Albino Deer Visits the Cows' Salt Lick

We have a lot of whitetail deer in our area. I generally consider them a nuisance. They like to run into the electric fence, especially during hunting season. They can be counted upon to destroy any fruit trees or berry bushes that aren't fenced from them or sprayed with a deer repellant. They carry Lyme disease, which can have some very nasty consequences, and now with chronic wasting disease verified in Pennsylvania, one must consider whether or not they are willing to eat venison harvested from our area. Of course the game commission and some other government agency or study says that there is no proof of CWD transmission to humans. Somehow though I am a bit hesitant to become their conclusive evidence of transmission.

Well anyway, tonight my family and I got to see something that made us enjoy the deer again, kind of like when I was young, and Pennsylvania wasn't overrun with deer, and it was neat to see a deer. We saw a young albino buck in several different locations on the farm. He had jumped the fence behind the barn and was licking the selenium salt lick that I put out for our cow who is about to have her first calf. After a while he jumped the fence and left for the woods, but a bit later my two of my sons and I saw him out in another field and we took some long distance snapshots with our camera that needs to be upgraded this Christmas.

Here are a few of the shots taken by my wife and two of my sons. Notice how the chickens are playing it safe with this stranger. If our Scottish Highland bull was in the same spot they would be practically underneath him.

I will soon be going out to the barn with my daughter Catherine to finish the new nesting boxes that we have been working upon.

Our flock has been growing and growing since Catherine and Paul have discovered that if you put eggs under a broody hen in about 21 days they turn into cute little chicks. So far they have hatched 19 chicks with more to come.

We have eight new ones in the water trough, minus the water, and we are going to let them out with their hen soon. We used absolutely no heat lamps with these 8 chicks. The mom keeps them warm, and it was 35 degreess this morning.

We are crossing Golden Laced Wyandottes with Buff Orpingtons. So far we have had very nice results.

Celery in Pennsylvania?

As a kid I grew up eating celery with peanut butter on it practically on a daily basis. Celery was inexpensive, Skippy Peanut Butter  stuck to it, and I could make it. 

A while back someone was talking about pesticide residue on fruits and vegetables, and they mentioned that celery was the worst as far as pesticides. I did some research on the internet, and it does seem that celery is one of the worst as far as that goes. It does say that you're still better off to eat it even if it does have a bit of pesticide left over on it, but this is something I'd rather not think about. 

One website, foodsafetynews.com put celery in its dirty dozen, based upon pesticide residue. Another site whatsonmyfood.org listed 64 pesticide residues that can be found on celery, according to the USDA Pesticide Data Program. It also gives the percentage of the time that each one is found on the celery samples.

Well anyway, I always thought that you needed to be in the Salinas or Central Valley or some other warm-weather California paradise to grow celery. I thought you had to have a near-Mediterranean climate zone, and nice sandy soil for celery to be a worthwhile endeavor, but I proved myself wrong this year.

I planted some celery in one of our gardens this spring. Thinking that this was probably going to be a waste of time, I relegated the celery to a kind of neglected corner of the garden. A place that gets about 1/2 day shade, nestled between the red raspberries and the rhubarb. I didn't expect it to do very well..

Another factor was our soil. We are literally on the first mountain of the Appalachians, or Alleghenies as we call them in Pennsylvania in our area. We are in what is called the Chestnut Ridge, though all of the chestnut trees are gone due to a blight that killed the American Chestnuts years ago. However, because we are right on the edge of the Pittsburgh Plateau and the Allegheny Mountains, I really think our soil is more of the Pittsburgh Plateau type, which is more clay and silt than the sandstone soil of the Alleghenies, which I considered another strike against the celery giving a good show.

In spite of a bit of neglect the celery surprised me. It seemed to do nothing for the first part of the spring, but near the end of summer it got big and began to look a bit like the celery of the grocery store. It turned out to be great tasting, showed no signs of any insect or any other damage, and I really did almost nothing with it except weed it a few times when it was about to be overtaken.

We picked it a day or two ago, because we had a frost warning, and I ate about 5 stalks loaded with peanut butter, and my family joined me in my celery feast. Though the peanut butter was Smucker's Natural, it tasted like it did when I was a kid, though it tasted a bit stronger, if that is possible with celery.

I didn't get the best photos for this, I should have laid a bunch out on the table so you could see the size. Some of the bunches were about grocery store size, others were a bit smaller. The sunnier side of the row did better. Like I said I didn't do my picture taking quick enough because while I was busy eating it my wife chopped up the rest and bagged it for the freezer and winter soups. So this picture will have to suffice.

The bottom line on the celery is that it is going to get a better spot in the garden next year. I liked my Pennsylvania celery.

One of the Benefits of Making Loose Hay

Jumping into the Haystack

The other day I noticed that the computers and couches were empty, so I asked my wife where all the kids were. She said they they were all up in the barn. This surprised me so I went up to see what was going on.

My first son was hanging around taking pictures of the old Farmall M for his facebook page, and also carving something. My second son was rasping an ax handle he was making from some oak wood. 

My third son and my daughter were up on the loft jumping down into the pile of loose hay that we took in this year, the old-fashioned way.

I'm not going to discuss the hay-making process right now, or the benefits of loose hay, except for one. Jumping into it can't be beat, It provides a much softer landing than baled hay. Here are some pictures I took to illustrate this point.