Strawberry Jam Cake, Cookies and Cream, and Peeps

 

I baked a cake!  A strawberry jam cake, with jam in the batter and between the layers.  Three layers!  We had more than one family birthday to celebrate, but we didn't have a big firefly party like memorial weekends of years past.  It was too cold for the pool, but the fireflies showed up to entertain us, and the strawberry cake disapeared.  

The farmer who sold us Pistol Pete, our ram, asked for some photos so he could see his progress.  I thought this photo makes him look strong.  He is strong.  He head-butted me in the backside when I crossed his pasture, and nearly knocked me down!   

I was very offended by this.  It's one thing to accidently get knocked around by a skittish animal, but this was intentional and pre-meditated!  Now I watch my back when I'm in his pasture.  

Brandon bought two new ewes from the sheep farmer.  One of them has pretty brown wool, and I named her Cookies.  The other is a pale creamy color, so she was named Cream.  Cookies and Cream call to Lambchop like she's their mother, but we're keeping them seperate until they settle in and we know they aren't sick. They seem very healthy and energetic.  They are only four months old, and very skittish.  I can sneak a scratch behind their ears while they are eating, but they run when they realize what I'm doing.  I don't know how I'll ever catch them to trim their hooves.

Lambchop's little lambs are growing fast.  She's a good mother too. I think her un-shed wool looks like a rump toupee!  She doesn't like it when I try to pull it off.  The ground all around her barn looked like snow, she shed so much wool.  Just imagine what it will look like when there are five ewes shedding next year! 

The donkeys haven't started their heavy shed yet.  They still have the cute fuze around their faces.  

A box of chicks came through the mail.  Fifteen mixed breed layers, plus ten of the pearl white leghorns, which are small birds and make big white eggs.  Most of these will go to my parents or my boss, but I get to enjoy raising them in my brooder box for their first weeks.  I stored spare hoses in the box over the winter, and when I pulled the hoses out to get ready for the chicks, mice crawled up the hoses and gave me a scare!  Brandon turned the box upside down and stapled wire screen over the bottom, so hopefully the mice will not get back in.  

I really like raising chicks with the artificial hen/warming plate rather than the heat lamp.  The chicks snuggle under it and sleep so quietly, and I don't worry that I'm going to burn the barn down.  

They're so cute!

Ernest is Ours

 

I mailed the mandatory veternary inspection form today, along with this photo of Ernest.  These were the last two items I owed the equine adoption agency, and now Ernest should be offically ours!  

I'm not sure Rufus is as excited by this as I am.  You mean we have to keep him?  Ernest passed the vet inspection, getting good ratings for his coat and foot condition.  He did have to get his teeth "floated," which meant he was sedated, rigged up with a wicked looking metal halter that pried his mouth open, and his teeth were filed with an electric grinder.  The vet said older equines sometimes have the outside of the teeth grow too long, and that's probably why Ernest was packing his cheek with chewed food, which isn't good for his teeth.  Ernest balked when he saw the needle, but once that part was over he handled having his teach filed pretty well.  He wobbled and sneezed from the sedative for the rest of the evening.  

Our ewe, Lambchop, never had a baby.  Brandon is nearly finished with the fencing on another small pasture, so we can rotate our grazing, and we have two more ewes on order for May.  We're not counting lambs before they hatch, of course, but we're hoping that next spring will find us with lambs for the freezer.  

Sienna, our newest livestock gardian (ha!) dog, killed and ate one of my chickens yesterday.  Sigh. 

I ordered chicks, which should come in the mail at the end of May.  I'll raise them in my brooder until the have feathers, and then they are for my parents or my friend.  It will be fun to have little chicks again! 

We might have flurries tomorrow, and a few nights of below freezing temperatures, but I think winter is behind us.  The frogs are calling furiously from the neighbors pond, the birds are in a twittering frenzy, insects swarm my headlamp during my nightly rounds, and the plum tree has so many blooms that the air smells like candy! 

View from Above

 

The world really is round!  These photos are a from the end of November, when my brother and sister-in-law and nephew came for a pie and coffee Thanksgiving campfire, and brought their drone.  Shane let me watch the screen on his phone so I could see what the drone sees, and make screen shots.  Can you believe Brandon cut all that grass!  Not just our fields, but our good neighbors field, and even his neighbor, so everything green you can see in the photo.  

That bright red tree in the front yard is the small volunteer Brandford pear, and that pile of wood is the cut up trunk of our old shade tree.  Those small brown circles in the front lawn are little soil hummocks made by the mole, who is Brandon's nemisis.  Brandon recently said the best thing about Sienna, our new dog, is that she loves to kill moles.  I think she makes a bigger mess than the mole during her excavations, but Brandon thinks it's worth it to reduce the mole population.  She doesn't eat them, so we find frozen mole-sicles by the front door regularly.  They do not have eyes, I checked. 

The pool is covered for the winter, and the garden looks just as messy from above as it does from the ground.  Last summer four helicopters flew low over us while we were skinny dipping in the pool.  I tried to shield myself with the wall of the pool and told myself they couldn't really see much.  Ha! You can see everything from up there! 

The donkeys have turned their little paddock into dirt.  They enjoying rolling in the dust, and the light tan spots in the field are places they roll and kick up clouds of dirt.  Now that's it winter, it's mud.  We're discussing pouring a concrete pad so they have a place to stand at the food trough with their feet out of the mud.  The farrier trimmed their hooves last week and didn't report any foot problems, but I would hate to stand in the mud for meals, and everytime I move the trough they trample the surrounding area into mud.  I don't have to worry about Ernest overeating grass.  I wonder...if all the green things in world were edible to you, and you had a big appetite, would it be terrible to look out over the fence at all that green while you chewed your hay?  Like eating a dry salad in land made of hamburgers?  

In the south facing view you can see the little forest I'm encouraging on the east side of the house.  That bright green shrub in the forground is bush honeysuckle.  I can't wait to cut that down and feed it to the goats!  

There we are, waving from the campfire!

Snow Day Morning Chores

 

Finally, a work day snow day!  We had perfectly picturesqe snow on Christmas day, but I already had the day off so it hardly counts.  The perfect snow day is an unexpected day off, right?  

Especially if you have a collection of fuzzies to keep you company.  Sienna puppy is growing so fast, but I predict she will not be as large as Wendigo.  I've been reminded that I thought Wendigo was a challenge when she was Sienna's age too, but now Wendigo seems a perfect angel compared to Sienna. 

Sienna chases, chews, and pounces but it's so good to have a dog that will do all my chores with me again.  Wendigo limits her exhertions to protect her bad knees, but Sienna sticks with me no matter how many trips I make to take to visit the goats.   

We begin our mornings chores with a visit to the donkeys on our way to the mobile chicken coop.  Good morning Ernest - what a big yawn!  

The mobile chicken coop has been moved into the small fenced paddock next to the donkeys.  This gives the chickens their own space to eat and assemble at the coop without being harrassed by Sienna.  The chickens can get out of the fence through gaps, but they tend to stick to the tree lines and back fields to avoid the dog.  I miss seeing them near the house, but it's nice that they keep their mess to the back of the farm now.  

With only ten hens, a rooster, and two guinea fowl, there's plenty of roost space in the mobile coop, yet five of the hens are roosting in the cedar trees at night.  They are taking a risk that a racoon will nab them while they sleep, but they roost so high in the tangled branches I can't fish them down and re-train them to the coop.  Cross you fingers that Sienna and Wendigo take their guard dog duties serisously.  

I moved the chicken food to a lidded barrel near the coop, and I have water buckets near the fence that I can fill from the hose.  I secure the coop door open in the morning, spread chicken pellets on the ground, and bust the ice from the water bucket.  Sienna waits with the donkeys while I tend the chickens.  On this snow day, instead of the normal excided exodus when I open the door, all the tree roosting chickins quickly hopped inside instead.  I don't blame them for wanting their feet out of the snow.   

Look!  Eggs in the nest box!  

After a winter break, my hold hens started laying again when the days began to get longer. The giant white eggs are from the little white hens, and the smallest tan egg is from the giant red meat hen.  

Good morning, Rufus!  Are you anxious for your breakfast hay?  I break the ice on the donkey water and give them a couple flakes of hay.  I've been told that mini donkeys can live on a single flake of hay per day, and a flake is approximatley four pounds of hay.  Rufus and Ernest love to eat, so I give them each a flake in the morning and each another at night.  They would eat even more if I gave it to them, but Ernest is supposed to be on a diet.  I've been cutting little maple saplings from the tree lines and pitching them in the fence.  They eat all the little twigs and peel off the bark!  I think they get bored without something to chew on.  Especially Ernest, who nibbles on the wood gate.  

I need to weigh a flake, because I may be giving them way more than they need, and Brandon is worried I won't make it through until spring with the hay we have stored.  I can easily use a bale each day, and we won't make more bales until the end of May.  I do have one last giant round bale from the year before, so maybe we'll squeak by.    

The goats are living in the fence in the woods behind the zip line field.  Can you see the little shed in the photo?  It's a bit of a walk from the hay barn or the water spicket, so I get plenty of steps during my chores - even some wieght lifting as I carry hay and water.  

My nephew and I walked to visit the goats when we had our camp fire thanksgiving pie celebration, and he mentioned that all these animals seem like a lot of trouble.  Tell me about it - Ha!  I told him that I spend about a half hour on chores in the morning, and another in the evening, so I get an hour of outside excersize every day, rain or shine, because if I skip it my animals will suffer or die.  Talk about motivation!  He said he spends an hour outside playing basketball every morning since he can't go to school.  Why didn't I think of that! 

Unlike the sheep, who rarely need their hay basket filled as they spend all their time grazing grass, the goats are voracious hay eaters, and hay wasters.  Can you see how much hay has built up inside their fence?

The goats are standing on nearly two feet of hay they drop from their basket, and once it hits the ground they don't eat it.  It's good for them to have clean hay bedding, and all that organic matter heats up as it composts and makes a nice warm bed for them.  Brandon found a big wooden crate dismanlted in the dumpster at school.  He brought it home, reassembed it, nailed some tin on for a water proof roof, and cut a little door way into it.  The goats think this goat house is the perfect place to cozy up out of the weather, and I laugh when I see them all come squeezing out of that little hole like clowns from a clown car.  How do they fit?   

The last chore is to feed the wolves dogs.  

Wendigo thinks it's rude to take photos of her with her mouth full. 

Seinna looks ferocious when she chews! 

Ernest and the Bales

Ernest, our recently adopted mini donkey, has very shaggy bangs that shade his eyes.  Unlike Rufus, who is grey with a buff colored nose and belly, Ernest is chocolate brown with long white belly fur and white felt around his eyes and nose.  When he's upside down rolling in the dust, his white belly fur really stands out.  When he asks for pets and scratches, he hangs his head low, like Eeyore, and doesn't understand why I want to raise his chin and kiss his nose.  Ernest usually has a big lump of half chewed hay in his jaw, which feels strange when I pet his face, and can't be good for his teeth.  Why does he do that? 

My horse owning friend is doubtful that Ernest will ever slim down, but Brandon and I think he may have already lost some of his extra padding.  Or maybe we've gotten used to his lumps and don't notice them as much now.  He's nice to pet on his chest and neck because his hair is so lush and his flesh is squishy.  Yesterday, he let me rub herbal fly repellent on his legs without making a fuss, which was not the case with Rufus, who gets suspicious any time I approach his back legs.  

I have four big round hay bales left over from last year, and we just finished putting away the first cutting of square bales from the whole farm.  Whew!  The big field in front of the house produced about sixty-three bales, and the long field on the side of the driveway made another twenty-two.  That's one hundred and twenty bales for the whole farm!  If we can get that many again, later this summer, I should have plenty to last the year. 

You mean we have to do all that work again?!

Although I think he was looking forward to putting the hay making equipment away for a few months, Brandon volunteered to cut and bale some of our good neighbors fields.  He didn't get very far when the pto shaft on the cutter broke, so he's back in the shop trying to solve another frustrating mechanical problem.  He doesn't seem to find it helpful when I suggest we go old school, and get a scythe.  But, Brandon, just imagine the abdominal strength that would come from all that twisting and slashing!  We could have hay plus rock hard abs!  

Its easy for me to make jokes, because I had the easy job of driving the jeep through the field while Brandon walked from bale to bale and loaded them on the wagon.  I did help unload them from the wagon to the hoop barn.  They are heavy and scratchy!  But they smell wonderful!

The hay bales from the front of the farm were much dryer and lighter than our first batch, from the zip line field.  This made us nervous about the moisture content of the first batch, and we found a few bales that were starting to mold and feel warm to the touch.  Hay fires are a real thing, so we un-stacked all the heavy moist bales and set them singly on pallets and boards with space between each bale so they can dry out and hopefully not have enough mass for combustion.  

That hay from the zip line field was really thick grass stems and hairy vetch (Vicia villosa) vines, so it didn't dry very fast.  The hay from the front of the farm was full of yellow field clover (Trifolium campestre).  The yellow field clover dried fast, and made light fluffy bales of fine material.  Both the vetch and the clover are nitrogen fixing plants, so I think they mean good things for soil quality.  Hopefully the mean good things for goat nutrition too.  All the animals think it's very tasty!  Ernest has to stay on his diet, so I'm feeding the donkeys the left over hay from last year, which was cut late, and is stalky and has less nutrition.  Not fair!

Donkey Manners, Sidewalk, Goat Routines, and Spring Weeding

Yesterday Brandon and I took both donkeys on a walk around the little farm.  Ernest patiently let me put a halter on his face, and walked behind Brandon like he's had some practice using his walking manners.  Rufus was his same old silly self - balking at new objects, bumping into me, pulling ahead, kicking up his heels when asked to walk through a puddle.  Everyone had a good time.  Once the donkeys were back in their little pasture, we handed out some treats and Rufus put his ears back with jealousy and bit Ernest on the side.  This caused Ernest to run and kick up his back legs, which flipped manure onto Brandon's face, and nearly sent him tumbling backward over the water trough.  Ack!  Rufus!   

Check out our new sidewalk project!  One of the things we miss from our old house is the very civilized sidewalk from the driveway to the front door.  Now that we live in the land of clay soil, we understand mud in a whole new way.  

We've been tip-toeing from paving stone to paving stone for several years now, trying to keep our work shoes clean during the mud seasons.  In the summer months the clay soil is so firm setting stones is extra hard work, so Brandon is taking advantage of the soft spring soil and the extend days at home to create a continuous pathway.  Our own little piece of suburban comfort!  

The red bud tree I planted when we first moved to the farm is putting on quite a show this year. 

With the dirt that Brandon excavates for the sidewalk pavers, I'm filling in the herb spiral and re-arranging stones.  There's a few sage and oregano plants still living from last year, but most of the spiral is ready to be planted.  I have dreams of basil pesto.  

I'm making a habit of letting the goats out to graze each evening.  They are funny with their strict routine of where to eat.  They come out of the gate and head for the lush grass behind the tractor barn, then spend some time in the honeysuckle vines on the property boundary before wandering through the front yard to eat the rose bushes and pear tree, then to the bush honeysuckle near the hammock woods, then back to grass where they started.  After an hour of this, they are ready to follow me back to their pasture in exchange for a few treats.  Their chins are green right now from the new grass.  

I'm off to a good start with pulling weeds in the greenhouse.  I have only the center bed planted, and I meticulously pulled every tiny weed from the whole bed, and then transplanted some of the extra lettuce seedlings.  If only I would keep up with the weeding all spring.  Come on Rain, you can do it!  

Greens!  

Peas and onions, too!