Used a basic light batter, don’t like it as much as my old fashioned breaded batter.. but it was still good.
Goslings and their Foster Parents Honk/Hiss
Well, my goslings have arrived and as I had a newly hatched and ready to adopt duck hen, I put them with her till they got settled in but it was time to introduce the two oldest female goslings, they are about three weeks old to the older birds today and to say that they took to the babies is a understatement, they are awesome foster parents.
They take them out for little walks but then took them to their pen for feed/water/bathing and nap times.. so adorable.
honk guards the doorway and when I walked up to try and get a photo, he yielded to me but still was protective..
Next week, I will introduce the other two much younger (only a week old goslings to the flock), the two here are both female’s, the younger ones are unsexed
Give a warm welcome to “Goon”
Well, we had one ewe that had not lambed, and we figured she didn’t get caught as she would have needed to breed in dec to be due now, so we thought.. ah, the lambing is done..
So where we surprised to here a wee babes crying in the field and this itty bitty boy appeared, the mom and him appeared bonded and all seemed well, ah but we were mistaken, she knows him and she does not think she should feed him much.. a bit sure but as long as he needs, no sir..
So when we were out doing noon chores, we made the call to bring him in, and feed him to see if it was him that is the issue, or part of it..
Nope, baby “goon” is active, and a very strong nursing tike, he drank his milk down and took right to the nipple, and was happy to show that he can pee and poo with the best of them, and he settled down for a nice nap in his crate with bedding..
He will be started off with very small amount of warm milk every hour for the first while and then we will move to two hours and then three hours and so forth, guess who will be up blurry eyed making bottles tonight 🙂
And he will be taken to the barn with me three times a day and his mother is going to get tied and he will be allowed to nurse in the hopes that we can make this first time mother understand her duties..
I will do what is needed to make sure he is strong and active while we train his momma, ideally this will be a short term need and we will be able to get him stronger and make her take him.
The first Cut of the Ditch hay is cut..
Pretty much ever since we have moved to the farm, we have taken advantage of the fact that our county does not spray and instead three times a year cuts the ditch, we got out and rake it up and haul it in for either hay or bedding depending on the quality of it, and how fast we get it up and weather etc.
We hauled some for the sheep and a huge wheel barrel of it for Girl, she approved!
Glenda is a monkey see, monkey due kinda calf!
Now I only have one issue, rain is to be coming tomorrow, and its not dry enough to be taken up as hay proper, I think I might have to read a little into if you can make a mini-salage bin and see if I can do that with the rest of it..
Posted in Famiy Mik Cow
Tagged Family cow, Frugal on the farm, Girl, Glenda the calf
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Glenda is Two Weeks Old Today!
She is huge and she drinks far more milk in a day then I was feeding either of the calf’s we raised on the bucket, makes wonder what the difference in growth rates will be etc. You see that little pink think to the right side, that is my little luceted handle on her luceted collar. we are going along better at going forward on the lead, You hold the loop and then give a gentle tap on the rear and she will walk forward with you, she still hates to be “lead” but she will now walk nicely by you.. Its a start right..
Can you believe that when I made that last week that I thought it would last her two or three weeks in size, she is growing so much faster that I expected.  I will need to take it off and make her a new one this week again. She is trying to graze with Girl and Brandy, I am not sure she gets much in, but she mouths it and will come up with bits of green so maybe she is, she has also learned to put her head in the water tubs, I have never seen her drink per say but she loves to mimic her momma on most things..
I do like her white tail tip, I had hoped for a pretty brown and white spotted calf but I will take my pretty red-brown cow that will end up the same color as her momma.. She looks more like her father face and body wise at the same age then she does like Girl, but she does have Girls ears 🙂
Time for a little Rabbit Update..
So there will be photos coming of the kits, they are coming five weeks and are looking great! Very healthy and growing at excellent rates.. Their mother did a great job as a first time younger doe, the only thing I would ask is that ideally she has more kits in her next litter, I like to see the does have between six to nine babies if at all possible.
Tippie Toes is breed and due this month and Adele didn’t want to breed at all but now she is pulling hair like she is going to have kits but If she is, she was breed before I got her (which she was not to be ) and she would be overdue to boot.. she is a mystery on what she thinks she is doing.. but she has built a nest to have them in.
This is my favorite of the litter, this little one has the same great amazingly awesome temperament that its daddy does.. adore this little bun.
The three brown are wild in temp and are total goons in their fear reflex’s, zoom, zoom, gone.. the black bun is the meet in the middle, it is slower to come and slower to explore then the little white patched bun but its just a little shy, and then it comes around..
They all have amazing coats and I like that I can cut down on their feed bills now that its summer time, the perfect time to have the litters and grow them out at the cheapest possible way.
Posted in Critters
Tagged frugal feeding habits for rabbits, New rabbit kits, rabbit babies, Rabbits
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Baby Beets, Beet Greens and Bacon mix.
This is one of those amazingly simple but if the food is fresh truly awesome side dishes, (ok so this was in fact my breakfast but I think for most folks it would be a side dish)
A huge bunch of baby beets and beet greens, fresh green onions, plus one other dark green, I used pea leaves, but it could just as easily have been horseradish greens or mustard greens or spinach etc.
Wash, cut up them up..
In a cast iron fry pan, cut up one or two slices of bacon, into stripes and fry up, let them cook first, then add all your greens/beets and wilt them down, I added in a tiny bit of white wine vinager, and a big heaping spoon of my homemade garlic butter (but regular would also work), cooked till wilted and served up hot. I didn’t need to add salt because of the bacon, but if you want to that is fine, I didn’t add much pepper or spice because the bacon was the homemade kind and had a fairly heavy spice to it.
whimper, o my poor nettle patch..
You see we have a problem, we have had really heavy rains, and we have a full green house..
While the bigger potato patch is up and going..
The newly planted red seed potato’s is underwater.. if it does not dry up soon its going to rot them.
My oldest pepper plants, really, really need to be planted, so I gave up my favorite close nettle patch.. groan in my front part of my main garden, I still have three more patches but not one of them was this close or used daily like this one was..
Now its a pepper patch, all caged and bedded down..
The Squash Bed.. Part one
So times you need to be creative and see what can be, not just what is.. So to the one side you have a food hedge row with five layers of different things aka a guild system, and then on the other side, you have the start of the same, I still need to add in a few more things but its a got the three spruce, the middle trees’ the little fruiting bushes and the herbs, soft fruits and canes in the area, in the middle of that however is a good long stretch that its just wild meadow, its a edge area, it produces natural a ton of wild strawberries, wild violets, milkweed and other naturalized greens but it also gets full sun but its pretty wild blocked at the same time.. We rolled one of those bad bales, back and forth to make it three layers deep and to create a straw mulch bed, then built dirt mounds every so many feet( yes I made them more level once planted) and planted them out into squash hills..
in total there are fifteen hills, the cucumbers, summer and winter squash and pumpkins will grow up and out of the hills, over the straw and into the hedge rows themselves, once they clear the food hedge row, they will hit the bank on the other side and again have full sun all day long for their leaves etc. It may not look like much now but this should produce like a house of fire in terms of returns!
Posted in gardens
Tagged Food Forest, Food forest systems, open strawbale growing system, Squash hills, squash plants
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Just another Day on the Farm 