Down on the farm

Our farm is growing!  We had 3 little kittens born on Mother's Day.  They are very cute and still haven't started venturing away from their momma.  Leah is very drawn to animals and these babies are getting a lot of her attention.  She doesn't handle them yet, but she crawls under the table where they are and stares at them...for a long time.

We hatched chicks...twice.  We've come to admit that we are no good at hatching eggs.  We don't know what we are doing wrong, but the first time we started with 2 dozen and ended up with 4 chicks (though many more had been moving the day before they should have hatched).  The second time we started with 32 eggs and had 5 eggs hatch, then one chick died several days later.

Luckily, there is a mill in town where we can buy as many chicks as we want.  We bought 15 chicks to go with the first batch.  One of those chicks died; I mentioned it in a previous post.  Then we had our 4 chicks and got a call from Chad's dad.  He had access to free chicks and we could have as many as we wanted.  So we weren't really in need of more chicks, but the price was right.

Fast forward to the present...we have 54 chicks.  FIFTY-FOUR!  We'll see how that works out.

We did sell 3 of our lambs a couple of weeks ago.  We still have our bottle-fed lambs since they are not afraid of us.  We have staked them out in the orchard to help us keep the grass down out there.  But lambs are not very smart and we are constantly going out there to untangle them.  I'm glad it's summer and we can send the kids out there.

Tonight, Chad and I held a mini-rodeo and caught the last two lambs to put them in a back corner of the orchard that is all grass.  We hope it's not too late to tame them (though my hope is weak).  It was quite a site to behold.  When lambs don't want to be led, they lay down.  So we dragged two lambs and got tired and sweaty.  It was so much fun.

I am grateful we have the opportunity to raise these animals.  I watched Joseph help me wrangle the tame lambs as we hooked them up tonight.  He got pretty firm with one of the lambs and smacked her on the rear to get her moving.  It was funny...I don't think she even noticed.  There aren't very many 4-year-old boys having that experience.  Even Sarah tries to manage the lambs sometimes.  :)  The kids gather eggs, fill water troughs and throw hay over the fence.  Tonight they helped plant more of the garden.  It's a great life.  If we ever have to leave it behind, I will be sad, but grateful to have lived it at all.

Round 'em up, Move 'em out, YEHAW!

We had some glorious weather in these parts yesterday. Was your weather as nice? Our day started with cleaning the church, then a trip to the library, followed by a stop at the local Preparedness Fair. From there we went on a much anticipated picnic and played a bit at a park. A stop at the bread store on the way home turned into a decision to defrost one of the freezers (because the bread needed to be frozen).

I am still scratching my head over the fact that we were defrosting a freezer on March 24th! It took a couple/few hours to get four years' worth of frost out of that monster, but when we replaced the food, we organized meat into one freezer and everything else into another. Wow. We have a lot of food (and chocolate) in our garage.

Meanwhile, Chad decided that it was a good time to catch and weigh a lamb that we wanted to post on Craigslist. She was a little tricky to catch, but we got the task accomplished and decided that the ewe weighs 90 lbs. A little on the small side for butchering, but her birthday is coming up in two months, so we need to get her sold.

Then we decided to put her into the corral so that she would be easier to catch next time. The thing is...her father is in the corral with her mother and "aunts" and half-siblings. So we got the ram out of there and into the pasture.

If you ever have the good fortune to visit us during a time that Chad needs to round up an animal around here, you will leave with some darn funny memories! We finally got that ram out, with Chad pulling and Daniel and Nathan pushing. Then Nathan climbed up on his back and that ram just stood there. I guess he's not a rodeo ram. He ran off easily enough when the rope was off his neck and Nathan was off his back.

Well, the ram is less likely to try to break back into the corral if he has a few of his girls with him. We have two ewes that are no longer mommas, so we pulled them out, too.

The pictures below are from Chad and Nathan pulling out the last ewe. Notice the only two lambs/sheep hanging around Chad? They are the bottle babies and are the only ones that don't run away from us. They become a bit of a health hazard (tripping hazard) when someone is trying to rope a sheep that doesn't want to be roped!



They were lucky and got the rope on her without too much effort. This is the best time to climb on her back!



It's a good thing Nathan's so light. This ewe is going to be glad to be free, as soon as she can get rid of that boy on her back!


When Chad and Nathan got her out to the pasture, they had a short brain lapse and let go of the rope. She started running away and they had to chase the end of the rope before it completely passed them by. Nathan was quicker and got a hold on it first.


Now it's time for the real fun. We just need to get that rope of her neck first...


...and then it's time to hold on tight! This sheep gave Nathan quite a ride. She tried to out-smart him by scraping him along the outside of the corral and then running them both through some discarded barbed wire. He held on for a long time. I don't think the story can be told any better than the one Nathan's face is telling in this picture.


I love this life and the experiences the kids are having. How could we ever go back to living in a city/neighborhood?