Animals

Pour Yourself a Cup of Tea....This is a Long Post!

Little did I know, when I awoke on Friday morning, what an incredibly busy weekend it would be on the farm. I tended to the animal chores as usual. When I arrived back at the house for breakfast, I got a phone call from our local feed store, N.O. Bonsal and Sons, saying that our turkey poults and ducklings had arrived and needed to be picked up.

Oh my! And I still had to get their houses ready. The turkeys will be living in the house that the guineas abandoned, and the ducklings will be housed temporarily in the smallest henhouse. Both houses needed to be stripped, cleaned and supplied with fresh bedding, heat lamps, water and feed. Two hours later I was in the truck heading to pick up my tiny charges.

I am not sure what overcame me (it must have been insanity) but, the feed store had Ameracauna chicks and of course I had to buy 12 of those, too! Afterall, they lay the prettiest green eggs. And we NEED green eggs! (Oh, yea,...we don't know how many are hens and how many are roosters....to be continued)

Home I headed with 31 birds on the backseat of my truck (of course they were in boxes!!).

15 Adorable ducklings...

9 Black Cayuga

and 9 Black Swedish

Aren't they just the cutest, ever?

4 Bourbon Red turkey poults

who are just the friendliest little critters...

A dozen Ameracauna chicks....

Oh goodness, so many babies to worry about, now!!

But wait, the weekend is not over!

Oakley is here to stay. The adoption papers were signed Saturday morning. Oh how happy we all are... me, Hubbs, Sadie, Maddie....and happiest of all, I think is Oakley. He was our constant companion this weekend and a great help with farm chores. He seems to have an innate sense that he is not to chase the farm animals. He does love to chase rabbits, however, and went on many adventures through the woods after the hundreds of bunnies that call our farm home.

Getting his picture is a bit challenging....such enthusiasm...

He is one big lap dog.

Now, on to the rest of the weekend...

We planted, and planted and planted.

1 weeping willow in the field by the barn.

It is in the low point of the field that stays wet for a long time

after a rain. Willow trees are excellent at drying out wet areas.

3 sweet gum trees along the barn drive.

4 apricot trees in upper orchard...along with...

2 English walnut trees

1 peach tree

1 plum tree

4 cherry trees

1 apple tree and 2 pear trees in the lower orchard

2 kiwi...a female and a male

2 more grape vines...all on the grape arbor...

2 more raspberry bushes

3 more blueberry bushes

2 zebra grass

2 hanging planters for the tack room/barn

These should fill in nicely with petunias

and over flow with sweet potato vines.

I saved the planters from another year...much cheaper to plant your own than to buy them!

We also started to landscape around the guest cottage

1 pine tree

several perennials..

This is a work in progress that I hope to finish this week.

I also put a small perennial bed around our fake rock.

This rock hides the top of the well, along the driveway.

Then more work in the vegetable garden.

Some of the boxes are planted.

Sunday I put in 12 cabbages,

a few squash,

green beans, herbs,

and a few peppers.

The rest are finally ready for planting.

Sunday's harvest....

22 dozen eggs cleaned and ready for market....

Oh, and Hubbs opened the pool....

Summer's coming....

Oh, and look at the surprise waiting for him beneath the pool cover as it dried on the lawn...

Yikes!

Needless to say, we drug our weary bones to bed early!

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Animals