Kittens, Lambs and Babes

Sneakers

Melodie and her mama, Jazzmyn

Rascal and Sneakers

Rascal

Superboy and Gen

The Knutson Clan Visits the Farm

Pony Gal holding Addie and letting Mr. A pet her.

The twins-Thebe and Karpo.

 

Mr. K and one of the twins

Superboy with the other twin.

Mr. M hanging out on mama's back

Mr. K with Kale

 

 

A rare shot of one of our guineas. They are so active it is hard to catch a nice look at them.

Lunchtime for one of the twins.

 

 

Welcome the World, Callista and Kale

Our other bred ewe, Chrysanthemum, gave birth Monday, Feb 21, 2011 around 11:30 to twin black sheep, one ewe, one ram. Cute twins, and an easy birth. Even so, she isn't taking to Kale very well, so he is turning into a Pony Gal project. He did get some nice feedings of colostrum, but mom is now acting very aggressive. Callista, or Callie, is well accepted, but just a little weak, so she is getting some extra vitamins and supplementation until she is active again. Raising animals is no easy task. I know if Chrys twins again next year and rejects one, then she'll end up not getting bred anymore. It may just be that she's a new mother, too, so we'll wait and see. I tried several different approaches to get her to accept Kale, but she seems to favor her little girl, instead. Pony Gal likes the mommy role, though, and volunteered rather willingly to be in charge of Kale's care.

Chryssy, Callista and Superboy

Kale before we found a coat for him

They both started out nursing fine, then somewhere things went down hill. We'll wait and see how they progress. I may end up milking Chrys and bottle feeding both if Callie doesn't seem to improve.

Kale minty green coat. All those sweaters we don't wear anymore are good for something. The all wool ones we use for diaper covers for babies, but the others that don't have the right content make very nice little lamb coats.

Welcome to the World, Jupiter

Jupiter, born around 7 am, Wednesday, February 9th, 2011

Our first babes of the year have started to arrive here at the farm. Yesterday morning, after seeing sure signs of impending labor in Jazzmyn, I awoke to find her with her very newly born baby ram lamb. We named him Jupiter after deciding to use Jupiter and its moons for our guide in names this year. He and mama are doing wonderfully. I have been doing regular checks on them, making sure Jazz passed her placenta (I had to pull the water bag out for her).

Mom and baby right after he was born. Mom is still cleaning him off.

Jupiter is all black, with one white spot on his ear. He is rather tall, and weighed in at a whopping 10.5 pounds. Average for sheep of his breed is more around 7 pounds. Regular temp checks show him staying warm, and he is nursing pretty well, though his tall size has him lying down to be comfortable. Yay! Chryssy looks to be going soon, then we get a few weeks off while we wait for the goats to come to term.

His first attempt at nursing. He was having trouble finding the teat, but finally got it and really went to town.

Meeting the neighbors-Chewbacca, our goat buck is checking him out. Everyone seemed to be smitten with the little guy.

The spectator's section. They were outside munching snow while I worked the Jazz and Jupiter.

Lesson Learned

We have been busy prepping fleeces from our Border Cheviots to be sent out for processing here. They had been sitting since the spring (whoops!) and finally got around to trying our hand at them. We had the difficult decision of figuring out what was best for our operation. Sarah and I could either do everything ourselves, investing in expensive equipment and putting a lot of time in, or do some of the work ourselves and sending the fleeces out to be picked, carded and made into roving at a better equipped facility. After watching the process on a Dirty Jobs episode, I decided the facility made more sense. I mean, here we are in Novmeber just now getting to washing the things. So, my basement floor is currently covered in sheep fleece drying. I found with this first time around a few things:
*Hand washing is far superior. Some people use the tub of the washing machine to fill and soak the fleeces. I have a front loader, so this doesn't work as well. Even so, I liked working with my hands in the sink in smaller batches so I could do more picking of the bigger pieces. I also noticed the fleece got cleaner this way, as I could add more soap as needed and do more rinsing without wasting as much water.
*Hand washing is far superior. My machine washed stuff (you don't actually run the machine, but just use it as a means to hold the fleece) felted more. Not a good thing. Still totally useable, but I think the hand done stuff will turn out nicer. I am sending them in different batches, I think so I can tell if it made a lot of difference.
*Hand washing is far superior. Hee hee.
So, we plan on sending out two different boxes to two different processors to see whose work we like better. We are both very excited to finally be able to offer some fiber products soon!

Swingin' Goat Farms at Sugar Creek's Farm Animal Update

Princess Pi (white nose) and Bunny, our french angora rabbits. Both doing well. They have actually moved out of this home and into their newly constructed bunny palace, courtesy of Dad. It is housed in the goat barn, and they are loving their two story home. We may look into a different colored gal sometime in the future, but with my cat allergies (and thus bunny ones, as well), these two are enough to groom.

The teenagers. These birds recently moved from this, the brooder, to the big bird home. Up front are our two guineas and the rest are just and end of the week special from Sand Hill Preservation Center. Everyone looks good and has moved into the coop and run well.

The bird coop and run

Most of these birds aren't here anymore. We butchered and processed everyone a couple weekends ago, so now they reside in my freezer, save for 21 hens that have been happily laying eggs that we have been happily eating :)

Chrysanthemum

Dawnae and Cassidy

Autumn Star, the goat's guard llama

Skooter-the pest

Chewie, (Chewbacca) our buck. A very laid back buck, who is doing, from what I can observe, an excellent job at what he's supposed to do. Once the gals start kidding in the spring, he and Skooter will move into the buck pen. For the winter, though, they are with the ladies, to help keep everyone warmer.

Thorn, our mighty Border Cheviot ram. We have another ram, Melmoth, coming soon, so we can start keeping breeding lines separate.

Jazzmin

Cloudy. We had to put Cloudy down a couple weeks ago, very sadly. She served her purpose very well, protecting our sheep, and also was the proud mama of Autumn Star. Though she was stand-offish, she was a good llama and mother (she even extended nursed Autumn Star, a good 6 months past when she was supposed to nurse her). She will be missed, and we will be looking into another llama for the sheep. For now the dogs do a good job of keeping predators at bay.

Sullivan (Sully), our beautiful herding dog, courtesy of Ebersole Cattle Co.

Bolt, a charity case, but a gentle dog.

The view of the front paddocks

The play set I built in the spring after it sat in the garage for a year. A great investment!

It's a State of Mind, A Way of Doing Things

Working with the idea posted here earlier about family work weekends, I wanted to give a glimpse of our set up. We have our share of friends and family who are also homesteading on acreages, and then we also have some who live in town and urban homestead. Due to limited space/light/laws we end up sharing our space with them, so they can expand on what they do there. In exchange they help us keep up with what we do. Recently we added a new goat, already in milk to our herd, a sweet Toggenberg named Ginger. We weren't really planning on doing any milking until next spring, but Ginger came from a family who needed to find a good home for many in their herd, and we were itching to be able to supply our own dairy products. This led to a scurry of gathering parts and pieces we were going to need, including (but certainly not limited to!) a milking stand. The home we adopted Ginger from had a wooden milking stand, which they had advised against, as they were having issues with mildew. After searching numerous pages of terribly-expensive-on-a-homesteader's-budget stands made of wood, pvc or metal, I decided that we would chance the wood. The cost of the stands available through catalogs and such were in the area of $175-$200 plus shipping which was generally around $65. The cost of materials for our homemade one: $30. No comparison.

This stand was also built by two terribly talented ladies, myself and one of my closest friends and partner in crime, er, homesteading (she's my urban counterpart, so to speak). It went together easily; we used the directions for a stand from Fias Co. Farm, which is also where we get our animal health products like the herbal wormer we use. I love Molly's site-she is very thorough in her explanations of how and why she does what she does with her goats. The stand works wonderfully, and has already served another purpose as I sheared our Border Cheviot sheep, Chrysanthemum yesterday. It is lightweight and sealed with oil. I wipe down with the same soapy solution I clean the milking dishes with each milking, and dry it to avoid any growth issues.
All of this is not to push Fias Co. farm's site (though I do love them!) or to brag or just chat about how I spend my weeknights, but rather to talk about how many resources (including this blog :)  ) are available to the simply, frugally, green minded individual out there that makes it easier for them to live the way they do. The internet has made it so easy to find others who have been through the same trenches we have been or are in. It is easy to order or follow the insight of the first site hits google brings up, but I find that there is great value in taking time to look at all your options and seek what fits you best. I respect the opinion of the fine farm family we bought Ginger from, and I agree they have an issue with the stand they use. I also know our situation and what we can make work. I took time (though I was on a deadline) and figured out what would fit our budget and time. That wouldn't have worked, though, without the help of our friends, either. I am not a craftsman when it comes to wood working, but by combining talents (every Thursday night, at that) we are able to achieve more, and work towards our goals for more self-sufficiency and frugality. And it was fun. I think too often we see work rather than opportunities for gathering. I actually enjoy working-I know it sounds crazy to some, but the feeling of accomplishing something is far more gratifying than the click of a button in ordering it from some distant company. All in the homesteader's day to day, and I wouldn't change any of it.

Meet Arthur

The newest addition to our farm. His is the offspring of Thorn and Chrysanthemum, and a total accident; a welcomed one, though. Both his parents are black, but he came out lookin' like his grandmas-white. We will wether him. His white fleece is what saved him from being a meat lamb. Chrys was able to birth him all by herself, and he did get a little nursing done before we got to him, which is actually a good thing-colostrum is important for ALL mammal babies, but now he is on a little colostrum formula, then will switch to goat's milk or a replacement formula.

I want to bottle feed all my babies-the sheep are just too skittish and I really want to be able to interact with my flock more than I currently can. I really appreciate the way my goats interact with us-far more friendly, though Arthur's mom, Chrys, is getting warmer. If she thinks you have crackers in your pocket, she'll hang out with you for a bit. Not long enough to make much progress, but it is better than they've acted in the past.
Yay for our first baby of the year! (Okay so we bought some ducklings-I"ll post on them later :) )