The work never ends

We spent this saturday tearing down an old horse pasture. It was a huge undertaking and took 2 days to complete. We are not stocked with fencing and ready for our next pasture to go up! We also picked up a bunch of animal supplies which will be a huge upgrade for our farm! (yeah for heated waterers in the winter!)

The good news from the weekend is that Aiden and Aimee have found a new home. They will be leaving our farm in August and traveling to the Adam's house. These two will be great pets for their children! They have already picked out the names Mickey and Minnie for them!

Other than that we are preparing for company on thursday and a great long weekend with a BBQ!

hot hot hot!

Well this weekend was a pretty hot one. It was hard to stay motivated to work outside when as soon as you opened the door you began sweating! None the less we got some small things done around the house and farm.

Chris helped me get the last section of garden tilled up so I can plant the last of the seeds this week. I also planted all of my herbs and weeded the entire garden. I must say weeding is not my favorite task! I also planted some pretty, brightly colored flowers to attract bees to come over and do some awesome pollinating for me. Since I was up close and personal with the plants this weekend I am expecting a large harvest of zucchini this week. I also have plenty of green tomatoes, both large and small, if only they would turn red! I am getting lots of flowers on my beans and my cucumbers. The winter squash is growing nicely down the hill, making its way to the fence. I also noticed some nice flowers on that this morning. My peppers seem stuck in the small stage of growth. I am hoping they will pick up, I would really like some fresh peppers. Finally the okra is also beginning to flower. I am hoping that the zucchini plants don't smother the okra, but its possible! Yet again, we have the largest zucchini plants that I have ever seen! One plant would easily fill a children's plastic swimming pool!

Goats are doing great. All the babies have names finally, Ava's kids are Aiden and Aimee, and Coco's are Archie and Aubrey. They are getting so big! George's banding is still progressing well, I can't wait for that to be over! Finally Reggie is adapting well to the new boys and life on the farm. He is just a little mush!

Chickens and Chicks doing great as well. Our egg counts have finally started to increase again! Lets hope this is an ongoing trend. I have one hen that is showing signs of being interested in sitting again so we need to make arrangements for her in the coop. The 8 chicks that we have are doing great. They are beginning to get their big chicken feathers in. We have 4 of them that are beginning to show that they have frizzled feathers! I will have to get a picture of one chick and his dad! Itty has left him to be on his own so our frizzle rooster has taken over his care. It is so sweet to walk in the coop and see this tough guy sitting over the little chick!

well hopefully we will have a productive week ahead! Thanks for checking in!

Babies, babies and more babies!

We have been busy around the farm getting ready for the new barn! We have been doing lots of planning so we can get into the ground breaking part!

Our garden is finished and growing strong. We have quite a variety of plants this year. I still need to get my planter boxes filled with dirt and seeds. This year I have a few types of tomatoes, green peppers and jalapenos, 4 types of winter squash, pickling cucumbers, salad cucumbers, beans, peas, zucchini and okra. I have also planted cabbage, brussels spouts and eggplants, still waiting for them to sprout. In my planter boxes I have plants for spinach, lettuce, mustard greens, radishes and lots and lots of herbs!

Besides lots of planing and gardening we have been delivering babies. Coco had her babies on May 30. She had a chocolate doe and a black and white buck. The doe is named Aubrey and the buck is Archie.

Then Ava had her babies June 7. She had a black and white doe and black buck. These two have not yet been named.

All babies are doing well and enjoying exploring the world.

The garden is in!

Well this past week has been very busy for is around the farm! We were able to get the garden planted. We set up a permanent fence this year so things will go faster next year. I got my started seeds transplanted and planted new seeds in the ground. Chris purchased a new irrigation system for this year so I have been working on setting it up as well. Need to order some more parts before i can finish it.

Stella's babies are doing well, we have named them April and Abbi. They will be listed for sale soon. They are getting so big! They are very sweet, little bouncing girls! We are on baby watch for Coco! She is getting very large and very uncomfortable, I do feel bad for her, but it will be over soon! I look forward to meeting them when they are born.

We do have some sad news. Earlier this week we lost one of our goats. I came home from work on tuesday and could not find her. We found no signs of her when we looked, so we are not sure what happened to her. She will be missed around the farm! We have also lost another chicken. We saw some large hawks flying over the farm yesterday and last night we were down a bird. This has not been a great year for chickens! Although we do continue to have plenty of eggs! We also have 8 hens that have gone broody on us so we are slowly replenishing our stock! We should have some more peeps this coming week!

Yeah for Stella!

On wednesday around 8:30pm Stella had her babies! She had two beautiful little girls! We are still working on their names. This year we are planning on naming all of our babies with "A" names!

One is a darker grey than the other and they both have waddles. I think one will end up looking just like mom and the other will end up looking like grandma Sadie! They are very cute and cuddly and like all baby goats fun to watch!

These past few weeks we have learned that we need a better fence than they electric! The girls have decided that they do not like being out of our backyard and would rather be in the neighbors field! It is crazy! I am not sure how we can fix this for now. In the future, once the barn is built and we establish the perimeter fence line we will use good horse fence to keep everyone in all the time (I hope! Misty is tricky!)

Another weekend behind us!

Chris and I both enjoyed a long weekend for Easter. We were both able to have Friday off and boy was it a HUGE help around the farm. Friday was the hottest day of the weekend reaching 87 degrees! On this really hot Good Friday we were out in the sun adding new gates and adjusting old fencing. Probably not the best day to do the task, but it needed to get done. Chris also began tilling the garden up for me. Everything was going so great until the tiller broke! At that point it was time to quit.

Saturday we got up early and got to work fixing the tiller at the shop. The bad news is that its still broken. The good news is that its fixable! Now we just need to get the parts and slap it all back together so we can get out there and finish tilling!

Sunday we sold 10 extra roosters! The house has gotten very quiet since then. I was sad to see some of them go. But we are now saving a bunch on our feed costs which is important, especially with the baby chicks that we have been hatching.

With the new pasture done and the goats locked out of the yard we now seem to have a problem more than ever with goats jumping the fence. It used to be just coco and misty romping around, but now its like 10 goats! I am guessing they are not liking the brushy pasture we set up and miss the fresh grass. I am not sure what we are going to do to rectify this problem, but we need to do something. I really do not like the goats outside the fence line. I would also really like to keep them out of my yard!

The pretty trees around the yard are now in bloom and i LOVE it! The dogwood starting flowering today and the pretty purple trees have been showing color for a few days now.

Well it sure is a pretty afternoon, I better get out and get some work done!

Welcome Spring!

We had a beautiful spring weekend, and took advantage of it! The new goat pasture is 100% complete! what a nice feeling. Now the goats can rotate OUT of my back yard! Chris also put the finishing touches on the boys fencing. He installed a large gate so we can get a tractor in to level the land and plant new grass. We moved Petunia and her girls, Anika and Annabelle out of the buck yard and in with the girls. They are not overly thrilled with the change but will get used to it eventually.

We lost a total of 2 chicks from our first hatch, one had leg problems and had a hard time getting around and the second just never grew. We called him peanut and he was like 1/4 the size of his siblings. He was one that I helped hatch, I feel like every time I help I get a runt who does not survive. I think I should just let the ones hatch that were meant to on their own! We have a total of 9 chicks and they are getting their adult feathers in nicely! I cannot wait until all their fuzz is gone! We also moved the youngest chickens outside in with the teenager chickens last night and will continue to do so until they get it on their own. The baby coop will be used for these new chicks when they are ready!

I transplanted all of my tomato seedlings into large containers. I have a total of 75 plants and 4 varieties. I am not planning on using all of the plants so will be selling the extras. I have also filled my tobacco flat with seeds. We have all kinds of good things planned for the garden this year. Now if I can only figure out where to put my corn this year.

We are beginning to sit down and discuss the location of the new barn and finalize plans for it. Hopefully construction will begin in a few weeks! This new barn will help make things so easy with more space for the animals and . . . STORAGE! Having on site hay storage will be wonderful and very convenient!

On a sad note, Chris needed to put down a doe last weekend. She was one of our rescues that was VERY sick. We did what we could to help her, but it was just too late for the little girl. Beth you will be missed, and I hope you enjoy your time on the other side of the rainbow bridge.