Cold Weather Arrives at Little Utah Farm

So far we have gotten some heavy and fast hail
which turned most places white in 8 minutes.

The cold has come to Little Utah Farm.   The temps range from 30s to 12 degrees. Taking care of the animals is much different in cold temperatures.



The girls (hens and ducks) are hungry in the morning and I find having it all ready to put down in the morning works best for all of us.  In the evening after I put the ducks and hens to bed, I prepare their morning feast of scratch, feed, and sunflower seeds and a few dried mealworms and put in the feed bin with a tight lid. I fill the  water buckets and put them inside by the back door for next morning, so they do not freeze. I feed again in the afternoon around 2:30pm well before the sun goes down and the colder temps set in.


Those dried meal worms are eaten up fast. They miss their moths, and other bugs that they hunt  in warmer weather.

The chickens  and ducks are snug
in their coop during the winter.

The infrared lamps in the coop were dusted off tightened into position and connected. That gets turned on at 15 degrees. Some chicken owners say wait till below zero but I draw the line at 15 F. Some of you might even gasp at that temperature but the  girls run really hot. If you bury your finger into their feathers you can feel the heat they give off. Those feathers are like a super down coat. They fluff their feathers out to insulate the cold from coming in. The hens and ducks have a big coop. They roost in a small compartment which blocks the icy winds and rain and snow. Chickens do adapt to cold weather just like the swallows, robins, and doves who winter here.



Just a note: I raised my first hens in Southern California. I did not know much about them. When it got 60 degrees I turned the lamps on for them. Which is crazy wrong. But we learn as we go along. When I got to Utah I turned the lamps on at 40. then the following year, 30, then later, 20. Now it is 15. I see that the more adapt I am to the cold the more I realize the hens are too. I also came to this by reading many articles on the subject.



 The heating element was placed inside the water trough for the llamas. Llamas have a common dung pile and 90% of the corral stays very clean. In the cold, rain and snow those lines  get out of the normal parameters and the llamas manure pile extends out to the north east of the corral. Come summer the manure pile shrinks back to the southeast.

The whole herd of llamas fits ncely
inside a 3 sided shelter during a snow storm

 Llamas have a 3 sided shelter to keep out of the elements when they need to. the shelter is big enough to house 6 llamas comfortably.



The way we deal with the water and hoses is much different in the below freezing temperatures. After using the water, I have to drain the hose, disconnect it from the spigot, and put a special cover to keep the water from freezing.




As for me I have outfitted myself with nice thermal under layers. 3-4 layers of clothing keeps me warm in single digits and below freezing. These are not heavy layers at all. I can move about quite freely. It is the gloves I feel clumsy with. So hard to manipulate tiny jobs with those heavy gloves. An ungloved hand can get real cold, numb and painful so I keep those gloves on.

A nice big red barn.

I would love a nice big red barn that is connected to the house by an underground pass. I have that picture in my mind always and it makes me happy. I love to dream.
After all, dreaming got me here to Little Utah Farm.

Frost gathered on the alfalfa
and the drying corn stalks.

I take advantage of the mild waves of remaining warmth during the day to finish cutting the cornstalks and making a corn shock from my field of dried cornstalks. I am also layering cardboard, manure, kitchen scraps and leaves for good garden soil and no weeds. It did wonders for the clay soil.

Layers of cardboard, manure,
kitchen scraps, straw, and leaves.

Here is my blog post Winter Layers For My Garden which shows how to layer cardboard, manure, leaves and straw to keep the weeds down and also make rich soil.

That is it for now...

Deborah Moen
Little Utah Farm

Thank you for visiting us at Little Utah Farm


Until next time,

Enjoy your life, gather your blessings, and cherish each day.

Winter Layers For My Garden

Compost right over the soil.

I discovered a natural way to nourish our garden soil and keeps the weeds down. In this post, I will share how I did it.

 Our soil is hard clay and for 5 years we have mixed in llama manure and rototilled it in. I came across this method of putting layers of materials over the top of the soil like you would a compost pile. This process will invite beneficial microbes, bacteria and earthworms. It will also keep most of the weeds from growing. 

Autumn is now in full force. The nights are in the 20's. The orb weaver cat spiders, which came to visit us this year, transitioned in the cold leaving their beautiful webs behind. The grasses in the pasture have begun to brown, and the leaves that fell from Grandmother Apple Tree were mulched and placed in a pile by the corn field to use later in the garden. 

The garden was dismantled, cleared, and ready for a nourishing mask of green manure, kitchen scraps, hay, and fallen leaves. Husband went out and collected cardboard boxes for the project. You can also use newspaper ( no colored ink or shiny surfaces) discarded toilet paper rolls, shredded junk mail ( no colored inks or shiny surfaces) We had everything else we needed like kitchen scraps, tea bags, hay, llama manure, dead leaves, and hay or straw.

Here is how we laid the layers in the garden.

      1. Removed any tape from the boxes and cut them to lie flat. 

       2. Water the soil first then lay down the cardboard. I let them overlap about 6" so the weeds cannot come through.

      3. Water over the cardboard.

      4. Put down green manure on the cardboard. We used fresh llama manure and kitchen scraps. 

       5. Water over the manure.

      6. Scatter dead leaves and hay or straw over the manure. 

      7.Water over the leaves

You can repeat these layers if you want to. Water each layer.  

The snows will come and in the spring the ice will melt into this nourishing mask and it will be ready for planting and seeding. 
The cardboard will be easy to penetrate for planting or roots to grow through. If the cardboard is still firm, then I cut a hole or x’s in the cardboard to plant.

I thoroughly enjoyed this project. I felt close to Mother Nature. I am also doing the layer technique in our garden boxes. I will lay down what is left from the plants in the boxes and begin to layer over that. 

Thank you for visiting Little Utah Farm
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Until next time, 

Garden as though you will live forever.

                                                         ~ William Kent

DeborahMoonMoen
Little Utah Farm

Duck Teeth

Do ducks have teeth? Lolli at Little Utah Farm

Do ducks have teeth? I set out to find the answer. I Googled duck teeth. In this post I will tell you my findings and show you a good illustration of the duck bill. 

I went out back with my camera to get a good photo for this post.

trying different places and techniques to capture an image of these "duck teeth".

Winona is the most energetic of the flock.
Little Utah Farm.

I bent down on one knee on the lawn. This made the ducks very curious so that they hung around wondering what I was doing. Winona, our hen ( we call her Red for short) kept looking into my camera lens.

Ducky hears something. Little Utah Farm

At one point the ducks heard a peculiar noise out by the barn.  Ducky stepped forward and stretched way up high to see what she could see. I was surprised to see how tall she was. Daisey, Ducky, and Lolli usually swing their necks low to the ground to gain momentum as they waddle from one place to the other.

I realized my camera was too high to get under their bills for a good look. I bent down lower and tilted my camera up.  

Just then a plane went overhead. The ducks tilted their heads with one eye looking up to the sky. Voila! Click* I got the perfect photograph of the "duck teeth". 

They are not exactly teeth but serrated fringe on the edge of the beak. This makes it easy to sieve the water on out and keep the tasty stuff inside. The only things that compares, they say, is how a Blue Whale feeds in the ocean. It is quite an advanced filtering system. 

Check out these chompers. 

 Look at those serrated sieving edges on these Buff Orpington females on Little Utah Farm.

This morning it was 22 degrees. I put warm water over their feed and had a big bucket of fresh water nearby. They love water.  The sieving process is very splashy and noisy. Listen to these 3 girls sieve. Watch the video below and turn up the volume. It is 52 seconds.

Deborah Moon Moen of Litte Utah Farm

Thank you for visiting Little Utah Farm (14,179 page views)

Until next time, please check out our Facebook Page and our store on Zazzle. 

And remember..

Shower the people you love with love, show them the way that you feel. Things are gonna be just fine if you only will.
~James Taylor. 

Simple DIY Safe Water For Bees

A simple drinking station for our bees. 

We are learning how to be good stewards to the earth.

We can provide bees with a safe place to drink. They risk their lives for a sip of life giving water. Many bees drown in water bowls, pools, rivers and streams.

Take a shallow bowl and fill it with rocks or marbles. Pour in enough water so the tops of the rocks are exposed and dry. Bees can easily get a good footing on the rocks as they take a drink. Little pools will form inbetween the rocks or marbles and that makes for happy safe watering holes for our beloved bees.

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Until next time,

Believe in your dreams.

One day Venus and Jupiter just
began jumping into my arms.


Deborah Moon Moen of Little Utah Farm





  

More than 100 classroom activities to help children learn about and care for the earth
Educate young children about the environment through experience and play. These activities encourage children to develop a sense of wonder, curiosity, and joy for nature.

The Day Winter Came

The Day Winter Came

Autumn brought such beautiful color and a short cold snap that turn the leaves a beautiful burgandy red, orange and yellow gold. After that brief cold snap, it was mild most everyday. The colors on the trees stayed longer and brighter most of the season. One day a strong wind came through and dried the leaves untill they were crisp which made a rustling sound as they moved up and down. The warmer weather was a blessing for the baby llama, Luna. We took her homemade coat off and she was able to enjoy her infant days much more grazing and playing naked in the sunshine.

We had heard of a storm coming but we gave it no mind as the mild autumn had cast her spell of euphoria and complacency.  I stepped out onto the back deck. A freezing cold wave of wind and snow flurried around my face I shivered all the way down to my feet and followed the snowflakes out to the coop.  I felt my heart race to think of the girls in this cold weather and stepped into the coop to turn on the heat lamps. Click* click...there was no light....nothing... then I tried again...click* and no light came on ... no electricity! * (see note below)

Husband usually takes care of these things but he was at work so I had to put on my big girl pants and investigate the source. Sure enough after testing the main outlet with a hair dryer I found the electricity was off . I tried the reset button but it did not help. Rerouting the extension cords to the house from the barn was a bit dramatic as the snowflakes swirled around me in a white out.  I held that "can do" spirit of a farm woman. As I worked, the snow got deeper. I grabbed the cords to the llama trough heater and pulled them out across the pasture, through the backyard gate, across the lawn and plugged it into the socket on the back porch. The chicken coop and llama trough were connected. Success ! 

The next on my chore list was to sew on some velcro fasteners onto baby Luna's winter coat. That went fast. By now the sun had begun to lower fast and it was dark by the time Paul got home. We went to get that coat on Luna. We turned on the back porch light and could see the snowflakes swirling down and blowing in diagonal sweeping motions like a curtain in the cold winds. 

  I wore a head lamp and Paul held a flash light. We were ah mazed at the snow heaped on the gates and panels and we shivered as the ice crunched under our feet and gloves. There is this metallic crunch like a crystal glass vibration as we forced opened the gates. being from Southern California this is quite awesome to us. We entered the shelter and gently cornered baby Luna. Momma, Gaia, made no mind of it.

Luna, 3 months old, had bits of frozen ice on all over her and I pulled them off with my heavy gloves. She was dry under the ice. She grunted and hummed like a child who was getting her face washed but she stood quite still for me to get her coat on. The new coat fit so well with some room to grow and Luna was now protected from the wet cold snow.  Yay ! Done! That night I slept pretty good knowing all my fur and feather family members were safe and warm.

Within 2 days the winter has brought us minus digits to -7 degrees and then it let up and became warmer.  Highs in the 20's and lows in the teens and single digits for the coming days and nights showed on the weather reports. 

The water at the spigot outdoors had frozen which means the water buckets must be filled from the sink or bathtub indoors then carried out to my trusty wagon.  As I pulled the wagon behind me over the ruts of frozen snow, the water in the buckets sloshed.  I made my way to the corral and emptied the buckets into the big water trough. 

Really, I do love our little farm. It is quite an adventure for me.  Everyday brings another lesson, another joy to experience and another story to share. 

As I write this morning, it is 14 degrees. I will stop now as it is time to feed breakfast to my dear animals outdoors. I will fix a nice meal of scrambled eggs, oatmeal, and fresh broccoli for the hens. The llamas are easy. They love their hay of alfalfa and grass.

I wish you all a Happy and Joyous New Year!

Thank you for visiting Little Utah Farm

Deborah Moen
of Little Utah Farm

We hope you can come again.

Until next time you may like to try my post 

 Pumpkin Seeds recipe:

* [Please note: I was new to cold weather, being from mild Southern California, and unaware that chickens can hold their own in the cold.  As I got used to the cold I have let the girls use their feathers and warm bodies to keep warm. I do have a great coop heater panel which I use in single digits and minus temperatures. It has a timer and 3 settings. It is safe for coops on the ground or hanging on the wall. I got it at amazon. ]