Merde frappant le ventilateur

We live in a small town of less than 500, Summersville. The case have been 0 since Feb now we have 18 listed. I know triple over that number have it. They do not report it and they stay quiet. All that anti mask bravado is quiet and fighting for its life here. Everyone wants to stay healthy for hunting season. Kids are being sent home teachers are using subs and it has been quiet in our town. The hospitals are full and still want to encourage regular doctor visits?? WTF? Basically people want to act like life is normal in the mists of a pandemic. What part of pandemic do they not understand? And as the weather turns colder they congregate indoors. The VA home on lost 56 veteran lives from the virus. 

Luckily most of the locals I know are still going strong. But they are teachers, cooks, bakers, nurses, bankers, health care givers, grandparents and people exposed to the virus on a daily basis. I hope it moved swiftly away and leaves us soon.

 

Goodbye noise, hello quiet

Last week I had enough of the crowing and fighting among the nine roosters born in February of this year. They were old enough to eat or move along. I did not need more meat in my freezer so I offered them for free, but no takers. So I got busy making 3 triangle cages for these bullies to take them to auction.

They were all hatched by my broody game hen. They were very pretty and good roosters but I had too many. They chased my hens off their nests and it was very noisy on the farm with all the in fighting. The night before the auction I went into the coop to take down the sleeping roosters and put them in the cages. This usually goes very easy. Not this time. It was screaming, fighting, pecking and a throw down in the coop by the big white roosters you don't see. I got them put in the cages and got the rest caged, but wow what a pain. Never in my 11 years of poultry raising have I had this much rooster drama. Not even when I had mean roosters. Turns out my roos had a bit of asshole in them, from their game hen mother. So this was the right choice to remove them from our farm.

 I kept a French, a banty and a small game roo for my hens. The French roo is a great one for our farm. He is descended from a long line of mixed roosters we raise on our farm. We raise pretty and kind roosters that walk all over the place hunting for food. We cull the bad ones even if they are pretty. The hens we keep until they die. Hens will keep laying even in old age. I feed a mix of scratch, scraps and protein to keep my hens plump. And we have solar lights in the coop for the shorter winter days, keeps they laying all winter. 

I just redid our coop to keep the birds away from the ceiling (fronty combs) and a bit lower in the coop. I also removed nest boxes they were not using. I cleaned out the old summer mess and put in fresh bedding and straw. We are all set for winter on our farm.

 

Giants and minis

These are marigolds I grew from seeds I bought from the Ukraine. I bought them on Amazon but they arrived in a hand written envelope from the Ukraine. They were viable and grew into huge bushes with golden flowers of palm sized marigolds. Heavenly scented and thrived even in the drought. I planted too many and had to give away some. Our donkey loves the flowers and gets them as a snack. These were a pleasant surprise for me to grow. I am looking forward to planting them around our farm as they bloom all summer until a hard freeze in winter.

This is a vole the size of my thumb. Our cat left me this rug snack on our outside deck rug. You can see the two puncture marks on the hip and shoulder. Voles are very active at night when our cats hunt. They make tiny holes in the ground and nests.

 

A true self made woman, Violet Hensley

 

I had the privilege of meeting Violet Hensley at Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri. She was selling her handmade violins and fiddles. She handed me her personal fiddle and told me to play. Right there in the middle of a crowd. It was wonderful and her violins are so unique sounding. I wish I could have bought one there. Violet is 104 today and still teaching and playing. Very kind self made woman living here in the Ozarks. I feel blessed to have met her and gotten to experience her skills.

 You can learn more about her here: http://www.violethensley.com/