School

If you haven't noticed I'm posting a lot of my school projects/reports on my blog. As three electives for high school I'm doing a Wilderness survival study, an Agricultural Management study, and an Animal Husbandry study. I'm really enjoying all three of them. I will be posting a lot of what I'm learning here.

Forest Fires- Why they are GOOD

More school 

Forest Fires – Why they are GOOD

When God created forests He knew what they needed, and He gave them what they needed. Forests can take care of themselves. Many years ago, though, scientists wanted to help the forests. Scientists were afraid the fires were killing the forests, so they found ways to help prevent forest fires from starting. People did everything they could to avoid fires, and it worked. Forest fires decreased greatly, but they were doing more harm than good by stopping the fires.

Suddenly when a fire did start it didn’t stop. Rather than running along the forest floor for a ways and then going out the fires went on, they went higher into the trees and actually were killing the forests. Now we know that forests depend on fires for survival.

            Forest’s floors are built of debris from trees and dead plants. There are layers of dead twigs, pine needles, seeds, and leaves. On top of all that there are fallen trees, shrubs, baby trees, and briers. When natural forest fires happen when they are supposed to all this “fuel” on the floor burns away and the fire goes out, then in a couple years when more material have built up it happens again. If fires are not able to happen the debris accumulates more than it should creating a very large amount of “fuel”,  Trees and shrubs begin to grow to thickly, and the briers, fallen trees, and branches begin to get so thick people can hardly enjoy or even walk in the forests anymore. Then lightning or a spark from a near camp fire lights the forest. The forest starts to burn. Because of the massive amounts of debris and overgrown shrubbery the fire reaches the tops of the trees and burns much hotter at the basses, killing the trees, and most likely destroying the entire forest, and killing many living creatures as it goes.  

Scientists have now learned from their mistakes and there are now prescribed fires for overgrown forests.  Trained professionals now use drip torches to burn away undergrowth at a very slow pace, giving animals plenty of time to get far enough away to avoid being burned. These fires are planned and watched very closely and with great care, before the fires the weather, wind, floor density, and moister in the forest are all considered when planning the burn day.

Johanna E. Howland

Kelp and Minerals

I wrote this for school.

Kelp and Minerals

There are many advantages of feeding kelp and minerals to your farm animals. Animals need vitamins to be healthy just as like we humans do. Their bodies can get what they need by eating kelp and minerals rather than only hay and grain.

Kelp contains iodine which is needed to avoid iodine deficiency which can be the cause of a messed up thyroid or goiters.

Kelp also has many different vitamins and amino acids that will help to keep your animals healthy, fit, and strong. Kelp also gives animals a nice shine to their coats.

Minerals are needed to keep your animals healthy, they are full of vitamins and other essentials such as Calcium, Potassium, Zinc, Iron, etc.

When buying minerals for your animals (in blocks or loose) make sure to buy what is specific to the animal you have.  Goat minerals, for instance, could kill sheep. Goats need a much higher percentage of Copper than sheep do, so the amount of copper in goat’s minerals is much too high for sheep. It goes the other way too. Sheep or “sheep and goat” minerals could make goats sick by not giving them enough copper.

Any minerals for sheep or goats would not have enough of anything for cows and cattle. Cattle are a much bigger animal and require much more to maintain a healthy level.

If your animals are in Milk, Kelp and Minerals will increase production and if nursing the babies drinking milk from a mother on kelp and minerals will be stronger and healthier.

           Johanna E, Howland January, 2012

Our Puppy

I'm going to cry typing this...I feel like that's what I've been doing the most of these past two weeks. Thanksgiving evening Sadie was acting a bit oddly. She was holding her self funny and her belly felt firm. We suspected bloat. She had a case of bloat once before and she got over it easily. We treated her the same way the vet had recommended before and she was acting better. Around three-O-clock  the next morning  mom and Forest took her to the all night vet in Newington. She did have bloat but it was a different type. there are two kinds of bloat. (People out there with horses would recognize this as colic) there's the kind she had before, where there are just bubbles in your stomach. and there's the second type: and this is where the stomach literally twists. and that's what she had. The vet said they could do a 4000 dollar surgery but that that surgery doesn't always work. Sadie went into shock and died before mom could make the call to put her down. Here I go, Now I'm crying. She was just over a year and a half old...too young. I miss our girl. Our family has talked a lot about not being bitter to God for taking her away but being thankful for the time He gave her to us. We have also been thinking on the verse that says all things will work together for good to those who love the Lord. We have already seen that in action in the contact we have had since then with the dog breeder. Mom has been contacting her in regards to getting a new puppy. I'm not going into detail but the contact we have had with her has been a blessing for both of our families. and she has a dog that will possibly have puppies around Christmas. 

All the connections we have had with the breeder is great but it doesn't take away from the fact that we all miss Sadie. I feel like there's a piece taken out of me. I think we take too many things for granted. I have never before lived in a dog-less house and I can tell you it's horrible. the house is so empty...

 I once read that we should plan like we will live forever and live like we will die tomorrow.

Zipporah

My chicken Zippy/Zipporah has died. I'm unsure how, I found her dead in the coop when I was feeding the chickens their dinner. She was a polish and I know the fancier breeds are often fragile and easily catch passing germs that may not affect other chickens at all. I do feel rather silly posting a chicken's death - and if it were any other chicken I would hardly fuss over it at all. But Zippy was a pet. I took her for walks (Yes, walks, like a dog on a leash) and I tied her "hair" up with ribbons.
And I suppose writing is my favorite ways of releasing my feelings, so here I am... typing away.

P.S. I didn't know this until just now what the name Zipporah means. I named her after a girl in a book I read and I just looked up the meaning of her name and guess what it means? 'Bird'. And I had no idea that it meant bird when I named her that.

Pumpkin Saturday!

Today for Pink Saturday- as Beverly has said to- I'm posting pumpkins! She also said to say what I'm doing this weekend but sadly, I wont be doing hardly anything...I've got an cold. But what ever, it happens!

 We didn't have a great garden this year, it was mostly weeds and not many veggies...however we managed, some how, to get EIGHT pumpkins out of it! They are all beautiful pumpkins too!
So this Saturday I'm posting a couple that I've decorated with pink ribbons. Gotta love pink!

Well happy pink/pumpkin Saturday every one and I hope you all have a GREAT weekend

My hammock

I have a hammock that I often hang up in my goat stall to lay on while I read, nap, or just stay for hours on end watching the goats and thinking. Many times my friend and I will lay together on the hammock, kick off our shoes and chat. Well the other day she came over with her two baby goats and we set up the hammock. Well my two youngest babies, as they often do, hopped up on the hammock with us...then my friends two babies decided to follow suit and join the party! That made for two teen girls and four goats. We estimated that to be over 300 pounds of weight on the old and ripped and goat-chewed hammock. We half expected it to fall off the wall any minute...It didn't though. And the goats fell asleep for nearly an hour until someone came out with a camera and they decided they were camera shy and had to wake up and get down. So my mom just managed to snap this picture, but I think it's a great one! Have a good week end!