New Years Camping

We had a camp out here for New Years Eve. This consisted of toasting marshmellows in the fireplace, Party hats, Some songs, Games, sleeping in the living room,(my snoring bans me to my room) and we all wore our Spongebob Square Pants Pajamas. Yes both Jeanne and I have a pair, and absolutely at no time will they be photographed or seen by anyone outside of this home.

No one lasted past 11pm.

Nest Box Maintenance

Tommy inspects our Wood Duck nest box.
Monitoring and maintenance is very important for any type of bird house program.

In the early part of the 20th century the Wood Duck populations had almost completely disappeared from their former range. Unregulated market hunting and habitat destruction was a key reason for the decline. The nest box program was introduced in the 1930s and like Bluebird houses has been a important tool, along with hunting regulations, in helping the Wood Duck recover.

Years ago I spent a great deal of time building and installing Wood Duck houses on some of my favorite ponds and swamps. The thinking back then was to place them on poles out in the swamps and ponds. I remember one swamp with 20 duck houses on it, Not all of them mine. This was how we did it, but it was the wrong approach.

There is a behavior called Egg Dumping, or Dump Nest. They discovered one of the causes occurs when the nest boxes are out in the open and close together. A young hen or multiple hens may follow another back to a highly visible box and many times will lay her eggs in the same box. Now the nest has 30 eggs or more instead of the dozen or so. The box is very likely to be abandoned or have a very low hatch rate.
I have witnessed this behavior.

The thought is now fewer boxes and less visible.
We have installed 1 box and built and given away another to a neighbor upriver. We did not install it in time for last season and when we checked and cleaned it out this winter nothing had used it yet.
We plan to install a couple more in very secretive locations and I believe they will be used eventually because we do have a really good Wood Duck population on the river here.
I have also read that the Screech Owl will use the boxes for Winter cover.

Its all about the river.

A Wish Came True.

I have waited for this day since I moved here. I have seen Beaver, Mink, and Muskrat on the river. Today is the day the Boy and I had the most fantastic luck of all.
WE watched a family of Otters on the river.I believe the family consisted of at least four. I think the word Frolic became a word because of the the Otter. It was so thrilling to watch and even more thrilling to know they are visiting the Homestead. In this picture, if you look close, there are 3 Otters.

The river is a natural highway for wildlife, and I know it is just a matter of time before I am writing about a Moose.
Living here is all about the river.

Christmas Tradition or Torture

I believe in Christmas traditions. I have enjoyed 50 Christmas mornings and many were steeped in tradition. We are carrying on some of the same traditions and have added a couple. First is what I remember as a kid. No one goes into, or peeks into the room with the tree and presents. "Our living room." They can bring the stockings from Santa to our room, climb into bed and open them. Then we must all get up, cook a hardy breakfast, sit down together and eat very slow, and clean up the dishes.
Starting this year I have added what the kids at this point consider Torture. We all must slip on our winter gear, go down to the river and spread out a entire 50lb bag of whole corn for all the waterfowl on the river. Then we fill the bird feeders and water the chickens.
I personally found watching all the wild and domestic waterfowl enjoying a Christmas morning feast was a blast. I don't think the kids do yet because every time I turned around they were half way back to the house. To me, it makes the morning last a little bit longer.
When they are grown and on their own, they will look back fondly on our traditions, and the short walk to the river on Christmas morning, or they may possibly think Old Uncle Eve was a nut case.

I am exhausted from watching Jeanne work late into the night creating another perfect Christmas for the kids, I think I will put on my brand new Yellow Polka Dotted Transformer PJs and relax for the rest of the day.

Merry Christmas to all.

Winter Grain Bill

Corn is a commodity. Commodities are bulk products, such as metals, grains, crude oil, and foods, that are traded by investors on a commodities exchange. Corn is traded by the bushell, and a bushell of corn is 56 lbs.
Like oil the price is subject to change daily. Last year prices reached $14 for a 50lb bag. Currently and thankfully corn has held somewhat steady in the $7-$8 per 50 lb range. We also have a new farm store in town to add to the competition. During this time of year with the extreme cold a 50lb bag of corn will last me 2.5 days.
Not only do our Swan, Geese, Ducks, Guineas, Chickens eat the corn. We have at least 100 wild ducks and at times double that or more eating corn. We have Red and Grey Squirrels, Blue jays, Doves, Deer, Mice, Crows, Chipmunks, and the list could keep going.
The average ear of corn has 16 rows of kernels and 800 kernels per row. A pound of corn is approximately 1300 kernels and a 50lb bag has 65,000 kernels.

Everyone of those kernels that I put out is eaten by something.

Swamp, The Swan With Attitude

When Swamp first showed up here more then a year ago, the flock of Toulouse Geese did not welcome him with open wings. They would chase him away and I would be forced to go out and stand between the geese and Swamp so that he could eat in peace. He was the new kid in town and they were the bullies. Well Swamp finally realized his size and has developed his confidence. Now the tables are turned and Swamp assumes a very intimidating poise and chases the flock of geese away from the food. Swamp never bothers the other geese or ducks and tolerates the many millions of wild ducks that drive my grain bill through the roof when they hang out here all winter for a free meal.
I now hike a bit down river to feed the geese in peace, out of Swamps watchful eye.

Pretty Face

Storm Albert dropped about 12" of snow overnight and my personal thoughts are, if they say 2 feet of snow then give us 2 feet. If we have to put up with the snow then let it snow in feet, not inches.
This was the first real ground covering snow for the chickens and guineas and it spooked them. They did not want to come out of the coop today. I left the door open while I worked to clear paths for them and when I turned around a fox was about to enter the coop and help himself. This was not a healthy looking fox so I sent the boy up onto the porch, and then I chased him off. He almost got into the coop and a few of the guineas took to the trees and spent most of the day up high, not because of the fox but because the snow on the ground.
The fox was not a healthy looking animal. Rabies would not surprise me. I was hollering at him and he did not notice me until I was 5' away.
If it returns I think I will need to eliminate him.

I think this is such a beautiful face on this bird, and they tuck their entire head into their feathers to keep warm. I witnessed this for the first time today and my first thought was, "Oh Great.. Headless Guineas".

Fresh Eggs

There is nothing better than fresh eggs. Sometimes the girls leave us a extra large double yolk, Sometimes a tiny egg the size of a yolk. This spring we plan on obtaining some Easter Egg Chickens, or the Aruacanas/Americanas.They lay colorful eggs in tints of pink, blue, and green.

The Cowboy Song

Introducing the first Music Video, written and preformed by "The Cowboy". This is his hit single Titled The Cowboy Song.

Looking For Breakfast

We spotted this Fox looking for a morning meal. She is sort of scrawny and her Winter coat does not appear to be thick enough for the upcoming winter. We have seen another fox in the area that appears twice the size of this one because of it's winter coat and thick tail. I would be surprised if this one survives the Winter.

Future Brush Hogger

Park any type of machine in the yard and the boy is all over it. He has to know everything about it and will spend a great amount of time just pushing it around and learning what all the levers and buttons do.

I hope when he is old enough to do this with the engine running, he will do my chores.

Animal Expo

I was very proud of the Panda Project Jordan and her friend Miranda put together for the 3rd grade Animal Expo at the school today.Tommy and Jordan love going to school everyday and this is because of the outstanding Teachers,( Mrs Csere, Mrs Terry, Mr Toomey), the Teachers Assistants, and Dr Palmer the Principle who I believe knows every child by name. We are very blessed to be part of the Mansfield School System.
The 3rd grade kids did some incredible animal research projects. Today I learned about,The Panda, Poison Dart Frog, Sidewinder Snake, Tiger, Snow Leopard, Red Eyed Tree Frog, Tarantula, Coyote, and the Bison. I asked the young man, why call it a Bison and not Buffalo? Well I received a very detailed explanation on the differences between the 2 animals. I then told Jeanne to go over and ask him that question and she came back with a big WOW.

I was very impressed with Mrs Csere's kids, and I have no doubt that I'm not smarter then a third grader.

We had our first dusting of Snow last night and first thing this morning the ground was frozen. As the temperature rises today everything will warm up, and I must say I am not ready for a hard freeze yet, I have to much work to do.
This is the time of year I start to bring the food to the ducks and geese at the river instead of having them walk up into the backyard. One reason is, the energy they would burn walking up to the yard is better spent producing heat to keep them warm.

Another reason is The Redtail Hawks. The Redtails are looking for that plump easy meal and although the geese and swan are safe, I can't say the same about the ducks This time of year with no cover from the trees, they are a easy meal while traveling the 50' from the river to the backyard, however when they remain in the water their security level goes up.

Last reason is,They really don't like walking on the cold ground. They will often stop and tuck their feet up into their thick down feathers to warm them up. They do not seam to have a problem with the cold water during the Winter. At most times the water is warmer then the air and according to Wikipedia, they have a very complex set of arteries and veins in there feet.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A rete mirabile (Latin for 'wonderful net'; plural retia mirabilia) is a complex of arteries and veins lying very close to each other, found in some vertebrates. The rete mirabile utilizes counter current blood flow within the net.

In birds with webbed feet, a rete mirabile in the legs and feet transfers heat from the outgoing (hot) blood in the arteries to the incoming (cold) blood in the veins, with the net effect that the internal temperature of the feet is much closer to the ambient temperature, thus reducing heat loss. In this example the rete mirabile functions as a biological heat exchanger.

Christmas Wishing

This brings back memories of the countless hours I would spend as a youngster studying the tool and farm section of the giant Sears catalog.
Why is it all the Christmas gift ideas I come up with for the boy get shot down by his Mom?
.BB GUN-NO.
.14" Chainsaw-NO.
.King Snake-NO.
.Jackknife-NO.
.Pruners-NO.
.Ferret-No.
.Kubota Tractor with backhoe-NO.

I Like My Fence Post

What could possibly be even slightly interesting about a fence post? For most people, nothing! The problem is I watched a show about how a fence post is made, and I no longer look at a fence post the same. Almost all fence post like the one pictured here are made from recycled railroad tracks. And if you let your imagination go a bit, the steel in my fence post could have come from tracks laid down across the West in the mid 1800s. They could have been traveled on by Wild Bill. They could have been robbed by Butch Cassidy. President Lincoln could have traveled on them. The great herds of Buffalo could have crossed them before being wiped out.

With 156 channels on the TV, maybe I should watch something else.

Stubborn Stump

This stump has to go and you might say I am obsessed with the removal of this stump. For the past 4 weeks I have been digging with only a shovel, and I hope to get it out before spring. This will open up more access to the pond. I do not know how our forefathers cleared large parcels of land without modern machines. The muscles I am using have not been used in a long time and at the end of the day I walk like George Burns.

Whatever happened to the days when a landowner could buy dynamite.