Spring is here, way past time for an update

I started this and then saved it to come back to it, 2 seasons later..... I am just going to finish it up and start on the next one...... Lots of updates even since this one.


Normally I try to update this blog- well as it seems it has been a very short 4 months and I have yet to keep you updated on here. I do try harder to post on Facebook and Instagram, but this blog was created for our grandchildren to someday look back at the crazy things we done, they will not believe the stories we or even their parents tell them- I am sure of it.

So, at end of last year we had begun to lamb- we are officially done lambing season this year, and we survived. It was a lot of long sleepless nights taking turns to walk to the corral and check on mommas. We were blessed that we had no middle of the night births- only one that was late in evening and I ended up pulling that lamb as he was a record weight this year at 11lbs from Penny- we named him Titan. We lost one lamb from Butterscotch, we are not sure if she was premature according to our records or if it was first time momma issues, too cold or combination of all. Over all we did pretty good with all of the ups and downs of our first lambing season- most of all we are happy it is over. We are still busy with vaccines, weights and tags, paperwork to keep up with and soon we will be weaning. We have since weaned several with no real issues, we will be getting ready to see who is staying and who is going to either another farm or freezer camp.

We have more recently been busy with the idea of rotational grazing and providing the girls with more choices of pasture grasses and  grains in the form of annuals and perennials. The idea is great, but putting it on paper and then to see how it works in the pasture has been something short of a nightmare. We have ended up with 5 various sized paddocks- we tried to stay 100 ft x 100 ft, but we fell short on one and longer on another. We have been purchasing seeds and thus far we have the warm season grasses and crops ready to plant soon. We ended up with Sunn Hemp, Mancan Buckwheat, Iron & Clay Cowpeas, AU Grazer Sercia Lespedeza and a white clover. We haven't purchased all of cool season yet- but our plans are to add Chicory, Purple Top Turnips, Perennial Rye, Persist Orchardgrass, Birdsfoot Trefoil and white clover. On the ridge Hairy Vetech, oats and clover. We will see how this plan works out. We are hoping to break the worm cycle for allowing the pasture rotation, we will allow them access to a single paddock for seven days and then they are moved into another paddock, and so on. We do not unnecessarily treat for worms as we do fecal floats every six months but this allows another piece of mind in this department.

You have to look carefully to see the yellow connectors for the paddocks

Front of house and paddocks #1, #2 left to right. 

We have more chickens in the brooder box and Silkies have been introduced to the Rabbitat. More on that next time! Stay posted to see what happens next!

Fun on the farm

I said stay tuned for more updates on the farm and I must apologize for all of you that have waited and waited and well, waited some more. ALOT has been going on- obviously it has taken me 6 months to get back here and get this updated. Well, let me tell you all the fun we have been having around here.

In the summer we spent most of it finishing up fences and getting ready for the SHEEP, and they arrived last count you had was 8 ewes and a ram. So 9 or so. Well we purchased a whether and he made 10, then we purchased another ewe from Sand Mountain so we have 11. Well, in January, whether has an appointment to go to freezer camp so we will be back down to 10. So how does that factor into our new year goal of 12 or more..... WELL, our ram, Hank, did such a GREAT JOB, we have received our first blessing as a single birth from Brownie she gave us, Sugar. Sugar will remain on our farm, she will be given a new boyfriend in the Spring. Bambi gave us our very first set of twins, Belle and Prince. Belle will be retained on our farm and will share the same boyfriend as Sugar. Prince, his fate is unknown at present. If he is worthy of breed-stock he will sold to another farm. I hope he is, he is awfully handsome. And his grandmother is #2 on the NSIP Elite Dams list. So maybe his future is bright. So we are up to our goal!! We have 13 sheep!

Prince (brown) and Belle (white) our first set of twins

Sugar, our first born

The girls (hens) started laying eggs and we have been very blessed with the amount of eggs we gather daily. Since the time change our production has decreased, but not terribly noticeable, we still gather between 10-15 eggs a day or every other day. We have noticed if we rearrange the coop or make any changes within the coop such as moving waterers or feeders, they seem to get mad and not give us as many eggs. We had installed an automatic waterer system as to not fill the buckets so often. They liked it, but one day during the drought they knocked off the end piece and it drained the water tote dry. It was bad enough we were collecting water from work, the park and every other place we could get water. But then to lose an entire 55 gallon tote, we were pretty devastated by this loss. We have since gotten rain!! And changed our water system to the good old fashioned bucket and they have gotten a 275 gallon tote to collect rain water from. It works well and they seem to be pleased with it. We would have never come up with this idea, it wasn't until the steer was moved into the "small pasture" that we noticed all the "big girls" were going over there and drinking his water. So why not simply again. DONE!

Junior, the Steer, who thinks he may be a sheep after all?

So what is this steer you are referring to??? You have a sheep/ chicken/ rabbit operation.... We purchased a steer for our own personal consumption. He was purchased from a commercial dairy, where we used to buy our grass fed beef. So why buy it, we would rather raise it! So now we have "Junior", they had already named him before we picked him up, and boy was that an adventure- so while I am here, I will tell it. We had recently purchased a used truck for "farm" purposes. So we set out for Lawrenceburg in the truck and trailer, truck starts acting crazy like its the transmission. We stop put fluid in it. Nope. Not doing any better, come home get Camry with trailer, head back out. Now, we have agreed to meet at a certain time frame and the time sensitive individual I am- was worried sick about messing up someone else's day. Get there, LATE...and well he was ALOT bigger than we bargained for. We had put some cattle panels up on the trailer to keep him in. IN MOMENTS, he jumped out, bent the panel and was loose on the farm. I screamed, why I am not sure. And of course the guys were running around trying to corral him back into the barn. You can envision this calf (not really) running around loose. I seen $$$ flying out the window. So he finally got caught again, to me, seemed like forever. We tied him to the trailer, in hopes of a decent ride home. After 1 mile up the road- he kicked and thrashed about so bad he was rocking the trailer and Camry from side to side. He had to be hog tied, lying down, to the trailer. the farm we purchased him from swore there would be a YOU- Tube video out soon of this said shenanigan. If one showed up, I would just have to chuckle with the world. Junior, did make the hour long journey home pretty good. We ended finishing the small pasture fence by the truck and car headlights that night.

A peek in the rabbitat- looking through you can see the meat chicks

A bunny having a snack in the food bowl

So we thought we would wind down the season and get ready to slide into fall nice and easy. NO WAY, we ended up having to cull one of our breedstock mama rabbits, Ginger had a litter and she was urinating on them and they all died as a result. First we tried to save one, two and at some point I had four in the house trying to feed them. Not one survived. So we visited another farm to get away from that breed Californians. We decided we liked what we had read and heard about Rex's, so we were able to find a breeder in the area that shares our same beliefs in GMO's. So after a visit to their farm- we were enlightened in the colony living and how it benefited them. We had to have a "rabbitat". Did I say we were planning to slow down for the fall? YEAH, ok right. So, the hubby set out to build our rabbitat, but wait we are planning on "meat chickens" in the next year? So why not get them on sale for the end of season "fryer special".... Sure, lets do that, it will butt up next to the rabbitat and Molly will help us take care of them, and it will help train her??!!! Well, the training is another story- Standby!
So we spent several weekends working on this rabbitat, we received the meat chickens and bought 2 Rex does in the process- getting ready! (to rest)... Not quiet....

So as I set here and update the blog- I receive dings from facebook messenger for the next adventure. We have placed a deposit for another guardian dog she is a different breed than Molly- she is Akbash x Kangel, where Molly is Anatolian x Great Pyrenees. After reading about dogs and the different breeds each one brings forth a different style in which they manage the herd. We want the best of both worlds. We have been training Molly now for 6 months and we have really only began, as these dogs can take up to 18 months before they are fully trained. She has really tried our patience and I have no doubt we have tried hers. That is where the 54 meat chickens come in. As we started with 54 and at present have 43. We have lost all 11 to Molly and her antics. She hasn't killed them for the sake of eating them, more so she likes to play with them and throw them in the air and when they stop squeaking she is all done. So we had to purchase a shock collar in order to help her remember to not play with the chickens. After about 3 solid weekends we have made progress! As lambing season was fast approaching, we would rather her kill chickens vs lambs. So we have opted to put the lambs and mamas up for a week at a time in order for the lambs to get their legs good before we turn them out with the herd. I touched on lambs born earlier- I could talk all night about cute little lambs but instead I will post pics.

Zena, the newest member to be added to the herd in Febuary

The guineas, we had hoped for great things with these wonderful creatures as they are bullies and known to be just that. We had to give it a shot, but after one of the girls had some feathers missing and a guinea lost all of his tail feathers and they refused to let our Beta Rooster, Mr Peabody eat.... They met their demise and went to freezer camp early. I wasn't convinced that an all dark meat bird would be very tasty, but quickly changed my mind. And like I have heard usually the meanest are the best tasting- they made me a believer!

Stay tuned for more farm updates... we are expecting snow for the New Year, lets hope I can get some updates sooner vs later. Enjoy!

We have SHEEP!

So life has been incredibly busy and that is an understatement. With the last update on the blog- I was going to keep you updated on the sheep as they were set to arrive in a few weeks. Well, a few weeks have passed and well, a few more weeks have passed. I think we knew we would be busy- what I don't think is we knew how busy we would be and telling a sheep or lamb to do something is nothing like you think it will turn out.
We had to get them somewhat used to being handled, so a little coercing with grain goes a long way. Then we needed to test them for Johnes' Disease and OPP. That was another nightmare- chasing sheep all over the 2 acre pasture. As we had no stable housing in place to "catch" them. Then we needed to do fecal floats- which consisted of walking around the pasture and waiting for everyone to drop magical beans so we could go pick them up. Great news was all of hard work paid off. Fecals were so good no one had to be dewormed!! And everyone was negative for OPP & Johne's Disease. So on to better things right like letting us rest in the pasture and not be bother by humans.... Not so much. We have to vaccinate against overeating disease, tetanus and CL. So in the middle of all of that- with a few of our chickens being killed by a not so friendly neighborhood dog- we had to introduce Molly to the herd. She has come a long way and the sheep are doing a great job at training her. Just think I was so worried about her hurting the sheep, as I hear her yelp for overstepping her bounds and one of the ewes has head butted her into the pasture. After Molly had a brief introduction we purchased 2 more lambs from another farm. I wanted desperately a black ewe as we have white, brown, red, grey and a variety of all four. So from what was to be 2 to 5 or 6 to now 8- soon to be 10.

You can add, eh?

Looks like my husband and his "chicken math". That chicken math is he wanted "no more than 3 varieties" and just a few of each. This is how it is in reality. First bunch 10 black astralorps, 5 plymouth barred rocks= 17 (we bought 15 they sent 17) then we bought 6 more "black sexlinks" from TSC, that is what 23? well, oh yea and that is 3 varieties.... right? UH, well... lets see we ordered another set of chicks and that is well..... 10 speckled sussex and 5 lavender guineas= 16- right! ( we ordered 10 they sent 11). So where are we in this chicken math.... oh yea 17+6=23  a neighbor dog killed 2, so -2= 21. 21 +16=37. So yes, we have 3 varieties of chickens and 1 variety of guineas.

A few of the gang members

So back to the sheep math- as he would say to me. We have at present 6 sheep (1 ram and 5 ewes), 2 lambs unregistered. And are slotted to pick up another registered ewe lamb and whether lamb in the upcoming weeks. Our lambs will not be old enough to breed this fall, so maybe in spring they will be ready, and our whether will be going in the freezer as he is big enough. Our goal at present is to have 1+5+2+1+1 and that will eventually equal 13 right? Oh, well I guess we have to buy more sheep, oh yes- permission to buy more sheep! I love that idea.

Addition+2... =13!

Stand by for updates on the next happenings on the farm- we have baby bunnies and our chicks are beginning to lay eggs....

The Dream is closer..

In the last blog we were rehousing rabbits and chickens and just in general doing alot of busy work stuff. Well as I would say, shit just got real! We are still rehousing chickens and more chickens and more chickens!! We have so many updates- I will start with the animals first. Rabbits were behind the house against the retaining wall, they seemed to get alot of afternoon sun and seemed far too warm in the evening. So we had to find them a better location, but where to move them that was convenient for us too? We eventually agreed upon the ridge above the chicken coop. It has a constant breeze of the southern winds, it is shaded by huge oaks and maples, fairly flat as it is a "ridge" that run the entire width of the property and it is located near the chickens, neighbors the goats on the west side and butts up to the woods on the north. It has been a little over a month since the move, we bred the girls to our buck prior to the move, we may have stressed them out so much that the pregnancy wasn't viable as it is day 32 and we do not have bunnies. This is part of the learning curve. If no bunnies soon- they will be bred back soon. We are more than certain they love their new location as they lay on the wire legs spread out, bellies on "grate" we say between us as we know they are relaxing and soaking up the life. Pampered, as we have green stuff galore and we "forage" every few days for purple clover, dandelions, milk thistle, wild roses, blackberries or whatever is growing. Occasionally, if we are being lazy they get a third of a banana or a carrot! They have a pretty good life, we say. Not that anyone on the farm suffers or starves..... as you can see by the sizes of these bunnies

Lil Boy Bleu

Ginger

Big Mama

UP close pic of the ridge above- and the rabbit hutches, far away pic of the ridge and hutches with the chicken "bahhn" in the sunshine.







The chickens are equally spoiled, they get grower in everyday feed, they get to somewhat free range, we moved the compost and now only throw the compost down to them- they LOVE watermelon! We have (of the first group) 5 Plymouth Barred Rocks , and 15 Black Astralorps- 2 black astralorps were attacked and killed last week as they had been allowed to free range and a nearby neighborhood dog decided she was hungry- so they are back on lock-down for the meantime or at least until Molly arrives. We purchased a second group of "sex links" from Tractor Supply- you never know what your getting until their feathers come in. It now appears that we have 6 more Plymouth Barred Rocks, they are in a brooder box in the coop, separate from the big girls. As they get a little bigger, we will intermingle them. And now in the house we have another brooder box with our latest shipment of 5 Lavender Guineas and 11 Speckled Sussex, they arrived the same day the 2 Black Astralorps died. So although sad, we understand we will have unexpected losses.

6 chicks in outside brooder box- one of the big girls is checking in on them too!

    

The newest chicks and guineas. Chicks are brown, guineas are white.

 Molly- the livestock guardian dog or some refers to them as LGDs, that is actually how we found her on LGD locator. She is just a pup about 9 weeks old. After doing some research it was believed to get a pup and train it for what you needed, some that are adults already have a mindset of what they will do and when as they are very independent thinkers and may or may not take orders. Statistics say only about 60% of LGDs are actually good livestock dogs. And it takes about 2 solid years to train them. So with that said, we have our work cut out for ourselves- again. 

Molly the livestock guardian dog

So in our efforts to get the fence up, buy more critters, train critters, breed critters and all the maintenance associated with all of this fun stuff- I haven't even mentioned the fun with the USDA, that we have been having. So far I just updated the critters, but in order to tell you about all the critters I must tell you that without the financial backing of the USDA the next and biggest set of critters would not be as possible without them. It isn't official as we haven't closed on the loan, yet. But we are scheduled to close soon and I don't have pics of the next set of critters either. So in the last update- we were on the fence between goats or sheep- as the husband said I cannot have both. Well, ALOT of research and observations helped us come to this choice of Katahdin Sheep, they are referred to as hair sheep. I will have to update you on our personal experiences with this breed in the next update. They require little to no human intervention- as I observed with goats they tend to need more human intervention, I want the herd to work for us not us work for them. They are hair sheep which means no shearing them, we originally went in to the farm idea of raising alpacas- they need shearing, they need parasite control often. Although they are awfully cute we couldn't find a "multipurpose" for them other than the fiber. Everything in this adventure has to be multi- purposed. So back to the sheep, this particular breed are well with parasite resistance, lambs on pasture- alone, hardy, attractive, of course the cuteness factor of lambs in 5 months, resale value for breed-stock is incredibly well and market lambs are holding steady vs goats. This of course is research- the real hands on experience will come in about 4 weeks to start, and as they arrive I will share the details. In the meantime, stay tuned for the next update with the potential of 5 ewes and 1 ram.                 Coming soon.......

Eviction Notice

Eviction notice came very swiftly. Farm animals in the house are cute- when they are small furry and cuddly, well maybe not really cuddly but small cute and furry for sure. Rabbits got the eviction notice early as they had grown quickly and the house was warm. As they all 3 laid around on the wire- appeared to be warm we decided we had to get them out of the house before the chicks arrived, and was somewhat successful. Until one day come a huge rainstorm and ( I felt) it too wet and cold for them to be out. So I brought them back in to the safety and security of the house (until hubby got home). We come up with an agreed covered to keep them out of the rain, and stapled a plastic drape of sorts to let down in the event of a storm. So far, as long as we know the storm is coming and able to drop the cover- it works wonderfully! So we did decide on some more official names too. Ginger is one of our does, she was the one that ended up with the orange mark on her head and we couldn't figure out what to call her, Ginger has stuck. Big Mamma, she has always been Big Mamma as she has been the largest doe in the crew from day 1. Lil Boy Bleu- is our buck, I believe he is either a runt of a litter or he was too little to be weaned from momma when we acquired him. He is coming around and finally putting on a little weight and starting to overall fill out. Due to his size we was surely worried about him for a bit.

The plastic drop we added for the sake of staying dry. 

The chicks arrived and the room had to be warmed to 100 degrees on week one and then decreased 5 or so degrees every week- so that made the temps in the room where the critters were housed too warm for rabbits. So the decision was made. Rabbits had to go back outside. So we moved their temporary housing to a more permanent housing in the back on the retaining wall. Stacked pallets on sides for walls and underneath for easy cleaning, plus we get to watch their crazy antics of running races around their cages and jumping into mid air for no apparent reason- from the convenience of the dining room table- dinner and a show somedays.

The other angle of all 3 hutches with plastic down. 

So with the rabbits outside and settled, a few weeks have passed and  one what we thought would be a quiet afternoon, hubby came home from work to check on all the critters and the chicks have begun to sprout adult feathers and fly from the brooder box. So in a one and only chicken round up- hubby said that's it- ya'll get evicted too! So the chicks got kicked out last night. They spent their first night at home away from home in the chicken "bahhn" as it is far too big to be considered a coop. It is the Cadillac of coops. 

Outside coop- checking out the new window

Fencing- other than wire purchased, everything else was re-purposed

2 black Astralorps settling in the new coop. I think they like the new "bahhn"

Stay tuned.... I will have to update soon on the gardening aspect of this homestead adventure- as plants live or die, we will see how good mother nature is going to be to us this season. Also, we are in mixed decisions of goats vs sheep- breeds- meat/ pets and lots of other factors.

Are those Farm animals?

A few weeks have passed and lots and lots have changed again, it surely doesn't take long around our house for changing scenery. We have since had a very cold winter and some freak snow storm and another chance few 3 or 5 snow squalls. Looks like the seasons are trying to change and with the change we too are ready for warm weather.
We have bought our first 3 meat rabbits- Californians, they are breed for meat and that is their intended purpose. We have kinda named them as they are they ones we are not going to slaughter initially. We couldn't keep track of who's who, so we ended up marking them with a permanent marker on their forehead until we could separate them. Turns out we have Bleu- he is the buck, but he was so tiny, half the size of the medium one, he has earned Lil Bleu. The medium sized one ended up with an orange mark on her head- I have searched for a french orange name and have only come up with orange. So Orange has kinda stuck with her for now. maybe she will be Ginger? The largest bunny did not receive a mark, but she has earned her name as Big Mamma, she lays around like a a Big Mamma- always in the food trough and huge next to the other too.

Christian and bunny on ride home

Bunny Selfies!

Trio- has settled into their almost furever home

After about 2 weeks after the bunnies arrived- we also received our first order of chicks! We are scheduled to receive the second order in May - we want chickens and guineas, that is another aggravating story I won't relive today, but know chicks and guineas do not hatch at the same time so you get what they have when they have it. Long story short, we now have 2 orders and will have to raise chicks again in May. It actually worked out pretty good as our first order gave us 17 chicks (we ordered 15) they send extra in case you have some that do not make the journey. Fortunately all of them made it just like troopers! And after reading about guineas- they need chicks to teach them certain things so, we have 5 guineas coming and 10 more chicks. In the meantime, we get to learn from these wonderful little precious ones. 

So here we are busy- living the FARM LIFE dream....

Chicken Selfies too! 

The solid black is unknown sexed
 Barred Rock and the yellow black
is a pullet Black Astralorp.

Way past time for an update... Back to living the dream

So, 1 year and three months ago I updated this thing and boy has time gotten away from me. My goal then was to stay on top of this thing like I had done once before. ALOT of things have changed since the last update, some things I will not dredge up again as they are meant to be in the past, of course I will update you on the positive stuff and and of course you will get the updates on the kids, grands, and the pups but more recently the DREAM has become a reality and you will see all the fun we have been having and hear about all the fun we are expecting to have!
First the kids- Jenifer has graduated with her Associates and has started back working on her Bachelors, she purchased her first home in Aiken, SC and continues to work and take care of Dallas- Dallas, has started school and seems to love the new-found fun of education. We was able to Christmas this year at her new house and life is agreeing with them.
Robyn and Anthony not much has changed with them they are still in Manchester and she is working at a local hospital- she is considering a career change that requires more college so they have tossed this up a bit. Anthony started a new job at "the other store" the "orange store" we won't talk anymore about that! Lia has just celebrated her 7th birthday- oh my goodness where does the time go? It was just yesterday that Robyn was pregnant, goes to show you how quickly time flies when you are having fun.
Nicolas has been completely resolved of his military experience and had moved back home for a short period of time- he has since relocated to Knoxville with the goal of being accepted into UT- we don't hear from him too much but ever so often we are blessed with an update, he is working and studying!
April too has since relocated twice since the update, she was in Georgia and then in Tennessee with us for the pregnancy of Alayla, she has since birthed her and relocated back to Georgia- why we are unsure as it seems we have been once again shut out of her life. But we have another beautiful granddaughter (although I really wanted another grandson) as now we have 3 grand girls and 1 grand son. The great thing is they are all healthy that is what really matters.
Michelle has been extremely busy this year from fracturing her ankle and having surgery to going back to school to finish up her education. Her and Cody were married in December and she (of course and him) relocated to Texas as he has enlisted in the military and is now stationed out in Texas.
Ok, I think that sums up the kids and grands.....
Now the DREAM- in some of my last blogs I ranted and raved about the post house buying experience where we were truck drivers and told to quit our jobs and come back and reapply. Well apparently God had other plans and things that needed to be worked out first, he started on both of us first and there were some things in our marriage that needed to be addressed before we could move forward- neither one of us was aware of. But we are now aware of why some of those other things never worked out. I am not going to play the blame game and point fingers about who was right and who was wrong- just know that summer of 2015 was one to forget, but before that happens we must learn from what has happened and continue to build each other up in unconditional love and faith. We have stepped back and made another run at this hill called life and we are doing things again that we swore we "would never," for example, I started back classes in the fall 2015- took Anatomy I and II, studied for the LPN challenge exam and PASSED! All in the same semester, that in itself was a HUGE accomplishment. On top of that dealing with some not so positive stuff. And then before the semester was out, I was offered a seat in the RN program- which I declined for several reasons, working on those kinks at present. My husband has been ever so understanding and supportive of this new decision to conquer this goal, and I truly appreciate him for it. All the while, we were struggling through an obstacle and told at this point (late fall 2015) DO NOT make any life changing decisions! TOO LATE, by then we had started back looking for a house to buy- but not any house, our piece of heaven on earth! So normally- I would have bored some of you with the details of the whole lending/ looking and negotiating process. Today is your lucky day and I won't unless you want details of the process and who was our realtor and lender, send me a message and I will gladly share those details. Just know your lender and realtor make a HUGE difference in your house buying experience and this is hopefully our last one and thus far has been the best- so the old adage save the best for last- we got it!
SO we have the FARM, now we just gotta work on the work part of it and get us some critters! I am going to post a few pics of the progress!
It just so happens where ever we go record winters/ snowfall follows- Christian says it because the year 2007 when I took a travel assignment to Vermont, I prayed for snow that year and boy did I get it, and every year since where ever we have been, God has blessed me with the same records of snowfall. Snow makes me smile- not sure why as it is in reality a pain, but it sure is beautiful to admire.
The second pic is another one of my "callings" my husband and many friends and family will say there is "something" about me and fire- the pic of part of the pasture will prove true, as I went down to burn the diseased willow tree by the mailbox and the winds changed and before I knew it, I was surrounded by this darn fire. Thankfully the hubby was nearby and we was finally able to control it!
Stay tuned, I have no doubt I will have more shenanigans to post in the upcoming summer months and soon we will have some farm animals too!