Between now and February 17th we will be slowly drying her off. We do this gradually to reduce the chance of her getting mastitis like often happens if you just stop milking her “cold turkey.” The closer we get to February 17 the more likely we may not have milk. Between February and when she actually calves we won’t have any milk. Immediately after giving birth, the first milk or colostrum all goes to the new calf. A few days later we will have fresh milk again!

We’ll send out another notification when she actually gives birth so you will know fresh milk is coming. It’s also a great time to come by the farm for a visit as a baby Jersey calf is incredibly cute. Who knows, you might get a chance to bottle feed him/her!

In addition to his well known home Monticello, he also founded the University of Virginia and designed much of its architecture, had summer home Poplar Forest and is reputed to have designed the bath houses at The Jefferson Pools in Warm Springs.

Recently, we’ve had a chance to visit a couple of these sights that are a little off the beaten path to Monticello and UVA.  This spring on our way to the Highland Maple Festival, we stopped by The Jefferson Pools.  They were closed so we couldn’t go in so we limited ourselves to walking around the outside, enjoying the warm spring waters flowing down a small stream and taking a peek inside the building. 

It was a brisk morning so steam was rising from the 98 degree water and the bite of sulfur was in the air.  The spring houses are the original buildings and are clearly in need of some refurbishing – hopefully the Homestead Resort will invest the time and money to preserve them before it is too late.

		Warm Springs VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Last week we took a day off work to go visit Poplar Forest.  Poplar Forest was built on a few thousand acres of land Jefferson inherited via his wife when her father passed away.  Here, away from the hustle and bustle of life at the Capital and the constant stream of visitors at Monticello, Jefferson built his personal retreat.

An octagonal home modeled after the Villas he admired in Europe, Jefferson blended architecture and landscape to create his vision of the perfect “get away.”

		Poplar Forest VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

The old Shay steam locomotive’s are from the early 1900’s and were specially designed for logging as they needed to climb step grades, run on poor tracks, and take sharp turns.  They are gear driven to all 12 wheels which gives them high torque and a lot of traction.  Because of the direct gear drive, they actually have enough power to run on the ground without a track! 

They have a special device (basically a specially formed ramp) for when they derail that allows the engine to drive itself back up on the rails.  Each wheel is mounted in truck that can turn independently so it can better follow the sharp turns of the tracks.  Steam engines are pretty cool in general but these ones are extra special.

		CASS Railroad VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

The fall colors were beautiful, the weather was a perfect, the steam engines and ride to the top of the mountain was spectacular.

After our trip on the railroad, we drove by the nearby National Radio Astronomy Observatory only to find out it is closed on Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s so we couldn’t take the tour – bummer. 

On the way home, we stopped by the Homestead resort which founded in 1766.  Talk about old money!  It is a beautiful resort tucked in the mountains only about 1/2 hour from the house.

We then stopped by a pizza place across the street from the Bath County High School and ordered way too much pizza!  It was good so we won’t mind having it tomorrow for lunch… and snack… but not for dinner!  I’m going to smoke a brisket from one of our grass fed cows for dinner tomorrow.  A real treat!

I used to think raccoons were cute little fuzzy animals right out of a Disney movie.  With there little bandit masks and their five fingered hands and feet they had to have been created by Disney – right?  Wrong!  Now I know them as sneaky, heartless little vermin that need to be kept out of my chicken coop and feed storage room.

It started with the cat food.  We have “acquired” several stray cats (ie they just keep showing up and staying) that we feed primarily as natural rodent control.  We started noticing that the metal garbage can where we store the cat food would be open in the morning.  After first blaming the kids for leaving it open after they fed the cats, we finally realized that something was opening it at night.  So, we started keeping a cinder block on top of the lid at night.  This worked for, oh, about 1 night before the unknown varmints figured out to tip the trash can over and then get into the food again.  Once we had that solved (a bungee cord works great for this BTW) we started noticing that we were missing chickens.

Now, missing chickens isn’t an entirely new event.  We have lost chickens to fox, bald eagles, even hawks.  The thing that was odd this time was that the kids would go out to collect eggs in the morning and find a chicken laying on the floor of the coop.  The only things they were eating were the internal organs.  It was pretty gruesome to see but by now, we knew we had a raccoon problem.

They are strong and smart and with opposing digits, they can open nearly everything.  We have a small door that the chickens go out of but it didn’t have a latch – it was just slid into place in a groove cut into the frame around the door.  The raccoons would simply slide the door open, grab a sleeping chicken or two and then abscond with them.

We went from 17 chickens down to 8 in just a couple of nights.  Then they started getting into the stall where we store our pig and chicken feed and ripped open 8 or 10 bags of feed – eating some but mostly making a huge mess.  Grr.  Any sympathies for raccoons were gone the first time our daughter found an eviscerated chicken when collecting eggs!

One evening, Julie heard something in the area where we stored the cat food.  I grabbed my flashlight and my .22 and went looking.  Sure enough, we chased a raccoon out of the stall and up a tree.  Fortunately, I had just purchased a 5,000,000 candle power spotlight (we live in a land of excesses – what can I say) so the raccoon didn’t stand a chance.  A .22 to the head and down it came.

We still had something getting into the feed.  Hmm.  So I installed a security camera in the feed room (that is the tech in me – it is a nice HPNA based camera that allows me to record and view the video feed from my PC).  Sure enough, that night we say more raccoons (yes, plural, about 3 or 4 it seemed).  On another night, I went into the stall, flipped on the light and what was looking back at me?  Five guilty looking masked faces and their evil beady eyes!

Again, I go for the .22 but after shooting one, I’m struck by a flash of remorse and decide to catch the other 4.  So (don’t try this at home) I put on some heavy work gloves and catch (yes, by hand, they were hiding in the corner) the other 4 raccoons and put them in 5 gallon buckets with lids.  They sound ferocious!  I was honestly afraid they were going to attack but into the buckets the went. 

It turns out that moving wildlife is a crime (or so I’ve been told).  So please don’t tell the authorities this but we drove them down the road a couple of miles to an area of mostly national forest and turned them loose.  They will probably come back just to spite my moment of weakness kindness but that is what we did.  Finally problem solved… right?

Move feed bags ripped open, more security video of the culprits.  We must have had an entire colony of raccoons eating our cat food, all-you-can-eat chicken buffet and pig feed!  This time, I was not going to be weak.  I was not going to bend the law – they had to go.  This time, I borrowed our good neighbor’s live animal trap and now have trapped two more for a total of 7 raccoons so far.  We still haven’t caught them all.  At least one is still trying to break into the chicken coop every night.  I will catch him and put an end to his chicken killing ways.  My poor defenseless chickens deserve no less.  Who else is going to protect them?

We decided to take a mini family vacation with the kids and go to Washington DC which is about 3 1/2 hours away.  We had a chance to visit the Lincoln Memorial on his 200th birthday and see many of the other memorials there on the Mall.  We even got a chance to see President Obama go by in his Presidential motorcade.         

Julie and I took a weekend away from the kids and went to Charlottesville, Virginia.  While we were there, we went ice skating and then visited the University of Virginia.  The University of Virginia was the brain child of Thomas Jefferson who designed the layout of the school, how it would be run, the architecture and then lobbied for the funding necessary to build it.  It is a spectacular campus.

Hover over the photos for a description of the photo.

We took a 1+ hour tour offered by a student volunteer and learned about the history of the campus, Thomas Jefferson’s ideas for how a college should be run with the students and teachers co-mingling to promote better learning.  We learned about the fire that claimed the Rotunda, it’s reconstruction and later restoration to Jefferson’s original design.  If you are ever in the area, I highly recommend a visit just to admire the beautiful architecture.

The next day, we went to James Madison’s lifelong home, Montpelier.  Amazingly, this home has been owned by the Du Pont family until around 1983 when the woman who lived there (by herself in the 37,000 sq ft home) died and left it to the foundation.  The restoration included removing the 25,000 sq ft the Du Pont family had added since they had purchased the home in 1901.  The restoration began in 2003 and is still underway now in 2008.  This year they finished the exterior and most of the interior but are still collecting the furnishings and art work that were in the home.

For those who are a bit rusty on their American history, James Madison spent much of his life gaining an education (he was the first graduate student at what was to become Princeton after graduating as an undergrad after only 2 years) and studying forms of government and why other democracies had failed.  As a result, he is considered the "Father of the Constitution."  He is also largely responsible for our form of government with the Executive Branch, the Legislative Branch, and the Judicial Branch with all the checks and balances to keep these one from gaining control. 

His father had been a very successful businessman and had built up the 5000 acre plantation where he lived.  This money is what funded his education and his life spent in public service.  Once he obtained his father’s estate, he added to the house and then when he became president he added on the two outer wings.  The house has been restored to it’s state after his 2 terms as president when he lived there in retirement.

James Madison’s Montpelier

Most people don’t realize that hunting is one of the most effective controls the state biologists have to maintaining healthy wildlife.  Since we have removed all the natural predators, most of the game animals would breed uncontrollably until the population finally crashes due to diseases caused by over crowding. 

Another little known positive aspect of hunting is the tax revenue brought in.  Every gun, ammunition and other hunting equipment pays a special tax that funds most of the conservation efforts in this country.  This money far outweighs that raised by the various conservation groups.  Without it, wildlife management would be pretty much un-funded.

I had never been hunting before this year.  In fact, I didn’t even own a gun to go hunting with.  Once we moved to the farm we saw so many deer (often 25 or more in a field at a time) that I knew I’d have to give it a try.  It really is too convenient to pass up.  No long trips to the mountains, no roughing it in some hunt camp.  I can just walk out on the farm in the morning or evening and hang around for an hour or two waiting for the deer to show up.

Well, as you can see from the pictures – it worked!  At 11 points, this is the biggest buck I got this year.  I’m not all that interested in mounting the deer I shoot, just eating them.  With the 4 deer I got, we filled a good chunk of one of the freezers with venison (known around here as “deer meat”).

One of the best parts of hunting (other than the good meat) is that it forced me to take some time off and just sit quietly outside.  I love being outdoors in pre-dawn darkness and as the sun comes up, listening to the birds wake up and the world come to life around me. 

It’s pretty amazing what you see and hear when you are sitting still outdoors.  Within about a half hour of just sitting still, all the animals start to ignore you and come back out and go about their business.  From the 3 legged opossum to the deer large and small, foxes, raccoons, river otter, all kinds of wildlife surround us.  We only have to go outside where they are and sit quietly until they come out from hiding.

Fall is my favorite time of year.  It is cool, crisp, dry and the mountains are painted with the bright fall colors.  The reds of the sugar maple, yellows and browns of oaks, bright yellow of maple trees, the red grape vines climbing up the trunks of the trees all blend together into a fabulous fall display.

Of course, deer season is a huge event in this area.  Pretty much everything comes to a halt for those two weeks.  I had never hunted before but thought “when in Rome” so bought a rifle.  We can hunt right here on the farm as there are literally dozens of deer here pretty much every day.  It’s very convenient as I can just grab my rifle and go for a walk on the farm.  When I happen to see a deer, I can take a shot. 

The other day, I got my first deer with my muzzle loader (muzzle loader season is the 2 weeks before and the 2 weeks after rifle season).  The kids were pretty excited I finally got one.  As you can see, Matthew was particularly excited to help gut, skin, and then butcher the deer.  He has been cooking and eating venison steak ever since!

Julie and I often like to take a walk around the farm just to enjoy the many things we see and discover.  Nature has an endless supply of beauty as well as surprises if you just look for it.  Today I decided to bring along my GPS and camera so that I could record one of our walks.  Hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

When we arrived one of the first things we wanted were fresh eggs.  We heard about a local hatchery where we could buy ready to lay pullets rather than having to raise hens from chicks and wait a few months until they were old enough to start laying.  Well, the day finally came and our pullets are ready for us to pick up.

Here are the kids loaded in the van on the way to the hatchery.  Chickens are pretty dirty as they poop almost constantly and don’t respect the leather seating or carpet in the van.  So, in the back of the van are two large plastic outdoor toy boxes that we will load the chickens in when we pick them up. 

When we arrived at the hatchery, it was a pretty unassuming red brick building with no visible sign.  Once inside, we met the nice gentleman who runs the hatchery and he invited us to come out back where he would catch our birds.  With practiced ease, he would grab 5 chickens at a time by one leg and then carry them out the van where we loaded them in the toy boxes.  In no time at all, everyone was loaded and we were ready to head home.

Once at home, we clipped the right wing of each chicken (just the ends of the flight feathers, nothing painful, much like you getting a hair cut) to help prevent them from flying up into the trees at night.  Then we put them all in the coop with food and water and closed the door.  After a couple of days when they are used to getting their food and water and sleeping in the coop, we’ll open the small door into the outdoor portion of the coop.  Another couple of days and we’ll open the door to let them in with the pigs.  As long as they go back in at night, we’ll let them free range around the farm to clean up after Maybelle and sanitize the pastures.  There you have it, free pasture clean up and fresh eggs!