Egg production

The chickens are really laying a lot of beautiful large brown eggs. More than we can eat. Debby has begun selling some at $3.50 for 18 eggs (same price as our local farmer's market). The chickens free range in the pasture daily. John takes care of the chickens.
The eggs are different from those you buy in a store. Debby did a test, she scrambled up some store bought eggs and some of our farm fresh eggs. The farm fresh eggs have a much brighter richer color.

Fall colors at home

It's very good to be back home at the farm. Picture shows the view from the back of the house.

Trip to Japan

I just returned from a business trip to Japan where I attended the LLRF09 conference in Tsukuba. Japanese culture is very different from the US. Japanese love to eat raw seafood. Japanese people are very polite. All the toilets that I saw in Japan were electronic. I took a picture of a hand filed hotel room key, my brother Mark will appreciate this. Most vehicles are Toyota, Honda, Mazda etc. as one might expect. Bicycles are very popular in Japan. My colleagues and I had a good conference but were all glad to head back to the good old USA.

Spicy!

Debby grew a bunch of Jalapeno peppers in the garden this year and they did very well. Since we had so many Debby decided to make some Jalapeno jelly over the weekend. It turned out very well.

Upper pond, water fall

John and I went on a hike to the upper pond a few days ago. The upper pond is spring fed and is full and actually overflowing. What is interesting is that the upper pond is at the highest point on our farm and that very little surface water goes to the pond, once you get a little bit away from the pond in all directions the ground slopes away from the pond.

We also went to see the waterfall located in the hollow near the well house. There are openings that go back in the rock for several feet. We'll have to explore more in the future.

More critters

I was hiking with John the other day and saw a cute snail on top of some horse manure out in the pasture. This morning just outside the house I spotted a cute little spotted salamander in the grass.

Signs headed to Virginia

I was driving to work last week on I-40 west of Knoxville and I saw a truck hauling some highway signs. I snapped a picture when I realized these signs were headed to my old stomping ground in Northern VA.

Wild flowers

We still have some wildflowers in the garden.

Glowing bugs, nice evening, snakes

Tonight I was walking in the dark from the barn to the house and noticed several glowing bugs on the ground. Actually this was not the first time I've seen them, they have been around for some time. These bugs glow green like lightning bugs, but they are not flying.

We enjoyed a beautiful sky tonight, clear, cool, and full of stars.

Yesterday John announced that he and Joey saw some dead copperhead snakes near the pond and that I probably had run over them earlier with the tractor. We went to look today and sure enough there was a dead snake that I had accidentally run over with the tractor. We brought the snake remains to the house and will try to identify the species. Oh, by the way, if Nanny is reading this there are a ton of huge poisonous snakes running all over the place around here, you probably don't even want to think about coming for a visit :)

Flying V's

We were just eating dinner and John said there was a giant "V" formation of geese flying overhead. I've seen a lot of geese lately, it must be time to head South. I still think it's amazing how geese learned to work together and fly in formation to reduce aerodynamic drag.

John, Christopher

I have a son named John. My brother Greg has a son named Christopher. Greg and I (and our brother Mark also) have a cousin named John Christopher. Our cousin John passed away two days ago, he had ALS, aka Lou Gehrig's disease. He was just 44. The last time I saw my cousin was about 11 years ago at the funeral for his father, our Uncle Bobby. Uncle Bobby passed away from CJD, another very rare and terrible disease. The odds for this happening to father and son must be staggering.

We never can know God's will or when our time here on Earth will end. In looking for a silver lining I imagine that John's diagnosis gave him and his family time to plan, time to talk, time to laugh, time to cry, and time to love.

Our family extends our condolences to Aunt Pat, John's wife Heidi, and the entire Christopher family.

A few months ago I had a pure white homing pigeon hen "Dove" (named and claimed by John and Mary Piller) show up here at the farm, it was the first time this has happened and is the only pure white homing pigeon we have. Dove liked it here and decided to stay.

The Bible contains many references to doves which represent peace, love, and the Holy Spirit. Just before sunset on Wednesday Sept.30, the day of John Christopher's service, we did a white Dove release in honor of John Christopher.

Cool Morning

Beautiful weather here lately, 44 degrees this morning.

One MegaWatt!

On Friday at work (www.sns.gov) we achieved a new milestone (http://www.oakridger.com/news/x1699589954/Neutron-facility-achieves-1-megawatt-power ) when the power of the pulsed proton beam produced by our accelerator reached 1 MW. The full design power level is 1.4 MW and we have already been approved for a power upgrade project which will go above 1.4 MW. Our pulsed proton accelerator set the world record a few years ago when we reached 160 kW.

Happy, Healthy Pigeons

This year I've tried a more natural approach to managing the pigeons with the goal of a happy and healthy colony. Birds that are happy and healthy will love their home and want to return to it.

However, in the last week I've had two pigeons get sick and die. It's been a long time since I lost any birds to illness (we lose quite a few to hawks), but I always seem to lose a couple each year. This year it was two of my cock birds that I raced in 2007; AU 2007 SMC 740 and AU 2007 SMC 705.

I had a couple of other pigeons that appeared sick, notably a very good hen AU 2007 SMC 754, she is recovering and doing better.

I suspect that this is a flare up of canker, which is something that all pigeons have. Canker organisms are usually kept in balance but can flare up when a bird is exposed to stuff or when a bird becomes stressed and their immune system is compromised.

The pigeons are in the midst of their annual feather molt (growing a new set of feathers), which introduces stress, so that may have been a factor. We've had a very wet season and pigeons like a very dry environment. Since I opened up all three lofts the pigeons have associated with some wild pigeons which can expose them to other germs. Opening up the lofts though is generally good because the pigeons get lots of sun and fresh air and exercise and can find greens on the ground etc.

Last week when I noticed a couple of birds that appeared ill I treated the entire flock with Multi-mix, a three way medicine mixed in the drinking water which treats for canker, coccidiosis, and worms. This was effective but did not work in time for the two birds that I lost.

Yesterday afternoon we examined #705 who had died earlier in the day. I was assisted by my capable junior vet techs John and Mary. We took cloaca and throat swab samples which we labeled and placed in ziplock baggies which then went into the freezer. We made up some slides and looked at them under the microscope. We examined the contents of the birds crop.

We have no local avian vet with which to work, and UT wants about $500 to post a bird with no guarantees. We've heard from others who did take birds to UT that it was expensive and the results were inconclusive.

In Europe pigeon racing is very popular and there are dedicated avian vets who specialize in homing pigeons. One of our goals is to learn about pigeon health and diseases and learn how to do proper diagnostics and treatment. Several pigeon fanciers are learning to do this themselves or in consultation with a knowledgeable avian vet.

Rain, Rain, Go Away ...

Come Again Another Day
It's raining hard, again. We've had way too much rain in the last few days.
Pigeon races were cancelled for this weekend.
I'm hoping that a good portion of the lime I put out actually got into the soil and did not wash away.

Lime Time

We did soil tests on our pasture and the ph levels are a little low (acidic). The report suggested spreading 1-1/2 to 2 tons of agricultural lime per acre for our cool season perennial grass hay/pasture operation. Adding lime to correct the ph will also help to suppress weeds.

We paid to have one large truck load of agricultural lime delivered to our farm, it was dumped near the barn. Ag lime is presently $20/ton, we bought 24.75 tons.

Next we rented a lime spreader from the local soil conservation office in Kingston and towed it home at less than 25 MPH with the Suburban. The lime spreader requires a 60+ HP tractor to use.

I then used the front-end loader on the tractor to scoop up lime and dump it into the spreader, when full I would then hook the tractor up to the spreader and go out and spread the lime. Spreading the lime is kind of fun but it's a lot of work.

I spread the lime primarily in the pasture area that goes from the barn to the well house. This is the area where we have been keeping four horses.

Before we could do the lime we had to move the horses. Debby helped me setup the fencing for the new pasture which is located behind the well house. So we now have two nice large horse pasture areas.

The most difficult part in fencing is clearing/maintaining fence lines. Weeds, bushes, thorns, etc grow up quickly along fence lines. We use mechanical methods to deal with the growth, we don't like to use chemicals (poison) as they are bad for us and the environment. This mirrors my approach to sun protection, I prefer to wear a hat and long sleeves instead of applying chemicals to my skin.