New Kids!

One of our goats kidded yesterday afternoon. We've been watching her for quite some time thinking it could be any time. My husband and I bundled up the kids and we all went out to do the afternoon chores as we usually do, and as I carried the bottle of milk for our bottle calf to him, I noticed all the goats came out of the barn except for the red-headed heavily-pregnant doe. Hmm!

As "Mini" the calf finished his bottle, Matt came to tell me that there were wet twins in the barn! So we all went to look, and sure enough, there was a cream colored kid and a black kid both wobbly on their feet, and the doe was still lying down, these were fresh! My daughter was just fascinated watching the momma and the fresh babies, she just quietly stood still and peered in. We left to give her a chance to clean them off herself after we penned out the rest of the goats so they'd leave her alone.

Hubby and the kids went to do the rest of the chores while I made supper, then we ate, put the kids in bed, then headed back out to check on our (goat) kids. The doe had cleaned them both off well, and they were both up and nosing around for their food source - it's amazing the instincts God has given animals - how do they know?! It was getting colder, but it was warm and still in the barn, but Matt went ahead and bedded them down with more straw, and we headed back to the house. It was getting late, and Matt had to be up early so he could be at his off-farm job at 5am.

We have one other doe who should be kidding soon. I may try to post pictures when she kids of the baby kids. Baby goats are about 5-9 pounds when they're born, about the same weight as a human baby! But much hairier! :-)

Hello friends, it's been awhile!

long time, no post....you know, summertime, we live on a farm - gets kind of busy! excuses, excuses, but here we go

Yesterday's sunrise was oddly beautiful. It doesn't break light these days until nearly 8am, and the sky went straight to bright blue between the spotted clouds - it looked almost like a giraffe's spots, only in feathery white and blue. The sky to the south was dark and promised rain, and it looked COLD.

It seemed a good idea to wake my nearly 3 year old daughter so she could have breakfast and we could do chores in time before it might rain. She and my nearly 1 year old son go along and we feed our goats, our livestock guardian dogs, my horse, and our little bottle calves. Our boy rides in the stroller, and our daughter's big enough now that she walks alongside and gets to help feed the goats and pour the feed to the dog.

My father-in-law was outside also, he starts his chores in the dark because he's not afraid of a little cold (my excuse is it's difficult to keep the kids warm, so we wait until the sun shines a bit!) and he told me it had been drizzling rain south of us, but it wasn't going to come as far north as us. Too bad...we could really use the rain! Our county and several counties around us are experiencing EXTREME drought.

This has been an unusual farming year, the lilacs bloomed in April this year instead of the first week of May like usual. And the pattern continued, it was warmer than usual almost every month - July like temperatures in June, July, and August, September was as hot as August, October more like September. With the heat and lack of rainfall, the crops were ready to run in September, and we were finished by the first week of October. This was a first for our farm to my knowledge - which meant we got a lot of warm fall days this year to catch up on other work.

If we would have just gotten significantly more rainfall, crop yields would have been great. Drought and high yields just don't go together, though. But it could have been much worse, while our yields were down significantly in corn, they were about the same in soybeans, and the prices are looking great, which really helps!

Already this year's calves have been weaned, the corn and beans are in the bin, we've moved that goats around, the silo is filled, a new field has been cleared for hay and planted, wheat has been planted.....surely I'm missing some things. I'll try to post more frequently to catch things as they happen, and maybe I'll post some short re-caps over the winter.

Blizzard-like Conditions. . .

. . .but the animals still need to be fed!

Wow! It is so cold, windy, and snowing hard outside!

My father-in-law is the one who feeds the cattle in the mornings - scoops silage into the wagons with a shovel, drives it down to the cow herd, feeds the calves in the barns hauling buckets of feed and big sacks of silage and bales of hay, beds them with straw, fastens the hose to the hydrant to water them. Then when the first cow herd is finished eating silage, takes the wagons to fill them again for the second cow herd. Then he'll walk down the hill to check to make sure the cows have access to water - but if it's frozen he'll have to chop a hole in the ice. This takes on a good-weather day almost 3 hours.

Does any of that sound like fun in those weather conditions I described?? Not only that, but with at least 4 inches of snow already on the ground, and patchy ice hidden underneath!

Thank you, Danny, for your committment to feeding not only the cattle on our farm, but in turn when the time comes, feeding the people who will ultimately eat the beef. Thank you to all farmers - your dedication to doing the right thing regardless of your own personal comfort is admirable, and rare.

Great Article!

Please take the time to go read this article - it really sums up a lot of what goes through my mind when it comes to the commonly held viewpoint of "modern" agriculture....only much more articulately than I could phrase it!

http://www.american.com/archive/2009/july/the-omnivore2019s-delusion-against-the-agri-intellectuals/?searchterm=blake%20hurst

Beginning to Welcome Warmer Days

How's this for a cute chore helper?? It's my daughter, who is 14 months old. It was in the high 30's/low 40s this morning when I did chores, so she got to come along!

The wagon really helps with this.

Since I was carrying the bucket IN the wagon, the feed bucket tipped over and out spilled some dog food and some corn kernels. Cora was very helpful in putting the corn back in the little bucket for me :-)

You can see a couple of the Great Pyrenees livestock guardian dogs in the background, and two of our goats at the feeder Matt and I built. Our buck is at the left, and to his right is one of our does. The feeder works great for the goats who love to put their feet on things anyway, and it keeps them from soiling in their feeder.

Cora loves being outside and looking at the animals, so helping with chores is a good thing for her :-)

Snow and Ice and Chores

This week we have been given several inches of snow, followed by sleet and ice, followed by EVEN MORE SNOW!

This makes for nasty cold weather that is very hard to walk in.

If anyone ever wonders whether the farmers who raise livestock truly love their animals and want what's best for them, the proof is when even nasty weather like this never stops us from going out and checking on them, feeding them, and making sure they have thawed water to drink.

This is NOT an easy chore - walking along, your feet drag through the snow, punch through the layer of ice, then on down a few more inches into even deeper snow! Especially hauling feed buckets and hay and water buckets.

The critters keep warm, God has blessed them with several layers of warm hair insulating the snow and ice to keep them comfortable. We give them a little extra hay to help generate the body heat, and the Lord takes care of the rest.

Single Digit Temperatures!

It was less than 5 degrees at chore time this morning, so needless to say I hurried!

The goats and horses were shivering quite a bit, but Brody the LGD was fine! He had a few drops of ice on his fur where he'd drooled, but the cold didn't phase him!

I fed a little extra hay, and had to de-ice one bucket. It is nice having an automatic waterer that is made not to freeze!