Baby on board

Hey, Willie here.  Big happenings today on the farm!

So mom and dad were feeding us early this morning, and my mom all of a sudden looks at the cows and says "we have a baby!"  Dad says "Go!  I'll feed the boys".  So first off, mom isn't here to feed my breakfast, and that means no one is gonna scratch my neck the way I like it.  But that's ok, because I was hungry and it meant she also didn't take my blanket off, which is good because it was cold this morning!

Anyway, mom takes off across the pastures, running for the cows.  Apparently, Olive was having a baby!   Dad chucked feed at us, and he left us, too!   It seems that babies are really exciting for people.

So Olive has a baby boy cow.   My mom stood out there in her pajamas in the cold for a long time waiting for the baby to stand and then nurse.  Then she ran to the house for a bit, and then more people showed up.   They went out and messed with this baby.  My mom seemed really happy all morning.  I could hear her all the way across the pasture sometimes!

Finally standing up!

The cow people came out and said hello to me when mom took my blanket off, and I liked that part.  They said I was cute and gave me scratches.  Then mom put me out with Chuck so I could see the baby, but I was really interested in hanging out with Chuck, and that baby was pretty far away.

Getting his ear tag

So we are all grazing, and then I see mom come out running from the house.  There were a bunch of vultures in the pasture and in the sky, and Olive was running them off from her baby.  

Cute baby fuzziness

Now, my mom, she loves us.  She takes good care of us.   She can be like an angry mama bear if she thinks something is threatening us.  I've seen her take off after stray dogs and coyotes, walk a pasture killing fire ants, and take a baby bird away from Pearl the barn cat and climb a tree to put it back in a nest.   She wasn't gonna put up with some birds bothering a cow.  So she runs out into the pasture, waving a towel at the birds, and keeps running around waving that towel till the birds fly off, and then stands with Olive and the baby to make sure everything is ok.

We stood watching her, and Chuck said "your mom is crazy".   You don't talk bad about our mom in front of Deuce!   He threatened to bite old Chuck and said yep, she's crazy, but she's our sort of crazy!  I've seen Deuce go with her to chase down a coyote and I've seen him stand and protect the old horse we used to have, so he's nuts, too!   Grady taught us that the safest place to be is with our mom, and I don't doubt that for a minute!  You can't mess with that sort of crazy!

Olive standing over her baby

This evening both mom and dad went out to check on the baby, and I heard them say they are going to name the baby after my dad.  That's funny!   I would call him Johnny.  You know, the man in black?  Deuce rolled his eyes when I told him that.  

Hubby and his namesake

Deuce's thoughts on Fall

This is my mom's favorite time of year.

I agree with her on most points - the air gets a chill in it, the leaves are fun to crunch through, my coat  turns to luxurious black velvet.   We get back into a hard work routine now that the summer heat is gone.

But there's one thing I absolutely hate about Fall.  Mom gets this crazy idea that we need to take a bath once a year whether we need it or not.  She says something about starting off the winter with nice clean skin, blah, blah, blah.   So I get an annual bath.  I mean, she hoses the sweat off me all summer long, but this is an involved deal with shampoo and all that.   Now, Chuck and Willie love this bath thing.

Chuck and Willie are chumps.

Mom knows I hate being groomed, and bathed.  The deal is I keep myself spotlessly clean all year, and she only brushes me enough to make sure nothing will cause a saddle sore. Fair enough, right?  But all bets are off the last warm week in Fall.

Me, after 12 straight days of rain.  Still show ready.  Look how clean my white socks are!

So today I endured this yearly ritual.  While she has her routine of medicated shampoo, washing out my mane and tail, etc. I have my own routine, too.   At some point during my bath, I like to pretend there is something incredibly scary just outside the barn.  I snort, crane my neck to look, get all tense, show the whites around my eyes.  While she stops to see if there's something actually out there, I like to poop in the wash stall, step in it, and make a mess that she will have to clean up.   I also like when my long mane is full of suds, and then I shake my whole body like I have flies - get her nice and soaked with dirty suds.   Stand on the hose.  Kick over any buckets she's using.  Dance around and come close to stepping on her toes (don't step on them, though, because if she breaks a foot she won't be taking care of us for a bit).   Give her the evil eye and threaten to turn her into a lawn dart during our next ride.

Giving Mom a little post bath side eye

If you think any of this deters her, it doesn't.  She stays annoyingly cheerful.

The nice part is after a bath, Mom usually lets me hang out in the barn with her while she puts things away.  She'll put a big fan in the aisle for me to stand in front of, talk to me, let me wander around and help her.  That part I like.  She needs my help.

I'm growing a mustache this year for the cold weather.  What do you think?

So now I am spotlessly clean, and I kinda smell like strawberries.  What did I get for all this trouble? One frosted mini wheat.  She said I'm still too fat and insists I can't tell how many treats I get, but I KNOW she gave Willie 2 mini wheats.

We might have to revisit the whole lawn dart thing.

D.

...Sting like a bee

Bee on my bonnet

One of the things I wanted to have on our farm was bee hives.  We have a lot of space.  Hubby planted a front field into Operation Pollinator.  We are smart with pesticides and love the pollinators that visit.

Operation Pollinator

So I sent some emails out to local bee keepers, asking if anyone would like to keep hives at our place.  No responses. I asked a local club.  Again - no response. So I saw a bee keeping club had a day long "bee school" and said ok, you want something done, you do it yourself.  So I read the textbook cover to cover.  Took the class.  Came away with more questions than I went in with.   Joined the club.  Bought a bee veil and jacket.

Hello, ladies!

The club I joined has hives, and every Saturday they meet and go through them, let the rookies learn to work with bees, ask questions, get experience.  So I started going every Saturday.  And learned a lot.  Went to club meetings and learned more.  Bought a lighter weight, ventilated bee jacket to wear in the North Carolina heat.

Learning from experienced bee keepers at the club hives

Then someone at the club said they had too many hives and wanted to send a hive home with someone, and my name came up.  So why not?  Apparently when you buy a hive kit, it comes "some assembly required"...or as hubby said "this could be a marriage ending project".  Well, it turned out pretty nice (and we are still married!).

Looks like an Ikea project, doesn't it?

Finished hive

Hubs went with me to bring my bees home.  That's a fun nighttime project - gotta do it when all the bees are in the hive.   So now we have one hive sitting in the unused front pasture.  Hubby comes down and watches me work with them.  The queen is gentle so the hive is pretty chill.  They do their thing while I do mine.  I made a sticky mess of my kitchen learning to make food for them (hey, if you steal their honey, you gotta feed them something!) and I also learned if you melt beeswax on your stove, it's gonna get everywhere and is impossible to clean up.

But we found we really started noticing what plants the pollinators liked, and were careful about not pulling those plants out or spraying them.  We started learning about native pollinators (honey bees are European, not native).   I had always chosen native landscape plants that the butterflies would like, but now we were thinking about what would bloom well into late summer and fall, and feed the pollinators during hot, sometimes dry, summers.  We started watching bee behavior in the evenings, and found that some of the farm residents were watching us.

Holding a drone - they don't sting.

Do I get stung?  Yes, every now and then.  It happens.  I try to only work with the bees when they are in a good mood, and I try to understand why they are aggressive.  Personally I find working with them calming.  Maybe it's the sound.  Maybe it's because all of my movements have to be slow and deliberate.  Maybe inhaling all that smoke is messing with my head.  But in any case, I feel better for working with the girls.  (All the workers are females, only the drones are male, and there are few drones, did you know that?)

So the goal is to have 3 hives here.   Let's face it, with the way things go, I'll probably end up with 10.  But for now, 3 is a nice number.  And before anyone gets all excited, it takes about 2 years to really establish a hive productive enough to steal their honey.  Right now I just want my one hive to survive the winter!

Our resident Great Horned Owl watching me while I check on the bees.

Happy Trails!

J.

Float like a butterfly...

At the Living Conservatory

I'm gonna break this entry into 2 parts...

So with me not having a full time job these days, I kinda look for cool stuff to do.  Let's face it - farm, gym and grocery store do not make for good conversation!   Plus I have a science background that was getting rusty.

So last spring I signed up to volunteer at the NC Museum of Natural Sciences.  It's a pretty cool museum - you can easily spend all day and not see it all.  And it's free!   They do lots of cool stuff like adult nights at the museum and movies and all that, too.

Anyway, I ended up signing up for two areas - the Living Conservatory, which is the "butterfly room" at the museum, and collecting data for Citizen Science at Prairie Ridge - the eco station owned by the museum.  They both looked like places I could do some learning, and have some fun.

Blue Morpho

So the conservatory, yes it has butterflies, but also a sloth, a tarantula, turtles and a snake.  It meant I needed to get over my issues with spiders and find nice things to say about my new arachnid friend.  I had to learn a lot of butterflies.  Apparently I got good at it because they offered me a part time job.  So now on some weekends I feed the sloth, and the butterflies, and welcome visitors, and dispense interesting facts and answer questions.  I had to go through animal handling training, but hey, how many people do you know that have been trained to handle the usual snakes and turtles and lizards, but also alligators and hissing cockroaches?

The two toed sloth 

Meet and greet with an Andean Milksnake

Prairie Ridge is pretty awesome, too.  I collect data on lady bugs, butterflies, dragonflies and trees.  Essentially I get sent on a nature hike each Friday with binoculars, a camera and a clipboard for notes.  I'm quickly learning my insects, new trees, grasses, birds, etc.

Trails at Prairie Ridge

So what does this all have to do with the farm?  Well, it's made me a walking plethora of fun facts!  Wanna know what dragonflies are near the pond?  I can tell you!  Don't want to hear about passion flower vines and how all the Heliconius genus butterflies feed from it as caterpillars and retain the toxins?  Too bad!   Want to see me freak out because I found a Gulf Fritillary?   Yeah, it happens now and then!   Or if you want to know the difference between swallowtail butterflies and their host plants, well, pull up a set of binoculars, I can tell ya!

A skipper visiting a Passion flower

So can we get a round of applause for hubby, and Deuce, because on trail rides I dispense fun facts like ragweed dumps pollen in September!  Seriously, I have actually heard their eyes roll as I talk.

Fat little tiger swallowtail caterpillar at Prairie Ridge

And that leads us to part 2 of this entry...