Total of 4 new baby ducklings hatched by end of day.
I spent most of the day out hand tossing hay over the 1.8 acre ‘park’ pasture to protect the newly seeded winter cover crop (red clover, crimson clover, Austrian winter peas) from Hurricane Michael, which is due to arrive tomorrow or Friday.
It isn’t hard work (per se), but tedious. That said, by the end of the day I was completely bushed, ready to jump into the massage chair and/or jacuzzi. Did neither … fell asleep on the couch with the pup laying on my chest. Yeah, that kind of day.
As I described in the opening segment … I was on my first cup of coffee, doing my morning situational awareness review (SAR) (news, weather, etc.) when it dawned on me that I was hearing something … a bird of some sort … that struck me as … different. I thought, hmmm, sounds like a baby chicken. DOAH! I forgot about the duck eggs in the incubator in the window sill behind me!
Sure enough … first baby duckling had hatched! As you may recall, I found a clutch of duck eggs in a next next to my duck pond, and couldn’t find the mother duck. Thinking perhaps a coyote got her, I moved all 20 of the eggs into an incubator. I’ve incubated over a 100 chicken eggs, but never any duck eggs (until NOW!). I did some research, and estimated their hatch date to be the 10th of October. Obviously, I was only 2 days off. We ended up with three newborn ducklings by the end of the day, and there is still about 7 eggs in the incubator, with one showing signs of hatching now.
Also found that one of my mamma rabbits dropped a litter of 10 to 12 new rabbit kits into a nest box over night.
Then, I found a free-ranging rabbit of mine with a whole nest of maggot larvae in an open wound in her neck. GROSS!
Spent some quality time with the pupperino (Deuce). He and Hooey helped me unfurl a big ol’ hay roll in the freshly seeded ‘park’ next door, which we’ll need to distribute over 1.8 acres today (Tuesday).
Long day … but a good day. Country living at it’s best.
The pup (Deuce) is doing well, and Hooey hasn’t torn his face off yet. 😉
I spent most of the day yesterday doing final prep work and then seeding the 1.8 acre ‘park’ with about 150 pounds of lime, 100 pounds of clover seed, and 50 pounds of Austrian winter peas. Winter cover crop that will add nitrogen to the soil, AND feed the local deer. Win/Win.
After I got the seed spread, my tractor wouldn’t start. I find the positive battery lug completely corroded through. Hmmmmm. I wasn’t about to leave all that seed just sitting on the surface to feed all the #$%^ crows, so I hitched up the drag harrow behind my truck, aired down the tires, and got to it. Worked out pretty well. If my truck wasn’t dirty before (it was!), it certainly needs a bath now. Thankfully, rain clouds are forming!
Haven’t been able to find the energy to create a FCL DITL video in about a week. Hmmm, I wonder why? Can you say … DEUCE!
I’ve probably shot about 200 videos of him in the last week, but by the end of the day — each and every day — I’m just too tired to even fire up the ol’ Premiere Pro app to process the video footage.
He gets me up every two hours (on average) every night to go outside and make peepeepoopoo (as we call it).
I just can’t say enough about how funny, cute and smart this little guy is. All puppies are cute (in their own way), but this guy is indeed special. Doctor Destructo sometimes, but special nonetheless.
As you can see in this video, we got the ‘park’ pretty much ready to seed with a winter cover crop of red clover, crimson clover and Austrian winter peas (for the deer).
We put a LOT of work into this ‘park’ project over the last few months, plowing, tilling, grading and cleaning. Today, we lime and seed it. Yay!
What an exciting update! My Mother, bless her heart, decided she wanted buy Hunter and new playmate. So, yesterday Hooey and I drove to a local breeder of German Shepherds (GSD) and Belgian Malinois. They are an AKC registered breeder, and provide a lot of dogs to law enforcement agencies.
They had 3 male GSDs pups available. Interestingly enough, I chose the runt of the litter, as she (the breeder) had given him a lot of personalized attention and segregation from the rest of the litter so he could bulk up in size and weight to match his litter mates. In doing so, she warned that he was a little spoiled vis-a-vis attention, and a tad ‘vocal.’ PERFECT! That’s just what Hooey and this farm need!
She asked if I had a name picked out. I told her that I tend to like to spend some time with my animals, to get to know them and observe their personality … to come up with a name that ‘matches.’
I brought Hunter to the kennel with me, thinking we might let her help pick out her own puppy, but with about 25 dogs barking in the kennel, there was NO WAY I was letting her out of the truck. She just had the look on her face. WTF??? LET’S GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!!!
So, I loaded up the new pup into a crate in the back seat next to Hunter and headed for home (45 min drive). Didn’t get to the end of the breeder’s driveway before I get a nose full of what was OBVIOUSLY puppy poop. He crapped in the crate in less than 100 feet of travel.
With our eyes watering from the stench, and the puppy screaming in poor Hooey’s face … all of this AFTER sitting in my truck for 30+ minutes surrounded by an entire army of GSD and Malinois killers barking their heads off … poor Hooey just turned inside out. She wears a seatbelt in the truck (THANK GOD), and first tried to climb into the front seat with me. No go. Then, I looked back and she was literally climbing out the back window while I was doing 55 MPH down a country road. Yeah, THAT stressed out.
By the time I got home, the whole side of my truck was covered in her slobber. She held her head out the window most of the way home, and was drooling from all the stress and anxiety. Poor girl.
About halfway home, I thought … AHA! I think I’ll name him DEUCE! No, not after Deuce Bigalow … but because he dropped a ‘deuce’ in his crate. 😉 Not sure if the name is going to stick, but for now, that’s what we’re calling him.
As I hope you can see in these first few of what I’m sure will be a million videos of him … he’s cute, sweet, smart, funny, loving, curious and adventurous. And, he has quite the lungs on him. Vocal indeed.
Interestingly enough, Hunter isn’t doing as well with him as I expected. I always thought she would be an amazing mom. She still may, but with just over 24 hours under our belts, she’s just now starting to play with him a little.
The three of us played on the floor together for awhile, and I could tell her prey drive was seriously engaged. I could almost HEAR her subconscious yelling at her “IT’S A SKUNK, KILL IT!” No unsupervised play time for them until I see that prey drive vacate.
I wish I would have gotten some video of our opening the barn and chicken coops this morning. He stuck his face right into each door that I opened, and you should have seen the chickens reactions! Comical.
At the end of the video, I demonstrate how you can convert your AR rifle (or pistol, in my case) into a ‘can launcher’ by swapping out the upper, then use the launcher to deploy an arborists throw line by launching a 16 oz throw line weight WAY down range. To me, a can launcher isn’t very practical, BUT using it to shoot an arborists throw line up and over a tree? Now that’s practical!
Hooey and I walked the property line this morning after getting the animals up and out for the day, to survey the current surface water runoff situation.
Most of my drainage systems are working as designed, moving water over and off the property into feeder creeks that flow into the Eno River, then into the Neuse River. (Note: In the last few videos, I mistakenly said our creek flows into the Haw river. Not so.)
I did, however, discover that a LOT of ground water is flowing out of the big-ass cow pasture to our West, across my woodlot, into our duck pond, then on down the line. However, the flow isn’t efficient, and a large body of water is ‘standing’ in the woodlot, creating an unintentional pond out there. I’ll need to intervene once all this water sheds, so the unintentional pond is more intentional in the future. 😉
Rained pretty steady most of the day, so Hunter (aka Hooey) and I pretty much stayed indoors. I read a book (Yellowstone: Hellfire) and Hooey just clowned around most of the day. By about 5P, she could no longer self-entertain, and started driving me nuts. So, I broke out a laser and put her in ‘cat mode.’
Never a dull moment around here … lemme tell you.
We got about an inch (0.93 measured) of rain today and a max wind of 14.1 MPH. Not bad considering what the folks a bit closer to the Atlantic have experienced. No complaints here!
So, I guess Florence slowed, grew, jinked South, and sputtered along Westbound at 6 MPH. What I can tell you is this … in Efland NC (~ 183.65 miles from the NC coastline) we received 0.11 inches of rain (measured) and a maximum wind of 17.4 MPH (measured). Nothing to write home about (figuratively).
It was overcast, drizzly and gusty winds all day. In other words … boring. 😉
Took the opportunity to assemble and test the County Line 3-point hitch mounted post hole digger and 9″ auger. Works pretty well. I need to figure out why it got out of balance and shimmied so much when removing the bit from the hole under PTO power.
Counted between 10 and 12 new baby bunnies (kits) in the litter big mamma (aka ‘Smudge’) dropped yesterday. They all look good, viable and healthy.
No updates on the 20 duck eggs I stuck in the incubator the other day. In about a week, I’ll pull them out and ‘candle’ them to see how many of them are developing inside.
Took an afternoon nap, got up, went out, and damn near killed myself pulling down a ‘widow-maker’ tree that had succumbed to the gusty winds today. Caught the episode on video, for your viewing pleasure. Lesson Learned: NEVER spontaneously intervene in a widow-maker without planning and safety gear. Stupid mistake … dodged a bullet … wiser for the faux pax.
First few ‘bands’ of Hurricane Florence passed through. Not much rain, just fast moving, dark clouds and moderate, variable and gusting winds.
Watch the black duck segment closely. Watch how she keeps tilting her head up to watch the high speed clouds passing overhead. Interesting.
Used the Mavic Pro drone to monitor storm conditions from about 300 to 400 feet AGL (above ground level). Always impressed with not just the 4K video shot by the drone, but almost more so its onboard flight management computer. That damn thing will hold a perfect GPS-based position fix (aka ‘hover’), even in high, gusty winds. Truly amazing piece of consumer technology.
Had to arm wrestle (wing wrestle?) the young chickens into their coop tonight. The bone-heads wanted to stay out in the approaching storm. Young and dumb … just like human kids. 😉
Found mamma hen’s (not the best of names, but she answers to it!) pirate nest, which made my day. She’s the hen that hatched about 14 chicks in a compost pile earlier in the Spring. She’s a natural!
Got 550 gallons (2000 liters) of fresh drinking water stored in the two IBC totes.
After Hooey and I got all the animals bedded down for the night, we sat on the patio with a bottle of wine and watched the storm clouds race by … without dropping much rain.
Woke up to ominously dark skies, but no heavy rains or winds yet.
Worked with Hooey a bit on her search/seek skills. Always fun to watch her ‘work’ a scent. That dog is a natural born (rodent) killer.
Ground a few more tree stumps down before breakfast.
I heard some reporting about possible water contamination risks associated with all the Hurricane Florence rain water flowing through things you wouldn’t want your drinking water to flow through (e.g. agricultural manure aggregation depots) … so I made a last minute decision to clean and fill two of my 1000 liter IBC totes with well water, as an addition strategic water reserve.
Reconfigured the tractor front and back to do a bit more water drainage excavation work around the property. This video got long enough by noon. 😉
