Clover Leaf Farms

Free Internet- How to Use Your Andoid Phone to Connect Your PC to the Internet

2012-06-12T23:00:00.002-07:00

Out where I live, we have very little choice when it comes to internet. In fact, we have two; Satellite and 3G. Satellite sucks, and is a little pricey. 3G isn't too horrible, we don't do any gaming or anything so the slower speeds aren't too big of of a deal. Still, I hate paying for 3G internet for my computer when I already have the exact same service on my phone. My phone actually fulfills most of my internet needs, there are just a few things that I really need my computer for. I started thinking; wouldn't it be awesome if I could just share my phones internet with my PC? Yes, it would be awesome. And yes, it is possible. You see, your cell phone carrier will let use use a service that turns your phone into a mobile hotspot, so you can share your phone's internet with multiple devices. Mobile hotspot services aren't within my budget, however. Besides, I don't need to share with multiple devices at the same time, just one. After some research, I found the perfect solution; An app called PdaNet.

PdaNet works on Android devices to tether your phone to your PC using a USB cable, and allows you to use your phone's internet connection on your PC. It's pretty darn cool. Best of all, it's free. If you want to access secure sites (anything you have to log into) you will need to pay a one time fee of 15.95, but after that it's free forever.

To start , all you have to do is download PdaNet onto your phone from the app market.Then you will need to download it onto your computer. If you do not have internet access on you PC, you can download it onto your phone and then transfer the installation file onto your PC. The app walks you through the whole process, it's actually really easy.

The company website is here. I'm seriously super excited that I found this, I love saving money! Since I don't have a paying job right now, it's even more important that I save as much as I can. If I wasn't getting internet for free I'd be doing without it, so this is really exciting! I hope it helps you too :)

A Chick Named Miracle

2012-06-12T12:57:00.002-07:00

Hatching season is here, and our hens suck at it! So far we have had six hens go broody. Out of those six, one has been a successful mother. True, it is their first time raising babies; but their learning curve is really killing me... and the babies, unfortunately. Two hens gave up on their eggs before they were done. Another one hatched out her eggs successfully, but managed to crush half of the babies. She then proceeded to walk the remaining babies through three inches of water. No, chicks do not swim. We took the surviving chicks from her and are now raising them in a brooder. The other two crushed more eggs than they hatched. One of the crushed eggs I discovered a few days before hatching time. It was crushed pretty bad and ice cold, but I noticed a tiny movement inside

The egg after being cleaned up

I thought there was no way the egg could make it, but I just couldn't manage to throw away an egg with a still-living chick inside. I took it inside, cleaned the shards of shell off, washed it with warm water on a cotton ball, and applied a tiny bit of neosporin to the tears in the membrane.

Another view of the damage, the shell was shattered

Every time I checked on it I expected to find it dead, however, for nearly two days the egg survived. Finally, I heard a flurry of peeping and the chick was hatching...

Starting to push..

And out!

She was born with a crooked toe, but otherwise perfect :) I named her Miracle, for obvious reasons. So this hatching season could be going better, but it is the first for both us and the hens, so a few hiccups were to be expected. At least we have a whole brood of new babies, and the first generation born right here on the farm :)

The little chick that could

Happenings Around the Farm

2012-05-20T19:01:00.000-07:00

Hello :) I apologize, my dear blog, for I have not been writing nearly enough. That, however, is about to change...

Ta Da!! Suck it steady paycheck, nobody needs you.

That's right, I put in my 2 weeks notice at work. I'm super excited, and a little (maybe a lot) nervous. I have a good feeling about this though, and I am looking forward to the many changes that are coming! So, what am I going to do with all my new found free-time? I have a ton of plans, for starters taking care of the farm. John and I are busy every single weekend with random stuff that comes up, for example the turkey disappearing or the pig escaping, and we got to thinking... all this stuff happens while we're not around as well. When we're both at work, nobody is home to take care of the important things that pop up. That thought makes us both very anxious. This place just needs a lot more care than we can give it with our current schedules. So we've done a lot of talking and planning, and I decided to go for it and quit my job. I'm going back to school in August, so until then I'm going to focus full-time on the farm. I'm taking most of my classes online, so it should work out perfect. I'm really excited about the future right now :)

Meantime, on the farm, we have new babies! Our chickens have been going broody left and right, and we finally have some new chickies :) They're so adorable!

Hatching

Mama Hen and a Chick

Also, We found this puppy...

My brother told me that there was a dog running around by his friends house with a litter of puppies. All the puppies had been killed except one. One got hit by a car, I don't know about the rest. He convinced me to go look for the remaining puppy, who we found sitting on the sidewalk near a drainage ditch just inches from the busy street, and now here she is. John, my husband, has dubbed her Potato. Often times, she wakes up crying and whimpering loudly, like she is having bad dreams :( She has nothing to worry about anymore though, the poor little pup.

Follow me on Instagram!

2012-04-25T19:28:00.001-07:00

http://instagr.am/p/J3aF3eNw7d/
Finally, an outlet for me to post obsessive amounts of pictures of my pets without annoying people on facebook! My user name is Farmdoll, go follow me and I'll follow you too :)

That Troublesome Turkey

2012-04-25T14:09:00.004-07:00

Well, Dino is up to her usual antics. The other day when we went to close the coop for the night, she was nowhere to be found. We didn’t panic right away, knowing from last time she disappeared that she was probably brooding somewhere, so we started the search. After a while, the sun had gone down and all the usual places had been checked, but no turkey had been found. I went back to the brush pile that we usually find her in to look again even though I had already scoured the area, and still no turkey. Panic started to set in at this point. More than likely she was fine, but she would not be fine for long if we didn’t find her before the predators did. We’ve lost too many birds, sometimes right under our noses (or in the case of my favorite rooster, 2 feet from the chicken coop, during the day), to feel secure with her out of the coop for even a few hours after dark. I don’t know what it is about night time that turns poultry stupid, but something does. They will sit in their little spot, eggs or not, and let something eat them. They don’t try to get away or anything. Seriously, the sun goes down and they just stop moving. They will literally let themselves be slowly eaten to death by a rat rather than get up and walk away. I don’t get it, how on earth does this help them in anyway? Anyway, night time= pretty certain death for anyone outside the coop, and it was now plenty dark and my turkey was not in the coop. I started running back to the house to get a flashlight, feeling my heart sinking. Suddenly, I felt the earth squish under my foot as something let out an indignant squawk. I flew towards the ground, catching myself on my hands and knees; a rather ungraceful fall but at least I didn’t land on my face. When I opened my eyes a giant, fierce, unblinking eye stared back at me.

It was the turkey, staring up at me like “wth” as I hovered over her on my knees. She should have been more grateful I didn’t kill her when I stepped on her. So she had apparently decided that the middle of nowhere with no cover or protection, other than being slightly hidden in foot tall weeds, was a great place to have a nest. Oh turkey..

Ain't she a looker

The Mystery of the Disappearing Turkey

2012-04-03T12:35:00.000-07:00

Dino, our pet turkey

Yesterday, we learned what it feels like to lose your kid in a crowded shopping center. Our child was a turkey lost amongst acres of four foot tall weeds, but I'm sure it's the exact same feeling. I got home from work, and as soon as I saw John I could tell something was wrong. "I can't find turkey" he told me sorrowfully. The next 30 minutes were a paniced blur, we combed the property, looking everywhere. "Maybe she's hiding with some eggs", John tried to cheer me up. I rejected the idea, she had never even layed an egg before. If she didn't come for the afternoon scratch treat, the worst had to have happened, I was sure of it. We called her and searched the best we could within the rainforest of weeds that is currently our property, there was no sign of her. Every bunch of weeds I searched, I expected to find her body, half eaten by a predetor like we've found so many others that have gone missing. Stillnothing. It would be hard, if not impossible to find any remainder of her amongst the weeds, so we headed back to the coop, giving up. Well guess who was waiting for us at the coop when we got there? That's right... the little turd :P

Natural World: Farm for the Future; A video intro into permaculture

2012-03-29T08:39:00.000-07:00

While wasting time at work one day I stumbled across this video on a website, http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/, that has given me a new perspective on farming. It explains how huge monoculture style farms, tilling, and pesticides are not sustainable methods of agriculture, and that if we are going to feed our ever growing population things are going to have to change. The video teaches how diverse, permaculture farming methods are the the future of farming. My favorite part, the documentary advocates no-till farming, which I am a huge fan of. Watch the video, I promise you'll learn a lot :)

Natural World: Farm for the Future

Something to make you say "awwww!" - Video of a chick hatching

2012-03-28T09:13:00.000-07:00

Here is a video of the chick we hatched out in the incubator after the mom gave up on it. After she dried she went back outside and now we can't tell her apart from the other chicks. Oh, and don't worry, the blood is normal. ;)

Guineas, Weeds, and Hero

2012-03-28T08:51:00.000-07:00

The four guineas we've been raising are finally ready to go from the brooder to the chicken coop. We moved them a couple days ago. After a few weeks they'll be ready to be let out of the coop to free range with the rest of the poultry. They've already made a friend; a black sex link has found her way into their part of the coop and is now roosting with them.

Sadly, weeds are taking over as our little lawn mower broke over the weekend. But on an up side we got a new feed bin, we'll no longer have to keep the scratch in the truck. Hopefully this cuts down on the chickens attacking the cars when we drive in.

Hero, our ram, is still getting used to being tied. He still tries to run from us every time we approach him, even though he's eaten many treats out of our hands and let us pet him a bunch of times. But each time we go to catch him to tie him out to eat he runs. During the chases around the yard we've discovered French Fry, the dog we found and put in with him mainly because there was nowhere else for her and they both needed company, is a pretty good herd dog. She actually helps us by cutting him off when he runs and keeps him in place by licking his face. The other night he came untied, but all we had to do to catch him was let French Fry out and Hero followed her right back into the yard. They've bonded well, but we definitely need to get Hero some sheep friends asap.

This weekend we're gonna do more work on the garden and post some more photos to the blog, check back soon!

New Babies on the Farm

2012-03-27T07:43:00.009-07:00

The day the Lord created hope was probably the same day he created Spring. ~Bern Williams

Spring is here at Clover Leaf Farms! Over the last few days our broody hen’s eggs finally hatched; leading to eight fluffy new additions to the farm. This is the first time we’ve had a hen hatch out eggs, so we’re very excited and a little anxious about it. So far, things are going well. We have them in their own enclosure to try to keep the other animals, mainly the cats, away from them. I also worry that the other chickens or the goose would try to eat them. They are vicious little buggers; I’ve seen my chickens rip toads, lizards, snakes, and mice to shreds in a flurry of blood and feathers. The first time I saw my sweet little chickens rip apart and devour a large toad, I was appalled. I had no idea chickens were so carnivorous. It scared me a little. Now, I’ve come to accept this murderous, dark side of my flock. They’re just being normal chickens after all. It does however worry me that they may look at the new chicks as a snack, the mom would only be able to do so much to protect them. So better safe than sorry, we’ll keep them locked up until they are bigger.

We’ve lost 2 chicks so far; hopefully there will be no more. Both chicks died shortly after hatching, one was still halfway in the shell. I’m pretty sure that the mom accidently stepped on and killed the other one, as it was fine, and then suddenly it was dead. We dug a small grave and buried them. The momma hen got off her nest and started walking around with the babies, leaving 2 eggs behind. The eggs were cold when I picked them up. One of them had pipped, but wasn’t moving and appeared dead. I picked away some of the shell and the chick moved just a little, so we quickly took the remaining eggs inside and put them into the incubator. The pipped egg eventually hatched, and when the baby was dry enough we took it back outside and slipped in under the mom with its siblings. The last egg never hatched, and a small hole I broke into the shell revealed that the egg had never finished forming. So all in all, our first broody hen hatching was a happy success! The little chicks running around after mom is the cutest thing ever, and we have a few more chickens for our flock… One can never have enough chickens ;)