A couple of days ago Tom noticed a bald eagle flying low over the front area of the barn and then suddenly held up.  So he thought that our colored strings in this area had deterred it.  He went out at the time, and there was no dead chickens.  But yesterday I found three piles of red feathers.  So the eagle had killed one of our chickens.  The strings are not enough.  So this is sad.

For good news, the turkeys are growing quickly.  We have never had midget ones before, but they do not seem to be growing more slowly so far.

And yesterday I checked the bee hive.  I did it somewhat quickly because my smoker was not working well.  But there are plenty of larvae in the upper levels of the hive so that is a good sign.

In other bad news, our farm truck would not start when Tom was supposed to use it to help his son out yesterday.  It appears to be an electrical problem that Tom could not fix.  So he called Triple A and rather quickly a tow truck arrived.

It is a sad farm day when the farm truck is towed away.  Hopefully it will be a quick (and cheap) fix.

In nicer news, the 2711 Lilac and Chain of Gold trees are blooming.

In an attempt to dissuade the eagles, we hooked up a radio in the barn.  On a raising heritage turkeys class recording that I finally got around to watching, he mentioned this for daytime predators. I am thinking he meant 4 legged ones like raccoons, but I figured it was worth trying.  I have recently salvaged this radio from the hay loft so it was available to try.  I did moved it back under cover better today with the forecast rain.

In more sad news, my tomato starts are pathetic.  I started them in March on heating pads in the house, and this is as far as they have gotten.  I blame the potting soil that we bought as the other starts in the same soil are not doing well either.

As this afternoon was a rainy mess, I concentrated on indoor activities.  I cleaned the insides of the windows (hoping eventually to clean the outside) and did lots of laundry.  But I am also digitally recording old albums that Tom has picked up from thrift stores.  It is fun listening to these old and sometimes obscure songs.

And I used the last of the venison to make Moussaka.  This is inspired by a show we watched last night.  This recipe is similar to what he cooked.  I had made moussaka before with goat meat, but as Tom will not eat goat meat nor eggplant he didn’t have any.  This time I was a little smarter.  I mixed our pork sausage with the venison that I ground up so it wasn’t as gamey.  Plus I made one with potatoes and one with eggplant so we could both be happy.  And it is amazingly good.  Score!

So that is the news (good and bad) from Schoonover Farm.