Getting the Farm Ready for Winter… Plus 4 Surprise Ducklings!

Mark and Tara here and welcome to the 10-acre woods on this, uh, actually not a bad morning. There's a little bit of a sprinkle mist happening. The temperature is much better. Well, yeah, but you have to look at the positive side, right? There's no snow and it is not freezing or close to it. So this past week we were down just above the freezing point. So it was, uh, it's getting to be that time of year. Our channel has hit another milestone. So I've been watching it and one video in particular, our wool processing video from a couple years ago, just hit 1 million views. So the first video on our channel to hit 1 million. So that's a milestone. A lot of people have been enjoying that. A lot of people watching now have probably started, like found our channel through that video. Because I think there's something like, I think there's been 13,000 subscribers because of that video. So, so that's interesting. So if you haven't seen it, uh, I will put a link at the end of the video on this and a card somewhere up here. If you're watching it on your mobile phone, I think it or computer, it pops up not on a TV. I don't think it pops up, but, uh, anyway, check it out. Mushrooms. Yeah. And you never know about mushrooms. We've always thought about mushrooms and which ones are edible and which ones aren't. And it's just one more thing to learn, right? So we just don't touch them. Okay. So they're all in the buildings. So instead of, uh, Shorty and I'm getting there. So you'll just feed Shorty and JD in their building. We're going to throw hay in all the buildings. If the sun comes out later, then we'll, uh. Just give them hay this morning. Yeah. Mushrooms everywhere. Yeah. There's different types. Oh yeah. Oh look. One, two, three. Those ones I know, I think they're edible, but there's a fourth time there. We think they're edible. Yeah. Yeah. They're all over. Mushroom season. The dampness. Not the right time. Yeah. Well, we'll, we'll leave them be. This soil is so nice. You know, it's funny because we talk about how, like I've never cleared the poop out of here, but these original rocks are the original rocks that were in front of my greenhouse and they have not raised up in height at all. Like they're still showing. Well, it is kind of lower in that area. Okay. Yeah. Years ago we, uh, we built a greenhouse out of timber and then we had a bunch of plexiglass that, um, Tara's uncle, aunt and uncle had, and they were tearing down this, uh, all this plexiglass that was around a pool. So they had built a pool and somehow, uh, he got, I think he got it from the Hutterites. I think it was a Hutterite colony that was into plexiglass and he got a bunch. Yeah. Well, we've still got a bunch of it, but not nearly as much as we did. But I'll raise that side so that the water can go. Yeah. Water management is always, always an issue. So you've always got to watch that. You know, the eaves trough here has helped out considerably, uh, goes back and pushes it. Yeah. They knocked it off. There's a, uh, a trench just past that. It looks like it's kind of banged up a little bit, but having all the water come off the backside versus coming off the front and creating a mucky mess. Uh, this eaves we put up last year has worked great. This building here, of course, the, the roof is sloping away. So we're trying to incorporate water management into our construction, which is something we didn't really do in the past. Uh, but we've been modifying some of the buildings like the roof line of that building, uh, was changed as well. A couple of years ago. Oh, they're up. So we have more pigeon babies. It's dark in here. Put some lights up for the winter months. No, it's not plugged in. Okay. Anyway, here's the two, the two newbies. So they were down here in a nest down in that area. All right. So Tara's put some hay out here, uh, in the building. And she also, uh, she started doing the plastic. So the plastic is down on that side for winter. Cause this is where the ducks and geese and roosters go in the winter months. And then there'll be Polly that comes down out the other side of that. And those birds will come in and then this will all get pollied off and closed off for the What she has also done is she started because it was getting chilly. All right. Okay. That's enough. I got it. She started pollying off this area here. Okay. You don't have to talk. You're just yapping. It's coming. Oh boy. Everybody gets so excited. Look at them line up out and around. So stay out of the mud except for the ducks and roosters, I guess. So Holly and Noel, where are they? Are they in here? Oh yeah, here they are. Hello Noel. How are you? You're getting a little better. Tiana Benton gave them apples. So these are the newbies that came in. Uh, we can have two weeks ago, right? Are you enjoying your hay? You're not out there with the rest of them, but they do. And it was nice to see they went out. The animals go out in the morning and then they go out in the mid afternoon and then evening. And these guys were right in there. Part of the herd, right? You're just getting into the routine. Then we have Holly. How are you, Holly? Hi. Yeah. Yeah. Hi. So they're doing excellent. Who's that? What are you waiting for? It says I don't want to go outside. It's wet out there. So yeah, we're getting ready for winter because it is coming. Charlie, what do you think of winter? What do you think of winter? You don't care. You just want to make sure you have enough food, right? Yes. Ah, silly boy. All right. So what did we get this week? We got mostly Romaine lettuce this week as a donation. We didn't get, we still got apples from last week. It's a mixed bag as to what we actually get in, uh, in donations for, uh, for fruits and vegetables. As long as, uh, as long as we have something for Charlie, he'll be happy. Want me to give him a banana? Oh, he's going, he's going out. Charlie, where are you going? You want a banana? You want a banana? Yeah. You sit down. Be a good boy. There you go. We'll grab it. So excited he didn't know how to grab it. Oh, there you go. Okay. Oh, okay. The two OGs, we got to get them. Uh, what about Petey and Piper? What do you got? Petey likes that, but Piper also likes that. Okay. All right. No, no, no, no. Stay out. Stay out. Okay. Here you go, Piper. Okay. LeBron, when you're going to get your, here, here, take that. Take it with you. Don't let them, don't let the others get it. There we go. Okay. Oh, happy pig. Right. See, now I'm saying right. Right. Right. Romaine. Now the geese love the Romaine. Any kind of, any kind of greens, everybody's got their favorite. The chickens are hanging out here watching, but as you can see in there, they've pretty much obliterated what they, they get, uh, the day we get the vegetables in, which is kind of midweek. We have a bunch of like strawberries. You can see a bunch of strawberries there. Uh, that is, um, I think that's a type of spinach or something there also. And so they get that right away because that stuff just doesn't, it doesn't, it spoils too quickly, but they are not out of the loop. Right. Are you still not? We'll go in and join the rest of the herd. Oh, hey. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, here we go. We have the hay kids. So we had, uh, ducklings over the last few weeks. And of course they're in there. We had a surprise duckling or duck hatch, which was in this building. We did look in this building at one time. You can see the remnants of the eggs that are in there. They all didn't hatch. There was only a few that hatched and she came out. Tiana actually saw that nest when she was sitting. I was looking in the other end of that, uh, little building, if you call it that. It's the bottom of a, bottom of a bed. It's a drawers go in there and we have four ducklings. I don't know where their mama is. She's probably eating, but we figured, okay, well, let's see how mama does here. She's got the spots in that Hill and underneath when she takes them each night. And then they pretty much hang out on the pond. So predators have not been an issue with them. And we figured we'd kind of let them do their thing. But now I think they're getting to an age where mama is like, ah, the kids are fine. Yeah. They just stay on the pond. So she's, I don't know which one she is. Uh, I think that might be her over there. Also there's willow tree. So we've had some challenges. Tara had to reinforce it and see how they push underneath to get at the grass, uh, at the bottom of this cage, we built around the tree to give it a chance to get some height. Uh, it's trimmed pretty good, but it's getting, getting some height. I remember last, I think it was last summer. I was excited to see it was at the top of this post here. So it is coming up. Uh, we just have to protect it from the animals of a couple more years. Maybe next year we'll trim some of the bottom ones and try to force that growth up and out. And eventually it will turn into that. So we've got a few other ones in the back in the garden area as well. So we'll, um, we, you know, we've been talking about planting those and getting those in the ground, uh, which we need to do at some point. Okay. So these guys in here, hi Sheldon. Good morning. Did you enjoy that Charlie? I don't have any more. Mom's coming. I think mom's coming with some more. Yeah. There she is. Cucumbers. Oh, right. Nana, Nana, Lisa, and the kids are still here. I just remembered that. Yeah. Is it tomorrow? I was thinking yeah, today or tomorrow. So they will be leaving this weekend. So it was a pleasure having her and her little kids, which were missing Panda. I don't know what Panda, Panda must be inside having a, so penguin, a little girl, Moo, a little boy and Charlie. Yeah. Yeah. Charlie and Panda. I better close this gate. I didn't lock it. I thought Tara might come in, but who knows? I might have an escapee. So this gate generally gets left open. We'll close it maybe in blizzards, but the, it's facing south. So our prevailing winds basically come from the, the north, north westerlies. Oh, where, yeah, there he is there. Panda. Yes. Our cute little boy. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, baby goats are always, they're always great. They're fun. Tara just cleaned out the water and dumped a bunch of water. The two newbies are, are like, what's going on here? What is she doing with our water? Oh, oh, they're coming. It's only been like a week, but yeah, they're doing great. Oh, a mouse. Oh, you flooded them. So they, I think they have a nest or something. They hang out underneath the watering and Tara flooded them. The two of them, that last one I saw was just soaked. Well, mice is just one of the things we have to live with here on the farm. You realize you did leave the door open to the barn? I don't know. Somebody bumped it in. Is Turbo in there? No, he's, he's out there. I can see him right there. He's busy with the, busy with the greens, right Shimmer? Yes. All right. Well, you guys enjoy your breakfast. We put up this camera here. So this is a, a Reolink track mix that we wired up and plugged in, get it up so the animals couldn't chew the cords. Deanna does some live streams. So she, she wanted one of the ducklings and a berry. Berry, you stay in. Yeah, you stay in. You stay in. I want to step on you. Yeah. Hi. Good morning. Good morning. Hi. How you doing? Yeah. And the ducklings. And I think one of the, I think one of the mommas jumped out. She gave up. She was like, okay, I'm out. You two take over the parenting. She was out on the other side of the fence. I saw last, last week sometime. So they're doing great. We've still got a few interested parties looking at some ducklings. But then some other people are like, well, we're going to wait until spring, right? Who wants to take birds just to have to enclose them in. But these guys, the remaining ones that don't find homes, we will, of course they'll go in with all the other birds for the winter. Momma's got some apples for you. Oh, and carrots. Oh, carrots. I'm not, yeah, one apple. And he's like, he's taken that thing. The classic rabbit and the carrot. He's like, I'm just going to take this into the corner and enjoy this with a rooster watching over his shoulder. So Tara, what's happening in your garden? Well, I think now like I'm just pulling all the medicinals and dehydrating for winter. So I will get those, the love, the perennials did well. I'll have to sort them and see what I'm planting and what is going over to the boys. But there's some neat ones. These ones, obviously though, they won't come back. They're perennials. So, but I will have the baskets for next year, but all these potted ones. So the echinacea, the comfrey, the mallow, the catnip, oregano, those will all be harvested for medicinal in the house. But you have to watch your timing. Like the coneflower, I have to wait until it's bulbed to take the seeds and then we'll have all the seeds as well and re-seed around. Mullion is another one which I let go crazy this year because it's a very high medicinal. So I'll harvest all that. The carrots, actually it's kind of funny because somebody mentioned the other day, how come I've never, it's been five years since I planted carrots. So it's, these are the best, the red ones, they're the best. You just let them go to seed. I let them go to seed and then I'm continuously pulling plants or carrots. That's a good carrot. Yeah, you didn't really do any, you watered a few times. I didn't water at all. The only thing I watered were the ones that we got from Costco and saved. And then of course those will come back, right? But I didn't water my garden once this year. Yeah, we had quite a bit of rain. Yeah, just enough rain here and there. So also the other one that will go to seed is your lettuces. So I haven't planted carrots or lettuce in five years or whatever. Catnip like crazy. Yeah, lots of catnip. This is St. John's wort, which I should harvest. Right now my dehydrator is, of course I'm not going to do it on a day where it's rainy, but it'll, once the sun comes out and it dries, then we'll do that. This yellow one over here is tansy, which is actually comes with a warning. So I actually have to pull these seeds so that I don't have any more plants anywhere else. The catnip went crazy here too. It just pops up. Catnip, man. But this yellow one, the tansy, I'll have to pull off the bottom, or the seeds. Asparagus, I bet you there's more asparagus in there. It could be, yeah. It'll all go to seed and then plant more. More, more over here. Yeah, I love the look of this though. But I planted, I took a bunch of the seeds and I planted asparagus so that the boys could take over to their place. Rhubarb will be going over to their, one of the rhubarbs, I believe. We did get grapes this year. They're very, very seedy. They're more of a wine grape. So not, I mean, there's a, there's a, there was a lot like considering they're only two years old, but they're not what I bought. I bought from a local, they're supposed to be like edible grapes, not wine grapes. And no, there's three seeds in each one and they definitely are a wine grape, not. Well, maybe in a few years we'll make some wine. Maybe. I mean, but I mean, if anybody wants grapes, there's tons of babies. Oh yeah, there is. Yeah. I see them. Yeah. There's gotta be probably a hundred little plants. So that'll come, but I didn't, I didn't water, but the mullion I want, I wanted to seed mullion everywhere because that's very medicinal and beautiful. When it's good for cleansing lungs, is it? Yeah. Mullion's good for a lot of different things, but a lot of the plants are like, there's, there's different. So if mullion doesn't work, use echinacea. If it doesn't, but I use it for the animals, right. Or, or humans, I guess. I gave a lot of mullion away last year. Yeah. Ran out for my own. So I'm like, I'm this year, I'm not running out. Yeah. Yeah. All the, I see my, these were the ones that all died. Yeah. But it looks like there's a few that came back. These guys technically all died. Yeah. We had some wind that flew through and kind of flew a few things over. Yeah. Yeah. Here's what it is. And we didn't do potatoes this year, so we'll, uh, yeah, she hasn't really done anything. And then has the raspberries come back at all? I haven't, I haven't. So there's, oh, there is some, but we'll see. Maybe they'll come back more. This was all raspberry. There's some down there and then there's a few sparse plants. There's a bright red. But the thing is, they're still in there. Yeah. There's something to be said that these raspberries are so much better though. They just had a bad year. They just died out, but. Yeah. Yeah. So that's, uh, that's what's been going on in the garden. Uh, not a lot of maintenance, but, uh, there's quite a bit of growth. Once you get your garden up and going, then. Well that, and that's the thing, right? I wanted to go all perennials and figure out this because yeah, you're not seeding and what, what does it, well, I mean, if they're next year, it'll come back, right? Yeah. I guess. So the moral is don't, don't pick them all. Don't pick them all. Yeah. So that is it for this video. Hope you enjoyed it. Uh, it's, uh, yeah, it's getting cooler by the, by the week and usually October 31st, if we have snow, it's, it's here to stay. So we're still a little ways away, but then again, it's, you know, it's, it's mid, mid to the latter part of September now. So not far off. It's a six, six, six weeks ish. So anyway, um, again, I hope you enjoyed this video. If you did, please click on that thumbs up. It helps us out here. Share it with your friends and family. And we hope to see you next time here at the 10 Acre Woods. Take care and have a wonderful week.