We've been super busy again and the blog was neglected! Last Friday Princess Leah had her lambs - twins, one boy and one girl, just like Oprah had. She had them fairly uneventfully. Nathan just had to assist by straightening the ram lamb's leg. The only eventful part was that I wasn't present! Sigh. I have to take some photos of them tomorrow.
When they were just a few days old we let the sheep (lucky Thomas included) out to graze our carefully tended grass. We have 4 areas set up for rotation in the bottom section of the farm, and another 2 at the top. Our front yard might not be ready this year since it turns out winter rye is a lot harder to turn in by hand than I had thought...we will get our pigs to do it and then plant grass after that. The lambs are hilarious to watch out on the fresh grass. All 5 (!) of them race around in the morning and evening while their moms and dad pay them no attention whatsoever. Pippa went in today for a sheep social. I left the gate cracked so she could leave if she was getting beat up. She is too quick for any of them to ram her, but she left when I was out of sight to follow me.
We also let the meat chicks (and Copper Marans layer chicks that are with them) out into their 'chicken tractor'. They were too big for their brooder and it has been beautiful out, so we made the decision to start them on grass even though we hadn't figured out an enclosed and moveable 'run' area for them. We had originally planned on enclosing them in electronetting, but we realized that newly feathered chicks are way too small to be safe from flying predators. We mostly figured that out after a raven killed one of our 3 month old layers when we went inside for a few minutes one evening :(
So, we needed to protect the meat birds from daytime predators - hawks, eagles and ravens. We ended up using the frame from last year's chicken tractor (the one that we couldn't use as a nighttime coop this year because it wasn't mink or raccoon proof) with bird netting attached to it. It gets connected to the predator proof coop on wheels where they get locked in at night. Tomorrow we have to work some more on those bike wheels - there is too much weight on them for how they're connected, and they're bowing in.
It got tested first thing this morning. I was drinking my coffee on the other side of the farm and I saw a hawk fly down and land on the pvc pipe! I couldn't believe it...it just sat there for a good 10 seconds while I tried to get Ryan to hurry outside and give it a good scare. It flew off before he realized it was there...
Meat bird season means chicken grain left behind in the grass!
Pippa has fully integrated herself with the dogs. They just act like she is one of them.
So nice to see the sheep on GREEN pasture again!
We had fun doing some demolition with our visiting friends this weekend. The old coop at the top of the farm was such a disgusting eyesore. In one day we tore it down, piled the scraps, took a lunch break at the farmer's market and then had a huge bonfire to burn the scrap wood.
Demolition is fun!
Miss Victoria is proving to be a very smart and tricky duck. She disappeared one evening just before night lockdown. I was really worried...but there she was in the morning, taking her daily swim. Hmm. I kept a close eye on her all day and she stuck around. The next day she disappeared mid day for a few hours but was ready for bed in the evening. We realized she must have a secret nest, but we couldn't manage to keep an eye on her long enough to figure out where she was going. Then tonight, she actually escaped the duck yard just before lockdown and disappeared. Nathan shone the flashlight under the water tank house (the big blue shed next to the house) and sure enough, there she was. We managed to get her out and she was sitting on 18 eggs! She had an assorted variety...chicken eggs, duck eggs, light eggs, dark eggs...I guess she doesn't discriminate. We're blocking off access to that area and we'll have to make her a nice secret-seeming nest box...somewhere that is slightly more accessible!
Transplanted daffodils from their strange location at the back of one of the pastures:
Mini mower:
Asparagus coming up!
My pond helpers - every time I go do something near the pond, the girls are all over it:
Farm panorama!
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