Another Weekend...

Another weekend sets with the sun...

Last week began in the low eighties temperature wise, but topped a hundred by Friday. That is a lot of adjustment, and with no coolers as of yet, we haven't been nearly as productive as we would have liked to have been. Nevertheless, we have enjoyed a little fun and a little progress...

On Friday night, Bailey and I attended and volunteered at home school graduation.  It was really beautiful, and very individualized. I love that the youth shared their interested and future plans, and that they shared scriptures and the parents wrote each child a blessing. 

While we were off enjoying that, the boys loaded a new shed on the trailer and brought it home. I think it will be greatly useful, once we figure out how to get it off the trailer!

Despite not getting home until half past midnight Saturday morning, I awoke to run errands around 7. Not the 5:30 I was hoping for, but got my plants watered and animals fed and headed in to market on the move. Armed with four boxes, I went to go meet with some folks.about a free futon frame.  It was strong and sturdy, but will need a good painting - sounds like a perfect job for Wyatt. We bought the primer after church on Sunday, so once he gets that done he will decide whether to camo paint it or go single color so that it works with the camo bedding he really wants on it!

Wyatt will graduate from Sunday School up into the youth group in a couple weeks, but has decided that he really likes hanging out with the younger youth too, so he has volunteered to be a helper in the class while Bailey is teaching. Since they hadn't found a regular teacher to work with Bailey in the four and five year old classroom, this gave me time to join her, so we are now official. Bailey is really excited about doing the lesson planning and teaching with them!

After church, we picked up Wyatt's paint and a few other things, then went by the grand opening of the new tractor supply. Wyatt found a chicken feeder he thinks we should try in the big pen, and Bailey saw these pop top inspired table and chairs she wanted a photo of for future project inspiration.  Many of us were wondering what this would mean fr local feed stores, and aside from being open on Sunday, I don't think too much. THat have some neat things you don't already see around here, and I am told you can get a great price on hog panels for projects, but aside from that, they don't presently carry organic, and I don't see itt really competing with much of what I find locally. (Yay, local!)

I had been wanting to try some of that orange organic/ green cleaner folks keep talking about, so I looked up the recipe and threw some in a caning jar. Now, to wait two weeks and run an experiment on what it does and doesn't work on! Anyone have any advice for me on this one?

I moved the stack of fodder trays to a new spot, on top of the chest freezer, and brought back the older boxes. The open sided trays are allowing them to dry out too much. I have been researching and talking with Bailey about putting together a drop irrigated full system, this is our last set of comparison trials before that.  Everything we have in there right now is wheat for sprouting.

This two boxes of tomatoes we knew would have a lot of ones for the chickens. I also knew that with no cooler and the sudden heat, the good ones wouldn't keep long, so I took what I needed for a few night's dinners, turned the other good ones into tomato sauce, and sent the rest to the chickens!  Happy chickens, and a happy canning moment.

Shine and his brother Freedom's Prayer continue to grow and show their little personalities. We didn't get their weights done, so we will have to do feed and weight and an update on Monday.  Little Shine loves his playtime out in the pen, and his time racing Shadow through the yard.

Shine also especially loves playing with his patient old crazy aunt Treasure. Treasure and his mama, Silver, share a dam, while Treasure and Glory share a sire. 

We had really hoped to get more done on the doe barn, but hte heat made us a little nervous about doing quite that much exacting stuff over our heads when we continue to feel like we cannot possibly drink enough water. But we have more evening time at home Monday night, and hope to get the second roof truss up.

 We did, however, get the roof support we had been talking about in to the new project pen. I also got the door turned around, since I had it opening into an area where the roof hadn't been planned to be so high. After that, I might be able to get in an hour on it in bursts today, and the kids can start priming and painting their design for the front!

The cooler evening times go quickly. Still, we will post grades at the college this week, so I am looking forward to a little more time at home with the kids to get caught up on the school work and get through these big projects. I also need to get to several more!

Anoth good part about working outside in the evenings is the beautiful sunsets here.

I think the animals enjoy them just as much as we do, with Powerstroke smiling away and the animals coming into their energy as the earth cools and the sky turns its colors.

Well, now it is time to get moving into another wild week! All the best to all of you!

New Baby Silkies Hatching

We brought in new roosters to the breeding program this Spring. I kept thinking that I would get to show how well they did at the open show at the fair in April, maybe I will get to that tomorrow =).Anyhow, they turned out to be great, and they moved in with the hens to begin helping the ladies with their eggs a couple of months ago,

This week, the first two of them hatched!  The little one on the left in the photo had trouble, and Bailey had to help it a bit. Whenever that happens, we don't typically have great luck. Nevertheless, the little one was holding its own when the other one hatched the second day, so we let it move to the brooder and give it a shot. In the end, it just wasn't strong enough, but it;s blue friend is managing alongside the other chicks in the brooder.

This little one looks as though it will be blue in color. It is cute and friendly, and playing happily with the other chicks, though it of course spends more time near the heat source than any of the others.

I love how curious chickens are and the consider you, and your role. I love how as babies, they haven't yet decided that my role is largely to bring treats and hide eggs from!

While farming has greatly underscored the old adage about not counting chickens before they are hatched, I hope those little Silkie eggs due to hatch soon do well so that this adorable little one has a friend "her" own age!

Adorable Baby Quail- in the Lavender!

When we returned home from county fair,  I found that a very dedicated quail had chosen to make her nest and hatch her babies in the Lavender plant on the back porch. 

Unfortunately, this is the last of the Lavender plants, and we use the buds and flowers in our soaps and lotion bars. I didn't really know how to move the Nest without something going wrong and we still have a good amount of Lavender left from last season,  so I decided to try to just keep the plant alive around her and her nest. 

A couple of times along the way, I accidentally doused them with water, so we weren't even sure any of the eggs were even viable. 

I began watering just the base beneath the plant repeatedly during the course of each day, just trying to give the plant and the little fledgling family both a fighting chance. 

Today, as I began my watering, I heard noise from the plant. I knew that there were Silkie chicks hatching just inside the house, but I looked anyway.

Look at the sweet little faces! And the eggs are just so tiny! 

The mama had not been back this afternoon, so I am a bit worried, but since she persevered through the watering, I have a feeling when I get home and peek she will have them all tucked away up underneath her for the night! 

One of the great parts of spring, though now I have to keep them from eating the container garden! Also, does anyone else think they look like tiny Ameracaunas?

Saturday Night- Baby Buckling Update!

Saturday has become the day to try to look at the baby bucklings side by side, weight them and look at growth and health. So after we worked on the new doe barn project this evening, Bailey brought in Freedom's Prayer and of course Let Your Light Shine and we enjoyed a good bit of baby love.

The boys had been playing hard together while we were working. Coming in led to some sweet cuddling with Freedom's Prayer. Both boys love to nuzzle up under our chins, and sometimes they show their silly attitudes for the camera.

Freedom's Prayer definitely had the head and the thick muscling of a pygmy buck.He also has the attitude, though I think that despite the house goat/ bottle baby mentality, Let Your Light Shine does as well.

It is impossible not to enjoy them as little ones.

Well, of course there was time on the scale. Freedom's Prayer is growing by leaps and bounds, rather like he chooses to do everything as a pygmy goat kid! He weighed in this evening at 17.10 pounds!

That look seems to say, "Oh, yeah, I've got it!"

Then he was ready to jump out of the bucket on the scale and let his brother have a turn.

Let Your Light Shine is still a  good bit behind Freedom's Prayer, though he made significant gains this week himself! He now weighs an even 15 pounds.

Shadow Paws likes to hang out and clean up any drips when he is drinking bottles. Besides, the little guy is her only four legged house mate fter she lost her older brother a couple weeks ago.

I think Shadow Paws wanted attention of her own by the time all was said and done, because she took to goofy antics with a ball in the floor. Sometimes Shine will roll the ball to play fetch with her, but she was laying upside down chewing on it and making goofy faces!

That was a pretty big jump for both boys this week. At just over six weeks, we will see what happens next!

Spending the week trying to get our feet back under us!

We are finishing a crazy time in our lives. I have been immensely thankful for having chosen to home school this year. We will spent a good bit of the hot, desert summer finishing up the studies, but we're able to be there with our family when we really needed to.  What a blessing. 

Sunday, we kicked off the week with a fruit tart the boys were craving before heading of to church. . Bailey is settling in to her new assignment teaching the 4 and 5 year old class,  and I got to help while Wyatt enjoyed helping lead games in the last hour of Sunday school next door. 

Monday was a big return to studies, and also the last official 4h meeting of the year. Little Let Your Light Shine wasn't thrilled with sharing his Bailey with her school work, so he embarked on a mission to eat her assignment list.

This was in the back seat on the way to town to go to the meeting. When we walked in to the meeting,  the club president automatically saw Shine, called out, and brought the attention to the club leader . Since Shine was a distraction, he and I were sent outside. 

The youth updated one another, and then voted on officers for the next year. Bailey was elected Vice President, but was the only one who had signed up to run for Treasurer, so she slid over to the Treasurer slot to give her friend the job he wanted for his last year.

After the meeting, we all went down to the park for a potluck.  The kids had so much fun that some of us didn't leave the park until well after 9!

Finally, I rounded them up, with big kids carrying little ones on and over their shoulders, since I needed to open the gym in the morning. 

After my morning shift,  I stopped by to donate my ponytail. I thought we agreed on 11 inches for the donation and enough left for a decent ponytail to stay back from my face while I am teaching, but instead the ponytail was cut off at about 14 inches. 

This is how it came out. It was a bit of a shock for me, but it will be pretty cool for hiking this summer. I have to admit, though, that when the other moms waited for me after girls group, I felt like part of the family. It reminded me of when Charlie had let Bailey take Wyatt ' s ultrasound to school years back (strange, I know, I wasn't going to tell anyone yet) and I got to the daycare after work to find all of the moms waiting for me. I really feel blessed to be finding a true church home. 

Shine is really settling in to living with his people and his four legged friend, Shadow.  He would like to watch the baby chickens in the brooder, but  isn't tall enough to peek. So at this point, he was perched up on a couple of my boxes just below the brooder.

Sometimes he hangs out on the trampoline next to this, but Shadow loves it too, and this was closer to the noisy little ones!

We tried hard so far this week to settle back in to homeschooling, and when the wind wasn't too bad, getting our work done outside. Shadow seems to really be loving that, she curled up next to Wyatt to look at the white board list while he was working on Spanish.

While they were working on this, I tried to figure out what to do with all the ribbons from fair. This pile took more than the bed, and didn't include any from the livestock. The blue rosettes were what they used for purple ribbons for photography this year. I think I will let the kids decide if they want any photos up in their room, and put it all in photo albums by year. 

There is just so much, and they really did learn from the process this year, as well as from the feedback on the judging notes. They have one final photo competition this weekend, but they seem to really enjoy telling a story with their work and having time to dedicate to it.

Shine and Shadow have taken to sharing bowls, but last night he was guarding his bucket of hay pellets. His actual bowl is next to Shadow's, and for as much as Shine is appreciating the company, Shadow is too. We have lost several very special family members this year, including Shadow's brother Vegas, and she likes having a buddy around.

Shine has taken to sleeping on the bed with Bailey, like Shadow does with Wyatt. Here, Shine was practicing Shadow's skill at keeping the kids company during Spanish studies. In the morning when I go to wake them all up, Shadow and Shine lay there awake and wait for me to call them.

The spring hatch continues, as little partridge Cochins joined us, along with light Brahmas and more.

There are three little new ones in the brooder this evening who hatched last night and this morning, with more talking and pipping away in the incubator now. There are also blue Cochin bantams, which came from the same stock as those bailey took to fair this year. They all earned blue except for one, which had a comb injury from earlier on when he had stuck his head through the fence. Wyatt is eagerly awaiting his next batch of Silkies, after selling his favorite hen in the auction and bringing in new roosters to improve his stock. Some are sue almost any day now.

This was the first Polish to hatch from the ones we brought home this Spring. Cannot wait to see how it comes out!

Well, we did get a little going to try to finish the new pen, and Charlie brought home the wood we asked for for the doe barn project.  We will see what we get done tomorrow! What's going on at your house?

An Update on the Pygmy Bucklings

Saturday night was the first time we had had a chance to weigh the young bucklings since before county fair. We had tried a couple of times since we had been home, but with all f the craziness, getting them to hold still for the scale to settle was apparently not in the cards.

We had difficulty getting Let Your Light Shine to take bottles, so we ended up using syringes and bribery to get him to eat at first. It turned out his medicine for the infection in the cut he got sneaking through a fence to play with his daddy. We knew he would be a bit behind his brother in growth after that, despite being taller all along.

So Freedom's Prayer went first. He growth has been consistent and balanced. He even earned himself his first title as the top prospect buckling this year at fair. We were so exciting, as he even placed above a breeder's goat. Of course he is too young to see much, but it was pretty thrilling that our herd was competitive that way.

Freedom's Prayer weighted in at 15.20 pounds. This means growth has been slowing from the first month, but he is still growing well. I am hoping to look back at these to compare to other babies when they arrive.

He doesn't seem to like having is photo taken on the scale, though!

Let Your Light Shine was next. Once we got him to  stand still, he weighed in at 13.25 pounds.

Baby Shine is now markedly smaller than Freedom's Prayer, but is guzzling 4 large bottles most days. On Wednesday, they will be six weeks old, and we look forward to seeing how the stats match up this coming weekend.

New Doe Barn Project- part 3

Back before county fair, we made another little step forward in the new doe barn project. Treasure madesure to check out the quality of the work, even though we have quite a bit left to do!

We added the shorter skid panel which will be the wall of the barn inside of the pen, enclosing the area for the roof. We have the roof trusses, but need to pick up one more upright before they go on. Until then, the camouflage netting will give the does shade. 

I think Wyatt's favorite part of all the helping with the goats is playing with the level and the cool power tools that normally sit in the workshop.

The girls- especially Treasure- love to be the quality control inspectors.

In the end, Glory, Treasure and Verse check every corner, and have me thinking they need their own levels. This project has a lot of work left ahead on it, but the goal in the next week is the additional upright, the cross braces and the roof trusses. 

The update post may not make it up right away, but we need to make forward progress on a number of these before the Summer arrives here, and especially to work out any bugs before the monsoons arrive, but hte last two weeks have brought crazy winds and we will have to take advantage of any quiet moments to get back on track.

I will share more when I can!