Day 10: Twelve Days of 2023

I'm recapping 2023 one month at a time. This is October. I almost stepped on this gopher snake. I think it was hurt.

Bambi was in heat and acting goofy.


The tomatoes are still coming in. We haven't been even close to freezing yet.




The Superior Farmers Market welcomed the Burro Races.

Friends gave us lots of cull apples and the goats enjoyed them a lot.



I discovered I had a gas leak and spent a lot of time digging up the gas line through gnarly tree roots.

Tink, the old cat.

Finally got the little raised beds ready to plant. 

 The spring pullets began to lay.

Digger destroyed the roof on his house.

The coyote comes right into the fence.

Digger goes crazy over the silliest things. In his defence I did find a dead mouse in his pen the next morning.

I can say for sure Storm didn't get bred as she's had several heat cycles since this incident.

Another coyote sighting.

Storm really hurt herself. (she's fine now)

Day 9: Twelve Days of 2023

If you are new here, I'm recapping 2023 as one post per day. This is September. I started working on putting a solid roof over the girls pen instead of tarps.

A Colorado River Toad stuck in the squirrel trap.

I don't think these were the same two toads as this one looks much bigger. These are poisonous to any animal that tries to eat them, they have poison glands on the back of their heads.

I went to fill a chicken water and when I brought it back in discovered this king snake under the cinder block. Since it didn't move at first I wasn't sure if it was stuck or what.

 

Did you know all the baby scorpions ride on mom's back?

Bianca, Queen of the Coop. Sadly I lost Bianca recently but she lived to be about 14 years old and was a great broody hen.

This coyote comes in close, right to the fence some evenings to tease Digger Dog. 

I discovered that I still have root knot nematodes in at least one area. These things suck big time and I am sooooo over them!

The tomatoes are still coming in.

I cleared out the cucumber vines from the small raised beds to get ready to plant fall crops.

Getting a solid roof over the girls pen

And done.

Day 5: Twelve Days of 2023

Christmas Evie is always into mischief!

Nothing in the world is as cute as a baby goat!

I bought a cheap greenhouse off Amazon. Over the summer I used it with shadecloth over tomatoes. I'm actually a bit paranoid to put the plastic cover on, for fear a heavy wet snow will collapse the lightweight frame.

I am soooo happy that the king snakes have found my place! I haven't seen a single rattler all year!

Bambi's hair is looking weird and she seems very itchy. This was the point when I started learning about copper deficiency in goats. 

The little chicks are growing up



I planted out the greenhouse space with tomatoes in pots and buckets and had the most amazing crop ever.

                                

Bambi didn't always want to let her kids nurse, especially the two smaller ones, Pinto Bean and Tiny Tim so they were getting bottles. My Farmer Boy came to visit and got to feed them for the first time.

Digger Dog was shedding out his winter undercoat 

Three bucklings; Esmarelda's boy Jupiter and Bambi's boys Tiny Tim and Apollo. Tiny Tim weighed less than 4 pounds when he was born but in the end he was as big as Apollo who weighed 10!

Day 1: Twelve Days of 2023

Sooooo many things have happened around here this year, some of which I'd forgotten about until I started going through my pictures. I decided to recap by doing a post a day, one for each month. So this is some of the highlights (and lows!) of  January 2023. Above, some first eggs from new Black Copper Marans pullets.

I had several beds of greens thriving under row cover

Early in the month there was a lot of rain and some snow with high winds, causing a lot of damage to tarps and garden covers. At Christmas I had 3 doelings born to two mammas and they were doing well.

And then Esmarelda had her twin boys the morning it was 25 degrees outside.

I started lots of seeds. Over 500 seedlings

Lots of rain and snow

My Posie goat was so sick and I really didn't know what I didn't know. I lost her and it broke my heart. Now I know that she was extremly deficient in copper and carrying triplets she went down with pregnancy toxemia. I did everything I could think of for the toxemia but at that point I didn't know anything about copper deficiency. 

Esmarelda rejected her twins so they became bottle babies. 

But she has been an awesome milker and once I got her milking she settled down just fine and in all this time has rarely danced around or kicked the bucket while milking.

Just a Little Catching Up Part 1

 

Just trying to catch up a bit here since I haven't posted since Oct 2022. Things just got so crazy and I was trying to work on videos so this space was neglected. Trying to do better! This was how big Digger Dog was at about 6 months. He's even bigger today of course!

This video is from November; things have changed a lot since then!

In November I sold the 4 wether kids which helped the feed bill a bit.

In December Chocolate gave birth to a single doeling, Christmas Evie

And then Gazelle had twins

And a look back at 2022. I'm hoping to post a some more catch up posts the next few days and then keep up with at least a weekly roundup.

Mid September Already?

Mmm. Alright Bambi how many kids are you hiding in there and when are you going to let them out???? I thought it would have happened by now….

Found some cute new signs for my market table. I have had to increase my prices a bit….. soap is now $6

A sugar scrub is this month’s new product 

The lilac soap was ready to package. Mmmm. Smells heavenly 

Picked up an awesome solar light for the Patchwork Shed. 

Digger sniffing around in the car. 

Digger went to the veterinarian for his rabies shot and other vaccines. At 5 months he weighs 62 pounds. 

Digger digs. That hole is knee high on me. 


Mmmm. Looks like some chickens need a new roof pretty soon. 

These four little bucklings will soon be wethers. They are all still available and if not sold will go in my freezer when the weather cools off. They are already eating almost as much as adults and the price of hay is going up. 

Well I’ve been a bit lazy today.  Did chores and cleaned pens until it got too hot. Came in and had some lunch and played on the computer some. And now it’s time to do afternoon chores. One of the reasons I haven’t been posting a lot is my phone battery seems to be dying. Of course it’s only 6 years old….  

Hot and Humid

The weather has been miserable this week, 105°+ and very humid with almost no rain. The heat has been giving me a headache in the afternoon. Today I even took a nap with an ice pack on my neck. However that has not stopped the goats. This morning when I moved Posie and Mocha to the hill pen I heard a noise as I was latching the gate and turned around to see Midnight hop the fence at that short spot. And Chocolate had followed her by the time I got down the steps. Put Chocolate back in just to have her do it again before I could get to Midnight. So quick I grabbed my loppers and cut some burro brush and stuffed it in the fence. Got the girls put back and was about on time for work.  

How I left them. 

They were still in when I got home. When I got up from my nap I cut and stuffed in some weed trees. Hopefully that will help. 

Got everyone fed, watered, milked. And that’s about all for today. 

To Market

I spent the morning at our Globe-Miami Farmers Market. Came home, unloaded, ate lunch, fed the bottle baby. Then I went and got feed and went to get a couple things at the grocery store. Got back and started chores. I haven’t had a chance to fix the gate issue on Midnight’s pen and it came down again. Midnight and her twins got out. I got the gate back up and Midnight was easy to catch and put back. Instead of putting the twins back in I put them in with Bashful.  They are old enough to begin separating from mom. And since the pens are together Midnight didn’t get too freaked out her boys weren’t in with her. Bashful is a pretty gentle guy and doesn’t seem to mind babies. 

Shortly after that we got a heck of a storm. My battery was about to die so no pics of the creek running. A lot of high winds made a mess of tarps and shade cloth. The wind also blew the tin off the chicken tractors and those birds were quite soggy.   Silly Digger looked like he was out playing in it the whole time. 

Mocha and Posie were up on the hill when it hit and got pretty wet. But mostly they care about eating. 

With this rain the flies will be terrible so tomorrow I’ll have to try and work on fly control among other things. And now good night. 

Woot. It’s Done!

5:00 am. Good morning. Little goat. 

Storm and bottle baby’s brother 

Feed Digger his breakfast 

6:00am hay all the goats and check water buckets 

Feed the chicks. This year’s hatches were about 90% male 😒

Feed all the adults 

6:45am off to work. Back about 11:00. Feed me, the bottle baby and Digger. Fill some water buckets. Digger likes to drink out of the hose. 

Ran some errands. Came home and while it was hot it was cloudy so I got the gate set on the new pen. Moved Midnight’s boys in. I want to start separating them some during the day. 

They didn’t seem too concerned that mom wasn’t around and paid no mind to her hollaring   

Milked Posie and Mocha then Midnight. After milking I put her in with her boys. Then I went and got Chocolate and Gazelle. Then I milked Bambi and Storm. 

Chocolate is checking the fence out. I realized that I had forgotten to screw the pallets to each other and I hadn’t finished wiring one of them to the T post so it was wobbling. Got that done. And then it was dark. 

Ate some dinner and going to bed. 

PS. This should have posted on Wednesday but somehow didn’t finish upload