Farmer Friday

Bentley

Welcome to Farmer Friday, a recap of the goings on around here. Boy it's been a week and I'm physically exhausted and super stressed out. Miss Bambi came into heat on Wednesday so I took her to have a date with Bentley.

Things weren't going too bad until Bashful tried to get in on the action and Bentley took offence. Bentley proceeded to mangle the cattle panel and weld wire fence in between them.

This cattle panel is trashed

I fixed things up as good as I could and prayed the fence would hold up. It did, just barely. Both boys are bloody, Bashful from breaking his scurs (small bits of horn) off and it looks like Bentley cut open the back of his neck, probably from broken fence wires. So I decided to make a quick hoop shelter up in the hill pen and move Bentley up there, I am hoping that the extra distance between the two boys will help. All of that occupied all of my Friday, I didn't even pick any vegetables for market.

Pinto Bean and Bentley

I had wanted to breed Pinto Bean to Bentley also and it looked like she might be at the very end of her heat cycle so I moved her too. Poor thing didn't have a clue what was going on, although she did stand for him a couple of times that I saw. But after that she just yelled and yelled, wanting to go back to the girls pen. At this point though I'm a bit afraid of letting her out, afraid of what Bentley might do to the fence. Since she's not milking or anything I'm going to leave her in for a bit, to make sure she is bred. And try to figure out what to do next.

Thanks for visiting, hope you have a great week.

Farmer Friday

baby cucuzzi, an edible gourd from Italy

The Cucuzzi is running rampant and putting out gourds like crazy. I've been taking them to the farmers market and have had a few adventerous folks buy. Some have come back for more. Too bad the goats didn't care for them!

Maximillian Sunflower

I don't have nearly the flowers this year that I've had in the past but there are a few. The Maximillian is a periennial sunflower.

egg production is still low

Still not a lot of eggs. I have one pen laying thin shells despite using all the usual remedies. I also suspect an egg eater in that pen.

Pinto Bean doesn't feel good!

Miss Pinto Bean was showing signs of summer or silent pneumonia so I have been having to give her antibiotic shots. I caught it pretty early so hopefully she will kick it quickly.

Esmarelda

Esmarelda's milk production has jumped off the charts. Usually she gives me 2-4 pints milking just in the evening with her triplets with her 24/7. On Monday night she was huge and milked half a pint short of a gallon. On Tuesday night she at just over 9 pints. So I made the decision to start milking twice a day to keep her more comfortable and to help prevent any issues like blown teats or mastitis.

Prickly Pear Icecream

In my ice cream recipe I replaced the 1 1/2 cups of milk with prickly pear juice. It is not as creamy smooth as my regular vanilla but still was very yummy. This video below includes the recipe in the description,  you may have to watch it in YouTube.

A tiny baby lizard

faucets need new washers

Both my kitchen faucets have been dripping but the hot water had begun leaking so bad I couldn't even tighten it up enough to get it down to a slow drip. So I had to take them apart and replace the washers. Not hard, really but I did have other things to do.

trial batch of goat milk shampoo bars

early morning visitor

Friday harvest

Most of this weeks harvest was cucuzzi gourds and Japanese eggplant. And a lone yellow zucchini

Nida's peach

The peaches I picked a bit early to save from the squirrel and birds have been sitting in a flat in the living room where they would be cooler than the kitchen. Some of the bird pecked ones started rotting so I rinsed off all the good ones with a little vinegar water and put them in the fridge. They were getting soft ripe.

Never ending dishes when you do your own dairy

Thanks for stopping by. Hope you have a wonderful week. Don't forget to stop by next week for Harvest Monday, where I total up all the things I harvested during the week.

Farmer Friday 8/16/2024 take 2

 

Some tomatoes still coming in but still a lot of grasshopper and fruit fly damage. The Japanese eggplants are starting to take off and a little trickle of chilies.

The wildlife in AZ likes to come inside to visit.



Lemon Spice Jalapeno

Poor Bambi her jaw was swollen; since it didn't seem to slow down her eating or drinking I think she got stung by a bee or wasp. Her tongue is out here because I just put out minerals and she is licking them up.

Just a little bit of this week around here.. Sometimes I can't remember everything that happened!

Farmer Friday 8-11-2023

Just a little bit of this past week. And yes I know it's Monday already, but I've been so busy!

Still a lot of tomatoes

Globe-Miami Farmers Market

Farmer Friday

Who says dam raised kids aren’t friendly?  Mine are all very friendly although not as pushy as bottle babies. This is one of Midnight’s boys. 

Argh! Digger! Can’t let you out of my sight! Played in the chard bed again!

Well. It looks like Chocolate wasn’t pregnant after all. She came into heat this week and spent a couple of days keeping Bashful company. If I don’t see another heat cycle in a couple weeks then I’ll expect kids in December. 

Esmarelda what are you doing? Digging for China?  There was no hole there and now it’s a foot deep. 

Didn’t get rain the other day but got a rainbow 

Trying to turn this packing crate into a hay feeder. Besides being in the way the goats kept trying to eat the screws. 

I added some pallet wood to help stiffen the sides and some 2x6 legs

Does it pass inspection girls?

Probably the only time they’ve eaten out of it like this. Gazelle and Chocolate usually stand it it. 

And in the meantime Esmarelda broke the hay feeder in her pen. Fortunately it was a pretty easy fix. 

Poor Digger   Got a wasp or bee sting. Didn’t stop him from trying to chew on everything in sight. He was fine and almost no swelling in a couple hours. 

I was a bit concerned that maybe he tried to play with this little king snake but there weren’t any puncture wounds. 

Mmmm. Gazelle objected to Chocolate being on the other side of the fence with Bashful and beat up my new cattle panel. 

Ugh.  At least 5 tries to upload now….

Farmer Friday

I skipped market last Saturday because of the weather. I really didn’t want to drive over the mountains in this mess.  

It’s been a fun and exciting week with the twins. 

Poor Giotto wants to go in with the babies so bad. He lies by the pen a lot, but I’ll afraid Posie might hurt him so we are taking things very slowly. 

Egg production is better than ever. 

It’s hard to focus on work with this much cuteness around. 

I discovered some Romanesco broccoli was ready in the garden so we had broccoli cheddar soup for dinner. 

What a face. This baby girl needs a name. 

Goat kids aren’t the only babies around tho. 

I do think they are the cutest things on the planet. 

Today has been a super busy day. Salad mix. 

Abundance 

Arugula 

Flowers 

More broccoli 

I also picked some spinach and baby kale. I started working on the milk stand 

I delivered eggs and veg to Globe then stopped by AutoZone. The check engine light was on and they have a gadget you can use to read the codes. They’ll even give you a print out, all for free. Love these guys, they are always really nice and helpful. The codes seem to have to do with some minor stuff. I’ll run it by my mechanical guy and see what he thinks. 

Got home just in time to water some seedlings, collect eggs, milk Posie, (the kids have been mostly nursing one side so the other side is too full), take out trash, wash dishes....

Give the twins their first vaccines, cook dinner, medicate the sick cat (I think he’s has a gut blockage), feed the dog, bag the broccoli....

What the second fridge looks like on Friday night. 

#appreciation

Today I’m appreciating the abundance in my life.