Dart Creek FarmDays in the life of the Lobby’s
Nov 28
I’m just posting a short entry to keep the blog going as it has been quite some time since I’ve written anything. So much has been going on at the old homestead. Chickens, Turkeys, Eggs, Barn, Family, Surgery…I will write about all of it soon! If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed! Apr 12
Everything is moving right along at Dart Creek Farm. The turkey poults and layer chicks have arrived and the broilers are out on the pasture in their movable pen. The sun has shown its face, the grass is getting greener, and the singing birds are starting to return. I started the pen down in the yard next to the house. I wanted them close for the first few days so I could keep an eye on them and make sure they got settled in without any problems. The pen gets moved once a day after they’ve had a chance to eat all of the fresh greens, worms, and bugs in that area. It will take about a week to make it out of the yard and into the big pasture. They have already gotten used to the process of the house moving to fresh grass.
After researching for many months and reading about various pasture pen designs, I settled on this one. Part of the reason was that I had all the materials on hand already. The 4′x16′ livestock panels and chicken wire came from the old chicken yard I have been slowly deconstructing. The cedar wood for the frame and and door came from my pile of “hippie wood” I got from Idaho a few months ago. The bell waterer came from a set of 5 I bought from someone off eBay (got a tip from a fellow APPPA member) for a really good price. The 5 gallon bucket I picked up from the Rebuilding Center in Portland for 25 cents. While I was there I also bought a sink and and tile to build an outdoor processing station (pictures are on the way). The feeder was made from materials I had laying around, PVC pipe, wood ends, screws, hung from the ceiling with saved bailing twine. The tarps to cover the whole things came from the dwindling pile of horse stall bedding.
Here I just filled the PVC feeder. The chickens are slowly learning to peck the grass and look for bugs, but they go crazy for the natural feed crumbles.
The brooders are all ready for chickens and turkeys.
The turkey poults and layer chicks arrived on the same day. I was very busy putting the finishing touches on the turkey brooder so they would have a nice warm home. Here the turkeys are getting used to their new crib. The blue enclosure is made from the left over piece of barrel from the construction of the automatic chicken plucker. After the broilers are processed at the end of this month, the movable pen will be available for the turkeys to get some fresh pasture grass and bugs.
There is an outer door…
…and an inner door to prevent drafts from entering the brooder. I will eventually install window covers that are hinged and can close them in during bad weather.
Babs (Kim named him when he was young and didn’t know he was a rooster) and his ladies. The new layer chicks. We got a mix of heavies that lay big brown eggs.
So, now all there is to do is feed, water, and move the pen daily. The Cornish X’s will be processed around the 1st of May and then the daily chicken chores will be fairly easy for Kim, Kaitie, and Dylan to do while I’m recovering from the ‘ol chop o’rama. I’m hoping that by June I will be able to start another batch of broilers and another after that before the season is over. If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed! Apr 12
by Michael Lobby Well, it was a little bit of a frenzy getting the brooder ready for the arrival of the cornish cross chicks. I received a friendly early morning phone call from the post office the morning after their two day journey from Missouri. I could barely make out the voice on the phone as the little chicks were peeping loudly in the background. I converted the outside stalls of the barn to a chicken brooder, turkey brooder, and a remodeled stall for Chatta (Dylan’s horse).
The girls are always interested in what’s going on.
I framed the inside like a horse stall so one day when I have a movable pasture pen for the layers, we can use it for a horse. Home for the Cornish X’s. Feed is placed on newspaper for the first couple of days so they don’t eat the bedding. After that they will start eating from a feeder. The red bell is a waterer that is gravity-fed from a 5 gallon bucket.
Here is Dylan checking out his dinner. The lamps have 250 watt bulbs that warm the area under them to about 95 degrees. They are gradually raised above the floor until the chicks don’t need the heat anymore and can go out on to the pasture.
Chatta’s new digs.
Eventually, the space next to Chatta’s stall will be closed in also. That would bring the barn up to ten 12×12 spaces for horses and farm animals.
The turkey brooder will house 25 Broad Breasted Giant White Turkeys. I have begun deconstructing the the old chicken coop/yard and reusing the materials for other things. The door of the turkey brooder came from the old yard. The cedar that frames the windows is from a load of cedar I got from Idaho last Summer. Reuse is a very big thing for me personally. There are materials I used for the barn that came from our last two houses. I figured out I’ve reused about 90% of the old barn in the construction of this new one. The downside of reuse, though, is the fact that our shop and storage shed is getting pretty packed with things that “I could use for something someday.”
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by Michael Lobby Well, my surgery has been scheduled and I have just enough time to raise one batch of pasture-raised broilers. I placed my order for the day old chicks and they should be arriving next Friday. So, a lot of work to do this weekend to get ready for the little peepers. I will be enclosing one of the outside stalls and installing bell waterers, warming lights and feeders. The stall should be quite warm and cozy and ready for them after their long journey from Cackle Hatchery in Missouri. The 10-day weather forecast is calling for some “light snow at 500 feet this weekend” which for us translates to icy driveway. It should mellow out by the end of the week when the chicks are scheduled to arrive at the post office. They will remain in the brooder stall for about 3 weeks before we can start to harden them off for transfer to a moveable pen in the pasture (which I still have to build). Their remaining time will be spent in the pen on fresh grass. The pen will be moved on a daily basis so the chicks can feast on new greens and bugs and leave their rich fertilizer behind. At about the 8 week point they will dress out at 4-6lbs. They will be available for pickup at the farm on butchering day for all those who placed their orders and reserved some of this delicious farm raised goodness. My plan is to recover from surgery by the end of July and then start another batch that first week of August. Hay will be cut, baled and stored by then. I’m also looking forward to raising some plump turkeys to be available for the holiday season. We are beginning to feel the symptoms of Spring Fever and are very excited about a productive growing season! Look for updates on this blog as well as our farm site www.dartcreekfarm.com If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed! Feb 14
by Michael Lobby Much has happened since our last post. Summer, sadly, came to an end, although the Fall is so beautiful here. Dylan turned the big 9 years old. He started the 3rd grade at a new school. Kaitie is growing up so fast. She started the 6th grade a new school also…one school for the whole 6th grade class…a much easier transition for the very awkward time that starts at age 11. As always a lot of work was done on the farm with building and repairing fences, expanding the arena, managing a very large amount of horse manure, taking care of chickens and horses and dogs, getting ready for the coming cold and rain and snow of Winter. We have established a master drawing of our proposed garden and done some major planning for raising pastured poultry this coming Spring/Summer. I built a Whizbang chicken plucker that will pluck a couple or three broilers in 15 to 20 seconds flat. December brought us record snowfall and the inevitable frozen driveway, power outages, frozen pipes, snowed in chickens and horses and Lobby’s. The month also brought us a hasty, yet wonderful surprise just in time for all the bad weather - our first foster child. It was a whirlwind experience that we had not been planning on until the Spring. We went from one day in the normal hectic and crazy life of the Lobby’s to having to care for a 6 month old little boy who was in need of a safe house and a family with a lot of love to give. He came to the right place and has settled in quite nicely. So nicely that I was able to go outside and spend a substantial amount of time working in the barn. Which brings me to the thing that inspired me to blog again. The pure bliss of getting down to the so basic task of working with ones hands. I had forgotten about one of the great things about living where we do…the opportunity to escape from all the stress and worry and over-stimulation of life in the city and a job and the economy and all that goes along with them. I, with my son at my side, was banging a hammer, sweating, prying lumber, pulling nails, cleaning water buckets, bringing horses in, burning scrap lumber, all to get ready to build another stall and start on the tack and feed room inside the barn. I was hot and tired and sore, limping… and happy. Very happy. And even happier when we went into the house to find my beautiful wife and daughter putting the finishing touches on a wonderful feast of fresh sushi. Oh how I love the farm life… I also met with my doctor the other day to discuss the future of my left foot. As some of you may know I have, for a very long time now, had a somewhat love/hate relationship with that foot. The love ’cause I need it to walk and get to all the places I need to go. The hate ’cause of all the years of pain and swelling and surgeries and doctor visits and all it’s affect on my work and family life. So, a major decision has been made and sometime in the coming months I will be inviting many of you to a going away party. I’m having a major surgery that I am confident will help propel me forward into my 4th decade and make it the best one of all. We will celebrate the end of one life and the beginning of and better life (I hadn’t really thought it could get much better before this decision). So much to do before I’m off my feet for awhile. Finish the stalls and tack room in the barn, convert the outside stalls to a brooder for the day old chicks, clean and organize the shop and move all the horse stuff/tack/feed into the new tack room, finish Kaitie’s room remodel, and get a good start on the garden. Reality dictates that all of these things won’t get done before surgery, but I am going to work as hard as I can to get as much of it done as I can. One of the great things about getting all these projects done is that, as hard as the work is, I am simply in my heaven while I’m doing them. Oh how I love the farm life… If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed! Aug 04
Another beautiful day in Bonners Ferry. This sleeping in is becoming a habit, I wonder if there is a 12 step program for late risers? We’ve been having so much fun working side by side that you don’t even know how wore out your body is until it hits the bed. I awoke to the site of Terry conditioning Mikey’s keans that he absentmindedly walked into Smith creek in.
It was another busy canning day. Kelli and I discovered tomatoes are work intensive. Good thing she only bought 50 lbs! Our salsa from yesterday came out perfect, at first we feared in may be too hot and all our work in vain. Thankfully the heat was tempered throughout the canning process and it was perfecto! So today we decided spaghetti sauce was the next big job.
As I was organizing day 3’s photos It became apparent that Emily and Kt were in pretty much everyone of them. These girls are always together. And when they’re not there is just a little tinge of distress. Like the other day they were playing hide and go seek. Emily having the home court advantage kept KT seeking a little too long and you could see the strain it was causing her as she asked in a desperate, whiny voice “have you seen Emily?!!!!!” So here is a montage of the girls as they did various chores throughout the day…
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by Kimberly Lobby Woops I’m really taking this vacation thing really serious. After Sleeping in until 9:30 I woke to find this…
After breakfast the boys went into the shop and Kelli and I tried to decide what to can next. Katie discovered that little Buddy got himself into something really, really stinky. So the girls decided it was time for a makeover…
I love this picture for two reasons. Reason #1 it looks like Mikey is lecturing Christopher. But on closer look you will note the teenager Christopher is not rolling his eyes or anything so Mikey must be telling him he’s #1 or something. #2 reason to love this picture is all the adults in this shop are wearing ear protection… Hey maybe we’re deafening the poor teenager with our loud power tools and he really can’t here us. Naw, that doesn’t make sense, does it?
Next we went to Smith Creek. It was just about 20 minutes up the mountain .Everyone just scattered climbing all over the rocks. When I say everyone I mean the kids and Mikey.
This is a shot on our way back down the mountain. The river you see is the Kootenai winding through the valley. What a perfect ending to day 2 in Bonners Ferry.
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by Kimberly Lobby Vacations are a wonderful time to catch up. Like on this post for instance, these pictures are from 3 weeks ago. We had a too short visit from Michael’s uncle ,Richard ,and our cousins Samira and Naima. The girls, kids and I went to Sauvies Island to pick fruit for canning…
Wheatberries
Rasberries
Wait just a minute here, did I say productive?!
Okay girl, your lucky your so damn cute!
Speaking of cuteness, look at my Dillbilly!
This is blurry, I know, my auto focus went kaput. I just wanted to show you this, I love this girl to pieces!
I do have a less goofy one of these shots, thanks Dilbert! Where did you get that goofy streak?
Beautiful Naima
Wow!
And just when you thought they were angelic they morph into this.
And this.
And quickly back to this.
Overall, we had a yummy, bountiful day!
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by Kimberly Lobby Today we woke up at the Wright’s after driving 12 hours. We picked up a hay elevator in Chewalah, WA that our friend Kelli found on Criag’s list. It took us about 3 hrs off course but it will pay for itself when it zips up the remaining bales into our loft. We pulled into the Wright’s around 10:30 and as usual Terry didn’t do what I told him to do and go ahead and eat and not wait for us when we called 2 hours before. I was secretly happy though, there’s nothing better then a home cooked meal after being on the road all day. And Kelli’s cooking is so yummy!!!!! After a quick catch up the grown ups hit the sack but the kids stayed up to “2:30″ so they say… The next morning I woke up and let Buddy out and, low and behold, the homestead has grown! The pastures were fenced and cross fenced. There were two horses in one and two cows in another. I heard the goats bleating to be milked and the roosters were busy trying to get all those teenagers out of their fart sacks. After a long haul to the top of the hill I met Lena and Tanner, the equines. Lena was very curious and greeted me right away, making sure I new all her favorite scratching spots. Tanner, however, was rolled up in a little ball on the ground content just to stare at me. When he finally decided he would check me out he got up just like a cat stretching out his front legs and stretching his neck out for a good long time, then his back right leg straight out behind him, then the left. Then he did crouching dog and some other pose I don’t know too well, I think it is called lucky horse and then, only then did he come to me and permit me to pay homage. If he didn’t have his ding-a-ling hanging down for the whole world to see I would have thought he was a she. So dramatic and loves attention, whew! After that we toured the rest of the place, goats, chickens, calfs, and furniture. Which I will post about later. Kelli needed to go to town and the boys in the shop and that left me with 7 kids OMG! One has a bad case of tennage-itis and wouldn’t pose a problem to me. So I squished the rest of them into the highlander and took them to Brush lake, which was a ten minute drive from their house.
Here is Katlyn Wright and Kaitlyn Lobby preparing for their dive.
Here is Kaitie after the jump. She assured us that the screaming had nothing to do with the water temp, just the “excitement” of being in it, yeah right!
Here is my baby boy considering his entrance.
Here is Kelli’s baby boy wondering why he got in there.
He figured it out and went in again!
Dylan finally made it in, he needed Michael there for support though.
Dilbert is missing the edge of the pool here, so Katlyn W. is lending her towel for support.
Here she is, isn’t she beautiful? She’s even funny!
Here we are in a new spot, easier entrance.
Here’s Marty throwing a stick for the dogs.
I Love action shots.
This is my favorite, you see the stick splashing in and Kaitie’s little buns of steel as she dives for it! Here’s Marty waiting for the winning retriever. See Michael overtook Kaitie. He’s always overtaking people!
Katlyn found some weird thing floating in the lake.
It looks like a little Barbie’s silicone breast implant! So Michael hates getting pictures taken, theres always a killjoy.
This is taken from the scenic overlook. Their house is right in the middle with the teal roof.
Look at these good looking kids. It was hard getting this because they were worried about me…
I was standing in the middle of the road, my life story!
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by Michael Lobby Well, it’s almost the end of July and I can’t believe the Summer is going by so fast. We had quite a busy week, lots of horsey stuff. The barn was full of activity with lessons, hoof trimming, hay bucking, egg hunting, and a nice visit from my uncle and cousins from Eugene. Repairs were made to the chicken coop in addition to a new shade area so all the hens could take their dirt baths out of the hot sun. We obviously have to make more repairs as the smaller hens can be found wandering around the yard outside the coop. And an enlightening discovery (or just a realization) about a certain “hen.” I had been trying to convince Kim that her beloved Babs was not the unique and beautiful hen she was hoping for, but a quite lovely and colorful boy chicken. I knew this by the not-so-henlike behavior of jumping on the others and going for a ride. Kim was in denial (I think the kids were too) about her being a, yes I’m gonna say it, Rooster. The final giveaway was the loud cockadoodledoo out of his beak after having his way with one of the girls. Oh well, he’s still Babs, only now will probably be on his way to a barbeque nearby. Kim and the kids (mostly Kim) cleaned up the barn and rearranged the feed room into one stall and the tack room into another temporarily until I can get the official tack room finished. It needed to be done as we have new sets of saddles and bridles and, yeah, that stuff for the new boarders. I was able to empty another stall of hay and get another 50 bales up into the loft. That was after I discovered I started the stack too far from one end and wouldn’t be able to fit all the hay up there. So I spent half a day restacking 110 bales before I added the next 50 to make sure there would be room for all of it. Whew! Great workout. Let’s see, that was probably a week ago. Still have 160 bales up. My workout plan has, so far, fallen flat. But, thanks to Kelli I found and old a hay elevator that I’m going to try and pick up this week. We’ll see… I added another cross fence to divide the lower pasture and make room for Velvet, the new mare that will be staying with us. The initial visit between the mares didn’t go so well. Pretty much as soon as I tied the last wire and turned on the fence charger, one of them, I think it was Molly, kicked through and ripped down the fence. Grrrrrr…hours of work demolished and a few seconds. I went and got Kim to help me get the big mares moved before they did the same to the next fence. When Kim went in the pasture (wearing shorts), sure enough, the same thing happened again - one of the mares kicked through the fence. The wire got caught up in one of their legs and as they ran pulling the wire, it cut right across the back of Kim’s legs at the knee. Ouch! It looked like she had been whipped and then burned. She was ‘hurtin for a few days. Poor Kimmy. But we learned our lesson…shorts + fence wire + horses = pain. So, I spent the rest of the day rewiring the fence and getting the mares situated in the pastures to the sides of the geldings. Sometimes girls just can’t get along. Kim had taken our cousins and the kids to Sauvie Island to pick berries. She came home with a few flats that we canned. It wasn’t a whole lot compared to the super-canning-homesteader Kelli Wright, but it’s giving us some practice and help planning for next year. We have made a master plan of our future garden that we hope to start on at Summer’s end. Right now we’re just waiting for the blackberries to ripen so we can pick and then get rid of the overgrown buggers. Oh so much to do…and loving every minute of it. If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed! Wordpress Themes by Sabiostar web development studio.
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