Enjoy the tid-bits of our everyday life: dairy goats, sheep, poultry, beekeeping, gardening, cheese making, spinning and knitting, quilting, and soap making. We're not experts, but we are willing to give almost anything a try! We're learning something new everyday--drop by once in a while and see what we've learned today!
Do you have sheets and blankets on a bed? I bet you do!
Cows, sheep, and goats need something to sleep on, too. We call it bedding
We use wood chips and saw dust for animal bedding. I get BIG loads of wood chips from a place called Chip Drop online.
We just got a new pile. I've gone through 7 piles since you started school. That's a lot of piles to move!
Sometimes we move them with the tractor.
We put lots and lots of chips around our two new apple trees this fall.
I use a wheelbarrow to move wood chips into the stalls. I put sawdust on top of the wood chips to help the stall stay cleaner, and nicer for the cows and goats and sheep to sleep on.
Once the wood chips and sawdust are full of manure (cow poo) I use a wheelbarrow to dig it out and put it in a pile.
We don't send the pile to the dump, even though it looks like a big, yucky mess. Lots of families come in the spring and load it into buckets, bags, trucks, and sometimes trailers.
What do you think they want all that manure for?
It's great for gardens and flower beds! Once it sits for a few months it turns into wonderful mulch for gardens. Last year we had 8 families that came to get all the manure. I have bigger piles behind the barn, too!
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Do you have a drinking fountain at school? We have a downspout that leads right into a barrel. The roof collects a lot of rain. It goes into the gutters, then down through the downspout. Roof water is the cows favorite water!
https://youtu.be/CfW4RgIbDvQ
Sadie loves to get drinks from our 'farm water fountain' when the water is coming off the roof.
Here are a few photos of my animal friends. They are friends, too!
Which animals are sheep, and which animal is a goat?
Echo (the cow) loves River (the goat). She licks her through the fence.
Thanks for all your questions! I'll be answering some of them next week.
I cleaned the refrigerator last night. There were a lot of leftovers that no one in our family was going to eat.
I got a whole bucket full of leftovers!
One thing that's nice about living on a farm is that the animals will eat our leftovers.
The chickens and turkeys really liked the refrigerator leftovers for breakfast this morning. They liked it better than their regular chicken food.
Do you see that pile of leftovers? Some of the pile is spaghetti noodles that we didn't want to reheat. Chickens love spaghetti noodles! I think it reminds them of worms.... yuck.
Do you see the two turkeys? One is dark and one is gray. The dark one is Brownie, the gray one is Graycie. They are both girls, and lay lots of eggs in the spring and summer.
Did you know you can eat turkey eggs? They taste just like chicken eggs, but they are bigger and have brown spots on them. I'll post some pictures of turkey eggs in the spring when they start laying again.
The chickens didn't really come into the house and help clean the fridge last night. They just ate all the leftovers breakfast. That's a help because we aren't throwing food in the trash.
Do you know who else eat leftovers?
River, our milk goat, helps with leftovers, too! She loves eating banana peels.
All the animals like stale bread, old waffles, and leftover fruits and vegetables. We almost never throw away food.
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We also have a barn cat. She's old, we can't remember when we got her. She's been here at least 12 years.
This is her favorite spot in the winter.
She has a little 'nest' on the blanket that covers the hose in the winter. We have the hose coiled up on a heated dog bed to keep it from freezing in the winter.
I cover the whole pile with an old car windshield cover that helps to keep the heat in.
Midnight sleeps inside the little hut where it's warm and cozy at night.
She loves living in the barn. Sometimes she comes to the back door of the house, but she never comes in. She likes her barn much better than the house.
I hope you had a wonderful Christmas break, and a Happy New Year!
Your teacher told me that you would like to meet some of the animals on our little farm. Some of you met the animals when you came last fall to make apple cider.
Do you remember any of these animals?
This is me and Sadie, our 2 year old cow!
Sadie loves getting cow hugs every morning. She loves to put her head on me so I'll rub her face and under her chin.
Sadie is a very pretty cow. She's also very gentle, which is why we love her. Sadie will have her first calf (baby cow) in March. We're so excited!
We also have a cow named Echo. Echo is Sadie's mom.
Echo is walking to the gate to meet me this morning. Echo will have a calf in August.
Echo is Sadie's mom. Echo will be 8 years old in February. I milk her every morning. When Sadie has her calf, I'll milk Sadie, too!
I love looking at the mountains in the morning as I head out to the barn. They are beautiful! I love watching the seasons change on the mountains, too. In the winter they are covered with snow, in the spring I watch the snow melt and the trees turn green, and in the fall I look for the colorful trees on the side of the mountains.
We also have 3 sheep and a goat. And a lot of chickens, ducks, and turkeys.
This is Pobrecito. That means "Poor Little One" in Spanish. We gave him that name because he almost died a few times when he was a baby this spring. He's doing much better right now, and his is a very gentle lamb.
This is Cocoa. He's the biggest ram (boy sheep) that we have. He's also a very nice animal. Sometimes new people frighten him, so he'll run away.
Cocoa has big horns, I don't know why he would be afraid of new people!
Sometimes Sadie is afraid of new people and runs away, too. I don't know why a big cow would be afraid of people who are so much smaller than she is.
I'll show you some of the chickens, ducks, and turkeys next week. And I'll take some photos of River, our milk goat.
The flower beds in the front yard look beautiful at this time of year. The vegetable garden is growing well, too.
The puffy pink flowers were given to me by my mother-in-law. She took them from her mother's flower bed, who got them from her mother, who brought them from another country to America when they immigrated.
I love remembering people who came to America from so far away. It helps me to feel a part of their lives even though I never met some of them.
I have things passed down from my parents and grandparents inside my home, too. They all come with stories. Some are long stories, some are very short stories because I wasn't given much history.
Our little farm is also a bit of history. My mother-in-law and father-in-law both grew up on farms in Idaho. They were the first generation off the farm. They moved further and further east as their family grew and as my father-in-laws jobs changed.
I think it's interesting that we ended up back in the west where they started, and that we live on a small hobby farm doing some of the same things that they grew up doing.
The corn is growing. It was in the ground for only 4 days before it sprouted. The corn seed came from my friend who saves seed corn every year.
These 2 beds have cabbages (the bigger green plants in the middle of the beds) and carrots (the long green row of plants towards the front of the bottom bed) and some celery (small plants on the left side of the top bed)
I think its a little bit funny that we call wooden boxes 'beds.' It's almost like the plants are supposed to be sleeping instead of growing.
We are hoping to put in a greenhouse this year so we moved the garden to a different spot, and built the raised beds.
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It was time to take care of Burger King's horns, and neuter him.
I was able to get him down and tie him up before others came to help hold him. It's not a fun job, but it keeps the animals safer and humans safer if they don't have horns. I was proud of myself! This is the first time I was able to get a calf down and tied all by myself!
Does it look a little sad? It's not really. He stays still while we are working on him which means he is safer and so are we.
He's running around and playing in the pasture now. He acts as if nothing happened. If fact, he is more friendly now than he was last week!
The hen who was sitting on turkey eggs hatched out two chicks. She was so careful about taking good care of the eggs!
There was something wrong with this chick so the hen wouldn't take care of it.
We kept it warm and our neighbor took it to her house to try to see if it would live.
It didn't live. It couldn't walk, and it had some trouble seeing. Hens usually know if a chick will survive or if it won't. Sometimes people can work with an animal and help it live, and sometimes there is nothing we can do.
The second chick that hatched was healthy and the hen was willing to take care of it.
Turkeys are not very smart. They don't know how to follow their mama and stay safe. We took the turkey chick away and it's being raised with some other turkey chicks that we bought. It will be very safe in a brooder. It can't get lost, and it has food and water and heat all in one area.
The duck is still sitting on her nest under the rabbit cage. It's safe under there. I think we'll have new ducklings in 2 weeks!
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Millie, the new goat kid, doesn't have any other goat kids to play with. She likes to play with Sadie, and Sadie is patient enough that she lets Millie jump all over her!
Sadie is such a sweet, gentle cow! I love her!
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We're still burning the foxtail in the barn yard. There isn't as much this year as there was last year. Foxtail is awful! It gets in the dogs fur, it gets in the barnyard animals fur, and none of the animals will eat it.
The best way to get rid of it is to burn it.
We've had a lot of thistle this year, too. The animals won't eat thistle, either so we're working on digging it out, and spraying it with a special weed killer that won't hurt the animals.
Thistles grow big, and they have spines! They are too poky to eat!
None of the animals will eat the grass if it's close to the thistle. No one wants to be poked in the nose when they are trying to have lunch!
I hope you've enjoyed your first week of summer vacation!
So much happened this week! I'll have to save some of it for next week's post!
The best thing that happened is a new baby goat was born. That's always fun! Sometimes it's a lot of work, too.
She was born around 11:00 pm on Wednesday May 13th. I was out in the barn making sure she was warm and happy until about 1 AM. That's a long day for me.
She's so cute!
We haven't named her yet. I have a wonderful neighbor that comes and helps me every morning with chores in the barn. She's away for a few days. When she gets back, she'll get to name the new kid.
Have you ever wondered what a kid looks like right after they are born?
They are kind of yucky looking.
Here's the picture right after she was born. Yuck!
That's ok. I clean most of the goop off with a towel. Then Lilly cleaned her off the rest of the way.
I love listening to the mama goat and baby goat talk to each other. I think its so cute!
Once she is dried off, I put a sweater on her and put her under a heat lamp.
She'll stay warm all night. Our weather is warming up so she won't wear the sweater very long. She'll be fine in a few days.
She has a crooked front hoof. I'll watch it for a few days. If it doesn't straighten out, I'll put a splint on it so that it grows correctly and gets strong enough for her to walk on.
Thursday morning she was up and moving around!
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Echo and Sadie needed their hooves trimmed this week.
Such a cute face! I love seeing her every morning!
First we have to move Echo into the chute on the side of the truck. It might look scary to you, but it's the safest way to trim her hooves. It's safe for the man trimming, and it's safe for Echo because she can't move.
She really isn't sure what is going to happen, even though we do this every year.
Her body is in the chute, and her head gets locked in but it doesn't hurt. It's not that tight.
Do you see the boy in the picture? He's helping his dad trim Echo's hooves. He's in 2nd grade, too. He went right out into the pasture, grabbed Echo's halter, and led her to the truck. He's strong and he's not afraid of working with big animals. I'm always glad when he comes with his dad because he is a good boy and does what his father asks him. That keeps him safe, and it helps him to learn how to do this job.
First he cleans the dirt out of her hooves. Her legs are all tied down so she can't kick and hurt herself, or the person cleaning and trimming.
He uses a special sander to trim her hooves. You trim your nails when they get too long. I trim the goat hooves every six weeks. Cows need their hooves trimmed once or twice a year.
When their hooves are trimmed it's much easier for them to walk. If their hooves get too long it can cause trouble with their legs. Horses and cows are so big that if their feet aren't trimmed they can be in pain.
I think it's interesting to watch how fast he is. I'm really lucky that I have so many people that help me with my animals. All the people I've come to know are wonderful. They are helpful and they are also kind. They are all willing to teach me more about my animals, too.
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Burger is growing and doing well.
He's finally big enough for a halter! He wasn't sure what to think about a halter on his face for the first day, but now he's used to it and it doesn't bother him.
I like to keep a halter on the cows so I can move them easily from one spot to another.
These two women are so nice! They work with a group of special needs people in our school district.
They came last fall with a bunch of their students. The students are all at home because of the virus so the teachers came and had a virtual field trip!
They taped their phone to the pole and linked up using zoom. You might be using google hangout or something similar for your classroom.
They walked around and showed their students all the animals on the farm! Teachers are so smart and have figured out some great ways to teach even when they can't be with their students.
You figured out ways to write me notes, too! Thank you so much for your notes! You can ask questions by putting them in the comments below, or you can send your teacher a message with your questions.
I hope you make it a wonderful week! I know you can do it!
