FoxDog Farm

04/29/2020

Some stuff is happening in the greenhouse, despite the stay at home (or maybe because of it). Actually, the normal seasonal work is going on. Here's a few pics. Can you spy the unofficial farm 'hand' helping us out?

04/24/2020

I think I've written about this before, but I couldn't resist. I've grown moonflowers once in a while, from seed. A few years ago, one scattered seed in the greenhouse (it flowered, then made seed) and the seed went between the cement greenhouse floor and the cement foundation of the house. And it grew. It must've put its roots down in the sand under the greenhouse floor and found conditions it really liked. After two years of growing (no, I didn't remove it, I'm too stupid, or kind, or something) it died. And then, last year, it appeared again (after a year of being missing) in another spot. It's growing under the greenhouse sink/table now. And it LIKES it there. It's about 2 feet tall and put on its first flower a few nights ago. The flower was gorgeous, and smelled like heaven. It only lasted a day... as moonflowers do, and as moonflowers do, it flowered at night. Here's a pic.

11/03/2019

Just 'cause:

The 500 goats - including Vincent van Goat and Selena Goatmez - ate the flammable scrub nearby.

10/17/2019

So, we still have a pretty good crop of peppers growing in the greenhouse. It's warm enough, despite the below 30 F nights we had last week, that they are still flowering and growing peppers. We'll see how long that lasts. We are truly organic, even in the greenhouse. We don't have a lot of problem with bugs or diseases, because we allow predator bugs and other little animals in to take care of the bad bugs, and we use clean soil for our seedlings, and our own compost for the larger plants. We do get some interesting helpers in the greenhouse, who also like the heat, check out our most recent guest! More in the picture captions, of course...

05/01/2019

Gonna post these and then go to bed (early!). Here's some pics of current farm and goat happenings... as usual, see the notes on the pics for more!

04/12/2019

Wow, this has been a week! Last night Poppy gave birth to 3 little bucks. All polled. All cute, one needed help (Poppy is a first time mom) so he's getting bottle fed. And then, spring is coming out everywhere. Here's a few pics! Dive in to see the babies.

03/27/2019

A little under 24 hours ago, I was laying in bed reading. Just about ready to fall asleep. I heard a sound, a high pitched 'myaaaaahhhh!'. I thought, 'Is the dog snoring like that???'. I heard it again, not the dog. One more time and I knew, it was a baby goat, Maggie, despite not giving us any hints earlier in the night, had given birth. I could hear the baby over the monitor, and that cry often meant something was wrong (could just be the mom licking the baby too hard or something 'dire' like that, but still, the baby was upset). So I got dressed and raced out.

Couldn't see any sign of any goat being upset. Maybe it was just... I looked in the small shed behind the main mommy-baby barn and there was Maggie, licking and cleaning a new born. What a trooper! What a good girl! I ran over to help. Wrapped the little guy in a towel to dry him, checked over Maggie. I only had a flashlight and it was hard to do all this onehanded, but I did. Sat down to watch them and heard that call again, 'myaaaaaahhhhhh!'. What the heck? Maggie looked up and burbled as Momma goats do to their young. The call went on. But I had checked the white barn, where the mommy-babies live and there was no... the call again. So I ran over there and looked again. Found a little guy tucked behind a huge log that was pushed up against the wall. Completely invisible. He had eaten, but he was so cold and so wet and his ears were back... So I grabbed him, hugged him to me, and raced back to Maggie. Put him down near her, she started licking him. I ran inside and got a heat pad, got warm molasses water for her, got more towels. Came back out and grabbed him.

I rubbed him and dried him and cooed over him and Maggie helped as she could. Put him on the heat pad and wrapped him in a new dry towel. Snuggled him right up to his mom, where his brother was. She laid down and napped from exhaustion (about 3 to 5 minute stretches at max, then up to deal with the babies again). He got warm, his ears went into proper position (no more stress or pain) and he got up. All was well. Randy came with the light and hay. I'd already put down fresh straw.

Here's some pics. They are 12 hours old. Randy has other pics on his feed! :)

03/19/2019

So... it's nice here at the farm lately. Meaning, not too cold, not too hot and although we've a few more days of 'winter', spring is definitely here. A few days ago I heard the spring peepers in the forest out back of the farm. And then, a day or two ago, it was warm enough in the wet pastures and water around here and they are singing like mad right now, at 1 am. And, a week ago our pair of mourning doves returned. I am over the moon, I love those birds so much. And, bumble bees are out. And robins are doing their thing, and a few days ago, in the early evening before dark, the first of the swallows arrived. I raised my arms to the sky and praised the bird gods, as I love swallows. More humming birds have arrived, including the one we helped keep alive with our nectar feeder during that amazing snow storm ridden and cold, cold February.
Randy and I were out working the last few days in SHORTS and T-SHIRTS. Yay! The goats spend the afternoons laying in the sun with their faces raised to it. I've adopted that stance when I sit down and take a break from working. And finally, Maggie the goat is getting ready to have babies. She will be the first to give birth this year. Might be a week or two (or maybe more, we didn't catch her exact date of impregnation). And then Poppy. Yes, that Poppy! And then, Alice.

03/01/2019

It was a lovely sunny day today. Finally! It wasn't warm, never got over about 47F, but the wind was 'minor' and the sun was great. We let the old lady and preggie goats out for the first time since Fall and they had a BLAST. Here's the pics...

02/09/2019

Well, it snowed. And snowed. And snowed, and snowed. We have not gotten the wind, this time, yet. Fingers crossed it stays away, because that is COLD. Last night was warm, at around 28F or so. The four or so nights before were at 15 to 16F. Blue sky is showing now, so I imagine it'll be below 20 again tonight. We've got the goats all bedded down. There is a heat lamp going in the chicken coop (they won't come out at all, don't want their feet frozen). The cats have beds in the garage. The dog is sleeping on our bed and even the birds have been fed. Here's some pics...

02/04/2019

This is what happens when you are busy doing your normal chickenly business, pecking and cleaning and bawkbawkbawking around the house, as you should, since you are a chicken... AND it starts snowing and you don't know what to do so you get on the porch to wait for it to stop. AND it doesn't. And your feet hurt in it, so you stay on the porch and then night falls. So around dusk you send one of the underling chickens (a buff, of course), to the front door when the farm lady comes downstairs to fill the fireplace and the underling gently clucks and squawks and tells the farm lady what is happening. She finishes filling the fireplace and comes out to see, and you show her all of your chicken buddies, all roosting on the porch because it is just TOO cold to go back to the coop. In fact, the underling hops up and fluffs up along with you. BUT it's too dark and too slippery and the farm lady can't carry all of you to the coop. So you stay there. This is what you all look like, in your chickenly splendor, when she checks on you at 3 am. (NOTE: when it's light they will be led back to the coop with food and warm water and locked in until this snow stuff passes).

01/03/2019

Back in 1993, I planted a few apple trees. Maybe it was 1994? Hard to remember. Anyway, at the time I bought some 'colonnade' apple trees, a set of 5 different varieties, from Stark's. These were trees which were to grow in a pot while producing apples. They were to get tallish (like 6 to 10 ft) and skinny and produce when young. And I grew them in the pots. I gave two to my mother, and the remaining three stayed in pots for about... a year. Then I decided to 'liberate' then and planted them in my fenced herb garden. Man, they LOVE that place. The two 'regular' apples (one is a lovely tart red, the other a nice green) have, err, broken the boundaries of the colonnade. They are 15 to 20 feet tall, well branched and produce boxes and boxes of apples. The other apple, the crabapple, is one I adore for making jellies and sauces and so on. Its fruit is large for a crab, about 1 to 1.5 in diameter, deep red skin and red fleshed. It's got a strong apple flavor, is very, very tart (like a crabapple should be) and is wonderful to cook with. Its variety is called 'maypole'. It never branched like the other trees, and always has been tall and slender and very productive.

About 15 years ago, a nest of hornets, bad ones, bald faced hornets, decided to grow in the crook of the crabapple. Those ass-hole-horrnets were dangerous being in a very popular part of the garden, so we had to call in the exterminators. They did their job, the maypole grew on. But was never the same. Yesterday I went out to clean up suckers and so on around the base and found its trunk is completely hollowed out! It still grows fine but... wow. So here's some pics. I guess this year I'll be taking lots of cuttings and trying to root a new tree, because I can't find this sold anywhere and it rocks! I'm afraid the tree will break because it is just not strong anymore :( And we get strong winds. It's blowing 15-20 mph right now, for example.