Homesteading, homeschooling, animal loving, adoption loving, country living family
The dogs were screaming for their swimming pool last night, so after a couple rounds of ball Randy got out their pool, cleaned it, and filled it up with nice, cool water.
Our blue heeler, Ash, loves her pool. She was in it before a drop of water hit it.
Everyone was happy!
Well, the blizzard hit and it hit hard this past weekend. We are still lambing, so we were out every three hours to check on the girls and make sure everyone was okay. They got shut up in our barn and stayed there for 2 days. Feeders were hauled in to feed and 5-gallon buckets of water were lugged in for drinking. Not to mention bottle duty. Everyone did well even at Mom and Dad’s.
On the right side you can see the chicken coop where the back door of the is buried under snow.
The chickens were trapped in their coop for six whole days. Talk about some major chicken feed consumption and low egg production. Our second batch of Rhode Islands started laying. Yea! So we have some fun little eggs to add to our collection.
Not hanging clothes on the line today.
You can kind of see Hank peaking out of the building. On the right side you can just barely see the top of our shute which is about 4 feet tall. Luckily we have roly poly rams or they could have cruised across the snow and right into the pen with the girls.
The girls prefer their hay at room temperature, but a little bit of cabin fever and they will eat it any way it is served.
Two-thirds of our triplets.
One of our sweet and cuddling lambs. We renamed her polar bear.
She likes to give kisses.
A really fun project Randy and I took on Friday was peeling wallpaper off our spare bedroom walls. The first layer of wallpaper was this dark, blackish color. Don’t forget the paneling. The paneling is still up until we decide if we are going to paint it (which is what we are leaning towards since we don’t want to have to take down all the trim) or remove it and skim coat the walls.
Underneath the blackish wall paper was this fabulous seventies wallpaper. One wall had the black, then a green, then this wallpaper. So fun!
My brother is coming over this weekend and while Randy is working on his fishing boat, Craig and I will be contemplating where to go from here. He will hopefully skim coat the walls this weekend so I can pick out some paint (while it is on sale) and go to town painting.
This is how the dogs spent their days during the blizzard. They loved the snow once it stopped falling. They could have easily cleared the fence and escaped if they wanted to. Standing on the snow drifts they could stretch their little necks and look over the fence. Good thing they didn’t dare.
I believe we are up to 44 lambs on our farm. Everyone is happy and healthy despite the weather and the fact their lots have standing water all over. The lambs curl up in the feeders which are black, warm, and dry. I’ve tried to take pictures, but anytime you go near those feeders our ewes think FOOD, start bawling, and the babies scatter.
Hay is getting slim and our pasture needs burned and new fencing. However, between the wind, rain, and snow we are having trouble getting it burned so we can rebuild the fence and get the grass growing. Hopefully we get a nice calm day so we can drop some matches and let it burn.
Randy was off yesterday and cleaned house and did laundry. My MRH order came in, so with a clean house all I have to do on my Friday off is play. I hope to make lotion, shampoo, and hopefully a cuticle drop. I have to keep my nails short incase a lamb need pulled, so with that comes split fingers. Very painful.
Here is my Mountain Rose Herb order. I just can’t get enough of that place. I love it!
Hope you all have a wonderful week. I will be snuggling up with a couple of books from the library:
and
101 Most Powerful Promises in the Bible by Steve Rabey, Lois Rabey, and Marcia Ford
Well, the blizzard hit and it hit hard this past weekend. We are still lambing, so we were out every three hours to check on the girls and make sure everyone was okay. They got shut up in our barn and stayed there for 2 days. Feeders were hauled in to feed and 5-gallon buckets of water were lugged in for drinking. Not to mention bottle duty. Everyone did well even at Mom and Dad’s. On the right side you can see the chicken coop where the back door of the is buried under snow.
The chickens were trapped in their coop for six whole days. Talk about some major chicken feed consumption and low egg production. Our second batch of Rhode Islands started laying. Yea! So we have some fun little eggs to add to our collection.
Not hanging clothes on the line today.
You can kind of see Hank peaking out of the building. On the right side you can just barely see the top of our shute which is about 4 feet tall. Luckily we have roly poly rams or they could have cruised across the snow and right into the pen with the girls.
The girls prefer their hay at room temperature, but a little bit of cabin fever and they will eat it any way it is served.
Two-thirds of our triplets.
One of our sweet and cuddling lambs. We renamed her polar bear.
She likes to give kisses. A really fun project Randy and I took on Friday was peeling wallpaper off our spare bedroom walls. The first layer of wallpaper was this dark, blackish color. Don’t forget the paneling. The paneling is still up until we decide if we are going to paint it (which is what we are leaning towards since we don’t want to have to take down all the trim) or remove it and skim coat the walls.
Underneath the blackish wall paper was this fabulous seventies wallpaper. One wall had the black, then a green, then this wallpaper. So fun!
My brother is coming over this weekend and while Randy is working on his fishing boat, Craig and I will be contemplating where to go from here. He will hopefully skim coat the walls this weekend so I can pick out some paint (while it is on sale) and go to town painting.
This is how the dogs spent their days during the blizzard. They loved the snow once it stopped falling. They could have easily cleared the fence and escaped if they wanted to. Standing on the snow drifts they could stretch their little necks and look over the fence. Good thing they didn’t dare. I believe we are up to 44 lambs on our farm. Everyone is happy and healthy despite the weather and the fact their lots have standing water all over. The lambs curl up in the feeders which are black, warm, and dry. I’ve tried to take pictures, but anytime you go near those feeders our ewes think FOOD, start bawling, and the babies scatter. Hay is getting slim and our pasture needs burned and new fencing. However, between the wind, rain, and snow we are having trouble getting it burned so we can rebuild the fence and get the grass growing. Hopefully we get a nice calm day so we can drop some matches and let it burn. Randy was off yesterday and cleaned house and did laundry. My MRH order came in, so with a clean house all I have to do on my Friday off is play. I hope to make lotion, shampoo, and hopefully a cuticle drop. I have to keep my nails short incase a lamb need pulled, so with that comes split fingers. Very painful. Here is my Mountain Rose Herb order. I just can’t get enough of that place. I love it! Hope you all have a wonderful week. I will be snuggling up with a couple of books from the library: and 101 Most Powerful Promises in the Bible by Steve Rabey, Lois Rabey, and Marcia Ford |
According to the weather forecast (that changes oh-so-frequently), we are going to have rain tonight turning to snow by early morning and throughout the day Friday and Saturday. Yuck! We laid new straw in the buildings for the mamas and babies and are hoping and praying the weatherman is wrong.
I found a piano on craigslist.com for free as long as we load it and haul it off. It doesn’t have a bench, but is an upright and looks okay in the picture. It is first come, first serve and due to the weather it will be Sunday before we can pick it up. We will see if it was meant to be or not.
My mom always wanted to learn how to play the piano and never did. I always wished I knew how to play the piano and have tried to teach myself off and on.
If someday we have children in our home I plan to try my very best to afford them lessons and help them learn how to play the piano if not other instruments as well.
I received yet another box of plants from Gurney’s last night. Randy was so good to help me get 2 cranberry bushes, 2 dwarf blueberry bushes, and a cherry bush in the ground last night. I also have two coffee plants that need to be potted inside. I’m short on pots, but do have some I have been meaning to paint and decorate. We’ll see if the two tiny plants setting on my counter are incentive enough to get them done.
We still have 37 baby lambs as of this moment in time. Last night we discovered one of our mamas with a bad half (udder) and twins had gotten a split in the back of her udder. Once we got her penned up and started to clean up the cut and milk her out I realized her bag was enormously full. Not sure how this happened with two big healthy lambs nursing her, but it did. She is now off food and water for at least 24 hours to try to get her milk production down and her udder healed. We will supplement the lambs if needed and dry her off completely if she does not heal soon.
We also lost a hen this week. Randy found her dead in the coop. Not sure what the cause of death was, but we suspect it could have been from ingesting the Styrofoam insulation on the ceiling of their coop. It’s tricky for them to get to, but we have noticed areas where it has been pecked. Hopefully she will be our only casualty. The insulation is so nice to hold heat in in the winter and keep heat out in the summer. We may end up having to cover the Styrofoam with wood, but our to-do list is so incredibly long right now the thought of adding to it is less than favorable.
I am looking forward to a 4-day weekend. I am always off on Fridays and also have Monday off for a dentist appointment. So, I will be getting our neglected house back in check. It is all we can do to keep up with regular chores, lambing issues, and feed ourselves. Housekeeping is kept to a bare minimum during lambing season. We are just above “safe” and “livable” in our home right now. Hopefully after this weekend we will be in the “clean” and “comfortable” zone.
Have a great weekend!
We have 37 baby lambs on our farm as of this morning. The girls have done so well. We worry about them since we are gone during the day, but we have a wonderful friend who stops in throughout the day to check on them and my dad goes down there throughout the day to look in on them as well. We have 17 boys and 20 girls added to our flock since March 13th.
They are really blowing through the alfalfa. We are anxious for spring to get here, so they can head to pasture. The first calm weekend we plan to burn our pasture, start tearing down the old fence on the east side, and replace it with sheep/goat fencing. The fencing is on order and should be here in a week. We would like to burn this weekend, but there is a chance of rain, snow, and strong winds, so it’s not looking too promising.
We have a handful on bottles and buckets of milk for one reason or another and a couple we are helping supplement. Other than that everyone is happy and healthy. Hank (our llama) has got his hands full. Last night Randy caught the kids playing follow the leader. They were running in a circle and jumping on and off Hank, who was laying down trying to catch some shut eye. He would groan as the little ones jumped on and off of his back. Poor guy!
Hope everyone is having a great week!
We have 37 baby lambs on our farm as of this morning. The girls have done so well. We worry about them since we are gone during the day, but we have a wonderful friend who stops in throughout the day to check on them and my dad goes down there throughout the day to look in on them as well. We have 17 boys and 20 girls added to our flock since March 13th.
They are really blowing through the alfalfa. We are anxious for spring to get here, so they can head to pasture. The first calm weekend we plan to burn our pasture, start tearing down the old fence on the east side, and replace it with sheep/goat fencing. The fencing is on order and should be here in a week. We would like to burn this weekend, but there is a chance of rain, snow, and strong winds, so it’s not looking too promising.
We have a handful on bottles and buckets of milk for one reason or another and a couple we are helping supplement. Other than that everyone is happy and healthy. Hank (our llama) has got his hands full. Last night Randy caught the kids playing follow the leader. They were running in a circle and jumping on and off Hank, who was laying down trying to catch some shut eye. He would groan as the little ones jumped on and off of his back. Poor guy!
I will try to take some pictures over the weekend if it’s not too crazy. Hope everyone is having a great week!
The babies are dropping on our farm this week.
We started last Friday (March 13th) and haven’t
really caught our breath yet. We have 22 babies on the ground which may not seem like a lot, but when you are working a 40/week and both commuting 2 hours/day each (making it a 48-50/hour week); it can get a little crazy.
Yesterday took the cake for craziness. Our registered Texel ewe (June) had a baby girl at 10:00 am, Dad pulled a big baby boy out of a first timer for at 12:00, and when I arrived home at 5:00 pm we had one in labor with twins (the first one with a leg back and I don’t even remember how the second one came). We also had a beautiful ewe who had stopped laboring, so we knew she was going to need some assistance. Her first baby came backwards, the second baby was a tangled up mess with what we later found out was the third baby. This girl didn’t even look like she was carrying twins, but produced three nice-sized little lambs. We finally got all of them, 4 mamas, and 7 babies situated and at 8:00 pm made it inside for dinner. We showered, went out to check on them at 9:00pm and had to change back into our chore close rearrange a baby that was coming with a leg back, come inside, shower again, and finally made it to bed at 10:00 only to get back up at 4:00 and start all over again.
We have really been focusing on our nutrition up to this point and although we have gotten worn down and different times throughout the week. I think it has played a part in keeping us healthy and somewhat able to cope with the disrupted sleep and physical labor we have subjected ourselves to.
I have been trying to implement eggs, kefir, and/or raw milk into our breakfast schedule. With the onset of spring I have been able to include a fresh vegetable (broccoli, cauliflower, or asparagus) with almost every dinner. Now that time is a factor I am resorting to frozen soups and dinners I made up ahead of time, and have substituted Bolthouse and Naked juices in place of kefir smoothies. I realize store-bought smoothies are a far cry from a healthy, homemade smoothie with coconut oil, flax seed oil, vitamin c powder, and homegrown fruit. However, we aren’t perfect and are doing what we can to improvise some quick meals and still stay as health conscious as possible. Our latest love is to make hash browns or NT cottage fries with organic potatoes.
For the hash browns I just run them through the food processor peel and all throw them in my cast iron skillet with some butter and olive oil. Five minutes on each side, a sprinkling of sea salt and you have the most fabulous hash browns ever.
I hope to get some lacto-fermented foods back into our diet. NT salsa and sauerkraut are at the top of my list as soon as the tomatoes hit the garden and I find an organic cabbage at the store.
Hope everyone is doing well and enjoying some spring weather. We are in for thunderstorms all weekend. The rain won’t be all that fun for lambing, but will help my new planted trees, bushes, and vines.
Just planted:
2 pecan trees
8 blueberries
3 raspberries
3 cherry bushes
2 apricot bushes
2 cranberries
And 2 coffee plants (for inside the house) for fun
That’s all for now. Hope everyone has a great day!
The babies are dropping on our farm this week. We started last Friday (March 13th) and haven’t really caught our breath yet. We have 22 babies on the ground which may not seem like a lot, but when you are working a 40/week and both commuting 2 hours/day each (making it a 48-50/hour week); it can get a little crazy.
Yesterday took the cake for craziness. Our registered Texel ewe (June) had a baby girl at 10:00 am, Dad pulled a big baby boy out of a first timer for at 12:00, and when I arrived home at 5:00 pm we had one in labor with twins (the first one with a leg back and I don’t even remember how the second one came). We also had a beautiful ewe who had stopped laboring, so we knew she was going to need some assistance. Her first baby came backwards, the second baby was a tangled up mess with what we later found out was the third baby. This girl didn’t even look like she was carrying twins, but produced three nice-sized little lambs. We finally got all of them, 4 mamas, and 7 babies situated and at 8:00 pm made it inside for dinner. We showered, went out to check on them at 9:00pm and had to change back into our chore close rearrange a baby that was coming with a leg back, come inside, shower again, and finally made it to bed at 10:00 only to get back up at 4:00 and start all over again.
We have really been focusing on our nutrition up to this point and although we have gotten worn down and different times throughout the week. I think it has played a part in keeping us healthy and somewhat able to cope with the disrupted sleep and physical labor we have subjected ourselves to.
I have been trying to implement eggs, kefir, and/or raw milk into our breakfast schedule. With the onset of spring I have been able to include a fresh vegetable (broccoli, cauliflower, or asparagus) with almost every dinner. Now that time is a factor I am resorting to frozen soups and dinners I made up ahead of time, and have substituted Bolthouse and Naked juices in place of kefir smoothies. I realize store-bought smoothies are a far cry from a healthy, homemade smoothie with coconut oil, flax seed oil, vitamin c powder, and homegrown fruit. However, we aren’t perfect and are doing what we can to improvise some quick meals and still stay as health conscious as possible. Our latest love is to make hash browns or NT cottage fries with organic potatoes.
For the hash browns I just run them through the food processor peel and all throw them in my cast iron skillet with some butter and olive oil. Five minutes on each side, a sprinkling of sea salt and you have the most fabulous hash browns ever.
I hope to get some lacto-fermented foods back into our diet. NT salsa and sauerkraut are at the top of my list as soon as the tomatoes hit the garden and I find an organic cabbage at the store.
Hope everyone is doing well and enjoying some spring weather. We are in for thunderstorms all weekend. The rain won’t be all that fun for lambing, but will help my new planted trees, bushes, and vines.
Just planted:
2 pecan trees
8 blueberries
3 raspberries
3 cherry bushes
2 apricot bushes
2 cranberries
And 2 coffee plants (for inside the house) for fun
That’s all for now. Hope everyone has a great day!
So everyone remembers our little crooked neck baby from 2007, right?
Well, the little missy has done it again. For the second year in a row she has kicked out twins (all by herself I might add). A boy and a girl.
In this picture she is loaded in the trailer. Dad moved her, her babies, and another mama and baby up to Grandma’s to a pen where she wouldn’t get confused with all the other mamas and babies. Since she can’t look to her left Dad worries about other lambs nursing her or her babies getting lost in the mix. So, she will be in a semi-private pen where she won’t be stressed. She’s such a diva!
Have a great day!
So everyone remembers our little crooked neck baby from 2007, right?
Well, the little missy has done it again. For the second year in a row she has kicked out twins (all by herself I might add).
A boy and a girl. In this picture she is loaded in the trailer. Dad moved her, her babies, and another mama and baby up to Grandma’s to a pen where she wouldn’t get confused with all the other mamas and babies. Since she can’t look to her left, Dad worries about other lambs nursing her or her babies getting lost in the mix. So, she will be in a semi-private pen where she won’t be stressed. She’s such a diva!
Have a great day!
A Simple Prairie Life 