Ready, Set, GO!

Fall has arrived!...at least until it gets super hot again for a spell. This week, though, has been very nice with low humidity and lower temps. Today it will hover around 80 with a low in the 50's.

It's time to get fall chores done. This means the bees need a grease patty and the pool deck needs to be cleaned up. Shrubs need to be trimmed and the front porch needs to be swept. The sand box in the back yard is begging for fresh sand so we will also need to clean it up a bit and load some fresh sand up to its brim. Fall weather is the best for sand playing!

Most importantly, however, are the two movie nights coming up! This weekend we are showing an outdoor movie for fun but the NEXT weekend is when we will host the community screening of American Meat.

The next two weeks I will be posting some facts from the documentary on Facebook.... facts such as each year the average American eats 48 pounds of pork, 60 pounds of beef, and 82 pounds of chicken. This is over 59 billion pounds of meat total in America!

While we prepare for what we anticipate to be a nice and large turnout, I wanted to share some pictures of a few happenings here.

My hens are now spending all of their time on the front pasture thanks to electric poultry fencing. An occasional bird escapes, but they stay close. I keep the roosters out of the fence so that they can focus on finding their own food (eating bugs and foraging) and leaving the laying ration for the hens.
We still have not built an egg mobile, but we plan to work on one in October when Devin gets a stretch off from work.
In the meantime, they are using my pasture chicken tractors. I move them every 2 days and they are happier than I have ever seen them. This field is full of grasshoppers!
The plan is to start moving salad bar cattle this spring and having the hens follow. As you can see, we are blessed with many acres and lots of grass!

Lucy is dried up! Okay, she is full of milk but we are not milking her. She is due to calve in early December. I always give her a longer than 2 month break from milking because she is an old mama cow. We also love having some free mornings without milking chores!

Baby Ivy is getting big and sassy! She is being haltered trained by Indiana and that is going very well. She is a sweet cow and will someday be a super milking cow. My plans are to keep her as my next milking cow, after Lucy retires.

Ivy has a favorite scratching spot under her neck. She loves to be scratched there. Look at that beautiful face!!! (She even drools when she gets scratched!)

The lambs have been separated from their ewes so that the ewes and my ram can breed. The babies sure miss the other sheep and Tiger Creek here follows me around every where! He looks good with his haircut! All the sheep were sheared two weeks ago and I think they appreciated the trim! I went ahead and sheared off their dreadlocks in front because they were so mucky and tangled. They should grow back quickly.

Now I want to talk about my ducks. I love my ducks! The kids love the ducks! We have mallard, khacki campbells , and runner ducks.
Now, most folks despise ducks because they poop. A. Lot.  That's all you hear from many is how they just eat and make messes.
Well, my ducks happen to be fantastic egg layers! We get large white eggs every day which are fabulous for baking.

They are also great at tearing up cow patties, as you can tell by this picture! I know this is kind of gross but cow patties are part of having cows and ducks (and chickens) are the master of spreading out those patties!

Old MacDonald had it figured correctly when he kept a diverse grouping of animals on his farm.

Hope you have a great week! If you are in the area, consider joining us for the American Meat film! It's all about sustainable farming and that's a good thing! Email me if you need more info!
mybarefootfarm@catt.com