Saturday, December 18, 2010

Barnyard changes

I found my spinning wheel. It's an antique Great Wheel, or Walking Wheel. I haven't had time to spin on it though, due to all the Christmas knitting I have been doing.
Also bought my first sheep, a little bottle baby ram lamb. He is sort of spoiled, but hopefully that will keep him nice as he gets bigger. We got rid of the potbelly piglets, and decided to just keep the two adults that we started with. They are lots of fun. We have also decided to get rid of most of the chickens for the winter. Now that the goats are using the hen house, we are unable to put a heat light in there, so they are on strike. We found 2 free Nigerian dwarf goats on Craigslist and they threw in 3 Pekin ducks too. The youngest doe has blue eyes, and I would love to find a blue eyed buck to add to the herd. We lost our oldest doe a few days ago. Seems like constant change in the barnyard.
We have about a quarter inch of ice on the ground now, mixed with a dusting of snow..good time for the seed catalogs to start coming in. Planning on doing some raised beds and container gardening this year. Hopefully it will mean less weeding, and easier gardening all around. For now, I am enjoying deciding what to plant, and have several new things in mind. Not sure where this year went, Christmas is only a short week away. Hope you all enjoy it with those you love.

Monday, October 25, 2010

The good life....

Well, no fall garden, as I ended up having surgery a few days after my last post, and was out of commission for a few weeks. It's okay though, more time to plan for the spring. :) We now have turkeys again, and some guineas, who seem to be smarter than the last ones we had, thank goodness. We have 7 potbelly piglets, and haven't decided yet if we are keeping just one or two, but its time for the rest to find new homes. Flower is a great mom, but I think she is tired of them now.
Went to the Southern Indiana Fiber Arts Festival a couple weekends ago, and was completely blown away by all that fibery fun. I also came away with an absolute NEED to learn to spin. I am now on a quest for a spinning wheel. Met quite a few local people while we were at the festival, and are now in the market for an angora goat or two to add to the herd.
This past Saturday, our local Beck's Mill had Oktoberfest. We sat up a booth there, and had a fantastic day selling our goats milk soap, candles and knitted items. Met some more local folks there too, including the photographer for our local paper, who got a shot of Boy Farmer listening to a storyteller, and Girl Farmer holding the new puppy. She seems to think our little farm might make a good story, after all the election stories are over for the year. So we shall see if she comes around for an interview.
Busy week ahead..we are going to a semi local farmers market on Saturday, and I was instructed by the local yarn store owner to bring some of my stuff. She will introduce me to the market masters and see about us setting up there every weekend. This is one of the top markets in the US I'm told. Little nervous about that, but I'm sure it will all work out.

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Busy Saturday

So, I am making soap today. Got several different scents and colors going on in the kitchen. As soon as Mr. Farmer and Shorty Girl Farmer get back from Miller's Hardware, we will be making laundry soap. They have both Borax and washing soda, and Ruler Foods has bars of Fels Naptha.
The plan for today was putting out a fall garden, but we had a good thunderstorm last night, with quite a bit of much needed rain, so it's a bit too wet to till. Hopefully we will get to that this week. This mornings breakfast was home grown watermelon...so yummy. And Mr Farmer took the other ripe one over to Mr H.
So the rest of today will likely be spent indoors, knitting, soap making, and creating. We are so very blessed!

Monday, July 26, 2010

Foooood!!

We have canned 17 quarts of pickles, 21 quarts of green beans, and 14 quarts of dried beans, and froze 5 or so quart bags of squash in the last few days. Today I went to the garden and picked 3 more yellow squash, and some zinnias for a pretty bouquet. I am still working up tomatoes and making sauce, and hoping to get some blackberries to freeze this week. Mr. Farmer just walked in the door with 10 eggs. I have used both grandma's old canner, and my new to me canner, along with the new water bath canner. It's been busy and kind of hectic, but it will be sooo worth it when we can pop open a jar this winter and have fresh food. Next on the agenda is tilling up the middle of the garden and planting cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage and fall peas. Most of that will go in the freezer at harvest time though.
We started back to homeschool today which went well. Need to get back on a schedule though, because the little farmers were exhausted at wake up time this morning. Tomorrow will be easier...it always is. :)

Friday, July 2, 2010

Piggies!! :)

It's been busy, busy, busy here. Finally got our garden in, now it's a battle to keep up with the weeds
Thanks to a great new friend, we have 2 Potbelly Pigs. One boar and one sow, bought the sow and traded for the boar. And in a few months, we will have piglets too! :)
We have sold/traded all our rabbits except one house pet, so we are now out of the rabbit business completely. They were fun, but so very time consuming. We also traded the billy goat. So we are back to 4 goats, and 2 of those are bred does. And of course all the chickens. Animal control called us this week, and asked Mr Farmer if he wanted a couple geese. DNR rounded up some Canada geese, and got some domestic geese in the process, 2 of which they gave to our friend Jim at the shelter. Mr Farmer of course picked them up, so we now have a total of 6 geese, and 4 ducks.
Spent some time outside this afternoon watching the pigs root, and the goats play, and thanking God for this place, and everyone and everything that lives here. It's a good life.

Saturday, May 8, 2010

New Chicks

Our momma hen, Jet, a tiny little bantam, hatched out 3 chicks so far. Mr Farmer is sick, so the little farmers and I went out to check on them this afternoon, and one of the chicks was laying on the ground in the henhouse, completely motionless. I came in to get Mr Farmer so we could move the nest, so the other chicks would be safe. I told him one chick was dead, we had to figure out how to save the others. He walked out and picked up the little dead chick...only it wasn't dead. It moved. It took a breath. So he handed it to me...here, take care of it...a little sugar water and some time under a heat lamp, and the baby is now back outside with its momma. I honestly thought the poor little thing didn't have a chance. I'm so glad God is still in control, instead of me.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

And then there were none...

Turkeys, that is. We butchered the last one. The mean blue slate tom that I had tried to sell, but decided to give another chance. He blew it today. There is a very sweet, small chick that follows Mr Farmer around, and jumps up on him whenever he leans down. Today, for whatever reason, that mean turkey decided to peck that chick till she bled. He is gonna taste fabulous with some green beans, mashed potatoes and stuffing. :)

Sunday, January 31, 2010

Better Days


So, I was right, and it is better. Yesterday Mr Farmer and I spent some time looking through the poultry catalog and deciding what we would like to order. So many choices! Today we have spent a fairly quiet day on the farm. We have a sick rabbit in the house, hoping she gets well and can go back outside soon. We have a new addition to the farm, a 12 week old Great Pyrenees puppy named Elvis. He is taking up some time, trying to get him housebroken. And we have had him out around the animals, which he doesn't seem to notice much. Lady, our little house dog, is trying to love him, but still growls and snaps at him occasionally.
Got a couple inches of snow Friday night, its almost all melted now. Back to school for the little farmers tomorrow, and back to work for me and Mr Farmer. I think I will start some tomato seeds sometime this week. I am anxious for spring to get here. Nothing like playing in the dirt to soothe a soul.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Simple Life??

Our donkey, Hugo, died this morning. So, we spent a huge part of our day trying to figure out what to do with his body. Thanks to some fantastic neighbors, it is done, and we are trying to move forward. It has been a hard day and I keep wondering again why people call this the simple life. What we do here is hardly ever simple. It is our choice, and we love this life, but easy, it is not. Days like today, I focus on all the good things, and pray hard. Tomorrow will be better.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

rabbits and a mean turkey

We sold two of our little lionhead rabbits today...they are going to a nice new home as 4H projects, what fun! I think I might be at a point where I will keep the rest of the rabbits, and add on some new meat rabbit breeding stock. Still have 2 turkeys to get rid of, the big blue slate tom is not a nice turkey at all. I have been known to sell chickens just because they have no personality, and this mean boy definitely needs to find a new home. Well, either that or he goes to freezer camp soon.
We are expecting our first real snow of this winter tonight and tomorrow and I can't wait. The kids are excited and hoping for a snow day. I love watching them sled down the big hill.

On a sad note, just over a year since the chicken attack, I found myself trying to save Heckle once again. It was not to be. Heckle the boss roo left for rooster Heaven today from his spot on top of the washing machine.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

So many blessings this weekend! Saturday morning, Mr Vaughn stopped by to say someone was wanting a quarter of a cow, and were we still interested in a half. YES!! So, sometime soon we will be buying a side of beef to fill the freezer. Saturday afternoon, we were filling the bed of the truck with metal. Mr H, the worlds greatest farm neighbor just had it laying out in the barn, and said we could have it. It's just what we need for our brooder shed, rabbitry, and barn. We will go back soon to get the rest, we couldn't fit it all yesterday.
Yet another learning curve with the chickens, we may have an egg eater. A goose egg and a chicken egg that our little bantam was sitting on disappeared. That hen house is as tight as Ft Knox, so I know no critter got in and ate them. At least with the new load of straw Mr Farmer put in there, the eggs aren't freezing now.
Calling for snow tomorrow, the cold this week has been brutal. It's back to work for me tomorrow, and back to school for the little farmers. Looking forward to getting back to our routine.

Friday, January 1, 2010

So, I did laundry today, since we hadn't done any in over a week. No big deal, except, remember, that my dryer died over a year ago, and I haven't replaced it? It's 20F outside right now, with the wind chill making it feel like 10. To save myself from freeze-dried clothes, Mr Farmer and I hung them on hangers in the house. 5 loads of laundry=a house FULL of wet clothes. Little farmers go back to school on Monday though, so I was determined to have everything washed.
We spent the morning outside busting ice from waterers and taking warm water to our spoiled critters. Definitely still on a learning curve with the chickens...we had several eggs in the henhouse, but they had all froze and busted. Mr Farmer is putting more straw in the henhouse to help warm them up, all the goats, donkey, and rabbits have plenty of straw, and bellies full of hay.
What a way to ring in 2010, but I wouldn't have it any other way. Sometimes its hard, but it's a good life, and its all ours. I wish you all much love, peace and happiness for the New Year.