Birds Fed Up

The birds are fed up and we are fed up with the birds.  This year we have had a major bird issue, between pigeons, starlings & crows.  They love the granola bars we have been feeding and the TMR (cow feed) that lays down the alley for anything to have a free for all.

Birds can bring in many diseases and pigeons are the common infiltrators...  not to mention starlings and crows...

Human diseases and health risks associated with pigeon droppings are Histoplasmosis, Cryptococcosis and Psittacosis.

Histoplasmosis, an infection caused by a fungus, Histoplasma capsulatum, may cause high fever, blood abnormality, pneumonia and even death in some cases. The disease primarily affects the lungs. People with weakened immune systems are generally more at risk of developing this disease. The fungus grows in pigeon droppings and soils throughout the world. It enters human bodies through air while breathing and a high in-take may cause infection. The symptoms of histoplasmosis may be fatigue, fever, minor influenza, blood abnormalities, dry coughs and chest pains though in many cases it does not show any. Central Illinois have experienced outbreaks of histoplasmosis.

Accumulated pigeon droppings are the most important source of Cryptococcosis, another fungal disease caused by Cryptococcus neoformans. Immune compromised persons, especially those with HIV infection run at high risk from this disease. Initial pulmonary infection is usually asymptomatic and most patients surrender to disseminated infection. It begins with a lung infection and spreads to other areas of the body, particularly in the CNS or the central nervous system. Skin eruptions and ulcers with lumps just under the skin are also characteristics of this disease. A high in-take of that airborne yeast cells in human bodies through air while breathing causes this infection. A cost-effective Cryptococcosis prevention strategy is yet to be developed.
Psittacosis is an infection caused by intracellular bacterium Chlamydia psittaci that affects parrots, pigeons and other birds. Dry and airborne droppings of affected birds infect human beings. Manifestations of this disease may range from asymptomatic infection to systemic illness with severe pneumonia. Fever, chills, headache, muscle aches, and a dry cough are some symptoms of this disease in human beings. Most Psittacosis in human beings results from exposure to pet infected birds. It spreads when a person inhales the organism, vaporized from respiratory secretions or dried feces of infected birds or bird bites, mouth-to-beak contact, and through handling of infected birds. Even brief exposures can lead to symptomatic infection. Man to man, transmission of this bacterium is rare, but not impossible.

So it has been all out war and Karl took several out one day... when I say several I mean 13 with ONE shot... he has since been trying to break his record.

The lucky recipient of these birds? ... is our barn kitty, Sylvester!  He shares them with our other wild barn cats too. 

He's one happy, spoiled kitty!   Okay, the look on his face in this photo isn't so happy but he's quite charming, really!

Testosterone

There seems to be a lot of testosterone floating around our house lately.  With the girls moved out and even though I have 2 female cats in the house apparently they don't count.  I've been told the dog counts! Shadow is male but he has lost his male thoughts a couple years ago.
I get out voted on many issues but I also get to watch the younger over take the older...
Its like the animal kingdom when the young lion challenges the older situated male.
Thankfully, in this case it isn't over breeding rights its over strength.
These photo's were taken using my iPhone so not the greatest but you get the idea...
Starting out, all set!

GO... and the laughter takes over!

Oh! is the older one winning? 

NOPE! Jeff won using both right arm and left...

At least this is fairly calm and they aren't rough housing... when they rough house I can end up with bent towel bars and holes in the wall.  They are a little big to tom fool around in confined spaces. lol

My Spot in Life

I seem to live here... not just on the farm but at my desk. 
Especially this time of year... 

We are on a Study called the COP (Cost of Production) and that means even more paperwork than the usual Year End.  I have to keep track of everything that IS: such as: inventory, including, how many buckets of milk we feed to the calves.  And what happens on the farm right down to what each individual person does with thier time on shift.  Each employee is supposed to keep track in a booklet I have provided... 

This is the monthly form they need to fill out.  Easy eh? just punch out with the time clock and under the "date" write down how many hours they worked in "what" category.

Difficult? Apparently, YES!  After 4 years... yes we have been on this program for FOUR years... you would be absolutely amazed at how many of them do NOT fill in this paper.  The excuses I get are incorrigible!

 "I'm not reporting to anyone what I do around here"
 "The program is stupid"
 "You have it on the time card why do you need it here?" 
           (Time card has the time they worked not what they did when on shift) 
"I keep forgetting"
           (for months on end apparently and the book is right in front of the time clock and there are NOTES
               everywhere reminding you!).  

So when I pull the sheets and they are "empty" I have to go back over Karl and my notes that we have made throughout the year and try and figure out "what" they did and for how long.  So not only do I have to track my own hours I have to track 7 other peoples.  Thank goodness for Karls calendar where he keeps track, for the most part.  That has saved me hours and hours of work and questions that would drive him nuts. 
My biggest challenge is Karls Dad.  He doesn't use the time clock and there are days when Karl has no idea what he did and he's not about to tell anyone (yeah his is the first excuse on the list). 
Thankfully.... 2012 is year 5.  Our last year on COP according to the records.  I think I will have a BIG  celebration when this year ends!  I won't know what to do with myself when I don't have to fill out all this paperwork any more! lol

Yarnage

I finished plying the batt I had spun.  It actually didn't turn out all that bad.  Will have to see if there is enough to make into a pair of childrens slippers. 

The pictures really don't do it justice color wise.  I am amazed it turned out to be such a balanced yarn too!   Now its time to get a bag of white shetland roving finished. 

Fibre arts

Today Karl and I were taking it easy.  We are both still fighting this chest cold - its a stubborn one and saps the energy out of you.
I feel healthy enough to do things but tire really easy.  So I got busy with some more spinning.  I have had this wool batt hanging around for many years. I have used some of it for felting but it doesn't felt very quickly and I haven't been doing any felting for some time so decided to spin it up.
WELL - I was made aware very quickly why I hadn't spun it before!  It has a lot of second cuts which makes for a not so nice and smooth spun yarn.  But there is hope.  All yarn is good for something so I spun it anyway. 

It has pink, green, blue, purple... all through it. This picture does not give it justice.  I will ply it and see if I have enough to make a children's pair of slippers.  Its not a soft yarn so no one would want to wear it near their skin.

Icicles

Today was herd health.  The vet came (an hour and a half late!) today but lucky our list was a fairly short one.   We finished with the milk cows doing pregnancy checks and cycle checks then travelled over to the Heifer barn at my FIL's.

Pen 5... the young heifers who are old enough and are ready to be bred... After we check the heifers in this group we swing the gate and let the pregnant ones out to roam with the general population. Then swing the gate back, round up a few heifers from the general population that are old enough and close to coming into heat and put them into Pen 5 until they become pregnant.

It has been very, very cold and this particular barn always seems colder than any of our other barns.  We have an overhead water line that has a slight leak and in this cold weather it has created quite the ice sculpture!  It has froze all around the gate and its hinges so we can't open the gate.

Here is a close up

and even closer

Karl tried to take a hammer to it and break it loose but other than upsetting the heifer standing next to the ice sculpture post he didn't budge much. 

So instead, after my suggestion, he unlocked the gate at the other end and slowly pushed and pulled on the gate. Soon we heard crunch! and big chunks fell to the ground.  He trimmed it off with the hammer and the gate was freed.

Not too far from it...  the overhead water line travels to the water trough.  It has a leak too and will overflow.  Its great this time of year cause then the line doesn't freeze but we get a lot of interesting icicle formations.  You have to watch your footing in the barn too or you will land on your butt!  It is a sloped floor and lucky it runs down the side where the average person and cow does not walk.

 They say its supposed to warm up and rain... so far we have seen ice rain but as of right now its still -3C (although they say it feels like -8C) and its nearly noon.  Apparently it is supposed to get up to 6C by the end of today.  Time will tell.

In a Chill

The weather hasn't let up.  We are in a freeze and I am hauling water to my fibre animals.  Karl has been hauling water to the calf barn as everything was froze up in there.  Karl figures its cause his dad was parking his truck in one of the bays of the calf barn but his truck stuck out so the door couldn't be closed.  We have had some pretty cold winds that is freezing anything in its path.

Today it was -11C this morning and windy.. warming up to -7 and windy...  other than seeing it change on the thermometer it sure didn't feel any different when you were outside in it.

The house cats have continued to stay close to the fire as have I getting better from this cold I have succumbed to.  Today has been a good day as I managed to get out and enjoy the refreshing cold for a while... needed some groceries :-)   

Well, no more holding down the couch... life continues and my jobs keep piling up waiting for me to do them.  Now that I am able to think straight again its time to get back to work.

More Snow

Yep we had some more snow last night.... calling for more this week.  Temperatures are supposed to drop to -10C tonight.  All is going well on the farm.  Pipes are staying thawed in the dairy barn and  I am even managing to keep the water flowing in my sheep shed.
Glad I cleared off the vehicles last night so that the snow wasn't completely frozen solid this morning.  Looks like I need to do it again!

Its a good day to curl up, or stretch out by the fire!  Well, it is for me as I am fighting off a nasty chest cold that appears to be turning into pneumonia.  Karl has been fighting off a cold too but seems to be getting over it a lot faster.

Jeff has been having fun in the snow with his truck... too bad the 4 wheel drive isn't working... he's looking into getting it repaired.

Just looked out the window and its snowing again... the amazing thing is by the end of the weekend there won't be a snowflake to be seen in the sky or on the ground.  It never lasts long around here.

SNOW!!

Last night we had the milk tester and that means after the work is done we all go out for dinner with her.  So off we went to Ricky's restaurant.

I couldn't get a pic of everyone with my little iPhone but here is Karl and Jaylin enjoying their beverages.  Karl ordered onions rings as a starter and it didn't take them long to disappear. Jaylin had 3 and they are big rings!

We got home, read story books, tucked Jaylin into bed and Karl retreated too.  At 10pm Jeff and I looked out the window and low and behold there was snow coming down!  That is a rare occasion here!

 The next morning (this morning January 14) we woke up to this....

 Shadow sitting in the middle of the driveway... keeping the coyotes away or snow watching!

The rain is already doing its job and trying to melt everything that landed.  It makes the snow VERY wet and VERY heavy.   More snow has been forecast for this coming up week... time will tell.

Hmm, Rain...

I never took any pictures today but I should have... and I should have taken a recording of the weatherman.  He SAID today was going to be the nicest day of the week with no rain.  Um, maybe where he was!  We, unfortunately, had quite a bit of rain.. I waited til this afternoon to finish loading  the pickup truck full of garbage to go to the dump - but still ended up doing it in the rain.  Then I sorted all the recycling.  Cans, bottles, tins, paper, cardboard... Cans & bottles I took and got $$ for.. the rest went into our containers for curb side pick up on Monday.   I did take an old water cooler to the recycling and a couple of surf boards the kids have had for years but are  never used anymore. The surf boards were cluttering up my storage room so off they went to Value Village.
Karl, on the other hand, worked on the tedder. Got it all fixed up and back together again. After that he and Gary cleaned up around the work shop.  They had planned to finish the roof on my sheep shed but too much rain so that job was put aside. Don't want anyone slipping off the top as its a long way down!
Charlie has been cozy and building in his wood shop again.  He comes up with the neatest projects!  I really should take some pictures but never seem to think about it when I am there.

Other than the 'day job' Karl has been busy putting together some puzzles.
His first one which was actually part of a gift that he bought for the family Christmas game... and it came back to him cause the recipient didn't want the puzzle but wanted the other part of the gift... totally ok by Karl cause he liked it so much he had a hard time wrapping it anyway!
This Moose puzzle is 1000 pieces and took a bit of time putting it together.  NO ONE, and I mean NO ONE was allowed to help him.  It was funny actually.. if you even pointed at a piece he would shoo you away! lol 

The second one is an eagle... he has allowed assistance on this one but no one seems to jump in cause its no fun when your not being shoooo's away ahahaha.  I will admit I have helped a little... but only a little :)

It too is going to look really nice when done.  We will frame them and look for a nice place to hang them. The colors go with my decor in the house.  I love the rustic look. 

Happy New Year!

Our year has started out VERY soggy! but hey, we live in BC! 
Now that the holiday season is over we are back to full work force.  Karl has been busy dehorning calves, hauling chicken manure (stock piling as its too wet to spread), and getting ready to put the metal on my new (Christmas present) sheep & alpaca shed.
I have been busy with catching up on paperwork, interviewing a new milker, farm year end, inventory, cleaning out my old shed (animals still in it), and training for a marathon - or half marathon.  I haven't decided which one as it depends how well my knee holds up.  Gosh getting old really sucks!
Karl and I (Tricia & Jeff) went to a beautiful wedding on New Years Day.  I was very pleased with the photo we had taken of ourselves.   I was privileged to be the photographer at this wedding and had my back up assistant Tricia taking photo's too.

Its too bad Katie couldn't make it but here is my other 2 lovely children; Tricia & Jeff!

All the best in 2012!