Category Archives: Wildlife

by

Alligators on the Farm?

I have a specific and technical skill set that we rely on to pay the bills around here.  Put simply, I make it easier to find data stored on a big computer.  To do this well, I have to remain on top of new technology.  To that end, I just attended an intensive 9 day training course in Sarasota, FL.

I was busy in school then studying at the hotel in the evening.  This was no vacation.  Well, it was no vacation for me.  My wife flew down to visit me about half way through and she made it a point to see the sights and took a few pictures.

Sarasota is a beautiful town.  Rabid consumerism, broad, flat, straight roads, a surprising number of cows, swamp…what more could you ask for?

There are any number of wetland preserve areas (as if a wetland can express itself when confined to a 30×30 area and surrounded by pavement).  There were whole groves of live oaks, pine and pineapple trees.  The larger trees were dripping in spanish moss.   Our forests are a dense clump of about 100 kinds of trees (most bear edible nuts), multi-flora rose, poison ivy, dewberries, may apples, grape vines, gooseberries, ginseng and abundant fauna that aren’t inclined to eat your leg.  I couldn’t identify anything edible in the woods there other than acorns and was always aware of the possibility that the thing that looks like a log in the water to the left may be hungry.

So that takes us to alligators.  Alligators.

This fella lives in the swampy water hole area across the street from the hotel.  Others live in the various other water holes surrounding the hotel…and on out into the community.  Gators.  I found myself wondering if my electric poultry netting would even bother an alligator…or what I could legally do about it if I found a gator eating my flock.  The birds on the shore often just disappear.  One second there’s a juvenile sandhill crane.  The next second…not even a feather floating in the air.

If there’s anything I fear worse than having my leg eaten by an alligator in Florida it’s finding out my wife’s leg was eaten by an alligator in Florida.  I would rather she had not taken the picture of the alligator.  Before I saw the evidence, gators were just some myth the guys behind the desk in the hotel propagated to scare the tourists.  Julie made it real.  What if they are like velicoraptors?  What if the one is just laying there in the open to get your attention while the rest of the pack hunts you silently from the shadows?  Think I’m kidding?  One of the locals told us they have to be careful because the alligators will warm themselves under your car.  Look before you get in.

Does anybody raise chickens in Florida?  Does anyone else share my entirely rational fear of alligators?

by

Where do You See Yourself in 5 Years

“Where do you see yourself in 5 years?”

I hate that question.  I work in tech.  I have a hard time telling management, most of whom don’t work in tech, that I have no idea what changes are in store for my career.  I don’t really see myself moving to management and if you try to explain current tech trends to HR their eyes glaze over and they just wait for you to finish talking.  I like what I do and would like to continue doing it.  Tech changes constantly and if I were to guess, 5 years from now I’ll still be diligently working to stay abreast of new trends, add value, etc.  Looking back 5 years I couldn’t foresee the iPad.  I couldn’t foresee (and still don’t really understand) Facebook.  I have no idea what Microsoft will dream up next.  I don’t think we’ll use keyboards much longer though.

Looking at my farm in 5 years is a little easier.  I’m a little restrained by the economy and have no idea how to pay for this but I have a vision of how I would like to reshape the farm over the next 5-40 years.  I have plans to add greenhouses and ponds, I have a plan for pasture grazing and improvement, woodlot improvement, establishment of new tree stands, orchards, swales and general beautification of the farm.  On the topic of beautification I need to replace a number of buildings but that’s further down on the list.  More water on the farm = more life.  I need to build 6 or 7 ponds over the next few decades.

I plan to transition our primary revenue generation away from chickens to cattle.  We haven’t begun to build our beef herd yet.  I hope to divorce myself from the feed grinder as it is both dangerous and expensive to operate.  Further, it’s one more thing I have to store in a shed…a shed I need to replace.  Instead we’ll use dense swards of grass to harvest sunlight, earthworks to harvest rainfall and cows to cycle nutrients.  It’s a terribly complicated machine with no moving parts but entirely dependent on free and continued sunlight.  I plan to use a solar-powered fence charger to keep the cows where I want them.

To prevent wind and evaporation we have plans for tree plantings.  These will be primarily fruit and nut trees but I would like a larger stand of sugar maples to tap in my old age.  I better get started now!  The fruit trees will give guests another reason to come visit the farm…another over-arching goal of ours.

Everything we do should boost biodiversity, restore the local ecology, and help nurture our community.  I hope to raise big, fat cows and have room for big, fat groundhogs.  We plan to leave meadows ungrazed until the ground-nesting birds have hatched in July.  I hope friends and customers continue to come here seeking rest and inspiration…or at least entertainment.

We have given strong consideration to picking up a Fertrell dealership.  It could happen in the next 5 years though I have a lot to learn and, again, need a shed.  And a scale.  And a truck.  But it’s possible…

I anticipate my oldest son will begin to step up his involvement in the farm and will either relieve me of one or more enterprises or will start some of his own.  At 17 he should be ready to test his wings and I plan to enable him to do so.  He has always been our guinea pig so he’ll set the pattern for his siblings.  Whatever they are interested in, we are interested in.

I didn’t list revenue in my planning.  I can’t set financial goals outside of paying for the land and the improvements.  I am not a corporation.  This isn’t a machine.  This is a biological process.  Financial goals fit with biology like socks on a rooster.

These are, of course, moving targets.  These plans will likely shift as the wife and I dive deeper into our studies of permaculture.  So I guess, like tech, my farming goals aren’t entirely knowable.  It’s a best guess either way.  But it’s easier to keep my audience interested when I’m not explaining database index optimization strategies.  Yeah.

So, there you go.  The top-down view of the next X years.  That question is so much easier than career planning.  What about you?  Where do you see yourself in 5 years?  Will you finally achieve your “someday“?

by

Nothing is Perfect

I like our Premier One Permanet.  I really, really like it.  But, since I have lost 4 pullets in 5 days to one dirty, stinking, filthy so-and-so skunk who is either bulletproof or can dodge bullets like Neo from Matrix and who can get through/under the fence in spite of a consistent 8,000 volts running through the permanet, it’s obviously not perfect.

I watched legions of raccoons splash at the pond night before last.  Raccoons aren’t getting through my fence and killing my chickens.  It’s a skunk.  One single bird each night.  Raccoons would kill several each.  The fence does a good job of keeping the raccoons out but can’t keep a determined skunk out.  It also failed to protect us from a mink once.  Neighbors are nice but they need to respect my property.  This kind of wanton property destruction and outright theft can not be tolerated.  Murdering a chicken is a capital crime if you are a skunk or a mink.  Skunks who murder and eat four chickens in five nights bring out the worst in me.

So I camped out at the pond, flashlight and gun in hand.  Just a tarp, an old blanket and the lumpy ground.  400 chickens make a lot of noise.  No skunk showed up to party.  I had to move the East side of the fence yesterday to continue moving the chicken tractors so maybe I filled in the unknown gap the skunk was using.  Maybe he smelled me.  Maybe he died a horrible death from a great horned owl.  I don’t know.  I won’t sleep well until I know.

The fence is not a perfect solution but it mostly gets the job done.  When it doesn’t, it makes for a long couple of nights and days of guilt, discouragement and stress.  At least it’s not cold out.  Or raining.  Yet.  Fortunately, the fence is 99% reliable.

Oh.  It’s raining now.  Well, that’s good.  It hasn’t rained in about a month.  Maybe the skunk will catch pneumonia.

by

Dirty, Stinking, Filthy, Chicken Feed Eating Skunk

I love my rifle.  I never imagined myself saying something so…redneck.  But I do.  Last winter a mink had a chicken by the neck…total hostage situation.  One shot took out the mink and saved the bird.  Raccoons molesting my turkeys?  Problem solved.  Rabbits escape their pens?  Got it handled.  Recently I have had an issue with a something tearing open bags of feed in my shed.  Early this morning the wife called out while walking the dog, “It’s a skunk”.

My poor rifle has never been used this early in the morning and was still asleep but it didn’t complain.  It fired two shots at the skunk.  The first shot scared it enough that it stopped running.  The second shot was clean…instant.  He didn’t know anything happened.  One second there was a skunk.  The next second there was dinner for a vulture.  In fact, the vultures really seem to like him.

That little stinker didn’t just stop at feed bags.  He’s been digging in my garden and generally stinking up the place.  I don’t mind a skunk if it just scavenges away from the house.  When they try to move in I have to take action.  I think he was digging up worms.  I need those worms…

I’ll say it again, I love my rifle.  It’s just what I wanted.  A stainless steel Ruger 10/22 with a few minor modifications.  It’s the cat’s meow.  Take some time to understand the gun laws where you homestead.  Learn to use the tool properly.  It’s a real help at times when homesteading.

by

The New Kestrel

Each year we find an American Kestrel or two in our yard.  This year is no exception.  They appear to nest in the elm tree in the corner of the yard.  You know, the one with the big burl up high.  You don’t know?  Come by and I’ll show you.  Anyway, this little fella posed for pictures on Wednesday.

Not quite flying yet but very spirited.  There are probably another three or four around somewhere.  I would guess they are hiding in the tall grass on the other side of the fence.

They are fun to see each spring.  Last year one was just getting it’s wings as it chased a group of starlings.  It couldn’t quite turn as fast as the starlings could and it crashed into our house.  I found it hiding in the spirea under the window of the front room.  Boy was it ticked off!

Keep an eye out for little raptors but keep your hands off.  They are entertaining but very, very strong.