left with rotten eggs. Brandon and Bryce always love this though. I mean what could be more fun than throwing rotten eggs??? They must throw them way out in the back pasture...Mom's rule!! We have hatched a few eggs on our own with an incubator but we must raise them until they are almost grown before we can put them in with the adult hens. If we put them in too soon the other hens will peck them to death. So, having a momma hen hatch her own chicks is the easiest way to raise a new batch.

This spring our hopes are high once again. We have a bantam hen sitting on a nest and she has been there for over two weeks now!!! Isn't she beautiful? I have tried to get some eggs in the nest next to her and she is NOT happy about me being near her nest. We decided to put a few Bantam hens in with our Reds because they are better "sitting hens". Our newly hatched chicks may not be full-blooded Rhode Island Reds but that is okay, we just want fresh eggs for eating!! Looks like our plan may be working!!!This hen is really in the mothering mood! She keeps stealing eggs in the other nests and hoarding them. She has so many eggs that she can't cover them all!
And the greatest and most interesting thing has happened. The "sitting fever" has caught on! Just look! We now have 3 hens that are serious about sitting....so far. The Rhode Island Red on the far left flew off shortly after I took this picture. She only had two eggs under her which I promptly removed before Mrs. Greedy took them!

According to my recordkeeping we should have some chicks hatching next week from the light colored hen. She was the first to start sitting. Hopefully, the other two will stay put until their eggs hatch too! In the meantime, we are rationing our egg eating. Once you get accustomed to fresh farm eggs the grocery store eggs are just not good, even the expensive, free-range ones. And who knows, if all these eggs hatch we may be in the egg selling business again!

What Would You Do??

I was alone outside one morning recently doing my chores. On my way out to feed the chickens everything was normal. Nothing out of the ordinary. Now mind you I am ALWAYS on the look out for my two worst phobias....snakes and flying roaches. The roaches are the big brown ones that can be a couple of inches long and they ALWAYS want to fly on me!!!! EWWWWW!!! For those of you who do not live in Florida you may not know what I am talking about-be thankful!

So, after feeding the chickens I was on my way back up to the house and suddenly I froze in my tracks! This is what I saw! Now that guy was NOT there on my way out to the chicken pen. Hmmmm....... I quickly ran through my options in my head. Do I turn and run? Where would I run, back to the chicken pen? No, that won't work. I could run around the house to the front door but it would be locked. By the way, were my boys awake yet to help me???? I decided to begin yelling for some help while keeping my eyes fixed on this little beast in case my screams startled him and he decided to "spray". I had visions of sitting in tomato juice. Oh no, this just can't be happening!

Thankfully we had not turned on the house air-conditioning yet so my windows were open. Now if I could just get the boys to hear my cries for help.

It didn't take long for Brandon to come to my rescue. He was brave enough to walk right up to this skunk. And boy did we have a good laugh. Here is my "skunk". It actually IS a real skunk skin. It had been in the shed for quite some time and I had forgotten about it.

The boys have a new puppy and that mischievous little thing is always into something. Turns out she found this skunk hat while I was busy with my chores. She drug it out to play with and left it in the grass, right in my path. Whew. What a happy ending!

Pregnant Again!

Ahh Haa!! I knew that would get your attention!!! No, I am not talking about Brooke and I am definitely not talking about myself, for that matter!! So....who is pregnant again, you may ask? Let me explain.

For about the past six months or more Monroe and I have been in a disagreement about Missy, our cow. When she was "in heat" several months ago the neighboring bull kept calling her name. You know what I mean. He was bellowing sweet nothings in her ear. Actually, it was in ALL of our ears ;-) He was telling her how beautiful she looked and how she was the only one for him, etc. Monroe decided to put Missy over on the neighbor's pasture so the two lovebirds could .... well.... you know! As it turned out, Missy's little visit was only about 10 minutes because the whole time MerriBell, her grown-up calf, was crying for her Mama to come back. So rather than having to repair fences, we put Missy back on our side with her overgrown, spoiled rotten baby. After that day, the bull never called on Missy again and I was sure they didn't have time to get anything accomplished. As the months passed Monroe and I watched Missy to see if she was "showing". Nope.

I couldn't tell at all. She is a very, shall we say, full-figured female so I didn't see any bulge. Monroe, on the other hand, saw all the action that blissfully romantic day and was certain she was pregnant. I mean, come on, 10 minutes, folks!! That is all the time they had together. Apparently our Missy is like me and dare I say, Brooke. All our husbands have to do is walk in the room and we are pregnant! (Thank you Lord for the blessings of our children.)

Anyway, back to my story. My dear hubby called me on the phone yesterday afternoon and all he said was, "We have a calf." I was very surprised, to say the least. In fact, my two younger ones kept repeating my high-pitched reaction to the news all afternoon yesterday, "WHAT...WHAT????" Wise Guys!

So, being the humble wife that I am (chuckle here!) I ran out the front door and yelled to my dear husband,

"You Win!!" To which he very graciously just grinned back at me and said nothing. Smart Man ;-)

Here are a few pictures of our newest addition. The little white bull is our brahma, Little Bit. He just wouldn't get out of the picture! You would think HE is the proud father! The lighter brown cow with horns is MerriBell. This new calf attracted a lot of attention from everyone. I have learned cows are very curious creatures! Notice the big guy on the other side of the fence. He is the proud Pappa. It was almost as if he knew it. He hung around for a long time yesterday.

Poor MerriBell. She has been forced off of Mama's lap, so to speak. I am waiting to see if Missy will continue to let MerriBell nurse as well as the new calf. We may have some sibling rivalry!

I have so much more to share but I have been too busy to post. Also, my card reader has been broken so I couldn't put up any pictures. Bear with me. I see the light at the end of the tunnel!

Honey Update and More BEES!

Busy, busy, busy! That is life around my house lately. Now I understand what I have heard others say about springtime on a farm and the busyness of it all! Whew. I literally fall into bed every night exhausted but satisfied with all that was accomplished for the day. It is a good kind of tired!


The final count on our wildflower honey is 15 quarts. While this is not my favorite honey it will be put to many uses like baking bread and making smoothies, etc. We are very excited to get all this delicious, nutritious honey with very minimal processing. This honey was extracted and then strained...that's it! Mmmm, mmmm, good!!

While we were working outside a few days ago, Brandon spotted a swarm of bees out by the garden. The problem was where they chose to gather. Can you see them in the side of this bank of dirt? This is the dirt hill Monroe made for the boys to climb with their four-wheeler.

Here is a better shot of the swarm.

We were expecting rain later that afternoon so Brandon was anxious to get these little guys into a new home. Naturally the next thing to do was to call Ethan for advice and he, not seeing the situation, suggested putting a new box over the swarm. We just couldn't figure how to go about that so Brandon just put the empty frames close to the bees. There was a small amount of honey left on the frames so that would entice the swarm to come on in. A few of them were interested but not enough of them to persuade the rest to come along. The rains did come but it didn't seem to bother the bees. We learned that they squeeze together so tightly that the water just runs off their backs. Amazing!

The next day our hero, Ethan, once again came to the rescue. Even he said this was a tricky place to try and catch a swarm. I watched from a safe distance ;-) and every once in a while I would get brave enough to snap a picture! After working with the bees about 45 minutes Ethan was able to coax them into their new home.

You can see how the homeless little fellows are liking their new hive. It didn't take them long to move in once they got word that it was a safe place to go.

Orange blossom honey season is from March to April so I was hoping we would get another hive of orange blossom honey. We shall see. It takes them some time to establish their new hive so they may need all of this season's orange blossom to "set up house". That will be okay. We are just thanking the Lord that they chose our property to swarm to! Another blessing is they landed right beside our vegetable garden. We left the hive box right there hoping they will be busy little bees and pollinate our garden!

Have a blessed and joyful Easter Holiday!

HE IS ALIVE....HALLELUJAH!!

Egg Hatching News

I almost forgot to give an update on the egg hatching experiment.
Well, if you remember from a previous post, Brandon thought that he heard some peeping coming from the incubator that morning while he was doing his math. Of course I was a little skeptical because it was a perfect plan to take a break from the dreaded math book!
He was right, however!! What an exciting science lesson. The boys wanted to reach in and help this little one out so badly but I wouldn't let them.

Finally she made her grand entrance into the world.

The boys liked to put the chicks on the school table while they wrote. The chicks would chase their pencil around and peck it.

The final results of our egg hatching was not an accurate count due to some help from my sweet, but curious little grandson, Parker. He was looking at the eggs in the incubator one day and Bryce remembered hearing him say, "What's dis?" Hours later we realized he was asking about the temperature knob, which he apparently turned higher :( So...we got 4 chicks out of 13 eggs. We will try again in the spring. Maybe we will use the primitive method and the incubator method and record our findings. Hmmm...I see a great science and math lesson in the future!

Fall Gardening Has Begun

Can you guess what we are having for supper? I have a pot of mustard greens cooking. My house smells of greens and that gives my family the feeling of fall...even if it is 90+ degrees outside. No matter the weather, our mustard greens are faithful to grow so beautiful and tasty! So, tonight we will dine on greens, chicken and rice casserole and cornbread.

I have rutabagas (left row), mustard greens, collards, beets, spinach and turnips planted so far. The only vegetable ready to eat, however, is the mustard. I can't wait for the cool weather. It always "sweetens" all of the greens. The mustard greens have been so plentiful we have been able to share with many friends and family members. I will be putting some in the freezer as well.

I don't really know what happened to my row of broccoli. These two lonely little plants are the only ones to survive. Oh well, I will put in another row tonight. I will be planting a variety of lettuces, onions, carrots cabbage and another row of mustard soon. Collards will last all winter but the other greens will not so I must plant more mustard to be able to eat it all winter.

I just had to include this cute picture of our farm cat, Sparkle! Doesn't she look so sweet and cuddly? She really is too. I walked into the kitchen and found her in one of her favorite places but she has never chosen to nap in my seed box before. She usually just sleeps on the shelf.

By the way, would you folks up north kindly send some of your cool weather our way? I want to open my windows and let the fresh air in so badly!!!

Watching and Waiting...

My Rhode Island Red hens are getting old...I mean really old. I know I am suppose to "get rid" of them when they are no longer productive but no one around here seems to be able to "do it". Imagine that! I mean, after all I have all these hunter/men around me! Even though the chickens stay in a very large pen we have gotten attached to them. I don't really know what we are going to do about that situation. However, we are only getting about 2 or 3 eggs a day from 13 hens. Not good. And certainly not enough eggs to feed my bunch! So, we decided to try to hatch some eggs ourselves with an incubator. We collected the eggs over a period of 3 or 4 days. We have been faithful to turn them over daily and keep water in the bottom. Now we just wait and see! We should be getting our first chicks any day now. Brandon thought for sure he heard a peep-peep coming from an egg this morning but so far nothing has happened.

We have hatched eggs in the past with a very basic method. Monroe did this when he was a kid and it worked so we tried it too. You use a 5-gallon bucket with hay in the bottom. Place the eggs on the hay and hook up a small lamp to rest on top of the bucket. I used the kind with the flexible neck. Place tin foil around the sides and around the lamp. Turn the eggs daily and in 21 days we had chicks! We have never used a real incubator before now so we are curious to see how much better the real incubator works compared to our very primitive set-up. I'll let you know in a few days!

Welcome Jack

We have a new face on our farm!! Our Nubian goat, Isannah, finally had her kid on Thursday. We were hoping for twins but we are happy for a healthy new baby and a birth with no complications. Whew! This is our first experience with goats and I was praying for an easy birth. We named him Jack.

Here is the proud momma and Jack looking for his first meal. We are enjoying little Jack so much. He is very soft and cuddly. Mom and baby haven't ventured out of their stall yet. It must take a few days for the kid to get enough strength to go out to pasture. We are learning.

Isannah has become an extremely protective mother. She is always on the look out for danger and becomes very aggressive if she feels her little one is in harm's way which is so out of character for her. Kinda reminds me of human moms!

We are looking forward to some goat milk soon. My boys have milk allergies so they can finally have dairy products in their foods again. I was fortunate to find a yogurt maker at a yard sale recently and I can't wait to try it out. Hopefully I can get the hang of milking. Brandon is excited to give it a try. He will think it is fun for a few days then I am sure it will become just another chore. Oh well, such is farm life!

Gardens Teach Patience

I love fresh vegetables from our garden! The taste beats grocery store veggies by far!! Spring and summer harvests are my very favorite and I am so excited to see our little plants growing and looking healthy! The vines above are rattlesnake beans. This is the first time I have ever tried them. I was inspired after reading Tnfarmgirl's blog on how prolific and delicious they are. I am hoping to have enough to can.

Squash was planted the earliest in our garden and I can already see some teeny baby squash on the plants! I froze some summer squash from last year's garden but I think I should have used the younger and more tender squash for freezing. I am keeping that in mind this year!

We also planted blackeyed peas, soy beans, cream peas, zippers, okra, corn, cucumbers, watermelon and cantaloupe. Corn is another first for us. Our neighbor's corn was destroyed by worms last year. If that happens to our corn I will just feed it to our animals. Either way it will be useful.

The picture above is my experiment. I have always bought my tomatoes and peppers as plants. This year I tried raising them from seed. The right half of this planter is tomatoes. They look great! The left half is a variety of peppers and they are not looking so hot (no pun intended!). I don't know what happened with them. I may be buying pepper plants again this year! I have transplanted part of the tomatoes into the big garden. I am amazed at how few it took to fill up a row!! I hope to be able to get the rest planted next week. One other problem I encountered. I labeled all the different types of peppers and tomatoes on the white plastic spoons you see sticking up. I used a permanant marker to write with. However, the first rain just washed all those names right off!! Now all I know is the left side is peppers and the right is tomatoes! We shall see....

Anyway, I can't wait to sit down to supper with a big plate of peas with okra and a slice of cornbread....mmmm....mmmm.....hurry up garden!

Room For One More

We have another addition to our little farm. Isn't he just the cutest little guy? We named him Little Bit. He needed a home because he was born with a defective front leg. He would have never made it out on the open pasture with his herd. He wouldn't be able to keep up with all the walking and grazing so our dear friends/ranchers asked if we would take him in.

He was quite the topic of conversation with all the "Moms" around our place. I have found that cows are very curious creatures! I think this picture is so funny! The cows on the other side of the fence belong to our neighbor but they all came to visit the new addition.

Here you can see that front leg at what I would call the knee joint. See how it is going backwards? Looks like he is double-jointed. Missy and MerryBelle, in the background, are not so sure about their new companion.

It took a couple of days for him to learn to take the bottle but finally we succeeded! I thought this was a very creative shot taken by Brandon.

Parker wanted to pet the new baby. He loves to go to Nanna and Poppa's and see all the animals. As long as Little Bit has a bottle he is very calm. I have fed him so much that anytime I go out to the pasture he runs up to me and starts bumping me. He has come a long way. When we first brought him home Monroe had to practically tackle him to be able to feed him. Finally he figured out that we were there to help him. Now he thinks I am his MOTHER!