Spring, and new babies

After an unusually dry and warm winter, we have finally been seeing some spring rains. Yay for the rain!! The pasture is nice and lush, the goats are grazing it, and we have a couple new additions to the farm.

     Opal had twins last week. The birth was unassisted, and in the middle of the night. She had a doeling and a buckling this time. The buckling is a real looker, with his black and white markings! He is also quite a bit larger than all of Opal's previous babies, it seems his phenotype leans toward the Alpine influence in his blood.
     So far both the kids are still on Mama, however I plan to pull the buckling off and sell him as a nbottle baby. I have been practicing bottle feeding in anticipation of his going to a new home.
     Right now, Mama is out grazing, while her kids rest in their nice, well bedded pen waiting for her to get back. It is during these away from Mama times that I have been introducing the bottle and handling the kids to keep them friendly. If not handled, dam-raised kids tend to grow up half wild, and don't appreciate human interaction.

There are wild turkeys in the neighborhood again this year. These pictures were taken a couple of days ago. Yesterday, a wild hen presented herself near the turkey pen, and spent the better part of a day grazing the pasture with the goats.

Fall on the Homestead

We've had an eventful summer and Fall on the place. Lots of work has been accomplished, and lots of work is still left to finish.

The summer litter of Emily's accidental puppies have all found new homes. Well... except for one male, he stayed on at the farm. He seemed to be particularly attached to the baby, so we thought he would make a good addition to the place. He is going to be a BIG dog!!

The concrete forms were all poured a couple of months back. Finished finally, after a year! The brush has been cut back away from the forms and burned lately, too.

Firewood... The neverending story! My new place does not have wood heat, but the old one does and he is sure appreciating the stash of firewood.

Goaties. They were weaned months ago, and the black one has found somewhere else to be an obnoxious creature. The brown one is still here and is loose, I would dearly love to hunt him down and eat him!!

Turkeys. The annual pre-Thanksgiving bloodbath cut down on our population by nearly half. I kept 5 breeders for next year. They have their nice new big pen to live in for the winter. Their housing is kind of shoddy, but they do at least have shelter. One of those things I keep meaning to fix but never quite get around to...

Brush being burned. Lots of brush. Making more farming space in the annual slash n burn festivities!

Knobcone pine across the road. Story of my life this time of year. If I had my way I would cut down every one of these evil trees for miles around!!! These are particularly susceptible to pine beetles.

Tiny arrowhead that I found. Yes, it is a complete head. Wintu tribe piece. Very small and VERY cool.

So, that sums up a lot of the things that have been keeping me busy. It's refreshing to have cooler weather and be able to get some butchering and brush burning done. Happy Holidays!

June and July 2017

So its been awhile since anything new has been posted, and there's a lot to catch up on!!
Summer at the place has been going pretty well, it's hot and dry this time of year but except for the loss of two black chickens during heat that reached 115F, everyone is doing well.

I'm going to stick with the highlights of the summer, would love to post detailed how-to tutorials on things like hand-pollinating squash or canning pickles but time is precious when you're a Mama!

First, the garden. The garden at the place has been allowed to die off except for a few of the plants that have been around the longest. Things that will continue to produce next year still get watered. Everything else, don't waste your water. The cow needs it!

My small garden box in town however, is producing like crazy. My single crookneck squash plant has fed a dozen households, the tomatoes are starting to come into their own, the cucumbers are plentiful but not hugely abundant this year. All that chicken and cow manure I brought back from the Homestead with me really paid off in terms of produce!! I receive many compliments from friends and family on my 'might as well try' city garden.

Next, chickens!!
The chicks from last spring are now pullets, and the first batch has begun laying. There were originally 6 chicks in the first batch, but three were found dead with deep puncture wounds in them. Not the work of a dog, but I'm still not sure what exactly killed them.
This group is a Buff orphington, a barred rock and an americuana. The americuana out-lays everyone... she actually factually laid TWO eggs the other day, in a single day. She is the only green egg layer, so it was definitely her laying two eggs.

Late last month I switched some birds around and made a new pen, so the three point of lay pullets could have a bigger pen and a nestbox. Everyone ended up with more suitable quarters this way more space for all birds involved.

There are four more pullets who will need to go in with the older trio and who should begin laying soon also. All of these are Americuana pullets.

The small turkeys grew fast, and one seems to have disappeared the other day. No signs of it around so far, I am hoping it ran off with a wild turkey.
One of the local wild turkeys has decided to move in, and the young poults keep escaping to hang out with her so aren't penned when they should be. Arghhh. That hen makes me want turkey for dinner!!! She is not penned and not fed or watered, but she is not leaving either. It irritates me.

Goaties......Opal is trying to wean her babies, they are almost 3 months old now. They are stout and healthy little guys! I castrated them both about a month ago, they are wethers and not bucklings now. The other goats are happy and healthy also.

Food preservation.
I made a batch of spicy garlic dill pickles today, and some pickled squash-zucchini as well. I put four cans of pickles and three cans of squash into the canner, but I lost one jar of each-- the jars were old and the bottoms blew off them. What a disappointment!!! This is a first for me, and I wasn't too overjoyed at the idea of my hard work exploding like that.

In other news, the wild blackberries have come and gone. I had the opportunity to freeze a whole bunch. My original plan was to make preserves, but I made life easier on myself and just froze them instead. They will be very much enjoyed this winter!

Those are the farm highlights for the summer. There are other happenings afoot like a new and expanded turkey pen and major Jeep repairs, but those aren't very fun things to write about. The Jeep in particular has been vastly improved over the summer though, to which I am extremely grateful. 4X4 is an absolute must for the property in winter, and mine works perfectly now.

My son is growing very quickly and is happy and extremely healthy. He loves his farm time-- the animals absolutely fascinate him! I'm so glad he has an opportunity to be exposed to the good life that agriculture has to offer. It will influence him later in life for the better.

That about wraps things up until this Fall!

New Arrivals

It's been a busy Spring at the homestead, and there are always new things happening. A lot goes on while I am not around, life lately has been a big game of catch-up, it seems. We have some new arrivals this month, this for me is the best part of having a farm!

First came the turkey poults. There were 7 that hatched, but Mama somehow managed to crunch all of the babies except two. I didn't want to lose the remaining poults, so I took them from her and brought them back to town with me. They lived in the bathroom for about a week, and when they had sufficient feathers I brought them back to the farm.

Now they live outside in their own little pen, and Mama turkey (who is wandering loose around the farmyard at present) can still be with them without crushing them. It looks like there is a little hen poult, and a little tom poult.

Next came the baby goats! Opal had her babies, twin bucklings this time. I especially like the little black one with the airplane ears. It looks like he might end up with blue eyes too! I have no idea where these traits came from, but very cool.
Opal gave birth unassisted, and it seems everything went perfectly for her. What a relief, after the nightmare I had with Cami!

Here are the new little goats, they don't have any names yet. Cuteness overload!!

I am leaving them on their Mama for now, as I don't know if I can manage a proper milking schedule at present. Cami goat has been dried up for the same reason, lack of ability to maintain the milking schedule. .

Biggest one yet!

The artichokes are coming on full force this year. This is one of the first few to ripen, and I can see already that the 'chokes are going to be much bigger than last year or the year before!! Yay for artichokes!




"It is good for a man to eat thistles, and to remember that he is an ass."
-E.S. Dallas

State of the Homestead, April 2017

Spring is here in full force now. We've still had a lot of wet dreary days, and a goodly share of cold weather but this will assure the pasture stays green longer this summer!

The garden is coming along, despite the massive neglect this year. It hasn't all been recovered from the weeds and grass growing in it, but we've still been able to clear out and plant a bunch of areas. The peas I planted at the beginning of March are starting to flower now, and the radishes are going to be ready soon. We have the occasional artichoke ripening, with what looks like many more on the way. The potatoes are all up and doing great, there should be a good crop this year. Same with the carrots that were planted back in March. The overwintered garlic and walking onions are doing great, as are the perennial herbs and strawberries! I just got three tomato starts planted in there yesterday, also.

The cherry tree that the goats didnt eat and both almond trees have set fruit this year. The pomegranate and plum trees still haven't begun producing yet. The fig tree looks poorly also, I may remove it altogether later this year.

The pasture is overgrown and going to seed, but it has been too wet to let the stock out on it to graze. Yesterday I finally had an opportunity to fix the section of fence in there the goats had gone through, and let everyone out for some fresh grass. Missy is really enjoying it!!

About half the turkeys have been loose and running around making everyone insane this year, they get really bad-tempered during breeding season! It looks like things are starting to settle down on the turkey front, as they have laid eggs and most of the hens are now sitting on nests. Here are two rogue nests that are being occupied by the red hens.

That's about it for April happenings, I am sure I'm forgetting some stuff but got most of it blogged for the month. Opal should be due mid-May, and I am really hoping to have the time to milk her this year. We'll see how that goes, I actually briefly considered bringing her with me to town and back so i can keep up a milking schedule this year...but that might be too much stress on her!