Birchtree Farm

Onyx was born on our farm in NY in 2007, and now she has had two ewe lambs of her own. Yesterday morning I checked her over when feeding everyone, but she didn't look any different really than she had for the past week. However, when I went out just after 2pm for another look (not expecting anything), there she was with two new lambs, and they were both up and had already nursed.

This is Onyx in 2007. She is the black lamb. Her mother was Orange.

And this is Onyx and her own two black ewe lambs.

We lost a Muscovy duck the other night, sometime in the wee hours. For some reason, some of our ducks think that sleeping under the shed is best, and once they get under there, they go way back under and you can't really get them out. That evening three of them (the previously mentioned "delinquents") got themselves under there before we could get everyone herded into the poultry yard for the night. They'd slept under there before, these three, so we didn't think much of it.

Well, sometime around 3:30am Jake started barking his warning bark. I must have been in the middle of REM sleep or something, because when I woke up I had a minute of sleep amnesia - you know - "Where am I?" "What time is it?" "What's that noise?" So it took me a couple minutes to actually get downstairs. The skies were clear, but there was no moon, and it was really dark. I looked and listened out the back door and the front door, but couldn't hear anything. I have to admit, I don't always take Jake's barking seriously because so many times he will bark at nothing, or what seems like nothing. Or, one of us will inadvertently knock against something, or set an object down with a small *thud*, and even if Jake is right there in the room, he will jump up and bark and run towards the door. He's very alert. :-)

So I went back to bed. I don't know if the then-unknown predator had already done his dirty deed, or if he came back later, although Jake didn't bark anymore that night. But when I went out in the morning, there were a couple small patches of bloodied feathers, and another place where a whole clump of tail feathers was lying. The two remaining ducks that had slept out were at our "pond" which is really just a low area that collects several inches of water every spring, and is maybe 20 feet across. One of those ducks was the one that lost her tail feathers, but the missing duck was taken away bodily. I figured it was either fox or coyote.

So last night I decided to stay up and sleep downstairs because I figured whatever it was would be back to try another trip through the "drive-thru", except that yesterday I closed off all access to under the shed, and the ducks were all in the poultry yard for the night. Sometime around 11:30 I think it was, Jake started growling. I went outside with my flashlight and aimed it down the slope behind our house where I thought I could hear some leaves rustling. I couldn't see anything however and the noise stopped, and so I went back inside. Around 12:30 Jake started pacing and growling again. I went to the back door and could definitely hear something walking around down the slope. I left Jake inside because I wanted to see what it was first. Over to the edge of the slope I went with my trusty flashlight, aimed it down the hill, and caught a pair of eyes belonging to a fox. He was making his way diagonally up the slope. He didn't seem upset by the light, but kept coming up the slope. He would have come out of the woods directly behind the poultry yard. Just as he started to reach the top of the slope, I said in a low tone, "Psst! I wouldn't do that if I were you", and he jumped and then turned and took off. I went and let Jake out, and he knew something was out there. He tracked around sniffing the air and the ground, and did his growl-wuffs, and then suddenly just let out a quick succession of loud growly barks. We stayed out for a while longer, me with my flashlight and Jake with his nose. But I think the fox decided to go somewhere else for the night.

I still slept on the couch, and left a window cracked open even though it was cold out, so we could better hear, but the rest of the night was peaceful. So now I will pay more attention when Jake barks at night and do more thorough checks outside from now on.

My one question though is: HOW do they know? How can Jake hear something walking through the leaves 100 feet or more away *down* the hill behind our house, when Jake is in the house with all the doors and windows shut? It's amazing. But he knew something was out there.

Good boy Jake!

Up until this week, it's been generally chilly, with just a couple warm days here and there to tease us. But this week it will be consistently up in the 50's and 60's with bright sunshine. I've been outside doing spring cleanup chores - things like raking the lawns to get rid of matted down and thatched dead grass, not to mention a winter's worth of dog poop (you wanted to know that, right?) :) The snowplows had thrown sand and gravel from the road 15 feet up onto the lawn so that all had to be raked out. In some places it was half an inch of sand covering the lawn.

Also, in the back where the woodpile is, there were the remains of all the wood chopping and splitting that was done last fall - bark slabs and chips of bark and small bits of wood. Then there were all the sticks and things that the dog dragged out of the woods or off the woodpile, or out of the scrap lumber pile and left lying all over the place. So I sorted out the good scrap lumber, threw the useless scraps into the kindling bin, and anything like small bits of plywood and paneling from the disassembly of the old kitchen cabinets into the garbage. Then I raked all the bark and dead leaves and dumped them into a pile to compost over time. I also cleaned out under the lean-to where we kept the working haystack, getting all the hay chaff and damp hay off the pallets and folding up the tarp that helped cover the hay.

Next I need to get the garden in shape and get a couple raised beds made. I have started some seeds indoors: tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, broccoli, and cabbage. Peas need to be planted directly into the garden Real Soon Now, so I really need to get the garden area figured out and get that done. As usual, I probably have been too ambitious with my garden plans, but I'll do my best.

The poultry figured out pretty quickly how to get around the electronet I had been using to try to keep them towards the back of the property. They either went around it, or went through it and their feathers kept them insulated from the shock. So I rolled it all back up again and stored it away.

At least one duck has started laying, but the eggs end up in the poultry yard, having been kicked out or rolled out of the duck nestboxes we built. Twice I retrieved an egg and placed it back into the nestbox. I'm hoping once a clutch is laid that someone will start incubating and we'll have fluffy ducklings 35 days later!

Well, the three little delinquents showed up this morning in time for breakfast. I suspect they spent the night under the shed. Although I looked under there last night as best I could, there are some areas that are hard to see. After everyone was out and about for a while, I happened to see three of the older ducks (that didn't disappear last night) coming out from under the shed, as if they'd been taking a tour or something... "oh yes, very nice, you say this is the family room?"... I wonder if they are checking out potential nesting sites.

Today I put up electronet to try to keep the ducks, chickens, and guineas confined to the back and keep them from coming across the front yard, and heading for the driveway and the neighbor's back yard. We'll see how well that works - I can't surround the whole back yard so if they go out of their way far enough, they can just walk around.

Three Muscovies have disappeared - poof! - gone. They were there this afternoon when I went out to feed everyone, but at dusk when I went out to close up the chicken coop, there were only four ducks accounted for. Ken and I tramped around with flashlights, but no luck. Strange thing is, there are no tracks of any predator-type animal in what snow is left, although there are large patches of snowless ground, enough that some animal could conceivably have come and gone without contacting snow. But besides that, if they were grabbed by some predator, unless there were three predators that all showed up at the same time (unlikely), after grabbing the first and taking off there should have been a ruckus and it would have been hard to not hear that. AND, there should be some evidence - bunches of feathers scattered around for example, but there aren't.

The other possibility is that they went off somewhere and as it started getting dark, they decided to sleep where they were instead of coming back to the poultry yard with the others. This is what I hope happened, and that they will show up tomorrow.