A family farm

Saturday, April 30, 2011

2 days off makes a 4-day weekend!

I just thought I'd write and let you all know what a person likes me does with a four-day weekend! Thursday, I made my daughter breakfast and packed her lunch and brought her to school. Chris was out turkey hunting. I had breakfast and read my Bible. It was so nice to have plenty of time to do just that. Then I spent some time reading "the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo". It was nice to just relax. Of course I did chores. That is something that has to be done every day. Chris wanted to go to lunch, but before we went to lunch, we purchased 10 bales of straw (off craigslist). Lunch was great! New Beginnings always has a reasonably priced meal, whether it be breakfast or lunch. Then, we brought the straw home and stacked it in the barn. After that was done, it was off to Countryside Greenhouse where we purchased an Elberta Peach tree and a Bing Cherry tree. I really wanted a Montmorency Cherry, which would give me a sour cherry, but we'll work on getting that at a later date. We had to pick Kellie up from school and then we stopped at the hospital to see Chris' mom who had some surgery.

Friday started pretty similar to Thursday with making Kellie's lunch and breakfast and doing chores. When Chris returned from hunting, we decided it was a good time to clean out the goat pen. I swear we hauled out 50 loads of pooh-infested matted straw! It all went out to the back garden. I'm hoping to be able to amend the soil. Eventually the entire garden will be back there and we'll fence it in. With all this crap laid out on it, the soil should improve this summer. The regular garden will be built up and turned into more of the chicken coop. This should all work rather well. Today, I made waffles and bacon for breakfast. It was so good! Later we worked on getting the bird feeders and the birdhouses up and ready to be inhabited by bluebirds and others. We had a Double JJ adventure to go to with Girl Scouts. That was fun, but I'm tired and sore, now. Tomorrow should be a lot of work and a lot of fun. We have church to look forward to, and I have to paint during service. It should be quite a different experience.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Kellie Runs!

Kellie runs cross country!

Goats and Chickens, Oh my!

Saturday we (the whole family) went to the Ravenna auction. They have one every Saturday. It's a big junk, plant, rabbit and chicken sale. We had to pick up some fertilized eggs because Alex's mom bought an incubator and is going to have Alex's little sisters turn the eggs and watch the chicks hatch. First, we bought 4 more Barred Rock hens at $3.50/each. Then, after a very, very long wait, we picked up 2 dozen mixed eggs and learned that most of the eggs were Ameraucana, a couple of them were brown and 2 of them were Marans (dark dark brown). The cost was a grand total of $1.20. We also bid on 9 turkey eggs and got them for $4.10! If all hatch and survive their young months, we could make some good money selling the turkeys and male chickens. If we get a male and female turkey, we are going to keep a pair. We did get some bad news, however. It seems that the incubator was a little defective and may have over-cooked the eggs. We'll know in a couple of weeks.

That afternoon, we let the chickens out, and then we brought the goats to the backyard. It was pretty fantastic!
Group eating

Mama Lily and Bruce

Clare

Bruce and younger cousin Evan

Red in the mud

Besties Brian and Ginger

Freddie!

Red still in the mud

Clare

Barnyard in the Backyard!

Monday, April 18, 2011

Snow ...

Yes, it has been snowing. First there was snow Saturday evening, but it didn't accumulate. Today, there are 2 inches of the dreaded (it is April 18) white stuff outside of the building here at work. It is just depressing!!! On a brighter note, it was kind of nice yesterday. I got 4 solar lights put into the posts at the gates of our backyard fence. It looks cool! Definitely better than a tiki torch that could torch the entire thing! I purchased a weeping willow tree and we planted that yesterday as well. Harley went through a little bit more farm-dog-in-training. Kayleigh is an old pro at being a farm dog. She sticks right to your side when outside the fence. I'd like to be able to let Harley out as well and not worry about her getting into too much mischief.

Friday, April 15, 2011

Pictures from the Weekend

We finally got the goats out in the backyard this past weekend. There was just enough green grass for them to munch on. What is in their pen has to start from scratch, so it is not very long. One thing I've learned about goats is that they like the longer stuff and will munch it until it is just as long or shorter than the mowed stuff. We let Harley run her heart out in the field as well. Oh, last night I bought a weeping willow tree we're going to put in the front yard. Every good farm should have a weeping willow tree!



Thursday, April 14, 2011

This week

All the plants I've started in my little 4-tier greenhouse in my house have sprouted up. I had to re-do some brussel sprouts, and I'm not convinced that they will actually make it out to the back garden, but it's worth a try. We've had a couple of visitors to our property. The other day I had a Canada goose following me around while I did chores. He spent about 2 hours on our property. The next morning (Sunday) the neighbor's rooster paid us a visit. He was over later in the week as well (last Thursday), and again earlier this week. I think he thinks our chickens are breeders, but we don't want chickies. Oh, well. The daffodils planted in the median and along business 31 in Muskegon have bloomed. Mine have nice big buds, but they aren't there yet. All the trees are getting ready to burst forth, but haven't quite made it to the jumping off point yet.

Freddie is back at our farm. We'll find out in a couple of months if he was successful with his being pimped out. I told the other farm owners they could borrow him again in September if none of their nannys got pregnant yet. We'll see. Freddie thought he could take over his herd again, but he wasn't counting on William, our new Nubian wether. William holds his ground.

Tami died. We let her go to the farm that we got William from, and she had seizures and died that day. They will get Clare. I've got to put an ad up for Evan and Bruce in a couple of weeks.