Friday’s Farm Fotos

Time once again for a look at miscellaneous pictures I took around the farm this past week.  This first picture is of Valrhona, one of our Shetland sheep ewes, bedded down in the dry grasses in the main pasture.

The grass is maybe 6-8″ long, and seems to be just perfect for nestling down into it for extra warmth.  All of the 4-legged animals seem to think it’s great!

Once again, the animals are out in the main pasture:

I took this picture from inside the house, looking out the window in the dining area.  The sheep are in the shorter grass areas, grazing the green stuff tucked underneath.  Our Maremma sheep dog, Neffie, likes to stick close, but keeps to the highest vantage point she can find.

Still looking out the window, I saw one of our Buff Orpington hens.

They love to scratch around in the leaves along the fenceline, looking for something tasty to eat.

One of the escapee roosters was doing the same thing around the base of a tree.

I sometimes throw crumbs out there, which they seem to enjoy.

The wild birds like the suet feeders.  Sometimes a Tufted Titmouse comes to visit.

And sometimes these little birds show up in bunches.

I’ve been trying to figure out what kind of birds these are, but can’t find anything that looks *exactly* like them.  The nearest I’ve come up with is an American Tree Sparrow.  But the colors aren’t quite right.

Here’s a couple getting a drink from the birdbath.

And one was sitting on the picket fence.

So, anybody know what this bird is exactly?

Now, I know exactly what THIS bird is.

That’s an immature male cardinal with a punky ATTITUDE.

And I do mean, ATTITUDE.

I think his mohawk “hairdo” looked pretty cool.  Bet he thinks he’s a read macho dude!

Our farm collie, Toby, isn’t so much macho as goofy.  The minute we go outside, he runs around like an idiot trying to find a stick to carry.  It doesn’t matter if it’s toothpick sized or a log.

Sometimes he gets sticks that are so big he can barely drag them around.

He and Neffie seem to enjoy grooming each other, each though they are both “fixed.”

Later in the week I saw a Northern Mockingbird getting a drink from the birdbath.

The cardinals also visit the birdbath.

Sometimes even the chickens hop up for a drink from the birdbath, like this little Golden Sebright Bantam hen.

Glancing through all these pictures, you might get the idea things are pretty fowl around here.  From the looks of all these guineas following our male llama around, I’d say you’d be right.

We’ve got all kinds of birdbrains outside and inside.   This one on the inside is hanging from the curtain on the back door. . .

And bidding you GOOD-BY!

Southern Snowstorm

We don’t get a lot of snow here in the southeast, but Saturday morning when we got up, there was a dusting of snow on the ground.  So here are the promised snow pictures!  Those of you in the deep south, eat your heart out, we actually saw snow!

Those of you further north, try not to laugh at the piddling little bit of white stuff we call a snow storm!

Looking out in the backyard, I saw. . .

. . . a little snow, a lot of poultry, and one dog carrying around a HUGE stick!

The bottom pasture was dusted with white, instead of the usual all drab brown.

From there Toby and I headed for the woods.  Of course, it too had a bit of snow on the ground, and blown against the tree trunks.

We always check out the creek when we take a walk in the woods.

My other “dog” followed Toby and I into the woods.  He likes to rub up against every twig and tree.

The real dog, Toby, would rather hike his leg and pee on every twig and tree, but I spared you a picture of that, ha, ha!

The creek floods frequently, and the banks are eroded, so the exposed tree roots held a drift of snow on them.

Even the slues looked pretty with snowy banks.

By the way, I don’t know if I ever called these little areas of backwater a slue until I met The Farmer.  I thought it was just an “Okie-ism”, but he has it right:

Slue: a place of deep mud or mire (also slew or slough ˈslü)

1. swamp
2. an inlet on a river; also : backwater
3. a creek in a marsh or tide flat

Toby crosses these slues wherever it suits him, sometimes at a narrow place, sometimes through deep water. 

He loves splashing through water wherever he finds it.

The other “dog” that follows me around, however, is not so keen on the water.  He sits on one side of the bank and watches Toby wander.

In fact, Spot just isn’t any too keen on walking through that frozen stuff called snow.

He makes faces and shakes his paws frequently.

I’m afraid Toby laughs at Spot’s squeamishness over snow and water and all things wet.

Then Toby proceeded to show off a little and went through the water in the slue again.

But Spot wasn’t buying it.  He promptly sat down in some leaves and declared he was NOT going in that water!

By then I figured it was time to head back towards the house.  In the front yard, the holly looked pretty with a little snowy white alongside the green leaves and red berries.

.

But it was warming up some, and the snow wasn’t going to last much longer.

It was forming little ice drops on the tips of some of the leaves.

However, in the shade, the camellia bush still had snowy blossoms.

And since the Camellia ‘Winter Star’ bush is in the flower bed by the front door, I was ready to go back inside and end my picture taking for the day.

Autumn Azalea And Wooly Bears

This weekend I noticed that not only is the camellia bush hanging in there and blooming, but the Autumn Azalea bushes in the same flower bed have decided to have a last hurrah and throw out a few blooms.  I guess they decided to live up to their name, since they are from the Encore^® Azalea Collection.

This first one is an Autumn Debutante Azalea.

It’s a light pink, whereas the other one, Autumn Sangria Azalea, is a hot pink.

Having checked those out, Toby and I decided to go for a walk in the woods.  We passed The Farmer in the bottom pasture.

He was busy burning old feed sacks and boxes.  I don’t know how we seem to accumulate so many boxes, but there always seem to be a bunch around here.

There was a nice bright yellow leaf caught in the weeds.

Some day I need to figure out what kind of tree has that leaf.  We have a lot of them around here, whatever they are.

Right beside the path going into the woods there is an old tree that’s been stuck by lightning.  At the base of the tree some fungus balls were growing.

I haven’t seen any quite like them before.  There’s nothing in the picture to give you a perspective, but they’re all about 1 inch across or less.

Of course we can’t go back in the woods without taking a stroll along the creek.  It’s got lot of leaves floating on it.

They especially collect along the sides, or around obstacles like this fallen tree.

I don’t know about other American Working Farmcollies, but our Toby LOVES water.  The highlight of a run in the woods is to splash across the creek and back at least once.

Given the opportunity, it’s more like 2 or 3 or … more times.

On our way back to the house, I stopped and turned over one of the salt bins.  This is the same one I found a black widow spider under earlier this summer.  Thankfully, this time it was a more innocuous discovery.

Whether you call it a wooly bear, wooly worm, or more properly, the banded woolly bear, we find a lot of them around here.  They hatch late in the summer or fall, and overwinter in this caterpillar form.  What’s cool is that the little wooly worms survive freezing by producing a cryoprotectant in their body.  How about that, this cool little woolly bear produces its own antifreeze!

Next spring, the little wooly worm will eat and eat, snarfing down all the grass and weeds it can.  Then it pupates, and the fuzzy little wooly bear turns into the Isabella tiger moth:

Of course, while it’s still a fuzzy little wooly bear, you’re supposed to be able to use the banded woolly bear to predict what kind of winter is on the way.  Supposedly, the thinner the brownish red bands, the harsher the winter will be.  So if the wooly worm is mostly brownish red in the middle, winter will be mild.

Considering how wide the brownish red band was on the wooly bear I found, looks like if the folklore is correct, we ought to have a mild winter!

Friday’s Farm Fotos

Another Friday, and I think I’ll share some of the pictures I took around the farm this week to make it another Friday’s Farm Foto’s Day!

This first one is of Samson, our male llama, out in the main pasture grazing.

All the animals seem to enjoy the medium length grasses in the main pasture, although the llamas like to browse the taller weeds along the fenceline too.

However, they don’t stay there all the time.  They have a routine, and part of the day the sheep and llamas and goat are in the back yard.  This particular picture is of one of our shyer Shetland sheep, Valrhona.

Of course, our farm collie, Toby, can be found in the backyard almost any time, along with some chickens, plus the peacocks and peahens in their pen.

The signs of fall are everywhere, but when the sun shines just right on some of the trees along the edges of the bottom pasture, the leaves glint and make it look like the trees are full of white blossoms. I did a double take the first time I saw it. After all, it’s not time for trees to be in bloom!

Except, of course, the camellia is still blooming. Some of the blossoms look pretty ragged, but I don’t think this Grandaddy Long Legs minds.

Did you know that these critters, also called harvestmen, aren’t really spiders?  They may look like one, but the biggest difference is that spiders have two body segments, whereas a Granddaddy Long Legs has an oval body that is only ONE segment. They also do not produce silk or a web, so turns out they are not true spiders.

The ferns back in the woods are still nice and green, but then, they stay pretty green all winter.

The creeks and sloughs are full of colored leaves that have fallen from the trees.

Meanwhile, when the sun warms things up, there’s usually at least one little turtle on the long floating in the pond.

However, they are still very shy, and don’t let people get very close before they plop back down into the water and disappear.

And while our lone wandering white rooster is still AWOL, it seems we may have missed a couple of younger chickens that are roosters.  I looked out our dining room window yesterday and saw at least two roosters fighting.

There was a third one nearby that acted like it might join the fray, but since it never did, I’m not sure if we have 2 or 3 young roosters running loose.

This morning I looked out to see a bunch of squirrels running up and down the fence posts.  This one peered inside a rotten post. . .

I think he’s wondering if he put any nuts in there.  Maybe I should tell him he’s looking in the wrong direction.

Cause there are some big nuts inside the house!

The Dead Animals Need Love

We came back from the grocery store yesterday to see a pasture full of dead animals.

Buried among the weeds was our Maremma, looking like nothing more than a pile of old white fluff.

It kind of looks like I just threw a white fleece out in the weeds.

The other dog, Toby the Farmcollie, looked done for too.

There he was, toes up, and dead to the world.

Worse, this apparent plague seemed to get the hoofed animals too.  There was a lump that was once a cute little goat.

And alas!  Even the llamas looked like goners.

What caused this dreadful plague? Why were all the animals keeled over like that?

In a word, sunshine.  After days and days of rain, we had a beautiful day with bright sunshine and the animals were enjoying stretching out and soaking up the heat.

The cure? Well, dead animals need love.  All I had to do was walk out there closer, and up popped heads, and the lump of a goat came to life. . .

As did our llama lady. . .

… and all the other “dead” critters.

They just can’t resist seeing if I have any treats or pets for them.  They sure do enjoy attention, so like I said, all the dead animals needed was a little love!

Wish it was that easy all the time!