"Weird Cows & New Ducklings: Farm Life is Full of Surprises"

It has been one heck of a day here on the farm. A lot going on, I gotta tell you guys about it. I know, you're keyed up from all the activity of the day too, I get it. I'm actually just gearing up right now for evening chores. It's been a very hot day, I think the high was like 92 degrees Fahrenheit. But when I started this morning, it was like one of those really foggy mornings that we tend to have here on the farm. Look who knows who's getting fed. First off, I've got some apple drops for the pigs. And as I smell these apples, they've been sitting in this bucket for a day or two, and I can already sense that they're starting to ferment. I hope my little piggly-wigglies don't get too drunk on them. Ooh, those are the types of apples that are going to give you guys a hangover for sure. So yeah, when I was starting my chores earlier this morning, I noticed one of my heifers, Bonnie McMurray, she like kind of drifted off from everybody else. And it was kind of hard to see where she was because it was so thick and foggy. So I started to walk over to the edge of the fence to like go track her down and herd her back to the rest of the cattle, when all of a sudden I saw this. Yes, not a single one of those cattle were mine. But they were off running around the farm. Hey, hey, hey, where are you going? You don't belong over here with these guys. And Bonnie McMurray was starting to wander towards them. Those are your friends. What are you doing? Here we catch Pablo Barncat covering up his business. Pablo, are you treating this mulch like a litter box? It's kind of adorable and also disgusting. I know that's a lot of cattle just to be kind of wandering around, but I recognize the cattle right away. They actually belong to my neighbor. He's this really good old guy. He was a dairy farmer, but he's kind of like semi-retired now. And so now he just does beef cows. I think somewhere along the line with all the flooding and such, there was like a tree that knocked down his fence and the cattle broke through and they ended up over here, which honestly is not really that big a deal. Like I know some folks are going to be like, Oh my gosh, you must have been so upset. No, man, it happens sometimes. And there's no issue that I have with it. It looks like the baby chicks put themselves to bed tonight already. I've been starting to give them access to out here, which I think is good for them, but will lock them up for the night. I don't let them run around too much or else they could turn into chew toys for Abbey dog. Good night, little peepers. I mean, that sort of thing, it can just happen sometimes. And I know there's going to be some folks who are like, well, why would you be so mad at the hound hunters, but not mad at your neighbor? My neighbor wasn't trying to do that and trying to make that happen. It just sort of happened. It's an accident and accidents do happen, just like I've had other neighbors have their dogs like escape and they come over here again. It's an accident and they're very apologetic and they don't mean for it to happen. Meanwhile, when it comes to hound hunting, it's kind of by design that they're just sort of ranging around, cutting across properties as they need to. And so that's that's where I see the very big distinction. But yeah, the cattle were loose. And so I actually called my neighbor and I actually got the drone out. And with his nephews and a couple of other folks, we basically kind of worked on multiple sides to wrangle them in. I came at it from this side. They were on the other side. Whoa, whoa. And eventually they were able to get everybody in and into their pasture and everything's A-OK. Here we have Deb and her kids. See, they're just about getting ready for bed. I'll give you a few more minutes before I lock you all up. Don't look at the other chickens house. They already put themselves to bed. And it looks like the ducks are just about to put themselves to bed pretty soon. I don't know. Maybe even tomorrow. I'll probably let them loose and let them start to free range fully. You can actually see our other ducks. They're hanging out in the pond. So you can see actually Greta, who's our oldest duck. One bit of sad news, actually. Homestar Runner, who is one of our runner duck Drake's, who I don't know, I guess was about six months or so ago. He developed Bumblefoot and I spent a lot of time treating it and I healed it up, but he never quite got back to walking normal. I don't even know why that was like he didn't have the infection on his foot, but he had so much trouble walking that actually just the other day I put him down. But I do think it was his time. He would have gone down anyway. I would have like, you know, called them out of the flock this fall. You know, sometimes when an animal's quality of life is really not that good, I think it makes the most sense to do that occasionally. But that does not mean it's not a hard choice. And it's not difficult to do because it was still kind of difficult to do and kind of sad to have to do. But of course, sometimes making those hard choices and doing those things is part of farm life. And so there you have it. Now, as I've been talking to you guys right here, you might have noticed you hearing a lot of quacking and peeping. Well, that's because there was another adventure that just happened this afternoon that I want to tell you about. You see, just a few short hours ago, I was out back here doing chores, checking on things. I was actually trying to fix something with one of my water lines that was starting to leak. And while I was out there in the peak heat of the day, when it was like, again, 90 some odd degrees, I heard like the peep peep peeping of little baby ducklings. And at this point in my life, I've almost like grown like a like a sense that when I hear a little duckling and particularly a little duckling that might be in distress, I immediately like zero in on it and can track it down pretty quickly. And so, again, I was out here working in the permaculture orchard and I heard that peep peep peeping and I started to look around and eventually I spotted it. Oh, would you look at that? You see what we got over here? Some little baby ducklings that had just hatched out with a mother duck. Now, I think I've told you guys that lately I've moved to the philosophy of as I hatch out baby birds on the farm, if they hatch out naturally, I'm happy to let them hatch out. But then typically I will take the baby birds and the mom and create some sort of nursery situation for them. Here we go right in here. You got knocked over. Your mom left you behind. I'm going to put you in here with your brothers and sisters. Gotcha. You know, a couple of recent examples of that would include Deb and her kids when they hatched out almost two months ago now. Abby, Abby, come. Hey, Abby, come. Come on. I noticed that Abby was like trying to play with something and I like freaked out. And it turns out it's just like I think a cricket of some sort. I'm sorry, Abby. I didn't mean to scold you. You're just being a good dog. But actually, Abby is one of the reasons why I don't like to let baby birds run around here. She's gotten much better where she can be around adult birds and have no problems, but she still likes to play with the little baby birds. And so I got to be careful. And so that's why I like Deb and her kids I raised inside and jerk duck and her kids I've raised inside. And so seeing that I had this mother duck out here in pasture with a bunch, I think it was like eight ducklings, I decided to grab her and take her in and set up a little nursery for her. I got you. Don't worry. You're going to go with your children. Hang on. Hang on. Hang on. It's OK, girl. You're one of my oldest Kaki Campbells. I've actually found that using a fishing net is the best way to try to catch birds, particularly adult birds. It's the least stressful. It is the easiest for the farmer. Just go to a sporting goods store and buy a good marine fishing net and you will thank yourself over and over and over again. So one of the more interesting things about the mama duck is she was actually the first duck on our farm to hatch out ducklings. Like up until that point, all the other ducklings we had on our farm were actually from hatcheries. And so she was the first duck to ever like sit on a pile of eggs and hatch. And I did it as a little bit of an experiment. There's our little friend. That's the one. You just want to see the one? That's the one. Whoa, OK. Easy, mama. Whoa. All right. Well, you are a good protective mama. Aw. I'm going to let you, I'm going to leave you be. I'm going to leave you be. Sadly, I actually lost most of those ducklings that she had hatched out originally, but over the years, she's actually hatched out a couple of batches of eggs. And she has proven herself as one of my more reliable mama ducks here on the farm. And so even though she's a khaki Campbell, which is not typically a duck breed known for being good moms overall, even though that first year was a little bit rough, she's done a very, very good job. And so I'm happy to let her be a mom to these little ducklings. And learning some lessons from my past experiences is why I've got her in this little nursery, which is where they'll spend the next couple of weeks. I'll keep moving them to fresh ground inside this tractor. But as they grow up larger and probably hit about four weeks old, eventually I'll let them go loose and rejoin the rest of the duck block. This area where I have all these trees and tall grasses, it is the perfect habitat for having like little nests of ducklings. I mean, gosh, look at these trees. I'm so excited about how tall these trees are these days. For so long, I've had just sticks sticking out of the ground between having the heavy rain of the last two years. The trees have just been making massive leaps in growth. And it's like I have kind of the mini forest of my dreams that I've always wanted in this space. Yeah, this one is a dead tree. I think I replanted this last year or maybe two years ago. You can see, yeah, this one's dead. Just a stick that's dead. As soon as I get my tree seedlings ready and they go dormant in the fall, usually that's like in October at some point. I'll start to take them back out here and plant the tree positions that are empty and refill them. But I digress. And so now Mama Duck and her little ducklings, they have a new home. Would you guys like to say hello? Hello, everybody. How's it going, Mama Duck? Oh, everybody looks really happy and looks like they're doing really well. And no, Abby, you're not allowed to come inside. So basically, you'll see they've got a water set up. They've got a second little water set up. They got their food, which they make a mess out of. Every couple of days will slide their little duck tractor along. But this will keep them safe and protected. And they've got the tarp. So if we get heavy rains, they'll be out of the heavy rains. And so this should work out pretty well. Hello, Alice P. Toklas. What you doing out here, Belle? You causing mischief? Oh, you and Betty Rubble and Betty White. As always, the calves are off doing their own thing. Oh, gosh. Would you look at Betty Rubble? Look how she has like the blonde frosted tips. It's like she's in a boy band from the early 2000s. You're a very pretty calf there, girl. Why don't you go back to your rest of your family, huh? Actually, the reason I came up here tonight, because I want to put up the chicken gate, because tomorrow morning I'm going to move the chickens further down. If I'd actually come up here in the side by side, I'd probably just move them. But since I didn't, I will just close the door and then batten the hatch. And now this way they won't get out until I actually let them out. I've actually tried moving them while they're out, like during the day. And each time I've done that, I've always had a couple of confused chickens who don't know where to go when it's time to go to bed. And so that's why I do it like this now. Where are you going, little Miss Sassy? I know you're getting too tall to walk under that wire. Go back to the rest of your family. Let's go. There you go. You too, Betty Rubble. Come on, Belle. How's it going, Betty White? Look at Belle and Betty White side by side. You can just see how thick and like a fireplug Belle is versus Betty White, sort of longer and leaner and taller. And even though Belle is, gosh, almost a month, maybe even six weeks older, she's now a good deal shorter. How's my Annabelle? Oh, you're a good girl. Got plenty of water. That's good to see. And here's Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Now she's going to probably try to run away. Hey, Amanda Hug and Kiss. How's it going? Yeah, I'll keep them in here for tonight. I was coming up here to see how much they graze, but it looks like they got plenty more. I was also coming up here to see if they needed to move to the next paddock, but it looks like they got plenty of grass for overnight and I'll probably be up here around six, seven a.m. tomorrow. But actually, tomorrow is kind of a big deal on the farm because I'm actually going to leave the farm. So last year, we had planned to actually go on a trip to Scotland. But because of a few issues that popped up, we had to cancel that trip. And so Allison was really bummed. And I'll admit, I was even kind of disappointed, too, even though I kind of hate leaving the farm at the same time. But this year, this summer, an opportunity actually popped up to go to a foreign country and get away for a week. And while there's like definitely some business elements to it, it should also be kind of fun. And Allison's coming with me. And I think we're going to have a really great time. And so, yes, first thing tomorrow morning, I'm going to come up here, do my chores, and then we're going to get out of here and head to Boston and go to the airport. And then from the airport, we're going to be going elsewhere. I'm not worried about the farm or the farm animals. My friends, Paul and Olivia, who you guys met in a recent video, they are actually here. One of the reasons they were even coming here was to farm sit for us. And so they'll be staying here on the farm, taking care of everything for the week that we're gone. And all in all, it should actually be a really good experience. And I might make a video about it. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to make a video about it or not. I hate to be really cryptic, but I'll know eventually. And either I'll make a video or I'm just going to act like it never happened. And it's going to be one of those two things. And I apologize if that's the latter. But I will say I am going to miss this place, particularly just being out here right now while it's kind of like quiet time and everything is just sort of settling down. And I can just hear the cattle like chewing their cud. I hear the crickets and frogs. And I don't know. It just makes me feel very happy to be here and very lucky to be here. And yeah, I'll be back real soon. And I might not even be here the next time I come back to you guys. We'll see. Have a great night.