Old Farmer’s Day

I noticed when I sent out the humor emailings today that it is “Old Farmer’s Day.”

This day is to honor the hard work of farmers throughout American history. Early American culture was heavily a farming culture. Early settlers cleared fields and pristine woods, to farm the rich land. They brought seeds and farming methods with them. They found new seeds, and learned new methods along the way. Many of those new farming methods came from Native Americans, who were already farming the land. Most notably, was the concept of hilling, or mounding soil.

Since October is the time of harvest for many places, it seems like a good time to honor farmers. And if we’re going to honor farmers, we’ve got one here.

Here he is at much younger age. He grew up on a farm in Oklahoma.

And of course, all Old Farmers no doubt had to walk in the snow to school. .

They were probably on top of the hill here, and had to walk uphill to school. . . both ways.

Even in high school, The Farmer stuck to his farming roots.

Of course, he’s not the only one around here that grew up on a farm.

The girl on the fence beside my mother is my younger sister, not me!  And of course, that’s my dad on the far side of the pen.  I’m not in the picture because I was the one taking the picture.  Well, okay, looks like a finger or thumb got in the left lower corner of the picture. 

I think we’re probably the last generation of farmers in our family.  However, I’m thankful there are young people who are interested in farming.  It can be a tough life, but a satisfying one.  And somebody needs to produce food!

To all the old farmers out there, “HAPPY OLD FARMER’S DAY!!”

A little cavitation. . .

Way back last December I wrote a post about how our nice black rural mailbox got pushed over by a great big delivery truck that ended up in the ditch by our driveway.  The driver came back and fixed the mailbox the following weekend.

Well, as it turns out, the mailbox wasn’t the only casualty.  As Paul Harvey would have said, here’s “The rest of the story.”

It’s like this, in the last few weeks we noticed a hole along the side of our driveway.  I thought maybe it was a rabbit hole, or even made by a groundhog.

(It’s a little hard to see in the shadows, so I thought I’d point it out!)

I mentioned it to The Farmer one day, and he informed me that wasn’t made by an animal, it was cavitation.

Say what?

Well, when you live with a civil engineer type person, there are often strange terms popping up in the conversation.  The only cavies I knew anything about that might be ‘cavitating’ were guinea pigs, or the South American kind that looks a lot like rabbits.  I didn’t think any of those critters were out here on the farm running around and making such a big hole by the side of the road!

But it turned out that this hole was over the top of the concrete culvert running under our driveway.  And it also turns out that one of the definitions in use for “cavitation” means a hole made in the dirt by the suction of running water. 

In other words, the water running through culvert created a suction that pulled the dirt down through the hole in the pipe, and thereby making a hole in the dirt.  Cavitation.

Well, The Farmer decided to fix the problem this weekend.  He dug down where the cavitation was so he could expose the expected hole in the pipe.

And here’s where we get ‘the rest of the story.’

Turns out it wasn’t exactly a hole in the pipe that caused the problem.  Nope.  Instead of a hole, there was a joint in the pipe there that was broken because the section of pipe on the end had got pushed down.

And HOW did it get pushed down?

Oh yeah, that great big delivery truck that knocked down our mailbox!

You can see where the weight of the truck pushed down deep in the dirt, and it’s right over the end of the culvert.  So instead of a little hole in the pipe, this is what we found:

The weight of the truck obviously pushed down the end section of culvert and caused the joint to break.

Well, NO way we could push that joint back up into place, so The Farmer had to so some of his famous jury rigging. 

He got a couple of pieces of wire mesh to put over the top of the joint, then covered it with concrete.

Once the concrete dried, he shoveled the dirt back over the spot.  Now you can’t even tell where the problem was.

And there you have it, ‘The Rest of the Story,” and hopefully, no more cavitation!

Fowl Watermelon

The Farmer’s watermelon crop is slowing down.  He grew a LOT of them this year, but there are several little ones that won’t have time to ripen before it gets too cold.  So he’s been busting them open and feeding them to the fowl – the chickens especially like them.

Of course, he had a little trouble opening the gate with all those little watermelons in his arms!

But he made it, and went on his merry way!

As you can see, the chickens keep pecking at them until there’s hardly even any shell left!

I’m sure the chickens will be sorry when all the watermelons are gone!

Rain, Sunshine, and Llama Alopecia

After a couple days of rain. . .

… this morning we woke up to fog which burned off to reveal a sparkling fall day.  The weather is cooler, the sun is shining brightly… it’s my kind of day!

One of the roosters stood on his favorite gate and flapped his wings a bit. . .

Then did a little crowing to greet the day. . .

He was not impressed with my presence.

The sheep were out in the main pasture enjoying the sunshine.

And our little goat went out to join them.

Our llama, Keira, also went out to join the party and graze in the sunshine.

And how about a closer look at my poor llama girl. . .

Yes, my poor sweet llama is losing her hair.  I’d totally freak out if I hadn’t seen this before.  The sheep in front of her had a rough pregnancy once, and I wasn’t sure she was going to make it.  Lots of TLC and meds, and she pulled through… but she lost all her wool.  She was a pink-toned sheep with a little white fuzz.  Trust me, they look a lot different when they’ve lost their wool as opposed to being sheared.

So here it is, getting cooler and my poor llama is losing her hair.  We may have to get her a blanket so she’ll stay warm this winter!

Friday’s Farm Fotos

I can NOT believe September is half over already.  Time flies?  No, I think it’s traveling at warp speed, at least warp 10 or something!

Anyway, here we are at another Friday, and here we have some pictures from around the farm this week.

The hummingbirds are still hanging around.  Here’s one high up in a tree. . .

This little hummer seems to be watching his bigger wild bird cousins having a wild party in the local watering hole. . .

But the little hummingbird isn’t the only fowl creature  keeping watch. . .

She’s not so interested in what the wild birds are doing, but checking out what her guy is doing at the local bird pub. . .

But she needn’t worry he’s going to make friends with some wild chick.  Instead he just gets his drink, then leaves.

While the birds are refreshing themselves, the farm collie is just taking it easy and napping in the shade.

Of course, all I have to do is whisper “mailbox” and he’s up and ready to run out the driveway.  Unfortunately, that often means the neighbor’s dog, Gracie, has to rush over and get all hysterical.

Generally speaking, Toby ignores her.  He acts like she doesn’t even exist, except when she starts bugging him, he always does this one thing. . .

.
I’m sure he’s just marking his territory and not telling her to… uh, yeah.

And for another week whizzed by, that’s the way it is on the farm.