I'm on the Drover Path now

Do you see the Tree Goddess?

 

Roots of Inspiration

 

Back in the woods at dawn Violet plays on the rocks

 

They grew fast

6 Weeks old

The Story of the Geese

The goslings came from Metzger's Poultry in California.
The post office helped by calling me the morning they came in
They were in a little cardboard box.
Into the brooder they went with their heat lamp

She had a twisted hickory whip and knew how to use it

Not mean but very firm
Touch him with the whip so that he wants to move away from it
then give the voice command Gee or Haw
soon he will be moving the way you want and you don't even have to touch him

Making Friends

 

Nancy Kalal came from Cranberry Meadow Farm to see Frye

Nancy with her team of Milking Shorthorns named Rock and Roll

The honey harvest this year- I left plenty for the bees

 

The nettles grew

 

The brugmansia bloomed

A little white spider made its home on the bloom

I dressed up in a colonial costume to show Frye to the public

At Colonial Plantation

Cloudy, the Alpha Sheep watched it all go down

 

Getting Abby to do some work

Abby didn't go far.  After all, she is placid and sweet, kind of like a gigantic 1800 lb golden retriever.  I rode her twice with the harness bridle, and found her to be stubborn but not unworkable.  I doubt she had ever been ridden, only harnessed and worked.

I soon discovered that Abby has some behavior problems- she doesn't like to stop when you tell her to, she won't plow a straight row, and she WILL NOT allow you to clean her feet.  When you ask her to lift up one of her feet she puts all her weight on it, and picks up the one on the opposite side.

I got the harness on Abby with the help of a WWOOFer (World Wide Organization of Organic Farmers), and hitched Abby up to a huge old tire.  I taught Maury (the King of weekend volunteers at Colonial Plantation) how to drive.  He was quite pleased to get this picture taken in a Colonial setting- you wouldn't know Abby is pulling an old tire.

Abby

Abby is a Belgian draft horse trained by the Amish.  She is about 23 years old according to the vet.  David was told she was 16.  A Colonial Plantation Myth holds that  she was a really great horse and that she LOVES to work.

Warren and I spent 2 hours trying to figure out her work harness.  Neither of us had ever seen one before.  We took her out to the field and gave her some hay.  We found the harness in the barn, and put it in the wheelbarrow and wheeled it down to her, where we set it out on a fence to look at the different parts.  I looked on Wikihow using my phone to find pictures of how to put it on Abby.

We figured out that we had all the parts but the collar, so I went to the barn to get it.  I brought it back to the field, and Abby took one look at it and ran off.

First the tether

Warren decided that Frye needed better grass and also needed to learn to stay on a tether as his first lesson.
He set a large steel post in the ground and tethered Frye to it with a chain attached to his halter.

We had to keep visiting children away from Frye, we decided after he

licked one of them from top to bottom ("OOOH, ICKY!" said the kid)

Frye

Frye is quite friendly.  He likes to lick you if he can.  He will allow you to lead him with great difficulty. He has a tendency to lower his horns toward you on the way to wherever you are taking him.  He is not very well behaved, and is learning that you are much smaller than him and he can do whatever he wants.  He probably weighs about 800 lbs. and is 14 months old.

Colonial Plantation Era

This growing season I got busy with 5 new chicks, 2 tufted buff goslings (send by mail from Metzger Poultry in California.  Since one of my hens "went broody" this spring, I gave her two fertilized eggs to hatch which she did and now I also have 2 sweet cuckoo maran chicks along with the others.

I made Hugelkultur beds this year, since my raised bed frames were rotting, and visited Sweetwater Bakery to learn how to load and burn the wood for my oven.

I called Warren Graham, my beekeeping mentor and asked him to come and consult on the condition of my hives this spring.  I mentioned  that I would be willing to help him with the bees at Colonial Plantation as this year I won't be volunteering at Rushton Farm.

Two days later I got a call from Warren asking me if I wanted to help train the steer at Colonial Plantation.  He had just found out that the farmer there was leaving and there was no one to help handle the steer who is 13 months old and very large.  David, the farmer, raised him from a calf, bottle feeding him.  Also, there was a draft horse there that no one knew how to harness.