We had some late arrivals with our goat kids this year, but we are thankful for the two more kiddings the Lord graciously granted! Below is the departure of the main herd of kids, and also some of the goat goings-on around the farm, for your entertainment. 🙂
The Kids
Winnie gave birth to a little buckling! She had been having quite a bit of rumen problems last year, and we think that’s why she was delayed in giving birth, but thanks to the Lord she did so in health and with a healthy kid. In honor of her name, we called him Wilfred:
And here’s their video:
Then, it was time to ship them off with their new owner!
Here we are setting up:
And here’s a video of the process and saying goodbye:
We are grateful to God for providing a buyer who likes to come every year and collect our kids.
And then, thankfully after what we think was originally an aborted pregnancy, Lucy gave birth to twins about a month ago! They have their sire’s oolors, with the blotches, and they reminded us of ice cream — the light colored buckling like chocolate chip cookie dough, so we called him “Chip”; and for the doeling, we couldn’t think of a good ice cream name, so we went with Jane Dough, or what we call her, “Janie.”
Sleepy…
And here’s their video, with an intro about their mommy before she gave birth:
Around the Yard
Goats are interesting, fun, smart and troublesome quite often. So, we thought we’d share a few of those moments…
Um, yeah…
Here they are lounging around in the sun one day:
And then all around the camper, which they do often. There’s a nice little breezeway under the camper they can usually count on to provide some refreshment and relief from the heat:
And Hannah sometimes gets some extra lettuce or kale, and then comes around looking for more. She’s an expert at convincing you she is an innocent victim and has fooled us many times…. but she’s probably the most wily of them all 🙂
We are grateful to the Lord once again for the kids He granted us this year! We had to give several of our goats de-wormer this year as some of them got pretty anemic, but God granted they get better; and we thank Him for the continued safety and health for and milk from our goats; and we’re thankful for the adventure they bring to our lives here! 🙂
The Lord has graciously granted our 2015 Spring garden to continue. The mulch bed gardening allows us to set hoses from the cistern and only have to move them every 10 minutes, which keeps from having to constantly monitor the watering for 2 or more hours.
Here is how everything looked a couple of weeks ago, end of July…
Okra:
Beans, butternut squash and zucchini:
Here are carrots growing out of the hugelkultur bed. If you look closely, you can see the remnants of one of the bed’s “tenants”:
More okra:
And our one pumpkin plant, and the okra again:
The pumpkin plant really took off, up the fence, which actually had a pumpkin hanging on it:
And up the tree:
And here are the tomato plants:
As for the produce, turnips planted a couple of years ago continue to show up!
And here is butternut squash down in the root cellar we’ve been granted:
And a couple of good-sized pumpkins!
Here are the few carrots we got from the hugelkultur bed, along with some okra and zucchini. The carrots were something of an experiment as I did nothing to improve the bed ahead of time, and it was just nice to see a few come out. The Lord has also granted several, but not a lot, of zucchini, and the okra keep coming in almost daily. We’ve been able to tuck quite a bit away by lacto-fermenting the vegetables in jars:
And here are some tomatoes. We have pretty much just been eating these as we go:
And here is where things are now, after about 5-6 weeks of straight upper-90 to 100-degree weather with no rains.
This is Garden 2. The okra is still going, nearly 6 foot tall; some of the green beans are still there; the butternut squash are still producing; and only 1 zucchini plant remains:
And this is Garden 1. The okra here is even taller, and the pumpkin plant is basically done. Sadly, a couple of the pumpkins didn’t make it:
And the tomatoes. I had to dust them with an insect dust because it appeared blister beetles were making their way over there, and they do damage very quickly:
Finally, because it appears that only soil that’s covered will work well without requiring hoards of water, I decided to start mulching the rest of Garden 1, over the raised bed area, hopefully in time to plant a Winter garden!
This week is about the last week we can do full watering because the cistern is getting to a point we want to make sure we have enough for ourselves and the animals; so if it doesn’t rain, watering is going to have to be reduced.
We do have rain percentages this weekend though. But God knows best, and we are very grateful for the provisions He has granted from the garden this year thus far!
It has been almost two years since I took the first pictures of work on the external siding of the upper west section of the house, and after the upper east side was completed, I was able to just the other week finish the upper south side of the cedar fence slat lap siding, and thus wrap up the external siding of the entire upper part of the house!
Here is the tar paper, which Sue helps me put up, and window frames in place:
And the rest of it done:
Whew! Now just to paint it with the wood protector I’ve been using on the other sides.
Thanks to the Lord for the provisions to continue on this, the strength to even perform the building duties, safety while working up there, and continued progress on the house!
There were a lot more on the trees too, like bundles of grapes. Interestingly though, a couple of days after seeing them like that, they were all gone…nothing…like they had never been there. I’m assuming birds got them, but wow.
But then, it was on to peaches!
And then onto the food dryer for them too. We were getting so many at one point, it was hard to find room on the dryer!
And here are almost all of the peaches, conveniently stored away in bite-sized, fruit-roll-tasting morsels!
And some extra ones pressure canned on the left, and made into jam on the right!
We are very grateful to the Lord for these gifts! It was so great to be able to walk out to a tree, pick a fruit, and eat it straightaway! We are very thankful.
God has graciously granted yet another two sets of chicks to be hatched out in the 2015!
Here is the seventh group in the mini-chicken tractor:
She hatched out five chicks, but one was something of a runt and took much more time to grow, and usually they don’t make it. You can see the little one in this video. It actually went along several weeks, seemingly getting stronger. However, one day, for some reason its little head started to twist and want to stay that way, and it just could not keep it upright anymore; and so, I made the personally tough decision to euthanize it, figuring it was now in a bad way and just wasn’t going to be able to sustain itself. 🙁
And here they are before that time. The other four are still healthy and doing well!
And this is group eight! I believe she hatched out at least eight, maybe nine, and there are seven still going strong; and thankfully they haven’t had the little sickness that has run through some of the other groups:
And here’s their video:
We are very grateful to the Lord for the continued health and safety of the hatchlings, and His continued provisions in this way!
Last year you may remember us introducing our new stray rescue cat, Ritzie. At the time we weren’t sure why God brought her into our lives but thoroughly enjoyed the time He allowed us with her. After a few months, in April, we had to make the decision to have her euthanized due to illness. It was very sad for me, in particular, because we believe there was a very spiritual side of that whole experience and things God wanted to teach me. I plan to write a blog post about that in the near future. We still miss her.
Well, fast forward about five months in early November, just before a cold snap, while we were doing our morning farm chores. I had walked past the summer kitchen and beyond the cistern when I heard William meow back by the kitchen. Then he immediately walked right in front of me. Dave and I looked at each other realizing the mewing wasn’t William after all. I walked hastily back to the kitchen and listened more intently. Just then I saw this little gray “thing” nestled safely in between the summer kitchen wall and the top of the closed root cellar door. She was crying out but really scared at the same time, growling and defensively showing me ALL of her teeth. I went and got some work gloves and a stick and tried to nudge her out but she wasn’t “down with that.” Then I brought out some goat milk to entice her but she still wasn’t buyin’ it. I finally nudged her out, but she then ran towards the barn wall where there are lots of obstacles under which she could hide. Well played, little gray “thing”, well played. Thinking of my next move, I went and got an animal cage and finally tracked her down hiding under a generator. I slowly reached out with a gloved hand and petted her furry face. Bingo! When she sensed I was not out to harm her, she melted like butter and started purring up a storm, rubbing her face against my glove. I scooped her up and put her in the cage whispering sweet sing-songy things to her. After the whole Ritzie experience, I knew Dave (let alone William) would probably not be too keen to take in another feline tenant, and was ready to accept whatever his decision was. Well, I walked in the house with the cage and Dave was on a business phone call. I stayed across the room, took her out of the cage petting her, and she just couldn’t get enough lovin’. Dave looked over, smiled, shook his head like “here we go again” and later said he didn’t hesitate about agreeing to bring her into our homestead. She had shown up out of nowhere as a 6 week old kitten, no other cats in sight, probably not even fully weaned. Dave and I agreed to take it one day at a time and see what would happen.
Here she is when we first took her in. We couldn’t help but notice how big her ears were in relation to her little body! Dave started using Google Translate to see what he could come up with, and lo and behold, apparently the Japanese word for “ear” is an English, female proper name — Mimi!!
It was cold outside so Mimi’s first BFF was the heater!
She found a resting spot “exactly” her size!
When mommie’s away, the cat (and socks) will play:
Mimi’s safe lookout spot:
Mimi and Dave bonding:
We refreshed our memories on the best way to introduce a cat (kitten) into a household with an existing cat. It was the best case scenario with William being the older, dominant, male cat and her being a small, female kitten. Over the course of the next two to three weeks, we sloooowllly introduced them. Thankfully, they have become very good friends.
Mimi ain’t no dummy. She wanted to be friends with William right away but knew he would take a little longer to realize how adorable she was – so she kept her distance:
After about two weeks of bonding and cuddling, we agreed I should take her to the vet for a once-over and a rabies shot. The vet came in the room, took one look, and I don’t think used more than her thumb and index finger to pick her up by the neck the entire time. Mimi was instantly branded with a scarlet “R” for ringworm. I couldn’t believe the avoidance in this vet. Heck, we didn’t know what ringworm looks like on cats. The vet proceeded to tell me all about ringworm, which I appreciated. But it was almost like a death sentence the way it was described. (Paraphrasing) “Ringworm is a fungus-based condition, with spores that can live up to a year, and you and all of your other animals will get it, and it will be next to impossible to rid yourselves of it”. The vet, then, proceeded to scare me with the cost of an expensive $20 bottle of chemical-laden shampoo and 30 day bathing (yes, bathing a cat) instructions. It was like a declaration of leprosy or something. I dutifully bought the shampoo and left in a stunned condition. When I got home and told Dave about it, he said, “No way, we’re going natural.” (I love that about him) Long story short, we did some research, sprayed her with diluted raw apple cider vinegar and hydrogen peroxide. A couple of weeks later, ringworm gone, and no other animals got it from her. Dave and I had gotten a couple little itchy patches we realized later were ringworm, but put some essential oils on and, bam, gone. Hurray for natural cures!!
So far so good. Then, a few more months into it, Mimi started showing signs of going into heat, so we decided to get her…shhhhh…s-p-a-y-e-d. Here she is recuperating after a successful and non-eventful surgery, thanks to God. Boy, the vet sure wanted to have a big, clear working area, didn’t he?! By the way, I took the expensive bottle of shampoo back and received a full refund which we applied towards her spaying fee! Yay!
Well, it’s been about eight months, and we couldn’t have asked for a better feline friend for William, as well as another good hunter to help keep the varmints down around the homestead.
Here are a few meow feline fotos for your enjoyment:)
No doubt, this is William’s regular napping spot, but Mimi had gotten there first on this day. As you can tell, it didn’t faze him much (Mimi: “For real, dawg?!”):
Mimi loves to hang around Dave when he is working in the orchard or the garden. She will stay for hours at a time. She’s definitely a tom(girl) cat! Can you spot her there in the tree?
Finally, here is our signature video introducing Mimi live and capturing her first known catch and kill, as well as her sweet side. Awwww 😉
As we have learned to be with all gifts from God, we are very thankful for His provision to us in Mimi, and we pray for His help to be good and righteous stewards of her and all of our animals.
After putting in the fence posts around the orchard for the more permanent fence, it was time to stretch the net wire. It had taken me a while to get to it, because it rained almost the whole month of May! (Wow, thanks to God for that gift of abundant water! It was worth the wait! 🙂 )
I did try pulling the wire after wrapping the t-post corner brace system I was trying; but once tension was on it, enough for this kind of longer fencing where I needed it pretty taught, it didn’t look like the aluminum pieces were going to hold long-term, and it appeared the ground was getting loose around the posts. So, I went ahead and installed a wood post system at that end as well.
And then, it was back to pulling fence.
Here’s a post wrapped and ready to have the fence stretched against it:
For this project, and I assume others at some point, I decided to get a good, metal net wire fence stretcher. It has ended up working great as it really grips the fencing, which has often been a problem for us using 2x4s bolted together or the like. I did find that even though I had chain pulling on top and bottom of the stretcher, I needed tension to be in the middle because the stretcher would bend once tension was applied, so I tied a piece of barbed wire from the middle hook of the stretcher to a middle point on the chain, and this has helped:
I hooked the stretcher to the come-along, and hooked it to the truck’s ball hitch:
And then moved the truck forward until the stretcher was standing up straight. Then, it was just a matter of getting the right tension on the fence using the come-along:
And here’s a corner, each strand double wrapped around the post and then wrapped tightly like a cork-screw around the its own wire going back the other direction:
With the fencing stretched, it was time to install the gate. Using the crescent wrench to turn the gate lag bolt works great!
And here is the hung gate:
And down that fence line:
It’s all stretched at this time…I just have to go back and install the t-post clips, a job I try to spread out over time, doing a post or two a day.
We’re always grateful to the Lord for granting the provisions to continue on homestead improvement!
Heb. 11:8-10 - "By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God."
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