Island Hopping and our Feast

We've been so busy relaxing with Nathan's parents and grandmother that I haven't had a chance to update the blog! They got here last Wednesday and my parents and sister arrived on Friday for a big belated thanksgiving feast. 

Bright green home grown beans and brussels sprouts - boiling before getting put into this recipe:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/brussels-sprouts-gratin-recipe/index.html

Yum.

My thanksgiving plate. I have a lot of practice at piling my thanksgiving plate for a maximum 1st helping...but I think this one took the cake. Turkey was from Nathan's work, yams, potatoes and buns were from the supermarket and pretty much everything else was grown on the farm.

After a day of recovery from stuffing ourselves, we left for a trip to the San Juan islands. On the ferry, I kept saying how I really wanted to see a fox for the first time....and look who appeared within the first half hour!

Then I said that I wanted to see a grey fox...and look who was posing in the leaves by the road:

The million dollars and orca sightings that I hoped for next didn't appear...but this unimpressed baby alpaca did.

Possibly unimpressed because his wool went towards this:

Some more fall in the San Juans:

360 degree ipad photos:

Now we're back on the farm for some more fall sun. 

Relaxing with the chickens:

Saul is growing into a gorgeous rooster.

SoZH is huge! He takes after his dad.

Zebra Head got stepped on accidentally by one of the goats when I was scaring them away from the chicken food. He wasn't putting any weight on his leg at first and we were carrying him in and out of the coop. Now he's getting around well but still limping. It seems to be his foot that's injured but it's hard to tell. Hopefully it will keep healing.

Garlic is all planted:

Magpie hanging out on my car. I decided to move it off the farm before the goats hopped up on the roof.

We made the tough decision a few weeks ago to bring Ewean in to be slaughtered. After treating her feet diligently (and since we've had her!), she started limping again on a different foot than the two that had already had issues. We checked her again and another hoof was infected...she seems to be an animal that is chronically susceptible to foot problems and we were worried that she'd continually infect the other sheep. It was hard to do since I'd let myself get a bit attached to her, but we brought her to the butcher this morning. Hard lesson learned to be very careful where you purchase livestock from!

Rhododendrons Suck

When we first got the sheep I came across a blog that talked about how careful you have to be when moving sheep past rhododendrons, since these plants are poisonous to grazing animals (and apparently, even the honey made from rhododendron pollen is toxic for people). After reading that, we fenced off the rhododendron plant that's in the yard by our house right away. When we put the goats in there, I added another layer of fence to block off the plant since goats are much better at getting over/under/through fences than sheep are. 

Yesterday morning we woke up to 2 very sick goats. They were both unusually quiet and standing still and shaking. May had vomited and neither was interested in food. I knew right away it was the rhododendron - sure enough, they'd pushed the fence down (I'm still kicking myself because I *knew* that fence wasn't strong enough to keep them away from the plant). 

We started reading what to do; the goats needed to be given activated charcoal to try and soak up the toxins. Since it was 7:30 on Sunday morning, we couldn't reach anyone except the small animal emergency clinic, and they wouldn't give us any charcoal since they aren't licensed to practice on large animals. 

While waiting for drug stores and health food stores to open (I guess people use activated charcoal for their own stomach issues) we made an oil/baking soda/tea/ginger mix and gave it to the goats. The oil apparently coats the stomach, the baking soda helps to relieve gas, the tannins in the tea help neutralize the toxins and the ginger helps relieve pain. Honestly, I have no idea how well this works but it was better than doing nothing while waiting for the stores to open. The sooner you can get some of the toxins out of their system, the better - so it was good that May was at least vomiting some of them out.

We ended up going to at least 10 stores before finding the activated charcoal tablets at a health food store. We mixed some of the tablets with water and gave that to the goats, followed an hour later by milk of magnesia. By the afternoon the goats were seeming better and were interested in eating some blackberry leaves. This morning they are both eating hay and a tiny bit of grain. They're a bit quieter and less active than usual but they are much better than yesterday. 

This is where that damn rhododendron plant went:

Needless to say, that was not a relaxing Sunday. Emma was supposed to come visit for the day but I had to cancel since we were dealing with the goats. I'm going to buy some electric netting fence today so that we can make temporary paddocks for goats and sheep when we want them to graze/browse certain areas. We let the goats out on Saturday and walked around with them but we need to train them some more before they have free range of the property - at this point we'll just lose them out there!

Up until Sunday, we had a beautiful sunny week and a few visitors. My mom came on Tuesday and we roasted the last of the roosters (one of the two that we'd slaughtered a few months ago). Then Ross visited for the rest of the week to plan a trip that we're going on next week. 

The chickens have him cornered.

Magpie has decided that she likes walking around on top of the coops. She can fly up 8" no problem!

The cows that may or may not be pregnant...if they are, the calves are due any day. It's like that show "I didn't know I was pregnant". The women are usually so large pre pregnancy that they don't get any bigger when pregnant. Never seen that show? Yeah....me neither....I never watch crappy TV....

Abby continues to love her foster sister, Lexi...

(this is also how I feel about those rhododendrons!)

Fungus Friday

Untrimmed bushes have, unfortunately, led to fungus.

 It doesn't look too good in the other half of the greenhouse and I'm crossing my fingers that the fungus doesn't spread to our plants. 

I've still been diligent about pruning any leaves that look iffy, but it means that there aren't very many more leaves that can come off without it being detrimental to the plant. We've talked about maybe dividing the greenhouse in half with a wall or tarp but I'm not sure that will work at this point. Today is the first wet day in weeks so that doesn't help, either. There's just no air circulation through the plants in the landlord's half - the branches and leaves are all in big, damp masses.

Our cherry tomatoes are so delicious - I don't want them to end up like those plants! 

Thomas doesn't care. He just wants scratches and treats.

After tricking Ewean a few times (feeding her grain and then grabbing her to check her feet) she isn't so into scratches anymore. I'll have to work on that again, plus we're going to build an actual catch pen soon. They're all such piggies about grain though that they can't stay away if they think I have some.

Until a dog sneaks up behind me, that is. 

"What? Just keeping this farm under control."

Abby has a farm checking and chores routine every morning and every evening. It involves a sprint down the driveway to chase any rabbits, then a quick perimeter check of the main yard, a jaunt through the greenhouse to look for snakes and mice, a loop through the orchard just 'cause, and then snack time (a delicious chicken poop/feed combo) in the coops. 

Surveying her land.

"It's a hard job, but someone's gotta do it."

Ryan's more into looking for food than anything else. He's also terrified of Thomas. He tries to sniff Thomas but if Thomas even looks at him, Ryan runs away. He's such a chicken...

No, really, he thinks he's a chicken.

Why do chickens always look so shocked when they're laying an egg? I mean, I'm sure it doesn't feel pleasant to push one of those out but it happens every single morning.

If I open the nest box while she's still in there she screams at me. She never stays broody for long, though.

Little Magpie is out of her awkward teenage phase. Still not laying eggs, but I wouldn't be surprised if she had a secret nest somewhere. 

Tonight we'll try our first artichokes!