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!
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.
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.
He's probably the biggest and most gentle cat you've ever met.
He loves the camper! Heather likes to sit out in the camper where it's quiet. She can work without interruptions. Tom loves to hang out with her in the camper.
Last week Jupiter snuck into the camper, and no one noticed!
Thankfully Matt heard him calling through the camper window the next day and let him out.
Jupiter is a silly cat!
This is Midnight, our barn cat. She doesn't like to come in the house with the other cats. Her favorite place is in the barn. She loves sleeping in the hay. She's also got a few cozy places inside the barn. Those are her favorite places in the winter when it's cold.
* * * * *
Sometimes our family eats all the leftovers from our meals. But sometimes we forget about them, and they get shoved into the back of the fridge.
The chickens love it when we forget to eat the leftovers! Leftover day is one of their favorite days because they think they are getting treats!
What kind of treats do you like to eat? Halloween is coming soon! I bet you have some favorite kinds of candy!
* * * * *
We love experiments at our house! We have a house full of scientists that like to try new things.
The nicer looking plants were all given a special liquid to help them grow. It's not fertilizer like most people use.
You can tell that the plants on the left didn't get any special drink. They don't look very big, and they don't look very healthy.
The other plants either had some just in the dirt, or had the seeds soaked in the special liquid before they were planted.
Experiments are fun! We learn new things whenever we try them!
We did the same experiment with the beans in this raised bed.
Can you tell which ones had the special liquid, and which ones didn't?
We have some more experiments planned for next year's garden.
We also have some experiments planned in the kitchen.
Did you know you can experiment with different recipes?
You can experiment by trying different kinds of food that you aren't used to.
There are all sorts of things you can do to discover new things!
This little 4- horned ram is so cute! He's not very big because he was born earlier this year. He's still young. He'll be much bigger once he's full grown.
He'll be with us for a few days. He doesn't have a name. He's in a stall because he has 4 horns. If I put him with my goats or my other sheep, he may try to fight them. Horns are good for fighting! I don't want any animals to get hurt while they are here.
He is getting adopted by a charter school in Pleasant Grove who wants to start their own little herd of Navajo Churro sheep.
They adopted my two little lambs about a month ago. One is named Punkin, and the black one is named Kisba.
The sheep will have a fence between them while they get to know each other. Then it will be safe to have the new sheep with horns in with the sheep that don't have horns.
The little chicks are growing! I'm still making sure they stay safe inside the barn. I really don't want the hawk to snatch one out of the pasture for a chicken nugget snack!
This hen looks a little sad. Her feathers are coming out. Chickens loose a lot of their feathers in the fall so that they can grow new feathers that will keep them warm all winter.
Humans wear sweaters and coats. Chickens grow new feathers.
I make sure they have a different kind of food with more protein to help their feathers grow in a little faster. Can you see all the feathers on the ground behind her?
You have probably heard a rooster crow before. I thought you might enjoy seeing what a rooster looks like when he crows. Do you see how he stretches out his neck and stands a little taller?
Were you a little curious about Leia's small ears last week? She has ears, but they are so small! She can hear just like any other goat. It doesn't matter how big or how small a goat's ears are. Next week I'll show you a picture of a goat with floppy ears.
* * * * *
Our garden grew well this year! I am harvesting some of the vegetables that grew.
All of these potatoes grew in one small garden bed. These are small potatoes. They will be delicious in potato salad.
There are still a few small potatoes buried in the dirt and on top of the dirt. They will grow new potato plants next year.
Most of my plants grew very well this year! I was really excited to make tomato sauce and pickles and sauerkraut.
I let the wild sunflowers grow in my garden so the bees would come visit. Bees help to make plants grow.
Its fun to watch the bees as they gather pollen to make honey. As they visit each plant to pick up more pollen, they leave a little pollen from the last plant. That's very helpful for plants and vegetable gardens to grow.
The bees helped us grow some big Crenshaw melons!
And some yummy string beans!
Here's a photo of Stormy waiting for her lunch. I better go feed her before she gets too hungry!
Our mama cow, Echo, had a calf on August 20. Tim named her Stormy because the day was a bit stormy.
Cooler weather is always nicer for calves. Sometimes they overheat and get sick when they are born in the middle of summer. It can be hard to keep a new born calf warm in the cold, dark winter.
Fall and Spring are my favorite times to have calves.
Echo and Stormy did well for a few days, but then Echo got very sick.
The vet said that sometimes things happen when the mama cow is having a calf. The vet can't always tell what happens, he or she can just see that they are sick and help the cow try to recover.
We took care of Echo for 12 days, and then she passed away. We had lots of help from many neighbors and friends as we tried to save her life. Friends brought watermelon and corn for her to eat. Other friends built special equipment so that we could lift her up to see if she could build strength in her legs. Other friends brought fly traps so she wouldn't have so many flies sitting on her. We built a tent to keep her out of the hot sun. We gave her all the right medicines at all the right times. We were all very sad when she died. We cried a lot!
Stormy is doing very well. She gets a bottle twice a day. She loves her adopted mama, Sadie.
Sadie never had her own calf, but she loves being a mama cow.
In the spring she fed a lamb! That's very unusual! Cows don't usually adopt lambs!
Sadie adopted Stormy, too. Sadie doesn't have enough milk to feed Stormy all the time, so we make sure Stormy has bottles every day.
Stormy loves humans!
Stormy and Sadie hang out together on the farm. Sadie thinks she is Stormy's mama. That works for us! Last night Sadie was yelling because she couldn't find Stormy. Stormy had fallen asleep by the fence out in the pasture. It was dark, and Sadie couldn't find her.
Stormy is a fun, easy going calf. The neighbors love to come visit her. If you come to Cider Day in a few weeks, you'll be able to see her out in the pasture.
* * * * *
We decided to get another goat to help feed Stormy. She drinks between one gallon and 1 1/2 gallons of milk every day. That's a lot of milk!
This is Leia. I call her Princess Leia because I thinks she is very pretty. It looks like she has no ears. She does have ears, but they are tiny! Leia is a LaMancha dairy goat.
Princess Leia loves getting milked! She's waiting her turn. Sometimes she waits patiently. Sometimes she gets excited and jumps up on the stall gate to see if I'm ready for her.
There are lots of different kinds of goats, just like there are lots of different breeds of dogs.
This is River, our other dairy goat. River is a Saanen dairy goat. She gives about 3/4 of a gallon of milk every day. Leia gives 3/4 gallon of milk every day, too.
We have plenty of milk for Stormy because of our two sweet goats.
* * * * *
We've had some new chicks born on the farm this fall! It seems unusual to have chicks in the fall. It's a good time because it's not very hot. It's not snowy and cold yet, so the hen can keep the chicks warm without any trouble.
This hen hatched 2 chicks from all those eggs. I decided to put her and her chicks in an old water trough so that they would be safe from the other chickens, and predators like hawks.
A different hen hatched out four chicks, but only one survived because of the predators that seem to be circling our fields so often.
I hope you have a wonderful week! I hope that you will learn to read so you can read all about the things that are interesting and fun for you!
The grass in the backyard got really long over the last few weeks. The cows love coming in the back yard and grazing for an hour before the lawn gets mowed.
It's fun to see the cows right in the back yard.
Sometimes it's funny to see the cows in the backyard because they peek in the glass door!
We haven't turned on the sprinklers yet. Many people have been watering already. We've had rain, and we also use a soil conditioner 3 times a year.
We don't need as much water or as much lawn fertilizer as most people do. We like that! So do the cows and the sheep! Our grass grows so well so they have lots of snacks!
* * * * *
Sadie is tied between the two fences so that the tech can check her.
Our awesome tech came out to check on Sadie because she still hasn't had her calf.
Unfortunately she isn't pregnant. She had some positive pregnancy tests, and she had milk in her udder. We were all a little confused because that usually means the cow will have a baby.
Our tech will come back on Monday and breed her again. We're really, really hoping that she gets pregnant this time! She's such a good cow that we think she would make a good mama cow. Echo, her mom, has great milk so we think Sadie's milk will be delicious, too!
It was evening when I took this photo of Gracie so it's a bit dark
Do you remember a few weeks ago that Gracie hatched out a duckling? I think a mouse or snake snuck into the nest and grabbed the day old duckling. When I went out the next morning it was missing. I looked around but couldn't find it anywhere.
So, no baby cow and no baby duckling this spring.
I still have two baby lambs! Bunny loves morning snuggles!
Usually lamb tails hang down. When Bunny gets snuggles, her tail goes up. Sometimes she wags her tail when she's snuggling. Little wagging lamb tails make me smile!
Do you see all the hoof prints in the garden bed? Bunny follows me everywhere. She was in the garden with me while I was planting onions. She traipsed right through the bed where I planted.
Bunny will probably be going to her new home in about 3 weeks. I'll miss her. The farm where she was born is so excited for when she's old enough to come back! They are looking forward to a snuggly little lamb that comes when she's called.
Do you see the row of little plants at the bottom of the fence? Those are peas! I planted peas more than a month ago. I didn't think they were going to come up at all. They were just waiting for the weather to be good enough for them to sprout.
I have to keep Bunny out of the garden now. She'll nibble all the pea plants down, and we won't get any peas for our family.
The weather is nice enough that the new little apple trees are sprouting leaves and blossoms. It's hard to see the little pink blossoms. I won't let any apples grow this year because I want the tree to spend all it's energy growing branches and roots. It's really fun to see the little blossoms, even though I'll need to pick the little apples that will grow there.
We're so happy for Springtime! It brings lambs and blossoms and a new garden and lots of chicken eggs!
I hope you have a wonderful week full of life and learning!
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
