A video!

Well, loyal blog readers, I didn't beat my number of blog posts from last year but at least I made a valiant attempt at a comeback these past few months. To make up for it, I present to you...a movie AND photos!

I finally went through all of the video clips I've taken since we started this adventure. I knew that if I didn't do something with them, they'd end up lost on a hard drive somewhere. There were so many clips I'd forgotten about! I love our farm.


Local Forage Farm from JD on Vimeo.

Nathan's been working crazy hours at his new job for the last 2 weeks - he has to leave at 9:30 and then he only gets home around midnight. It's a good thing that the hours will become more normal next week - trying to get everything done if I hadn't had these weeks off would have been difficult.

It snowed last week and even though it didn't stick at all in town, we still have snow on the ground! Look at how big these lambs are getting. Poor little lambies born in the snowy season! They are toasty warm in the barn and don't seem to mind it but still, I like seeing them get to run around in the green grass! One of the good things about not having a ram is less management and poorly timed lambs!

Little girl lamb looks just like Amelia.

Little boy lamb looks just like Thomas!

She is brave! She approached the dogs today while her mom tried to call her back.

Takes after her daddy, I guess!

Pippa was extremely jealous that I was taking photos of lambs and not scratching her thick, wooly winter coat.

"I might be pregnant...MORE MASSAGING LESS PHOTOS!"

Duck on a roof, what else is new.

If I'm anywhere that Abby can't follow (like in with the lambs) I can always be sure to find her sitting and watching nearby. She rarely takes her eyes off me. Ryan spends his time finding crumbs to eat and Zoey mostly watches Ryan.

Or pinecones. Also must watch pinecones.

Oh, Ryan. He's totally going to be one of those old man dogs who gets stuck in corners.

Saul is getting up there! He'll be 3 this summer. He still does a fantastic job at protecting his ladies and 50% of the eggs that I have in the incubator were fertilized. That seems pretty good considering he has a flock of 30 girls and it's winter.

Tomorrow is day 18 and I'll take the egg turner out of the incubator and "lock it down" (increase the humidity and keep it shut until all the chicks hatch). Out of 40 eggs, 22 appeared to be developing at day 10 and 2 of those seem to have quit at some point after that. So fingers crossed that close to 20 eggs hatch on Saturday! I had a very disappointing non-hatch in November. I had gotten confused about how the foam incubator's thermostat worked, and ended up turning it way too high. It was 104 degrees in the morning and it should be at 101... only 1 egg hatched and the chick wasn't right - it only lived for a few hours. This time the temperature has been perfect the entire time so I have higher hopes!

My family came to visit over Christmas and now we have friends coming tomorrow through the weekend.

Farm sledding!

So much fun until you sled through dog poop!

Cozy living room:

Abby testing out the present I made for Lucy:

My parents - testing out the new expresso machine or going to the moon? You decide.

This one can probably hear the moon. Happy New Year!!!