The Farm Vermin Saga Goes On

In the past the racoons have been the bane to our chicken's existence.  Over the past few years we have gradually cleaned out the racoons in the area.  Lately I have found that screaming at them like a crazy person keeps them away for an indefinite period of time.

We always have a couple times a year when we smell skunks checking out the place.  They never stick around to our relief.  This year I have opossums.  Once in a while when I go to feed the animals at night there will be a opossum in the barn.  By the time I can get armed they escape.

The other night an interesting thing happened.  When I close the chickens in the coop for the night I count them.  As can be seen in the pictures below there are always two on the ladder type roost and eight on or in the nesting boxes.  I am wearing a head lamp with a narrow beam so I turn toward the two chickens then the other way for the 8.  When I counted the two then swung around to tally the others something in the back of my mind triggered.  "Wait, something didn't look right with the two chickens."  So I swing the light back around and there is a tail sticking straight out next to the wall right next to the chicken.  There right next to the chicken is a opossum tail.

So I ran out to the wood shed next to the barn and grabbed a small piece of firewood.  When I got back in the coop it was still there.  The chicken next to it didn't look right.  I feared the worst.  I shoved the chicken to the side and it was okay.  I gave the opossum a whack with the stick.  It hit the ground and lay still.  The oldest trick in the opossum play book is to play dead.  I gave him a couple more to the cranium.  He did the running in place like I'm dying.  I carefully carried him to the dead varmint disposal place.  I didn't want the playing dead, that is hopefully really dead opossum to swing around and bite me while carrying it by the tail.

I am hoping that this rid us of another free loading varmint.  A couple nights ago, when I went to feed the animals, there was a opossum in the barn...  Was it really dead or just using the old trick?  I think we're going to have to start using the live animal trap to be sure of the ultimate demise.  Dang chickens.

A Goat's Life - Somebody's Got to do It

This is Gibson, a striking little fellow but the fraidy-cat of the goat herd.  He reminds me of an African antelope.  I'd think he was wanting us to do some shooting from the bench, if I didn't know hit true nature.

Pig Farming After Action Report



The week of the fair was a busy fun educational experience.  On Wednesday, I came home from work around lunch time, changed clothes and headed out to load the show pig, Disney.  I explained to everyone that we needed to be patient and it would all work out.  After Disney figured out that we wanted her to get in the trailer, she did everything she could to avoid that trailer.  It has been awhile since I have helped load horses into a trailer so I had to do some thinking to remember the trick for uncooperative critters.  I wanted to be careful so Disney didn't look like she had come through a battle getting to the fair.  I retreived some nylon webbing tied it up front in the trailer and ran it back out the door.  We got her up to the trailer, looped the webbing around her butt and yarded her in.  We gave her a bath in the trailer as it was a clean piece of ground.  Then we threw in some clean straw and hit the road.  It took 45 minutes to load the pig.  I have some ideas for next year.  We had to all change clothes again before we left.

Everyone at the fair was really nice and helpful.  The 4-H people's mentality is that its all for the young people.  Having fun is a big part of it too.  After arriving and getting her unloaded, we let things settle down then headed for the official final wash job.  Disney just puts on the brakes when she doesn't want to do something.  Both front legs are braced up solid and the only way to move her is to push.

Thursday morning start early is "weigh-in."  In April there was a weigh-in and the pigs got their ear tags with a certain number.  This weigh-in for showing required the ear tag number correlate to the previous weigh-in.  The pigs have to weigh between 230 and 280 pounds.  This is so they are competitive against each other.  We watch close to 100 pigs get weighed and it was really hard to predict what one might weigh.  If the pig is outside the weight limits a guy pulls out a pair of wire cutters and clips off the ear tag and you are disqualified from showing...  It is pretty rough on the youth.  So Disney was looking like she would be on the high end of the boundaries.  She maxed out the scale at over 300 pounds.

There were some tears and angry words.  The Mrs. and I felt badly but really didn't know what we could have done differently.  We had searched for a scale about 3 weeks before the fair because we didn't know where we were for weight.  After the weighing we found out that he still would get to show conformation but in a heavy weight class.  Remember this is out first time at all this.  We met some people that had a pig that looked very similar to ours, they are sisters.  She was overweight too.  So it is a family trait.

We learned from some pig farmers that these were just fast growing stock.  The birthdate was right to make weight.  So junior got to show against his pig's sister.  There were only two 4-H pigs in the heavy weight class.

So she got second against her sis.  She did have a bum leg so that didn't help.  Junior had a huge fan club show up to see him show, family and friends came from all over.

On Friday, he was in a showmanship class with 7 others and took 3rd place.  I think that is pretty good for his first time.  He really did look confident.  He had worked with one of the two pigs almost everyday for about 5 weeks.  The second showing was better for Disney too.  We had learned from some new 4-H friends to give her asprin for some relief from here leg injury.

Due to the overweight thing, he didn't get to praticipate in the auction on Saturday.  This was a big part of the disappointment with the weight problem.  Typically the pigs sell for at least $3 per pound with the high this year being $12.50.  There was an $8 but most were in the $3.50-$4.50 range.  The market price is $0.75.  Many businesses and family push the price up as a money maker for the youths.  He had arranged a buyer up front with a price that was better than break even but not like the auction prices. 

Junior helped show a yearling nubian goat for a friend and had fun doing that, winning a reserve grand champion ribbon.

He didn't come away from the fair without a big award.  He had woven a scarf on mom's loom and entered it in the 4-H textile division.  It won champion and is headed for State competition.

All-in-all it was a good experience and everyone learned a lot.  Next year we will have a scale of some sort.

Frank Talks Critters

4-H and the Heat

We will be headed for the fair next week.

Where food comes from.

The real perspective is the best perspective.

A Look at Farming

I ran across a mid-west farmer that is a gun writer on the side a couple years ago.  He is a second or third generation farmer and a level headed fellow.  Periodically he writes about the farm commodity prices and what is happening in that world that most of us pretty much ignore.  In the past few months there have been some trends that are concerning.  Give Frank James a read.  Too Much of a Good Thing

I bought a 55 gallon drum with a removable top and have been adding to it with the monthly COSTCO run some basic commodities that could be affected in the near future.  If it doesn't happen we can just use them up with normal consumption.  "Be Prepared" - it is some big organizations motto.

Dad's Got a New Truck!

I guess I am a patient person or a realist when it comes to making big purchases. I have to weigh the value to the family against the expenditure, etc. For the past few years I have wanted a real truck. A truck that can pull a car trailer or equipment trailer with the 12,000 pound excavator from the rental place. Or we can load up all the camping equipment, the dogs and maybe the 4-wheeler and head out for adventures.

I have researched gas versus diesel, manual versus automatic, older versus newer and Ford versus Dodge. The 1994 Ford farm truck we have right now has an electronically controlled automatic transmission. As near as I can tell, after driving it some component reaches a certain temperature then the transmission shifts into neutral a couple times to make things interesting. I read up on what could be the trouble and the information convinced me a manual transmission is a better way to go.

So I got a blend of old and new with simple and complex mixed together. My Uncle has a business that requires him to out of his his truck for long hours on construction sites. He has figured out a combination of options that make for a more reliable truck than the average city dweller has. About every three years he gets a new truck. On this cycle we bought his old one.

It is a 2008 Dodge 3500 6.7L Cummins diesel with a six speed manual transmission. It has just a few options that make it a great work truck and a reduction of things that can go wrong. Four doors are nice with the whole family getting their own door.

We have hauled building supplies and animal feed, driven up Larch Mountain and driven the truck home. Running errands in town is interesting. One definitely has to plan ahead in parking lots. It will take some getting used to. We are all loving it so far.

Turkey Day Project

Little C is on the skate board band wagon right now. He has some spare parts from an old board and wanted to create one of his own design. So here we go. We used a piece of 3/4 plywood. It is 26 inches long by 10 inches wide so it is really stiff as far as skate boards go. The shape of from a 40 plus inch "long board" by is in a short board format.

To strengthen and water proof the piece of wood I got the idea to coat it with polyester fiber glass resin. This is our first try at building a skate board so we will see what we learn as junior works it over.

Summer's Project Complete - Yahoo!

In the spring the goats get all goofy and they get out on all sides. There is no reason to, it's just spring. You know how every person has "the thing" that bugs them. For my dad it was the outside dog barking at night. For me it is lots of things. Things like children fighting on either side of a door because eventually someone's fingers are going to get smashed. I could tell that for Ralph it was our goofy goats getting on his side of the fence. Generally they just eat the brush but once in a while they get close to his flower beds.

This spring the neighbors asked if they could go halves on putting in new fence. I started figuring and shooting lines trying to figure out how to straighten out the line and make the fence better. After taking out 4 trees that fell right where the fence should go we were ready to replace the fence. Any good fence requires sturdy corners and ends posts. I just happen to have some substantial I beam pieces around the place so we put in three of these with 180 pounds of concrete. They turned out fairly substantial...

I welded lock washers on to have something to tie the wire to. We put about 24 inches in the ground with the concrete and have about five and a half feet above ground.

Taking out the old fence is a job and pulling out the old posts is the hardest part. I started looking around for ideas and materials and made a post puller.

The post puller works great! We even pulled some round wooden posts out with it.

Three quarters of one Saturday and half of another were required to remove the old and put in the new fence. We bought taller "hog" wire which we hope will deter the goats come next spring.

I don't have a good picture of the new fence. (maybe I'll add that later)

It is nice to have this summer's major project done and I don't have to worry about Ralph stressing out over the dumb goats.... No we just have to fill the woodshed.

The Feline Saga

As part of the farm menagerie we have some barn cats. We put food in a bowl for them, we catch fleeting glances of them and that is about the level of affection we have with them. They do serve a purpose that offsets the food cost. We have no mice.

The problem with cats is they multiply at about 50% of the full "breeding like rabbits" rate. So a couple months ago I went to feed the animals and there in plain sight is a momma cat with a squirming mass of new born kittens. Junior started trying to spend time with them daily so the offspring wouldn't be as wild as the parents and he could find homes for them. After about a week of this the wild mother got nervous and moved the kittens. We could not find them...

On a Friday, about a week later, the boys found the cat family on a high shelf back in the barn. Their mother had the kittens in a new home in an old bird cage stored in the barn. Give or take a couple days I chased a raccoon away from the barn one evening. So on Saturday we were working out in the pasture near the barn and the kittens were making all kinds of racket. The boys checked on them and the mother was no where to be found. We gave them a day and still no mother and the little things were starting to get weak. We think the raccoon got them mom.

So we hauled them in the house, tried to get them warm and to drink some milk from a saucer. They were plenty hungry but didn't know how to lap up the milk. We dug around and found a syringe (without a needle) to try to squirt some milk in their mouths. The neighbor had a little bottle and some kitty formula so we tried that. It worked and they were a crazy crate of kittens after a couple feedings. The kits were feeling so good that a cardboard box wouldn't contain them. So they went back in the bird cage in the house.



So every two hours on Sunday the little things were fed. The problem was, what are we going to do with them come Monday when everyone goes back to school and work? No feeding every two hours...

In the past we have taken care of these sort of things in an "out on the farm" way. Due to the close care of these guys we couldn't just take care of the problem. So off to the "humane" society with them.

The experts said they were sick and too weak and they all need to be euthanized. That was a little rough on the troops. Especially after little C had been lining up homes for them with his friends at school.

Dang cats-

Junior's Got Wheels

So little C got the idea in his head about 6 or 8 months ago that he wanted to build a go-kart. I steered him in the direction of starting with an old fashion down hill coaster type to start out. Finally I got tired of hearing about it and just stopped everything and built one with him. He has had the wheels and tires from Harbor freight since before Christmas. They require 5/8" axles and of course I don't have an 5/8 round stock. I we started digging through the wide array of cans of bolts and found some 5/8 socket head capscrews that would do the job. So we welded 5/8 nuts to some flat bar. Luckily a couple of the nuts were lock nuts to keep the front wheels from falling off.

We cut a piece of 2 by 12 from the scrap lumber pile and some 1 by 4's as axle crossbars. A little drilling, a little welding and some assembly and now every incline has potential.


This vehicle is simple, alas no brakes and you have to tighten the nut for the front axle steering before each run. It is fun and keeps him busy.

To Till the Earth

My Dad picked up a Craftsman rear tine rototiller when he bought a farm in Hermiston, OR in the mid 1990's. Through the years we have used it back and forth for whatever needed tilling. Once in Tualatin I was working in the backyard and hit a big buried rock. The tiller lost that battle. A couple gears lost a tooth in the fight. I dove into fixing it due to the cost of an equivalent replacement machine.

I learned about cost efficient designs. To get at the gears the machine had to be completely torn apart. The frame/gear box were two stamped pieces of 11 gauge. Almost every bolt had to be removed to get at the gears. At that time the parts to fix it were not too much money and it had many good years after the repair. One strange feature was the lubrication of the gear train was like cosmoline, non serviceable.

Recently Dad went to use the tiller and it wouldn't shift gears. He looked up getting parts for it and found out that many of them have been discontinued. He offered the engine to junior for a go-kart. The Mrs., however, had other ideas and wanted me to see if I could fix it. So once again every bolt had to come out.

The failure was due to the lube system. Over time the goo had migrated down in the gear box and condensation had gathered at the top of the box. You guessed it, the shifting mechanism shaft is at the top. The sliding mechanism seized on the shaft and the shaft is all cancerous with rust. Of course these parts are on the discontinued list.

The boss has had some veggie gardens and wants to expand the square footage this year. Recently I had spotted a real rototiller sitting in a field near our house. I thought, "what the heck I'll see if he wants to sell." The owner had been given two of them and put it there as a yard ornament.





Now I am the proud owner of a late 1940's Graham-Paige B1-6 rototiller. This is a real rototiller. This company actually trademarked the name, Rototiller. This machine was built like a real machine. All gears, cast iron housings, levers for all functions, a magneto and a two-stroke engine. Yup that is right a two stroke engine. If you are interested here are a couple links to sites that have info about this machine.

http://www.zucksrototillers.com/B1-6.html

http://meltingpot.fortunecity.com/guam/288/page6.html

I'm Kinda Proud of That Thing

A couple years ago a friend stopped by because he was headed across the state and the load he had on his trailer was way too heavy. He had bought some industrial surplus items. He had 5 of these jib cranes on and they probably weighed about 1 ton each and several other hefty pieces. So he needed to lose some weight. We helped him unload 3 of the cranes.

After a few months it became obvious that we were the proud owners of three 30 foot jib cranes. Without a big piece of equipment there was no way I was going to move these things. They sat next to the driveway adding to the classy nature of the farm. After two years I started getting hints that they needed to go.

So one day when I was feeling ambitious I drug the cutting torch down the driveway and proceeded to cut them up. They are made of 10 inch I-beam with an 8 inch channel welded on top, plus some ears and guy supports out of 1/2 by 3 flat bar. I cut the beam part up into 8 and 10 foot pieces so they could be moved. They still weighed about 3oo pounds each. Now moving these posed a problem...

Recently I scrapped out a rototiller that we couldn't get parts to repair. I took some scrap metal from the jibs, the wheels and tires from the tiller and a trailer hitch to create the heavy object skidding device (HOSD).

The hardest part of using them is lifting the one end up and having junior back up while holding it. We moved three of them to the shop for alterations into some serious fence posts. We then skidded those to their perspective resting places. Last Saturday we moved all of the other pieces to a less visible storage spot. Boy those 10 foot pieces are heavy!

One Too Many

I came to the realization yesterday that I have too many projects. I found myself acting like a labrador in a meat market. If I could focus on any one thing, some level of satisfaction could be achieved. Here's how the list looks right now:

- Reload ammo for - 300 Whisper Super and Sub sonic, 223 for varmints and the on going 44 mag.

- Repair free high quality lawn mower to replace 15 year old one that I keep tacked together.

- Diagnose and repair "new" 1940's model roto tiller.

- Complete wiring in the shop.

- Build reloading room in the shop.

- Clean all of the non-shop items out of the shop.

- Move all my stuff from the garage to the shop.

- Build 300+ feet of fence along the west side of the property to keep the neighbor from having goat barbeque.

- Mount antlers for youngest from last season and for Mrs. from season 10 years ago.

- Complete running water and power to the barn that was started 3 years ago.

- Finish getting rid of scrap from job cranes that sat next to the driveway for 2 years.

- Complete inspection signoff on the shop project.

- Do tree removal jobs for 3 different people not counting my brother.

- Be a good dad and husband.

There are more, I know there is but I'm to distracted to remember.

Spring has Sprung... Well Maybe Not

Harvey is soaking up the spring sunshine and thinking life as a pig isn't so bad after all. He always has hay on his back. His bed is like a big pack-rat nest.


The next day it snowed... Ole ground hog had it right this year. It has been a very cold spring. We were one degree away from setting a cold record today.

I sheared the goats last Saturday and they are freezing. I hate to let them go too long because they are an itchy mess.

Well we need the water.

Dr. Doolittle Lives at My House

Due to our high mortality rate on the farm each spring the Mrs. gets a batch of chicks to replenish the flock of layer hens. It looks like my racoon hunting efforts have finally gotten their population under control. The racoons. One year we got a pair of gosslings and another year we got ducklings.

So Little C has seen and been a part of raising the chicks each spring. Right now he has two guinea pigs and a leopard gecko in his room. About once a month he starts a campaign to get another animal of some sort. Sometimes its a third dog, another guinea pig, a ferret, a fish tank and on and on.

This spring our chicken total is at 9, goats at 4, one pig and some wild cats. So we (the parents) had decided we didn't need any additional farm critters this spring. Last Friday the latest new animal campaign started. A trip to the farm store to get feed started the wheels turning.

Somehow between Friday morning and Saturday a pair of ducklings needed to come live at our house. On Friday Mom and Little C went all over checking duck options at the various farm stores. Saturday after talking to Dad they knew where they were going to get the new fowl. Saturday afternoon a newpaper lined recycling bin with water, food and light was set up in the middle of the kitchen counter. And just to show how much control I have over what goes on at my house, we have three ducklings...

PS - you know spring is here, all the goats are at the neighbors.

A Few pictures of the Farm Critters

What a nice physique Harvey has. The ever present straw on his back from his bed/nest. Every time we clean out the barn and put in new straw, Harvey pushes most of it into his bed.

Harvey is growing up. Those are tusks at the back of his mouth. Luckily he hasn't learned that they can be used for defensive or offensive purposes. The white at the front of his mouth is slobber. Hey, he's a pig.


Our two newest goats from last spring are dwarf Nigerians. They have lots of personality. As most goats go, they like to climb. The little ones really like to climb. This is Gibson. He reminds me of an African antelope. He is very shy and runs out of reach whenever we try to approach him. He is standing on the woodshed overflow. We have plenty of wood this year.

Nice Cockerel!

As most of you know my wife has layer hens. Due to the high mortality rate around our place she has to get a few chicks each spring at the local farm store. When we get the chicks the store maintains that the sex of the hens is 90+% accurate. Almost every year we have gotten at least one rooster. Generally the roosters are not nice. They can be a little rough on the hens. Often they are aggressive and come after us with their spurs slashing. They become targets for the boys.

This past spring we had a nice batch of chicks and of course we got the obligatory rooster. He's nice! He doesn't crow incessantly and is quite handsome. This rooster is the picture of the perfect rooster. The Mrs. want me to butcher it to save on feed. I don't want to because he is such a nice fellow.

You Know the Wind's Blowing When:

- The level in the toilet is 30% lower due to the wind blowing across the plumbing vent pipe causing a vacuum.

- The goose doesn't want to be outside.

- The pig doesn't even get out of bed.

- The kiddie pool for the goose only stays on the property due to the 3 inches of solid ice.

- The wood stove burns 24 hours a day and the house never gets to 65 degrees inside.

Update of Random Items in My Head

I haven't blogged in awhile but of course have had several things bouncing around in my cranium.

If you are going to sign you child up to play on a sports team be committed to the cause. You are teaching the child dedication to a team. You are teaching responsibility. This soccer season has taught this volunteer coach a few things...

Fall is my favorite season of the year. The cool clear air is ideal for working outside. Saturday I marshalled the troops and we took care of a few dead standing trees that were just waiting for a good wind storm to make a mess. This way I could kind of control where they fell. I have plenty of firewood. The shed is full and we are stacking the over-run behind it.

There is a place near home we call "Thousand Acres." It has been an undeveloped place where people can take their dogs without a leash. It is more than 1000 acres. Years ago it was used as range land for cattle. It is north of I-84 and east of the Sandy River. Over a year ago I noticed some construction going on there. I had heard that some public entity was in control of the land and "making improvements." We take our dogs there about once a year just cause. We've been there twice lately as a Sunday afternoon hike with the canines. The US Forest Service is the controlling entity we've discovered. Now there are signs, maps, rules and tax dollars being tossed around freely. There are gravel trails, an elevated platform with plastic wood decking and stainless steel accessories and of course outhouses.

The platform is in a spot that would be a nice view point on the Columbia River but it is behind a bunch of trees blocking the view. The other odd thing is that the platform is circular and there are 10 foot 2x6's standing verically radiating outward around the perimeter with the edge of each board embossed with the name of a plant or animal that Lewis & Clark observed or discovered. So you can't really see out from this platform. Mind you this thing is about a mile and a half from the parking lot...

Of course there are small plastic bags and strategically placed trash cans for the doggie owners to pick up the warm mushy poo of their dogs... I won't. I can't.

The majority of the trees in this area are cottom wood trees. So the USFS has taken if upon themselves to plant more cotton wood trees in the grassy meadows as "reparian restoration." I say, "If trees needed to grow there they would have due to the millions of seeds produced each year by the mature trees." What a bunch of non-sense! I'm done.

Growing Like a Weed

So when we moved to the country over 4 years ago I just knew the clean air and open spaces would be good for the boys. Early on we discovered that slipping a few goat droppings into there shoes now and then really gave them a growth spurt. Both of them have grown about a foot in height since we have lived here. What really made the difference was getting the alpacas. Their manure can be put directly on the flower beds and really makes the plants happy and it not to hot. During the last year of have the alpaca droppings available the boys have really shot up.

It is like a secret weapon. It has the potiental for secret military Super Soldier programs. The on-line business potential is staggering. Where this could take us is hard to image. I'll bet more money can be made selling small vials of alpaca poo than selling their 10x warmer fleece. Keep this one on the hush hush. DMP