Welcome to Painted Hand Farm

Painted Hand Farm is a 20 acre Civil War era farm located in Cumberland county, Pennsylvania. We raise meat goats, veal calves, turkeys and organic vegetables using humane and sustainable agricultural practices.

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Showing posts with label farm. Show all posts
Showing posts with label farm. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Teeth Time

Yes, horses go to the dentist, too. Or should I say the dentist comes to the farm? Miss Bango turned twenty this year and part of keeping a senior horse healthy is preventative dental care. Horses develop sharp edges on their molars causing them to eat less and become poor in health. Since I want my red mare around for the next twenty years, she gets a checkup, vaccinated and dental work done each spring. She had some really sharp points on her molars this year so Dr. Lartz used something that looked like a big Dremel tool. As laid-back & bomb-proof as Ms. Bang is, she'd never stand for that contraption buzzing around inside her mouth so he gave her a little something to take the edge off. Her lower lip is still droopy.

We gave the vet quite a workout this morning. In addition to the equine care, he also had to de-horn three goats, castrate two bulls, preg-check a heifer (bred!) and give the dogs their rabies vaccinations. I'll spare you those images.

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Ralph Recycles More

Anyone who knows us or follows this blog are always on the lookout for the latest recycled gadget from Ralph. Well, here it is. That's just not any old bucket. That's one of those $35 jobs with the heater coil in the bottom to make those whole live in locales that stay below freezing from having to constantly break ice out of their animals' water buckets.

We got five years out of this one until it quit working in the latter part of winter. Try as he did, Ralph could not fix it and in the process put a hole in the bottom of the bucket rendering it useless for holding water.

But did he send it to the local landfill. No! He screwed it to the back of the barn next to the water hydrant as a place to hang the hose.

He didn't just stop there. He attached an old rake head to the front of the bucket to help keep all hose attachments and brushes we use for cleaning water buckets on the inside as well as provide a place to hang the end of the hose. Wait! There's more. As you can see, instead of removing the bucket handle, he left it on for an instant towel rack. What a guy!