Empty nest

The chicks moved out of the house and into the coop (in an xpen) today! Here they are in their dirty transport bucket.

In a few months they'll contribute to the work force...

Oh Pinterest, you inspire me ;)

Updates

I haven't had a chance to take any photos in this rainy muck, but hopefully we'll see the sun again sometime soon! I went out to do the chores on Friday morning and I was half paying attention while feeding the sheep...and suddenly I noticed that there was a brand new lamb there! One of the ewes that we got from my friend (the ones that rode back here in my car) had her lamb! We were told she was due in February, but she had sure been looking close to lambing - and yup, one super cute ram lamb! This is good news, because if we're organized we can split the sheep into two groups and have this ram breed with Oprah and Amelia, and Amelia's ram can breed with the two new girls. That will get us through another year of lambing without a permanent ram.

The one little mink-surviving chick has turned out to be a rooster - of course - just our luck! Luckily, 11 eggs hatched healthy chicks in the incubator and they're now 2 weeks old. I've got another batch in there that will hatch in 2 weeks. We'd like to have another 10 hens or so. If we end up with too many, it should be easy to sell point of lay pullets (people are always looking for those). Any extra roosters will go in our freezer. They don't get as big or as meaty as purpose bred meat birds, but they work well for 2 person meals...especially if you don't mind less breast meat and big free-range meaty drumsticks!

Pippa didn't seem to go into heat last week, so that hopefully means that she is indeed pregnant! Little Pippa(s) in 4 months.... can't wait! Our neighbours probably want one mini-mower, and I should get a list of some other interested people. I have no idea how many kids she'll have (first time pregnancy means usually only 1-2, but her mom had 4 last year and then 4 again this year).

The two pigs are growing quickly! Having them over the winter has been fine so far - they were comfy in their fort in the barn and now that they're much bigger, they spend most of the day out in the open. I'm sure they grow a bit slower in the cold since more energy goes into keeping warm, but we'll see how long it takes them to get to bacon size...

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!!!

A White Blanket

Snow! Wet, sticky snow.

The dogs love it. 

Everyone else hates it. Except the ducks seem to want to stand in it and freeze? So odd.

Sheep ventured out in case I had grain. Also to greet the returning Pippa.

Miss Pippa became a woman today. I drove her down to where I originally got her from (luckily before the snow started sticking much) to meet a handsome buck for all of 5 seconds. 

If all goes well, there should be mini-Pippas in 145 days - May 10th. 

She was definitely in heat. We'd been showing her this 'buck rag' (a rag that had been rubbed on a buck's face) every day to see if she reacted to it. Yesterday, she started trying to bring it into the pasture with her and her tail was flagging like crazy. It was time!

Oprah's tail was also flagging, so I'm guessing she is also in heat and isn't pregnant this year.

Ducks. Just...entertaining.

The Naughtiest

What's naughtier than a Pippa-goat, you ask? (yes, she is in the feeder)

A gang of ducks, that's who!

Nathan has a new job and we've been juggling having one of us home before dark to lock everyone in. Getting home after dark would be fine for everyone except the ducks! If you don't call them in before about 4:30, that's it - they absolutely refuse to move from the back of the pond. For the first time last night, we couldn't get any of them in and they spent the night outside. 

Luckily, they all survived the night. 

They seemed very pleased with themselves this morning, frosty feathers and all. 

Little lambies were nice and toasty in their stall with their excellent protective momma. 

Watching over the frosted farm.

Snuggled up after the morning chores. 

Oh and also... that's a ring on my finger! 

Pippa's Peepers

 Pippa wants to know what is going ON on the other side of this wall??

This is what! Amelia had twins yesterday morning. Nathan heard her, from our bedroom, making her trademark "I'm about to give birth" noises at about 7 am. We rushed outside and within 10 minutes a little ram lamb was born! We watched Amelia clean him up and he started nursing - we were sure another lamb was coming but after about 30 minutes we went inside. Last year we were sure another lamb was coming and she ended up just having Phillip. Nathan went out to check on her about 20 minutes later and ... little ewe lamb was out and nursing!

If that's all that's happening, Pippa would prefer to curl up under the feeder. Can't miss any hay that way!

Abby will curl up in her new bed, thank you very much.

Chicken version of comfort is on their armchair on a covered porch! I think I've finally blocked all the gaps where they were getting onto our back porch... now to clean up all the chicken poop that they left up there. 

Inside Projects

This time I have an excuse for the weeks between posting - it has been an almost constant torrential downpour and I can't even take my phone out, never mind my nice camera! 

Instead, I waited until Nathan went to the mainland for the weekend to...wait for it....cut up our couch!!!

I decided that I would try turning our couch/love seat into a sectional.

Ta daaa!

There were a few slightly panicked moments (see that first photo) where I thought I may have totally wrecked our couch. The back up plan was to cut it up, buy another set and pretend nothing happened. Luckily it worked out. There is a slightly odd looking back cushion that I had to stuff where they join, but not bad! It's super comfy (clearly, according to Zoey and Abby). 

That coffee table was another project. It was a black laminate Ikea table - I painted it and added pine boards to the top, then stained them with a dark walnut wood stain. 

This was the table before.

I did the same thing to the TV stand. Before:

After:

The painted wall makes a big difference. The shelf behind the couch was an upright pine Ikea bookshelf - the cheap Ivar kind. I turned it on its side, flipped some of the shelves around, added that wide pine board across the top and stained the whole thing. I think it looks good, but I also used it to hide the fact that the couch-love seat back doesn't line up quite right :)

Nathan was happy to try out the 'new' sectional when he got home, and Ryan was just happy to see Nathan! I'm not sure how I managed to get my elbow into the photo.