March 1, 2013 Finally!

Why has this winter seemed so very, very long?  I can't wait for warm weather and to go outside and work in the garden and eat meals in the courtyard and knit and spin on the front porch!  I know, it'll be here soon.  I see 60's in the forcast next week.  So glad because we're having our knitting guild here to do drop spindling and see the lambs.

The lambs.  What a story!  So, Lilly has her little boy on Saturday.  All goes well.  She gets out of the creep on Wednesday.  The ram smells blood and tries to mount her and kill lamb.  He is isolated in the inner pasture - all other sheep in the outer passage.  After lunch, Liv goes to the mailbox and comes running back screaming because Sweet Pea has given birth and the lamb looks dead in the field.  We both run out and find the little guy barely breathing.  We look up and another lamb is by Sweet Pea's side, we look across the field and there's another lamb with Lilly and her baby!  Sweet Pea had triplets!!!  Now what do we do?  We had to manipulate Dan the ram into a pen by the chicken coop in order to get Sweet Pea and babies into the creep.  It still looks like the littlest is not going to make it.  Run to get plastic bin and towel - get him in the house with heat lamp.  Now what do we do?  Liv thinks quick and remembers goat milk.  I get in the car and speed down the road to the "Goat  Lady" to get fresh goat milk to try and keep the little guy alive.  Job done, Liv has bottle with nipple ready and we get him to drink - he stands up and gives Liv a kiss!

 

Now, just when we thought all was well, we go back to Sweet Pea only to find her trying to kill one of her babies - the only girl.  It was a very frightening thing.  She did not want that girl for nothing.  I had to grab it and get it out of the creep - into the house - another bottle ready to go.  But surely we can not bottle feed two lams?   Oh boy, what now?  Checked on line and they said to make a little pen in the creep to keep the unwanted and wanted lamb together - so the scent rubs off.  I go and gather hammer, nails, boards and try.  But my building skills are very lacking.  Call husband and say, come home quick.  This is way too much to handle right now.  He is on the way.  But what about the little girl?  Call Anna - my shepherd friend that started me in all this madness up by D.C.  She came to the rescue by telling me to take the placenta and rub it ont he lamb to give the lamb the mom's scent in order for her to accept it.   as soon as David gets home and changed he, Arianna and I go out and get the placenta still in the field and rub it on little Rose.  I keep putting Rose to Sweet Pea's nose and she sniffs, but turns, sniffs and turns, sniffs and turns away.  She at least is not trying to kill her.  The lambs sleep, David and I watch over them all in the creep.  At 7:00 p.m. the lambs awake and the little boy tries to nurse, but Rose is in the way and Sweet Pea is running from her!  She still won't accept her.  If we built the little pen we'd have to be in the barn all through the night every two hours getting them to nurse, so we decide to just bring the girl into the house and bottle feed her as well.  So the madness for the next 2 months begins!  Luckily Olivia and Arianna wanted to get up in the middle of the night to feed.  We fed colostrum x for two days with the goat milk.  Now we're are changing to lamb milk replacer and water.  Both have had a little diahrrea so are getting too much, so we'll cut back but keep feeding a few more days through the night because they are so little.  At least until they can drink 6-8 ounces before bed. 

 

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,

 



December 9, 2012

OK, we think we've finally figured her out, then she gets out again.  Yes, we're talking about the black and white striped pig.  She can get out anywhere and anytime.  We've just about had it with her.  We really think we've found the last little, itty bitty place she could possibly be getting out of.....we think.  Time will tell!

Otherwise, we're having fun here on the farm.  The days have been very mild so far this November and December.  We finally had rain, after the driest month on record.  The cave crickets have invaded our house during this drought - not a great thing:

Not a pleasant thing to greet you when you walk in the door - that's for sure.  The good thing  - they don't bite, the bad thing - they multiply like crazy in the crawl space under your house.  Now we know who lives downstairs!

Olivia and I tried something new this year - we did a table at the Come Home For Christmas in Rocky Mount on Friday night.  It was an interesting experience.  The weather again was mild and for that we were very grateful.  We were not prepared with lights which was frustrating sitting in the dark trying to sell honey, jam and yarn!  We ended up doing pretty well actually, with about 4,000 people attending the event.  Don't know if we'll do it again.  This coming Saturday is the Holiday Market at the farm market area.  We'll try again - this time in the daytime with light!

The worse news - we lost our wonderful collie Thursday night.  He was hit by a car and lost his back end function.  We had to put him down and buried him by the pond.  It was one of the most difficult times here on the farm.  He had to have been the greatest dog ever.  He was the most beautiful, friendly, helpful friend anyone could have. He came to greet me every time I drove in the driveway and I greeted him with a kiss!   We are all going to miss him so very much.

 

Now, for the big problem:  something happened with our water conditioner and did not allow the water from the spring to be pumped up to our house on Thursday and friday.  We bypassed the conditioner and now have water, but the plumber is coming Monday to help us figure out what to do.  The water conditioner, which we have to have with the spring, is probably just too old to function properly anymore.  We're going to have another big bill to deal with!

 

 

December 1, 2012

Well, our second year here on the farm has almost been completed - and what an adventure it has been.  We continue to thank the Lord for all his blessings, especially when we look out at our beautiful farm He has given us. 

Today we continue with fall chores and continue getting ready for winter, although it is in the 60's and sunny!  We are once again moving the pigs - to a bigger area now, enclosing the whole one side of the fence.  Hopefully they'll be happy with more to forage in and have fun in.  We continue to feed them pork maker or livestock feed, along with plenty of pumpkins to devour and a treat of acorns ever once in a while.  They chew the acorns like candy. 

Our orchard got some revitalization today as we trimmed the damson plum trees that have sprouted from the original two trunks we had to take down last fall.  We trimmed them to one lovely trunk and hopefully will find some way to prevent all the succors that take away the energy.  We had to take away the last large apple tree that was taken down further by the wind storm this past summer.  Now we have a lovely pile of apple wood to smoke a very large organic turkey we got from Four Corner's Farm.  I'm thinking of preparing it for New Year's this year because we didn't have Thanksgiving here as usual and we'll have our duck for Christmas dinner.

We continue also to chop up wood so it fits in the stove box.  It can be pretty big, but some need to be done.  David is doing a great job getting a pile ready for me for this week.

We're concerned about our hay.  There's not much to eat in the pasture but the llamas and sheep are not interested in our hay at all.  The problem is it took us so long to find someone to make our hay for us in square bales, then we had to wait for them to be done with their hay before making our hay and of course the weather would not cooperate.  The hay was baled much too late I think.  We may have to plead some better hay from our neighbor.  We'll see.  In the meantime I'm using the hay to feed the rabbits - they love it and we're making a hay bale hut for the pigs!

Our farm market is done for the season, but I have alot of personal orders still every week for honey or fresh greens.  I have homemade soap orders to fill too.  We just made some more this week and will continue as we're doing a table at the big Christmas celebration downtown next Friday.  I'm trying infused hone also - jalapeno, cinnamon and rosemary.  I need to make some boxwood wreaths also to sell.  We have so much wisteria vines for bases and boxwood for the greens. 

November 20, 2012

The pigs are growing and growing and loving to eat, eat, eat.  They are now in their third pen area, with plenty of grass and weeds and brush to dig up and eat. 



The black and white one succeeded in getting out of all woven wire fencing, and the three together have proceeded to dig up and under the Premier 1 netted electric fencing, knocking it over and going out to explore new lands.  They're cute - but quite a handful!

David successful extracted 75 more pounds of honey.  This is wonderful since our 160 pounds has almost been sold from the earlier extraction.  Unfortunately we just lost our strongest hive.  We don'e know why - it's all gone - bees, honey, everything just vanished.

Olivia and I had our first experience of butchering turkeys yesterday.  We helped the Reilly's at Four Corner's Farm butcher their last 16 turkeys for thanksgiving sales.  It was a long day and a little cold.  Olivia was an expert gutterer!

October 15, 2012

Picked up 3 piglets from Minter Farm in Floyd last night.  Drove up the mountain as plain ole folk, drove down the mountain as pig farmers.  They are soooo cute.  The mom is Tamworth and pop is Hampshire.  They are a heritage breed from England/Scotland that is used for wonderful meat.  they will forage in the woods and clear land for us which we need desparately.  Diane and Lloyd were wonderful and answered all our questions.  Hope we can do it all right.  Right now we feed them scraps and they forage in the barnyard which is a little overgrown.  As soon as the front pasture is brushhogged we're moving the llamas and sheep up there and the pigs in the back woods.  We'll be moving them around every few weeks so they can get lots cleared for us before butchering in the spring.  Hope it all works out well.

Fall work is still going on.  I'm drying tons of herbs for tea and cooking.  Doing dyeing of wool, making soap and paper and getting the fall and winter garden going.  We have wonderful kale, lettuce, sugar snap peas and swiss chard right now.  I just started digging up sweet potatoes - there is alot!  I have alot of lettuce, broccoli, cabbage, spinach, turnips, carrots, cilantro,beets and onions planted.  I hope to keep the garden going well into the winter.

We had our hay baled yesterday and was able to get that all picked up and stacked into the barn with the help of Joel and Christine who were home for fall break from Liberty.  Glad to have everyone's help - even Liv's for driving the truck around the field.  I hope 80 bales will be enough.

Blueberry bushes and peach trees will be coming soon to plant.  Can't wait!

Our market is pretty much done I think.  Not many stopping in.  I have alot of orders to fill throughout the week though so income keeps coming which is needed!  Will be planning and starting to get everything ready for the Christmas Market in town in December.  Hope to sell alot of preserves, yarn and greens there.  Will be making boxwood wreaths to sell again also.