Category: Around the Homestead

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!

Okay, I haven’t posted in a long time.  So sorry.  Things are busy as usual at our home.  We now have a total of eleven bottle lambs acquired from Dad’s farm.  They are babies who were either abandoned by their mom, a triplet, or some other reason.  We have battles sickness (even though they received colostrum) and now have a cute little group of multi-colored ewes and rams.  We also located a fresh seafood (never frozen) shop nearby and stocked up on oysters, mussels, crab cakes, and tuna steaks.  We have also implemented liver, wild game, and lots of fresh fruit and vegetables into our diet.  Our food bill has increased, but our visits to the kinesiologist have decreased. 

I also made a really good smoothie this morning for breakfast:

½ c. kefir

2 T. flax seed oil

2 t. coconut oil

1 handful organic blueberries

1 handful strawberries

1 banana

6 ice cubes

1/8 t. stevia (powder)

Blend and enjoy!

*I put three drops of liquid kelp in mine.

I also purchased some tea from Harney & Sons.  Their Hot Cinnamon Spice is the best.  I also purchased a Valentine’s Day surprise and will hopefully remember to post about it after Valentine’s Day. 

Tonight’s dinner will be liver and onions with mushrooms.  Tomorrow we have our annual eye appointments in the evening, so I have beef stew already made up for a quick dinner once we get home. 

Aviation is a very scary industry to be in right now.  Randy is fortunate to work for a good company who rarely has layoffs.  However, we are still playing it safe, putting back a little extra just incase and will hopefully be restocking our pantry with dried goods soon.  Our supply has gotten really low, so this just needs to be done anyway. 

I promise to try to get pictures of our herd of bottle lambs soon.  We should have 13 more chickens (give or take a rooster or two) start laying in the next month or so.  We have way more demand than supply in the egg department. 

We also hope to get a second coop set up soon to accommodate broilers this spring.  Lambing should be underway come mid-March, so we will have preparations for that as well.  

Spring is already in the air on our homestead.  Friday I planted 2 pecan trees, 6 blueberry bushes, and 3 raspberry vines.  I should have another batch of fruit bushes arriving soon.  Now to keep them watered, mulched, and fertilized properly. 

Hope everyone has a wonderful day!

Okay, I haven’t posted in a long time.  So sorry.  Things are busy as usual at our home.  We now have a total of eleven bottle lambs acquired from Dad’s farm.  They are babies who were either abandoned by their mom, a triplet, or some other reason.  We have battles sickness (even though they received colostrum) and now have a cute little group of multi-colored ewes and rams.

We also located a fresh seafood (never frozen) shop nearby and stocked up on oysters, mussels, crab cakes, and tuna steaks.  We have also implemented liver, wild game, and lots of fresh fruit and vegetables into our diet.  Our food bill has increased, but our visits to the kinesiologist have decreased.

I also made a really good smoothie this morning for breakfast:

½ c. kefir

2 T. flax seed oil

2 t. coconut oil

1 handful organic blueberries

1 handful strawberries

1 banana

6 ice cubes

1/8 t. stevia (powder)

Blend and enjoy!

*I put three drops of liquid kelp in mine.

I also purchased some tea from Harney & Sons.  Their Hot Cinnamon Spice is the best.  I also purchased a Valentine’s Day surprise and will hopefully remember to post about it after Valentine’s Day.

Tonight’s dinner will be liver and onions with mushrooms.  Tomorrow we have our annual eye appointments in the evening, so I have beef stew already made up for a quick dinner once we get home.

Aviation is a very scary industry to be in right now.  Randy is fortunate to work for a good company who rarely has layoffs.  However, we are still playing it safe, putting back a little extra just incase and will hopefully be restocking our pantry with dried goods soon.  Our supply has gotten really low, so this just needs to be done anyway.

I promise to try to get pictures of our herd of bottle lambs soon.  We should have 13 more chickens (give or take a rooster or two) start laying in the next month or so.  We have way more demand than supply in the egg department.  We also hope to get a second coop set up soon to accommodate broilers this spring.  Lambing should be underway come mid-March, so we will have preparations for that as well.

Spring is already in the air on our homestead.  Friday I planted 2 pecan trees, 6 blueberry bushes, and 3 raspberry vines.  I should have another batch of fruit bushes arriving soon.  Now to keep them watered, mulched, and fertilized properly.

Hope everyone has a wonderful day!

I thought I would post some pictures of what we have been up to lately.

The pumpkin soup did not come without casualties.

Notice the pumpkin puree splattered across her back.  heehee 

This is a fun little area by the pool.  We like to sit here in the evenings after we do chores and give our two cats some attention before putting them in the pool house for the night.

Randy throwing corn for our sheep.

We just recently fenced in our pool.  My dad and brother were nice enough to help, along with a friend of our’s not pictured.

The progress.

A gate in progress.

Randy and I after church a couple Sundays ago.

Here is a quick tour of our home.  Where I spend most of my little life… the kitchen.

The next two are of our living room.  Our bad little dog likes to curl up in a ball on the back of this particular chair.  He can see out the windows perfectly and no matter how much we scold him we he continues to perch here when we are not around.

This is our family room.  We like to snuggle up back here with our heater cranked up in the wintertime and relax.

Hope everyone has a wonderful week.

I thought I would post some pictures of what we have been up to lately.

The pumpkin soup did not come without casualties.

Notice the pumpkin puree splattered across her back.  heehee 

This is a fun little area by the pool.  We like to sit here in the evenings after we do chores and give our two cats some attention before putting them in the pool house for the night.

Randy throwing corn for our sheep.

We just recently fenced in our pool.  My dad and brother were nice enough to help, along with a friend of our’s not pictured.

The progress.

A gate in progress.

Randy and I after church a couple Sundays ago.

Here is a quick tour of our home.  Where I spend most of my little life… the kitchen.

The next two are of our living room.  Our bad little dog likes to curl up in a ball on the back of this particular chair.  He can see out the windows perfectly and no matter how much we scold him we he continues to perch here when we are not around.

This is our family room.  We like to snuggle up back here with our heater cranked up in the wintertime and relax.

Hope everyone has a wonderful week.

Randy will be working late tonight, so I am on my own with chores.  I thought this might be a good opportunity to give a little rundown of what our evening chores consist of as of right now.

 

The first thing I do when I pull in the driveway: 

 

Let the cats (2) out of the pool house so they can get some fresh air and stretch their legs.

 

Unload the car

 

Let the dogs (3) inside, and take off collars.

 

Feed them and add cod liver oil to each bowl.  Give them fresh water inside and outside.  Let them back outside after they have all eaten.

 

Change into work clothes and head outside.

 

Cats:  feed, water, change litter box, and feed our stray kitty

 

Chickens:  collect eggs, feed, and water, give kitchen scraps, and check oyster shell

 

Sheep:  feed grain to three separate groups, fill stock tanks for three separate groups, give a handful of grain to the llama, move protein tubs around, check salt and mineral and fill if needed, look over well to make sure everyone is healthy, and close pasture gates.

 

Get the mail.

 

Head inside to assemble dinner, eat, hand wash dishes, and wash the eggs that have just been collected.  After dinner it’s back outside.

 

Before dark:

Lock up cats in pool house.

Close up the chickens.

Let the dogs out again (and back in).

 

Change into pajamas.  Snuggle with the dogs for awhile.  Read.  Go to bed.

 

This is daily.  Rain or Shine.  Hot or Cold.  Sick or Well.  This doesn’t include the extras when someone is sick and in need of doctoring, lambing, bottle feeding, baby chicks (which should be arriving in a week or so), etc. 

 

Luckily, although my workload will be increased significantly without Randy there to help, I will not have to make and clean up dinner. 

 

The “simple life” isn’t always easy, but it is rewarding.

 

I was just talking to a co-work about lambing and having to pull lambs.  She said the usual, “I could never do it” (pull a baby lamb).  I told her I never thought I could either until there is an animal who counts on you to take care of them.  They look at you with those eyes saying, “help me” or “I don’t know what to do” and you know you have no choice.  I told her I have two baby lambs (not really babies anymore) walking around our farm that would not be here today if I had not pulled them (mamas either).  You do what you have to do, for their sake and for your sake.  It’s not for everyone, but it is the most rewarding way of life I have lived so far.  I hope to be able to do it for a long time.