Filed under: June 2022 | Tags: Groundhog, meat chickens, pastured poultry, Small Farming, whistle pig, woodchuck
June 28, 2022
The night before last, as I watered the cows, our dog Sam treed a woodchuck! I had not ever seen that before. The digging rodents usually just run along the ground and dive into their burrows. Sam must have caught this guy in the open, away from his home entrance. I heard loud scratching sounds that made me look for the noise. I stood a while looking at the out of place woodchuck. He in turn stared at me. I don’t think he was comfortable, but there was no way he was coming down anytime soon!
We have been enjoying a few very nice summer days. The heat and humidity will return soon, but wow these last days are perfect. Highs in the 70’s, low’s in the 60’s with very low dew points. I has been very comfortable for man and beast. We missed a needed rain yesterday. It is getting pretty dry after that very wet spring. God knows what we need and He will send it soon.
We moved the first batch of meat chickens to the portable pen. I started leaving them in the pen on the concrete until they are fully feathered out. This lets me string a cord and add a heat lamp if needed. Soon they will be out on grass in the pen. This makes for tasty meat and they have a good life until they go to “freezer camp”.
Second cutting hay, the gardens and field corn are growing well. The rain will help them, but they all look good so far. The horses have enjoyed a few work free days, as I catch up with other stuff. The speltz is ripening fast and will soon get harvested. I am making a piece of a field into a play area for us all. We will use all sorts of equipment to train the young horses. It is an area of about 3/4 of an acre. I am thinking later this year I will plant it to Speltz, but right at this moment those plans, like the woodchuck, are up in the air.
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RicelandMeadows 
Well, between the two of us “codgers” that makes two “treed woodchucks” in a combined “whole bunch” of years. Mine was about 60 years ago.
Comment by Rick Ward June 29, 2022 @ 7:47 am