Always a Project to Keep Me Busy

This weekend was Charlie's Birthday. We packed up two cakes, and he picked up pizza, and we enjoyed the Arizona game with his Mom, Dad, Grandma and Uncle. Wyatt and Bunky were so funny about the scores up and down, of course we were rooting for our home team, my alma mater, but it was not to be. So we enjoyed sunshine cake and the family time and a good game anyway!

I got working on the garden Saturday afternoon. I have been wrapped up in pen building, seedlings, sprouting, baby chickens and baby goats and haven't gotten much done. Not to mention work and home schooling, right?  So I wet down a corner of the garden by the asparagus which just won't give up, got to pulling weeds (yes, it was the easier corner) and got the new blueberry and grape plants in.

The asparagus is just left of center. It always fights through a little on its own, but once I get things on track again it will come back I believe. Notice the hose? Cannot get the sprinklers o turn on, but we will work on that and until then I can get it done with a hose.

That is the little ten by four or so patch I got weeded. About one twelfth of the garden. Baby steps, right?

I really have my work cut out for me, though on Sunday, Charlie went in and burned a lot of the tall weeds so I can get to raking, pulling, and tilling faster.

The garden as a whole. Yup, lots to do. But it will get there!

The gander is being so very protective of his goose, who is sitting on seven eggs. They are an adorable couple. When he gets bored, he goes in and chases Shadow for fun, though, at this moment I had just changed out the feed and water in their regular enclosure, so he walked all the way back to where she decided to nest by the swing set, hollering for her all the way, and made her come back to eat.

I rather believe she just got up then to get him to pipe down and be quiet, though she does love the water when it is freshly changed each afternoon.

Shadow Paws is absolutely in love with the baby goats. She wants to be the babysitter, but we then babysit all of them, as this is her first time with baby goats. This little one had a hard time getting the suction going on mama, so we were syringe feeding for the first four days, trying a bottle but not getting anywhere. The other one only took a day, and this one had to go with us on Sunday so we could keep food in it. After a bath Sunday night, he took a bottle for me! Not much of it, mind you, but when his brother went out, and mama took him, and then this guy went out, his mama was climbing the pen gate to get to him, and he LATCHED ON! Thanks goodness!

He did get to visit the Sunday School classes at church, along with seven baby chicks, as they kick off the Easter units, and was a huge hit!  He did beautifully, and eventually we decided he on his name. But he evening, Bailey had both of their names.

So, introducing Patriot's Dream Freedom's Prayer on the left, and Patriot's Dream Let Your Light Shine on the right .

I also baked a large batch of egg shells. Did you know you can bake them at 350 degrees to kill any bacteria, then grind them up to add calcium to the hens' diet? Well, here is one batch!

Well, here we go, off to start another wild week as we get ready for county fair and the heat to set in. Hope things are beautiful where you are, and you are feeling all of the wonder of Spring!

Welcome to the Family

Truth be told, this is another of my late posts.  These beautiful boys entered the farm family on Wednesday.  We were so thrilled that they came along in the daylight, in such an easy delivery, I thought there was sleep in my future! That was not to be, since the boys had trouble  latching on to mama Silver. An experienced dam who has raised some champion kids, Silver didn't know what to make of the issue. Bailey and I were scratching our heads and pulling out the tricks, and she was calling on the breeders who have so generously become mentors to us in this process.

This adorable little black one came out with hilariously turned back ears. We will be taping those to correct it. As cute as it is, it does change the shape of the head a bit, counts as a fault, and more importantly leaves the ears more open for foreign stuff to get in. By the second day, this little one was doing great with his mama, and we were feeling a full little baby goat belly and not needing to supplement him.

The larger lighter one, though, is still having trouble. Mama Silver is very anti milking, she wants to save all the milk for her boys, so Bailey and I have been teaming up and having to wrestle her for what milk we can, and supplementing more with formula when we have to.

She tells him to go back and drink, but he is still struggling with the sucking though he does swallow fine. He has also tried to get milk from her waddles, reminiscent of Nathan from a few years back.

Miss Versie, Bailey's showmanship goat, has been feeling  left out. She has been making friends with Shadow at the fence, laying at the gate to the kidding pen, socializing with Bailey's bantam Cochins through their fence, and trying to sneak in and kiss the new babies! Here she is taking advantage of the camera for attention and a photo op!

Neither of the babies are named at this point.  We keep coming back to something involving light for this little guy. This morning (Saturday, they both weighed in at 5.3 pounds.

This was thier first photo, as Silver was still working on cleaning them up.

While the breeders all remind us that some bottle babies are inevitable, I hope that little man settles in to the nursing thing, as I really believe it is a smoother life, even if the kids are home schooled and available to work with them much of the time. Plus life is crazy and I must admit that  miss sleeping and know the first round of baby geese here should keep us on our toes as well.

Anyhow, that's what we are up to. As I finish this, there are two Light Brahma babies trying hard to break out in the incubator, and little ones growing rapidly in the brooders. Life is always an adventure, and we lean from each new experience. Well, you all have a great night!

Love to all,

Erin

Could There Be Baby Goslings on the Way?

To be honest, I thought she wouldn't sit on them quite so quickly. Also, I was paying more attention to the pregnant goat, and thought I had another day to decide what to do with the poultry man, Wyatt.   Getting eggs from the geese was an outside hope, not something I was counting on, as they came here largely in a capacity as protectors and watchdogs to help Shadow with the owl and hawk problem. And they have been doing that job well, so I didn't feel as though they weren't earning their keep. 

Wyatt had wanted to eat one of the eggs. I thought that would be a good experiment, especially since we found the nest so quickly after she began laying them. (Hard to do sometimes with completely free-range animals.)  But then, as I was walking back from checking on the pregnant doe, debating with Bailey and starting hte hose to begin the watering, I saw the bright white which was the breast of the goose.

She'd begun sitting on them. They still take a little walk each day. Sometimes he guards her in her nest, or he guards her as they walk the farm, heading back to their feeder and play water, or taking a swim in Shadow Paws' pool.  Here they are trying to help me catch up on pruning the little lemon tree.

And here he is, telling Shadow that she isn't allowed in that area of the yard, as he has claimed it for his lady!

So now, with seven eggs under the goose, we wait to see whether they are going to bring us baby goslings. I can be happy either way, and if there are some babies, we will make some available for sale once they are old enough. (If there is something you are interested in, it never hurts to be on the waiting list for a call.)

Well, on to the next adventure! Have you had geese? What was your experience with them? And with hatching them?

What a Day!

We feel so blessed to have had two beautiful baby goats born here at Patriot's Dream today. The mama dam, a light carmel pygmy and father sire, a light grey agouti pygmy buck, blessed our farm with one light carmel buck and one dark agouti/ black buck.

As beautiful as they are, we can see how their mama loves them, but cannot seem to get them to nurse.  Mama is fighting to feed them herself and not be milked, so we were only to get a few ccs of colostrum for each of the babies thus far. Bailey is out trying again with a syringe at this late hour, trying to get something in them but keep them with their mama.

Those sweet, beautiful faces are so worth all of the exhausting effort. We know how blessed we are to have the opportunity to care for them, even with the ups and downs and exhaustion that comes with it.

Maaaaa! They sure do have a lot to say! They are full of life and cuddles.  We have not begun to think of names for them yet, if you all have ideas, please feel welcome to share!

Baby kisses are oh, so sweet!  You can see the love on mama Silver's face.

We have also had a couple Buckeye eggs go into the incubator this week, along with the little bantam Cochins that excelled at fair last year. The brooder space is overrun, and a few of the larger ones are waging escapes, telling us they are ready to move tot he next brooder on the back porch.

The mama goose is busy sitting on her eggs, answering the question as to whether we will be trying to hatch them. Her gander has taken to his role of protector fervently. They selected an are away from their usual space, under planter boxes by the swingset, so we will have to see what will happen so we appropriately move the protective enclosure in for her.

Surrounded by cuteness, we are working our way up to the county fair next month, and still enjoying the adorable babies form the photo contest.  Please take a moment to vote for your favorites!

The link to vote for the baby animal photo contest:

Baby Animal Photo Contest Voting...

If you have a photo or note about what's going on at your farm that you would like to share, please feel welcome to send them along to the blog and facebook page in a message to me. We would love to share them, and our readers love (like I do) to live vicariously. Hey, don't we all?

New Doe Barn Project- part 2

After church today, we were a little late heading out as the Bailey was creating plans to bring chicks and blown eggs in for a unit in the Sunday school class she helps with. By the time she and her friend were done, they were planning to sneak chicks home with the youth minister's daughter! While I think chickens are a decision the parents have to be willing to give thumbs up to, I got a good laugh out of it, but we were a bit late headed home, and missed the Tumamoc walk for today.

A friend of Charlie's from work has been working hard to prepare a coop and came by today for chickens.  They decided to start out with slightly older birds, two new layers and one three month old. I know they will be well loved. We gave them some food to mix in, and are so excited to see more folks with coops in town. 

We got a bit of a late start working on the doe barn project, but did get two posts in, and the side panels attached to those two.

They are bolted in with ten inch carriage bolts.  We are using bricks underneath, since we want the wood up above the termite level.

This is the back corner. It took a little work, but the first two panels are level, and we will keep adding on this week.

This end will still need some work after the upright goes in later this week.  We wired on a gate as a panel for now, since hte does really need some room to get around with a very grumpy, likely pregnant Silver.

We ended up swinging the panels back out, Bailey was removing brackets and reattaching them as the larger pen while I was doing a few waters in my pens.

This larger panel is temporarily there as more security.  There will be more rearranging each day this week as we go!

This is the door Wyatt designed and built from recycled materials for the other special pen project. That one is still ongoing, hoping to get more done with it tomorrow afternoon when we take a break from school work for a bit!

Well, we plan to show the progress as it goes, and are looking forward to being done and having a beautiful new space for the does! Have a great project for your animals? Would you like to share? Send it on over!

An Eggciting Friday!

Yup, I know, bad pun. Bet we were so excited yesterday. The kids and I unloaded feed and got to our chores, checked on the pregnant goat, and I began rotating back and forth between livestock and watering. That's when I found them...

Proof our geese lay eggs!

Some geese lay only for a short time in the Spring, and that is it for the year. Last year, the geese came to live with us in late Spring, and we had never seen them lay. It always takes time for a female to settle in to new surroundings and may not lay for a while. I really didn't care if the geese ever did lay eggs, as they came as protectors, and we have not had a single hawk or owl attack since they arrived. There is some fairly consistent pranking between the geese, Shadow and a couple other animals, but that is pretty normal around here.

So imagine my surprise, when I was watering the planters and looked down to find this little nest of great big eggs!. The four eggs are right where the kids had been chasing baby chicks just the other day, so we know they are all new in the last few days.  

So far, the geese are trying hard to pretend that the nest is not there, but are defending the nest heartily, telling me when and where to water, and taking over Shadow's play pool in that end of the yard.  The eggs are HEAVY and large. I had a photo on the phone with a chicken egg in it, I will have to share that separately, since I am really slow on the smart phone!

 The gander, front right, is tremendously protective. And the bigger prankster of the two, but very much the gentleman looking out for his goose. They think they own the entire property, and I find myself having interesting conversations with them!

The mild tempered goose has quite the skills, I really wonder if she has hatched goslings before. They were adults when I brought them here.

I wish I could upload the cute photo Bailey got of Huey. He just turned 11, and has us all worried, as he is aging and not getting around like he used to. Powerstroke (below) makes sure he gets up to eat, and he likes to go out for an evening walk each afternoon. Yesterday, we all watched him go for a walk without a leash, and he made a beeline for the feed shed and tried to knock over feed barrels looking for treats. (Plenty of hay in the feeder in the pen as usual.) 

Powerstroke stood in the door of the pen to watch his buddy, and Huey enjoyed running around being silly, demanding treats and having fun as a buck on the loose. He ate sunflower seeds, and then went back to his pen to have fun.

Well, on to the next fun!  Time to get a little work done on the pen projects. Have a great day!

Poultry Available

The chickens around here are used to being spoiled, or in the words of chief poultry man, Wyatt, "well-cared-for".  We often have chickens available, from day-old to adult, in a variety of breeds. We do our best to keep this page up to date, but if you are inquiring about certain ages, breeds or birds, please feel welcome to email or call us.

This is Trooper, a blue ribbon partridge Silkie hen. She is still a wonderful mama hen, who keeps things in line around the Silkie area. When a couple young roosters moved in recently, they thought they would tell everyone who is in charge.  Trooper used the back of her head and backed the two young roosters up to the edge of the coop, then gave them quite a talking to. Their behavior changed radically, and there has been peace in the coop since, with the hens settling back in and eventually returning to sharing nests and setting on eggs as a team.

This is a group of younger chickens in the grow out pen. The Buckeye in the foreground is a blue ribbon, best of breed rooster now, and we only have one young Buckeye available at present.  The light Brahma behind him is among the blue ribbon hens (one of whom has recorded best of breed) that is the mama hen to the current grouping of young Light Brahmas. We have these available from day-old up to adults. These have been champion heritage meat birds, as well as breed winners in their own right.

Some of the Brahmas we hatched last year. We no longer breed the Buff Brahmas, but do have a few left from last year's hatch. They have such a wonderful disposition!

This Buff Brahma was determined to hatch little ones from her favorite rooster! Funny thing about the Brahma roosters, the ladies prefer them so much, they stand and talk to them at the fence, with their own roosters getting rather frustrated!

More of last year's Light Brahmas in the grow out area.  We have one trio of these available right now, who are about 2.5 to 3 months of age. The standard bred heritage day old chicks are $5 up until the age of one month, then $8, then after two months $10, and up from there to cover the cost of the soy-free, corn-free organic feed we use. We have calculated that by the time they reach four months of age, they cost us on average $15, with $20 by 5 months and $25-$30 by point of lay.

These are the babies in the brooder as of the middle of March. Two more little light Brahmas were hatched last night, and are not in the photos below. The little barnyard mixes we also have are a mix of Ameraucana, Phoenix, Brahma and Buckeye. They should be fun! As these are not purebred, they are available for $2 each as young chicks.

The little ones in the brooder get along so well, and even young roosters care for the younger ones as they come along.

Still the young chicks can also be found cuddling up to stuffed animals for a nap when the others are playing.

Present Availability:

day old chicks:

2 Light Brahmas

one week and up:

4 Light Brahmas

2 Partridge Silkies

7 Barnyard Mixes

2.5 months and up:

3 Light Brahmas

1 Buckeye

1 Partridge Silkie

Point of Lay (7 months to 8 months):

not available until after county fair at the end of April

2 Light Brahmas

6 Partridge Cochins

While there are still several eggs in the incubator, after these hatch, we will not set any more until after County Fair, and those will be very limited. Discounts are available to 4-H youth.  Custom hatches are available, with a deposit to set the eggs.

Please feel free to call, email and message with any questions you have!

The New Doe Barn Project- part 1

Many of you are already aware that the doe barn has been a challenge for us for quite some time. We have made many repairs to keep it going, but then in the last storm, it was reduced to a pile of rubble.

Bailey and I looked at several options, and talked a good while with her Daddy. We decided to use some skids Charlie had brought home fro the base (they were going to throw them away), along with uprights and roofing, to construct a shelter that would keep out the elements but not get too hot during the Summer. Bailey got busy drawing plans, and with me on Spring Break from teaching college this week, Charlie agreed to spend time setting it up with us.  We might not have it all set up right away, but since we believe Silver to be bred, we cannot rely on the shelter of the kidding pen for much longer!

Charlie works really late, and we got started tearing the old barn down and gave him a chance to sleep a bit. We had framed out the inside of the shed before to keep it working as a barn, so we had to take it apart as best we could.

Here she is pulling old screws and moving the railroad ties from the edge so we could move fence panels.

The does are protesting their temporary smaller digs by squeezing all of them into the little brown house in the kidding pen and giving dirty looks...

The presently have about half of what they usually do, but plenty of food, water and she. They will be glad to have their toys back when we finish though!

Charlie used the quad to drag the skids in, then the boys helped stack the metal for reuse and the railroad ties for later evaluation.

It looks rather empty there! Although you likely have to look hard to see it, the farm Quality Assurance team (aka the Geese) came through for a first walk through, as they do with every project around here.

After the skids were drug in, we worked as a team to put them in place on bricks, and  braced them in place since we had been unable to pick up the uprights first. The uprights will be attached Thursday, and then we will add the roof supports and the third wall of their structure.

Though accidentally, it looks like the does will gain some living and playing pace from the makeover, which I imagine they will love once their other toys go back in!

We are still reforming this panel, which was twisted int he mess when the storm hit the barn. Bailey constructed this section of the temporary pen so the does have as much access as possible to the smaller play area.

This is their temporary pen, about 20x40 for the three does.  We cannot wait to see this project come together!