Mole Teeth

Yesterday my cat and dog we digging up the lawn. I went to see what was so interesting. It was a huge hole with a huge mole fighting both of them. This mole was fast, fat and feisty. We have a mole problem out here so I wanted to see what a big one looked like. The dog and cat pulled out a huge 1/2 lb mole. I put it in a bucket next to a cat food can. The mole was chirping and digging at the bucket. My husband took it outside for a photo session. I included the blurry one to show how fast the mole moved in his glove. It had large teeth which it used on the gloves several times. I now have a new respect for these creatures. We took this one to an unused field away from the house. We watched it dig into the rocky soil faster than I could dig with a spade.

April Showers Bring Snappers

This afternoon I heard my guineas raising a ruckus. I saw this snapper headed for my chicks instead of the pond. The guineas were pecking this turtle very hard on its tail. I threw a bucket over the turtle and my husband came to walk it up to the small pond. It was a female and not happy about being picked up. She was about 7 inches wide across the back shell. We hope she stays in the smaller pond this summer.

Noisy Sunlight

We got about an hour of sunlight in between storms today. Our guineas took advantage of it to hunt for bugs in the foot tall grass. They are the real watch dogs of our farm and never stop talking. I am so glad we only have six.

Wild Bunny

This evening our barn cat, Poppy, brought us a large "gift" in his mouth a baby cottontail rabbit. The baby was mostly unharmed and still alive. A storm was raining on all of us so I brought the baby rabbit inside. It's in a cage with shavings and greens away from us and the cats. We will release away from our farm if it is strong enough to run. Rabbits never show signs of pain as they are prey and it could have internal injuries I can't see. We have a lot of wild rabbits on our farm and they are a pest if unchecked. But we will give it a chance and set it free to join its rabbit pals in the morning. I checked and it is a boy rabbit.

Driveway Rivers

With all the heavy rain we have had in the last 2 weeks we have had new rivers in our gravel drive. The rivers flow under our deck and down the hill to the field below. Our grass is a foot tall and the bugs are water logged. The chickens are feasting on it all. And this morning we had a medium sized snapping turtle blocking the driveway. Alan tossed him into the shallow pond. We could use a break from all this rain.

Tractor Tree Guard

Our tractor needed a tree guard added for protection for bush hogging. We hired our craftsman friend Jeff to custom weld a tractor guard for us. He fitted the guard and welded an S for Savoy at my request which he fabricated by hand. He also painted the S to match our tractor. The paint is still wet in these shots. Will post a better shot when the rain stops. Now we can impress all the cows and horses around the Ozarks with our styling guard. This guard is very heavy 1/8 inch steel plating primed and painted and bolted to our tractor. We are very pleased with the quality of materials and full welds (no spot welding). This guard will outlast our tractor.