ILLOTF: Fishing & Canoeing Edition

[I Love Life On The Farm: Fishing and Canoeing Edition] [Find the tour of the grounds here.] [Find the Barn Door Edition here.] [Find the Barn Animals Edition here.] [Find the Caves and Cows Edition here.] [Find the Chicken Edition here.]

During our driving tour of the grounds on Friday, we stopped at a river bank to check out the water.  It was so peaceful there, with the sound of rushing water in the distance and birds flying and the occasional fish making bubbles in the water.

Hold that camera tight!

Jack told more stories about how he originally wanted to build the farm house where they'd have a view of the water.

We took a few pretty-background pictures before heading back to the house for the pool table delivery.

We decided to come back after lunch to try to catch some of those fish we kept hearing.  Chris got the rods set up for us.

And then Chris, Doc, and Allison waded out in the water to have a go at catching fish.  I sat on the bank and took pictures.

Things were kinda slow going.

At least I had entertainment on the bank with me.

Finally, after not much happening at all, Doc reeled in a fish! A tiny one, but a fish nonetheless.

Satisfied, we called it a day with the fishing.

Saturday, the plan was to get up and head out canoeing around 9:00 or 9:30.  Around 1:00, we finally made it to the load-in area of the river.  That's one of the things I love about the farm - there's really no reason to hurry.

The guys carried the canoes out to the water and got us all loaded up.  Jack made sure we had everything and sent us on our way.

We put all the manpower in the back of our canoe.

And I just enjoyed the ride up front.

Allison rode up front in the other canoe.

Chris did all the paddling in the back.

We quickly canoed to an area deep enough for fishing.  We hadn't even had our poles in the water for five minutes before Doc reeled this in!

And then about two minutes later he had another one, and it was big! Why do fish like him so much?

I demanded that he hand me the pole so I could get in on the action.  It was super exciting when I hooked my first fish! It tugged and I reeled and it swam and I pulled and I finally got it up to the boat so Doc could pull it up.  It was pretty big! And my first caught fish in my adult life.  Doc took it off the hook for me, and just as I was getting my camera ready so he could hand the fish over for a picture, the little sucker bit him and hopped back in the water.  Darn.  Lesson learned: always hold your fish over the boat, not over the water.

We stopped down the way to get out and do some fishing.  Chris taught Doc how to use his fly rod.  That's pretty fun to watch.  Of course, with Doc having the magic touch that day, he had a fish on that rod in no time.

Doc wasn't the only one catching fish, Chris had several too.  I guess it's not as exciting for him, though, since he fishes all the time.  He kept throwing them back in the water before I could get a picture.  Allison managed to get a photo of one of his catches.

We moved on along the river.  This was my view from the front seat...so pretty!

Chris and Allison sailed ahead of us while we hung back to do more fishing.  At this point, I was determined to get my picture taken with a fish. Doc kept offering to let me hold one of his for a picture but no, that was not going to do.  I would catch my own fish and I would get a picture with it, dang it.

I finally caught another one.  Reeled it in from far away and just as I pulled it out of the water it jumped off my line. 

Rinse and repeat.  The next fish I caught did the same darn thing. 

Doc told me I needed to pull hard when I felt a nibble so that I'd hook the fish really good.  Oh, it was on.  We were in the last bend of the river before getting out when I felt my nibble.  I yanked my pole back HARD!  Got 'em!

I was excited.  Such a thrill.  I could get into this fishing thing, but only if it's guaranteed that I'll always catch something.

You want to know the coolest part about my fish? As I handed him over to Doc to unhook him, we saw that he didn't even bite my hook. I hooked him through the nose!  The hook wasn't in his mouth at all.  Oops.  The absence of the hook in his mouth did not mean his mouth was empty.  As Doc laid him in the boat to grab some pliers, the fish coughed up another fish that he had in his mouth!  Oh yea, my fish counted as two!

It was ok for us to end our canoe trip then.  I was happy.

ILLOTF: Chicken Edition

[I Love Life On The Farm: Chicken Edition] [Find the tour of the grounds here.] [Find the Barn Door Edition here.] [Find the Barn Animals Edition here.] [Find the Caves and Cows Edition here.]

In addition to the cows, llamas, and alpacas on the farm, there are also chickens.  Eight of them to be exact.

They lay eggs all day long.  In fact, it's the sunlight that makes them lay eggs. That's why lots of chicken houses keep the lights on all night long, so they can mass produce lay eggs.  But not at this farm.  These chickens only lay eggs during real sunlight hours, and they get to sleep during the night.

This is Sheryl Crow. He's a rooster. Yes, he.  That's not a typo - at this farm, Sheryl Crow is a male.  (Are all roosters male? Wait, don't answer that.)

I don't think Jack and Jan meant to buy a rooster.  They thought he was another chicken, but turns out he wasn't.  The funny thing about Sheryl is that he sounds like he's still working on perfecting his cockadoodledo.  Because practice makes perfect, he doesn't just crow in the early morning like most roosters, he crows any time the mood strikes him.  And it strikes him about ever 15 seconds. But it's kinda the funniest cockadoodledo ever.

You can see him crowing here.

Saturday Jan let us go with her to feed Sheryl and his chickens and to check their house for new eggs.  She threw down the bag of food she'd been collecting and they came and gobbled it up.

While they pigged out, we snuck in to take their eggs.  Here's a picture of Doc with their house so you can get a feel for the size of it.

Allison and I went in first; it was like a grown-up Easter egg hunt!

Found one!

Their nests in the house are set up like bunk beds.  Can you see the other egg we found over to the far left?

We searched all over but only found those two eggs.  We were still proud of them. Look at their pretty blue and green colors!

Doc wanted to check out the inside so we sent him in while we admired our eggs.  Good luck, we told him.

And whattaya know, he stepped out with three more eggs! Show off.

According to Jan, after the chickens lay an egg, they sing a little "I just laid an egg" song.  Actually, I know it's true because she showed us a video of it, and its pretty hysterical.  Between Sheryl crowing all the time and the chickens bragging about laying eggs, the chicken pen can be pretty entertaining! Who knew?

There are ducks, too.  Did I already mention that? In with the chicken are a handful of pretty ducks - mallards, maybe?

Some of them know how to fly, but so far, they seem just fine staying put at the farm.  They have no desire to fly south or anywhere else.

The sunlight here is long gone so, like the chickens, I'm going to rest.  We'll have another edition tomorrow.  Goodnight!

ILLOTF: Caves and Cows Edition

[I Love Life On The Farm: Caves and Cows Edition] [Find the tour of the grounds here.] [Find the Barn Door Edition here.] [Find the Barn Animals Edition here.]

Three posts in one day...can you tell I'm not motivated to work today??

In my tour of the grounds, I completely failed to mention one of the coolest parts of the property - this cave.

I think there may be others on the property, but this one's the biggest.

Jack told us about how it's always wet from the water that runs through the ground to it.

Doc helped me climb up on one of the ridges for a photo-op.

And I also found a wooly worm! I don't think I've held one of these since I was little.

The wooly worm wasn't the only thing living in the cave, there were also some teeny tiny frogs. Can you see one in this picture?

Me and Allison:

The cave was pretty cool.  It's near the river that runs through the property and Jack said before they put up the fence, a lot of people would get out of their boats and come explore it, looking for arrow heads.

That sums up the caves, now let's talk cows.  During our driving tour, we saw lots of 'em.

I feel like that cow pictured above is thinking, "what in the heck are you people looking at?"

These cows are all grass-fed so they're much healthier angus beef.  No corn or chemicals or antibiotics are used to fatten them up.  And you can see in the picture above that they all have a tag on their ear so they can be identified.

Bright and early Saturday morning, Doc, Chris, and I got out and about to see what was going on around the farm.  We ran into a large herd of cows hanging out by the water, and we decided to get out of the ranger and see if we could get close.

They looked at us like we were crazy when we got out, and we probably were.

But then I think they thought maybe we were going to feed them, and all of a sudden, there were lots of them staring at us!

We inched closer and they did too.  No zoom on this picture - this is how close we were!

And then someone made a quick movement and they all took off away from us.

Once they saw that nothing had happened, they started inching back towards us again.

The ones in the back would push the ones in the front closer to us.

So there the three of us were, lined up staring at them lined up staring back at us.  It looked like we were about to play a game of Red Rover, and guys, I don't think we would've won!

Red rover, red rover, DON't send 42A right over.

Doc picked some grass in an effort to get them even closer.  One cow was really staring him down.

But another fast move was made and they took off running again.  Oh well.

The main reason we had headed out early was to go to this meadow to look for deer. Chris had seen lots of them earlier in the morning, but by the time he brought us back, they were gone.

The meadow was really pretty, but I've gotta say, walking around that tall grass and thicket in a pair of heavy boots gave me a workout! I definitely broke a sweat.

When we gave up and decided to leave the meadow, Chris let me drive the ranger. It is awesome!! Way better than a golf cart - it goes much faster and can drive over anything.  You can see in this picture that I'm about to drive through a shallow part of the river.

When we came to another pasture, we finally saw a deer! It darted out in the open grass about a football field's length away from us.  Chris told us to wait there and he'd see if he could scare some more deer out of the trees. 

Can you see him in the picture above? He's the black dot on top of the hill.  I kept my camera ready and my eyes focused on the trees in case we saw another one.

And finally, we did! Can you see it?

Here's a hint in case you can't find the little deer.

Obviously in my excitement I didn't do a very good job of zooming or focusing or anything crazy like that. 

Now I've shown you alpacas, llamas, dogs, wooly worms, frogs, cows, and a deer. Up next: chickens.

ILLOTF: Barn Animals Edition

[I Love Life On The Farm: Barn Animals Edition] [Find the Barn Door Edition here.] [Find a tour of the grounds here.]

This story is from Friday, around lunchtime.  We had just finished a driving tour of the property.  Upon exiting the truck, I decided to wander over to the butterfly plants along the black fence to get some pictures of the butterflies.

I was just minding my business, taking pictures of flowers

and trying to be quiet and still so I could snap some of the butterflies too.

I was crouched pretty low, looking through the lens of the camera and not paying attention to my surroundings, when I felt like someone, or something, was watching me.

"Hey! I'm a llama! Whatcha doin' down there?"

Now, being the city girl that I am, I didn't really know how to react to a llama staring me down. So I froze. But I got the feeling the llama kinda liked me.

"How you doin'?"

She liked me, that is, until someone better came along. Both of us heard a noise down the fence and looked down to see that Christopher had jumped the fence and was now in the pasture with the llama and alpacas.

Everyone was interested in this foreigner that had just jumped the fence.  The alpacas started heading his way.

I have to admit, I was jealous of all the attention he was getting! Chris told me to just hop over the fence and they'd come over to me. So, I jumped the fence.

And nothing happened.

He told me to put on my sunglasses and be real still, so I did that too.

And still, nothing.

Finally, he came over to help me, and we started picking grass to feed them.  And it worked!

I may look sorta calm in that picture, but really, I was scared and thinking, "please don't eat my hand, please don't eat my hand."

And then the llama kissed me!

And an alpaca decided it wanted in on the action, too.

I had to pull away from that one. I'm married for crying out loud!

More alpacas, whose names I can't remember.

This one I can remember - her name is Penny, cause she's copper like a penny.

Anyway, we fed that group of alpacas for a while (we'll revisit that in a different post) and then headed over to another fenced off section.

Guys, meet Emily. She's the newest alpaca on the farm, and is just three weeks old.

Before I could get in the fence with her and her mom, Emma, I had to be checked out by their bodyguard llama.

I passed the initial inspection and was allowed in the fence, but then I had to endure a few more rounds of sniffing.

And then, finally, I was able to try to get close to baby Emily.

None of my efforts worked. She was just too scared of me. 

Meanwhile, Doc was on the other side of the fence making friends with alpacas.

And he got some sugars from a llama, too.

After a good while of Emily still being scared of me, we decided to head towards the barn to get some real food to lure her in.

Here she is with her mama.

Turns out, if you fill your hands with the alpaca food, you may get attention from more than just the baby alpaca you're trying for.

At this point, I still had not gotten to pet Emily. I really wanted to feel her soft fleece! So, after lunch, we were able to put her in a pen by herself so I could get in with her. (I'm pretty sure I may have traumatized her.)

And as far as pictures go, this is the best we could get of the two of us together.

I'm happy to report that her fleece is every bit as soft as I thought it would be.

Here's what I learned while at the farm: alpacas are bred/raised/farmed/popular? for their fleece.  An alpaca sweater can be softer than cashmere.  The two llamas are their protectors.  If a coyote or something were to get on the farm, the alpacas would run away but the llamas would actually run towards the intruder animal to try to trample it.   I think that's it in a nutshell.

The llamas aren't the only protector animals.  When they go to sleep at night with the alpacas, Bonnie and Clyde 2 get to work patrolling the grounds.

These dogs (Great Pyrenees) make sure nothing crazy happens at night.  The sound of their barking is comforting noise for Jack and Jan.   And they're really just the sweetest dogs ever.

They'd sit in your lap if you'd let 'em!

Ok, that's a wrap for the Barn Animals Edition, but there are still several editions to come...

ILLOTF: Barn Door Edition

[I Love Life On The Farm: Barn Door Edition] I love sliding barn doors. LOVE them. Slightly obsessed. And coming to this farm did not help. They were everywhere!

First, here's a look at the front door. No, it's not a sliding barn door, but it is an over-sized barn-style door, and I love it, too.

Ok, that door's nice at all but let's get to the sliding doors.  The barn by the house had lots of 'em!

Aren't they cool? And they weren't just on the exterior of the barn, they were inside it, too.

The two pictures above show both sides of a breezeway.  If I were a senior in high school needing some senior portraits made, I'd want to go to the breezeway to take them.

Here's another set from the end of the barn.

You know what's cooler than just a regular sliding barn door? A barn door that serves a purpose. (Other than being a regular door, that is.)  Check out this barn door in the loft room Chris and Allison stayed in.

During the day, that barn door stayed pushed to the side like it is in the picture, so that you could look from the bedroom down into the living room. But then, at night, they could close it for privacy. Closed view from the living room:

I won't lie, that interior barn door made my heart go pitter-patter. I may have slid it back and forth a few times on my own.

But wait! I've got one more cool, multi-purposed barn door to show you.  Remember the outdoor fireplace from the tour of the grounds I showed you?  Here's a reminder:

Well, directly across from that fireplace is another barn door.

Now, what could be behind that? Let's get Vanna White Allison to help us out.

Ta daaa! It's an outdoor kitchen, complete with another dishwasher!

Awesome, right?  That door in the kitchen goes to the offices below the apartment Doc and I stayed in.

So that's it for the Barn Door Edition. But I promise there are still pictures of alpacas and Sheryl Crow to come, so don't stay gone for long!