Playing Catch Up

Oh my, does the world spin fast this time of year!  For those of you NOT in Florida, you may be enjoying hot cocoa and toasty fires.  But WE are enjoying beautiful balmy days, cool breezes, and fun outdoor festivals!  And so there has been much goings on, much to tell, much to revisit.

First of all, I must take a moment to let you know that I did actually win Homemaker of the Year!  I also won the "Baker of the Year" award because that best-in-show apple pie was rated best of all of the adult baked goods!  My husband had to pick my jaw up off the floor for me.  Twice.  I also learned that I lead the competition by about 200 points.  But lest that make it sound as though I'm bragging, I got all those points because... well... as I've never tried to hide... I can tend to go a bit overboard sometimes.  Yeah, as far as anyone could remember, no one had ever submitted 42 items.  Whoops.  Let me just cover my face and slink out the back.

Husbandman ran electric to that fancy shmancy new shed.  And we decided it was plenty big enough to milk the critters INSIDE!  I know, crazy huh?  Almost like we're gettin' all hoity toity or summin'.  In all seriousness, we did realize that there was plenty of room.  And being out of the winter wind is certainly more pleasant.  And it can rain and we stay dry.  We likely won't continue this in the summer.  It could be beastly hot in there in July, but for now, we love it.

We also slaughtered Shaun the Sheep two weeks ago.  I say we.  Actually, Husbandman shot him clean and quick.  We both struggled like mad to get him hung then I promptly left with the kids to go and pretend to be a normal middle class suburbanite music teacher while he did the dirty work.  We left Shaun on ice for a couple days then wrapped up roasts and ground a good amount for sausage.  We've had the sausage and it's quite good. Husbandman painstakingly cleaned and prepared the intestines for stuffed sausage, but in the end they kept splitting.  We wrapped up the bulk of it in 1 pound packages and called it a very late night.  I'm relieved to be done with the sheep.  I want to get back to doing better goat-specific minerals, but sheep are subject to copper toxicity.  And Shaun was starting to mount the goats.  After Helen's miscarriage earlier this year, I was really eager to see that enterprise wrapped up.  We tried. It wasn't a good fit for us.  Time to move on.

We've had success and tragedy on the rabbit front as well.  Mocha had another set of beautiful babies on November 9.  Nine were born.  She began to consume one, but the other eight remained very well.  Then we had rain one night a week later. The next morning she was in the nest box and I didn't see need to bother her so just checked on the one I expected to kindle and left for the day.  We came home in late afternoon and went out to do chores.  The girl child ran to me frantic about Mocha's babies.  I found the nest box drenched, 3 babies dead and the others cold and unmoving.  I brought the live ones inside and warmed them on a heating pad and a hair dryer.  I filled the nest box with hay for warmth.  Mocha had pulled so much fur for them she looks pretty sad herself.  Hair was everywhere before it rained.  Then it all just became a thick smotheringly heavy mat.  Husbandman fixed the leak in the roof of the hutch and we hoped the rest could survive.  One more was dead the next morning, but the remaining four appear to be doing ok.  We also decided to get rid of Cream.  She had another litter of babies.  Eight this time.  She didn't pull any fur and they all died off one by one over the next few days.  She's never raised a single baby to weaning.  Hoping it's just that she found our set-up (be it the kids, the dog, the buck down the line) objectionable we gave her back to the person we got her from.  Maybe she can get her to mother well.  As a full grown, good strong rabbit, I'd hate to see her life wasted.

We expect to be seeing a successful end to our first stint as foster parents in the coming days.  Mixed emotions come up.  Relief.  Concern.  Worry that my weaknesses hurt him more than helped him.  Frustration that even with that petunia staring me in the face I can still be so short tempered.  Realization that responding in love to him isn't just about him and me, but its also my best opportunity to model for my children who Jesus is... and how miserably I've failed at that.  But there's Jesus with my petunia telling me to move on and do better tomorrow.  That I will get this unconditional love thing.  That I will learn patience and kindness.  That I will learn to see his hurt as greater than my anger.

That I will learn to let Him work through me and stop expecting it all to come out of my own decrepit self.

Thank you, Lord, for not giving up on me even when I'm ready to just plain give up.

Bye Bye Zuma

  So much has happened that I haven't recorded.  February 23, Zuma had 2 beautiful lambs.  I was out of town, but my wonderful superhero handled things splendidly.  However, the ewe lamb was never very strong and eventually died about a week later.  The ram lamb is thriving, large and named Shaun the Sheep.

And despite Zuma doing exactly what we expected of her, that is giving birth to twins, we made the decision to no longer keep sheep breeding stock.  The main reason was feed costs.  With the rabbits and ducks, we have ample meet so 1 or 2 lambs a year are simply not necessary for our family.  Secondly, I did not want to tether them out to "mow the lawn" unless I would be home all day.  With the addition of our foster son and his crazy number of appointments, that basically never happened.  Meaning we purchased every bit of food they'd eat all year long.  And thirdly, Zuma just didn't compete for food.  The goats, even the littler goats like Doby and Bella, could bully her into giving up her portion of grain or hay.  She withered down, thin and hungry.  Without the separating and special attention I was giving her during pregnancy, Zuma would never thrive well here. 

So I called a few people and found a great new home for Zuma and Valentino.  It was sad to see them go, but  I know its for their good. 

Poor Valentino

We used to call Valentino the One-Horn-Wonder. One of his horns was repeatedly knocked off in his struggle to the top of the pecking order in our barnyard.  It has now stopped growing completely. The other curled tightly to his face.  I've heard horror stories of rams' horns causing enormous facial damage so I was watching the growth of this horn.  I thought it was going to clear his eye...

Then, all of a sudden, we noticed it wasn't.  In fact it was preventing his eye from closing.  We decided to deal with it immediately.  After reading how-to's online, we grabbed some tools and got ready.

This is how it was performed by a vet over at The Yeoman Farmer... or so I thought.  Turns out that muzzle action is a crucial difference.  We just had a poor scared ram choking himself.  

 In the end, the winning combination was a muzzling harness (of which we only have 1) around his head, tieing his back legs up and stretched way back, winding his front legs together with the rope from the harness, me laying on top of him holding him still, Husbandman weilding the hacksaw, thick cardboard protecting his eye, ear and face from the blade  and a WHOLE lot of GRIT.  Horns bleed, hence the blood, but they don't have nerves.  Once the horn was removed, I poured iodine over it to clean it and applied ground cayene pepper as a blood stop, all the time protecting his eye.  He doesn't look good, but I assure you, he looks much better now and certainly better than if his eye had been gouged out with his own horn.

Several places online said not to take them to a vet to do it, that a vet will put them under and surgically remove the horn and prevent any further growth.  Doing so would be a huge expense and more stressful to the animal.  The anestetic would take a good deal of time to recover from not to mention the stress and difficulty of transporting an animal.

Hind sight though... I think we should have considered a vet.  Not so much because of what it was, but rather HOW it had to be done.  Because his horn was curled so closely to his face, it was very scary, more so for us than for him, though he didn't exactly appreciate what we were doing to him either.  It might have been a longer recovery time for him (especially since as soon as he was on his feet and given a bucket of grain, he seemed to forget all about it), but I wouldn't want to take my chances again with a hacksaw so close to an eye with only cardboard and the sound of it cutting to know if he was in imminent danger of blindness.  Instead, Husbandman and I were the ones needing to recover.  We were shaky and on edge.  Husbandman barked at Dulci that she needed to have her babies NOW because he needed a baby to hold.  Something about a sweet baby, of any species, that calms the nerves.

Not to belittle Valentino, but here's an example of a nice set of horns.  Of course they belong to a goat and not a ram so they lack the genetic code to curl.

Here he is a day after.  His fur is still stained with iodine and blood.  But he didn't run from us as I was scared he would.  By now, almost 3 weeks later, he looks totally fine... just like a ram with no horns.

Daisy Roast

I don't have a picture of our fabulous dinner last night, but I do have another picture of that fancy shmancy meat grinder again.  Husbandman's favorite feature on this baby is the sausage stuffer.  When we slaughtered Button, we processed all her meat into sausage because she was older and would probably have a fairly strong flavor.  We really enjoy the sausage (made from only meat, onions, garlic, salt and herbs) but we had no way of making links so its just ground and in 1 pound packages.  Husbandman picked up some hog casing because he was a mite nervous about saving the casing from his own slaughter-subject (though he really does it all very well).  And when we were searching for our own meat grinder, a sausage stuffer attachment was a must. 

A couple months ago we decided we were overwintering just way too many animals.  With the acquisition of Zuma, Esperanza and Nina were unnecessary as breeding ewes.  Zuma has had twins each time and her size (hopefully coupled with the rapid growth rate of the khatadin in Valentino) would produce more lamb than we would need in a year.  We traded Nina with a friend who raises grass-fed beef.  She ended up becoming a wedding feast which I think is a fine fate for an animal who has to die anyway.  Esperanza was almost 2 years old so we made her into sausage like Button.  Very very yummy sausage.  Some in links and some ground in packages.  Daisy, being less than a year old and true "lamb" we processed into roasts.  I roasted a shoulder cut in the crock pot last night with garlic and rosemary.  Absolutely superb.  Fall off the bone tender.  Great flavor.  Kids gobbled it up.  Couple that with a nice pile of garden fresh greens and we had ourselves a very fine meal.

Picking Up Speed

The title of this post is not referring to any new drug use, though I'm sure that would be momentarily helpful.  No, instead I'm seeing our fall whizzing toward us at break-neck speed and I'm scrambling to be ready when in slams into my hot summer pace.

Not that summer has been lazy.  Just still working on summer stuff, that's all.

Sometime in July and August (see, I told you I was behind), I finished picking the last of our grapes.  Got about 10 gallons this year.  I fired up the canner to make jelly, but instead of creating a sauna inside, Husbandman set me up reeeeaaaallll nice.  And you have to read the rest of the post in a true southern drawl to get the full effect.

We recently acqured a large 2-burner gas stove, mainly for this very pupose but also for any pesky hurricanes that take out our power for any length of time.  This burner easily held my water bath canner and my pot of grape jelly.  I also did watermelon rind jelly since everything was fired up and crankin'.  And I had a nice shadey spot to work while still keeping an eye on the rugrats in the pool or swing set.  Everyone was happy... until a wet bottom found its way onto my Countryside magazine while I was up stirring the brew.  Anyway, about half my grape jelly turned out just fine.  The other half and the watermelon stuff didn't set so at some point I'll reopen those jars and try again.  More pectin, more sugar, more cooking and stirring.  One day I'll learn how to get it right the first time around.

I registered farmer girl and "Thumper" for the county fair last week.  Now we get to figure out the proper positioning and handling of a rabbit, not to mention getting her tattooed. (The bunny, not the girl).  A friend suggested waltzing into our local tattoo parlor, "Bad Azz Tattoo" with our fur ball and suggested a nice barb wire tat around the bicep.  Tempting... but we're obligated to letters and numbers in the left ear.  Later today, we're moving Thumper and Dumplin (because farm boy 1 won't be left out) into the porch for easier access for practicing.  And I also get to make matching outfits for the girl and her bunny.  Not really sure how, or why I'm happy about that, or even what possessed me to think of entering her into that contest, but I did.  And ya know, the smile on her face will be worth it, I'm sure.  The girl, not the bunny.  Not sure the bunny will be too thrilled on the notion.

We slaughtered our first ducks on Saturday.  We're having a rough go.  We started with 10 around Easter.  One died we think from internal injuries suffered at the paw of Angel.  Another turned sick-looking a while later and died.  Another just a couple weeks ago started limping and went quite lame.  He was one we slaughtered and by Saturday he was down to nothing.  He must have been starving for a week and a half, unable to walk enough to eat and drink.  Another had a large cyst/tumor thing on its face.  We culled them both and one is due for the oven momentarily.  The other (the skinny one) will be made into soup on a fine autumn day.  And now, yet another is acting lame.   We now have 1 good male, 4 females and a lame male.  Good for breeding stock which is what we wanted, but I'm nervous whatever has happened already will end up happening to our last remaining drake.  Unless its male competition that's doing it.

Nina is unwittingly enjoying her last meal.  I called a friend on a whim to see if he was interested in swapping a sheep for some beef.  He is, but wants it in meat form, minus the hoof.  So, sweet Nina is leaving us.  I haven't broken it to the girl child yet, but I don't think it will be a huge issue.  She's more keen on Daisy now anyway because Daisy is smaller.  She's never taken slaughtering real hard.  My mom was over while we killed the ducks and she expected a traumatic reaction from her granddaughter.  To her surprise, farm girl very bluntly and calmly explained the whole process to her and ended with, "And that's yummy MEAT!"  Yes, she's our sweet little carnivore.

We have re-acquired Doby.  You may remember Helen's baby... who had a baby... and we sold to some friends to get them started in dairying?  Well, they've decided farm-livin' is not exactly the life for them.  At least not with a triple digit heat index that go on for months at a time.  So we have her back and we're happy.  She's so sweet.  The farm girl is learning to milk on her (she's the only one who doesn't protest).  We initially only wanted 3 total dairy goats, but we're going to run with it.  4 isn't too different.  Especially since we decided to only keep Zuma and Valentino for breeding sheep.

We put Dulci in with Copper a week or so ago since its about time for her heats to start.  And sure enough, she got him all riled up. (Don't forget that southern drawl).  She escaped on Saturday while we were gone.  We put her in with the rest of the ladies until we could fix the fence.  Sunday Husbandman could tell she was in heat and Copper was just beside himself.  So we put her back in despite the fact that the fence wasn't shored up.  Sunday night she was out again and we put her in with the ladies.  Monday morning Copper was out... and he had circumcized himself in his escapades.  We put them both together and immediately went to fence fixing... at 7:30am.  At this Husbandman remarked that "we watch more goat sex before breakfast than most people see in a lifetime."  And yes, bloody and injured though it be, Copper took his one and only job very seriously and did it thoroughly job right before our very eyes.  The kids were inside watching a dinosaur documentary just in case you were concerned for their innocense.  He's calmed significantly today, but I have not ventured close enough to get a full accounting of his injury.  The bleeding has stopped and he's acting normal so I'll probably just let him be.  I mean, I do know the injury was, um, flushed.

And since I may not get blogging again for another month, let me comment on the state of our bee hives.  We suspect that both of our hives swarmed and that we checked one hive at just the wrong time and caused the new queen to fly off in fear.  So we put a frame of eggs (we think) and larvae from the other hive into the queenless hive.  And next week is the moment of truth.  Hopefully they're doing their thing.
I've got radishes, squash, and mustard greens ready to go in the ground.  The jelly melon is finally producing... like mad.  Picked our first one today just to determine how to know when its ripe.  We've got a busy week lined up with not a stitch of gardening in it so next week will have to border on insanity. 

Especially since the kiddie pool bit it this weekend.  That marks the official end of summer.

Kits, Chicks and Heat! Oh My!

 We've had some interesting adventures this week.  Thursday morning, I noticed Mona had pulled some fur and was looking crazed.  That evening Husbandman went to check on her and agreed, lots of fur, crazed look, but no babies.  Moments later Farm girl runs in screaming that there are baby bunnies on the ground.  Sure enough, 1 was outside and squirming around in the dirt.  Angel helped to find the others that had fallen out toward the back of the pen.  Mona had decided that even this nest box was not suitable evidently.  And delivering them outside the box meant they all fell out of the pen.  I called a friend and she said not to put them back in right away.  So we created a little home for them... in our bathroom.

This set-up is a 5 quart ice cream container (curtousy of my step-dad who's an ice cream junky... I totally dig the buckets).  The 5 babies are under the pile of fur that Mona had pulled out.  We set up our heat lamp that we use for chicks.  Over the top I laid an extremely well-used (but clean) cloth diaper that would block out some light, but have enough holes in it to allow some air circulation.  Later that same friend sent me a webpage giving me better details on how to care for baby rabbits... like keep the house between 68 and 72 degrees and IF its cooler than that add some heat.  Needless to say the light got shut off immediately.  Our house is kept at 80 and since outside night time temps may not even dip down to 72, I figured that would be just fine for them.

And so I fed them goat milk via dropper that first night and hoped for the best.  In the morning, they were all still alive and wiggling.  I fed them goat milk again (rabbits only nurse once per day and if fed by hand, should only get it twice at most).  My friend came by with a homeopathic concoction to help calm Mona.  I put that into her water a waited a few hours.  Then I put 2 babies back in, wrapping them well in some fur.  By feeding time that evening, there was still wiggling under all that fur so I knew at least 1 had survived and I put the remaining 3 back in.  As of yesterday, there was some wiggling, not much, but enough to know at least 1 is still alive.  We really can't find out anything more certain with out potentially causing more harm by freaking Mona out so we'll just wait and see.

Yesterday morning, while preparing breakfast, we noticed chicks scurring loose about the front yard.  We ran out and collected them and discovered a hole where something had dug under the pen.  4 chicks disappeared with only a few feathers left behind.  This is our first predator loss since getting Angel.  But we pulled an enormous tick from Angel on Friday AND she always sleeps in the back yard.  I think the reason we only lost 4 and not all 20 was because of Angel, but I think a lot must have gone on before it woke her up.  Either because of distance, the fact that the chicks are still very quiet or she was feeling lethargic due to that tick that had been feeding off her for quite some time.  At any rate, we moved the chicks to the back yard (where I was gradually working them toward anyway) where she could better protect. 

The garden is doing miserably.  By now okra and beans should be pumping.  I have nothing but amaranth, watermelons and cherry tomatoes feeding us.  I tried new varieties of okra and beans: eagle's pass for okra and Chinese red noodle bean.  With both they get just so big, produce maybe 1 fruit and then curl up and die.  Since ripping out my cucurbits (except watermelon), I've had room to add my standbys (Burmese okra, rattlesnake beans and red-seeded asparagus beans) so I'm hopeful to still get a decent harvest.  But I'm also concerned killer compost has found its way to Florida.  Monsanto has been selling this herbacide for hay fields.  Only it doesn't break down after the animal eats it.  Instead, it gets pooped out, composted and tossed in the garden where it continues to kill everything.  Since learning the problem, have they taken this junk off the market?  Goodness no!  They wouldn't make any MONEY if they did that!!!  Given that some beds are fine and others are not, I think it could be other issues.  But, for example, my eggplant should also be big a producing by now... I've had to reseed 4 times!  They either wouldn't germinate, stunt out before transplanting or stunt and die shortly after transplanting.  I just got all new seed, got my first good germination and transplanted healthy looking plants.  Hoping for something good.

The heat has been rough this past week.  I transplanted some new collard green starts (from my own seed!) and they just couldn't handle the heat.  I watered every 2 hours the first day and they still just laid down flat.  All but 2 transplants are now dead 3 days later.  I've got an idea for shade frames for transplanting in the summer heat... just add building them to the to-do list. 

Another interesting event earlier this week was Zuma came down with laryngitis.  She spent most of her 5 years in a concrete pen being fed from a hay rack and drinking from a pig waterer.  Her previous owners warned us that she probably wouldn't drink for a while since her only option was to drink from a bucket.  And we also discovered she didn't know how to graze.  I'd tether her out and she'd do precious little eating and absolutely no drinking.  One day this week, I did the same... only it had been very hot and a bit smokey the days prior.  That night and strange noise was coming from the barn.  Husbandman told me about it and said he thought it was Zuma.  Angel was going nuts.  I ran in and found her looking just fine... just sounding like a pubescent boy whispering.  We grabbed a bucket of grain which she ate happily.  I did research about sheep laryngitis and the results were miserable... like immenant death!  But she was eating fine, standing fine so I figured she just pulled on her tether a bit too hard, got dehydrated by refusing to drink from that bucket all day, and the smoke further irritated it.  I left her in the pasture for a couple days and she was back to her normal loud, deep demands at first light from the house.

Bella and Zuma

 Meet the newest additions.  This little nubian is Bella (I know we already had a Bella, but hey, we like the name).  She's a 1 year old doe with good genetics and very sweet disposition.  She's a bit skinnier than we were expecting so we're taking this month to condition her and we'll breed her to Copper at the beginning of July.  She's our replacement for Doby and our means of milk through the winter.  She'll kid in Nov/Dec.  Dulci will kid in Feb/Mar and Helen in June/July.  Milk flowing all year and Helen still gets her nice long vacation.

 Bella's a quick study too.  After only 1 day of leading her to the milking table, she knows right where to go and the patches of nicest leaves when she's finished with her grain.  Like the other goats, she doesn't much care for tethering.  She doesn't like to be away from the other goats, even if it is so she can have the best forage without competition.  I guess most anorexics do it for social reasons, right?

And this is Zuma.  She's a Suffolk/Hampshire cross ewe.  She's 5 years old.  Her previous owner was a local middle school student and wasn't going to be able to continue taking care of her as she went on to high school.  Zuma has been bred twice before and gave twins both times.  She's a good bit bigger than our Khatadin sheep.  The twinning genetics and the size hopefully coupled with Valentino's fast growing genetics and we have a winning combination.  Zuma is also very sweet and tame.  When she first arrived, she was scared and rather scary.  The other animals ran when she came near.  Now, they're exercising the we-were-here-first attitude and shoos her off the hay until they're done.  We're working on keeping a collar on her and we'll soon tether her as well, but I want her to get used to us first.  Scared animals are dangerous animals.

And meet our Eastern Black Swallowtail caterpillars.  There were 10 of these guys on my fennel plants.  They're missing now so I assume they've gone to metamorphosize.  I hope so.  Farm Girl would love to see a host of swallowtail butterflies dancing outside our living room window.  And thankfully she's not skillful enough with her net to catch too many either.

Button Mutton

You may remember us getting Button over a year ago.  We purchased her from a big farm where she got basically no human interaction.  She never got used to us.  Last summer we tried tethering her out to munch on fresh grass in the front yard, but she got loose twice.  Each time of trying to catch her was horrible.  So, finally, she was resigned to a life of never EVER leaving the pasture.  And I couldn't check her for worms.  When she was lambing, I had to stay a good distance away.  What if she needed help?  Well, too bad.

So when she birthed her replacement this spring, we decided to cull her as soon as Nina was old enough for weening.  And because she's at least 2 years old, likely older, we knew she'd be pretty strong on that mutton flavor.  Sausage it is.

Last Saturday, Husbandman and I (mostly him) ended her life and readied the meat for grinding.

A couple days later a neighbor woefully said, "I could NEVER do that.  I don't know how you kill something with eyes."

My response... "Oh, I didn't know you were a vegan."

Lest anyone say I'm heartless, I really did not CARE for Button.  She was a pain in the butt.  Because of her I had to do more work.  Because of her, Daisy (who's actually Esperanza's lamb) is also skiddish and tends to run from me.  Yet even still, I couldn't take her life without pause.  It's HARD to look at something with the miraculous breath of life and know that in a few short moments, by my hand, that life will be gone. 

But if you insist you "could NEVER" do anything but outsource your unpleasantness, you have no right to eat animal products.

Don't tell me you're an animal lover while conventionally raised meat stocks your freezer... and you likely eat it daily.  Don't tell me what a horrible person I am for taking responsibility for my family's food while the animals that feed you and your's live sick, miserable lives.  Don't act like not seeing those animals suffering as they do, its suddenly a different piece of meat on your plate.  Like if you didn't kill the animal, then the meat must have been harvested humanely with no loss of life.  Afterall, hasn't the food industry genetically modified cows to regenerate their own steaks yet?

I digress.  Anyway, Husbandman then took chunks of deboned meat to a friend with an electric grinder.  We found a recipe from a book in the library titled The Venison Sausage Cookbook.  It called for various spices, onions and garlic.  Nothing unnatural.  And thus he turned that meat into some of the best sausage we've ever eaten.  There's not a ton of it.  Maybe about 20 pounds worth.  But its good and will feed us for almost 6 months.  While processing the meat, our friend (an avid hunter) said he'd never seen venison as stringy as Button's meat.  We're guessing she could have been pretty old.  I'm very glad all that sausage spice is able to make it all taste good though.

Flash Farming

Husbandman and I may not be known to let grass grow under our feet, but we do usually do things rather methodically, calculated, planned, over-planned and almost always over-researched.

But this year seems to be different.  Without meaning to, it seems as though we're blitzkrieging on new enterprises.

So Mona spontaneously got bred.  And we spontaneously brought home Brownie, another rabbit for breeding, when some friends offered her to us.  This leaves us with 2 filled rabbit hutches, neither with a nest box, neither with enough room for the mother and her 6-week old weened young and no suitable pen for said young.  With Mona due in just over a week, I have ordered three 20"x26"x6" wash basins for nest boxes (because I don't have time to build something).  It gives us about 7 weeks to build a pen large enough for the weened young.  We intended to breed Brownie pretty soon, but that may be put on hold for a bit now. (whew!)

Then Doby kidded last night.  I wasn't expecting her to kid until May or June, but a couple days ago I realized her time was immanent.  I was quite nervous for her as she's just over a year old and still rather small.  That she was bred to a dwarf goat eased my mind only slightly.  But my worries were for naught.  She birthed about midnight last night without a peep.  I knew what happened only by Angel making some odd confusing noises and figured she was baffled by the "miraculous" appearance of a new charge.  She stood vigilantly by them the entire night though.  So now, in the midst of everything else, I'm milking a new goat 4 times a day.  She's not great on the stand yet.  More nervous than interested in food.  To narrow through the hips to make udder access easy.  Just all around, not that fun right now.  I'm also not sure how long we'll be without milk in the next year as the 3 present milkers dry off and we appropriately space their lactations now that the buck's "services" can be planned and prevented.

A couple days ago, the people we bought our bee hives from came by to give us a tutorial and check on the hives.  Turns out they've gone gangbusters in there and are already busting out of the original boxes.  We need to add a box to each hive pronto... meaning we need to build them first!  So tomorrow morning, Husbandman will ferociously build, tomorrow afternoon I will ferociously paint and Saturday we will quietly and calmly install.

A few days ago friends asked if we wanted some new chicks.  We did the math and decided,yes we could use some fresh layers to see us through the lean time this winter when daylight and molting could bring us to less than a half dozen a week.  So now we need to figure out which pen will be our brooder and then hold our growing birds... which means no pen is available to even buy some time with the young bunnies.

Then today, I popped on Craig's list (hoping to see a rabbit hutch for sale to save us the time and energy to build one) and found muscovy ducklings for sale locally.  I've never seen muscovy ducklings for sale!  Hatcheries require a huge order and a pretty penny each.  I asked the people selling if this was something they would likely keep on hand.  No such luck.  They're only available a couple times a year from hatcheries and they grabbed these on a whim.  So, this means we're probably going to be bringing home muscovies again rather soon.  We'll brood them in the dog crate until their ready for the old turkey pen outside in the pasture.  And one of those rabbit nest boxes I ordered will probably wind up a duck bath.

And those same friends that gave us Brownie, and asked if we wanted to order chicks with them also asked if we wanted a really nice Suffolk ewe.  Apparently this ewe has been shown at the county fair and has had 2 sets of twins in her 4 years of life.  Her present owners just want a good home for her.  So, we're now considering bringing on a new ewe that would have more likelihood of twinning and slaughtering both Nina and Daisy (knife to the heart twice!!!) this fall.  We don't want to overwinter 3 breeding ewes.  Should we take this ewe, we'd keep her and Esperanza for breeding (and of course Valentino too).

So guess what we're doing this weekend.

Daisy

 On March 18th, our first 2nd-generation FLhomesteader lamb was born.  Farmer girl named her Daisy.

 She immediately won the hearts of the farmer kids.

 At only a few days old, she and her mother, Esperanza, were mowing the lawn.  I tethered Esperanza just outside of Angel's zone and Daisy was completely free to roam anywhere... of course she stayed near mama.  This is giving Angel and Daisy a chance to get to know each other without Angel immediately mauling her new charge.

 And given that Daisy is free and Esperanza is tethered near the pretty patch, she did take the opportunity to snack on some calendula and strawflowers.  Thankfully she has a small mouth and doesn't eat much.  Farmer Boy 2 found it all quite entertaining.

And they are very well trained.  I merely unclip Esperanza's tether and she knows to go right back home.  Superhusbandman built another gate today so we now can keep the animals off that barren side for a stretch.  I have some cowpeas, sweet potatoes, and millet grass to be planting over there.  I'm hopeful for some fertility in there this year. 

Spring Sprang

I always seem to find myself here when I have multiple other things that are more pressing, but alas, I'm here so I'll make it quick.  :-)

 Yesterday I had a positively glorious time playing in the dirt, with at least 1 little helper most of the time.  We ripped out most of the arugula and some older lettuce, kale, collards, and mustard greens.  The goats were happy to take the cast offs from my sweet helpers' hands.  We filled multiple wheelbarrow loads with compost and refreshed the beds.  One particular bed ends up quite shaded in the winter.  I've had it covered with a billboard tarp since November.  I peeled back the tarp to find grey beach sand.  Nothing more.  I've been planting and ammending that bed for 3+ years now, and its still basically beach sand.  Its also no surprise to see roots like these on the mustard greens.   

The little blobs in the roots indicate nematodes, a horrible menace to the Florida gardener... and very little to realistically to about them.

So after ripping out the old plants, adding fresh compost and mixing it in some, we transplanted- something the farmer girl has really come to enjoy.  I love having her little hands working with me.  Farmer Boy 1 enjoys it too, but the temptation to pitch dirt in the air is sometimes too much for him to handle.  FB2 likes to just wander around the garden carrying off any tools someone else is using. 

We transplanted an entire bed of cayenne peppers (hoping to trade the fruit for a drink concotion that is helping several friends and family members), a good number of bell peppers, the last of the big tomatoes and lettuce, Black Valentine pole beans, huckleberries, wonderberries, cucumbers and eggplant. 

What remains in the garden now for today's eating are collard greens and lettuce.  What remains for seed production purposes are a few old lettuce plants, arugula and bok choy.  Aside from what's noted about as recently transplanted, we also have yellow squash, zucchini, bok choy, swiss chard and peas in the still-growing phase.  There are still a good number of things not quite ready to transplant, but more about those next week.

Next we planted seeds:

For the pretty patch: cosmos, marigolds, zinnias, morning glory and sunflowers.

For the eating: Sugarlee watermelon, Chinese Red noodle beans, cherry tomatoes (lollipop, sungold, and chocolate cherry), and basil (genovese, cinnamon, and lettuce leaf).

On the animal front, we sold Rocie and Poncho.  After not being able to sell Willy after weeks of having him posted on Craigs List, I started early this round... they were gone the first evening.  Truth be told, I wasn't quite ready.  When I got the call that the buyers were on their way, I quickly rounded up the kids for a photo shoot.   How many beautiful mornings had the kids been in there playing with them and though I'd stop to admire the abundance of cute, I never grabbed the camera.  These pics aren't too great as the light was fading and the goats were hungry (hence eating farmer girl's hair), but its something. 

Esperanza is still big but not looking particularly "due".  Helen is bagging up more so my guess is she's the next birth.  We'll be spending all day on Saturday on the "Bachelor Pad" despite the huge amount of gardening work to do.  A place to put Copper after Helen kids is essential.  She's had way too many babies too close together.  If we don't get the new section fenced we will simply have to find another home for Copper fast.  She got pregnant 4 weeks post-pardum last time.

Back to work now.  Thanks for the break in cleaning.  :-)

Livestock Life

 Today was the first day of the year where we tethered out the sheep.  Our front lawn looks a mite rough.

Not that looking rough isn't normal for us.

But having seeded the front lawn with rye grass then the chickens eating a majority of that grass, we have bright green patches of tall grass amongst the sea of brown.

Instead of dusting off the mower already, we set out the sheep and they were happy to work.

Valentino is standing tall and proud as the happy daddy of Nina and the lamb(s) making Esperanza so round.




I tried to get an upclose picture of the littlest kids on the 'stead.  They were adamant to climb me instead.  So I had to shoot pics through the fencing of their kennel.  When the bigger kids are outside feeding the little ones, I might be able to snag some better pictures.

The one with the black spots is the doeling, Rocie.  The one with small brown spots is the buckling, Poncho.



Nina taking an afternoon snooze.  Button looks content.



Our working girls.  Dulci (the white one) is giving a gallon of milk a day.  Helen is due in mid March.



Nina and Mona

 Button the ewe went into labor Sunday afternoon.  I noticed her very bagged up and a bit puffy when I fed them about 4:00.  I figured by morning we'd have a lamb.  Less than an hour later Husbandman was out collecting buckets and saw "something hanging out".  Button being as skiddish as she is, he didn't want to get too close.  We whipped out the binoculars and spied on her from a distance.  She was laying down and pushing.  And pushing.  And pushing.  It was a rounded nub sticking out, not gangly legs so I got concerned.  With Bella, there's a lingering fear that in my nervousness, I caused the ultimate death of both Bella and her baby.  Bella was also skiddish.  Both Bella and Button were purchased from a big farm where they got almost no human interaction.  When Bella's baby wasn't coming, and I tried to pull it, it was clear she was much too small for the size lamb inside her... but was she tightened up because of fear and stress?  So, that mulling in my brain, I wouldn't even get close to look.  I snuck around to the side of the house and spied.  I waited.  I wrung my hands.  And next thing I knew she was licking it off.  We continued to give her good distance until after we saw the lamb nurse well.  Then I grabbed it, put iodine on the umbilical cord, determined the gender (a ewe) and let the kids pet her some.  Farmer girl called her grandma and insisted she come see the baby NOW.  Thankfully Grandma lives a quarter mile away and was happy to oblige.  Other friends came to see her too.  She was just officially named "Nina" this morning.  Farmer Girl is our main namer now and I think she did well chosing this one.

So what does this birth mean?  Well, unfortunately for Button, it means her days are numbered.  Button, being so skiddish, is much too hard to manage.  I can't graze her as I do the other sheep because if she gets loose, there's no catching her.  Nina will be our replacement breeding ewe and Button... she'll be sausage before the summer is out.

And now I watch our other ewe thinking she's going to be due soon too.  As of this morning, Dulcinea looks the closest to birth.  Which I'm just as happy about. I'm desperate for real milk again.

 And since I'm at it, here's the bunny Farmer Girl is raising.  A friend gave us this rabbit, complete with its pen about a month ago.  We'll get meat rabbits in the summer, but this is a pet rabbit for the girl to practice on.  Since she'll be the main care-taker of the rabbits, we figured this was a good way for her to grow into her job.  She does a very good job.  She needs some reminding at times, but she's only 4.  She named this bunny Mona and Mona is certainly a sweetie.  She will not be eaten.  She's merely  a cute puff-ball, all fur and no meat.

No More Seminoles

 I will never grow Seminole pumpkins again.  Well, never say never, but not when this is so readily available after Halloween.

 To detail the last couple weeks, I posted on facebook that I was scouting for unwanted pumpkins.  A friend who is a receptionist at a local Methodist church responded that I could clean up whatever was left after they closed their pumpkin patch after Halloween.  A few days later I was called to get some that were about to go bad.  I came home with 10-12 pumpkins and immediately processed them into pumpkin butter (which I canned) and puree (which I froze) and a few were only fit for animals.  I questioned how many pumpkins would be usable to human consumption so when another patch closed 2 days sooner than my friend's patch, I went out and filled the car full.  There were all kinds of people there cashing in on free pumpkins and still, the 1 acre field seemed an endless sea of orange.  I had snagged another 20 pumpkins.  15 of which I brought inside and began to process.

 The Monday following Halloween, my friend said I could come and get whatever I wanted, as many trailer loads as I cared to take.  Whoa.  I showed up and was astounded at the number of left over pumpkins.  I could have loaded the car and trailer 4 or 5 times over.  I began to get a little worried because I told my friend I would take everything that was left, never having ANY clue it would be this many.  I also felt really bad because it was a fund raiser for the youth group and I was concerned that they were in the negative on this deal.  As we were loading up... and I say we because the kids were all helping.  The older 2 were pleased as punch to carry over the small "baby pumpkins" and the littlest was happy to climb the biggest ones and wave at passing cars.  So, as we were loading up, the pastor came out and explained that this is a mission project of the United Methodist churches (hence why all 3 pumpkin patches in the area were connected to Methodist churches).  They have a mission with the Navajo Indians raising pumpkins.  The churches then sell the pumpkins for them, returning 75% of the proceeds to the Indians and keeping 25% for the church.  There's no capital needed.  No one's "loosing" by so many pumpkins going unsold.  Its a great system.  And I walked away with LOTS of free pumpkins! 

As you can see, the animals are happy.  I smash open a few each day.  The bigger ones for the sheep and goats and the small ones for the chickens.  Not much gets left behind.  I'm also making lots of pumpkin butter, puree and soup.  In fact, yesterday we were at the Fall Jamboree at the Pioneer Art Settlement and learned about Timucuan Indians.  They would cook stews a such inside the pumpkin.  So we did that for dinner.  We used a big pumpkin and a couple little ones for the kids.

For future reference, the smaller pumpkins work better for such things.  The soup never heated in the big pumpkin, but did great in the small ones.  Its a fun variation on something... well... that could get quite old this winter!

Pumpkin Curry Soup: pumpkin puree, coconut milk, curry powder, salt.  All to taste.  Its a made up recipe and I'm not sure about amounts.

Pumpkin Bisque: pumpkin puree, chicken broth, onion, cumin, salt, cream.  Again, work it to taste.

Pumpkin Butter: Pumpkin puree (or raw pumpkin in chunks), sugar, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg. Set it cooking in the crock pot until it cooks down and is somewhat thick.  I added some orange juice to acidify it more and further reduce the risk of botulism.  USDA (after hundreds of years of people canning it) has recently decided pumpkin butter should not be canned because its not acidic enough.  Hence the addition of orange juice in my own recipe.

With the frozen puree, have pumpkin soups, breads, muffins, pies etc all you want until next fall.  No pumpkin shortage here!

So what have I done with my lush and blossoming seminole pumpkin plants?  I pulled one and fed it to the sheep and will plant more lettuce and greens in its place.  Pumpkins take up way too much room, are too susceptible to disease and take too long to produce to grow our own when these are going to be available, likely every year.  I could never grow this many pumpkins.  Its nice to know I don't have to.

One Big Happy Family

Everyone's together in the pasture now.  Well, except the chickens.  And they get along very well I might add.  No squabbles other than the you're-smaller-than-me-so-get-your-head-out-of-my-feed-bucket-head-butts between the goats.

Despite the tall grass and my disinclination to mow, Valentino and Esperanza are in the pasture with Button right now.  A couple nights ago we noticed Button doing some interesting acrobatics and being a bit more feisty with the goats than usual.  Tis the season so Valentino got to bunk with her.  And Esperanza HATES being alone.  So unless a little farm girl wanted to spend all day and night petting her, Esperanza was going to have to go where he went.  We're leaving them all in there together for 3 days doing what we can to make sure the "job" is done well.  :->  Please excuse Valentino's appearance.  Hardly acceptable to be courting a lady, but he doesn't like me combing out his wool.  Its all shed, just clumped in there until I brush it out.  I did most of him before I had mercy on his restless soul.

Helen is due to have her kids (presuming there are twins) on the 19th.  She's looking rather robust these days.  Her bag is filling out.  I check her tail tendons everyday for any signs of birth.  Thankfully there have been none as birthing more than a couple days early is really hard on the little ones.  Meanwhile, we are hobbling along with no milk for now.  It will be so nice when she kids as she at one time gave a full gallon a day.

Copper, though a wee little lad in comparison, remains the king of the pasture.  He's fine with his new feathered subjects though.

And here's the turkey's night time abode.  I wrapped it in barb wire to keep the goats from rubbing against it and trashing it.  However, I also have to keep it closed as they love to go inside.  I refuse to barb wire the inside so closed it stays.  I put the turkeys' feed bucket on top of it.  They can fly up and eat but the goats don't bother to try to get into it.  I don't know what I'll do when the birds are too big to fly up there, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

A couple of Blue Slate turkeys.  5 of these remained after the massacre incident and they are really pretty.  One Royal Palm (black and white ones pictured with Copper) is a tom as it has started to strut its stuff.  Three of these guys remain.  I'm hoping we have a tom and 2 hens, perfect for breeding come spring.

 And here's the newly refurbished trailer.  One of our welding friends and Husbandman worked all day one Saturday to get it looking this good.  Its been a year since we've felt like the trailer was up to the challenge of hauling compost so we were in dire need of some.  We lined the expanded metal with a section of a billboard tarp and I shoveled in a load yesterday.  Today I applied almost all of it as I had some cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, mustard greens and kale that all were needing more growing room.  I'll probably get another load next week too. They have plenty and we need it all!

And that's all the updates from this end... Maybe the next post will be announcing a birth!