Category: Farm - Billy Joe's Food Farm - ᵀʰᵉʳᵉ ᶦˢ ᶠʳᵉᵉᵈᵒᵐ ᶦᶰ ᵃ ˢᵉᵉᵈ⋅™

Kits are Among us

4/26/2013

I am really sorry that I have not written in so long. Weebly has not worked for me for 2 MONTHS, and I finally switched browsers and now it works.

Anyway, today was quite the experience! I have been waiting for babies for 33 days now from Holly. I was absolutely sure she was pregnant, either that or her guts were supposedly kicking. I got up this morning, with a "feeling" that she had babies. I went out to the barn to find a pile of fur, not moving. I checked it out, while Holly was going frantic for some odd reason. Sighing, I walked away with no signs of any babies. I thought that was odd, because usually you will find babies if they have pulled fur. Well, not this little lady. First she goes over her due date, and now she does this? Gah!

Well, I decided I would sit and watch her because, I mean gosh, I have nothing better to do.... So, here I sit staring at a bunny who is doing nothing but pulling fur. I knew it would be soon, because she had about a boatload full of fur in that nest and was apparently pulling more. Key word: apparently. I watch closer, and lo and behold, she is licking "down there" and grunting. Hmmmm...

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Beady Had A Little Lamb, Little Lamb, Little Lamb...

4/7/2013

The past few days have really been overwhelming! Okay, weeks, I should say! First we got two new
puppies, then a baby goat, then we rescued two other puppies, and THEN Hazel had her kids! This week, we also got some more little tiny surprises. On Thursday, my dad woke up to Annie (one of the livestock guardian dogs) barking like crazy.

He went to the barn to see what's up, and Beady had given birth to our first little lamb born here. He has a spotted face and spotted legs, but the rest of him is white. It just had to be a ram, of course.

Then, this morning, my dad woke up to the same exact thing! He went down to the barn, and Rosie had lambed a little ramlamb. He was only about 30 minutes old, maybe less when my dad found the lamb. He texted my mom, and she woke us up saying, "Rosie had a baby, it's a girl!". So I ran out there all excited that it was a girl, and of course, it was a boy. My dad had missed his "boy parts" because it was so dark
in the barn. *sigh*

Rosie was not letting him nurse, for some odd reason, so that means we have to bottle
feed the lamb, although we keep trying to force Rosie to accept him, halter tying her and letting the lamb nurse. He will be sold once he is 2 months old, but for right now he is in the house.

That also means we have a sheep that needs to be milked, and she does NOT like anyone touching her udder, so this will be super fun. :)

We just have one more ewe due this month and we will be done! Hopefully she has a girl. Keep your fingers crossed!!!

We have baby goats!

3/19/2013

Hazel surprised us this morning with twin bucks. :) They are both exact matches of Hazel, except one has a pink pig nose. They are super cute. One of them was jumping on me less than 8 hours after he was born! Here are the photos:

Come and get your puppies!

2/27/2013

Shadowfax Farm's puppies are ready to go to their new homes! We will be picking ours up sometime soon, and we are so excited! They are each 150$, and they are turning two months old on March 6th. 1/4 Pyrenees, and 3/4 Anatolian. Very nice looking pups, don't forget to grab yours.

https://www.facebook.com/ShadowfaxFarm

The Hens are Picking up!

2/25/2013

The past few months have not been very eggy... in Winter, the hens don't lay like usual. We were getting about 4 eggs a day, which is certainly not normal! And then... BOOM. We got hit by Mother Earth right smack dab in the face, with a boatload of eggs! So, as you can see in the far left picture, the hens are definitely getting back on schedule.

We are a family of five, and most of us are not even that fond of eggs (!!!), so 21 chickens is just not needed. We decided to sell our Buff Orpington hens. We are partial to the Barred Rocks, and are not very attached to Orpingtons. They are not friendly, but are not mean in any way... wellll... we will talk about their broody hen stages another day. ;) We have 8 of them. All are for sale, 10$ a bird. They *obviously* lay well, and they are only 2 years old. One has hatched chicks herself, but I am not sure which one. Please contact us if you are interested!

Okay, now THIS is adorable.

2/25/2013

I was skipping through HomesteadingToday forums, and found the cutest little story. The thread was about how she didn't know if her goat was pregnant to her Nubian buck... whether to let her have the babies, etc. Then, she found out that her small buck had bred her, so it was not a problem. Anyway, here is what was in her last post:

Original Poster: grandma12703
"I went out sat. morning and she had delivered two babies. A doeling and a buckling. The buckling was able to push some wire and get into the pen with all of the old ewes(at 1 day old) and when I went out I was terrified because I couldn't find him. He then hopped up into the shed (it's a little step up) with our pyrenees right behind him, almost pushing him. I went around because you can't go straight through and picked him up but when I reached down to get him the pyrenees put his paw lightly on him and didn't want to let me have him. I love this dog. He was keeping everyone away from the little guy(named Houdini). Now he lays right outside of their pen against the pen and the two babies are always laying right against the pen on their side. It is awesome."

That is so cute! I hope our guard dog, Silas, will be like that someday. Right now he is just going to be breathing puppy breath in our faces. Oh well.

Si... the puppy on a mission!

AWWWWWWW. Sorry, that is all I can think of!

2/24/2013

I am proud to announce that we are getting a puppy next week! YAY! I love puppies... but then again, doesn't everyone? He is 1/4 Pyrenees and 3/4 Anatolian. He will already be dewormed and will have his first shots. They should all be weaned on the 3rd of March, which is in... 7 days! I am so excited! There are two things that I am looking forward to this Spring: Getting puppies, and lambing.

We will be getting a female to breed with him, and then we should have our own puppies. The person we are getting this one from is in Kansas, and still has several to sell. I am pretty sure all of them are 150$, but here is the link for you to see. Oh, and we are getting another 1 foot of snow tonight, so wish us luck with all the animals! ;)

Snow Ice Cream!

2/22/2013

I have to admit, it is not usually "delicious", but you just can't get a foot of snow and NOT make snow ice cream. So, that is what I did!

In the past few years, I have watched cooking shows, and a lot of them. So, when I searched snow ice cream in the search bar and Paula Deen's recipe came up, I figured it would be smart to try her's. If you know one, just one thing about Paula Deen it is probably that everything she makes is either SUPER sweet or buttery! So why not? I decided to try it.

Snow Ice Cream by Paula Deen

8 cups of soft snow
1 can of sweetened condensed milk
1 tablespoon of vanilla extract

Gather the snow in a bowl, and pour remaining ingredients on top of it; stir.

Viola! It was so easy, and tastes wonderful! I was very surprised, because usually that stuff is like 2 cups of sugar, 3 teaspoons of vanilla, and 4 cups of snow. I am not very fond of it. Now, sweetened condensed milk, I am VERY fond of that stuff! It tastes delicious, which is what made that ice cream so good. Anyway, it tastes just like store-bought vanilla ice cream, so you should try it!

Merry February everyone!

PHOTOSHOOT!

2/21/2013

There's never a dull moment around here...

2/21/2013

Isn't that the truth!

SO. The weather channel was not wrong... at all. We have a foot (!!!) of snow on the ground right now! That is a lot, and it is much more than the inch of snow we have gotten every once in awhile in the past several months.

Anyway, so we are trudging through the snow, trying to feed the animals as fast as we can, and of course, we see that three adolescent guineas have found a whole in the netting and gotten out of their enclosure. Here is a picture to show you what they got through:

Now, you might think they are somewhat smart at this young age, but they are NOT. When you want them to go into a place, they will walk back and forth across the fence and gate like there is no place to enter into it... really? So even with that, they somehow figure out how to get through the one little hole in the netting. Grrrr... Well, anyway, they flew up into the trees, way above our reach, just to frustrate us even more. It is below freezing, we have super deep snow, my sister is having fun hitting me with snowballs in my face, and we are trying throw rocks at guineas. What. A. Night. We never did get two guineas in, so right now we are hoping for the best. The other one hopped back in. So, at least we have 8 left...

Also, while I was sitting here looking at stuff, my mom mentioned, "What if Beady got pregnant the first time she was bred? I felt her udder the other day, and it was getting softer, that means she might be due now." Oh great! I was actually excited at the thought of having lambs so soon, but it couldn't be that Nigel would breed her again if she was already pregnant. Or could it? Well, I don't know, so I suppose I will just have to sleep on it.

Goodnight Everyone!

Grace

hAVE A GREAT DAY!

This is where Caroline and I (Grace) like to write about things that will be done, have been done, or are being done on the farm. Enjoy!

Stories from the kids.

Sue said:....... Hi Grace,
There is just nothing cuter than a baby rabbit. I'll bet that you and Caroline will be camped out at the cage when the wee bunnies arrive. So, if
I wanted to purchase a bunny from you, what would I need to know about care and
feeding?

Sue also said:...... Grace, you are going to be Queen of the Blog with your laptop! I'm having fun
following your adventures.

Liz V. said:...... Hello -

We are from Alabama and my kids love reading your blog! Marley would like to try your hot chocolate recipe and wanted to let you know that she is a big fan of your farm. (She loves all animals and Taekwondo!)
Hope you and your family had a great Christmas!!

Sue said:...... Here's hoping for lots of bunnies! How many do you expect in a litter?

susan said:...... This is a charming blog and I would like to hear more from this kid!

Kay Thomas said:...... Hi Grace, I enjoy reading your blog! I'm sorry you lost all the red-bud trees. The little maples are beautiful. We always have a lot of little trees come up in our yard each year as well.

We GREATLY appreciate any comments!

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