Desolate

That's how things feel around our homestead. After much deliberation, we decided to downsize our livestock.

First it was chickens. A couple weeks ago I sold some hens to Megan at A Blossoming Homestead. I had thought I would sell even more of our chickens than I did, but just by selling a dozen hens (all less than one year old) our flock seems small now!

I am also looking for a home for our ducks. I was SO tickled to get my hands on the five Khaki Campbell ducklings in June. We raised them with excitement and have been entertained daily by their ducky antics. However, it appears I am allergic to duck eggs. Each time I eat them I get violently ill. After doing some research I am pretty sure that it's an allergy, and I am fearful that trying them again would invoke anaphylactic shock. Our ducks lay white eggs, and they are very hard to discern from the chicken eggs, and so we have agreed that the safest plan is to sell them, too.

Finally, a week ago today I sold my Nigerian Dwarfs all in one fell swoop. I couldn't believe it happened that way. I've listed things on Craig's List several times with mixed success. I expected to sell one here and one there until we were down to a few goats. Instead, a lovely lady came to see them, fell in love with the whole herd, and came back two days later to buy them all! Now I just have my LaMancha doe, Miracle, and her daughter, Baby, who was born in June. Things are feeling rather empty around the place. I'm not emotionally sad like I expected it to be. I thought it would be really hard to sell my very first dairy goat that I worked so long to get, her daughter, their companion, and my favorite, no nonsense milker. Instead my main emotion is relief. They no longer have to endure the constant fighting that goes along with having a herd of mixed sizes of goats. I am able to keep up with deworming, hoof trimming, and other maintenance needs with ease. It is peaceful now. It doesn't hurt that our feed bill just dropped by at least half!

All in all I think things are better. We still have enough chickens and goats to supply our needs for eggs and milk, and their care is much more manageable.

Greatest Cookbook Ever

One of my top three all time favorite bloggers has published a cookbook. Months ago she did a survey of her readers asking if they thought anyone would buy it if she took on this massive project compiling all her favorite recipes into a cookbook. I responded to her survey and said, "Why would anyone buy what you have already provided us for free on your blog? I think you'd be wasting a lot of time and effort." However, I am THRILLED to announce that she did not listen to (or, at least heed) my advice. After nine months of hard labor she has given birth to her fourth "baby." She has managed to keep the price very reasonable at just $15.99. This is an extraordinarily good value! I have never, ever tried one of her recipes without thoroughly enjoying it. Her recipes are made with wholesome, nutritious ingredients, not the, "open a can of this an a box of that, dump them together, bake for 20 minutes and pretend you cooked" that is typical of the cookbooks I see in the retail market today. I sincerely hope you will head on over to Jane's Blog and see for yourself. You can try some of her recipes for free before committing to the cookbook, but I am certain you will love it! I can not wait for my copy to arrive!

Micro-Garden

This summer I planted a "micro-garden." We have not been able to fence our garden and do our chicken rotation like we plan to, and I refused to engage in the battle against weeds and renegade chickens another year. However, I was also unwilling to go completely without some of our favorite fresh produce. Instead, I turned the flower bed around our back patio into my garden. I think that in a normal summer this would have been a doomed plan, but this year it worked out perfectly. The patio is on the north side of the house. Strike one for a vegetable garden. There is a large, mature cedar tree immediately to the west of the garden. Strike two. This year, though, we experienced a drought like I've never endured. The extra shade seemed to help my plants survive. Also, there is no way we could have afforded to water a full sized garden, but I was able to mulch and keep my little garden alive quite well. I REALLY wish I had taken more pictures. On Wednesday I pulled up all the plants that are not cold hardy. I thought about taking pictures, but knew I'd taken some a couple months ago and didn't realize how much it had grown and thrived in the fall! The plants had really filled out and you could not see the ground at all by the time I had to rip them out. It was pretty sad to do, but I knew they would be a rotten mess if I didn't, because a hard freeze was on it's way. Sure enough, I awakened to a morning temperature of 27* today. This way I can freeze all those lovely peppers to enjoy in cooked dishes over the winter, and I plan to make pickled green tomatoes this afternoon. My final stripping of the plants yielded almost 9 gallons of tomatoes and peppers!

I planted this eggplant, which had been growing in my classroom since the previous August, in May. Unfortunately Wayne doesn't like them, and they don't agree with my stomach. They made a nice ornamental for us, though. The peppers along the top of the picture produced huge Greek type peppers that were lovely in salads and sauteed in scrambled eggs. You can barely see the ~7' long tomato vine that runs from the eggplant to the peppers. It had also grown in my classroom window all school year. I planted it's roots, laid the vine along the ground, and hollowed out little pockets of soil about every 18" placing the soil on top of the vine. It took root along all those places and it appeared to be several plants instead of one long one. It bore some really nice cherry tomatoes. All the plants mentioned above were from a Miracle Gro greenhouse kit I bought on clearance for my students to enjoy.

My friend, Diana, gave me starts of Egyptian walking onions. They seem to have gotten themselves established pretty well in my little micro-garden. You can see one peeking out from the lemon balm with it's head of "babies" over the concrete near the top of the picture. Under the lemon balm is some lettuce. I had several varieties of lettuce which I mixed together in a cup and sowed in hopes of having a living ground cover. The germination rate of the lettuces wasn't that great, though.The ones that did come up tasted like burnt rubber. I really wish I knew what variety it was so I don't buy it again! LOL!

At the NE corner of the patio I placed several potted plants. The largest pot contains rhubarb. Unfortunately, it didn't' make it. Diana gave it to me as well. She has tried for several years to grow it and it wouldn't thrive. She told me she was ripping it all out and I begged for some. I guess my skills were even worse. I planted zinnias and cock's comb in the black pots, which did grow, but looked rather scraggly. The yellow pot contains more lemon balm. The large terra cotta pot contains a miniature rose given to me by my friend Jenifer two years ago. It has the most precious yellow roses! Hens and chicks are flourishing in the center plastic terra cotta looking pot, and the small pot had a lone Egyptian walking onion that I was nursing along until Diana gave me the new starts.

Here is a view of the entire micro-garden and patio. The whiskey barrel contains more tomato plants. Now it's all bare except for the perennials and I am preparing to mulch it this afternoon.

P.S. The garden also included several varieties of large tomatoes for canning and eating fresh. bell peppers, and Anaheim chili peppers. I planted cilantro and basil, but they didn't do very well. I think they may have been choked out by the tomatoes. The micro-garden also includes abundant peppermint and spearmint. I would love to see it completely filled in with mint-family herbs and abuzz with honey bees in the future!

Baby in the Manger

This post will be unillustrated, because to have taken the time to get a camera and take a picture would have put her life at further risk.
This morning while I was milking the adult does Baby, my LaMancha doeling, started to cry in distress. I went to see what was wrong and discovered her IN the manger! Her legs were sticking out the various holes in the manger and she was in danger of breaking a leg or her neck from struggling to get out. Our manger is about 5 feet tall with inward sloping cattle panel for the sides. I tried to lift her out, but there was no way I could even come close. She is probably close to 50 pounds at this point, and at that angle I couldn't get her. I frantically searched for something I could climb to reach her. A ladder wouldn't work because I am no where near graceful enough to retrieve a flailing goat and keep my balance. I needed something much more stable. Providentially, our neighbor had brought an oval stock tank so that we could water his cows if the pond went dry, but it hadn't been needed and was sitting empty beside the driveway. I dragged it into the pen and over to the manger, climbed on top (I had it upside down.), and heaved her out. By the time I got the tank in there she was shaking. I'd been praying ever since I first saw her predicament that she wouldn't break a leg. When I saw her shaking I feared she was going into shock, but as soon as I had her out of there and standing beside me on the stock tank she started stomping her feet. I bet her legs had gone numb! After a few moments of stomping she jumped off and has been perfectly fine ever since. I can only guess that she managed to jump from the dog house into the manger. The dog house is one of those plastic ones you buy at the big box pet stores. I found it at a yard sale, and the goats love it for a private little retreat. They fight over who gets to use it. They also move it around to suit their tastes daily. I have moved it to the back half of the lean-to, away from the manger, and so far they are only scooting it back and forth a few feet, still a good twenty feet away from the manger.

Oh, Wow!!!

I've recently discovered my new favorite confection. It's everything fudge ought to be, but isn't. What's even better is it's incredibly easy! I had been experimenting with homemade "Larabars" when I stumbled into this one. It's my own conglomeration of what I learned from several other recipes I found online, and it's DIVINE!

 

Put one cup of raw walnuts (from the baking section or fresh) in the food processor and chop until it's about the texture of coarse corn meal. Then add one cup of pitted dates and blend together until it starts to form a ball. Next add 1/2 cup of raisins and two tablespoons of cocoa powder. Blend again until it's all well incorporated. The walnuts will release a good bit of oil. There will be oil in the bottom of the food processor, or at least there is in mine. I unplug the food processor, pull out the blade (I'm a bit paranoid!) and roll the concoction into balls. Store in the fridge. That's it! Only four ingredients: walnuts, pitted dates, raisins, and cocoa powder. They are SO delicious, and can be enjoyed completely guilt free! WooHoo!!! If you aren't already familiar with these, you simply MUST give them a try!

Reality

This post is about being real and honest. It pains me to share, but for the sake of education I must.

The past few weeks have been a battle on our homestead. Miracle got mastitis as soon as she freshened. It took three doses of Nuflor, an antibiotic shot that stings horribly, to get her healthy. I'm still not completely satisfied with the condition of her udder. She is no longer showing clinical symptoms of mastitis, however, and I am comfortable pursuing natural means to get her back to top-notch health. While the vet was examining Miracle I told him I was not happy with her body condition, despite the fact that I have done everything I know to do to make her healthy. He ran a blood test and discovered that she was infected with a blood borne protozoa (transmitted by lice) that attacks the red blood cells. If she had it, the entire herd did as well. This meant an antibiotic (CTC-10) added to their feed for 30 days and a pour on treatment called BOSS. There would be no milk for human consumption for 30 days. He also did a fecal exam and said she had a high worm load. I had just dewormed the entire herd with Ivomec only two weeks prior. This meant I had to give every animal in the herd daily Panacur dewormer for five days straight, and repeat in ten days.

A few days after Miracle's diagnosis, Twilight's twins started to scour. I had put the bottle babies back with their mommas when I got Miracle's diagnosis so they could be treated with the rest of the herd, and I thought the scouring was from too much milk. I began giving a blend of Sour-Halt and Pepto Bismol, but the scouring didn't improve and the babies were acting like they were in pain. I called my goat mentor and she came down to check them out. She was armed with Neomycin, Banamine, and Kaospect. I already had Di Methox on hand for prevention of coccidiosis. She said that we needed to get them started on all of these medicines and be very careful to keep them hydrated as well. I gave them all their medicines religiously for a total 10 days. I was able to stop the Banamine after four days, and the Kaospect after about six. It was so stressful! Diarrhea is a very serious illness in young kids, and our triple digit weather was not helping their chances of beating this. I set up a fan outside the fence for them to stay in front of, which they took advantage of.

I can finally say that all my animals lived and are off all meds except the CTC-10 that goes in their feed. We have another week to go on that one.

*WHEW* Talk about a wake-up call!

I have always managed my herd using herbs, vitamins, and minerals with only rare detours into pharmaceuticals. The past 10 months have been particularly difficult, though, and I couldn't seem to get my act together. I kept forgetting to give the herd their herbal dewormer every Saturday. That herbal dewormer has many health benefits besides just deworming. The herbs have nutritional value and help build up their bodies in the same way good nutrition helps us humans. After missing several doses of herbal dewormer I decided that I was going to have to bite the bullet and go synthetic to get me through this season in my life. I started giving my herd Ivomec dewormer. However, it didn't occur to me that I needed to start them out with a more rigorous deworming schedule and then switch to maintenance. I think this is what went wrong with the worms.

I have also always kept an immaculate goat pen. Our goats have a lean-to that is about 20'x50' with a concrete floor and full access to lush pasture. (I know goats aren't supposed to be housed on concrete, it was here when we bought the place.) I had heard so much about the benefits of deep litter method for the winter months that I decided to try it. Bad, bad, BAD decision! This was the mildest winter of my life! The deep litter bedding was okay for quite some time. But when the insect population indicated to me that it was time for the bedding to GO, it was all at once! I had to clean out that entire lean-to one wheelbarrow full at a time. It took me two days. Wayne was appalled that I pushed myself that hard to empty it, but I knew my animal's health was on the line. I fear it was too little too late. Now I keep the lean-to swept out with a push broom. I will never try the deep litter method again. Ever.

All these factors combined to create conditions favorable to the deterioration of my animal's health. I have been sufficiently slapped in the face and am (precariously) on the ball with maintaining their health needs now. For the past three weeks chores have been taking me two hours, twice a day. It is exhausting. If I had simply done a better job of keeping my animals healthy in the first place, none of it would have happened. Now I am having to play catch-up: get them healthy, get their bodies back up to their healthiest, and get back on natural preventive health care. I intend to continue using synthetic dewormer and whatever else is necessary to keep my animals healthy until I have proven to myself that I can keep up with the natural methods. I will overlap the two during that proving time, and then transition off synthetics.

Killing Cone

     When we decided to raise meat birds I did lots and lots of research on processing. We wanted our birds to be raised as close to organically as possible and then processed in the most humane and efficient way possible. The conclusion of my research was that we would use a killing cone for processing our chickens. The reason for this is that when you use a killing cone, the method entails cutting the chicken's jugular. The bird looses consciousness very quickly due to a loss of blood pressure to the brain. However, it's heart continues to beat, allowing virtually all of the blood to be removed from the body. The chicken is restrained in the cone, so there is no flopping around. Birds processed in this way are much cleaner to work up. There if very little odor when you are doing the rest of the processing compared to other methods such as complete decapitation.

     I was asked a very, very long time ago to share a tutorial on how we built our killing cone for processing chickens. It's been in the back of my mind on my to-do list ever since. I kept putting it off because I didn't want to waste our sheet metal making a second one, and I couldn't think of any inexpensive materials to use to make a prototype. Today I stumbled across this article on how to do just that! I see no reason to reinvent the wheel. The author used essentially the same method as we did. I hope you enjoy learning how to make this simple, but quite valuable homesteading tool!

La Mancha Babies!

We've been waiting for two years for this moment! Miracle was given to me as a five month old doeling. I just loved her to pieces. When it was time for her to be bred we took her to visit her chosen boyfriend and then brought her back home. Miracle had a precocious udder, so it was very hard to tell what was going on, but we thought she was pregnant. She gained a lot of weight and her udder continued to develop. Spring came and no babies appeared. We finally gave up hope of her being pregnant. In the fall I took her to be bred three times. (She kept coming back in heat.) The third time I informed the breeder that she was staying a month, and I would pay room and board. The breeder insisted that I didn't need to do that, and that Miracle was welcome to stay for the month. At the end of the month we brought her home and waited. The breeder had thought she "settled" after the first time she was bred. He due date came and went. Nearly three weeks passed. Nothing. We were giving up hope of her being bred despite her weight gain and hugely swollen udder, and chalking it up to the precocious udder and a false pregnancy. I'd made up my mind to start milking her on June 10th (one month after her supposed due date) if she hadn't kidded yet. On Monday morning, June 4th, when I did chores I noticed her staring meditatively at the back corner, and her "vent" was turned out just a teensy bit, but I've seen more obvious signs of "pending labor" over the past several weeks with nothing to show for it, and shrugged it off. Frankly, I had just about given up. I went about my day as normal. Late in the afternoon I went out to the barn and discovered this:

I just love his little ears. They look like rosettes!

It was so exciting to see that she had a baby! Hooray! I was so worried that she had infertility issues, which is not a good quality in a milk goat! I confess I was disappointed, though, because I thought she had a single kid. Even though I was giving up hope of her pregnancy, I still expected her to have twins if she was indeed pregnant. I looked around and found this beautiful thing snuggled in between the gate and the wall:

Isn't she beautiful? She's so dainty and energetic, too. Her brother, on the other hand, is Mr. Sleepypants. :-)

Here they are getting acquainted and checking things out. Poor Miracle. Her udder and teats are SO tight!

Having a little midmorning snack. Sister thinks that's not such a bad idea!

*sigh* We are all content here at the homestead. These are the last of this year's babies. Everyone is healthy and well. Milk is flowing. We are thankful, indeed!



An Honor

I was stunned yesterday afternoon to discover that Jessica from Mosquito Creek Farm had given me the Liebster Blog Award. My eyes bulged out and I just sat there for a long time. Things ran through my head like, "Has she seen my blog? I bet I haven't made three posts this year?!" I am so honored that she would choose me. Now I am given the joy of choosing five favorite blogs with less than 200 followers and passing the award on to them.

The very first blog I ever read was by my cousin, Jenny. Growing up we were like sisters, and she is my mentor in many ways. In her blog, Up on the Roof, Jenny shares about her life as helpmeet to her charming husband and homeschooling mother of three beautiful children.

Jenny introduced me to The Hurricane Report by her friend, Camille. I enjoy and relate to Camille's poignant style very much.

The first blog I started reading outside of people I know in real life was Mary Grace's Books and Bairns  Mary Grace remains one of my favorite writers. A homeschooling mother of seven, she is living the life I dream of!

Living Our Way is the online home of Laura. Laura's family strives to live a self-sufficient life in unusual ways. I enjoy reading about their adventures very much!

Last but not least is Crystal at The Adventures of Noodleville Her blog is simply amazing! Every time she puts up a new post I have to read it immediately. Her quirky, humorous style is the best!

Internet at Home and Updates!

Last night we went and bought the things necessary to have Internet access at home through our PC. If this works out, I will be able to post regularly! Woohoo!!! So far, though, Wayne is unimpressed with the speed of the Internet service. It does take a while for pages to load, but I'm not surprised given our location. I'm just excited to be able to have Internet without having to buy a satellite! We have two weeks to decide if we are happy with the service and if so, continue on. If we are unhappy with it we will simply return the items we purchased for a refund and the contract will be cancelled. I really, really hope it doesn't come to that.

Homestead updates:

Garden:
I really wanted this to be the year I had a successful garden. However, life had other plans. The storms that ripped through our area in late March/early April caused a lot of unplanned work in the yard and interfered with out ability to get the ground prepared for planting in a timely manner. One thing I've learned is that I MUST get the garden in as early as possible in order to get a harvest before school starts in the fall. I absolutely do not have the time to deal with the garden once school starts. However, I can plant a bit in the evenings and weed on the weekends in the spring until we get out of school for the summer. All that is to say that I planted what I am calling a "micro-garden." It contains tomatoes, peppers, onions, lettuce, basil, and cilantro. I also have some tiny yellow day lilies, mints, and lemon balm that are supposed to be permanent residents in that bed. I have containers with rhubarb and hens and chicks as well.

Early in the spring I planted grapes, muscadines (one of my favorite things in the whole wide world!), and raspberries in the front yard, at the perimeter of the orchard. Most of them are doing well. A couple of the plants appear to have died back, but I am continuing to water in hopes of something springing forth from the roots.

We lost almost all of our orchard due to the hard winter of 2010/2011 and the drought of the summer of 2011. I have planted nine fruit trees since we moved here. Only three remain. Two are peaches and one is a pear.

Poultry:
Our chicken flock has grown dramatically. At the end of winter I had four Welsummer hens and one Welsummer rooster, one Delaware hen, and five bantam hens of unknown origin. A good friend decided that she didn't want to mess with chickens any more and gave me her hens, who are less than one year old. That added seven girls to the flock. One of them lays a lovely olive green egg! They are what she calls "barnyard mix." There appears to be two barred rock, one Welsummer mix, one Cochin, one Black Austrolorp, one Rhode Island Red, and one (?)blue grey beauty!

I found Silver Laced Cochin pullets at Atwoods about the first of April. I seized the chance and bought six of them. Cochins are my favorite breed. I hope they will turn out to be excellent layers as well!

I had ordered six Golden Laced Wyandottes through my feed store (Midwest Ag in Carthage) in very early spring. I got the call that they had arrived the first week of May. When I got to the feed store only four of my chicks was there. Someone had accidentally gotten my Wyandottes! I was pretty unhappy about that, since I had ordered so few to begin with, there is little margin for error. One of our big goals is to have enough eggs to sell, and I know that Wyandottes are the best layers I've ever had, bar none! The only other chicks the feed store had on hand that I would even consider adding to my flock were Easter Eggers. I ended up taking four of them.

This brings my chicken flock to a grand total of 32! Eeek! My goal was 25 hens. Oh well, that just means more eggs, right?

The week after I bought my latest eight chicks I was back at the feed store and they had ducklings for sale. Now, I've been wanting Khaki Campbells for a long time, but they were always too pricey, and I thought it would be years before I could get any. I offhandedly asked what kind of ducks they hand and when they said Khaki Campbells I embarrassed myself with the squeal that escaped my lips! I bought five. This has been an adventure and an education! What I read about them has proven to be untrue thus far. I really hope it wasn't all a lie! Khaki Campbells are supposed to be land ducks and not require water for swimming. Everything I read said that they enjoyed it, but it wasn't necessary. Those poor babies were FILTHY by the end of the first week!!! I ended up bringing them inside and filling the bathtub with warm water because they are still downy. I added the water a little bit at a time because I have heard of people accidentally drowning their ducklings. Apparently mine were ready, because as soon as there was enough water, they took off! It was so much fun to see them swimming and preening in the nice, warm water. When one decided to take a dive (like ducks do) it freaked all the others out. It was so funny! A couple of the others tried it and they had great fun. Every time I would think they were getting tired and it was time to let the water out they would get a new burst of energy and start all over again with dunking their heads and scratching them vigorously, standing on the water, splashing, etc. They are definitely very messy critters, but what a joy to watch! I love their call, too! It makes me smile every time. The benefit to the homestead (according to my reading) is that they are avid eaters of bugs, snails, and slugs. Supposedly, they won't bother the garden plants, but will eat broad leafed weeds with relish. I sure hope SOMETHING I read was true! The ducks will definitely be getting some sort of pond of their own!

Storm Cleanup

Remember the storms of leap day? We've been cleaning up from that mess ever since. It's gotten much, much worse before it can get better. This elm tree had a branch of about 10" diameter that hung over our roof, rubbing it and posing danger should there be an ice storm that caused it to break free of the tree. I wanted to just cut off that limb, but if we cut it off the limb beside it would also die because of they way they were joined, and if they both died the entire tree would no longer be viable, and at best we might nurse it along for another ten years or so. For these reasons we decided to go ahead and take the entire tree out. We were not happy to do so at all, but felt there was no use in putting off the inevitable. In the end we are very glad we did. When Wayne cut it, he hit a very large bolt. It is at least six inches long. Apparently the tree split early in it's life, and rather than take it out, it's owners decided to bolt it together. The wood of that interior portion was rotten. Many of the limbs were also rotting from the inside out. Here is is before we cut it. I nearly cried when I counted it's rings. This tree was about 120 years old!

Next to be addressed was the ominous tree to the west of our house. You remember the one with the very large rotten place at it's base? It is now on the ground, much to my relief!

The dark core you see is completely rotten. That tree was a crushed house waiting to happen!

What's worse, the bug damage you see is on the west side of the tree, making it that much more of a threat to our home. I didn't count the rings on this one. I'm not one bit sad it's gone. Well, maybe just a teensy bit. It did shade the west side of the house.

Here you can see how close it was to the house as well as gain proportion to how big it was.

Finally, the ash tree that split during the leap day storm. It was a lovely tree. I'm still astounded that it had to go. I never dreamed we would be without it.

Our place seems quite bare now, though there is still a LOT of cleanup work to be done. We are plugging away at it each afternoon. It will be so nice to have all the wood stacked and ready for winter, and the brush cleaned up!

St. Patrick's Day Kids!

Perle delivered two bucklings and one doeling on March 17th. It was a difficult delivery. I knew for a couple of days that something wasn't right, but hoped that Perle would be able to get them straightened out. She did lots of stretching and getting up and down. When she finally had them one of the bucklings was in the birth canal the entire time the other two were being born. I ended up having to pull him, and he was upside down and backwards! When the first kid started to emerge there were three feet showing. I was trying not to enter her if at all possible, so I just watched and encouraged her. When that kid was born one of the feet was still there! I watched and waited for 20 minutes before calling my more experienced friend. She didn't answer the phone. I waited ten more minutes before calling another friend who is also more experienced. She said, "If it's been 30 minutes, you've gotta get that baby out NOW." I hung up the phone, told Wayne what she'd said and that I needed him to hold her head, and poured providone on my hands. I turned around to Perle and there was a kid on the ground, still in the sac! I said, "Sweet! She's done it on her own!" Then I looked up and said, "No!!! That foot is still there!" I hurriedly cleared the second kid's face of the sac and proceeded to work on getting the stuck kid out. At first I couldn't find any parts because he was so high inside her. I decided to wash off the exposed foot and push it back inside. When I did that he put the two feet together and I was able to begin pulling. It was HARD WORK! I was sore for two days afterward. I don't know how long it took to actually get him out, but it felt like about 30 minutes more. When I finally got him out he was so long and thin. I thought he was dead, but I was clearing his face anyway and I felt his heartbeat! I began to swing him as my training had shown me how to do, and it worked! He was not one bit impressed by it all, but he was breathing. It took him a good two hours to be able to stand on his own, where the others were up in five minutes, but now you would never guess there were any problems at all! I was calling the boy who had to be pulled Scooter for the first couple of days, and then Wayne decided that the boys should be named Thunder and Lightening. The little girl is still nameless. I'm working on it. I want to give her an authentic Irish name since she was born on St. Patrick's day.

This is Thunder.

Perle and Scooter/Lightening having a heart-to-heart talk.

Our as-yet unnamed doeling catching some zzz's.

Scooter getting a little nip. I LOVE the heart on his side! He is the prettiest baby born to my herd so far.

Perle and all her darlings getting ready a nap.

New Life, Hope, and Moving On

After the horrible storms of February 29th, I was blessed to discover a sign of new hope:

On an emotional level (as opposed to a rational one) Cochins are my all time favorite breed of chicken. They are so calm and friendly. Even as chicks I can tell a difference between them and other breeds I've raised. I think they are adorable with their fluffy butts and feathered feet. They remind me of antebellum girls at a ball.

The primary reason I have only ever had one or two at a time is because you typically have to buy them straight run. I do not wish to have half a flock of roosters, thankyouverymuch! I have never, ever seen Cochins for sale sexed.

However, on Friday, March 2nd I was at the feed store, which just happened to have silver laced Cochin pullets. Of course, I couldn't resist! I am thrilled to report that they are all alive and well. They are beginning to feather out, so I thought I needed to post some pictures before they enter their gawky adolescent stage.

I have to clean out and refill their water dispenser twice a day because they kick the paper shreds into the trough until it is completely full!
I love it, though! Raising chicks is one of the most fun parts of homesteading.

In Like a Lion?

This is what I woke up to on Wednesday morning, February 29th. Tornadoes and straight line winds ripped through SW Missouri last night. Notice the goat shed we built in the fall? It's upside down and blown into the fence. No goats were harmed. It was still in the garden spot, but they were moved back to their lean-to at the barn with it's adjoining bit of pasture a couple months ago.

I'm very sad about this one. I absolutely loved that we had a working cistern with a pump on our back patio. The way the handle is broken, I don't know if it is repairable or not. (Not to mention the repurposed gym light glass/mini greenhouse being broken. THAT will be fun to remove from my whiskey barrel planter, won't it!)

This is the north side of that massive limb that is taking up most of the back yard. We had no idea there was a bad spot in this tree. The limb grew out sideways and was perfect for Wayne to hang deer on for skinning. The damage to the tree is so bad that the whole tree will have to be taken out.
Here is a long shot so you can see the whole back yard.

This tree sits immediately west of the house. It has made me nervous since we bought the place. I am SOOO thankful that it didn't come down on the house! See that huge limb that is caught in the tree? We will definitely be removing that limb and as much else as we can reach. I REALLY want the whole tree out, but it's going to take a skilled woodsman to get it down without hitting the house, other trees, or the electric lines.

I'm sad for the woodpeckers who called this tree home. I've wondered what made our place special enough to host them, never dreaming it was the very tree that gave me so much worry each time it stormed.

Here is the west side of the tree with the huge limb trapped. That will be fun to get out, huh? We have big plans for cleanup this weekend!

I received an e-mail asking about how the handle to the pump got broken. Maybe you couldn't see in the first picture, but a large limb from a cedar tree fell on it and then blew over. I think it's more visible from this angle.

Update

Well folks, it's been a LONG time since I did a post. Teaching a grades two through five class and rushing home to do chores, cook from scratch as much as possible, and stay up on things like making soap leaves little time for the blog. I could keep up better if we had Internet access at home, but we don't. I only have it on my cell phone, which doesn't work as well as I'd hoped for blogging. Anyhow, I wanted to let you know what's been going on.

The biggest news on the homestead is about the goats. I currently have a herd of eight. There are four boys and four girls. :-) My boys are all wethers, and three of them need new homes desperately. Perle is due to kid in March, Sassy, her daughter is due in April, and then we have a long wait. Twilight and Miracle have had a hard time "settling" this time. I took them both to be bred only to have them come into heat again after we were back home. It doesn't take long for this routine to get old. Now they are at the home of their chosen bucks to stay for a month. Fingers are crossed that they will come home thoroughly impregnated with multiple kids! :-) I don't think it's a problem with the girls fertility, but with their owner's observation skills. When I do chores in the dark both morning and night, it's really hard to discern when they are in heat, even when I'm trying my best to pay attention to such things. If everything works out Miracle and Twilight will both kid in June. I am not thrilled about them kidding so late in the year, but it sure beats a year with no kids. :-)

Like all homesteaders, my thoughts have turned toward the garden. I am so anxious to get started with it! I have learned that having the garden in the location of last year's chicken pen is the BEST way to do it! The things I planted at that location grew wonderfully, had virtually no pests, and the location was almost weed free. The few weeds that did appear were very easy to pull from the loose, rich soil. With that in mind, my garden spot is going to be about one third the size I've had in years past. I am going for excellence over quantity. I think if I have a smaller plot that mostly consists of the area the chickens have occupied I will have an excellent garden spot that will produce more per square foot than the huge garden that is an all out war with Bermuda grass and other weeds. My thoughts are about what I really want to grow, because with the smaller plot comes cuts in the availability of space to grow veggies. I will definitely not have as many of any one variety of plant, but I will also have to limit the number of varieties of plants I grow.

My chickens are doing better than ever. Dare I say I've got this chicken thing down? My flock size has held steady for several months, despite the hawks I frequently see and the owl who roosts in our barn. They are healthy and attractive. Laying is almost at a standstill. The only eggs I've gotten have been from the banties for the past six weeks or so. I am not unhappy with that, though, because I want my chickens to lay according to their biological signals as much as possible, and our winter has been mild enough that I haven't needed to use a heat lamp on them, so their bodies are getting a much needed break from production. I hope to see them start laying in a month or so. I also want to add more birds to the flock this spring. I really want Golden Laced Wyandottes, but I don't know if that will be an option. I love the consistency of the banties for laying, but I would like to have eggs to sell, and for that I think most people are going to want eggs from standard sized chickens. I also want to increase my flock size so that they can prepare more ground for planting next year. :-P

Spring is just around the corner, and I'm ready for it!!!