Meet Athena

Isn't she cute??  This is our new farm dog.  She is a Great Pyrenees/ Anatolian mix.  At nine weeks she was the same size as our two Miniature Schnauzers.   She's great at standing guard and doesn't chase and kill our chickens.  We are hoping she will guard our chickens and keep the predators way.

I mean awwww. Look at the sweet face.  She is a sweetie too! 

I just feel for her as she is a fluff  ball and this last week our weather hit super summer temps.  We've been in the 90's - 100's for a week or two.  It is burning up everything in our neck of the woods.  So if you have any rain send it our way please! 

Couldn't help one more picture!  Just want to hug her don't you!

Goodbye...

Rest in Peace Sweet Pea....

 Yes we lost Sweet Pea.  We woke one morning to Sweet Pea mooing incessantly and pacing the fence line, this happens once every month or so.  We thought she was in heat and immediately arranged for a "play date" with a bull.  We loaded her up and took her to the dairy farm down the road. (extended families dairy) We dropped her off in a field with cows and bulls and she looked happy as she went to meet them. 
  Well, we left her for 3 days and couldn't find her when we went to pick her up.  Super D's cousin found her a week and a half later and she was dead.  (sorry to be so blunt but that's life on a farm sometimes)  We don't know how she died as she was half eaten by scavengers when found.  There are several possibilities, but most likely she was sick and we didn't know it. Her bellowing that we interpreted as her being in heat may have been pain.  Only God knows. 
At the end of the day we are out of a milk cow but Thor is doing good.  We plan to sell him soon and will put that money to another cow.

Spring Yet?

I desperately want spring to be here.  We get a few nice days then some cold and rainy days.  The rain wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't so cold.
So here's what we've been up too.

We built cold frames/hot boxes for plants.  They will be filled with soil and topped with glass.  This is in process obviously.

 We recruited some help to paint them. 

 

Didn't show up well in this picture but Sugar Bug got a little carried away and got just as much paint on her legs, arms, hair, ect.. :)  Like her annoyed look because we wanted a picture of it.

Sure sign of spring and warming temps.  The turtles are coming out. Sugar bug is finding several by our pond.  What an awesome place for a kid to explore!

Lastly, Super D has been working on getting our solar panels set up. 

 

 We are slowly getting things accomplished.  I'm anxious to start planting and will be starting seeds indoors or rather in the cold frames soon.  I will fill you in on my garden work more this season.  We still have a list a mile in a half long but are all feeling a bit more energized as the sun comes out more.  I hope to get outdoors more for some R&R in the woods exploring a bit too.

Looking forward to green and spring flowers! 

 

ITS A BOY!!!

  Introducing.......

Thor 

Born August 16th

Isn't he cute!  Even baby cows are precious.  This is Thor. Sassafras's name was picked from the drawing we had.  Sugar Bug was voting for Coco.  But I think Thor fits him well.  He is a bull.  He is growing fast and doing well.  Sweet Pea is a perfect mama and is a wonderful milker. 

 

 

 

Here he is a couple weeks old with Sugar bug chasing him.  He is quite the runner now and loves to chase other animals.  Mama is never too far away though.  Since we started milking her she has a new halter.

 

 

Sweet pea does great milking.  We milk her once a day usually in the morning and she has done well.  We plan to build a stanchion for her to stand in soon.  She does well while eating her grain but shuffles her feet a bit.  Thankfully she has never kicked hard.  Just moves enough that she has kicked over a few buckets of milk. If you have ever hand milked you know that sinking feeling when all your had work is spilled on the ground. She is an easy milker and the girls have helped some too. I laugh because they both cringe when Thor slobbers on them while milking. Right now we share and he usually nurses while we milk the other teats. 

 

 

For those who may have never seen a calf nurse.  :)  

 

We were so happy to have good milk we had to buy cereal for the occasion.

 Her milk is very good.  Sweet and mild.  It doesn't have the least sour taste to it.  I find it hard to describe fresh milk.   I don't think it has as strong a flavor as store bought.  It tastes lighter and sweeter.  At least ours does. The taste of milk varies a bit with the diet a cow is on. We've had milk before that smelled and tasted a bit oniony because mama was eating onions in the field.   We are enjoying our milk and will soon be making all sorts of dairy products. 

 

Well, cover more on milk later. :) 



Newest member of the S family..

  This is Sweet Pea... (we didn't name her but the name fits right in with us)

    She is a 2-3 year old Jersey heifer.  In cow speak that means her breed is Jersey and Heifer means girl  (usually it refers to a cow that hasn't had a calf yet) 
Sweet Pea is pregnant with her first calf now.  She is due at the end of the month (June)

So any day we will have a calf also.  As her name implies she is a sweet, curios cow. She reminds me of a big friendly dog that doesn't know her own strength.  She has caused a bit of trouble already escaping twice and going on her own little adventures.  Thankfully she comes home for dinner :)

    We are looking forward to fresh milk and all the things we can make with it! 
Our summer has been Super, Super busy and I have more coming as soon as I can get things uploaded.  Hope your summer is going well!

Turtle Season

So it's the time of year the turtles are coming out to warm up after the cold winter.  I think we are starting a turtle farm!  Here are some that we caught.  We've let several go in the garden but I haven't seen them since.  We've enjoyed "tagging" them with nail polish on their backs so we know if we find the same one's later. 

 The small ones are the cutest!  This is a small water turtle next to our smallest box turtle.

For perspective at how tiny he is.  Amazing these guys survive the rivers!

Box turtles this small are a bit rare.  They are quite quick for turtles too. 

I thought the kids has taken pictures of their art on the turtles but I guess not.  Next time though.  So far we have also found a couple skinks.
This guy was a neat color.

 He is called a Coal Skink.

My personal favorite.  This gal made a cocoon in the outhouse.  It was neat to see her transformation.

Isn't she pretty!  We have so many cool butterflies here.  One of my favorite things.
Even a year later we love discovering nature everywhere we turn.  Always something neat to learn and look at.

Bzzz Bzzz Bzzz

  The buzz is bee's!  We have our two hives set up and going.  Again the things you can have mailed to you astound me! 

This is two packages of Bees. Enough for two hives.  They are all clustered at the top as this is where the food can and queen is.  Now to get them from this into the hive boxes.

Here is one hive.  With a few frames missing where we'll put bees, then come back in a couple days and add the frames back in. 

So here are some bee facts... Almost all the bees in a hive are females.  Female bees do all the work.  The Queen lays eggs and then the women get to work taking care of the eggs, feeding the queen, making wax, cleaning the hive, collecting pollen, and making honey.  In a bees life they will do all of the jobs for a time. Only the oldest bees actually leave the hive to collect pollen as they may not come back.  The hive makes what are called Drones, male bees, in the spring and summer but the males do nothing in the hive.  There only job is to mate a queen.  When winter comes the Drones get kicked out of the hive and die because they don't want to feed them all winter.  Drone bees can't even sting. Poor guys have no defense but really don't work a day in their lives.

So back to getting our bee's into the hive.  The bee's follow and stay with the their Queen so we have to get her in the hive.  The package makes that easy as she will be in a cage that has a candy stopper that the bees eat out to free her. 

First we sprayed the bees with a Sugar Syrup of 1 part sugar and 1 part water. This kept them busy cleaning each other off and they stick together a bit to make getting them in easier.  The Metal circle is the food that comes out first. 

 Here's Super D putting the Queen cage in. She's in the middle of that mess of bees.

Next Shake the bee's into their new home. All goes well but notice Super D's hole filled jeans?

 

Yep, bee's found those holes! Super D got lucky and didn't get stung bad. 

 

Ok, bees are in!  Yeah!  Now just one more hive to go.....

 

This one I got on film. So here is the installment. Super D changed for the second hive.  (I tried to get the video uploaded but it just wasn't working. Will try again later. )

 

All set up.  Just two hives. We have the other part of the hive bodies on the ground but will move those after the bees calm down.  With a good year we will have some honey at the end of summer!

 

In all Sugar Bug got stung and Sassafras and I got bees stuck in our hair but no stings and Super D got stung on the lip with the second hive. He really thinks he can do all this with out the bee suit and so far has done great! He did get gloves and hasn't gotten stung since that first day. He's much braver than I but I do help and get close enough to hand him supplies and check out the hives.  It is a neat thing to watch them grow.  I'll keep you all updated on their progress.

Spring Break

OK, so we took spring break a little early but it was nice.  We had the opportunity to go and meet my sister in Oklahoma and visit my mom and grandma all at once.  We were paying our repects to a dear family friend who passed away and while that was bitter the rest of the trip was sweet....

 Game Night!  We had fun playin Mexican Train Dominoes. 

 You can see it in Sugar bug's eyes..... "My hair is fine Grammy!"

We got to go to the Tulsa Zoo. We'll we tried to go on one day that was nice weather and beautiful. Same day the above picture was taken. But the line to get in was a mile long and we decided we didn't want to fight the crowds.  So we went the next day it was cloudy and chilly but not too cold to be misrible and nice because there were few people.  But I think the previous days crowds wore the animals out alot of them were sleeping but we still got to see alot of neat animals up close!

Yes, that is a camel and yes it has a saddle and harness so of course we have to ride!  It was very cool but as I was riding no one took pictures.  (although Aunt J bought some so I just have to wait to get my copy) 

Spring is in the air in Tulsa.  This tree was one of only a few I saw blooming.  But I love the promise of summer that it brings!

Isn't he magnificent. We even got to hear him roar! It was incredible.

This is what most of the animals looked like :) 

Sassafras walking with a sea lion.  So beautiful.

Grammy took this picture but we had entered the rainforest an the lens kept fogging up on her.  This was the best one.

 

 

My favorite!  Dogs, cats, chickens, bears, it doesn't matter Sugar Bug talks to them all. This was a grizzly and.....

Here's her with a polar bear at the denver zoo several years ago.  Just our little animal whisperer!

We had a great time just us girls.  Super D had to stay home and work. We are glad to be home and things are really picking up with the nice weather we have more often now...  I promise lots of new things to come!

Let me know... What do you want to know about our life?? What questions do you have?  I would love some input and ideas...

Spelunking anyone?

   The weather is fluctuating a lot these days.  Some really nice days with temps in the high 50's and 60's but then it can drop quick and get cold fast.  So we took advantage of one such day and went caving also called spelunking.
  This hike to the cave which is along the river is pretty rough hike.  Not for the faint of heart.  It took us almost an hour to get to "bat" cave.  (I say that loosely as I think all caves that don't have another official name are called bat cave)
   We've done this hike twice now and in the spring thaw it was even more of a challenge not to slip all they way down the hill to the river on the mud. But well worth it.

 It's hard to show the steepness of the hill in pictures but we were almost on all fours at times.

Crawling to climbing! Sassafras was being her sassy self.. but I did take a picture of her backside so I guess I'll let her slide :)

See the river in the background.  It amazes me how it is a different world with each season.  In the summer with the trees in full leaves and grown up you can't see that far in the forest.  That made finding our way easier plus fewer scratches and bugs was a nice feature too.

Drink anyone?

Okay, so this is from the 1st hike this summer... But it is a neat spot on the way. Below is Uncle Monkey climbing down the tree that's behind us.

And finally......

This cave has a huge opening but narrows and get short very fast.

This is as far back as we went.  It continues to get shorter and really crawling deeper into the dark didn't appeal to me.  But this summer we found some unique cave life..

 There is evidence of bats and we also found lots of crickets which I'm sure these guys feast on.

Doesn't this look like a mini city or maybe wind chimes?  It's a mud daubers home.. A type of wasp that make homes out of mud. Hence the name :)

 Sugar Bug was brave enough to climb into this mini cave to take pictures of the mud dauber house... Although thankfully they aren't active this time of year.

Spring is right around the corner.. Everyday I hear more birds in the trees, the sun is rising earlier and setting a little later.  Soon the trees will be budding and we will be out hiking even more.. We are anxious to take up our mushroom hunting as spring is the time for the highly prized Morales....mmmm