Flowers in bloom

Farm Happenings

Neil spent the morning repairing garden hoses and running some of them to the automatic waterers in the barn. So, now we don't have long hoses running along the ground everywhere. He also had the time to fix the water pump that has been leaking out in the pasture.  Once he fixed the underground connection he installed four t-posts around the pipe and ran electric fencing around it to prevent the cows and donkeys from rubbing on it and breaking it again.

This afternoon we all went over to Neil's parents for dinner.  I made a beef stroganoff from our farm raised beef to take over.  It was really good.

Today's mail brought two postcards from Memphis, Tennessee...

Also, Flat Hannah arrived from Texas.

You can follow Flat Hannah's visit here on the farm here.

Water water everywhere....

and ALL of it to drink!

It was a beautifully warm winter day here and Neil and his Dad took advantage of it and finished piping the water from the barn to the four new no-freeze faucets around the farm. One is behind the barn right next to the cow's 70 gallon water tub, another is next to the shed beside my new rabbit hutches, the third is by the garage/work shop and the fourth is out in the pasture so I don't have to lug the 50 gallon drum of water out to the water tubs anymore!

Neil finished up by filling in all the ditches he dug two weeks ago and covering them with crushed rock to help with the red clay mud that got moved to the surface.

I am doing the happy dance!!

Before dinner Neil took the trailer down to Rougemont, NC and picked up two round bales of hay for the cows and 36 square bales for the alpacas and goats. It was dark when he returned so we covered the trailer with a tarp for the night as it is supposed to rain.

Days update.

Well, first off, our rabbit made it through the night! She is tucked in the far corner of the hutch but her ears are up and she seems alert. I will not consider her out of the woods until another day or two and I see her eating and drinking again. But, she looks good for what she went through yesterday!

Neil's Dad came by early this morning so he and Neil could get the last of the four concrete stabilizer footings poured on the garage. Yeah! Now that that is done they can continue work on the end walls and doors to button it up for the winter.

We have two alpacas that are due with crias at the end of this month. One of those is Eloise. While feeding the girls this morning I noticed a large lump by the tail head of Eloise, so large that it actually pushed her tail to one side. I went up and felt the lump and it was firm. I pressed on it and it retracted back! A few minutes later it reappeared... I pushed on it again and it retracted once more. This was the nose of the cria! So, Eloise is now on cria watch.

My birthing stall has had a gate broken on it for some time (the cows share one side and rubbed on it until the wall broke) and since my need for that stall my come sooner than I had thought... Neil removed the half wall that the gate is attached to, rebuilt the framing, covered it with pressboard for strength, reinstalled the wall and then hung the gate again. Now I am all set if I see any signs of impending birth. I will put the two girls in there in another week regardless so that they don't give birth without being separated from our LGDs who are so protective of babies that they keep the dams away too!

Sold the three little ducklings to a neighbor I sold some turkeys to this summer. She called yesterday to see if I had any ducks for sale and was pleased that I had little ones available. Funny how things work out sometimes.

I weighed our two new Nigerian Dwarf goat doelings again today to see if they are growing. They have been here two weeks now. Miss Olive, who weighed in at only 16.75lbs two weeks ago, was up 1.5lbs to 18.25lbs. Miss Cheddar on the other hand remained the same at 17.75lbs. I am sure this is due to the week long bought of diarrhea she went through when she first arrived. She has recovered fully and is doing well now. I will continue to weigh them over the next few weeks to keep my eye on their growth.

Finally, Neil set up the volleyball net for the kids in the side yard so they could play badminton with it. Evan played for a bit but then went off to set "snares" around the farm. McKayla and I played badminton for almost an hour. What a sight we were... playing badminton with a volleyball net and racket ball rackets... but we had a blast!

Farm Photos

Six month old Murdoc... who we discovered was a Rose Grey only after shearing.

Last nights rain clings in the flower garden.

One of last year's hatch of Chocolate Muscovy Ducks.

One of Nigerian Dwarf goat doelings, Elizabeth, from this spring... she is for sale!

The Embden geese with their seven goslings.

The rose bush in front of the house is in full bloom.

Our Entlebucher Mountain Dog, Tate, taking a short break in the shade.

Finally, Daddy and 4 1/2 month old Taylor taking a stroll around the farm together.

Farm Update

Let's see...

The 16 chicken chicks are growing well. They are feathering out nicely and are even starting to fly up onto the roost in the brooding pen. I still can't tell the sex of the chicks so I am keeping my fingers crossed that more then 50% will be hens.

The rabbit kits are also growing well. I pulled them out of the nest boxes a few days ago to put clean bedding material in so I got a head count on them finally. Purslane's litter has 7 kits while Camomile's litter has a whopping 10 kits!

The goose is finally sitting on her eggs in the ground level nest box that Neil built for me last year. I have counted 7 eggs in the nest. I hope she successfully hatches out more than one gosling this year.

The alpacas are looking skinny after their shearing earlier this week. I moved our 10 month old male, Seamus, out of the females pasture and put him in with the young boys out in the back pasture. He is mildly stressed by the move, I always hate weaning time, but he seems to be getting along fine with the other boys so I am happy with that. I also moved our llama into the cow pasture. There is more grass there right now and she can't be in either of the back alpaca pastures since I have intact males in both of them. She seems to enjoy having new pasture to explore.

I got the lawn mowed again today... I need to start mowing sections of the pasture soon to keep the thistle and wild dill from taking hold again.

Neil and his Dad started framing in the rear wall of the garage this weekend. It will be nice when the building of the garage is done and Neil can spend his weekends using the garage instead. I have lots of projects for him. :)

Evan picked these buttercups for me today... they sure brighten up the kitchen!

Day on the farm.

It was a pretty typical day here at the farm.

Our new chicks are doing well as are the new rabbit kits. I always worry about new babies while it is still getting cold at night. I tend to check in with the little ones first thing when I go out to do chores. The chicks are under their heat lamp and the kits are snug in their rabbit fur lined nest box so hopefully all will be well with them as they grow.

I had started mowing the lawn yesterday and managed to get that finished up today just before lunch so I felt pretty productive. The lawn looks tidy as usual once it is mowed. I can tell already that this year our lawn/former neglected pasture it going to be even more full and green. It is amazing what routine mowing can do for a weed covered area... no weed killers, fertilizer or other chemicals have ever been used just mowing. That simple act keeps the weeds from maturing and setting seed and allows the grasses the room and resources to grow.

I do have a bit of exciting news to report. We sold our Irish Dexter heifer calf today. A very nice gentleman from south of us in NC is just starting up a herd and is starting out with about 6 heifers. He came out to the farm this afternoon to look at our small herd and at the little heifer we had for sale. He is an experienced livestock man so I am happy to have her go to his farm. She will be well cared for... which is always my worry when selling our animals. She will stay here for a while yet until she is weaned at six months old... about the middle of June. We still have our bull calf available for sale. If we don't sell him he will become our freezer beef for Fall of 2010.

I started a new batch of sourdough bread tonight. It is a recipe I use that has a long (12-18 hours) first rise so it will sit out all night doing its thing. This long rise time allows for a more sour tasting finished loaf.

This and that....

I managed to get three more roosters butchered off today. It would have been four but one of them escaped from the pen I had them in as I was trying to get hold of him. Now that all the roosters I had separated out are butchered I will start catching a few more this evening and put them into the pen so they can be easily caught during the day when I want to butcher more.

I also put our American Chinchilla rabbit buck in with our two does. I will leave him with the does for a few days. If all goes as it should we should have two litters of kits the middle of April.

The warm weather has definitely effected the birds as I found another duck egg today and the first turkey egg as well.

Neil and his Dad are still working away on the new garage. Today they are framing in the front wall that will have a car door, a people door and a window in it. Once it is all framed and sheathed I look forward to getting it painted like the barn so our farmyard will start having a cohesive look to it.

Berk, one of our LGDs, lazes about on this warm afternoon.

Snow... and lots of it!

It snowed last night! Yeah! This is our third snow coverage of this winter but only the first that I have been able to enjoy since I was still on bed rest from the c-section during the last two. Here are some pictures of the farm... just beautiful...

It feels like Spring!

What a beautiful day today! The cold spell from last week is over finally. Our outdoor thermometer read 80F in the sun this afternoon!

Neil and his dad continued to work on the yard spring cleaning. Moving a lot of the items that got stacked in a hurry over the winter (like the wooden pallets) back under the old pig shelters. The farm yard is looking really great... can't wait for it to start turning green again.

I did snag Neil for a few minutes while I was down at the barn doing chores so that he could help me castrate our two little goats. It is not a difficult task just a two person one since it involves a wiggly goat. I have taken a deposit on these two boys and they should be headed off to their new home next month. Meanwhile, two of our Nigerian Dwarf does, Gabby and Pepper, are getting quite plump and I expect them to kid out the beginning of March as well.

Odd jobs done.

As warm as yesterday was... today was cold. Even with the chilly temps Neil got a few odds and ends done around the farm today.

One of the many things I wanted to make easier for this coming winter was watering the livestock. In the heat of the summer I don't mind walking around with the garden hose filling watering troughs but when the temps are below freezing it is no fun any more. So, on Friday when I was at Southern States picking up the weeks livestock feed I also purchased a 70 gallon stock tank for the cows water. This morning Neil put it behind the barn where I wanted it to go. We got the automatic watering device hooked up to it and instantly the curious cows came over to see what it was all about. I was a little nervous that the tank might be too tall for them to comfortably drink out of... being miniature cows and all... but they demonstrated right away that it was no problem at all. One step closer to water independence!

The other odd thing Neil got done today was to install the cat door in the house. I have been leaving the door from our bedroom to the deck open most days the past few weeks so the cats could come and go. With temps often below 50 degrees during the day it is now too cold to be doing that. Neil got the kitty door in and I showed Jet how it worked. I figure he will be the first to figure it all out and Fringe will have to learn from him. Meanwhile, no more cold breezes in the bedroom!

More hay today

I got a call first thing this morning from one of my hay contacts. She wanted to let me know that they got a load of prime 2nd cut Orchard/Timothy Grass hay in and did I want 150 bales of it? They could deliver in just a few hours...

So, by noon, a trailer hauling 150 bales of hay came pulling into the yard. We weren't quite prepared to have hay delivered today. Neil was working on the brakes on the Suburban and the old semi-trailer that we store our hay wasn't cleared out enough to hold 150 new bales. But, we managed (I say "we" but really it was "they" as I am unable to toss hay in my current pregnant condition) to get 137 bales in the trailer and the remaining 13 went into the barn.

As long as we don't have a bitter bitter cold winter we should be all set on our hay requirements now. Can't tell you what a good feeling that is!

Pictures from today...

View of the pastures from the deck.

Evan and McKayla with new goat kids (3 days old).

Alpacas Finley and Sidney grazing.

Evan and McKayla during a hike in the woods up on the old pig shelter.

Nigerian Dwarf goat: Gabby. Isn't she pretty?

McKayla relaxes on the deck with one of our new cats, Jet.

After our cold weather spell last week the temps are back in the mid 70's again. I have a hard time staying inside when it is so nice out. So, I spent some time cleaning up the yard. We had a few over sized boxes that needed to get broken down and put in the Suburban to take to recycling on our trip into town tomorrow. There were some broken toys and the small wading pool had cracks in it so it had to go. Some of the pool items needed to be gathered up and put away for the season (we drained the pool the beginning of October). Other items needed to be moved off the deck and down to the work shed. Not a lot of effort made a big difference in the yard.

Took a break for a light lunch which the kids and I ate out on the deck it was so nice. The kids and I then took the tractor into our woods and brought out three tractor bucket fulls of cut fire wood. Neil had cut to length a bunch of down trees to burn but ended up leaving them where they fell do to lack of time. We gathered some up, brought it up to the house and got it all split and stacked under the deck. It will be enough for a few weeks at least. I will keep working on the fire wood project on the nice days and try to stay ahead of what I burn.

Oh, and since the weather was so nice I had the door off the deck open all day so the cats could come out and explore if they wanted too. Jet, the large and braver of the two, came out for quite a while and wandered about. He was quick to dart back inside if anything startled him though. Fringe I never saw outside but he might have come out when we were down in the woods.

Just a nice day to be outside working today.

Everything is green

I spent most of the afternoon mowing the front lawns today. Neil was home from work today as he had a Dr's appointment this morning in Durham. After he returned home he got the weed whacker out and trimmed up around the house flower beds. Once all done everything looks so nice. This Fall is so dramatically different from last year. Everything is green and lush this year while last year with our severe drought it was all dried up and brown. It is so pleasant around the farm this time of year. I love to sit out on the deck in the late afternoons soaking in the view.

Neil was industrious after the yard work was done and continued work in the front hall/closets by installing the new can lights. He hopes to get it all dry walled this coming weekend.

Productive day abruptly ended.

I was feeling really motivated today to clean up the farmyard. You know all that stuff that tends to pile up over the winter when you don't feel like dealing with it. I brought more of the cut firewood out of the woods and stacked it under the deck. I moved and restacked some metal roofing that was left by the previous owners. The roofing had gotten blown around the yard a few days ago in a huge windstorm we had. I took advantage of having to move it anyway and made my new stack a bit more out of the way. This helped clear some space near the kid’s playground area. I found homes for items left around like some gas cans and the pop up shade tent. I moved a bunch of the kid’s toys back under the deck and picked up some trash items that had blown into the yard.

I was feeling really productive... that is until I started moving some bits and pieces of welded wire fencing that we have used in various places around the farm. We had just been throwing the small rolls over the drive-thru gate behind the chicken coop and I was tired of having them sprawled all over. I figured I would just move them 40 feet or so on the other side of the goat barn where no one ever goes or can see. This too was going well and I was pleased with the way it was looking when I stepped into a pile of leaves and drove two nails into the bottom of my foot! Ouch!

I slipped my boot off right away and already my sock was stained with blood at both sites. I put the boot back on and limped up to the house where I cleaned up the wounds and said some choice words to myself for being so careless! I can’t remember the last time I have had a Tetanus booster? I think it was entering into college so that makes it 20 years ago now! I guess I will go see a doctor in the morning and get a booster vaccine.

I rested my foot for a bit but it was soon time to get evening chores done. It took a bit longer then usual but I got through them ok.

The chickens that I had seperated out last night laid no eggs at all today. I guess they don't like the new digs. The free ranging girls left seven eggs for me.

What's happening on the farm today.

I was saying to Neil last night that I was surprised that there had been so little scuffling between our new Nigerian Dwarf goat buck "Gottaway" and our whether "Little Joe". I had expected some head butting and chasing but really things were very calm out there.

Last night Gottaway did not follow the other goats into the goat barn where they stay over night. I let him stay in with the alpacas and he seemed to do just fine. I figure he will learn our routine in a few days and hopefully follow the others in for dinner. This morning I released the goats from their barn and they went racing into the alpaca pasture as usual to vacuum up any spilled grain and eat the hay I put out there. So, all seemed fine with all four goats together again. Nobody seemed to be upset.

It was about an hour later I was down at the barn again and I noticed that Gottaway and Little Joe both had bloody noggins. They obviously had been butting heads enough to get their horn buds bleeding. I looked both of them over and there were no serious wounds so I threw down more hay to distract them (which worked) and left them to work things out.

By evening, I could tell there was no fresh blood so the head butting must have slowed down. I still couldn't get Gottaway into the goat barn so he will spend yet another night with the alpacas.

With the warmer weather of spring coming I went ahead and put our rabbit buck Sasaparilla in with our new doe Chamomile. Chamomile had been put in with a buck at the breeders before coming here but it didn't take as she didn't kindle when expected. I wasn't too upset by this as after loosing Parslane's litter to cold exposure I really wanted to wait for warmer weather for more kits. Putting Sass and Cham together now should produce a litter the beginning of March for us. Then at some point I will put Sass back in with Purslane for a second spring litter.

We also had visitors to the farm today. We had a couple from Virginia that was just driving by and saw the alpacas and stopped to see them. We talked alpacas for a bit and then started wandering the farm to see some of the poultry we had. They are interested in getting some Barred Rock chicks from us and well as some turkey poults. I told them I hoped for April chicks.

Then in the afternoon we had a local family stop by to visit and see the farm. They raise horses in Semora, NC as well as Boar goats, chickens and a few ducks. They have a small kitchen garden as we do and she is interested in learning to make goats milk soap (yeah, I have someone to learn with now). Their two daughters are almost the same age as Evan and McKayla and they all played nicely together. It was a nice visit and we hope to get over to their farm to see the horses soon.

Late afternoon found Neil and I in the woods clearing and cutting more firewood. The kids played nearby (no… not too close) on the old stumps. Once we had cut the wood we needed for the next few weeks all of us took a hike into the woods to the back corner of our lot. I always forget how much land we have that is wooded until standing in that corner looking back at the property. We hope to get some of this woodland fenced in for the cows and goats this summer. It will be great for them to get out of the sun in midday and the goats will help keep the understory clear.

The hens gave an even dozen today.

Turkey Report

I received a wonderful phone call today from one of my 2007 Thanksgiving turkey customers. She apologized for taking so long to call after the holidays but said she wanted to make sure I knew how much they enjoyed the turkey they purchased from us!

They prepared their bird for Thanksgiving by deep frying it in peanut oil, a typical Southern way of cooking turkey. She said several of her dinner guests were skeptical of eating a home grown bird at first but after tasting how moist it was and the wonderful full flavor they raved over it. She said to make sure I reserve a turkey for her for this year's Thanksgiving as well.

We enjoyed the turkey we had here at the farm but it is always nice to get feedback from others.

She also asked if it would be OK to come over in the Spring for another farm visit? ALWAYS! I love showing folks around the farm and talking to them about what we are trying to do here and the importance of heritage breeds.

The hens gave 15 eggs today.

Evidence of Snow

This picture is overlooking the female alpaca pasture out to the new home of the male alpacas. It was taken from the deck of the house.

Another one from the deck looking down to the big barn. There you see the girls undercover.

Snow on the blackberry patch.

My dog Tate was so thrilled to have snow again!

Casualty

I was sad to discover one of the rabbit kits dead outside the box this morning. I wish I knew what had happened... did it jump out on its own, get cold and die or did it die in the box and Purslane remove it? I will never know I guess. The rest of the litter is still thriving from what I can tell.

The rest of the morning was taken up with some general around the farm clean up tasks and stacking some fire wood Neil cut for me over the weekend. After lunch we headed to Southern States to pick up some livestock feeds. Only 300lbs of it this trip.

Around 4pm a delivery of hay arrived. 140 bales of Timothy/Orchard Grass for the alpacas. We are splitting this load with fellow alpaca farmer David Rosin of Day Dawn Alpaca Farms (just south of Roxboro). I helped load Dave's 50 bales in his trailer and after Dave left we stacked the remaining 90 bales into our semi-trailer. To get them all in it required stacking the bales six high, which is over my head so I ate a bit of hay doing it.

So, after a full day of stacking wood, lifting feed bags, and stacking hay, tonight my left arm is pretty sore. I don't think I can even knit tonight as I relax with the kids. I will just veg with them on the couch and watch some TV I guess.

The hens gave 13 eggs today. Oh, I had a gentleman stop and buy 2 dozen eggs today. Yeah! I also sent 2 dozen home with David Rosin. That helped thin the eggs out of the fridge a bit.