Family Arrangements

 Nathan's family left last night and the house and farm sure feel empty without them! We had a great visit and I think they probably got the best October weather possible with only a few days of rain.

Between both of our families visiting we got the greenhouse all cleaned up (but we'll miss them all for more than just their working abilities!):

Our house might be feeling empty...but Thomas and Zeb's isn't. The girls have moved in!

I guess Thomas is making them feel welcomed? He sure was excited to see them...

Poor Zeb is left out. We want to put him with the goats but he wasn't happy about being away from Thomas on our first attempt. We'll have to make the change gradually. 

The goats were happy to munch on some plants that we pulled from the greenhouse. We may have made a mistake giving them the brussels sprouts plants - it seems that they can be bad for goats and May wasn't feeling very well yesterday or this morning. I don't think they're *too* bad though (unlike the rhododendrons).

Squishy has officially abandoned SoZH at night. I guess 'abandoned' is a bit harsh since he is old enough to fend for himself now. She goes up to her roost and he stays on the ground. Last night I brought him inside to sleep in a box since it was so cold....

Ryan hopes you had a happy Halloween! 

Six Months Later

We've been farming for 6 months now! I can't even put into words how much we've both learned. I think that going into this with no experience has been one of the best things about it. We've made some mistakes, but without experience we had no expectations and we were able to jump into it without the pressure of knowing how things should be.

We went from never having even touched a chicken to owning over 20 of them, building coops and runs, eating and selling eggs, slaughtering chickens ourselves and hatching a chick from our own stock (Squishy did most of that).

The chicks in April - too scared to walk around on grass for the first time.

The chickens now - too spoiled to want to walk around on grass in the rain.

We went from never having grown anything to growing a greenhouse full of organic vegetables and eating, storing and selling them.

Little basil seedling in April.

The herb garden now...

We went from never having owned livestock to owning sheep, goats and a llama - and building fencing, gates, shelters, stalls and a barn.

April - just the horses and cows on the leased paddock here.

Now: Goats and sheep enjoying the grass - Thomas and Zeb were just off to the left behind that gate.

We went from knowing nothing but the definition of "aquaponics" to setting up a fully functioning system complete with Tilapia and a bunch of vegetables (Nathan gets full credit for this one). 

Aquaponics system at the beginning:

Grow bed #3 last month - I'll have to take an updated photo. Nathan also just finished building a compost pile next to it (with polypipe running through it) to hopefully heat the water over winter.

We went from never having bees to....having a hive ready and still never having bees. Oh well. It may have been a little bit much to handle in the first 6 months, anyway. We got a ton of wasps, instead. 

I leave you with...Flying Goat!

Another (temporary) Farm Addition

This is Lexie. We're fostering her for That'll Do Border Collie Rescue - she is mostly Kelpie though, I think. We'll train her until she finds a good home. She's 6-7 months old and FULL of energy. She jumps and she's mouthy (I have the scratches and welts to prove it) but she loves other dogs and *loves* people. She's already having a lot of fun on the farm running around and playing ball. She isn't sure whether to lunge at the chickens (she's on leash around them) and she barks at the horses and sheep. I don't think she'll be hard to train, though, and she's really cute!

The sheep have pretty much grazed their whole pasture so for the last few days we've been letting them out into the 'general' farm area where there is still lots of grass. They've been fine every day - they usually put themselves back in their paddock in the afternoon. Today, though, as soon as I let them out they jumped through a gap in the wooden fence, then pushed through the electric fence to get into the paddock with Thomas and Zeb. "No big deal", I thought, "I'll just call them back out for grain" (we only want the sheep to be bred in October). I wasn't in a huge hurry since I've read that you sometimes won't even see sheep mating because the rams can be 'shy' and only do it when you aren't watching. Well, our Thomas is no shrinking violet, that's for sure. As soon as those ewes were in there he was on it, so to speak. Why do these things always happen when I'm here alone?? I raced to put Abby and Lexie away (new foster dog barking wouldn't have helped the situation) and grab some grain, then turned off the electric fence and jumped through, hoping that Thomas was too preoccupied to bother ramming me. I tried to get Ryan to go get the ewes but they wouldn't separate - the whole motley group, Zeb included, was running around, with Thomas trying desperately to mount the ewes as they ran. Oh, and did I mention there's a pony in that paddock, too? Because an angry stomping pony was exactly what was needed to complete the scene. Eventually I got the lambs to come over for grain. I think they were actually more relieved to get away from humpy Thomas than anything else. They ran through the fence and I sprinted to turn the electric fence back on before Thomas decided to make a break for it. Crisis averted...hopefully. If someone pops out a lamb in January we'll know why!

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!

Midsummer Greenhouse

Melons and winter squash are taking over!

Lots of cantaloupes now

I opted to use some netting instead of one of my bras...

These bell peppers are huge! I want them to ripen already...

We're getting 2 lbs of these gold nugget tomatoes a day

Cucumber plant right up to the roof

Grow bed #1 is full of giant tomatoes and cucumbers

And cayenne peppers!

I think it's time to make some more pesto...

Brussels sprouts - they're the strangest looking plants.

There's finally a watermelon growing!

Poor Ewean...the only one who has enough white on her face to really see the purple eye spray. Their eyes are all cleared up, though!

I'm off to go see if I can salvage any of the recently mowed back field clippings for hay. Right now it's all laying on the field and will be wasted...then we'll have to go buy a bunch of hay to feed the sheep over winter. It would be nice to dry and use some of our own. Possibly easier said than done since it's looking a bit cloudy out...

Stunted

 We have beautiful cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, basil, dill, kale, beans and sweet peas on the stand today...and then we have some of the more 'unique' produce in the house for us to eat. 

The smallest ripe cantaloupe I've ever seen:

 Cucumber - still tasted good!

Teen egg next to a normal egg. This is from one of our landlords' hens - they're almost 5 months old.

Giant aquaponics tomato.

We had some repeat visitors this weekend so we must be doing something right! On Saturday we went tubing down a very lazy and relaxing river where they had recycling containers floating right in the river for any drink bottles. So environmentally aware! We also made pickles and pesto, picked pounds of raspberries and prepared a giant feast. 

Homemade rosemary french bread

Delicious beef roast for dinner - Nathan bought grass-fed beef through his work. 

We finally have enough mint to make mojitos - raspberry mint mojitos are dangerously good.

We found some eye spray and hoof spray for the lambs so we started treating them last night. The eye spray is purple and the hoof spray is blue...it's a good thing they're behind the property where people driving by can't see them. I'll take some photos...