Beam of Light Tour

Take a tour with me.  An exclusive after hours farm yard tour, where farm yard residence are illuminated by my headlamp as they settle for the night.  The guineas have decided to take up residence in the big coop.  I make sure all three are accounted for before I lock their door, and they whistle and coo at me when I blind them with my beam of light.  Do their horns keep growing as they age?  

After making sure my stubborn red hen isn't roosting in the rafters of my crib, I peek in on the goats.  The baby goat is nestled with her mother and Dark River, while Papa stands nearby.  Everyone seems content to chew their cud until breakfast. 

The donkeys aren't in their stall, so I sweep my beam across the pasture until I see the green reflection from their eyes.  

Hattie comes to the fence for a goodnight nose kiss, although she would prefer a snack! She's getting a reputation as pushy. 

The mobile chicken coop has reflectors, so my beam of light makes it shine white and red as I approach.  

I untie the twine that holds the coop door open during the day and look inside to make sure all is well.  The nest box has eggs, but I forgot to bring the basket.  Doh!  The chickens protest with sleepy sounds as the beam crosses them before I bolt the door.  

Brandon left the tractor up on blocks in the driveway while he waits for the new wheel to be delivered.  It's a large dark shape in an unexpected place, but I'm not scared.  Wendigo is there to protect me!  

The lights have been left on in the workshop, and thin slivers of light shine through the cracks in the walls and around the door.  As I approach the door to flip the light switch, the motion sensor detects me, and a bright light shines from above.  

The light makes Wendigo glow in the darkness.  I've carried her dog food from the can in the barn, and she can't figure out why I'm wasting time taking photos of tractors and barn doors when it's dinner time!  

She's especially hungry because she's on a diet.  It's hard to know if she's too fat because of all that hair, but I read that I should be able to feel her ribs under her skin if I press a little.  Ha!  I couldn't feel her ribs when I pressed hard.  All I can feel is a thick layer of padding.  Having extra padding under dense fur is probably okay during the winter, but this summer she might not like having extra insulation.  After a week of reduced rations I can almost detect some ribs in there.  

Freezer Eggs

We are getting a lot of eggs these days.  From my sixteen hens, we get a dozen eggs a day! 

The chickens are loose to roam during the day, and I feed them organic chicken feed and table scraps.   A forty pound bag of organic chicken pellets costs nearly twenty-five dollars, and lasts about a week, which means I've got at least three dollars and fifty cents invested in each dozen, just in chicken food.  

Brandon and I routinely eat three eggs each, for breakfast.  Plus, we cook with a few eggs every day and boil eggs for snacks.  Even with gifting eggs to friends on occasion, we have a surplus.  I've been encourage to sell my extras, but I would prefer to find a way to preserve the glut now, so that when the chickens take their annual winter break, we don't have to do without.  

I just started freezing the extra eggs.  I crack them into a bowl, mix them up, and pour them into a quart size freezer bag, and place them in the freezer.  My plan is to lay the bags flat, so they can stack easily in the freezer, like I do with chicken stock. 

I read that eggs frozen this way will last for a year.  I hope they will be tasty enough for our breakfast scrambles.  If I can manage to put a few bags of eggs in the freezer every week this spring, we may be able to have eggs all winter long!  

The Baby

The baby goat, Noobi, will be two weeks old tomorrow.  This means it's time for me to learn to milk a goat!  I'm nervous, but hoping Peaches will be patient with me.  I've been thinking about what to put in her food bowl while she stands for milking.  Most folks use pellets of grain made for goats, but I would like to avoid feeding grains, if I can. 

The baby had a trip to the vet when she was ten days old.  She got a shot, and they used a hot iron to cauterized her horn buds, so she won't grow horns.  She screamed when they held the iron to her head, and then it was all over.  I hated to cause her pain, but I think in the long run, she is more likely to be someone's cherished dairy goat if she doesn't have horns, which folks don't like on their goats.  

In this picture you can see the round burn marks right after they were made.  The vet shaved some of her hair off first.  It's already grown back, and you can barely see the round scars were her horns would be.  

She doesn't hold it against me.  She is friendly, and curious.  And soooo cute! 

She leaps and jumps and her long ears flap in the breeze. 

She is interested in playing with the chickens, but they won't stand still long enough for her to jump on their backs. 

I've been asked if we are going to keep her or not.  As much as I like her, I don't think I can keep both her and her father unless I want to experiment with in-breeding line-breeding.  She will have to be separated from her father when she is four months old, which means one of them has to go.  If all goes as planned, I can breed Peaches and Little Buck over and over again, and keep the milk flowing.  Whenever I start to think I should keep her, I envision my goat mentors herd of over a hundred, which she managed to grow in just seven years.  No, I need to let her go.  Anyone in the market for a pretty Nubian doeling?  

The rest of the herd can't figure out why the baby gets all the attention! 

First Bite of Spring

Yesterday, on the first day of spring, I picked six lettuce leaves from the baby lettuce patch in the green house, and ate them.  Straight from the plant to my mouth.  They were tender, but bitter. 

I wonder, could I eat at least a bite of something from the garden everyday from now until next spring?  Would that be a fun challenge?  I'm off to a pretty good start.  I could eat a baby radish now, if I wanted to.  

It will be a few days before the swiss chard is ready to give me a bite, but once it starts to really grow, these plants will make more bites than we can eat!

If I could figure out how to eat a pea shoot, then there's more than a bite growing here already. 

These little plants, mostly lettuce and radish, with some kale, were transplanted from the dense clusters that came up where I planted the seeds.  They are doing well, but might not be growing as fast as the plants that didn't get moved.  Once they recover from the transplant shock, they will be glad to have more room to grow.  

A World of White and Blue

On this last day of winter, it seems appropriate to show you the blue and white of my most recent snow day.  We got to play with snow balls in the middle of March, after days of green grass, sprouts in the greenhouse, and all the promises of an early spring.  

Wendigo is our very own snow beast.  She basks in the sun and ice forms on her fur, and she never gets cold. 

She and I explored the white and blue world of snow as we took the chickens breakfast in bed.  Their little coop looks so cozy in the early morning shadows of blue. 

This was a sticky snow, and each wire of the fence was thick with it, so it cast dark blue shadows on the white world.  The donkeys didn't want to leave their stall, and had to be coaxed into the fluff. 

Don't they look pretty in stripes? 

Even the truck looks cool in the snow - like it's been on an arctic adventure!

Just look at that sky!  I'm sure it's never been so blue. 

Every little branch of the old pear tree in the front yard was outlined in snow, and the sun sparkled on the ice crystals of the barely open buds. 

Can you tell how still the air is?  Normally we have wind, but on this morning, the snow sat heavy on the branches and they did not sway.

Blue on white on blue.

The snow fell on the first official day of Brandon's spring break.  Since we didn't have to go to work, we were happy to take long walks with Wendi and follow the deer trails and rabbit prints. 

When we walked under the limbs of trees, wet plops of snow would fall from above. 

Snow selfies! 

The forecast calls for more snow this week.  What happened to the early spring?!

A Surprise Baby Goat!

Guess what!?! Our goat, Peaches, had a baby!  I didn't even know she was pregnant, so she was able to surprise me.  I came home from work to find a new tiny baby in the barn.  

As I walked toward the goat stall, I could see Peaches standing quietly by the gate, and I could see dark colored fur beneath her.  I thought, "Why is Little Buck laying under Peaches?"  As I got closer, I could see that it wasn't Little Buck at all, but his very first daughter!  

I was so excited I didn't know what to do.  Oh, Peaches!  Good job! 

The baby was mostly dry, but still had wet legs and tail.  She had about six inches of umbilical cord hanging down from her belly.  Peaches had the afterbirth hanging from her back side.  It looked like a clear water balloon filled with pink fluid.  Peaches was busy licking the baby and the other goats were unperturbed.  

I ran for my goat book to see what I was supposed to do.  I was supposed to be there during the delivery, have Peaches in a stall with privacy, and have a bunch of gear on hand just in case there was a problem and I needed to assist.  Whew - thank goodness Peaches knew what she was doing, because she didn't get any help from me!  

The book also said that baby goats can tolerate low temperatures as long as they are out of the wind.  Brandon and I debated moving Peaches and the baby, or moving all the boys, and finally decided that everyone was getting along and we should leave them as they were.  We did secure a piece of plywood along one side of the pen to make sure the baby was out of the wind and piled a bunch of clean hay in the stall to make sure it was nice and dry.  The afterbirth came out while we were in the stall and Peaches started to eat it.  Gag.  I took it away for burial.    

Peaches licked and nibbled the baby until it was all dry and clean.  The baby wobbles around on her long legs and nurses while Peaches licks her backside.  Her tail wags like crazy while she is nursing. 

The book says to make sure to handle the baby and get her used to being touched, especially if she's to be a milk goat someday.  She's so soft!  Her tiny hooves are rubbery on the bottom.  She doesn't mind being held, and Peaches doesn't mind if we hold her either.  Brandon keeps referring to her as Noob, because she's a Nubian and a newbie.  I haven't accepted that as her name, but I'm afraid it might stick!  

Spring Garden Fever

Can you see our little farm house hidden in the fog?  I stopped my car in the road, on my way to work one early morning, so I could take this picture.  I'm up early in the mornings these days, taking care of my collection of animals and gardens before I head to town to earn my living.  

I keep taking photos of tiny green sprouts because I'm so excited to see them, but when I view them on my computer they hardly seem worthy of sharing.  But, if you too, get excited by earthworms and pea shoots, maybe you can understand my enthusiasm.  My garden is growing! 

I don't think visitors to my greenhouse can see the genius in my garden design.  Actually, some of my visitors may think that the way I use my greenhouse is ridiculous.  I think they think that because they say it!  I was asked, "Why isn't it in a pattern, with rows and walkways?"  What?!  Of course it is in a pattern, with rows and walkways!  It's not a grid pattern, with all straight rows and walkways, but it's not random.  It's organic, and designed around me!  The walkways are in the places I walk, and the plants are in the places I don't walk.  

Within the places I don't walk, are rows of tiny plants, in a pattern.  

We just had a big snow, but before the snowfall, my parents and I made a lot of progress with the garden.  We filled salad boxes with potting soil, and planted two types of tomato seeds.  They are on the ground in the greenhouse, with plastic tented over them.  I worry about their germination because the nights are cold and they aren't heated.

Last years tomato cages were taken down, cleaned up, and neatly stacked so we can use them again this year.  

Old stalks and weeds were pulled from the soft earth and stacked near the compost pile.   

The remainder of an old round hay bale was hauled to the garden, and a large area was covered with rotten hay.  The chickens have been busy spreading this mulch. 

I even spent some time pulling dead plants from the herb spiral and perennial flower beds in the back yard.  We were just getting the yard spring cleaning fever when the snow came and covered everything with inches of pretty white.