It’s been a big week for several reasons, including lambing and sugaring season. Our first lamb arrived on Monday, and so far, we’ve collected 65 gallons of sap! That’s about a gallon and a half of syrup.
So without further ado, here are the week’s top photos:
Continue reading “Fave Photos From the Past Week”
Last October, a film crew from Small Town, Big Deal visited Parke County to tape an episode about our covered bridges and rural attractions. I was interviewed at the bridge where Jeff proposed to me, and the show hosts, Rodney Miller and Jann Carl, talked to my great-aunt on the farm. I couldn’t hear all of that interview because I was working with the horses in the background, so the first time I’ll really hear it is on TV.
Continue reading ““Small Town, Big Deal” Episode Filmed Here Showing Next Week”
A week after I returned home from New Zealand, a high school friend, L, and I drove around the county to see the annual Covered Bridge Festival and visit bridges we didn’t often see. We took our photos in front of nine of the 31 structures.
Of course we stopped by West Union.
Who knew that two and a half years later, we’d be standing on the same bridge as bride and bridesmaid.
Continue reading “Then and Now (Could also be considered Guardian, Part 3)”
The kitten climbs everywhere: up the hitching post, down the horse stall, up into a hand, down a pants leg. He’s curious about the water that comes blasting out of the hydrant in the barn; at first, he ran away from the frightening crash, but now, he wets his whiskers in the stream. Continue reading “Kittens in the Barn”
In my previous blog post, I talked about the beginning of this endeavor and “Reasons to Build a Chicken Tractor.”
Once the frame had been put together, we began to build from the ground up using mainly 1x3s.
I had laid out my specifications for the project in the beginning: a portable pen and coop with a ramp, hanging feeder, and suspended water bucket that would move with the structure. Toby’s Human (TH) researched how to make it all happen, finding chicken tractor designs via backyard chicken websites and university poultry research units. He melded elements from several blueprints.
The trick was customizing this chicken tractor to fit my flock. I had an idea regarding how many animals to put in the chicken tractor and texted it to TH.
Later that day, he showed me his notes and drew out a blueprint of how large and unwieldy a tractor with all of my specifications would need to be to accommodate 50 chickens comfortably. After discussion, I agreed to stick with 30 chickens (that didn’t happen, as my sister-in-law gave me 23 more chickens three months later [I keep them in my smaller chicken house]), and the official designs began. Continue reading “Building the Chicken Tractor”
The Kiwi Hoosier 