ELeVan ~ Honaker Farm Journal

[elevan]

Opened the paper yesterday to a pleasant surprise - free advertising of my farm. One of the places that I sell my products at listed my farm and some of the products in a quick ad that they ran. I thought that was pretty cool.

DH and I have to attend a Quality Assurance class to sell items from our farm in a specific county for either tonight or next week. Since we've no babysitter for the kids on either night, I guess one of us will be going tonight and the other next week.

I'll be making fudge this week for a friend of DH's who had never had fudge until she had some of mine 2 years ago and that was it since then. She's asked me for a pound from 2 different varieties so I guess extra will go to the store. Gonna be making chocolate cheesecake fudge and peanut butter fudge...or DH will be making the PB fudge as I cannot be in the room for the fumes will cause an allergic reaction in me.

My herb enclosure is coming along well. If you can imagine this...it has a 3 hole rabbit hutch as one wall and the other side has a grape vine and peach tree...it'll be set up so that the grapevine grows over the enclosure providing partial shade to most of it. It'll get great morning sun and afternoon partial shade - perfect for herbs in my neck of the woods. It'll be fenced all the way around and on top to keep guineas and chickens out of it. I can hardly wait to get to the planting stage of it, but the enclosure isn't fenced all the way yet. Hopefully that will happen this weekend and then I can add dirt and be ready for a May 15 planting. Yay!

 

[elevan]

Grrr...

I've got this roo that keeps taking his flock of girls into the front yard. Today one of his girls paid the ultimate price for the freedom. One of our outside dogs got her when she got to close to his area and had himself a grand time. Bad dog! Bad roo! Naughty hen! I'm sad, I'm mad and I'm frustrated. I have 5 foot high fences but the roo has taught the girls how to "hop" over them. Bad enough when it's someone else's dog but when it's one of yours it's worse (well one of mom's anyway).

 

[autumnprairie]

congrats on the new herb garden. on losing your hen and having a bad habit roo

 

[Squirrelgirl88]

Grrr...

I've got this roo that keeps taking his flock of girls into the front yard. Today one of his girls paid the ultimate price for the freedom. One of our outside dogs got her when she got to close to his area and had himself a grand time. Bad dog! Bad roo! Naughty hen! I'm sad, I'm mad and I'm frustrated. I have 5 foot high fences but the roo has taught the girls how to "hop" over them. Bad enough when it's someone else's dog but when it's one of yours it's worse (well one of mom's anyway).

This may be a silly question, but if you clip their wings can they still get over the fence? I know you want them to be able to avoid a predator, but I wasn't sure if that would keep them more "grounded". Our Roo always jumped the fence and took one brave hen with him. I gave up keeping him in. If I walked toward him he would run back to the pen, until I turned my back and then he was out again. I think it was a game for him.

Sorry about your loss.

 

[elevan]

Clipping their wings might keep them in but it's not something that I want to do.

Our roo and his girls do the same thing....go toward them and they'll run back to the fence and go over. The girls have a harder time getting back over than the roo. They are also more trusting which is why I lost this one I guess. They roam the backyard freely with our 2 inside dogs when they go out and Boingo and Baboo never bother them, so they have no reason not to trust dogs.

We have too many roos for our flock right now and have been deciding which will go to the freezer as they are all nice boys we want to know which are good leaders. Guess this pretty boy will be going to the freezer as he leads his girls astray daily.

 

[Vickir73]

great about the free advertising, bad about the hen It sounds like a tough decision but maybe a wise one if you have others that can take his place (but will hopefully stay inside the box

 

[elevan]

Horrible, horrible, tragic thing happened to our community last night. A 10 year old school mate of the kids was fatally shot in his home.

Hold your kids a little tighter today. My prayers go out to the family who lost a child too young.

 

[Pearce Pastures]

That is so sad

 

[elevan]

More tragedy strikes our community today as a car carrying 2 of our High school students lost control and struck a tree resulting in a fiery crash in which one of ejected from the car. Both teens were med flighted to area hospitals.

Our community could use your prayers.

 

[promiseacres]

praying for the kids....my nephews school had a lockdown due to an hostage situation near the school....they are literally in the middle of nowhere! Fortunately was resolved fairly quickly and other than the precautionary measures the kids were unaffected.