Glenda update: Glenda turned 3 weeks old on Monday and she is truly awesome, she is a healthy, active, full of herself calf, her training is coming along nicely, she is not learning at the rate of a bucket calf but she is clever and learns her routines. I had read on different blogs that the mothers would fight to be taken up once they knew the routine, that the calf could be a real issue, but to date, I can’t say that we have had those issues. Girl is well trained with her grain and her spot and if she does not come to “come boss” you just walk up, put her lead on and take her where you want to go.. The calf is has only proven tricky once in this regard and the rest of the time, she has been quite good.

Girl Update: She has settled down on how much milk she is producing, she has settled on how much cream she is producing, she is steady at her milking and she appears to be in very good healthy both bodywise and bag/teat wise.  I would very much like to see her have a bit more weight kept on, she seems to show her hip bones a bit more then I am used to, however her breeder was here on the weekend and said that she was in excellent shape and looked wonderful as did the calf. She seemed to take more grooming upkeep then she used to but I believe that is because she is in lock down overnight for the morning milking and despite trying hard to give her a clear sleeping area and a clear bathroom area in her very, very large loose box stall, she is not always getting it figured out..

This morning we tried something new, after I took my house milk, I left her on her chain and allowed Glenda to have two quarters and then I put Glenda out wit her buddy Brandy in the cow pasture and took Girl to the pond to drink her fill and then I lead her up and teithered her out into the very rich and high grassed food forest field meadow area, where she is chowing down.. she is settled but Glenda is finding it harder then she is, but as Glenda can run all over her acre and half twenty times over in a day, having her loose in the front unfenced area is not possible, even if momma is teithered out there and Glenda should and will be teither trained but not today.. I might consider it on the weekend for a short 15 min to start with.. that is how I started with girl, short, happy sessions, working your way up to longer times, as Girl is going to be grazing for couple hours, it really would not be fair to ask Glenda to do the same.

Goose/Gosling Update, The newly grown family is doing excellent, they are free ranging from morning to early evening, they are very much house yard geese, I like that, they have cut their feeding costs down by 90%, now as long as you are only carrying a breeding pair though winter, then if you can raise their goslings 90 percent on free range food, that is well, well! worth tracking those numbers and I have a feeling they pay for themselves very easily..

Rabbit updates: Tippy toes is due late next week, Adele final got breed, Sally’s kits are coming six weeks of age and are being fully weaned and moved to their grow out hutch this weekend, they are huge, coming in just over 3 pds already, I could not be more pleased.

Sheep update: the main flock is doing good, everyone is enjoying the fresh greens on the pasture, the lambs are all growing, and mocha decided to go for the three crops of lambs in two years.. and so she surprised me with a set of twins yesterday, they are healthy and strong and doing well

Baby goon ( I got asked why we named him this, and it was not done in a mean way, he is a goof, and when he was trying to play, he had us laugh and hubby said.. what a little goon! and it just stuck, he is doing awesome, totally bonded  to use, he knows where his bed is and will go to sleep on his heated bed, he is starting to come out with me during the day and is following me around while I do chores etc, I am working on teaching him to come out in the morning and then getting him used to my wonderful Dirty Face Milking sheep, she is trained for yard and I am hoping that I can keep him spending a bit of his day with a sheep, she can show him the ropes in regards to starting to eat grass etc.

Pig update : we had a garden pig break out and what a freakin mess that was, I may love what a garden pig can do when its digging where I want it to be, but free run is a whole different matter, thankfully things looked worse then they were, it looked like in some areas that we had upwards of 60 percent loss but point in fact, it was a lot of pushed around mulch and it was more like a 20 percent loss but just because we were able to replant, does not mean that they will all take to the replant, so only time will tell.. bad Kermie! but he is so easy to catch, rattle the bucket and he comes running.. Good Kermie!

We also have some hard news on the pig front, and that is in regard to Tootsie, sometimes you can spend time with a animal on the farm and you adore them, and then there are other times, you like them but really what you want is the job they can do.. in this case Tootsie was to have two main jobs, one keep Miss Pig company as a small herd, that didn’t work out well as Miss Piggy does not much like her and they certainly don’t share space together.. and the second thing was that Tootsie was to be the main garden pig, that’s a problem when she (her breed?) does not really dig.. which meant that I had a pig that was already a extra in many ways that was not doing the job I wanted her to do.. that leaves breeding, and I have NO interest in breeding potbelly pigs, I don’t want a male of the breed, I don’t want to raise or sell little ones..  which really left either selling her or freezer camping her..

I honestly thought about seeing if I could find her a new home, but she is not a pet, she is a farm pig, she was raised a farm pig, and I have had her as a farm pig, and she is not that fond of people, no amount of training, treats or care has made it so.. I have pigs that love people and I have pigs that like you for the feed bucket, and not much else.. She was a bucket girl.. and so that left freezer camp.. which is what was done..

Ideally one of the Large Black gilts will also be heading to freezer camp this weekend.

Chickens/Fowl Update: Everyone is doing great, lots of girls sitting, expecting babies, got a lead on a possible few new layers, but will see what comes of the hatch, before I talk about more..

Brandy update: She needs to be worked more, its totally my fault, I am finding time to groom and spend some time with her but the new milking routine and the gardens and the rest of the things going on in the past two weeks, brandy has been pretty much a hay burner, she is ready and willing to work with me, she seeks me out and asks, I do my best to give her five or ten or more when she does but I just can’t seem to find that hour a day for her right now.. on the more positive side of that, I would not have gone riding in black fly season anyway, thankfully that has passed and we are now into horse and deer fly’s ..

Which brings me to the farm/general life.. and I am on a spring clean, I am trying to find that balance, all the regular routines, the new milking routine, the work of the gardens, but on top of that, we have had some lovely friends visits.

Add to that, I am in a one more mode..  I am trying to find the time to do one more, one more something done, in the house, in the barn, in the yard, in the garden etc.. So there you go.. you are caught up mainly over the past two days 🙂

What’s new in your life? Farm?