Life During (Virus) Wartime

As we're all practicing social distancing, it doesn't mean we can't meet you on the computer or tablet or phone.

I'm always here on the farm during the work day, but Neta usually isn't, so not only am I enjoying her company but we're both getting a lot more done around the farm now that she doesn't have a commute home each day. I'm usually out doing my customary spring chore of cutting grass almost every day as it grows so fast, Neta has been busy using her extra time to prepare the garden beds/rows for seedlings of tomatoes, squash, beans, peppers, cucumbers and many other staples of our garden. She already did some work over the late fall and early winter that has us reaping the cold weather veggies. While we enjoy those, we'll wait for the summer vegetables to start producing.

Radishes, turnips, beets, kale, spinach, collards, mustard, bok choy to name a few.
Pineapple sage in the right foreground and corn under the cloth (crow prevention).

Peas

A couple of rows of various tomatoes and peppers

Some kale that Neta picked. She plans to roll and stuff the leaves. Yum!

Homemade kimchi from some of our bok choy.
Yum for me, not so much for Neta.

Lately I've also managed to squeeze in a few other minor tasks that I've been wanting to do for a while.

- A new temperature controlled exhaust fan for the greenhouse to help pull the hot air out during the day. This is something I've wanted ever since we built the greenhouse, but we always had other jobs/priorities.

- 3 new bluebird houses, because we love bluebirds. We have 2 previous ones along with a purple martin house that the current bluebirds rotate their broods between. We wanted to give them more options and have room to grow the family, as long as we can keep the mockingbirds from killing/driving them off.

If you squint and look way off in the distance you can see the third birdhouse.

A bluebird peeks its head out from one of our original houses.

Some sad news...

We had to say goodbye to our rooster, SideEye Bill. He became too aggressive. He would try to come after me when I'd let the birds out in the morning so I'd resorted to tossing sunflower seeds out so the other birds would create a wall between us. As he and the rest of the chickens began to spend time closer to the house, if Neta or I walked from the house to the barn he would sometimes follow us and chase us if we allowed him to get close enough. Even carrying a stick or rake didn't stop him. He'd attack that too. We finally made the decision that he had to go. Life on the farm isn't always pretty. I'll leave it at that.

RIP SideEye Bill

In other fowl news, our chickens and guineas have been giving us eggs by the truckload. Especially the guineas. We've found several guinea nests around the farm where they've skillfully hidden their clutches. We gather the eggs and usually leave one behind so they'll keep coming back and laying. Occasionally an animal (we figure a possum, raccoon or fox) finds them and enjoys a treat. 

We found these on one of our timber piles

These were at the base of our huge oak tree near our wildflower meadow.

The guinea eggs we gathered have found their way into many dishes so far. They taste the same as a chicken egg, though they are about 2/3 the size. We've had them scrambled and fried for breakfast. Neta has made Deviled Guinea Eggs along with adding them to some fried rice and several other dishes.  We've also given away several dozen (both guineas and chicken) to neighbors and friends who've helped us with things in the past, or because eggs aren't always in stock at the store in our current situation.

We did a little research and found out that the guineas won't sit on a nest until there is a larger number of eggs (usually 20 or more) so we stopped taking them to see what would happen and it worked!  One of our guineas turned broody and she's sitting on a nest that is hidden in the garden next to the house. We hope the proximity to the house, along with it being surrounded by tall grass/flowers and a small fence will help protect her from any predators with nefarious intent. There are 13 eggs in the nest, though only the last two appeared as she started sitting, so we don't think many of them will be viable. We may see some new keets in a month or so if all goes well. Fingers crossed!

Momma is that gray football-sized mound in the middle of the picture.
She's well hidden and hasn't been bothered so far.

A few other updates since we're not going anywhere...

We've got blueberries and peaches on the way. They seemed to blossom early this year (we need to keep better track) and we had some hard frosts once there was fruit on the bushes/trees. Still we seemed to have made it through, though the peaches have less to show for their hardiness. Most froze and died, but the earlier of the two trees still managed 4 peaches. The other tree is smaller and isn't quite as mature, but it has a few fruits to show for its patience.

Three on a single limb. There is also one on another lower limb.

This one blossomed later and avoided the frost.
There are a few we hope make it to maturity.

Plenty of blueberries on the bush. Should be ripe by June.

Lately we've had a menagerie of fowl to supplement our current flock. We didn't get pictures of all of them. Lately we've had a pair of quail making appearances, probably refugees from next door. Yesterday we saw a wild turkey in the meadow, and this morning we had a dozen geese near our front (small) pond along with a bunch of circling swallows (over another field) and later a hawk in the pecan tree out near the front pond. (Swallows and hawk not pictured)

The geese are a little hard to see in the shade.

They've shown up several times over the last week. In the bird run,
at the edge of the woods, on our front porch, etc.

And we'll finish off with a couple of pictures of domestic (animal) bliss.

The pastoral scene of guineas grazing on the front lawn.

Lulu and the chickens enjoying the front porch together.

One final note - Remember:

- Keep your distance from people you're not already living in the house with;

- Wash your hands often;

- Wear your mask in public;

- Keep in touch with friends and family. My group of friends and I use Zoom for video calls. It works within your web browser or on your smartphone. The free (Basic) account allows you unlimited one-on-one video calling;

- And finally, Keep reading our blog. It's been deemed safe and virus free.