Global warming???

Im not complaining cause today was b-e-a-utiful.  We were able to let Cheyanne out and she was frisky.  She worried me running through the snow the way she did.  At one point she ran, slid and rolled all at once.  Talk about giving a person a heart attack, I don't know what I would have done if she hadn't jumped right up.  So she was able to hang out in the paddock.  I personally would not let her run in a pasture right now, I could see her falling and hurting herself jsut cause she is young and silly. 

Next we let our buckling out with the girls.  Although he doesn't like to be in the pasture with them.  He is so funny, more like a dog than a goat.  He whined the whole time he was out there and stood by the fence waiting on me.  He is only 5 months old, so I guess that is why.  He is still a baby.

While they were both out of the stalls, I took the time to clean up.  It was great only having to wear gloves and a sweatshirt.  Took me less time to clean out the stalls, so that is nice.

We also got our seed cataloge today.  Picked out all the veggies that we want to order and also seed starter kits.  Hopefully we will be able to make our order here in the next week or so.  I plan on starting them in the extra room in the house.  Maybe even make a little green house or warm box.  Im still researching the options, but I have the space either way.

Tomorrow, we hope to be able to get Cheyanne back out.  We plan on getting the farrier out also to work on her feet.  I know many people work on their horse hoofs themself, but I have no clue and she can tell that.  We also plan to finish up the stall to have better doors as soon as the weather turns more springy. 

I know I am totally getting my hopes up that the snow is gone for the Spring, but I know that isn't the case.  I know it can snow til March and be yucky for quite some time.  But I am hoping that within the next 6 weeks it is done.

Have a great weekend.

Homesteading

Homsteading, is the art of using your home, - farm, small-holding, house or flat - as a resource, to make and save you money.

It is a self sufficient, self reliant, organic, green and sustainable lifestyle that allows you to decide what your future will be.

The basic principles can be applied in any home, anywhere.

The goal is to achieve a measure of freedom from dependence on others, and can be as simple as growing a few organic vegetables and being more frugal, to complete freedom from bills, credit, and a regular 9-5 job.

After living completelly relient on resources of the city for the past few years, we decided when we moved home to become as self sufficient as possible for our family.  Currently for our family, this means Goats for milk and meat plus chickens for eggs and meat.  First thing I have learned, if you get a goat that is already in milk do not stop milking her.  Although my doe had a doeling that was still weaning, I am sure that her milk has dried completely up.  So now we have to wait til she has another baby to get milk from them again.  Although this is fine at this time, milk prices keep going up and at almost $5.00 a gallon that is a bit steep for my budget.  So we try to keep milk purchases to a minimum.  Our does ran with a buckling for a few weeks, but I am pretty sure that he did not mate with any of them.  So we may trade someone for a doe that is in milk or sell our doe to get one that is in milk once spring comes.  I currently have 2 alpine nubian cross does and one is only a year old. 



One of our does checking out the fresh bedding.

The second thing I learned, if you order chickens from the hatchery at a couple dollars a piece, it cost as much as finding full grown chickens in the long run.  So I thought it was a great idea to get 25 chicks in the fall and raise them up.  They cost $2 something a piece, then food to start out was $12 something every two weeks.  Well a couple months in food is $13 a week and still no eggs.  So now they are not paying for themselves still.  So if you take into consideration of $56 in chicken feed a month for 5 months, that averages the cost of each chicken to be about $15.  Well at the small animal swaps you can get a full grown chicken for $10.  I know there are pros and cons to this as well.  You may not know what conditions the chicken lived in before or there temporment.  For meat chickens the hatchery works fine cause you have them at the most 12 weeks, then they go to freezer camp.  But for layers which is the most sufficiant way to get your chickens?  Our chickens should start laying finally mid march by that time I will have put roughly $300 into my chickens.  I am also down to 22 chickens vice the original order of 25 due to predators and lack of knowing what I was doing.  So 22 chickens, if half those chickens lay one egg a day it would take some time to recoop my expenses plus further cost of feed.   I would have to get a minimum of 4 dozen eggs a month to justify having the chickens.  That is without selling the eggs and just using them for our family.  If I choose to sell the eggs at $2.00 a dozen, then 4 dozen eggs would cover feed cost.  I am hoping that the egg production of these 22 chickens is more than 4 dozen a month, which is what we would want just for us.  Any extra would be sold.  We also have to take into account loss of eggs due to dropping, stepping on and pecking from the chickens. 

So all in all, coming into this whole homesteading thing, I jumped right in both feet and might have made some minor mistakes but we hope to have it figured out come spring so we are just a bit self-sufficiant.

My goal for next fall is to have canned veggies from our garden, milk, cheese and eggs.  I currently am working on bread recipes also.  We will also have some meat in the freezer and the ability to only stock the pantry of dry goods such as flour, sugar, salt, and spices.  The rest of the items we will attempt on our own. 

Disliking snow again...

View from my front door at the begining of a blizzard

So we left Kansas in 2008.  There were many reasons why we left.  The biggest was forclosure on our home, we could have struggled again to pull it out, as we had done 12 months before.  Yes, we had already spent $20,000 the year before and pulled it out.  The second reason we left was due to 14 days without power due to an ice storm.  Finally I have a disorder that causes me to ache and just over all feel like crap in the cold.  Regardless my mom had a vacant home that she was willing to let us move in to.  So we packed up and moved.

Now this past July we moved back home to Kansas.  July was a good time to move.  It let me get settled in before the cold reminded me why I hate snow and such.  Yes snow is pretty but the cold drives me batty.  I don't want to be complaining.  We have a wonderful home and great farm animals.  I truelly enjoy all of it now and seriously would not trade it for anything now.  Even complaining after sitting home all last week because of snow drifts and snow days.  The kids went to back to school for two days and another snow day today.  

I am thankful for my dad coming over to clear of the driveway for us.  We are being smart and parking the car at the edge of the drive so that we can pull out. 

I just pray that we survive the snowfall.

This is my chicken yard...they can't make it out of the coop

Motivation

In the past week, I was cooped up in the house with three children who became wildly stir crazy about 12 hours into the first snow day.  Now, I am glad that they made it to those first 12 hours.   Because one more day of their stir craziness might have made for mama to be a bit peeved. 

Anyway, all these wonderful ideas of baking bread, cookies, and hanging out playing board games were in my head.  I even got all the supplies knowing the snow was coming.  I would be lying if I told you we did all those wonderful things.  Nope I kicked back on the couch with the kids and spent the weekend watching movies and playing video games.  We did make snow ice cream.  

I read on facebook many families going out and playing in the 3 to 5 ft snow drifts and sledding.  But since we moved from Florida, I have no sled, nor the proper winter attire for my kids to spend more than 5 minutes outside in the snow, before I start fearing that they would be sick.  Now mind you, I know as a fact that as a kid, I stuck some socks on my feet and my regular winter coat and some clothes on and out I went.  But for some reason having my own kids has made me a weiny and parinoid that one of them will get sick...Again.

So if any of you out there see my kids and ask them if they played in the snow, dont be surprised when they give you the sad puppy dog face.  Oh bet I have evidence that they  finally did play in the snow on Sunday when it was actually 32 degrees and they were able to make a snowman...little one but still a snow man.  They also helped shovel snow off their grandma's porch.

Kids shoveling snow at their Grans house.  Just across the yard from us.

As far as the motivation part of this story, I was very unmotivated to bake bread and make cookies.  I have noticed my lack of motivation in other areas in my life to.  Fortunatelly today, I have started the first step towards kicking the lack of motivation out.  I am eating a bowl of oatmeal to motivate my diet.  I am getting ready to go to the new salon to set up my room.  I am up out of bed to feed the animals at a reasonable time.  I got my taxes done yesterday. I am truelly seeing the motivation.  I will keep you posted on the motivation to work out or find a gym to work out at. 

The animals faired well in the blizzard 2011.  I was worried about our working dog as she wouldn't go into the shelter, so she started to get a bit of frost bite on her elbow area.  I pulled her into the garage and bunked her down with the buckling.  That has seemed to help it heal quickly.  We got her for free and she wasn't in the best shape, cause she just ran with the animals.  We vacinated her when we did the goats and then wormed her also.  She has had an ear issue we have been treating, so I hope we can fix that up cause otherwise she won't be much of a livestock guardian.

We will be trying to break ground on the new fencing at the end of the month.  Need to fence in 2 acres of the property by mid April per the city council.  We are doing the whole property.  So I know it will be a bit pricey, cause its going to be goat fence.  We were going to try horse fence or do part of it goat fence and part of it just regular 3 lined poly wire.  I think I am going to try to resell a roll of the poly wire cause we wont be using it and I have 6000 ft of the stuff on one roll.

The Does in their little huts.