I can’t believe two weeks have gone by since I last posted. Things have been busy on the farm! We tend to work until sundown, which right now is nearly 9 o’clock. That’s a long day, folks! And this girl crashes hard at the end of that long day. 🙂 What have we been busy doing, you ask? Well… it’s hay season so a lot of our energy is going into putting up hay (whenever we have three or four days with no rain in the forecast). That meant I had to learn to drive a tractor and run a hay rake! It’s been an adventure! We also had to build a coop for my little chickens and guineas, they’re growing fast and have outgrown their brooder box. Then we had all the normal chores on top of those two big projects. It’s been a busy couple weeks and this girl is worn out.

I thought I’d give you guys updates on a few items I’ve mentioned in previous posts. Here we go:

The Tractor

So… a month ago or so I told you guys our big four-wheel drive tractor started making awful noises while my dad was driving it. My dad and uncle worked on the tractor and the problem was that the front differential has become partially detached (I think there was just one bolt still attached), which is what my dad had thought when he first looked at the tractor.  Luckily there wasn’t any further damage caused. The quick fix was to remove the differential until we’re able to get new bolts so that’s what they did. It’s a temporary fix, the tractor is now just rear wheel drive, but that’s fine this time of year. We really only need the four wheel drive during the winter and spring. And would you believe we’ve been to probably a half dozen stores that would have those bolts in the last three or four weeks and we never remember to pick them up! Ha! We’ll probably be scrambling to get the differential put back in when the weather turns bad this winter lol.

That’s the tractor I’m driving right now, it’s the easiest one to handle. I swear all tractors are designed for 6’0″ tall men, this one is no different but it’s the newest tractor we have so everything runs a little smoother on it.

The Ducks

In May I told you guys that my mom was hatching baby turkeys and ducks. She ended up selling the baby turkeys but we still have the ducks and they are getting big! There were four ducks that hatched but we only have three left (there was an incident with my parents dog). Here’s a pic I took of the ducks last week (they’re even bigger now and have feathers starting to grow).

The little guys are a little skiddish, you’d think they’d get used to us after awhile. 🙂

The Garden

When I first moved to the country one of my plans was to have a HUGE garden. That hasn’t happened this year because of all the other stuff we have going on but I told you guys back in May that I was planting some birdhouse gourd seed to, hopefully, make some birdhouses to sell. Well, my seeds sprouted and the plants are doing great! I have some pumpkins and ornamental gourds to plant also, hopefully we have time to get them in the ground soon but the summer is getting away from us!

The little birdhouse gourd plants! They’re a lot bigger now, I took this picture a week or two ago (I really meant to do this update post a lot sooner!).

The Chicks

My little baby chicks have grown up and have their own coop now! We built the coop from scratch, you can buy them pre-made but they’re rather expensive and usually not really well built. The total dimension of the coop & enclosed run is 10′ by 5′, the actual indoor coop is 4′ by 5′. One comparable to that would have been around $1,000 but I bought the materials for approximately $450. And it’s much sturdier than the pre-made ones (not to knock them but they’re usually pretty light construction).

We built it on skids (12′ long 4″ by 6″ posts) so we’ll be able to move it. We did that because right now the coop needs to be near my parents house since that’s where I’m staying until I can move up to my homestead. Then the coop will move up there with me! 🙂

Here’s the coop! We still have to put the wire around the run but other than that it’s done. We built it in front of my parents barn because the ground is level and that’s where all the materials were stored. We’ll move it to a nice grassy area before we open the run up to the chicks.

Here’s a pic I took of the chicks about a week and a half ago or so. They seemed so big then but they’ve really grown a lot since I took this pic.

And here are the chicks now:

Here’s the little chicks in their new coop! They have so much more room! We put hardware cloth over the run door so they can’t go outside yet.

That’s what’s been going on around here! Summer is a busy time on the farm and we’re in high gear. I hope your summer is off to a great start!

Cheers,

D