Fiber Farm

I'm still quite convinced that the best way to work with animals around here would be to do a fiber farm. Sheep, rabbits and Alpacas.
I found this website, and am madly in love, especially because not only is she able to make her farm work on this concept. But she also offers online courses to share her vast range of knowledge. So excited to sign up for the next one.
Herbal Maid Fiber Farm

and thought this was an interesting site too...although I haven't explored it enough to know if I'd be accepted into any of these courses they seemed to be based out of Texas from what I saw. But still worth a look when I have a moment later to pour over the details more carefully
substainable farming course
I believe most of them are free.

Everyone is just so darn funny

So yesterday, I made a flurry of phone calls with one specific question.

"Can you wash a baby chick?"

Everyone laughed at me.

Yeah guys like I have nothing better to do, I just got bored and decided it might be fun to give the chicks a bath?

No.

Actually we have really crappy waterers. The kind that slosh everywhere when you set them down. And leak all over the bottom of the chick pen if they are not completely level. or if they bumped or pretty much for no reason at all.

Anyways they created a little puddle in one corner of the pen.
The chicks then pooped in the puddle.
They then proceeded to play in the poop puddle.
and now?

Now I have 26 very VERY dirty little chicks.

I changed all the hay in the bottom of the pool pen. I washed everything out.
But I still have very dirty little chicks.

and I'm torn.
I have 2 trains of thought on this.

One. washing a chick and getting it wet seems like a really good way to get the chicks sick

but

Two. Any animal should never be covered in its own feces. That in itself could cause it to get sick.

So I made a ton of phone calls asking for advice on washing the chicks. EVERYONE LAUGHED at me. The suggestion is, if I feel like I should clean them probably just do it with a slightly damp paper towel. Don't wash them,
Right guys
Like I was going to stick them in the dish washer or something?!?!

The Chickens little

We finally have chickens (well we have chicks at least)

The arrived yesterday. Nathan is in LOVE with them, and constantly wants to hold one.

I, on the other hand have been totally stressed. Rigging up coat hangers to drop the heat lamp another 6 inches. Putting cardboard over the window entrance/exit to stop the wind. And now were having crappy windy rainy weather and I'm realizing there are a million drafts in that old coop. I'm thinking I have to go out this afternoon and try to cardboard and duct tape??? a bunch of the cracks and spaces around the door frames or I think these little peeps are going to freeze to death.

2009

Create a free picture collage

2009 -was a pretty busy year around here. Not quite as busy as we'd hoped but there were still quite a few additions.

You can click the play button to go to smilebox and see all the photos better

Top left - the new John Deere lawn tractor (our sets of parents got together and that was our wedding gift)

next- Nathan riding a pony for the first time at the Capital Ex- I was so impressed with how solid he was in the saddle and I'm so tempted to buy him a pony of his own.

Top right- One of the few wild strawberries that I was able to get a picture of before Nathan found it and immediately ate everyone he found.

Bottom Left - We finally bought an old pick up truck in August- makes everything easier to haul. This is a picture of Nathan and I collecting some small pieces for firewood and kindling.

Bottom Middle- Our New Guard Dog Jasper. He's teaching old Maggie to actually bark at the coyotes to keep them away.

In the centre -one of our many hikes into the field.

and our biggest (smallest) addition of the Year- Baby Greg was born Christmas day.

A Slow sad week

So... there hasn't been a lot of post for over a week.

The weather has been crappy- think I'm kidding? We seriously had snow flurries at least twice in the last week...ummm HELLO??? I thought it was May.
So for the last week between the wind and the snow and the greyness we've been inside a lot!

and then...

I don't even know how to write about this, for the last 3 days I've been debating if I should even post it because I don't even want to talk about it.

But our little puppy Mack,
the one that we'd had for exactly a week on Sunday, got the bright idea to go visit the buffalo that live across the highway. He didn't make it back across the highway.

I've been in tears quite a bit about it for the last few days. I know I said I needed to harden up about life and death in a farm setting...but I just can't seem to harden up about dogs. And to be honest right now I'm mad!!!
Within the week that we had him there was a sorts of behavior changes already happening. He was quickly learning not to jump, even on Nathan. He was obviously watching Maggie and realized you could chase after Nathan and then cut him off and herd him in one direction to show him that you caught him instead of just pushing him down.
He was sitting better.
He was coming to his name.
He was really starting to shape up and look like he might be an excellent dog for around here! And then in an instant he was gone.
I was so mad, We'd taken him for a walk through the big back field only a day or two before, and when we'd walked home along the highway he hit the dirt (literally) every time a car went by. He was scared of the noise. I'd said to Chris at the time too "good, don't comfort him, the more scared he is of the highway the less likely he is to go near it"

Fur baby for Mommy's day

This is my new Baby...Mack, he's 3 months old. Energetic but sweet tempered.


He has beautiful coloring, and he and Nathan are becoming fast buddies

We've been looking for a good Acreage puppy for awhile, I knew I wanted something with size and this morning right in time for a Mother's day pick up I found this ad

"3 Month Old Bull Mastiff-Cross Puppy To Give...
Hello, my puppy's name is Mack, he's 3 months old, he's a great lovable dog, brindle in color, I also have another 4 year old dog that does not seem to take to him. I am sometimes away for long periods for work and am afraid that the puppy may get injured. Please give him a good loving home and he will be yours for free. Must come pick up, ..."

We went and got him within the hour. I mean with a face like that you knew he had to come home with us.

It turns out he's Old Bull Mastiff crossed with Bloodhound- so when I said I wanted a big dog, I found one. According to wikipedia blood hounds males can be 80 to 110 lb, although some individuals can weigh as much as 160lbs
and bull mastiff 110 to 130 pounds .
So Mack is going to be a BIG MACk.

Miss Maggie was so excited, when Dad came around the corner carrying Mack...she could hardly wait for him to get put down so they could "meet"

They've been doing pretty well together, although I think Maggie forgot about puppy energy.

...and I think Mack is a little nervous, because he was getting beaten on by the other dog we was living with. But they are finding there groove, there in the kennel together in the mudroom tonight, so that ought to bond them pretty quickly too.

And of course Nathan is thrilled to have another dog,
Although, Mack is a puppy. And we've notice he seems to have some bad habits like JUMPING on people. Considering he'll probably be over 100 pounds, that's going to be my first puppy battle. As well a making sure he comes when he's called. The last thing I need is to be chasing a dog that won't come back to me over 30 acres!

But overall is was an awesome Mother's day- getting to add this new member to our family. And then getting to spend time out in the SUN with everyone, made for a fantastic day!!!!

Diggin' it

Remember in a previous post I comment on Chris new obsession? Well, He started side project of cutting out all the letter of Nathan's name from the firewood scraps. H e finished the last few letters tonight
Nathan playing in the garden with his new letter blocks...he's funny with them, they're actually quite heavy so he moves them one by one around the yard.
He needed them in the garden tonight, because that's where the action was! I finally got all the plants I bought at the farmers market in (before they withered and died on the deck)And then tackled the "other" plants that were already there, but most look a little worse for wear at the moment

Can you see the dried pods in this picture? I have no idea what it is???

But when I started cleaning up all the stalks and dried up pods this green was popping through underneath. I guess I'll just leave it and see what comes up if no one can identify it?

By all the dried up stuff I took off I'm guessing it was pretty big last year.

And we're pretty sure we have raspberry bushes again (YAY) they we're pretty dried up with a lot of dead leaves on top, so we cut them back about 6 or 8 inches (luckily they are showing no signs of blooming yet so I think we're safe in cutting them right now)- again Chris and his sawzall helped with the cutting!!!

And then there was this poor sucker- again I have no idea what kind of plant it is or was? but it looked so dried out and dead I told Chris to cut it down almost to the roots and see if anything happens in the next month or so...otherwise it'll just come out...I have a feeling this one may be a lost cause.

It's funny moving into new houses and always having to play guessing game with the vegetation.

My "WEED??? OR NOT A WEED??" game as I call it.

It always seems to go on the first summer while I try and decide if I should pull things out of the ground, or wait and see what develops...someone needs to write a book for new homeowners with illustrations of what weeds look like, and what "real plants" look like when the first break through the soil.

gardening

our little buddy

This was our little buddy

Poor little guy...He was still taking some milk at this point

Sad day around here

We were very excited around here last night. We got our first actual farm animal.

but the story gets very sad from there.

I responded to an ad for a bottle feed billy goat on kijiji. My thoughts on this were, if an animal is bottle fed, it views you as it's mother and would be much easier to handle.

Now I'm not going to deny that honestly- all the signs were there...if we'd been paying attention and not in such a rush to "get our first farm animal". If I'd thought through all the reading I've done about even other animals I would have caught theses signs and never taken this little goat home.
-he had cloudy eyes (which is never a good sign in any animal)
- he was the only goat in the barn that wasn't wearing an ear tag (Chris noticed this, I didn't look close enough at the other babies to notice)
- he was having watery poops in the car even on the ride home- and excessively here when he got out and all night
- his owner wasn't keen on writing a bill of sale or even giving us his parents names, saying that the pid numbers only applied to sheep so far (umm no)
- there was 2 other kids butting us, and chewing on our pants the entire time we stood in the barn, who I assumed were at least a week older than "or little guy", but apparently the owner referred to them as his sibling as one point (thus he was the runt of the litter and way more lethargic and not as alert as these two -hmmm...another indication there was probably something seriously wrong?but like I said I didn't hear the comment and assumed he must be much younger than the other 2)

Anyways It was a very hard day on us, First our little buddy didn't take very much milk this morning and I was really worried about him getting enough. As I said he was pooping a yellow runny fluid, and was covered in it this morning. So I ended up giving him a wet and soapy rub down this morning with a towel, hoping to get some of it off...but he seemed to have less energy than even the night before and didn't protest to much.
Slowly throughout the day his energy decreased and decreased to the point he laid down on the barn floor and couldn't get up under his own strength.
We force fed him a bottle trying to get anything into him, trying desperately to get his strength back.
In the end we, and our little buddy lost the battle.
I cried.
I threw the stupid goat bottle across the yard I was so mad.
I felt guilty (still do) that maybe I had not taken good enough care of him...but after hours of discussion with Chris about all the "signs" I really truly think we have "greenhorn suckers" stamped on our foreheads. and pretty much got taken by a farmer who came across as really "nice" and helpful, and just didn't want to have an extra chore of bottle feeding. When in fact, I really think he knew that this little goat was never going to make it, and if he could get some sucker cash out of someone for it, better than nothing.
maybe we did some things wrong- I by no means claim to be experienced, but I honestly don't know what more we could have done...and I think, thinking back, he was already showing a lot of signs of being sickly. I think we may have been fighting a losing battle before we even knew we were in a fight.

Regardless of how or why. It was sad. It was a baby animal, and it was hard on both of us to watch.
I'm sad that it happened, but I also think it will make us a little better, and cautious in buying any other livestock from now on. The excitement of getting a cute animal is overwhelming...you just want to take it home, but in this case the heartbreak just isn't worth it. I still don't know that we will be able to pick out all signs of a sick animal, but I think we'll be much more aware and looking for anything that doesn't seem right. So even though it was a very sad and heart wrenching experience, and it was horrible that it happened with our first animal. In some ways, I think it may have been a lesson better learned right away...not that it's okay to lose the animal, but I think we may have quit and moved back to the city if we had lost an entire flock of sheep and lost them all or something.
And I guess if your going to live on a farm you have to get used to life and death...still not easy, but not everything is going to make it. no matter how much you'd like every story to have a happy ending

tommorow

we got home very late tonight, with another new addition. It took quite awhile to get everyone settled ...so I'll post some pics of our new arrival tomorrow.