New Blog Site

 Hi Everyone!

We've moved the blog to a new site. It looks so nice! Thanks to Heather for getting it all set up!

https://mywelcomehomefarm.com/

We'll see you at the new site!

Daisy, the Pet Chicken, and Other News

 In this post:
Daisy, our pet chicken. An update on Gunner, the goat. And we're a little famous.

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This is Daisy. I only name the special chickens. Most of the other chickens are good to come when I call. They all know I have food for them.

Daisy is a funny chicken. She's more like a pet. She comes and talks to me every morning. Sometimes she follows me around a little when I'm doing the other chores.

One day she wanted me to follow her. 

I didn't know what she was doing. She would come 'cluck, cluck' at me, then walk away. 

Then she would come back and talk to me more.

I finally followed her. She led me to a stash of eggs!

Most of them were her eggs. She lays brown eggs. But there were a few other eggs in the little nest along with hers.

Thank you, Daisy!

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Gunner, the little goat with the hurt leg, is doing much better. Sophie and her mom take very good care of him. He's getting back to his energetic little self. He is bright-eyed and happy. He still won't stand on his leg, which is good. His leg still needs to heal.

The wound still looks a little wet, that's because of the medicine they are putting on it to help it heal quickly.

Look at that cute face!

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We're a little famous. Not really famous. 

We've been quietly sharing our farm for many years.

We have had big groups and small groups come to visit. 

We've had families come, too.

My guitar and ukulele students like to wander down the little road that leads to the barn and see the animals.

We love sharing our little farm with other people because most people don't know family or friends with a little farm.

Thanksgiving Point Farm Country is a wonderful place to visit, but it's not really a farm. It's more like a zoo for farm animals. 

I have taught people how to care for animals, to preserve food, to make cheese, to milk cows and goats, and how to grow a garden for many years.

A few people noticed what we've been doing for so long! 

Our family was on the cover of our town's small magazine!

And someone at your school wrote a little about us, too. Alpine School District shared it on their Facebook page!

We aren't working on our little farm so we can be famous. We work on our little farm because we love it! We love the animals, we love growing food, and we really love sharing those things with other people. 

If you come, you'll notice that we don't have an admission fee. No tickets required! If you would like to support us, you can support our small business. Our small business is what helps us share our farm with you. Prime90

If you were one of the families that came to Cider Day, thank you! We're so very glad you came!

Pig-sitting and a New Cow!

 We're pig-sitting this week for our friends. We're not allowed to have pigs in our town, so we're not planning on getting any soon. 

We have an extra stall right now so Nacho is staying just for a few days while our friends go visit family.

She stays inside with her humans, but we have puppies and I don't think it would be a good idea to have Nacho inside with us.

Her owners brought her some blankets to put in the doghouse that we have inside the stall. She was all snuggled inside when I went out to see her. So cute!

Pigs are very smart so we have to make sure she stays inside the stall. If she manages to sneak out, I can catch her because she has a harness on. 

She gets food and water every morning and night. She likes to snuffle through the wood chips and see if there are any leftovers hiding.  She has been a very good pig so far. 

We also have a new cow. Does she look like Echo? We think she does. Her name is MissE. She is 4 years old and the daughter of Echo.

Right now we have 3 half-sister cows. Echo was the mother of Sadie and Stormy, too!

Sadie and Stormy don't look like Echo. However, they are both very sweet, gentle cows just like she was. MissE is very friendly, too.

I milked her this morning to see how much milk she had. It wasn't very much. She only had 3/4 gallon. I'll keep milking to see if I can get her to give a little more milk. That would be nice to have goat milk and cow milk.

And.... Puppies!

We bring them outside for a few minutes every day. The easiest way to get them outside is to bring them upstairs in a plastic tote.

Then we let them walk around and sniff all the new smells outside for about 10 minutes. Puppy recess time!

When we bring them back into their room, they are ready for a nap because outside is a lot of new sensations for them.

We love to help our friends and neighbors. It's one of our favorite things to do as a family. Last week our friend's little goat hurt his leg very badly. Sadly, there are no veterinarians that will help us take care of goats so we had to take care of his broken leg ourself.

Our neighbor cleaned the wound and wrapped the leg in gauze until we could get over to help. They have always been there to help when we needed help, too! Our neighbors are just like family!

We worked on his leg, and wrapped it back up. The next night it looked better, but still yucky.

We treat it with an antiseptic and some wound healing medicines.

The little goat's name is Gunner. He belongs to Sophie. Sophie wants to learn as much as she can about taking care of her hurt friend.

She can help by putting the medicine on his leg before it gets wrapped up again. 

We need to look at it every day until the skin is healed. 

Gunner's wound was very, very bad. Sophie learned how to fill up his shot of antibiotics. Her mom gives Gunner the shot, but Sophie is doing everything she can and learning as much as she can.

She is a very smart girl and loves her pet goats very much. She'll do anything she can to help them. Way to go Sophie!

Puppies, Growing Chicks, and a Livestock Water Fountain

 

The puppies are growing and they have opened their eyes.

This week they started eating puppy food mixed with goat milk. There are only four puppies in the photo because sometimes one puppy likes to sleep by themselves. No worries! We still have five fat happy puppies!

No, we only have 3 dogs. We have Mishka, the dog who had puppies. We have a 13 year old dog named Scout, and a 14 year old dog named JJ. The puppies will all go to new homes. We don't have room for any more dogs!

Our farm is almost 1 1/2 acres. I'm not sure if you understand how big or small that is. Some people think it's a big piece of land. Some people think it's a tiny farm.

It's just right for us!

This is what the map of our farm looks like.

This is what the land looked like a few years ago. We have a few new sheds now. See if you can find the differences between the old photo, and the newer map.

No, we don't have pigs. We don't plan on getting pigs, either. They are cute to look at, but they aren't very nice farm animals. We'll be babysitting a pig over Thanksgiving Break. I'll take some photos of Nacho when she gets here and gets settled in her stall.

Do you remember the small chicks in the water barrel? They are growing up! So far the hawk hasn't found them. Sadly, the hawk got one of the turkeys on Saturday. Sometimes it's hard to protect our animals from hawks.

Little One, our sheep from last year, likes to drink out of the livestock water fountain. She doesn't like to push her nose down on the lever like the other animals do. She likes to stick her hoof up on the lever and push it down, just like you push the lever on the water fountain at school.

She lets the water go over the edge while she drinks. This makes a bit of a muddy mess. The chickens come running when they hear Little One drinking. They know they can get a drink from the puddle she makes.

I don't like the muddy mess that I clean up in the morning. I don't think that I can train Little One to drink like the other animals. 

Do you leave a mess for other people to clean up sometimes?

Puppies and a New Chicken Coop

 

This cute dog had puppies on Sunday, October 23. The puppies were two weeks old yesterday and their eyes are just beginning to open.

Heather and Matt were watching over Mishka and her puppies while the puppies were being born. They weighed each puppy at birth, and wiped them off. 

They gave them back to Mishka as soon as they were done and she finished cleaning them and fed them

After a few hours they were all clean and dry and snuggling next to Mishka to stay warm, and eat.

The puppies are so cute and snuggly!

They are growing so fast!

Sometimes they look really funny when they have a full tummy and they are tired.

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We also finished our chicken coop. My friend calls it the Hen Hacienda. I want to make a sign for the door. That would be fun!

Yay! We love it! It's so nice that the chickens have a very nice place to stay out of the rain and wind and snow for the winter!

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I hope you had fun on Halloween. We don't get many Trick or Treaters coming by to our house so we give out big candy bars. We know all the kids that come by. It's a fun tradition for us and for them. 

Our street doesn't have street lights. The houses are far apart. Most children like to go to streets where the houses are really close together and there are lots of lights.

This year we gave out candy bars and books!

We started with 6 boxes of books and people come by early to pick books.

We put books by the front door in the afternoon and the evening so children would have an easier time looking through the books.

It was really fun!

I think the children liked getting a book and a candy bar.

We had some candy left over, and we have a box of books left over. They will go to school where teachers can see if they want to add them to their prize box or to their classroom library shelves for their students to read.

I hope you have a lovely week!

Cider Day 2022

 The cider press is put away and the cider is in the freezer!

We had two Cider Days this year. One was for our friends and neighbors, and one was for you and your families! 

It was so much fun to meet so many of you and have you visit our little farm.

Everyone who came was so nice. Thank you so much for being kind visitors.

So many apples to choose from!

Apples go into the grinder next.

Lots of metal teeth grind the apples to pulp!

...

See how fast it makes mush out of the apples? Imagine what it would do if your fingers got caught. Yikes!

The apple mush gets put into the basket. Someone uses the lever to press the apples so the juice comes out. Lots of you had a turn, and I hope you had fun learning about a simple machine.

The cider comes out through a hose. Someone makes sure the hose goes into a container.

Everyone who wants a taste gets one... or two... or three tastes!
I hope you thank your teachers for helping.

I'm sure our little playground was so glad to have so many children playing there again!

Sadie and Stormy loved all the visitors.

We had a great time with you all! Everyone was so kind and polite. Thank you for being nice to the animals, too.

Bye until next time!

Do I Like Living on a Farm? And Other Questions.

 

Yes, I'm happy that we have a farm. It's lots of work, but I like being outside every day. I like working hard, and I like being around the animals.

I like working in the garden. I like growing some of our food. I really like fresh eggs and milk every day! 

I like feeding the lambs in the spring. I like feeding the calf in the fall.

I like climbing fences (not gates). 

I don't like working in the heat of summer. July and August are hard because they are so hot. I love working in the spring and the fall. 

We live on a farm because we think it's good for our family. We learn to work hard, and we get to eat really good food because we have a little farm.

We grew everything on the plate at our farm. It was a delicious dinner!

There are lots of good things we learn and do on the farm. There are hard things, too. We still miss our cow, Echo. She died a few weeks ago.

Sometimes the garden doesn't grow as well as we hope, that's hard, too.

Happy thing and hard things are part of everything you choose to do.

Yes, we have cows on our farm. The cows are usually my favorite animal to work with every day.

I love watching the cows graze. It's so peaceful. They look so pretty out on the pasture.

Little Stormy is growing every day.  Sadie still loves her, and she loves Sadie.

It's so fun to feed Stormy! She comes running when she knows I have a bottle for her.

She cut her hoof this morning. I'm not sure what she cut it on. She may have stuck it through the fence. When she pulled it out, she may have scratched it.

I washed it off and put some medicine on it. The medicine for cows and other animals is blue. It kills lots of bacteria so the cut won't get infected.

I'm so happy that Stormy is an easy-going calf. She didn't mind me cleaning and caring for her hoof.

She rested in the stall for about an hour. After that she was out in the barnyard and the field like she usually is.

We have a lot of chickens! We get about a dozen eggs a day right now. Our chickens are all more than 2 years old. Older chickens don't lay as many eggs.

Have fun counting the chickens!

There are a few more chickens in the barn. A few weeks ago I showed you the hen and chicks inside the barn. They are growing and doing well. I forgot to take a picture of them for you today. 

Thanks for all your questions! I'll answer more next week.

And I'll see many of you later this afternoon for Cider Day!

Here are a few things to remember when you come:

Wear shoes with closed toes (no sandals or flip-flops)

Try turning the crank on the apple grinder.

Taste some fresh apple cider.

Pet the animals when they come to the fence. Never chase the animals.

Stay off the gates and the fences.

Take lots of pictures to share with your friends and family.

Ask lots of questions. 

Have fun while you are here!