Escape Artists at the Blueberry Farm

One thing we usually tell customers is that the fences are to keep the animals safe from people, not necessarily to keep the animals contained. In some cases, we've gone so far as to say that the animals can get out at will, so please don't provoke them to do so.

Now, in all reality, this usually only happens occasionally, or only with certain of the animals. This summer, however, there must have been Houdini lessons for the animals at Farmer Mac's because we don't seem to be able to contain anything except the horses.

The smallest of the goats have always had an escape hatch. Many of you may have seen the babies wandering around the parking lot. I got home from work two days ago and all the goats were out. I thought at the time that someone must have left the gate open because the daddy goat usually doesn't escape. Then yesterday when I got home, I realized my mistake.

All the goats were out except the daddy. I was over looking at the chicken pen and as I was walking back across the yard, I had to stop and watch the progress being made inside the pond area fence.

Mr. Goat stood up on that big rock we have leaning up against the inside corner of the fence. He put his front right hoof on the bottom wire of the fence, balanced himself and then put his left front hoof right beside it. He walked himself up the fence until he was at the second from the top wire. Then he carefully lifted his right foot over and put it right beside the left. He repeated this action with his left so that both of his front legs were on the outside of the fence and his hind legs were on the top of the rock. He gathered himself made a lunge over the fence. His back legs brushed the top wire but he made it to the ground on all 4 hoofs, his legs buckling a bit as he landed. Slickest thing I've seen him do all year.

You'd think that would be the end of the story, but no. The chickens have all managed to get themselves enough flying strength to escape the roost at will. The one that had the broken leg (BJ, our lab/retreiver who loves babies, carried it around in his mouth when it was a chick and accidentally crunched down too hard) doesn't do this as often as the other chickens, but they were all outside the enclosure this morning at feeding time.

So between ducks who were only contained until they grew large enough to escape the hawks, dogs who don't know the meaning of a fence, unconfined chickens, and escaping goats, we have a yard full of animals at any given time during the day. Good thing the dogs are used to living with chickens and ducks or it would be a difficult decision on which to decide between!

August Happenings on the Blueberry Farm

Michigan was beautiful, as always, but they are having the coldest summer on record this year so we nearly froze to death. I remember thinking that I don't complain about the heat in the summer because I complain about the cold in the winter but I'm freezing and it's summer!

Funny story about that. We were driving back a couple of days ago. Our kids had been gone a total of 5 weeks, 2 to South Dakota and 3 to Michigan. By the time we made it back to the North Carolina border, they were completely acclimated to northern temperatures. Maali was sitting on the front seat of the van. I looked over at her and she looked like a hot puppy with her tongue hanging out and her shoulders hunched forward. She looked at me and said, "Mom, it's really hot." I sort of laughed at her and said back that it's summertime and we're back in North Carolina. It's hot in North Carolina in the summer. That's why we go to Michigan for a month because it's not so hot there. She thought about this for a minute and then said, "Maybe we should go back to Michigan!"

Even though it has been hot here, there are still things going on around the blueberry farm. In July, we built a chicken coop for our chickens that no longer look like pullets but are almost full grown birds. Hopefully they will be laying eggs within the next couple of months.

It's been too hot to remove plants from the field so we decided to wait until September to take the first field out and replant. The baby plants growing in the back field are weathering the heat pretty well, but we've got about a 25-30% loss rate on them which is typical.

We have our first farm birthday party scheduled for next weekend. One of our customers who will be turning 2 years old wants to have his birthday with the goats, chickens and ducks. His mom asked if they could have it here and we agreed. What fun we hope they have!

I'm finally getting more dirt in my front yard so I can get some grass to grow. Farmer Mac has been cutting a shallow trench along the edge of both fields for water to better run off and he's been putting the soil he removes from there in my front yard. It already looks much better and we haven't come anywhere near the grass planting stage yet.

I finally took those buckets of Lake Superior rocks that have been littering the yard and parking area and made them into a border around my flower bed by the house. I was about 10 feet short of being able to go from the front door all the way around to the back door, but I know where more are. :)

With any luck we can finish this retaining wall around the back and then free up a couple of more parking spaces in the driveway for next summer. I haven't decided what to do with our corner garden in the middle of the parking curve. We didn't plant this past spring and I'm thinking about removing it so we can have a better 2 car width around the parking lot curve. Maybe instead of having a big triangle garden there, I'll cut it off to about 2 feet depth right along the pond fence. Do goats eat geraniums? I think some wall baskets attached to the fence right there might be nice and I love red geraniums. Hmmm. I'll have to ask someone.

Beyond that, we're trying to avoid the heat as much as possible and to keep the fields watered and growing strong so we have a good harvest next year.