It was snacking on the necks of 8 ducklings and two chickens. It looked at her and stayed perfectly still. She ran to the house to alert me.

I accompanied her to the chicken coop where it still was happily munching the birds. “Hand me that board” I told her as I crept closer to whacking range. First I snapped a photo:

For a long while there was a stare down between me and the mink, then I went at it with the 4×4 board and failed. It still didn’t run off so I grabbed a kitty litter bin that was nearby and set it to catch the bugger. I managed to get it to walk in my bin and as I tried to close it in it jumped over my hand and took off. If I only had a hand gun…

Guess it’s time to bait some traps & clean up some dead birds before we take the girls to the town easter egg hunt. Then maybe we can buy a few more ducks while we are out and about…

Poor ducklings

The post Wildlife Encounters on the Homestead: The American Mink appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

There’s lots going on here at Homestead right now. One of the most exciting things that we have going on is that we’ve decided to take up Maple sugaring! 

Initially we had planned on maple sugaring to sell syrup, as one of our first family farm projects. We wrote the business plan, had sugar shack building plans, went shopping for evaporator tables and set out to try to get financing so that we could tap the trees this year. Unfortunately there just wasn’t enough time to line the financing and equipment up before the syrup started running. Maybe we’ll launch the project next year?! Well, we decided as a family that we simply could not live without Maple syrup this year and that it would be easy enough for us to make a few gallons for ourselves as a warm-up to our possible future business venture.

So, we bought just a few cheap taps & spiles and we rustled up some milk jugs & various containers around the house. Nathan grabbed his drill and went out and tapped the two trees at the house and some sugar maples that were a ways away from the house. Right away the sap was flowing. 

So, we’ve had our hands full with livestock, especially newborn livestock!

I’ve also got several chickens in my garage in a brooder growing up so that they can soon join our chicken flock outdoors. Lastly, I have 36 bantam eggs finishing up incubation right now, bought online at the beginning of the month. It seems like about 14 of the incubating eggs will hatch in a week. This is good news to me since the entire first batch of eggs I bought online didn’t remain viable once shipped to me. Next I want duck & turkey eggs.

Things have been certainly busy around the homestead where animals are concerned, just how we like it. I don’t expect things to die down anytime soon since were still working on having goat babies

We’ve also decided that we’d like to give ourselves a shot growing some produce for other folks in the area. We already grow food for our family and tend a fairly large garden in the summer and fall months and we have lots of family farm dreams that we like to achieve… Unfortunately, funding is a roadblock where these dreams are concerned. And we hate to take out a loan and overextend ourselves.

We hope to raise a little bit of “seed money” for projects with a tiny CSA this year. Ideally, our dreams of maple sugaring and dairy goat raising can be made to happen gradually as we’re able to trickle money in with our various projects. So like any farm family, we are always dreaming and always busy with something but we’re having a blast.

If you are in Pope or Johnson County in Southern Illinois (also Paducah, Kentucky or Evansville Indiana are possible delivery locations) and are interested in subscribing to our CSA click here for more info.

The post The island of orphaned farm animals & more… appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

Last night when I heard a tiny baby cough coming from the bedroom I went in all concerned. Has he been sleeping so long because he is getting a cold? I peek in on him and see exposed penis…

I find golden beads of urine, on his belly, his arms, his face and his hair…that sprayed every which way. He’s coughing because he’s just gotten a golden shower.  

His bed was soaked, his body was drenched. Poor guy thought he was drowning in his bed I bet.

After a nice warm bath he was good as new again.

The post It’s unfortunate when you “golden shower” yourself… Right? appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

Seeds have been sowed, our future chicken/ garden space is being readied. I’ve taken over care of the 40 meat birds. Nathan learned to drive a riding mower, he helped repair electric cattle fencing, he has helped with tractor mowing. A dining room is being constructed near the farm’s big kitchen garden. There has been weeding, snake killing, tomato trellising and raspberry picking. We’ve learned the weighing of juvenile shrimp, Nathan and Everly have moved LOTS of juvenile shrimp from the nursery pools to their permanent ponds while a crew from RFD – TV shot some footage of the process. 

We’ve learned of a cherry tree off our back deck and also spotted some tiny apples beginning to form on another tree off the deck. We also believe we have several maple trees that are tappable come spring. Time to gather tapping supplies!

We had a long day of moving over the weekend… again. We didn’t get all our stuff moved on the first round and we’d done zero cleaning of the old place so we made another trip over the weekend.

We succeeded at arriving in Evansville at a reasonable hour but we failed at leaving at one. When pulled out of town with a loaded truck the Evansville sun was setting. That should have landed us home at 10:30 pm. Not ideal but we decided we were just rolling with the punches.

Once we turned on our new home’s street, we were driving along the gravel road, thinking of arriving at home when things went very wrong. At first I thought Nathan had slowed the trailer or that the trailer was struggling to climb the hill we were on… then I realized the trailer wasn’t’ slowing, it was rolling backwards! 

I hit the break, braced myself and the trailer slammed into the front of the Prius so hard it woke the kids and sloshed my water (that was in a cup holder) all over my lap. After the impact I engaged the emergency break and tried to make sense of what had happen.

Picture a seriously loaded up stock trailer, hillbilly style. Now pretend you are looking at it from behind – that was me. Now visualize it rolling backwards and slamming against your car causing your car to roll back a bit… Then it stops. 

Once I was sure the momentum and motion had ceased I reassured my backseat full of panicked kids that we were okay. There was all sorts of crying and question asking. Then I call out my window to Nathan. “Hello? Is every thing okay up there because I think we are holding the trailer with our car.” 

It turns out the truck that was towing the trailer ran out of gas despite the reassurances we were given that we should have enough gas… oh and the gas gague is wonky and doesn’t provide an accurate read. Now we know. LOL.

The two lessons we learned are:

1. Always make sure, even if someone reassures you.
2. Never follow a heavy trailer up a hill. Always lead the trailer.

Word is that many poor unsuspecting souls have lost loads of things or control of their vehicles while on the hill we were navigating. And now we know better for next time ;P

The post On crashing and lessons learned during the first week of farm life. appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

The girls woke us this morning at the butt crack of dawn saying “we need to get an early start to the day guys, there is cherry picking to do!” Here is them out picking cherries out in their PJ’s ——->

Earlier in the week we got word about a long forgotten cherry tree that was uncovered on the property we would be living at. The girls were stoked to hear this and have visited the tree often today to load up on sweet treats.

Today we also unpacked the trailer and got the chickens & turkeys set up with a temporary house. This morning poor Adalyn was farm initiated as we fed and watered the poultry, she was tromping the fields behind us and stepped in a juicy cow pie and promptly slid right through it…on her side. She was NOT pleased and had to ride back to our house in just her undies since she was coated head to toe in cow dung.

It has been a looooong 48 hrs but we are here with the animals and kids partially settled in. We have a permanent chicken coop to build for these birds so they can move out of the stock trailer and get more permanently settled. Can you see how stoked they are to have all this green to munch and lounge around in? 

Tomorrow we go to work. We are moving the shrimp from the shrimp nursery to the shrimp ponds with a TV reporter in tow it seems. And I need to plant a huge kitchen garden, and plant our own personal garden, and remove poison ivy/ oak from some places. And I might want a milking goat. Lots to do, so much possibility and only so many hours in the day… 

The post We’ve made it to Tanglefoot Ranch. appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.