Assorted Nonsense

There is a little apple grove on Bully Hill. It sits in the middle pasture and we can see it from our bedroom window. In spring it is a really incredible sight as the trees are filled with white apple blossoms. The thing about having apple trees in a horse pasture, however, is that horses really like apples and end up damaging the trees pretty badly. There was one victim in particular. I guess he strayed a bit too far from the apple tree pack and was savaged. The poor little apple tree carcass sat as an ever-present warning to the other trees. It sat there through blizzards, tropical depressions, severe winds, but it finally met its match with Snow.

I came out of the front door with my cup of coffee the other morning, as I am want to do, and noticed the poor little tree had been knocked over.


How might this have happened? This brave little tree had been clinging on to its dignity by remaining upright despite obvious shortcomings. Well, here you go, this is how I found Snow moments later:



Yes, an itchy Snow butt can do a fair amount of damage to those that are either unable or not smart enough to run away.

On a different subject, Little Brett is all healed up. I have released him from his cage in my exercise room... well, my wife's exercise room... and let him return to his flock. He was pretty happy to see Camilla again... maybe a bit too happy. There will be no pictures of his re-introduction. I'm not a fan of censoring my chickens, but this is a family-oriented blog. Here is a wholesome picture of chickens eating some scratch. Camilla is not in the picture because she is likely on the phone with the authorities.


Brett is growing some feathers back, which is a good thing.


I was shocked that in his absence, the Orpington gals seemed to have caught up with him in size. Here is Beatrix showing off her impressive bulk:

Finally, I get bored easily. I like to try new things and as a result I am a bit of a jack-of-all-trades... but certainly a master of none. Now, when we bought the farm, I, as an urban hipster, had some preconceived notions of what a farm was... or rather what I wanted a farm to be. A farm needed a name... Bully Hill... it needed farm colors... Navy and Burgundy (a good compromise)... and it needed a rustic hand-carved sign. The first two were pretty easy because they didn't invovle any actual work. I recently set out to make the sign a reality. Here is my initial progress:

As you can see, I merely printed out "Bully Hill Farm" in a large font on the computer, cut out the pieces and laid them on a piece of wood which has been joined, cut into an oval, and routed. Then I drew an arc to set the lettering, taped the letters on the wood, and started carving the outline of the letters with a wood chisel. Once the outline was in place, I could start forming the letters better. I started working on the "B" to show how things will progress.

Once I have it all carved up, I will either stain it with a blue stain or paint it navy blue, then make the lettering silver. I will put some burgundy and silver accents around the edges. Next I have to figure out some place to hang it. It will be a fun distraction for a while.