The Goldens and Sierra ~ Work and Play

The Golden's and Sierra are constant companions for all of us, they add a richness to our life that is hard to describe.  A few days ago I went outside with my camera  to take some pictures of them at work and play.  They like to be right in the middle of whatever is going on, whether it's peeling a log with Dad, feeding the animals with me, or greeting the girls as they come home from school.  It's always fun to be around our Golden's, that's what they're all about... fun!

Wrestling together is a daily activity.

They like it when we take a break and sit down on the back deck, 

then it's time to get Dad and give him hugs and kisses. 

Sierra, our Great Pyrenees has a different nature than the Golden's, she likes to play and have fun too, but only when she wants to, more importantly she likes to guard and be on watch, that's her nature.  It's only been in the last few months that we've been able to let her loose to run the property, ever since we finished the perimeter fence we've slowly been giving her more freedom.  Great Pyrenees will wander if they're not fenced in as that's part of their nature, they want to check out the neighborhood and surrounding properties, they will traverse a large territory.  She now has 10 fully fenced acres to wander around, however, we've had to train her not to dig out once it was done.  We even had to hot wire the base of her 2 acre pasture that was built just for her, so she wouldn't dig out.  This is a beautiful breed of dog, but remember they need to have a large fenced property, and you have to devote lots of time to training them.  She spent much of her younger years on a leash being trained and keeping a close eye on, she went everywhere with my husband for 2 years, to work, on walks, tied on the porch, in her pasture, and now it's so nice to have her free and staying in the yard.    Everyone loves her, she has a sweet spirit and is truly beautiful.

Josie watching Dad work at peeling a log for his next project, a log entryway.   We don't normally use the trees on our property for clients projects, but this one was an exception.  Rarely do we take down our majestic trees even though we have plenty of them. If ever we do they're usually saved for building projects around home.  I counted the rings on this tree, 61 years old! 

Josie is my girl, both her and Summer are, they will go everywhere with me.  I have spent more time training the two of them, and my husband has spent more time training Sierra and Jesu.  They're all family dogs, but each has a master that they're bonded with.  I've worked with Josie since birth training her and I'm very happy with how she has turned out.  The puppies Jesu and Josie turned one in October, how fast they grow up.  

Below is smiley Jesu (pronounced Jess-oo) we also call him "Bubs", he is a lover and our only boy dog.  All the girls love him and so do we.  Our Golden's are fun loving and want to be with us no matter what we're doing.  This is a breed that is easy to train, wants to please you and be with you, their nature is sweet and wonderful, and they keep us smiling and laughing throughout the day. 

 

As the Rooster Crows

It's still dark outside and not quite 5am, I can hear Rodney crowing in the distance and know he's crowing back and forth with the neighbor's rooster several acres away.  They go back and forth for a while and then stop, it's not a loud or obnoxious crow but is a country sound I like to hear in the morning.  I'm up early and already started the fire and made a cup of coffee, everyone will begin to wake up in another hour or so and our day will begin. It's interesting how as the cold and dark of winter begin again this time of year I slow down and have a desire to write.  I've been keeping journals and writing off and on since my early 20's, most of the journals I still have and sometimes I'll pick them up to read about all those years ago.  Through some of the tough times in my life when I wrote out my inner feelings I did go back and rip out pages and burnt them not wanting anyone (namely my children) to read of my hard times. 

Anytime you write a journal there is a good chance someone may read it and a blog even more so, people from around the world have the opportunity to find it and read what you've written.  I haven't been good about writing here lately and for that I do apologize,  if you are still following along after my long absences and technology fasts... thank you for still hanging in there with me.  When you write a blog you secretly hope someone will read it, and that you have something  interesting to say.  On this blog, especially in the beginning I'd agonize over my writing, it would take me so long to write a post and proofread it, then I'd hit the publish button with a little wince and hope I didn't have too many errors.  There have also been posts I've deleted, then regretted, and there have been times where I've added or taken something out months later, thinking I said too much, or didn't want to show pictures or talk too much about my children because I wanted the focus to be a farm and garden blog.

Then I'd think I'm sharing too much I don't know if it's good to show the world where I live and what I think, I  didn't even share my blog with friends for a long time because I kind of like being private and can be a real hermit at times.  Once I had someone mention my pictures were too dark and wondered why, and people would want to come visit and I worried it wasn't all pulled together perhaps like I made it look here.  The garden had weeds, I didn't have homemade bread made to serve them, the house wasn't finished or clean enough, and on and on I could go.  I've decided to just keep going forward here on this blog, sharing from my heart what I'm learning and doing. 

Now that I'm done working at the nursery where I worked for two years Spring through Fall I'm going to focus my energies on building my own business.  Work took me away from home 2 days per week, which isn't alot, but with all I'm doing at home along with raising children, it affected me and my desire to begin my own business making money from home.  The last time I made soap was right before I started working there, before I began there I was really focused on writing and had written out some big goals for myself and the business I wanted to start.  Now with the end of this nursery season I let my manager know I wouldn't be coming back next year, I knew when I started there that I was suppose to serve her and work there for two years, my family all knew that was part of the plan.  I'm so thankful for that job though as we needed the money and that's how I was able to buy the goats, rabbits, and get some wonderful new garden plants.  I also learned many things about landscape design and met some great new people.

Plans are now in the works to begin again, one of the first things I'll be doing is making goat's milk soap and lotion for Christmas gifts and practise batches, then I want to continue to make it and get setup to sell online through etsy.  I'll also be focusing on Applegarth Farm as a permaculture center for learning.  That means my home, farm, and garden will be open this next summer to come visit, perhaps some classes and I'll have baby goats, goldens, rabbits and edible plants for sale come June.  I have the excitement and energy in me again to keep going forward with my dream.

The Goat Herd and Fall Breeding

Earlier this Fall was the start of our breeding schedule, Jersey was the first up since she never did get pregnant last year and I wanted her to have a chance to be the first to kid next Spring.   All of the other goats were curious and of course our handsome buck Cowboy was too, he has really grown and matured over the last year into a nice buck and we all love his great personality.  Jersey's due date should be around March 15th, Joon the first of April, Zolena the middle of April, and Snowdrop the first of May.  I timed it so they were all about 2 weeks apart, then each one can have the use of the birthing suite and the nursery paddock for a couple of weeks. 

"Poppy Patch Ride Um Cowboy" is our buck's official pedigreed name, his Dam is Poppy Patch Dutchess, a  winning show goat, his sire is Algedi Farm Honeymoon Bay, plus he has  Ponders End, Rosasharn, and Twin Creeks in his bloodline.  Excellent udders are in his lines, I'm hoping he'll produce some fine offspring this coming season. 

Jersey and Cowboy flirting through the fence, this picture was taken in early September when she first went into heat.  Most goats are seasonal breeders and begin going into heat around the first of September and every 3 weeks they'll come into heat  until they're bred, the heat cycles will last through February and even early March if they don't get bred.   I wanted to wait until the middle of October to breed Jersey so she wouldn't be giving birth in February, mid March was the earliest I wanted to go for weather reasons.  Our buck is a Nigerian Dwarf, and I'm using him to breed all the does to, both Snowdrop and Joon are Nigerian Dwarf, Jersey is a Nubian, and Zolena is a Lamancha.  This means I will have first generation miniature Nubian and Lamancha's.  I don't know that much about the miniatures other than some cute one's I've seen on Craigslist and some websites of Farms that specialize in them. I'm still fairly new to goats so this will be an exciting Spring to see the new goat kids. More than anything I'm using what I have, if I had a Nubian buck I'd use him for Jersey, and a Lamancha buck for Zolena, it's simply not practical to have 3 bucks for my situation.  I really like having 4 does and 1 buck, that is a nice ratio for me, and if I can get all 4 does in milk over the Summer, Fall, and early Winter I will be thrilled and have plenty of milk to make cheese.

The courting began with an audience of curious does. 

Joon, our cute little Nigerian doe was the first goat we brought home, I'm still milking her everday and have since she weaned her twins in the middle of July.  Joon loves being a milk goat and will even let Kaley milk her.   I have grown attached to this charming goat and her sweet curious personality.  She was bred to Cowboy the first of November for kids due the first of April.  Come Spring this farm will be hoppin with baby goats.

Preserving the Harvest

This was a great year for fruit in the Pacific Northwest, we had beautiful weather for almost 3 months from the middle of July through the middle of October, there was sunshine almost everyday.  We all walked around eating from the fruit trees in our orchard and the berry bushes in the garden for months.  The 4 Italian Plums were just loaded with delicious fruit, we ate them fresh, kept the dehydrator going nonstop, gave some to neighbors, made, jam, preserves, plum brandy, plum butter, and froze a couple gallons for pie making later.  I love having the problem of too much fruit, then you can have fun with all the different ways to preserve it.  Every time my husband went to town I was asking him to buy another case of jars and low sugar pectin.

Many days were spent right here over the stove creating our winter preserves.

Italian Plums are sweet and tart and when preserved they turn a beautiful dark, ruby red, I made 65 pints of plum preserves, and a half dozen quarts of plums in a light syrup, plus I made a half dozen pints of plum juice.  The preserves are delicious on bread, yogurt, with fresh chevre' or straight out of the jar, I made them all with a low sugar pectin.  

Our Honeycrisp apple tree took off this year, we planted it 5 years ago and this year got about 170 of the best apples we have ever eaten.  Last year it produced 7 apples.  What do I attribute the difference to?  Well, besides maturing for another year, in mid March we applied a thick layer of compost around most of the fruit trees, I think feeding the soil is the key to helping fruit trees be disease resistant, this year I am going to spread compost on all the trees.  I don't can apples, we mostly eat them fresh and cut them up to put on oatmeal and hot cereals.

I have a pantry in the corner of my kitchen, plus I now have a new pantry off our kitchen that is my cold room, I keep preserves, apples, pumpkin's, squashes, nuts, and I have storage for bigger kitchen items.  It's still a work in progress but I have a vision to fill all my shelves with home made canned soups, more pickled goods, I'm working on pickled beets and carrots this weekend, and I still have a couple more boxes of pears to set out at room temperature to ripen and can.   I had most of the pears given to me from my manager where I work, she has a 50 year old pear tree in her back yard and I've had almost as many pears to process as plums, these were our two big harvests to preserve this year.  Over the Summer and early Fall I also made rhubarb jam, raspberry, gooseberry, red current, crabapple, mirabella plum, and another unknown kind of plum.  Preserves are a wonderful homemade gift as well as to simply enjoy through the long winter ahead. 



Fall Garden in Review

Looking out towards the garden from the covered deck as you walk up to our front door.

The garden is rapidly winding down for the year with several light frosts under our belt and temps in the mid 30's to low 50's.  The rains have begun in earnest and the leaves seem to melt off the plants and trees in this weather, luckily we have plenty of evergreens for late Fall and Winter color.  With much of the harvest canned, frozen, dried, or in cold storage I now have more time to sit by the fire and share what's been going on around here.

Josie was napping under a Bloodgood Japanese Maple, I called her name and she looked up, my goldens are constant companions while I'm gardening, they love to oversee it all and help dig if I let them.

Most of these pictures were taken  in early to mid October when the garden still had some color. 

One of the central paths in the vegetable garden.

Red Chidori Kale, delicious lightly steamed with a little butter and vinegar. 

One of kale's virtues is that you can harvest it from Spring through Fall and into the Winter. 

 

Artichokes that were successfully grown from seed produced their first year.  This is a perennial crop that will have permanent spot in my garden.  We're still eating plenty out of the garden even this late in the year, there is kale, swiss chard, small broccoli florets, sorrel, carrots, beets, turnips, potatoes, celeriac, and greens.    Many meals have everything grown or raised right here, with the addition of our eggs, chicken, and dairy products.

Swiss Chard loves our climate and the leaves really liven up a salad

I'm learning to cook with turnips and like the small ones fresh in salads, the larger ones cooked like mash potatoes, or baked in a root vegetable casserole, plus I'll add them in small amounts to soups.

Every year I have a few favorite plants and flowers, this year it was all of my patio plants that I got for Mother's Day from my husband and children.  They bought plants for me at a local hobby gardener's sale, he has one a few times per year and specializes in annuals.  I tried some fun new plants like the Angel Trumpet Flower, Albutilon, and the Shrimp plant, along with geraniums and petunia's in color's that I had never grown before. Most of the one's I can over winter are inside all toasty waiting to go back outside next year when it warms up again.





Everyday over the Spring, Summer, and early Fall I had so much enjoyment from my garden, with music softly piped outside while I worked away, I thought this is heaven on earth.  My favorite music early in the morning are the bird songs, their singing is delightful with the robins being especially nice.  Hummingbirds live in the Douglas fir trees surrounding our property and they love to race from flower to flower and then they'll sit quietly on the fence and look about.  The hum of life comes from the birds and bees, the flowers that feed our soul, and the fruits and vegetables that feed our bodies, you can feel the pulse when you enter.  The work of the garden pays us back in so many wonderful ways throughout the year. 



Angel Trumpet Flowers

Magnificent, I loved this as a patio plant!

A type of "Albutillon"

Amaranth "Love Lies Bleeding" is a favorite of mine.

During the summer I gathered peppermint and dried the leaves for tea to drink through the year.  I also dried plenty of thyme, sage and oregano, the herbs in my garden are at their peak the end of July so I gathered the leaves on a dry morning at the height of summer.  They taste wonderful in soups, stews, spaghetti and for cooking through the winter.  I dry them in full leaf and then grind them in a mortise and pestle just before adding to soups and salads.  The flavor is so fresh and takes me back to the mornings I picked them.  There are still plenty of fresh herbs going strong in the garden but the leaves gathered at the height of summer have the best flavor.

This year with our fence complete and no deer getting inside, I can now grow roses.  Over the summer I ordered the David Austin catalog and have been dreaming of a garden filled with roses ever since.    Tamora was a rose I bought several years ago, it has a delicious old rose scent.   If you aren't familiar with David Austin roses look him up online and order his Rose Catalog you will see what I'm talking about.  He's bred the best of the old roses with the new for repeat flowering, disease resistance, and fragrance.    You can also classify many of them as edibles because of their rose hips and petals that you can make jam with.



  

David Austin Rose "Tamora"



I'm in Love

My little "Romeo" 

Roman David born November 3rd 

8lbs. 2oz.

I fell head over heels in love with my new Grandson from the minute he was born.  The strong maternal feelings were so overwhelming that I just wanted to bring him home to love and cuddle.  Of course my daughter wanted to bring him home to her house too... imagine that.  I told her they would just have to move in with us so I could see him everyday.  It wasn't realistic but that's how I felt, I'm thankful they only live about 30 minutes away so I can see him often. 

The birth went well, my daughter was amazing, and her fiance' Michael was a shining star. I have a whole new appreciation for him as I watched him care for her while she was in labor for 20+ hours.  Both his mother, sister, and I were the support team right along with him.  I was so proud of my daughter Christina and glad I could be with her through the long night at the hospital while she was in labor.  Little Roman came into the world healthy as can be and has a full head of dark hair, he was beautiful even as a newborn.  You can see in the picture above at a couple weeks old how adorable he is!  When I hear grandparents gush about their grandchildren, now I understand, I wasn't prepared for the love that wells up inside us for grandchildren, but it surely does! 

The Benefits of Keeping Rabbits

The benefits of raising rabbits as small livestock are many, especially if you live in a neighborhood and dream of farming on a miniature scale.  The fact that they require very little space and are quiet is nice for your neighbors nearby, who may never even know you're raising  them.  If you have a fenced backyard you can also let them out to get exercise for a few hours while you're gardening and can keep an eye on them.

The nutrient rich compost gathered from under rabbit cages works perfectly into a small farm permaculture plan, used for top dressing beds and natural fertilizer for the vegetable garden.  It's nice to know that all the feed you buy is utilized and converted into a most useful product.  They also can be bred through much of the year and have short pregnancies of around 31 days.  Housing costs are minimal, you can either find new hutches through your local feed store or look on craigslist for nice used ones.  If you're handy you can easily make your own hutches.  Storing their feed is simple as you don't need a large area to put a bag of food and a bale of hay.  Buying rabbit food through the feed store in 50lb bags is economical, along with buying a bale of good grass hay like orchard or timothy.  These will both last rabbits a long time.

Finding the right breed is a part of the fun, and visiting different rabbit breeders allows you to view a variety of rabbits and their housing set ups, as well as talk with an experienced person who's been raising rabbits usually for some time.  My focus has turned from pet rabbits when my children were small to now raising American Chinchillas and Champagne d' Argents which are both  medium sized meat and fur breed of rabbit.  Typically meat and fur rabbits weigh between 9-12 lbs.  The main focus in our rabbitry is to raise quality purebred and pedigreed rabbits to sell.  I sell them for between $30 to $40 each, if I can sell them for that price they will not be for meat.  If however I have extra's they will be for meat.  We haven't quite gotten over the cute factor on our small farm yet, as you can see they are very cute and personable.  So my goal in our rabbitry is for a little side money along with compost, and an enjoyable hobby.  Will we harvest any we don't sell? The answser is yes, I think it may get easier with experiece.  I am going to research the different humane ways of processing them (I can hardly bring myself to say butcher) but that is the reality on a small farm, and the meat is one of the finest  meats and is very popular in Europe, I will share what I learn about the various methods.

It takes time to set up a rabbitry for breeding.  You can buy quality young stock at 8 to 10 weeks old, this is the most common method.  You need to allow them to mature until they're 6-8 months old before they're ready to be bred.  Study books on rabbits and find out all you can to be successful.  One area where I've really learned is regarding their feed, I was feeding them more like my goats with their daily ration of alfalfa rabbit pellets and alfalfa hay, I gave them dry cob (corn, oats and barley) as a supplement.  An older book on rabbits advised both of these things, since then I've learned rabbits are leaf eating animals, they do much better on a mostly leafy diet, they need to have a daily ration of  quality rabbit pellets, plus I give them additions of dandelion greens, lettuce, carrots, apples and many other fruits and vegetables, but the basic everyday feed should be a high quality rabbit feed around 16 to 17 percent protein, along with always providing grass hay for roughage in their diet, they need all three things, fresh raw foods, rabbit pellets and grass hay.  A good quality grass hay like timothy or orchard is better for them than feeding too much alfalfa, I give them alfalfa as a special treat, or if it's really cold outside.  What they don't need is a lot grain products like corn, which mine happen to love.

The litter of American Chinchilla kits in the photo below is from Serendipity's breeding to Tobin, the buck from China Moon rabbitry.  I kept one doeling and sold the other doeling and buckling to a nice young lady who bought them to start her own backyard meat production.  In addition I have several people now on a waiting list for the next litter, due in about a week. 

The American Chinchilla's I can't say enough good things about, overall I love their personalities and they have beautiful long eyelashes.  In my experience so far they're good mothers and have nice litters.  The ratio that is ideal for me is 3 does and 1 buck.  I keep them outside where they get fresh air and morning sun.

Some Big News!

I'm turning the page in the novel of my life and getting ready to enter a new chapter, one that is ushering in the next generation of our family! Yes, it's true... I'm going to be a Grandma and am I ever excited!   You can see in the picture above my very pregnant daughter Christina (due Nov.1st), along with all of my children.  This picture was taken at her baby shower a month ago.  Both sides of the family were there to shower the soon to be parents with gifts.

One of my gifts for our new grandson (we already know he's a boy) is a newly grafted baby apple tree that I will graft and plant just for him.  It will be a honeycrisp apple tree, and I'll do the tending of it.  He'll have his very own tree that only he can pick from, and I'm going to have a plaque made with his name and birth date and every new grandchild we have will get one too.

This year will be an extra special Holiday season for our family as we celebrate with our first grandchild.  All of the kids and Grandpa are as excited to welcome him into the family as I am.   Knowing that someday I would be a Grandma, I saved things over the years, things that I've either collected or kept, a cute little rattan chair for toddlers, old Disney movies my kids loved, dolls, legos, a tiny bicycle, and a whole treasure chest filled with the best Halloween costumes over the years.  I'm kind of a pack rat and sentimental, two things that cause one to save all kinds of things.  So now I'm glad I saved them all.

We're only a little over a month till her due date and I'll be on call to go to the hospital, because part of her birth plan is to have me with her during her labor and birth.  I remember well all of my birth stories and shared some more with her yesterday about her birth in particular.  She's my oldest child and is almost 22 years old, I'm so proud or who she is, and know she'll be the best Mom.  When I hear her talk and the words that come out of her mouth, I hear the same spirit and faith that is part of me. 

This holiday season we are going to be blessed with a gift from God, and I can hardly wait to hold him and give him a kiss from Grandma!

Milking Muscles

One year later and I'm still milking,  all because of  one goat "Lucky Star's Acceptance" aka Zolena, we haven't had to buy a drop of milk since bringing her home. It was a truly a lucky star that brought her into our life and our family got to meet the elegant and charming Lamancha's.   We have been so impressed with her milking ability that we've thought perhaps we'd just buy another Lamancha doe and buckling next Spring and focus primarily on this breed.  Zolena is so smart and inquisitive, we've had to double latch every gate and watch if something's amiss in the goat pasture, usually she's the little monkey behind all the mischief.

As you know we also have a sweetheart Nubian named Jersey, and the cheese girls, Joon and Snowdrop are Nigerian Dwarf does.  Right now we're at 4 does and one buck "Cowboy".  Both Stormy and Comet the two wether's went to a great home together and are sharing a pasture and barn with a couple of alpaca's, they're helping to eat down the blackberries.  I hear they're doing wonderful and have settled right down in their new home and are happy.

Over the past few months I've thought so much about who should stay and who should go as far as the does, now at this point in the year I've decided to keep all four since we love our goat family and it's diversity.  Jersey never was pregnant, if you can believe that.  I must have overfed her and she just got big.  I felt pretty silly after her due date came and went and I had been going outside at night to check on her night after night, then she never was pregnant.  I wanted to get her bred to a purebred Nubian and last year we went to the buck 3 times to get her bred.    This year I've decided to keep her and try one more time to get her bred and will breed her to Cowboy.

I've been milking Joon, our little black Nigerian since the middle of July when her kids were weaned.  I grumbled at first because she wasn't as easy to milk as Zolena, then after a couple of weeks my milking muscles grew and I adjusted, now I love milking little Joon.  She likes being a dairy goat, and she's a great milker, giving a full to the brim quart of high butterfat milk everyday.  I only milk once per day, usually around 9:30 AM, I'm sure both goats would produce more milk if I milked them twice per day.  With one milking per day, Zolena gives about 3/4 of a gallon right now and Joon a quart.  So, I'm still getting about a gallon per day.

My plan is to breed all the does to Cowboy, he's a Nigerian and has a champion pedigree, there are some gorgeous milking does in his lineage.  I've done research on miniature Nubians and Lamancha's and have decided to use him for breeding them all.  If you remember last year I was opposed to breeding miniatures.  Over the last couple weeks I've been getting the does and Cowboy ready by deworming them and giving mineral supplements, like copper, selenium and vitamin E, as well as writing down dates when each doe is in heat.  I will breed Jersey first then the other's, spacing them apart over 2 months.  

We also emailed Lucky Star Lamancha Farm and are planning to go visit them the first of October to look at their bucks and does.  I told Judy the owner that I was looking for a show quality doe in milk.  You never know I may want to show my goats next year at a couple of local events, I think Zolena is show quality and would do well.

Sorry I haven't been here writing on my blog over the Summer.  I've missed sitting down penning my thoughts and going onto other blogs I enjoy.  Anyway hello again and Happy Fall :)

The rabbitry ~ American Chinchilla's

Zelpha "Fern"

2 month old doe, from China Moon Rabbitry

Our rabbitry is going to focus on the American Chinchilla rabbit breed.  This doe "Fern" will be with us for many years to come as our foundation doe, the first of our pedigreed American Chinchilla breeding stock.  She's tattooed in the right ear to prove it, and last week I even joined the ARBA, the American Rabbit Breeder's Association, so now Applegarth Farm is officially a registered rabbitry.

Zelpha Fern was my grandmother's name and I've always loved it!  Mostly because it represented my grandmother and she was an amazing woman with so much energy and zest for life.  I remember her cooking and love of family and wanted to think of her often.  The story behind the name is that her mother, my great grandmother made up the name with a friend when they were 10 years old and were talking and playing and thinking about names for their future children.  My great grandmother chimed out saying, "I'm going to name my firstborn daughter Zelpha Fern", and she did!  I remember my grandmother telling my sister and I the story when we were about 10 years old, she had a real southern Oklahoma accent with inflection and tone that made stories fun to listen to. 

Of course I had to name her husband, the buck Melvin.  My grandfather's name is Lawrence Melvin "Mel" for short.  My grandpa is still alive and still gardening.  I'm sure he'll hear about me naming my rabbits Mel and Fern after both of them.  As I say their names to my new rabbits, I often think of the many happy memories our families have shared over the years with both of my grandparents.

American Chinchilla buck Melvin "Mel"

from the Tree House Rabbitry

Serendipity

One year old American Chinchilla doe 

bred to Tobin of China Moon rabbitry on 6/8

Serendipity, our one year old American Chinchilla doe came with us as we travelled South on I-5 for an hour and a half as we headed to China Moon Rabbitry.  She was coming with us to be bred to one of their nice pedigreed bucks named Tobin, I hope to get a picture up soon of him. Melvin is from a totally different rabbitry in the same area called The Treehouse Homestead rabbitry.  He's a 3 month old buck that is non related to both Fern and Serendipity.  We had a nice time at China Moon meeting Theresa the breeder, and I had fun seeing all of her rabbits and her whole set up.  It's nice to talk to other's who are further along in their breeding program, I always learn new things by asking questions.  Thank you Theresa for the rabbits and the breeding to Tobin, we enjoyed our time at their rabbitry, talking with both her and her husband. 

Fern is happily rooming together with Serendipity for the next few weeks, and a few days before she gives birth, Serendipity will get her own large cage as we're growing more cages are being built along with the rabbit tractor.  Melvin is in the cage next door, and next to him are the Champagne d' Argents.

Early Summer farm update

Looking out my back door I can see the vegetable garden beyond the patio, it's situated close by so we can easily gather fresh food.  This year we're feeling more self sufficient than we ever have before in our lives, all the hard work is starting to pay off.  We're eating salads from the garden, fresh eggs from our chickens, delicious milk, yogurt, and cheese from our goats, along with our own farm raised chicken meat.  As we walk around our property the salmon berries are ripe, they're the first berries of the season, and we're harvesting loads of rhubarb.  The beautiful spring weather we had during the time the fruit trees were in bloom has resulted in the apple, cherry, pear and plum trees to be loaded with healthy looking young fruit.

Spring is slowly turning into Summer around here, we're at a higher elevation so everything is about 2 weeks behind the valley and town below us.  I still haven't planted out many of my warm season crops except for a few tomatoes and basil on the porch, the rest are still in the cold frame staying covered on cold nights.  The cool season crops like broccoli, kale, peas, potatoes and greens are all doing great!  Note to self, remember I need to set up the trellis for the peas early this year.  The rhubarb has been the best harvest this time of year, I've been making stewed rhubarb and rhubarb pie.  I'll be planting out my warm season crops in a couple weeks as it's still getting down to the high 40's at night, the few pumpkin starts I did put out to test just withered from the cold.  We're having a full moon tonight, so the next couple weeks the moon will be waning and I'll be focusing on planting root crops.  I really do try to plant by the moon, when it's waxing or getting bigger I'll plant above ground crops, when it's waning I'll focus on below ground crops. 

In the farm yard, the goat kids are so much fun and growing up fast, they're curious about everything, and will run, climb, and leap about with such joy and abandon it's a delight to watch.  I was worried about them being aloof because Joon will stand off to the side as everyone else clamors about wanting attention.  She would call her kids to her as if to tell them to keep their distance. We held them and gave them attention from day one, and I decided when they were three weeks old to separate them from Joon and bottle feed them.  She was miserable with this arrangement, the kids were miserable, and so was I.  After 2 days I had a talk with Joon and told her why I was doing this, I wanted her kids to be as friendly as all the other goats, and I wanted her to come around and be friendly too.

A funny thing happened with Joon almost instantly, or perhaps it was with me.  I brought her back in with her kids, and she decided it was time to get over her shyness and let us get near her and pet her.  She has always been friendly with me as I'm the one who feeds and spends the most time with them all.  Joon is a good milker and is great about walking on a lead, it was mostly with the rest of the family that she wouldn't let near her or pet her.  So what I've been doing to get her to be more friendly is to bribe her with food, I started by filling my pockets with lots of good grain, fed from the hand and every time she eats her grain and alfalfa pellets, I literally have her eat from my lap as I pet and scratch her, of course the kids are right there crawling all over me wanting pets and scratches too.  I'm  making sure everyone has grain when they go in to see her.  We've spent loads of time with the kids, holding and loving them, my husband was amazed at what a difference it has made because now she'll even let him go up to her and pet her.  I'm sure she still won't run up to strangers for a pet, but with grain as a treat she is overcoming her shyness.  Last week I let all the goats be together, the babies love to play with Snowdrop and Stormy, and all the goats seem happy.   I'm gearing up for Jersey's kidding, she may be pregnant, but I'm still not sure.  Her udder isn't filling up, but I've read that may not happen until right around the time she gives birth.  Joon's udder filled out several weeks before giving birth.  If Jersey is pregnant, she will give birth around the middle of the month, but we bred her 4 times so time will tell.

Over the last few weeks I haven't written or posted here on my blog, it's not that I haven't wanted to or tried to, I attempted to upload photo's on several different occasions and got frustrated with my extra slow dial up connection.  I never could get the pictures uploaded. I've bemoaned not having high speed internet for years, with dial up you can never watch you tube videos, much less post them, it's hard for me to look at blogs that don't minimize their pictures before they upload them.  Most of the blogs I read and can upload are aware of the fact that they need to minimize their pictures for dial up readers, otherwise it takes around 10 or 15 minutes to upload versus say 2 minutes.  Sometimes I let things upload and go put in a load of laundry or do a few dishes, however it seems that my computer has slowed down even more over the last few months.  I need to clean it up, remove pictures and cookies, do some maintenance and see if that helps.  My dream for this year is to get high speed internet, we had a friend out the other day who tested his verizon cell phone service, he said it's spotty and may not pick up enough signal for a computer connection.  Our main option (because we're in the boonies) is to get a small satellite and use it for the internet.  I could then post videos and easily upload photos.  So, my plan for this summer is to look into the costs associated with getting one, and see if it would work for us... I'm crossing my fingers!!

In other farmyard news, I'll be picking up a couple of American Chinchilla rabbits later this week, a young buck and doe, plus I'll be taking Serendipity our mature doe to get her bred.  The American Chinchilla breed is the one I want to focus on, not that I'm getting rid of our Champagne d' Argents.  I'm just adding a pedigreed buck and doe and getting some new lineage, that way I'll get some nice diversity within my rabbit stock.

The 2 hives of honeybees I installed a month ago are doing well, they need to be fed sugar syrup on a regular basis, and need room to grow this time of year.  Feed them faithfully until the blackberries come into bloom and they'll thrive, between the dandelion/ fruit tree bloom and the blackberry bloom there's a real gap with almost nothing for them to eat, this is the time of year they can starve quickly.  I learned the hard way one year, so I always like to remind new beekeepers to be vigilant about feeding in late May and early June.  If you see any dead bees on the entrance, suspect hunger and put on sugar syrup right away, for us up here so high we have to feed the whole month of June.  The ratio of sugar syrup is 2 parts water 1 part sugar in the Spring.  In the Fall it's a one to one ratio, because you want a thicker syrup.

This spring has been busy for me with my daughters having track practise everyday and meets once a week, work 2 days a week, and in between, I'm in the garden, with the farm animals, cooking, cleaning, and feeding everyone.  My days are full and happy!  I hope that wherever you are, you're having fun and blooming where your planted!