Weeding, feeding, riding, spinning and sharing.........

Well, we survived another HOT day yesterday.  Today is supposed to be the last scorcher for a while so let’s drag our bottoms through this day and hope the weather man is right!  Dyna, our new horse, is absolutely a dream when it comes to bringing out the hose for cool down time.   She’s a mare which means she's smart enough to realize the cold water is a GOOD thing.  Willie takes it for just a moment and Charlie says NO WAY.  Both Reign and Icee are learning that the hose is a good thing (Reign more so than Icee), but both take full advantage of their pools.   The goats have been doing well so far, however I have been keeping a closer eye on Blossom as she seems to be a bit lethargic.  I have three goats that are dehorned, and she happens to be one of them.  Horns help dissipate heat.  The pigs (including the piglets) are in their pool constantly.  When I dump the pool to refresh the water I dump it into their wallow so they have a pool AND a mud bath.    They seem to adore both!

The garden this year is really doing very well compared to last year.  I think that the pigs were an amazing help with the weed control.   I still have LOTS of “Cheeseweed” (a type of Mallow) that is everywhere in the garden.  Luckily the pigs and chickens love to eat it.  I’ve been pretty diligent about weeding this year just so I can feed them to the pigs and chickens!  It’s been much easier as there are no tall grasses (pigs got ALL those roots).   The Cheeseweed and Pigweed pull up very easily so I like that too. The Lamb’s Quarters has been growing VERY well in the garden and although it is a very edible weed I have yet to allow its cultivation (takeover?) within my garden.  However once again, it seems to be a plant that the pigs and chickens relish.   

 I love the raised beds and won’t be without them again. With the raised beds my spinach, radishes and beets have thus far been a SCREAMING success.   I need more beds next year so I can do a bit more succession planting……I am currently waiting for another batch of radishes.   The peas are doing great too, would have been better had I NOT pulled up half a dozen earlier in the year while weeding, I suppose I got a little too zealous.   I am surprised at how well the peas are doing even with this heat.  So far my cabbage and broccoli seems to be doing well also.  The brussel sprouts, perhaps not so well.  The zucchini and summer squash are about as tall as me (okay SLIGHT exaggeration, but they ARE at least to my belly button!!)  I have a few heirloom squash as well that are about the same height.  The cucumbers are beginning their climb up the fence (finally).   Potatoes are doing VERY well, I'm glad I did double the towers this year.  I lost one complete tower to a chicken nesting in it....and I didn't even actualy see her go broody, she just made a nest and laid her eggs.   I am hoping that I get a dehydrator soon, I love to can  - but I REALLY loved having all the dehyrdrated tomatoes, mushrooms, herbs, potatoes and apples this winter.  They seem to be a bit more "true" to texture and flavor than canned.   The three sisters are getting along great, although I think something may have eaten quite a bit of Sister Pole bean.   Perhaps she is just a slower growing variety, but she just seems a little “sickly” to me.  Sister Corn definitely could have used her support the other night during the storm as a few were toppled over due to the wind!!   I’ve been doing my best to weed within the Three Sisters patch, but I think that yesterday may have to be my last day.  It’s THICK in there.  The pumpkins are taking off like wildfire and should begin smothering out the weeds more and more each day anyhow.   I think next year I will try a different type of pole bean as I’m not too impressed with these.  Either that or I should have done as instructed and waited another week to plant Sister Squash?   I’m afraid we may not have any pole beans if the pumpkins smother them as well as the weeds.  The herb garden isn’t faring as well as the vegetable garden and the Three Sisters patch.  With the herbs being much shorter than vegetables, it doesn’t take much for the weeds to overpower them.  The bindweed is the worst!  I may have to rethink and/or upgrade my weeding program for the herbs next year unless I prefer eating Cheeseweed to eating spearmint and cilantro. 

Pest control in the garden this year hasn’t been too bad.   Last year the garden was SO full of weeds the Rose Chafers were drawn to the thick thatch and devoured my purple beans.  This year they DID hit the radish tops pretty hard, but left my beans pretty much alone.  There weren’t any tiny apples on the trees so they didn’t have those to munch on.  However they did wipe out my poplar tree again and hit my cherry and peach tree leaves aggressively too.  Strawberries were pretty well wiped out by them.   My large patch of Comfrey up by the house was a pretty big loss, but the one in the flower garden and the long row out by the road were practically unscathed.    Since I plan on drying quite a bit of Comfrey this year to use as a winter feed supplement for the pigs and chickens, I was glad that the majority made it through.   

Some of our hay has been put up for winter….only a SMALL fraction but we are getting there.  My goal this year is to put up 1500 bales of hay in the loft.  We are at 250 (see SMALL fraction).  We still have over 25 acres to hay.  I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we at least get 1000 bales of hay from those fields.  After that I’m hoping that we get one more field to hay…..we are working on a 10 acre field that MIGHT become available in late August or early September.   However that hay won’t be the best quality being cut so late.  We did a VERY late cutting last year in an overgrown field and just doubled up the amount we fed when using it. It seemed to work well as our horses came through winter in good condition.  Belle was a bit thin, but we had her teeth done the end of May and are pretty sure that was her biggest issue, not hay quality. 

Today I remembered something from my days of heavy trail riding – solid dark horses are a HUGE draw for horse (deer?) flies.   When I had my wonderful awesome Fire I had limited problems with flies.  He was a lovely leopard appaloosa so his profile was broken up unlike a solid colored dark horse.   On the other hand when I rode my Arab, Al, a solid colored dark bay – he and I were eaten alive this time of year. Charlie, the buckskin, gets minimal fly action while Willie seems to be somewhat of a bug magnet, but Dyna?   She is a bug SUPER magnet!!   Poor girl was swarmed by them today.   I gave her first choice of barn space and a bale of hay so she wouldn’t be eaten alive.  At least she stands great for fly spray.  I can’t wait for this heat to break so we can take this sweetheart out on the trails.  How in the world am I going to ride two great horses now?  Hopefully Greg will take her out sometimes.  Even though he has Charlie, it is nice to get on one sometimes that is so well broke to remind you of what you are working towards…..that awesome relaxed ride!!

I let The Boys out to graze with all the girls for just a bit again this morning.  Nitro is getting much more “aware” of the girls.  Spyder just wants to eat.  Demon likes the girls and is curious, but doesn’t have near the libido yet that Nitro is displaying.   Of course no matter how attracted to the girls Nitro is, he is still a momma’s boy!!  A bit of a scare and he runs right back to me with a “save me” look on his face…..big chicken!!  Demon likes to stay by Nitro; they are best buds so far.  Spyder is much more independent and is more than happy to graze on his own.   However once I pick him up for something he melts right in my arms.  I’ve never had a cuddlier goat!!  He just rests his head on my shoulder.   I really can wait to see what these three awesome boys put on the ground next year. 

Speaking of boys, I found out I have THREE silkie roosters and ONE silkie hen.  **sigh**  Anybody interested in one or two silkie roosters? 

I have the use of an old “Great Wheel” or “Walking Wheel" from my uncle-in-law.   I have gotten it all set up and although I have some nice dog hair from Reign to spin, I am going to wait and learn on something easier than dog hair.   I was told that dog hair is a bit harder to learn on as it is slipperier than wool or mohair would be.   I’m getting excited about learning the art of spinning.  I have never learned to knit, but an old friend of mine taught me to crochet YEARS ago.  It’s been awhile, but I bet I still remember how.   Hmmm where is that crochet hook? 

And lastly I want to mention that on July 14^th, 2012 from 9am until 1pm we will be hosting a free goat basics seminar.  We will be hauling goats into the Cadillac, MI Tractor Supply Company.   This seminar is free to the public and will run about an hour long.  It will run approximately three times in its entirety.  We are hoping to cover the following topics: 

1) General Feed and nutrition
2) Pasture/fence requirements  
3) Breeds of goats ( the following breeds will be represented either in crosses or purebreds : Kiko, Boer, Myotonic, Angora/Cashmere, Saanen, Lamancha)  No in depth breed discussions at this time just touching base on the pet, meat, fiber and dairy sides of owning goats.
4) Basic health care and maintenance.  We are NOT veterinarians nor do we have the experience or training to diagnose or treat your animals.  We recommend that any time you are unsure of what may be wrong with your animal that you consult your local veterinarian.  However we will cover some common goat illnesses and deficiencies. 
5) Hands on demonstrations involving hoof trimming, administering oral medications, harvesting fiber, milking, and identifying the parts of a goat.  (This may vary in each segment of the demonstration)

We look forward to seeing you there!! 

I suppose I should get going and put the finishing touches on my outline for the seminar.  Today is one of those great days for working on the computer in the AC.

Until next time…….

 

Sports on the Farm.....

Blogging has always been a hard task for me once the nice weather hits.  So I have been choosing to do it only as I feel like it (that may be as often once a week or once a month).

I never enjoyed sports as a child.  I did high school track one year, but wasn’t all that thrilled with it.  I’m not lazy or inactive, but I prefer a long hike in the woods to running hurdles!!   However I have found that participating in the many sports here on the farm is pretty fun!  Here are the sports I’ve played here at Cornerstone Acres:

 Wrestling – although my partner generally isn’t in my exact weight class I’ve found that wrestling with a 125# Great Pyrenees to get his nails clipped is definitely a work out.  

Football –This is generally a larger team sport, but Greg and I played this game the other day, using REAL pigskin.  Trying to catch little football size piglets so they can be moved from one pen to another would certainly have been a good spectator sport.   We were both laughing so hard trying to catch those little devils and then trying to keep the ones we had already caught from escaping the container we put them in!!

Track – Okay I didn’t like this much in school and I’m not sure I like it now any better.  Most things on a farm are pretty slow pace.  Busy?  Yes.   Fast?  No.   But from time to time when a baby goat screams bloody murder and I don’t know what the situation is, I tend to go a-runnin’!!  Usually there are 10 things in the way between me and the baby – hurdles!!  Of course once I get there, the baby is just missing his or her mom. 

Karate – We had moved our sow, Abra, into a barn stall to farrow.  The stall floor was comprised of cement covered by REAL 2x8 oak boards (thick heavy buggers).  I say WAS, because Abra felt that rooting under the boards and pulling up about half of them was a good idea.  It was near to impossible to re-lay these boards as they should be so I decided that tearing them up would be my best bet.  I pulled up about three and hauled them out to the trailer to be scrapped.  However once I pulled up the fourth one I saw two HUGE spiders go running up the board!   Dropped the board, arms and legs flailing……you know – karate style.   I still had about 20 boards to move…..oh, it was a nightmare.  I must have crushed a dozen or more of them (sorry spider lovers).

Tennis – Here we have more bug related sports.   Rose Chafers are back again in force this year.  I had heard they were on a three year cycle – but somebody didn’t tell the Rose Chafers that.   These little bugs have decimated my comfrey and many of my iris blooms.    Since my garden is actually weeded this year, they seem to be staying away from the beans.   Well these horrid flying buggers almost choke the air at times.  You’ll see any number of people in the yard swinging at them so they don’t land on them.  Just put a racket in their hands and watch the match begin.  OH, that reminds me - I have one of those electric bug zappers shaped like a tennis racket!! Yuck!!

Speaking of weeding gardens, I have to admit that this year weeding has been a much easier chore than any of my previous years in gardening.   I think there is a good reason (or two) for this.  Firstly, the vegetable garden was so nicely prepared by the pigs that the weeds haven’t been as bad in there.  Secondly, even though the pigs haven’t been in the herb, corn or asparagus gardens – they help me keep it weeded by motivation alone.  It is nice to accomplish two things with one task.  I weed my gardens and feed the pigs!! They absolutely love the weeds and grasses I throw to them each day.  Even the chickens are getting lots of weeds this year since they are stuck in the chicken run until our newly planted grass is well established.

Well, unfortunately today is a work day…..I must go get ready.  Have I told y’all lately that I really prefer working at home?  **sigh**

Until next time.....

Wasted days and wasted nights........

....are all a matter of perspective!!
Take today for example.  I had plans to accomplish an entire weeks worth of work in one day.  Lofty goal, but pretty much a pipe dream.  First thing I decide instead to brush out the Pyrenees and play with baby goats.  I come inside and say to myself, "Wow did I waste my morning!"  Then I begin thinking.  Did I accomplish something?  Yes - I brushed the dogs, tamed some "wild" baby goats, got some exercise and lowered my blood pressure.   See I never even realized I had accomplished ALL that until after I was done!! 
Right now, I should be out digging into that long list of chores I have, but instead I'm starting this blog.  Seems to me I'm probably wasting more of my morning.  But no, I am really educating the masses, eating my lunch and justifying my procrastination.  See, all a matter of perspective.

Well, for now I AM going to head out and start on something from the dreaded "list".  I will just save this post for now and add more of my non-wasteful wisdom this evening.

Well it is no longer yesterday and is now today.  As usual I never got as much done as I was hoping.  But I did not waste the day.  I finally got the bucks gate fixed, trimmed up the feet on the last couple of does, practiced my ninja moves, slaughtered and cleaned my first chicken and weeded two more sections of my herb garden. 

You may be asking yourself  "ninja moves"?   Well here is the story.  I decided that while fixing the gate on the bucks pasture I would just let them roam with the horses.  Usually this is not an issue and although they didn't bother the horses they were quite curious as to what I was doing.  I pulled the entire gate and connected post right out of the ground and just set it aside while I set about reattaching the fence to the side of the horses lean-to.  Well I guess Challenger thought that the gate on the ground needed to be taught a lesson.  He picked the gate and the post up off the ground with his horns and began swinging!! He was so proud of himself for conquering that gate.  However this is a 6 foot tube gate attached to an 8x5 wooden post!! Needless to say - quite a dangerous weapon!! With stealth and ninja like moves (and not very lady-like words) I removed the gate from his head.  Poor Challenger and Charger had to spend the rest of the repair session locked in the horse stall. 

Guess what's on the menu tomorrow night?  CHICKEN!!  We raised some heritage breeds last year and took them to the Amish ladies to have the butchered and cleaned.  That worked out very well for us.  However this year I bought some Cornish Rocks.  I noticed one with an injured leg the day before yesterday.  Instead of letting him suffer until we could bring them all to the Amish again, I decided to slaughter him here.  We have a slaughtering cone attached to a fence post with a drip bucket underneath.  Greg "did the deed" and I plucked.  I tore the skin on the breast so we ended up skinning him.   All in all it worked out pretty smoothly and I think we will do a few more here.  If all goes well I will just finish them up and be done with them.

I have a few hours today before I have to head into work.  I'm going to try and at least check one or two things off my list despite the rain.

Until next time.....

Choices and wating.....

I feel that one of the hardest parts when breeding animals is making choices. 

 Here I have a wonderful easy to deal with buck. He is proven to throw good kids with LOTS of amazing color.  I didn't originally intend to breed for color as Challenger was an unproven buck and although he is a pretty boy we didn't know what he might throw.  Now we have three new bucks on the way (Yeah THREE).  We have purchased a nice FB traditional colored buckling, a gorgeous blue Myotonic buckling and now a full black commercial percentage Kiko buck (he is 81% Kiko and 19% Boer). 

I love the Kiko and really want to keep breeding some Kiko into our line. I think this new buckling (Demon) will throw nice kids and we will use him often on our first freshening does.  From there we will keep what we like of his doeling offspring.

We also have plenty of requests for registered doelings and Titan will allow us to offer more of these.  Both FB and percentages.....maybe even some with color once we breed some of Challengers doelings. 

Then we have Spyder coming into the mix (He's the Myontonic buckling).  We plan to also use him on some of our first freshening does (especially those offspring of Demon).   This will be more of an experiment than anything else.  We are going to try and improve the "meatiness" in our kids.  We will see how this goes.

So my choices are to keep Challenger for at least one more year and wait on the Kiko/Boer buckling (or keep Challenger and GET the buckling just wait to breed him the following year).  If I keep Challenger one more year that gives me one more crop of nice babies to choose from to add to my breeding line up.

Of course if I want to add more colored does I could just go BUY some colored does using the money earned from kids sired from other bucks.

Of course with all these bucks I certainly need more does, but unfortunately space will become limited!! I will be up to 11 does once our Pygora does arrive (ooooh that is a whole other bunch of choices I made there!!)  I had really set my limit at 8.  Perhaps it’s time to admit there might be an addiction going on here?  Nah, I got this under control.    I may do some rearranging of our pastures and see about adding some  Quonset type huts made from cattle panels to the goat pasture just to make room. If anybody has suggestions for making this type of housing winter proof for northern climates I would love to hear them.   That might even give me room for ½ dozen MORE does.  Oh, the choices that opens up!!

Currently I do have Challenger listed for sale.  Perhaps somebody else will make this choice for me?

I would have to say that the second hardest thing when breeding animals is the waiting.  First you must wait for a bred doe to give birth.  Then waiting for that kid to be old enough to fully evaluate and see how the pairing you chose turned out.  Once deciding that you finally have a great match then you have to wait to breed the next generation. Oh, and don’t forget waiting for doe to be ready to breed back again because her first kids were so gorgeous that you just busting at the seams with anticipation to see the NEXT batch.   Try finding a really nice buck or doe to bring into your herd then having to wait to get him or her home.    This never ending cycle can be quite a challenge for a person without one iota of the right kind of patience.

Well, folks these musings today were more for me than for you this time.  I was hoping that putting these thoughts “on paper” so to speak would help me put this all into perspective.   I’m not sure yet if it has.

Until next time….

Wilson's Words of Whimsy.....

Or Alina's Artful Alliteration :)

IMPRESSIVE IMPROMPTU INGENUITY 

EGG EATER'S EXILE

DAUNTING DANDELION DECISIONS

(WINE OR JELLY?)

POSITIVELY PLUSH PUPPIES

FABULOUS FIFTIES FERGUSON

LILY'S LITTLE LOTUS

TERRIBLY TEMPTING TRIPLETS

UNTIL NEXT TIME.....

Comfrey.....

Just wanted to do a bit of a post on our Comfrey.  This plant was a bit under utilized last year. I planted a 20 foot strip of new plants last spring along the east line of our property.  They did quite well and I'm hoping they survived the winter and will be even better this year.  Anybody who has had comfrey will know that the last sentence was almost a joke...can ANYTHING really kill comfrey?

Here is the pile we tried to dig out our first year here....we had no idea what it was!!

I dried some last year and fed it to the chickens in the fall mixed with their regular grain ration. I only tried a few handfulls just to see if they would like it.   Since they loved it I will plan on doing more to last throughout the winter this year. 

I have yet to try it on the goats as anything more than a handful tossed over the fence , maybe this year.

I found that the pigs gobble it down with extreme gusto.  I have done some research on the toxicity (or lack there of) of comfrey when ingested.  I am still undecided whether I am doing more harm than good but will continue to feed to my critters in moderation.  I have seen (on the net) people who say they are using comfrey for up to 80-90% of their pigs feed.  I do plan on starting much smaller than that with the pigs, for now I think I will stick with it at about 10% of the total feed.

I have no interest in partaking of comfrey internally myself (not from fear of poisoning, but because I don't need it).  However I do firmly believe in it's use as a topical treatment.  Personally I have used it on both myself, my husband and my goats in an oil infusion. 

We will also be using it more in the gardens this year.  I will be making some comfrey liquid fertilizer for general garden and plant use.   Then I will try mixing some leaves into the potato towers.  I have also heard that I can put the chicken manure directly out of the coop onto the comfrey beds - I'll let you know how true this is in a month or so.

I hope to keep you updated on the success of using my expanded comfrey beds to supplement our livestock feed program. 

Until next time....

Happy Easter!!!

    
     Well today is Easter and the first day I have had away from my "outside" job in a while. I figure this morning will make a lovely time to catch up on my blog before hitting the ground running and getting some outside work done today while I'm home.

     I have finally gotten all the raised beds built for this year. I'm starting with just 3 large ones and one smaller one for this year. I'll see how I like them and maybe add more next year. I have yet to fill them, but at least they are ready for it.

     Manure has been added to the garden soil; just need the time to get it tilled in with my new tiller that my wonderful husband bought for me. I did one tilling already just to break up the soil before putting in the raised beds - nice tiller for sure.

     The potatoes are the only thing I have planted so far. I doubled my raised potato planters from 3 to 6 and planted .....potatoes this year. These planters worked really well last year and were very cheap to make as I had the burlap on hand and a bit of extra fencing. Composted and semi-composted manure works awesome as a filler/growing medium in these planters.

     I did end up adding 4 assorted blueberry bushes to the homestead. They were planted on the south side of the house and are going to be used as a foundation cover.  We have about a 2 to 2-1/2 foot Styrofoam basement foundation.  It was lemon yellow when we purchased the house but we painted it brown for aesthetic purposes, but paint doesn’t adhere well to Styrofoam and the chickens seem to like to EAT it.  Anyhow with our small acreage anything that can do double duty is a plus.  

     All the indoor seeds have been planted.  The tomatoes have had their first transplant into Styrofoam cups.  After starting the seeds in the little peat pellets I transplant them into cups when they are bout 4-5 inches tall.  When transplanting them I plant them deeply into the cup so that their root system becomes bigger – tomatoes will grow roots from their stem if covered in soil.  Then I bury them just a bit deeper when transplanting them into the soil outdoors for an even better root system.  This seemed to work excellently for me last year, for even with minimal care and watering we ended up with a decent crop of tomatoes!!

     I’m trying something new with my corn this year.  I’m starting my plants indoors. Perhaps if I have a nice crop I will be able to save some of my own seed this year.  I am within a few hundred feet of a “charming” field of GMO corn.  (**BLECH**)  If I can get my corn started and pollinated before that corn is ready to pollinate perhaps I have a chance of getting decent corn for saving.  You know, I’ve seen people actually BUY started corn seedlings for a ridiculous price.  Come on – two seedlings for $1.50?  I can buy two whole ears of corn for less than that!!    I’ll let you know how this endeavor works out for me.

     Sadly I have to say I don’t see much action coming from my red raspberries that were planted last year.  Out of about 25 plants that were given to me from a friend, I can find only three so far.  My purchased berries seem to have fared only marginally better as I see about 45-50% of them returning this year.  I think the chickens are primarily to blame for this lack of success.

     Speaking of the chickens and their love of new shoots and scratching….I think I got my herb and asparagus garden fenced in time to save any major damage this spring.  The cheap fencing I tried to use last year, just didn’t keep the chickens out towards the end of the season and I’m sure I lost my Bloody Sorrel and a few strawberry plants.  My Egyptian Walking onions, peppermint and spearmint are coming up wonderfully so far this year.  We did build a chicken pen last year to contain the chickens from time to time.  It just isn’t big enough for a full time pen, besides ever since I have owned chickens I’ve been a firm believer in free range.  I guess I’ll just keep fencing in all the important plants.  Luckily Bailey and Buddy keep the chickens away from most things near the house. 

     Icee and Reign were introduced to chickens yesterday.  I’m afraid this may be a long road to success.   Reign listens infinitely better than Icee when I holler NO.   Maybe Icee is just a bit too much puppy yet to be able to resist a running chicken.  However she doesn’t try and catch it and maul it or anything.  I used my favorite and tamest hen to work with the dogs.  She lays down when I go after her, so once she went down the dogs just sniffed her.  I tried a rooster for the dogs to check out, but he flies too well and bailed quickly over the fence!!  There used to be a small chicken hole for the chickens to freely come and go from the goat pen, but I had to close that up to keep Icee from using it when be brought her home!  I have to say, the pen is much cleaner when the chickens are allowed to freely roam within it.

Waiting for breakfast, such patience.

 

     I have decided to add to our breeding program.  I will be bringing home a young Myotonic buckling to our farm in May of this year.  I would like to follow that with a couple of Myotonic does as well, but for now we will be mixing the Myotonic buck with some of our Boer does.  Both are meat breeds, although the Myotonic (or Fainting goat) has off shoots in both the meat lines and a smaller “daintier” pet line.   This may be another contest opportunity as this fellow will need a name!!  I’m going to go out on a limb though and say that I like the name “Spyder”.   Maybe bike names instead of car names for the Myotonic line?  Interceptor, FatBoy and Raider all have a nice ring to them.

The soon to be "New Kid" on the block.

     The Cornish Rocks are quite large already, looking mighty plump and juicy looking if you ask me.  I haven’t been able to figure out a place to allow them out to roam as they are still young and the other adult chickens like to pick on them.  Next year I think a chicken tractor for the Cornish will be a good idea.   The little “red chickens” I bought this year are feathering nicely and I’m debating on when to mix them with the other girls. They are either Isa Browns or New Hampshire Reds – I really don’t remember.  I suppose I didn’t really need 10 more pullets as I already seem to have more eggs than I need.  But on the flip side of that, if we find ourselves able to go forward with the CSA in 2013 we will be all set on the eggs. 

      I really need to get my money invested in a new dehydrator (the last one finally died) so I can start working on dehydrating some eggs.  Besides I have enjoyed my dehydrated mushrooms, tomatoes and herbs from last year and look forward to doing even more of my garden harvest in a dried form this year.

      Babies are coming soon!!  Lily is due in 7 days, Penny in 10 and Snapdragon in 16.  One of Lilies doelings already has a deposit on it.  If she has only bucklings, those are also spoken for – one in our freezer and an acquaintance has requested one for their freezer.  I am seriously hoping for a nicely colored (spotted would be GREAT) doeling out of Snapdragon or Penny.  I really would like to keep one here on the farm.  I plan to keep at least two nicely put together doelings from this crop, Penny is my favorite so I’m hoping she kids out at least two really nice ones.  I keep saying I want one of Lilies doelings for a second milk goat, but when I get the cow she will be obsolete so I will most likely just offer any additional doelings she has up for sale. I’ll give the girls a few more days and then will be separating Penny and Lily into their kidding pens. 

 Penny actually looks like the babies are already starting to move into position!!

 

 It's always hard to get a good shot of an overly friendly goat, but here is Snapdragon and she is MUCH wider in person.

I am hoping that Lily gives us at least twins again this year.  She holds her babies well hidden and I would have never guessed she's have two good sized babies last year.  She looks about the same as last year so probably not the triplets I was dreaming of.

     Abra the pig is also due sometime this month but that is just guessing.   She looks quite large but I haven’t notice any ‘nesting” going on yet.  I have decided to leave the boar and sow together.  We have two nesting areas available and I have noticed that they will sleep apart.  One area is set up better for piglets (slats available for little ones to move away from mom and not get rolled on).  This is my first experience having a farrowing pig, and I’m sure I’m going to make mistakes, but I’m hoping that this isn’t one of them.  Our summer pen for the pigs should be large enough to give everybody their separate space.  We’ll keep updating on the piglet status as we go. 

If anybody tells you that AHH won't root - just smile and nod becuase YOU know better.....

       I have found out something interesting.  The less time I have to do things, the more I get done.  I think last summer I just kept saying things like – I’ll do it tomorrow.  I’ll do it later.  I’ve got all week to get it done.  Well when it came to taking the horses out and riding, I hardly rode at all last year.  This year already I’ve been out almost as much as I went out the entire year last year!  I come up with a chance to ride and now I say – Grab it and go!! 

     Well, the cinnamon rolls are done and I’m ready for breakfast.  Then I’m off to enjoy the day, perhaps I’ll finish my rototilling then head out for a nice ride.

      I hope you all enjoy your Easter!!



Until next time……..