Thursday, April 28, 2011

Farm Friend and Farmgirl Friday #5


All you farm loving bloggers can link up here on Friday’s to share posts about your farm: house, cooking, crafting, animals, gardening, photography and more. It will be a great way to meet new farm friends and see lots of different views and perspectives on farm life. We can’t wait to see all the posts shared, so here are the directions:


Let the farm friendzy begin...

Hosted by:


  • Click on the “click here to enter” below
  • Follow the steps to link your post and picture
  • Link back here with a shared link or use our button or the Farmgirl Friday button 
  • Visit your neighbors by hopping around to all the posts shared
  • Say hello, so they know you came to visit 
  • Become a follower if you like
  • We will leave it up all weekend to give everyone plenty of time to enjoy the party

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Farm Friend and Farmgirl Friday #4

Hello everyone, can you believe it’s almost Easter? April is flying by so quickly. I’ve been on the road again this week in beautiful Roanoke, Virginia. It was gorgeous and so many trees and spring blooming bulbs to see. I’ve seen very little of Verde Farm lately but I captured a couple of pictures last weekend of my tulips and dogwood trees from our upstairs window. They have been spectacular.



Farmer says he is going to write a few posts to share with you to keep everyone up to date on farm happenings. Until then, a few points of interest:
  • Porter has become a man and although he is still much smaller than Pansy, he is in love! Piglets may be a reality in 2011!
  • Our calico-cochins are sitting on their first nest, so we will have chicks sometime in the next month.
  • Zephyr, the peacock is in full plumage and boy has he found his voice. Chloris, his peahen, is playing “hard to get” and he is not happy and tells everyone about it. Our poor neighbors.
  • We have our first weddings officially booked for summer 2011. Can’t wait to share all the plans with you as we get closer. 
  • Farmer started his garden this week and built some raised beds for the first time. He painted them periwinkle and they look so pretty. His garden is going to be fantastic. 



So, spring has been good so far and we hope the same for you!

It’s time for Farm Friend and Farmgirl Friday and we can't wait. Let's see how many farm life lovers drop in this week.

Let the farm friendzy begin...

Hosted by:


  • Click on the “click here to enter” below
  • Follow the steps to link your post and picture
  • Link back here with a shared link or use our button or the Farmgirl Friday button 
  • Visit your neighbors by hopping around to all the posts shared
  • Say hello, so they know you came to visit 
  • Become a follower if you like
  • We will leave it up all weekend to give everyone plenty of time to enjoy the party
Happy Easter

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Farm Friend Friday and Farmgirl Friday #3

Hello farm friends, coming to you this Thursday evening from Baltimore, Maryland. Spring is in the air here with daffodils blooming and the Bradford Pear fading. I know so many great things are happening in your world and spring is in full swing. Hope to catch up with many of you this weekend.

It's time for Farm Friend and Farmgirl Friday and we can't wait. Last week 90 wonderful posts were shared here and so many new friends joined the party. Let's see how many farm life lovers drop in this week.

Let the farm friendzy begin...

Hosted by:


  • Click on the “click here to enter” below
  • Follow the steps to link your post and picture
  • Link back here with a shared link or use our button or the Farmgirl Friday button 
  • Visit your neighbors by hopping around to all the posts shared
  • Say hello, so they know you came to visit 
  • Become a follower if you like
  • We will leave it up all weekend to give everyone plenty of time to enjoy the party

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Farm Friend Friday and Farmgirl Friday #2

Hi farm friends, hope this week has been good to you! We are finally seeing some spring weather here at Verde Farm. Hoping to mow grass for the first time this weekend, if it doesn’t rain. We will be posting very soon about our kunkune pigs, Pansy and Porter and updating you on their “relationship.” All those tabloid reports that Pansy is pregos are false. Not yet anyway but stay tuned.


It’s that time for the farm party of the week. Farm friends and farmgirls unite...the party starts now!

Hosted by:


  • Click on the “click here to enter” below
  • Follow the steps to link your post and picture
  • Link back here with a shared link or use our button or the Farmgirl Friday button 
  • Visit your neighbors by hopping around to all the posts shared
  • Say hello, so they know you came to visit 
  • Become a follower if you like
  • We will leave it up all weekend to give everyone plenty of time to enjoy the party


Let the Farm Friendzy begin...



Tuesday, April 5, 2011

When Huey Met Dottie

Hi farm friends, I sure hope you are enjoying this early spring. As many of you know, I have been so busy with my job over the last several weeks it has been hard to find time to visit and e-mail my wonderful blog buddies. I am so hopeful that things will ease up a bit as I get into late April and May. Hope you will hang in there with me and know I miss you and all that is going on in your world. Farmer has been so wonderful in taking care of Verde Farm and I’ve asked him to share some farm happenings directly. Today’s post is one of his. I know you will enjoy it...


Farm life can be brutish. It seems the wolf is always at the door. It seems nature is never finished yet always winding down. It seems, no less, compassion was the intent when I decided to move a little chick named Dottie to the big chicken house next door. This little chick, with the black and white polka dotted feathers—and one crescent moon drawn on her wing—inherited a feisty spirit. She relentlessly pecked her brothers and sisters, making their lives awful. I felt I had no choice. I had to move her next door.

I was happy to see Dottie blending in so well with the other roosters and hens. At bed check I knew I had made the right decision when I saw her sleeping—tiny, next to Edgar. Hooray. 

A good case can be made for allowing nature to sort-out its own problems.

By feeding time, the next morning, the chicken house chickens were already stirring. I found the gang in the run. I didn’t immediately see Dottie. Maybe I did, but I told myself it’s just a black dot in the corner. As I focused, it became clear the black dot in the corner was Dottie. I walked to her.
She was alive. Her head was tucked beneath her wing. I picked her up. Her eyes were mangled and bloodied. The other chickens pecked her eyes out, blinding her.

Oh, my lord.I couldn’t kill Dottie, which would have probably been merciful. I put her in a pen and fed her. I visited her while nature healed her.

Followers of this blog know about a Muscovy named Huey, born this past January. It’s amazing he’s still with us, considering he emerged from his mother’s egg in the deepest, coldest part of winter. I found him and his two brothers, Duey and Louie, walking on the frozen snow across the back yard, about 100 yards from their nest. Unfortunately, Duey and Louie died. However, Huey moved from the box in the bathroom, to a cage in the tool shed to a pen in the barn with a girl named Dottie.

You can read about them by clicking on the picture above
Huey, the lone survivor
Dottie and Huey hit it off. Heck, Dottie even started to lay eggs. As months passed and spring moved closer, I knew I had to release Huey. He was beginning to flap his wings and run in circles around the pen. I vowed on the next pretty day I would set him free. It pained me, though, because I knew Dottie, even though she couldn’t see Huey, felt Huey’s presence and would know he was gone. It’s not as if my animals have human characteristics as much as it’s about a human interpretation of their actions. I think love is love and transcends species. It’s something we have in common.

Huey and Dottie-he is wrapped over her fluffing her feathers
Out for their afternoon sun
Yesterday, I put Huey and Dottie in a cage and took them outside, in front of the barn. I opened the cage. Huey was curious, but cautious, sticking his head in and out of the cage. Dottie simply walked in circles, literally blind to what was getting ready to happen. All at once, Huey was free—running, flapping, testing his wings, tasting freedom, the warm wind, all for the first time. I’m thinking, man what that must be like. I wish I could remember. The other Muscovy’ came by to inspect, giving the thumbs up. At the same time, Dottie began to cluck, well…it sounded like a cry. As Huey ventured farther from the cage, I walked away to tend to the pigs.

Huey flapping his wings in freedom-Dottie in her cage
About 10 minutes later, I came back to the cage. It appeared my intuition had been correct—I only saw Dottie, still walking in circles. As I got closer, however, I saw Huey resting outside behind Dottie. At the end of the day, I gathered the Muscovy and the chicken and took them back to the pen—their home. They walked around in circles—together.

Pretty Dottie-alone for the first time in a while
Dottie stepped out for some freedom too
The weather is supposed to get warmer, this weekend, which means Huey will get another chance to test out his wings. We’ll push him out of the nest, eventually. The important thing is we’ll do it together.