Spent some time this week tilling, grading, raking and drag harrowing the big pasture, readying it for seeding in a few weeks.
Second bucket gardening pallet is coming along well. Seedlings in the soil blocks are also doing well, especially the Okra.
Deuce get’s a lot of face time, as usual.
Received and tested our first (of many) Premier 1 electric poultry fence. Works like a charm. Poor Deuce got volunteered to test the fences ability to repel an aggressive predator, and the fence turned his ass around VERY effectively. Thanks Deuce … for taking one for the team.
Caught DJ (male duck) trying to mount the chicken hens again. He damn near drowned one hen. In his defense … I suppose … if you’ve ever seen ducks mate, they often do so floating in a pond, where the drake (male) holds the duck (female) mostly underwater while doing his business. What DJ doesn’t realize is hens are less prone to float. Oh, and that HE’S A DAMN DUCK NOT A CHICKEN!!!
I’ve decided to procure two or three 100′ x 14′ caterpillar tunnels between now and the end of the year. One of them will be used for aquaponic gardening (e.g. eight tilapia fish tanks an twenty-four veggie grow beds). The other tunnels will be used as greenhouses to grow crops year around.
Migrated ducklings from brooders (barn & house) into a dedicated duckling coop in the barn.
Powerful thunderstorm passed through and knocked power out for a few hours.
Then, the Deuce fiasco. He recently started running round with a 8-inch tire/wheel combination, and in about a week’s time managed to shred the tire. So, a few days ago, we rolled out of bed to a BEAUTIFUL day … cooler, clear skies, nice breeze. As we walked round the property after letting the barn animals out for the morning, I kicked another (larger) tractor tire that was just lying around after having been used to boost a bird feeder off the ground (or some such).
Deuce saw me kick the tire, and thought (I’m sure) … GAME ON! As you can see in this video, we basically started playing tractor tire soccer. Unfortunately, I kicked the tire at JUST the wrong moment (in hindsight) causing the rim of the tire to collide with Deuce’s teeth, which were sunk into the rubber tire. I will NEVER forget the sound. First … a loud crack, followed immediately by his yipe. While you (thankfully) can’t see it on the video, blood was pouring out of his mouth like a ‘stuck pig.’
I called the vet and let them know what happened, and that I was rolling their way Code-3. I was pleasantly surprised to see that in the 20 minutes it took me to drive to the vet, the bleeding had mostly stopped.
A quick check by the vet determined that he had sustained 2 or 3 fractured teeth, including his upper-right canine tooth, which I could see was sheared off at about the halfway point.
They immediately sedated him and prepared him for emergency surgery. I got a call about two hours later, once they got him “off the table” (I hate that term), saying he only lost two teeth, his canine incisor and a pre-molar two teeth away. The tooth between them was fine.
Needless to say … I feel just horrible for having caused his injury. We were roughhousing … playing … but that doesn’t change the fact that my pup got f**ked up.
Happy to report that he’s doing well after about 48 hours of recovery. He tends to be a VERY ORAL dog, always has something in his mouth (stick, toy, chicken, rocks, Hooey’s neck, whatever …) so it’s been a chore trying to keep him from tearing his stitches open … but so far, so good.
I learned this AM that Deuce ‘has a thing’ for freshly baked sourdough bread. I made 4 loaves this morning and he’s literally crawled over me a few times to get some. It’s soft on his palette, so WFT … he can have some. Makes him happy.
Deuce started the day off in knuckle-head mode, trying to drag a 30+ foot “stick” (tree) around the property on our morning walk. But, later in the afternoon, he stepped up his game and was all business … clearing a path through the chicken flock for the tractor to pass … repeatedly. He has almost ZERO formal training, but you can see his herding and protective instincts are just amazing. Sir Shitzalot Deuce (his formal AKC registered name) has seemingly endless energy, and is “very talkative” according to the folks that I kenneled him with this last weekend. Talkative … indeed.
Woke up to overcast skies, ground fog and cool temps. HOT DAMN. Got the animals up, out and on their way, then fired up the tractor and got back to work plowing the field. First plow furrow, half-way down, I hit a 50-60 pound rock and sheared the plow blade off! AAAHHHGG!
Spent the next few hours running around getting parts and a few new tractor implements (e.g. 5 foot landscaping rake, post hole auger).
Took the opportunity to salvage about 10-12 telephone poles from the neighbor’s property, then got back to work plowing the field.
Got about half of the field plowed, one 18 inch wide furrow at a time. Exhausting work, even just riding on the tractor (for that many hours). If I didn’t have hemorrhoids before, I very well might now.
We mowed the ‘park’ next door, then I decided that with Hurricane Florence forecast to dump about 50″ of rain on us later in the week, it might be a good idea to plow the field under to allow it to absorb more water and shed less water into our neighborhood drainage ditches, which tend to flood my neighbor’s property.
Bought Hooey a whole roasted chicken for being such a good ‘helper’ while I was running the tractor. She’s good about chasing the chickens away from in front of the tractor, cuz those dummies are prone to letting the front wheels get about 3 inches away from them before flittering way. I guess you could say they like to ‘play chicken’ with the tractor.
After getting all the animals fed, watered, etc., I hitched up the new County Line Middle Buster plow and went out to test it in what we call the big pasture. The test went so well, I just kept on plowing … all day … and got the whole pasture done.
\I got the new PTO-driven, 3-point hitch mounted tiller assembled, but stumbled on the last step, cutting the PTO drive shaft down to the right length. The instructions SUCK. Later in the evening, I found an awesome instructional video from the fine folks at Everything Attachments (NC), so now (Monday, Labor Day) I know what to do.
