24/7

Farming is the only job that I can think of that is close to parenting. It is every day, No Holidays or Sick Days. Just like children our animals lives depend on us to take care of them. We've been criticized by some, because of how much time our "job" requires and events we've missed. Our animals need feeding at the same time every day, we can't change that fact. Not to mention how much depends on the weather. If the sap runs we have to gather & boil. If it's summer & we have 3 sunny days in a row, were going to be making hay. We have to, it's how we make money.

We were told it was our choice, and it is. Thankfully many people "choose" this job or we would all be hungry. Everyone knows No Farms No Food. The food in the grocery store comes from a farm somewhere. Most are more like factories than farms, but thankfully not ours. Our animals live a great life, not in a filthy feed lot or tiny cage. I know EXACTLY what is in my meat. Mark once said "you don't farm if you don't like animals, of course we care about them."

Here's a few examples of how much we care. I once saw Mark give mouth to mouth to a newborn lamb. This poor ewe had two enormous rams. We tried unsuccessfully to deliver them. K1 had just ran up to call the vet when one was finally born. It was alive, but stopped breathing. We cleared his nose, and hung him upside down which usually works, but he still wasn't breathing. Out of desperation Mark blew in his nose. It didn't work. I said " I can't believe you did that" he said "me either." We often joke about SheepPR. Anyone that knows me, knows that during lambing season it is nothing for me to set my alarm a few times a night to do a lamb check. A few weeks ago we were giving pre lambing shots to the ewes. Mark said "are you going to sleep in the barn during lambing?" I replied " I'm not ruling that out", again he laughed and said "me either!"

Is it worth it? We think so. We're happy. Most days, we Love what we do.

 Now, I'm going to go do my nightly chores, check on sheep (were going to have lambs any day!), then I'm going to gather sap (in the rain!) and hopefully boil late into the night! With any luck by the end of the weekend we'll have gallons of sweet maple syrup & a few adorable lambs.

P.S. We have meat & poultry CSA shares available, also healthy & delicious eggs.

Go Away Winter

I know that lot's of people are sick of winter. We had a little spring preview last Tuesday. It was beautiful, everything was melting. We tapped trees and I didn't even wear a jacket! Then on Wednesday we got TWO FEET OF SNOW! To make it even worse, we've had several below zero nights. UGH!

This just makes my life so much harder. For starters the ponies haven't been able to go out. The snow is up to their bellies. I tried but they could hardly move, so I brought them in. Not only do I feel bad for them, but that's extra cleaning for me. The cold is even worse. The chicken water freezes, so I have to bring out water twice a day. I always have one in the house defrosting, just what I want in my kitchen. We have to keep the 100 chicks warm. I can just see my electric bill this month. The chicks have 3 heat lights going around the clock. Not to mention the heater for the cows water. Oh...and we can't forget the sugar arch that can't freeze, so there's a heater running in there. Let's talk about heating the house, we've gone through all our wood, so we had to cut & split more. It's just so exhausting and discouraging.

On a positive note we've made about 10 gallons of maple syrup on the very few warm days we've had. Which, this time last year, we had made close to 50 gallons.Not sure if this means a short sugar season or just a late one. Which is worse? Make less syrup or a late spring. A late spring brings it's own headaches & problems. We have so much to do... Starting with getting 100 chicks in their mobile coop. I have no idea what we are going to do if the snow doesn't melt soon. We need to build fence, get the animals out to pasture, and  make our new garden. The petting barn opens May 3rd & our Spring Fling is the 10th...really hoping kid's won't have to wear their snowsuits (just kiddin').

That's enough complaining. It's time for me to go back to the barn. Think Spring!

P.S. Time to sign up for Summer Meat & Poultry Shares.

Mystery in the barn

A few weeks ago Mark noticed that one of the calves was missing the end of his tail. We had bought this calf a few weeks prior. We thought maybe it had gotten frostbite from the other barn or possibly another calf stepped on it. Than a few days later a different calf was missing part of his tail. This one looked awful with blood on his legs, it was gross. I was convinced that something was biting their tails. Mark didn't think so.

We borrowed a game camera. This camera takes a picture once a minute when it detects movement. You can imagine how fun it was to was to flip through 1000 picture of calves, because apparently they move all the time! We did get a good laugh from my 5 year old nephew. He didn't know we had a a camera set up. We got a full frontal picture of him going pee. He was so close, i'm surprised he didn't hit the camera!

After a few nights we got a picture of something. It was a dark rounded animal. It had it's head in a bucket, and we couldn't see it's tail. (I wish I hadn't erased the picture). I thought it could be a opossum, but Mark thought it had too dark of fur. We were telling Leo about it. He says someone told him they saw a wolverine near by. We had no idea what a wolverine was, so of course we googled it! It is the most vicious form of weasel.  Now, we really wanted to catch that on camera! We keep watching, morning & night.

Then we came into the barn & the calf that had the bloody tail a few days earlier, was bleeding again! It was back, and we couldn't get done chores quick enough. We were sure we were going to solve the mystery of the tail eating animal. You'll never guess, what it was....the other calves. They were sucking on each others tails until they were bleeding. Mark said he had told me nothing was eating their tails. I guess he was right, but we still had something getting into our barn.

We finally figured it out the next night.
First we saw this:

Can you see the dark creature in front of the calves?

Than we saw this:

See the little face in the bottom right corner.

I was right it was a opossum., I was right about something! Farming is so unpredictable. Seriously, you just can't make this stuff up!

Kick A** Weekend

Here's a run down of our kick a** weekend.

I made 2 batches of goat milk soap.

I am anxiously awaiting my goats to kid, so that I can have my own milk. I was super excited to find milk for sale on craigslist so I could start practicing, Here's Nala, she's due on Easter.

For the first time we made maple candy.

We cut two dump trailer loads of fire wood. I loaded most of the wood myself, while Mark cut. I even drove the loader tractor. I am women...hear me ROAR!

Mark, K3, and I  trimmed 13 ewes feet, gave them their pre lambing shots & worming, and built the lambing jugs. K3 even tried to trim her ewe. Our first ewe is due April first. We want to be ready because we are hoping to be busy sugaring soon. 

We made a trip to home depot so Mark could get supplies for a job and we decided to sneak in a dinner date. Mark was trying to get me to use salad dressing and I told him I didn't need the extra calories, since I have always eaten it without, that's how I like it. He told me that he thought I burned enough calories in a day that I didn't have to worry about it. 

Of course we also did chores morning & night, and our weekend routine. On Saturdays or Sundays we clean out the sheep & goat pens, sweep the whole barn, and spread the manure. This adds about an hour to our regular chores.

It was a good weekend, we even saw a little sunshine:)