Pigeon race returns

If you ask a pigeon fancier about race returns it means how many birds came home vs. the number of birds shipped. Occasionally there are races that are called "smashes" because of low returns. Low returns could be due to a number of factors including weather, predators, etc.

Today our pigeon racing club flew it's second 2009 young bird race. The release station was Hammondville, AL which is 113 air miles from my loft calculated from GPS coordinates. I shipped 20 birds to the race, the same 20 birds I sent last week to Chattanooga. I got 21 birds back both weeks. How? Well, I just checked my loft and found that I have a race bird from one of my club mates that followed my birds home. Same thing happened last week although the extra bird was different both weeks.

I did not win the race but my birds did well, they arrived home in 2 hours and 38 minutes.

More eggs!

We have now started to get two eggs occasionally on the same day, so we must have at least two chickens laying. Beautiful large brown eggs. We are keeping a farm egg carton in the refrigerator. John brings in the eggs, washes them, and puts them in the carton.

John's a STAR volunteer

On Monday afternoon John had his orientation session as a volunteer at the STAR http://www.rideatstar.org/index.htm facility in Lenoir City. Several home-school kids volunteer there on Mondays. One of the guys I work with also has a son in high school that is a volunteer at STAR. John is only 10 so for now he will be a "barn boy".

Pigeon Racing update

Last weekend we (www.smokymountainclub.org) held our first pigeon race for the 2009 young bird season. The release point was in Chattanooga, TN which is 71 air miles from my pigeon loft. I sent 20 birds to the race and got 21 birds back, all 20 of mine plus one from another club member. My first two birds were AU 2009 SMC 420 and 412.

On Monday morning I took the extra bird about 20 miles from home on my way to work and released it, the owner and I had agreed to this the night before. When I checked my loft that evening the bird was back in my loft! I called the bird's owner and he said to put it in a crate and he would come and pick it up on Tuesday morning, which he did.

Our second race is planned for this Saturday August 29 with a liberation point in Hammondville, AL. Distance for me is 112 air miles. The birds are looking pretty good although they are in various stages of their annual feather molt. The weather forecast is questionable for this weekend so we might not fly as scheduled.

Horse update: Kia and Nelly are not pregnant

Yesterday afternoon the Thew family had a vet come out to check and see if their mares Kia and Nelly were pregnant. The vet said neither mare was pregnant. If you remember Morgan was acting like a stallion and our vet came out and said he had not been fixed properly so she fixed him properly.

Fire Ants!

We have what are called fire ants here in Tennessee. We have many fire ant mounds out in the fields. We've not had any problems with them until yesterday when Mary stepped on a nest of them and was stung/bit. Mary had a reaction, her face turned purple and she had some welts from the stings and her torso developed bright purple rashes that almost looked like someone had painted purple stripes on her.

Debby calmed Mary down, had Mary wash down in the shower, kept her cool, called the doctor's office, and gave her some Benadryl. Debby then took Mary to the pediatrician's office (I met them there), they checked her out and said she was fine but to keep her cool (no running around outside in the heat) for a couple of days. There were a couple of student nurses (?) at the doctor's office who are working on a paper/study about insect bites and they asked if they could look at Mary, which they did.

So, we need to control the fire ants that are near the house and where the kids play. We prefer a natural/organic method, if you have a suggestion please pass it along. I like the fact that the ants are natural and are aerating the ground but due to the danger we will now need to take some action.

48th Wedding Anniversary!

Mamaw and Papa celebrated their 48th wedding anniversary yesterday. Congratulations! I have not heard from the lovebirds, perhaps they returned to their honeymoon spot Skyland in the Shenandoah National Park?

Switzerland bound?

A Piller family reunion is planned for next year (2010) at the end of August/beginning of September in Switzerland. The Tennessee Piller's are planning to attend! We're very much looking forward to the trip, and we have a year to plan and prepare.

Who's this guy?

It rained yesterday, I got home late from work. It was dark outside, Debby was in the utility room and she called me to come and see how much rain we had received. Debby retrieved a plastic basket from the porch that had collected about half an inch of rain. Then Debby said excitedly "Oh my! What do we have here." Sitting on the basket was a cute little red frog/toad. The kids overheard us and rushed to see. I snapped a low light cell phone picture. Interesting little fellow, quite a jumper too. Debby released him. We think that colorful frogs like this might be poisonous.

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

John ran into the house this morning all excited yelling "Mommy! Mommy! Guess what! Guess what!". At first we something was wrong but then John thrust out his hand and proclaimed "Look! An egg, an egg, we have an egg, the chickens laid an egg!".

John had gone out to take care of the chickens and he found a brown egg that one of our chickens had laid yesterday in the chicken tractor. This is our very first home grown chicken egg from one of our golden comet hens that we raised from an itty bitty little chick.

Horse escape

Puppy barked and woke us up at 2 am Sunday morning. At first I thought that maybe Puppy smelled a skunk and wanted out but this time it was something different. So I looked outside and saw horses. The horses were right outside the house, not in their pasture. Debby and I went out and rounded up the horses. Amazingly, the gate to the pasture was open, the horses had somehow opened it. On the gate hook we saw a bunch or horsetail hair, after a quick inspection we determined that it came from Kia's tail. So, somehow Kia had backed into the gate handle hook, snagged her tail in it, and opened the gate.

Later that morning at about 8:30 am the horses got out of the pasture again. This time I think Spirit went through the fence. We noticed that we never had any horse breakouts until the two mares arrived, and it only seems to happen when the mares are in heat.

Later that morning Debby saw fresh piles of horse manure down the hill on our driveway. So, apparently Saturday night the horses opened the pasture gate, went down the driveway, fertilized the driveway, came back up the driveway to the house, and then Puppy woke us up.

Picture shows horses getting into the garden on Sunday morning with pigeons flying overhead.

Weekend update

Spent more time this weekend mowing grass, working on pasture. I've now got 102 hours on the tractor. In a couple of weeks I want to move the horses from the pasture near the house to the pasture that's behind the well house (plenty of good forage there), so I have to get the fence ready and work out the water situation. We don't want the horses to get into the pond.

When we move the horses I will then do some pasture renovation, I plan to mow it down pretty good, then get some timothy, orchard grass, and endophyte free fescue seed, and plant it using a no till drill. Planting time for these is August 15 - October 1. We may apply some lime in October.

I need to run the electric fence for the new pasture along the fence line by the pond that connects two pastures. It's an overgrown area and will take a lot of work to clean up. There are a bunch of cherry trees, holly trees, maples, etc. growing near this area.

While working near the pond I saw that the pond was completely full, in fact the spring was trickling and there was a little flow. I was surprised because although we had a lot or rain in July we've not had rain recently. During the wet season, or when there is a lot of rain, the springs really flow and the water flows out of a notch in the dam and falls a few feet and continues on down to White Oak Creek.

Solar power

I do a lot of work outside at the farm. I drink a lot of water, and I sweat quite a bit, especially on hot August days like we had this weekend. So, I'll take off wet clothes and hang them on out in the sun and go inside to cool down and drink some ice cold water. In about an hour the clothes are generally dry, very warm, and smell nice from the breeze. We don't yet have a clothes line but we will one day. The old timers had this figured out a long time ago.

Horse update

Horses are all doing well. It's been very hot and humid, we noticed the two mares sweating in the late afternoon yesterday, I sprayed them with the hose which they enjoyed. They do have shade and water.

Noticed some extracurricular activity this morning with Morgan and Nellie, so it appears that Nellie is not pregnant. We should know Kia's status here in the next few days.

Finished cutting our front and back pastures over the weekend.

Pigeon Toss: Brittsville, TN

Debby and the kids took the birds to Brittsville, TN this morning and released them at 8:50 am. Birds arrived home at 9:55 am, approximately 46 air miles, speed of 42 mph.

View 2009 YB Course in a larger map

Pasture clipping

We have four horses that are grazing pasture near our house. We split the horse pasture in two and are grazing the horses in one pasture while the other one rests. Horses are selective grazers, they will ignore some parts of the pasture and continuously nibble other areas down to less than an inch. Rotating and resting and clipping their pasture is a good plan.

That still leaves quite a bit of pasture that's not being grazed, something like 40 acres. I'd like to have cows grazing that acreage but we are not ready yet. So, this past week I started to bush hog/clip some pasture. When I get home from work I can hop on the tractor and cut for an hour or so. I've set the 10' bush hog up to cut at about 8" in the pasture (it can cut from about 2" - 14" I think). The bush hog is a pull type with a hydraulic lift. I've been cutting our main field, some of this has not been cut in a year and was very thick and tall and quite diverse in plant species, insects, etc.

I found two surprising things while cutting, first we have a gazillion praying mantis insects out in the pasture, and second I found two large wasp/hornet nests on top of the ground in the thick stuff.

PIgeon training

We've started road training our 2009 young bird race team. Starting them out with short tosses along our SW race course. Debby and Mary took the birds to Rockwood this morning, they were home in 12 minutes. Tomorrow we are planning to take them to Spring City which is about 25 air miles from home. Then we plan to go to Dayton (41 air miles), Soddy Daisy (60 air miles) and Chattanooga (71 air miles). Our first club race is scheduled in one week, August 15, release point is Chattanooga. Our race team is diverse in age, body condition, feather condition. Some birds are in their molt.