Child Buying

A funny thing happened at a garage sale today. My husband and I stopped at a country garage sale in town on a whim. We saw a herd of small kids and mommies, lots of toys and clothes in the garage for sale. My husband found a nice glass mug for a quarter, I did not see anything I wanted. So I paid for the glass mug and one of the women apologized that most of the items had sold out that morning. We smiled and said no problem that is good news. As we were walking out of the garage a grandmother said "sorry, we only have kids for sale, do you want to buy a kid?" with a straight face. I kept on walking, smiled and said "no thanks". But my husband stopped and looked back at the garage then at me and remarked that he was surprised I did not jump on that child buying offer. I said where would we put the child? The car was packed with charcoal and cat food. And clearly these children were not hand raised and were feral at best. We would have to clothe and feed these feral little kids. But no, I have no need to buy a child even at two for one offer. I do not think the woman was serious but she was bogged down with several offspring. And 10 years ago I might have said yes, how much? But I have enough living things at home, and I do not need to add to the flock nor the herd. And it was a Friday sale, I bet by Saturday the kids will be buy three get three free :)

Buggy Berries

I have been berry picking all week on the farm. I have collected, cleaned and froze over two gallons of blackberries this season. I have been cut, chiggered and tick bitten but it was worth it. On one of my hunts I saw these June bugs eating away at the wild grape leaves that hung over the blackberries. I do not like these wild grapes nor the June bugs. However, the bugs were making short work of these fast growing vines. At least they were not feasting on my veggies for a change.

Turkey Dueling

I walked in on these two fighting in the yard.

I do know know what sex they are yet, but they act like boys.

After the battle they are still pals.

Turkeys are so different from chickens. But my young roosters spar like this before they mature.These two weight about 10 pounds each and can no longer fit through the cattle panel fencing. So we leave the gate open just for these large birds. Soon they will no longer be able to fit in the dog door of the coop and we will have the leave the big door open for them.

My Busy Garden

One of my purple cabbages from my garden.

Some corn grown as spares.

A view of the garden, notice the tall deer and bunny proof fencing.

Very tall tomatoes in the center rows.

Side view of the house and the garden.

Baby Pheasants

Here are photos of my first baby ring neck pheasants. My broody hen hatched 3 out in the coop but did not know what to do with them and 1 died under her. I was able to get 4 to hatch in the incubator for a total of 6 chicks out of 36 eggs. What happened, half were not fertilized and the rest developed but the eggs were too dry. I kept it very wet but not consistently enough. Should have wrapped the bottom if the incubator in a plastic bag like the breeder suggested. Lesson learned after 30 egg autopsies. And baby pheasants are noisy and fast moving little critters the size of a half dollar. The older ones are outside in our spare mini coop running around like crazed dust balls. After about 24 hours they can go and not ever stop. It will be easy to set them free in 8 weeks. They are high energy and semi feral like the guineas are. I hope I have different sexes among them to reproduce.