February 23, 2013

Our first lamb was born today on our farm!  What an exciting day.  I went out to do the morning chores, which I don't ever do on a Saturday  normally because David is home on Saturdays and that was one of his Christmas gifts to me - to do chores on weekends for me.  But he had to go in to work to do inventory and I was the one who saw the lamb first!  It's a little boy from Lilly.  She was standing there as proud as can be, but very hungry this morning.  I quickly got Olivia to help me set up the creep.  After hauling hay and cattle panels, we coaxed Lilly into the creep with the lamb and gave her hay and water.  The lamb was born healthy and adorable.

We are so excited to have our first lamb.  Now we need to wait for Sweet Pea to hopefully give birth.  She is not as big as Lilly so she will probably only have one lamb also.  We were hoping for multiple births from both of them to build our herd quickly.  Looks like we might have to buy another ewe this year.

Arianna, our exchange student from Italy,  then helped me after breakfast to cut the umbilical cord a little shorter and administer some betadine to prevent any infection.

Tomorrow David will have to help me dock the tail.

Cute little guy!

February 16, 2013

The weather warmed a little yesterday and it was time to get back to the earth!  Well, at least on our farm.  It's amazing how after a two month break you can go outside and see so much that needs to get done.  It's overwhelming and I'm trying not to let it be.  It would probably be a good idea to make a list of things to do and spread it out over the next few weeks.

The lenton roses are blooming all over the farm right now.  They'll bloom for the next four months bringing in spring nice and slowly.  The honey bees love them which is fortunate for us.





 

 

The pigs have taken up alot of our farm chores this winter.  But they're growing big and strong, trying desparately to dig under the fences for some green grass!  Hope the fencing will last till butchering time.

 

 

The garden is still producing - but not much.  Hope to have better success with that next year through December and January when we have a high tunnel system installed.  This cabbage looked particularly pretty with the green and purple.  Still trying to decide whether to do a CSA this year, or stick to our farm market with selling at special venues through the growing season.  Looking at numbers and time and money.  Hope we can make the right decision.

 

So, we decided to have the chickens do the work in the garden beds this year.  Here is a nice little two chick hut we transferred from over by the garage that Joel made last spring for the ducklings.  It's perfect for them and they are nicely digging up the beds.  We picked up more pallets from Mitchell's yesterday to make a couple more to put them to work in several beds at once!  Genious.

 

 

I don't know what these are, but they are starting to bloom and look so pretty - especially when the whole bush is in bloom.  I love to pick these and bring them indoors on the dining room table in Feb. and March.  They look like something Japanese.

 

Our biggest job on this farm has been clearning land.  Thankfully the woodstove is working well to use up all that is being cleared!  Spent a portion of yesterday morning cutting up wood for the stove to take us through these warming days,