Farm Snapshots

The Spring is our favorite time of year around the farm.

Things begin to come alive. Grasses become greener. Wildflowers sprout forth. You can feel the warmth of the sun pressed up against your face.

Today felt like our first real glimpse of Spring. It was almost poetic around here. The animals seemed a little giddy.

But, then again, so did I.

I snapped the above photo of the chickens meandering through the pastures. You can see the cows in the background (way back there) up on top of the hill.

We follow our cows with our chickens. The chickens go behind the cows and help clean up the pastures and break up the manure.

They also help when the flies get back as it gets warmer because they eat the fly larvae out of the cow manure.

In other news, we recently purchased a small herd of Spanish Goats.

The purpose of these goats will be for natural pasture renovation and parasite control.

Goats won't compete with the cows for grasses since goats are browsers and cows are grazers. The goats eat things that cows won't eat.

It is quite a sight looking out into the pasture seeing the goats romping around.

The goats won't let us get too close to them yet. We aren't use to our animals keeping their distance from us. But, in due time I'm sure the goats will come around as well.

The girls can't hardly stand this though. They've made many trips out to the pasture that the goats are in with many coaxing efforts to end in,"They just aren't ready yet."

They have taken a liking to the dogs though. The ranch that they came from worked them with dogs. We can't wait to see what kind of goat wrangler Max will end up being.

We had a momma sow farrow the sweetest litter of piglets to date. She had some very uniquely colored piglets. Some where speckled and one of them was brown. We don't have one single brown pig on this farm, but little one.

The sow is doing quite well at being a first time momma. She is young and this is her first litter of piglets. But, we've been impressed with her so far. She had a total of 10 and hasn't lost any yet.

Losing piglets tends to be just part of the game sometimes. We've had tremendous success with huge litters of pigs. The average loss is usually 1 to 2 piglets per litter- sometimes none, sometimes more. Most of the time, they are stepped on by the sows or crushed by them when they lay down to nurse.

Today, we were outside playing in the yard. I heard the loudest piglet squeal coming from the barn. Instantly, I rushed over to the barn (common protocol) because I knew the owner of the squeal was in a very precarious position.

When I arrived, I saw the little piglet half under the sow and pinned up against the fence. I made the sow stand up and quit nursing the piglets. I'm just glad that she kindly obliged and didn't give me any resistance.

The little guy was up and running in no time.

And I felt like I had bonded with the piglet over saving his week old life.

Farm Happenings, and a lot of it!

I'm back! Last week was a whirlwind- a good kind of whirlwind filled with lots of exciting things.

April, 2nd- We survived the morning o' chicks. Jason promptly received a phone call at 6 am from the post office and off he went. And off I went straight to the coffee press to get into the java groove.

....Chicks in a box....

He arrived with boxes packed neatly with chicks. We unloaded them, dipped their beaks, and showed them where their food was. They are doing great! We've lost a few here and there, but that is to be expected with 300 chicks.

....Jason unloading the chicks....

....the brooder house....

If you are wondering what the purpose of these birds will be, the answer is for eggs. Jason has plans to build a ginormous egg mobile that will follow behind our cattle. The purpose of this is to help cut down our fly problems and to fertilize the pastures.

After the morning o' chicks, I headed off with some dear friends of mine- Shauna Maness being one of them- to Warrenton for a fun day of antiquing, chatting, eating, chatting- you get the point. I was one of four girls who went and the only one that wasn't expecting so you can imagine there was lots of chatting and eating! Shauna and I go waaaay back. I met Jason through her and will be forever grateful. I'm so thrilled for her and Brandon and cannot wait to see them as parents.......in Texas!! Yee Haw!

I had such a blast. I found a few cool things. I will post pictures of these later. There is also a very interesting purchase I found pictured below from a later trip to Warrenton with my hubby.

I was one blessed girl. I went antiquing to Round Top and Warrenton a total of 4 (FOUR) times!!!!! That is an amazing perk to living in Brenham.....one of the many perks (blue bell being one of the others). I told you I've been a busy gal!

April, 4th- We celebrated Laney Rae's birthday with friends and family. I had a very low-key party. I'm NOT really a fan of having enormous parties for first birthdays. We had a very small group out to the farm, grilled hamburgers and hot dogs, and did the rest of the stuff that all good birthday mom's do- smash the cake and open presents. The picture below really sums up what it is like being the birthday mom of a one year old.

....Me, admiring the gift. Laney Rae admiring the curly ribbon....

April, 5th- Bib received another friend!!! Our other female goal, Louise, had her kid. She is a female that Kaylyn named, Bambi. She is absolutely precious.

....Bambi....

I have to say that baby goats are the most precious baby animal around- bar none. I've never seen another animal look this cute from birth. Bib and Bambi seem to be doing really well and are experiencing new life together.

....Bib and her momma....

....Friends....

....The baby Daddy....

Also on the 5th, Jason, me***, my mom, and Kaylyn made the last and final trip to Warrenton.

Jason loaded the truck down with chicken coops. I always love the looks we get as we are loading our truck full of coops. Fancy women dressed in straw hats with giant beaded necklaces around their necks wearing sunglasses as big as their entire face pass by with perplexed looks written all over them.

One lady asked me,"What are you going to do with all of those coops?"

I know she was expecting me to say something ultra creative since we were smack dab in the middle of the creative capital of Texas. Something along the lines of "use it for flower pots" or "organize shoes" or "make a magazine rack" or "paint it really funky and make it into a cat condo" or "jewelry box".

But, instead, I answered her,"We are going to put chickens in them."

"Oh, really?" she exclaimed as if that were a new concept. She probably would have been bored if I would have answered that I was going to make it over into a funky cat condo.

This, my friends, is a gutting cart.

It was one of my Warrenton Antique's Fair purchase. I didn't know it was a gutting cart. I thought it would be a great garden cart. See the opening on the end? Can't you just imagine me shoving dirt off the end of it into the flower bed? And the little table shelf up on the top- can't you imagine me potting a plant with my dirt resting below? I was so excited about this 'cart'.

Apparently this was used in a pork processing factory to carry guts off. I found this out as we were loading it up. It doesn't sound near as cute as a gardening cart. But, oh well. I'm sure we can find a good use for it out here. We got a great deal on the 'cart'.

April, 6th- Uncle Durward and Aunt Debbie came home yesterday. We love it when they come home. The farm feels complete with all of us being together.

Aunt Debbie is an incredible lady and a gardening machine. I can't even take credit for the garden looking this great. I have loved getting work alongside her and learn from a garden pro!

We've been doing lots of work out in the garden last week and this week. Really, the garden in general is an ongoing process. We still need to get some more things in the ground for the spring and summer. Last year we had an abundance all at one time so we are going to do a few different rounds of planting.

We had some perfectly poo-filled hay and made compost hay out of it to help keep the weeds down and the moisture in. It has helped tremendously and makes the garden look pretty.

.....Potato Patch.....

.....Onion.....

.....Herb Garden.....

April, 7th- We just got back from taking photos of the girls in the wildflowers. That was exciting! Crawling and photography don't work well together. I can do sitting up or walking- but crawling not so much.

Check back for the final product soon!

Meanwhile, the pigs have been lounging around a lot more with it warming up while we've been working harder and longer outside. I'll leave you with Dudley, our male pig.


***I still can't figure out the proper use of 'me' 'my' or 'I' in a sentence. Especially when referring to another person and myself. It gets me every time. Is there a nifty little rhyme to help or a rule I should follow. See sentence with the *** for an example and help a sister out!

I do not guarantee the proper use of words, sentence structure, or spelling. After all, this is a farm blog. Right?