A1 but not the steak sauce

Every farmer needs and A1 farmhand, I would like to introduce you to mine.  I have made several posts about the girls doing various things around the farm but as Brad mentioned to me the other day, I have not posted about him much.  This is because while the girls do things like 4H, Brad does the routine work around the farm. 

Here is some of the items he routinely does:

• Opens the coop in the morning where the chickens can free range
• Closes the chickens and goats up in the coop at night
• Water
• Feed
• Get cages ready for new birds or ones that need to be isolated because they are broody, hurt or sick
• Help with moving growing birds to new cages
• Catching “Wishbone” and taking her back to the neighbor’s house before she eats chickens
• Checking on hurt chickens to determine if they can be saved or have to be put down

He recently learned to drive the tractor and today he took the tractor and cut a path to and from the barn when we used the tractor for some other work. 


Here are a few pictures of Brad hard at work....

 

 

Define a “farm”

Merriam-Webster defines a farm as “a tract of land devoted to agricultural purposes.”

BUT

I believe there is a little more to it; you have to actually raise something. It may be wheat, corn, beans, bovine, horses, chickens or something, but does this really do it. I thought so until Tuesday when I realized to be a true farm that raises animals you have to go one step farther. If all you do is buy animals and raise them you are well on your way to being a farm, but I really believe you have to go just a little farther. About 3 weeks ago Scarlett, a white silkie, whom I have written about before went “broody”; she was ready to sit eggs. She has done this a couple of times before but lost interest after just a few days. The second time I gave her baby chicks, I had purchased to raise; to which she was a fine foster parent. Well this time I decided I would let her try, I gave her one egg from Lilly , a cute little feather footed bantam.

AND

Now we have our first animal hatched on our farm.

Lilly (above) Scarlett (below)

Here is Scarlet and the day old chick.

I’m reaching through the back door, holding the chick after Scarlet stopped pecking me and let me hold it.

So to Rosebriar Farm, Scarlet and Bonnie Blue: HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

One thing you must be able to do to be considered a farmer?

In order to truly be a farmer you do not have to have thousands of acres, you do not have to have hundreds of cattle, or many bales of cotton but you must be able to drive a tractor. You may be asking why I’m bringing this up, but this was a task I learned at a relatively early age. Granted, I had an unfair advantage as I learned to drive a vehicle, with an automatic transmission, before I could actually reach the pedals. I learned to drive a dump truck with a manual transmission, when I had to put both feet on the clutch to get it down far enough to get the truck to start. To learn to operate the tractor I spent many hours riding on the fender watching what daddy did and then when I thought I had it he let me try it. This all seems natural since I grew up with a grandmother that owned an auto parts junkyard. I could run a tow truck before I could ride a bicycle.

Any why do I feel I need to share this information? Well a couple of reasons while our hobby farm is really small as we have:

1 rabbit

1 pot belly pig

2 goats (a pygmy and a Nigerian dwarf)

2 turkeys (a bourbon red and a bronze)

11 quail

50 or so chickens of many varieties

and

3 kids (the people type not more baby goats).

I have been trying to get the kids more involved as Jen and I want them to enjoy farming or as she refers to it my mid-life crisis. So this week as i using the tractor I decided it was time for Kenzie-Grace to learn to drive the tractor. So with no more delay here are the photos of her learning to drive the same 1974 David Brown 885 (an English tractor made by Case) that I learned to drive roughly 30 years ago.

I have 2 girls in 4H

Kenzie-Grace and Maddie are in 4H and recently each had a project of building a bird house. I researched a few designs to give them some options where they would not have to turn in identical projects. I should have some pictures of the construction to share but Jen’s computer crashed and we lost the pics. Now that the projects have been judged and I have let them sit in their rooms for them to admire trip over as I procrastinated on hanging them for a month.

Here you go.

Maddie’s is a finch house; as you can see it does not have a typical hole. The bird goes into the triangle opening and drops down inside the house. The lag screws (silver dots) will be painted over with black paint, to keep from being an eye sore.

Kenzie-Grace chose to build a home for a woodpecker, black with large white polka dots. It hangs level however with the shape of the tree it appears to be tilted.

I did assist but the girls did their own measuring, marking, cutting nailing, drilling and painting. K-G received a second place ribbon and Maddie receive a participant ribbons but Jen and I were extremely proud because they did the work themselves. The hard work is now a part of our little farm.