Homesteading, homeschooling, animal loving, adoption loving, country living family
Randy spent the better part of a day creating a safe space for our ewe lambs to go if it storms, specifically hails. At first they weren’t so sure about their new pad, but once their mineral and protein tub made it’s way underneath they were left with no choice but to brave the unknown.
Aren’t the chickens cute all nestle on top of the sheep! Now you see why I’m thinking it’s going to be hard this time around to put them in our freezer.
Before the tub was moved under cover.
Have a great day!
Long story short, my Grandma has the typical farm cat overpopulation problem at her house. So, Randy and I went up there a few evenings in a row until we finally caught a kitten from her newest litter (of seven).
We named the little guy Murphy. He was clearly sick when we first got him, so I ran a stool sample to the vet. She ran the test and reported she had never seen a slide so full of coccidia before. She assumed he had worms, but said the slide was so full of coccidia she really couldn’t tell if anything else was wrong with him. A bottle of ear mite medicine, 3 days worth of antibiotics, and a syringe of de-wormer later I was out the door.
Randy and I decided to try to catch another kitten to keep Murphy company. Also, knowing how sick they were we thought we could at least afford to save another one.
Off to Grandma’s we went. The first try was futile. Murphy bit Randy the first time around, so it was only fair that I got mine this time. Max bit me so hard and in the perfect location, right on the side of my fingernail. I let him go. The next time we returned in our suit of armour (or at least gloves). The cats and kittens were all on Grandma’s back porch eating and scattered when they saw and heard us. None of them ran to the wood pile where we had previously caught them, so we assumed our chance was out the window again. As we were walking away, Randy glanced into the window well of the house. There they were! We both reached in and sure enough both caught one. Max was spitting fire…..the most mean and hateful little thing you’ll ever see. Macy was very small and fairly calm compared to the other two. Neither one of us had the heart to let one go knowing how sick they were. We sat on the back porch with Grandma trying to calm them down before jumping in our loud pickup and hauling them home. Macy calmed down okay, but Max was a mess.
We arrived home with them and went to the pool house to show Murphy who we had brought home with us. He came busting out of his cat tower when he saw them. He was so excited! Cooter, however, was not pumped about the first kitten (Murphy) and wasn’t exactly doing backflips when we brought the other two in.
Cooter and Murphy, can you fell the love or what.
Max is still our problem child. He is so afraid. It’s really sad to see him so unsure about us. He finally started to come around last night. I broke out some Pitter Pats, and his little world started to changed.
Macy is still a little unsure when we enter the pool house, but for the most part is taming down nicely and just as cute and sweet as she can be.
They have all been treated for coccidia and de-wormed. They look so much better and are finally starting to get those cute little kitten bellies.
Soon we will have them fixed and vaccinated for rabies. For now we are just trying to spend as much time as we can with them to tame them down, so they can venture outside soon.
We clearly needed more animals on our farm, specifically 3 new cats! We love them though. Hopefully once they are released into the wild they can catch the gopher who is slowing making the lawn outside the pool house door look like a prairie dog village.
Have a wonderful day!
It’s the first day of Autumn and it couldn’t feel more fall-like. It was 57 degrees when I got to work this morning (6 am).
Last night Randy worked on my mom’s car while I pick tomatoes. They were a mess after all the rain, split and not good for anything but chicken food. Tonight I will tackle the okra and peppers and hopefully dig a few sweet potatoes if it’s dried out some.
Our Cornish Rocks are getting big. We plan to weigh them tonight to see how long we have until they are butchered. We did slow-growers this time around (as opposed to fast growers). They are so much healthier and since they are free-range all day we have a sea of white pecking around behind our house. Their mobility hasn’t been hindered as they’ve gotten bigger like the fast-growers. They are still able to run, climb the ladder in the coop, and move about all day. Makes it a little harder to put them in our freezer, but the work they require does make it a little easier.
Our lambs did well at the sale, so that is behind us for another year. We banded their tails (this is for sanitary/health purposes since they are a wool breed), but did not castrate to try to practice more humane animal husbandry. This didn’t seem to affect the price we received at the sale in any way. We also held on to our lambs until they reached a higher weight in hopes they would avoid a feedlot altogether or at least not have to stay for as long a period of time. These are two steps we have implemented as a way to raise our animals more humanely, but still make a profit (or at least break even, haha). We would love to sell our livestock directly off the farm, but that just hasn’t worked for us in the past.
Pansies have been planted. Mums are in bloom. Pumpkins have been set out. The scarecrow, “Scary,” is at her post. All is festive at our home! I usually do a festive, fall dinner on the Autumnal Equinox, but instead we plan to have dinner out with friends. Hope everyone has a wonderful first day of Autumn!
Friday, I rode to work with Randy, did some shopping, and went to get a massage. I received a deep tissue, aromatherapy massage. It was wonderful. I was sore and tired afterward and was instructed to take a hot bath with Epsom salt and apple cider vinegar and drink lots of water.
Randy worked a half day, so I picked him up after my massage and we headed home. Initially we were going to go to the fair. We both decided against it. Our decision was part financial, part time, and mine was part cleansing. I go to the fair primarily to eat. Eating fair food after a massage I was using as the beginning of a cleansing or at least dietary modification didn’t seem to fit. Our Plan B was to head home early, eat a light lunch, and work on some projects around the house; Randy in the garage working on his pickup, and I in the house, garden, or wherever getting caught up from the week. We grabbed lunch from Subway. I got a veggie sub to as a part of my vow to avoid meat from animals raised in feedlots (inhumanely-raised). It was good!
We ended up in our family room, curled up on the sofas, watching Nostradamus 2012, and falling asleep for nearly a 2 hour nap. It was so nice and out of the ordinary. We woke up in time to do a few things before starting our evening chores.
While shopping I did end up with a couple, long sought after, purchases:
A Crock Pot with a timer: I can set the time and temp for cooking and when it’s done it turns to “warm” until we are ready for it. It will be great for us since we work 10 hour days and spend 2 hours on the road. Twelve hours is too long for pretty much anything in a crock pot. I got mine on sale at Dillon’s Marketplace for $11.99…BARGAIN!
Yesterday’s New Cat Litter: Made from recycled newspaper, biodegradable, and non-toxic for our 4 kitties. We will have a separate compost bin strictly for our cat litter to use on non-edible plants.
And a big(ger) bad of Couscous. This is good with butter and honey for breakfast or cooked in broth like brown rice.
Dillon’s Marketplace was my main stop. They have a great selection of organic and ethnic food. This is also where I found my crock pot and cat litter. Who needs Wal-Mart!
Saturday, I pulled out some of our not-so-productive tomato plants, worked up some hard spots in the garden, and tossed some turnip seeds out. We plan to open the garden up to the sheep this winter. So the turnips will be for them to eat. The chickens can have what the sheep leave behind. Before the sheep or chickens get their turn at the turnips, Randy and I will pull a few to use in place of potatoes for a few months. We cook them along with our meat and hardly notice the difference.
Sunday, was spent preserving the garden harvest….29 quarts of tomatoes and 2 (bulging)quarts of okra (in the freezer) to be exact.
Hope everyone had a great weekend. I have more photos to post soon!
Slow Growing Cornish Rocks
One of our bottle lambs….all grown up (sort of).
The girls resting in the shade.
Ash doing what she does best…..being weird.
‘Tis the season!
If there is anything cuter than a hound dog running please let me know. This is Biff, my brother’s dog.
The pitch of the roof was changed, so added siding was in order.
Craig siding our house for us.
Randy putting our porch closet back together.
Cooter
Randy
Fresh from the garden.
Our last lamb born who we so rightfully named “Cutest Baby in the World.”
Koal and Ash lounging after a game of chase with their cousins, Biff and Dax.
Dax, Craig’s dog (not a new addition).
Koal
Hank
Grandma Oak’s piano (this is a new addition).
Koal on his new bed.
Thai wasn’t so sure what the beeping on the camera was all about so he had to go into hiding.
Still not sure.
Okay….it’s safe!
I know I haven’t posted in awhile, so I thought I would drop by to apologize and give a quick update.
We have three kittens (rescued) as additions to our farm, Murphy, Max, and Macy. Cooter was not impressed, but is adjusting.
We have a friend coming to stay the night on his way to WA state. Yea!
This Saturday we sell our ram lambs and 3 cull ewes. Really sad….I really want to find an alternative to culling our ewes if anyone has an economical suggestion. Our pen did have 5 cull ewes, but 2 of them with 1/2 of their udder not producing milk (can’t raise twins very well=bottle lambs) made it back into our breeding pens. I just couldn’t do it….it made me sick to my stomach to think about selling them and what might happen to them. Luckily, I have a very compassionate and fairly patient husband who move the last of the two over for me one evening after I voiced my distress about selling her.
This weekend I plan to (I’m only listing the fun/interesting stuff on my to-do list for ya):
Can tomatoes
Make fermented salsa (NT)
Make honey-sweetened homemade ice cream
Make whole wheat tortillas (soaked)
Soak beans for chili
Cook chili over an open-fire
Plant turnips for winter forage for our sheep and chickens
Dig sweet potatoes
And many more not-so-fun-or-interesting things. Wish me luck!
Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.
Tomatoes-nada….zip, zero, zilch! We have green tomatoes on and tons of blossoms, but as far as ripe, red, ready-to-eat tomatoes we don’t have a single one to speak of.
We have notices our pole beans are on and should be ready to pick by today or tomorrow. We have okra on and soon ready, peppers of all kinds, and sweet potatoes to dig.
I planted a patch of spinach and lettuce for fall and hope to stick winter onions and garlic in the ground soon. I am also going to try to plant a patch of turnips for the chickens to dine on this winter. Dad bought bulk turnip seed to plant along with the wheat so the sheep have extra grazing when they are out on wheat pasture. So I may use some of the excess to plant little patches here and there to see if the chickens will root around and feast on them.
Our blueberries are doing fabulous considering they were just planted this past spring. We get enough each week for a batch of blueberry pancakes or a little snack.
I am taking full advantage of the farmer’s market. Last week I picked up cucumbers, tomatoes, potatoes, and peaches. This week I will be headed back to see what they have to add to our dinners.
We have had a rough few days on our homestead. Randy hurt his back last Tuesday and was out of commission and off work Wednesday thru Sunday. I was on my own for chores. We got in 52 broilers Friday morning and ran to town to pick them up. I had already set up their temporary pen inside our garage/shop, so all I had to do was dip their beaks in water one at a time and they were on their own. We lost two in the first two days, but everyone seems to be doing well otherwise.
One of my little ewe lambs (my smallest weed-eater) got sick on Sunday evening and died Monday morning. There had to have been something wrong with her I missed for her to go down so quick. She was just a pet lamb not fit for breeding. She was very sick as a baby, and I nursed her back to “health” only to have her stunted and weighing 18 lbs at 5 months old (her twin brother probably weighs between 60-70 lbs for a comparison on how stunted she was. Fit for breeding or not, it was a really sad day at our house Monday evening.
Randy’s job is a little worrisome as he is in aviation, and aviation has been hit really hard by all the layoffs. We are preparing for the worst without getting carried away in the gloom-and-doom state of our country. We have faith together we will make it through whatever comes our way. We have also detached ourselves from materialism as much as possible which makes the idea of “hard times” a little easier to swallow. As long as we have each other and can still care for our animals we will be just fine. We had planned and started a health regime, before Randy hurt his back, to start preparing for our trip to Nepal.
We have eliminated alcohol, limited caffeine (no daily coffee), and have begun eliminating refined sugar (not by using sugar substitutes, they are poison). We are already feeling better and have noticed some slimming down. We don’t use a scale, so this is just a personal observation.
As soon as Randy’s back is better we plan to begin some serious walking and eventually even packing weight (since we will be wearing a baby/toddler while we are there). I have also started yoga which Randy will hopefully join me once his back feels capable. I hope to visit an ashram or two while in Nepal for some real life yoga experiences. In the meantime here in the US I have a lot of work to do before I take my Americanized-can-hardly-touch-my-toes-because-I-sit-at-a-desk-all-day behind into an ashram in Nepal to embarrass myself. Baby steps….
The latest information we have on the Nepal adoptions currently underway for 2009 is that they are on hold. No word on how long these families will have to wait. Some already have referrals and will be forced to wait indefinitely to travel to bring their children home.
Nepal is in a very transitional state right now politically leaving government run programs unpredictable in their affairs. Positions are changing hands or temporarily empty while looking for a replacement and this only leads to delays and changes.
Please pray not only for us, but for the families currently waiting on their approval to travel. These familie have a photo of their child, medical information, and anything else available on their child. How heartbreaking for them to be waiting indefinitely. Randy and I pray these delays will be resolved (with no more to follow) by the time our dossier is sent to Nepal (January 2010). We are so ready to travel to Nepal to bring our daughter home. The closer we get the harder it will be to be patient and wait.
We did touch-ups to the baby’s room over the weekend. Randy patched some holes in the wall, I sanded and removed more wall paper. We also took down some trim and have decided to paint the remaining trim on the walls. It is too hard to take it off the wall, and since it is a small room, I will just take my time and paint it on the walls.
We aren’t working too quickly on the room. To have it all finished and ready and waiting would just be too much on us emotionally. We will work on it little by little until it is finished.
The latest joke amongst our circle of friends is my/our “organic/green” lifestyle. Well, here is an example of things we do that make passersby do a double take.
We like to think of them as “All-Natural Weed-Eaters and Fertilizers.” Other people just think we are weird.
After all that grazing the girls were thirsty and stopped for a drink before heading out to pasture to find their mamas.
Look at the one taking a drink (0906). She is really thirsty!
We actually let these two little girls out because they are smaller than everyone else and get pushed out of the grain feeder. They get an ice cream bucket of grain and all the grass and fallen leaves they can handle.
The smallest of the two was really sick as a baby and will most likely never reach full-size or be bred. On a regular farm this little gal would have either a) not made it as far as she has because a real “rancher” would have just let her go or put her down or b) sent her to the sale barn. On our farm she was doctored, medicated, bottle fed every hour, and is the cutest “little” thing you will ever see. We never named her because we never thought she would make it as long as she has. So she is referred to by her tag number 905 and comes when you call out her number.
Randy has been cruising around on his Honda Express and Cooter wanted to try it out. R
Randy never had the tires moving with the little guy in the basket, but Cooter really didn’t freak out when I stuck him in the basket. He’s not your average, run-of-the-mill cat.
Below are just a few pictures from a hot, dry, windy, summer day in Kansas.
Here are the girls chewing their cud in the shade.
Here are the banties stealing a drink from the sheep’s stock tank.
We have lost many a bantam to the stock tank. If the water level gets too low they will jump onto the side to lean in for a drink. Then they fall in and then they drowned. Not the brightest creatures to roam the earth, but they are good scavengers and lay really yummy eggs.
That’s it….that is our life from our little chunk of Earth! Have a great day!
A Simple Prairie Life 