Awww Spring Finally

So now I am back from vacation and did a bit of work this past week.  I was finally able to get to the farm today and get more things done.

So far, we planted three trees and a blueberry bush.  The trees are peach, apple and dwarf cherry.  I hope they do well.  We have a big storm coming through but I put them in two days ago, so I hope they stay rooted.  I didn't put any tree stakes in, so keeping my fingers crossed for that one. The blueberry bush is in the front of the house in the "flowerbed" area.  I will not be putting in a flower bed anytime soon.  I actually plan on getting some more berry bushes planted in that space, but for this year we are starting with one.  Hopefully it does well also.

Yesterday I was able to pick up some bedding for the stalls and the chicken coop.  I had planned to clean the coop out today but we were working on the stall.  We got the door finally cut out and put back in.  I love it.  I also love that Ryan is so very handy.  I don't know what we would do if he wasnt.  I am way to impatient and use way to many nails, screws, boards what ever to accomplish the same thing.  So he makes it functional and very nice looking.  I tell him that he should sell some of his projects but he said that is not why he does it.

I now have three pregnant does.  Yeah, very proud of my little nubian/boer cross buck.  I was worried that he would not breed until the fall and I would have to wait til next spring for my milk.  I still have one doe in milk, she has a 12 month old doeling, who thinks she still needs to nurse.  Fine by me but I really need to get back to milking to bring her milk back in full force til a month before she has her babies.  My mission for this week, is to get her on the milk stand daily, even if it is just to feed and check her out.

Finally, my chickens are now 5 months old plus the 1 month old chicks.  I should be getting some eggs soon I think, it has been about 20 weeks and they all seem to be doing quite well.  They free range during the day and then get layer pellets at night once they are back in their coop.  I am needing to get some gravel or something brought in due to mud issues we have going on.  Apparently the water table is very high here, so you dig a hole and its already wet.  Not sure how to figure out the drainage but I will soon.  But for now my goats, horse and chickens play in the mud....the kids too.

That is all for now. 

It is hard work

No one ever promised you a rose garden.  Some famous guy quoted that about the Marine Corps.  Anyway, its been tough this week working and trying to keep up on the farm chores.  Fortunatelly Ryan handles most of the stuff during the day.  We have one goat in milk that we are milking once a day.  I am trying to figure out how to keep that in the schedule.  Ryan doesn't know how to milk yet.  He will be getting a lesson tonight around 8pm, when I get home. 

I am leaving for a womens retreat tomorrow for the next 9 days.  Whew, it was tough for me to give up and go.  Yes, I did say give up.  I have to give up alot of control over things to go on this trip.  I have to give up a week of work.  I have to give up milking and spending time with the kids, to recharge myself.  It is odd in the past 8 yrs I have only went somewhere by myself once for about 9 days.  But that was to go see my mom, so I was still with family.  It will be tough to let go for 9 days and only focus on me.  I have to set a standard of how much texting and calling I will do when on this trip.  I am always connected.  It is hard not to be connected. 

So I will leave with this picture of our little barnyard this morning. 
I will be back posting after the 28th. 

Kansas Patriot Guard

I am not sure if I have ever written about this on here.  I spent 8 1/2 years in the Marine Corps.  My husband spent 10 years in the Marines.  My little sister, just started her 4 years of service this past summer.  My grandfather was a Veitnam Naval Veteran and I am not sure how far it goes back, but military service is in our blood. 

This morning, I road with my Step mom and aunt, little brother and sister to a funeral for a fallen Naval brother in arms.  The Kansas Patriot Guard was creating a flag line to protect the family from protesters of the funeral.  I will not post the name of the organization that was protesting as I do not want to give them the "honor" of advertisement of their group.  Regardless, I was given a flag on a large staff and asked to stand tall and proud along side 200 plus other people.  The respect for our fallen comrad was so wonderful, I was brought to tears on a few occassions.  I saw veterans, babies, families and fellow military members, line around the funeral home. 

I pray that our presence, even at this sad time in their lives,  brought some peace to the grieving family.

Time Change, Snow, and goats feet

I worked most of Saturday, so my weekends are Sunday and Monday now.  Of course there was the time change and then the weather decided it wanted to hang out with winter some more.  So I awoke at 5am, but it was really 6am.  So I got up and started on mount laundry.  After starting the laundry, I ran out and did morning chores.  While doing morning chores I noticed a few things, one being that for some reason the chicken coop door was loose and no longer staying completelly closed.  So I knew we needed to get the door fixed with a latch. 

So I came in and had breakfast. 

After breakfast, I went out and fixed the door latch. Got the baby chicks set up in the big coop with some chicken wire to keep the big chickens out of their area.  Next, I worked on the  milk stand for the goats.  The head gate was not holding the goats properlly. So I went to Fias Co Farm website and adjusted my milkstand just a bit.  The headgate now matches theirs.  Although I still need to tweek it with the feed bucket.  Not sure but for some reason mine sits way to low and it makes milking difficult.  I am thinking of attaching it to the barn wall and just setting up that way.  Not sure.  Always a learning experience here on the homestead.

After I finished the stand, I started trying to figure out what is going on with JarJar one of my milking does, who I thought had dried up.  The other day I noticed her 1 yr old doeling was still trying to nurse. All the more reason to bottle raise your babies.  She also had some redness in her utter when she climbed up on the fence. I put her up on the stand to see what was all going on.  She had some flaking on the udder and was engorged.  I milked her out and cleaned the udder really well.  I have done research on mastist, but she does have a fever or hot udder.  So we will be continue to monitor. I looked at her hooves also.  I trimmed the hooves of two of the goats.

Then starts the rain. I went inside and created dinner.  Woke up to snow this morning...um where is Spring.