Population Changes

Since the middle of October Prairie House has:

Deleted 2 humans
Added 1 cat
Deleted 4 opossums (cheering is appropriate here) and now 1 more for a total of 7 since July.
Added 1 dog
Deleted 1 goat
Added 3 people
Deleted 21 chickens

Which brings the current population totals to:

41 chickens
9 cats
7 goats
7 turkeys
4 humans
3 rabbits
1 guinea fowl
1 dog

but no partridge nor a pear tree

Woohoo! The beast is dead!

Thor got extra points this morning.  I have only heard him bark a couple of times since he came to Prairie House.  He is a very quiet puppy.  Usually when I let him outside in the morning he simply checks things out, takes care of his business and comes back to the porch when he is ready to come back in the house and waits for me to get ready to let him in. (In the meantime, I usually get back under the warm blankets to grab a few more minutes of shut eye.)

This morning started out normal, but before I could get back under the covers he started barking and raising such a fuss I knew something was amiss.  I grabbed my robe and slippers and went to the door.  He was looking at the barnyard where all the goats were upset as well.  I trudged out to the barn to see what was causing the ruckus.  Then my mind remembered I had the trap set.  I went in the chicken house and sure enough, the door on the trap was shut.  I couldn't see anything in the trap in the dim light so I went closer.  Yeah! there was that nasty rodent in the trap.  The eggs and Bierock worked.

The rodent went for a swim in the stock tank where the water was over his head.  I'll go back out later and drain the tank, take out the trap, haul the trap out back, and dump the nasty thing in the pit for the coyotes.

I hope she only gave birth to six of those disgusting things and we have wiped them out.

I do have to admit a felt a pang of misgiving before I plunged the trap into the tank, but then I remembered all the grief these things have caused and how much damage they can do to other creatures. Then there was no problem letting the trap sink to the bottom of the tank.

Betsy

Betsy is a great hunter.  She prefers to be outside and does not come into the house even when coaxed.  She has injured her front leg either from a predator attack or getting it caught in something.  She won't let me touch it so I can't tell if it is broken or not.  She does put some weight on it but it really looks like it hurts.  Of course, by the time I noticed it, the vets office was closed.

She is in the bus now in her little bed.  I hope she stays there today and rests.  If it isn't showing improvement by Monday I will need to take her to the vet which will be a challenge as she also doesn't like kennels or carriers of any kind.

Keep positive thoughts that she will get better this weekend.

I will get this rodent yet!

The opossum has been a challenge.  I was in Denver most of the day for High Plains Food Coop's distribution and didn't get back home until well after dark.  When I went to close the door on the small chicken house and gather the eggs I found 3 that had been eaten most likely by the opossum.  Needless to say, I was very unhappy.  I went to the big chicken house to see if it was in the nest there, but alas it was not.  It won't go in the trap tonight, undoubtedly since its stomach has already been filled.  I will leave the trap set with two eggs that don't meet quality standards for sale and a bierock which also didn't meet standards.

Becky's Bierocks had an entire batch of bierock she had to toss because the person in charge of making the dough forgot to put the yeast in it.  That was an expensive mistake, but my chickens are not the least bit unhappy about it.  They like hamburger and cabbage wrapped in dough.  They too, however, don't care much for the dough without the yeast.  The filling disappears first.  The goats eat the whole thing without hesitation.

Opossum update

I was encouraged early this evening when I went to check on the chickens because the nest with the oppossum was empty.  Unfortunately, when I checked one more time before closing them in for the night, the visitor was back.  Ugly things, those oppossums are, but they do have nice fur.  Sadly it is too early in the season for the trappers to be interested in them for the fur.  So I again set the trap in the chicken house and we shall see tomorrow if he is interested in cat food.  Otherwise, I may have to waste a very valuable commodity these days....an egg.  We know he will eat that, as we have seen evidence of it before.

Keep your fingers crossed that he will be captured this evening and disposed of tomorrow.

Chicken Roundup

Monday night was chicken roundup night.  The majority of the chickens in the big house are scheduled to go to freezer camp on Wednesday.  Freezer camp orientation has been moved from Wray, Colorado to Nunn, Colorado and they have to be there by 8AM so it is more complicated than usual.  Fifteen of them are still residing in the big house as they were either too wily to be sent away, are physically handicapped or are favorites.  Can't wait for chicken and dumplings!

We did have a surprise in the chicken house.  Since we have found it is much easier to round up the chickens after they have gone to sleep, it was very dark outside when we started to gather them.  Apparently momma opossum had at least six babies.  We have dispatched 5 of them so far, but one has decided a particular chicken nest is a great place to spend the night.  An oppossum's beady red eyes and ugly pointed snout is not something you want to see in the chicken house (or anywhere else for that matter).  We cannot shoot it in the nest because of the way it is situated so trapping the thing is the preferred option at this time.  We baited the trap with some really smelly cat food but Tuesday morning the trap was still empty and the varmint was gone.

Stay tuned for updates.  Hopefully all the commotion has made it decide to move on.

Thor Update

Thor says:

So far I am pretty happy in my new home.  There are amazing things here.  I have been really good and not chased any of them.  Well, except for one chicken.  I got scolded for that so I haven't done it again.  I get to spend a lot of time in the house in my kennel.  It has food and water so I'm ok with that.  I haven't had to go potty in there.  I did get in trouble for going potty in the house, though.  But that was partly my new master's fault.  She didn't leave me outside long enough...I didn't think it was all THAT cold.  Since then she has figured out it is okay for me to be outside by myself.  I like that.

Annabelle and Thor

There is another creature in the house here.  I like her.  She doesn't run from me or try to scratch me.  I think we will be great friends.  She seems a little upset that I am in this kennel.  At first I thought it was because she felt sorry for me.  Now I find out it is because she wants to be in here.  Apparently it was her house before I got here.  It seems like every time I go outside and come back in she is IN my kennel.  But she doesn't eat my food so I think she is okay. 

Newspapers?  I thought it was a toy.

There were these newspapers on the floor of my kennel.  I'm pretty sure they were put here solely for my entertainment.  I love tearing them to shreds.  They make such great noise.  Then I have a lot of fun scattering them around.  After I get them all arranged just right, I go to sleep and they make a great bed.

So far Thor is working out well.  He and the goats had a staring contest in the beginning, each wondering what was the story.  He doesn't chase the turkeys or the chickens and this morning he went into the goat pen with me and there were no incidents.

He was obviously abused before and training will be a challenge although he appears to be a smart dog.  He is adamant that no lead will be put on him and we are just now to the point where the collar is okay.  He stays right with me when I am outside with him and waits patiently outside the bus or the chicken house while I do chores.  I did find Pete stuck up a tree when it was bedtime one night.  He was too high in the tree for me to grab him (and at 20 pounds he probably would have broken my wrist had I tried!) but eventually he found his way down.  I think he ran up the tree because he remembered previous encounters with canine creatures and not because Thor chased him there.  Betsy is not afraid of him, but Thor is afraid of her and has great respect for the other cats, even when they run from him.  EmmaPatches has her nose out of joint because he is in the house, but she is adjusting.  You can see her annoyance if you check out her expression below.

The only problem I foresee is the highway.  I'd like to be able to leave Thor outside unattended most of the time, but that will take a lot of additional training.  Too bad it isn't springtime instead of fall...it sure would be nicer weather for training!

Another random thought

You can be sure of hitting the target, if you shoot first and call whatever you hit the target.

Some comments on being a farmer.

This posting is from the blog of Dev Valencort (Dev & Kip, High Tides & Green Fields LLC, Middleberg, OK).

I wholeheartedly agree with her posting and think it is worth sharing.  Dev is directly responsible for getting Prairie House involved in our food coop (www.highplainsfood.org)  as a result of her membership in Oklahoma Food Cooperative.

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.” *

As a farmer, I find my list of talents/jobs changes and expands (rarely lessens) each year. You start as a planner– picking seeds, mapping your garden space, buying the seeds — and quickly become a food storage expert — canning, freezing, drying, pickling, salting. In the field you’re a meteorologist, soil analyst, entomologist, biologist, herbologist, flower arranger, field hand, investigative scientist, engineer, inventor, and mathematician. Math expands from geometry to physics. Engineering from structural to hydraulics. Ad manager, salesman, graphic designer. Carpenter, plumber, electrician, painter, landscaper. This week I’m adding logistician. Back to the Robert Heinlein quote: I’m not an efficient fighter and I won’t know for a while yet how gallant I’ll be, but I’m guessing I’ll go kicking and screaming about something I still need to get done… p.s.  The end of the quote is. “Specialization is for insects.” * Excerpt from the notebooks of Lazarus Long, from Robert Heinlein’s “Time Enough for Love”

Coming to Prairie House on November 9

Meet Thor.


He was found skinny, skittish, obviously abandoned and wandering from campsite to campsite at Bonnie Dam hoping for food or attention .  The ranger didn't have the heart to shoot him because he was basically a pretty nice puppy.  With porky-pine quills still stuck in the pups face from an unfortunate adventure, the ranger carted him off to our local vet's office.  He has been getting socialized there for a couple of weeks while undergoing treatment and observation.  The vet had heard I was looking for a dog to help with the chores around Prairie House and called to see if I would take him and give him a loving home.  He wasn't what I expected to see, but he won my heart anyway.  His feet are about the size of baseballs and Judy (the vet) thinks he is probably only about 5 months old.  The paws are webbed so there are a limited number of breeds he could be mixed with but one of them is apparently a Spaniel of  some kind.  If he grows into his feet he will be a huge dog.  He hasn't had any formal obedience training, but is very smart and really wants to please.  (He is so smart that when his food bowl was empty he looked right at the vet and stared.  Getting no results from that, he stared at the secretary.  Still no results, so he picked up his bowl in his mouth and dropped it directly in front of the vet who took the hint and refilled it.  I hope that wasn't negative reinforcement!)



I will be gone Sunday and Monday nights so he will stay at the vets office until I get back to town.  It didn't seem fair to take him and then immediately send him back...too confusing for the poor guy.  I will pick him up when I get back and bring him here to see how he gets along with the creatures who already reside here.  He has gotten along well with all the creatures who have come into the vets office, so there is hope.  I will be gone again over Thanksgiving so he will go back to the vet then and be neutered while I'm gone.  Once I pick him up after that he should be at Prairie House to stay unless he is a goat, cat or chicken chaser.

Albert

Sadly, this morning when I went to feed Albert he had died He didn't eat much last night before I put him to bed, but there was no indication of any problem.  I was concerned that he wasn't learning to eat solid foods, but since he was growing I thought he was just behind in development due to the stress he had when he was tiny.  He was a cute little guy and even though he was only here a short time, I will miss him.