Silly Goats and a Hot Air Balloon

We have silly goats!

Annie is a silly goat!

She likes to play hide and seek inside the tarp that we hang on the gate.

River is a silly goat, too!
She likes to get inside the dogloo.
We have dog houses in the stalls because
baby goats need to get inside them to stay warm on
cold spring nights.

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Dear Kaelyn,
We have a lot of animals! We have 8 new chickens that aren't laying eggs yet. We have 4 ducks and 2 ducklings. We have 12 old chickens that we will give away in November. They don't lay eggs anymore so it's time to let them live with someone who only wants chickens to eat bugs. We have 2 turkeys. We have 3 cows, one is a baby. We have one sheep. We have 4 goats.

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Dear Reagan,
No, we don't have baby goats right now. Our baby goats are born in the spring, sometime in March or April.

How many months will you have to wait to see baby goats at Welcome Home Farm?

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Dear Lizzie,
We had 3 people help stack hay this year that weren't from our family. We had 4 people from our family help stack hay. Sometimes we have help from MG, a neighbor girl, on Saturday mornings. Sometimes we hire a different neighbor to clean stalls. Sometimes Quin and Xander come to help, too. They like to feed the animals and fill up the buckets with water.

I do all of the morning and evening chores. I have help from other people once in a while.

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Last Friday I heard some strange noises outside. I stopped milking River and went to see what was over the barn. It was a hot air balloon!

It landed about a block away in a neighbor's backyard. I'm so glad it didn't land in our field or the neighbor's field because the animals would have been so frightened!

Thank you to our friends at The Forge Jewelry Works who were right there when the balloon landed. They were so nice to share their photos and a video with all of us!

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Did you know that mama cows give their baby cows a bath? Echo gives Miss E a bath every morning when I let her back in with Echo for the day.

Does it look like Miss E likes getting clean for the day?

I'll be pressing cider for a lot of people this weekend! What are you doing that is nice for someone else?

New Babies!

This chick is starting to break it's way of of the egg! It's so exciting!

Quin and Xander love to visit new chicks. They also like to give baby animals names. 

Dear Addison,

Chippy was sitting on 5 eggs. Three chicks hatched out of their eggs. Sadly, only 2 chicks lived.

Smily lived for almost a week.
Sometimes baby chicks die and we don't know why.

Chippy and her two chicks are still in the red tub, but I wanted you to see them so I let them run around in the barn for a few minutes.

The white chick is Peepers, and the black chick is Spot because she has a spot on her head.

We have more babies!

As I was walking out to the barn this morning I saw 2 little ducklings and their mama duck. Watch carefully and you can see that the little black one doesn't walk very well.

I put mama and both ducklings in a stall with food, water, and a heater. I hope the little black one gets strong enough to live! 

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Do you see all the feathers in the pictures? There are so many feathers around the farm right now. It's fall and the ducks and chickens are dropping their summer feathers and growing winter feathers. When the chickens and ducks are molting (loosing their summer feathers) they don't lay many eggs. All their energy goes to growing new feathers so they can't lay many eggs.

This chicken looks sick because she is missing so many feathers.
She's not sick, and she wasn't in a fight with another chicken.
She's busy loosing her summer feathers and growing her new winter feathers.

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Dear Hinalei,

We have one cow, her name is Echo. She has a calf named Miss E. We also have a steer named Chuck. How many cows do we have?

Mrs. Hahn is helping Miss E learn to trust everyone!

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Dear Roman,

I get this question a lot! A horse costs a lot of money to feed. They are a lot of fun, and they are a lot of work.

We get milk from the cow and goats, but we only get poo from a horse. We can feed all of our animals (3 cows, 1 sheep, and 4 goats) for the same amount of money that it costs to keep 2 horses. 

Horses are a lot of fun! We're very happy with the animals we have and don't have any plans to get a horse.

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Have you been able to do something nice for someone else every day last week? Did you do nice things for people in school or at home?

Work is Good!

"How much did the hay barn cost?"

That's a good question! 

Our hay barn cost about $2,000 for the wood, nails, and cement to build. We built it ourselves so we didn't have to pay anyone. It was a lot of work for us, but we like hard work. It's nice to be able to look at something we've built ourselves and say, "We did that!"

It was a lot of work to build the hay barn,
and it's a lot of work to unload hay from a trailer and
stack it in the barn.

Our hay barn has enough hay to last until next May for all the animals. In April and May the pastures start to grow enough grass for them to eat. There is still grass for them to eat right now, but not very much so we feed about 1/2 bale of hay a day.

Sometimes hard work is NO FUN! Sometimes the fun is when we're all done and we can say, "Look at what we did!" Sometimes we have fun when we work. I bet you will be surprised that we have people who love to come help us on the farm! One little girl comes every Saturday morning to help with the chores. She fills all the water buckets, and she loves to milk the goats.

We have people who like to help us unload hay, too! We have people who like to come help clean out stalls! That may not sound like much fun to you, but many people like working with animals and working around a farm. They don't want the responsibility of doing it every day, but they love being able to help us, and they really like working hard.

By October we will be feeding at least 1 bale of hay a day because there won't be any new grass growing on the pastures.

Miss E is growing!
She is so sweet, I love going out to the barn.

It's my responsibility to feed her every morning. Sometimes I'm tired and don't want to get out of bed. Responsibilities are good things to have because they make sure we keep doing good things every day.

Miss E is starting to eat hay and graze on the pasture. She was born August 13 so she is one month old. Calves drink milk for about the first month, then they start eating other food like their mama. 

I am also responsible for feeding, watering, and milking every morning. If I don't go out to the barn and do my chores, the animals won't be able to stay healthy and happy. They would be hungry! All the people that like to get milk from Echo and our goats wouldn't be able to get milk, either. That would make them sad. 

Everyone has jobs and responsibilities.

Chippy is our little speckled hen.
Her job is to sit on eggs.
She has been sitting on eggs and keeping them warm since
August 25. They should hatch this weekend.

If a hen doesn't do her job of keeping the eggs warm , they would never hatch. Quin loves Chippy and he checks on her every time he comes for a visit. He's so gentle when he pets her and checks on her. He makes sure she has food and water near her so she doesn't have to go very far from her eggs. Quin wants Chippy to stay happy and healthy while she sits on her eggs.

Chippy will take good care of the chicks once they hatch, but our responsibility is to take good care of her.

This is Side-Kick and Chuck.
Chuck is our steer (boy cow) and Side-Kick is his sheep friend.

Many farm animals need a friend. They aren't happy if they live in a pasture or a barn all by themselves. Chuck was by himself, and he wasn't happy. He needed a herd-mate so my friend sent Side-Kick to be his friend.

Side-Kick and Chuck are not the same at all, but they know how to be friends. I bet you have friends that aren't like you. That's the way it is with animals on a farm, too.

Scout, our dog, and Carson, the neighbor's horse, are good friends and love to play tag along the fence. This video was taken last winter, but it's still fun to see them have a good time playing.

What responsibilities and jobs do you have at home, or in the classroom? What hard work do you do that makes you feel good when you're done?

Don't be afraid of working hard, or of helping other people. You'll get such a good feeling inside when you're done!

Hay Barn

We finished the hay barn last week. I didn't really work on it. All the men worked on it.

The hay barn is wonderful! It fits hay bales exactly so there isn't much extra room on the sides. The wood was all used at standard sizes so there wasn't much cutting involved. It has overlapping sides so there will be airflow, but not much snow or rain can settle on the hay itself. Air around the hay means we won't have as much spoiled hay.

The grandkids love to play on the farm.
It seems there is always something to climb on or explore.
This is the hay barn with the walls up, but no roof on.

Of course, someone has to climb on the stack of building wood!

And if you're going to play on the stack of wood for the hay shed, you might as well pretend it's a trampoline!

Despite the bad air from all the forest fires a few weeks ago,
everyone spent time building, putting the roof trusses on, and finally the metal roof.

We got a load of 71 bales of hay on Monday.
See how nicely the hay fits side to side?
Each level of hay has 14 bales.

The front gates are each 8' wide, which lets us load or move hay with the tractor if we want to.

We have gates so the animals can't get in and make a mess of the hay.

We'll be getting 250 bales of hay this year which should last us until next June.

How do we figure out how much hay we need? Math!

In the winter when there is no pasture for the animals, they eat about 1 bale of hay a day. 8 months x 31 days = 248 bales. We'll start feeding 1 bale a day about mid-October so 250 bales should last us until mid-June when the first crop of new hay will be ready to buy.

In the summer the animals eat about 1 bale every 2-3 days because they have pasture grass to eat. We usually buy the new hay in June and feed them a little bit of hay as a treat.

Corn is another treat they love!
Our neighbor had some old food storage corn that he brought over for
all the animals to enjoy!

We're so blessed to have friends and neighbors that think of us before they send their old food to the dump. The chickens love the wheat, the goats and cow love the corn and, dried fruits and vegetables.

I am surrounded by people who believe that they can do something nice for someone else every day!

I hope you have a great week and find something nice to do every day!

Echo's New Calf 2018

Welcome back to school!

Almost every Friday during the school year you'll get to see what's happening at Welcome Home Farm in Highland. You can ask questions by writing them on pieces of paper and putting them in a spot that your teacher will show you.

I love it when you ask questions because then I know what things you want to learn about. I will post a picture of your question so your friends can see the question, too!

On August 13th something wonderful happened on our farm.

Our cow, Echo, had a baby!

This is Echo.
She's 5 years old.

Echo had a calf on Monday, August 13.
It's a girl!

This is Echo's 3rd calf. She had a boy calf in 2017, and a boy calf in 2016. We are so excited that she had a girl because girl calves, called heifers, turn into milk cows just like their mother.

Miss E was born in the pasture, in the sunshine.
I needed to move her to someplace out of the sun
so she didn't get too hot. (photo credit S.P.)

Echo licks Miss E to finish cleaning her off.
(photo credit S.P.)

We have some wonderful neighbors love to help on the farm.
MG gets to pet Miss E before any of the other neighbors
because she came to help twice a week all summer long!(photo credit S.P.)

MG also got to be the first one to feed Miss E
a bottle. (photo credit S.P.)

New born calves get tired quickly.
Miss E gets to take a nap on some clean shavings in a stall.

We feed Miss E a bottle during the day, and she spends the night with Echo.  That will make sure that Miss E is so friendly that she will make a wonderful milk cow!



Miss E also gets to eat from Echo.

Miss E gets lots of visitors, too. We let neighbors come pet her and play with her as often as we can. We had some visitors stop by this morning to see Echo and play with Miss E for a few minutes. We want Miss E to be very comfortable around new people that she doesn't know. How do you get comfortable around people you don't know?

One thing our family tries to do every day is to do something nice for someone else. I hope during the school year you will do something nice for someone else every day!

I hope you have a wonderful week!

Echo and Misty

Echo has been a little lonely lately. I wish she would have her calf soon. It's due on July 14, but since we had such trouble getting her to breed last year, my dates may be off.

She found a new friend in Misty, our retired milk goat. They really like each other!



It's been warm here, very warm. The animals are drinking a lot of water. I fill up the barrels twice a day.

The new chicks are growing. I'll post some pictures of them in the next few days.

I hope you're having a great summer!

You're Welcome!

I received a lot of thank you notes earlier this week from many of the First Graders that enjoyed Farm Friday this year.

You're so very welcome! I love sharing Welcome Home Farm with you. I'm glad you learned so much, and that you liked the videos and the photos.

Here are a few updated photos from the new chicks this year.

The chicks are about a month old.
Some people think they are still cute.

I think they look a little funny because they have some feathers
and some fluff.

They love to jump around on top of their waterer.

And they love to jump out of their new brooder box!
I have to put a lid on top of the big tub they are in now
so they will stay safely inside.

It will be at least another month before we can let them run around the yard. They are at Quin and Xander's house now. Quin and Xander like to hold them and pet them. That makes the chicks more friendly for visitors. I really appreciate it when Quin and Xander play with the chicks and take care of them.

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Here are a few of the many, many thank you notes I received.
You must have wonderful teachers because they taught you how to say, "Thank you!"

I'll be posting throughout the summer so you can see the new calf in July, how the chicks are growing, and how our little garden is growing.

I hope you all have a wonderful summer!