Day 4; Twelve Days of 2023

A recap of April 2023; All loaded up for the plant sale at the Globe-Miami Farmers Market, I had over 500 plants. I don't think I could fit any more in the van.

I started making goat milk lotion

Hatched more chicks

Had crazy cold weather with thick ice every where.



Longer days mean egg production is up

Digger Dog turned 1 year old.

The spinach crop was totally amazing

Storm had triplets, 2 girls and a boy




                                                
Here a chick, there a chick, everywhere are chick chicks!

Things were going great and Then I got waylaid by a scorpion sting

Storm seemed to have a touch of milk fever (not enough calcium intake so not enough in the blood stream)

Storm is a funny girl

With all the craziness that went on when Bambi had her kids, like my plumbing issues, friends had taken Bambi and her kids to foster them for awhile so I could get things taken care of. Now Bambi and her babies are home.

Day 3: Twelve Days of 2023

We had crazy storms with snow, wind, hail and rain

Poor chicken could have died!

                               

Caramel was visiting to be bred. She was still in milk and one day on the way to the milk stand took off up the hill.

                                             

Lots of tomato seedlings were started

Esmarelda needed to be milked twice a day but was super easy to just do it in her pen for the morning milking.

But she's ticklish when she's so full of milk!

She gave this much milk twice a day. Of course most of it went to her twin boys which a friend fostered for me because my life was insane at the time.

Egg production was picking up.

my Itty Bitty Baby Greenhouse (just 6x8 feet) was packed full of mostly tomato plants

I hatched lots of chicks

My Farmer Boy tried his hand at milking. Esmarelda as so good and stood so still for him

Freya Cat liked to sleep on top of the incubator.

Besides hatching a lot of my own eggs I had also bought in some chicks to raise

Digger wanted to eat the chicks

But Digger Dog chews up everything!

Day 2: Twelve Days of 2023

                                

If you missed yesterday's post I decided to recap this year by doing a post for each month of the year so this is Februrary 2023.   Above are Esmarelda's twins, Jupiter and Aries, doing well.

Christmas Evie was so cute!

                                           

Digger discovered his first tarantula. I have no idea why one was out in February

Started loads of tomato plants.

My indoor seed starting area in case you are curious.

                                

My Farmer Boy came to visit for a bit.

It was totally crazy weather.

And so of course Bambi decided to have her triplets

And then to top off everything else, I had a broken pipe underneath my bathroom floor. So the water to the house was shut off for about a week, while I had bottle babies and Farmer Boy to tend to.... Very crazy and stressful.

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.

Farmer Friday 9/22/2023

Cute little Pinto Bean, Bambi’s daughter

 Little Bean is now 7 months old but compared to her mom Bambi she still looks a little bit small so I probably won't breed her until next year.

Even though we have gone to just one milking a day Bambi is still giving me 6 pints of milk!



There hasn't been a lot of rain this year, but there have been some pretty sunsets

 These Armenian cucumbers have been struggling for awhile.

So they came out so I can prep these beds for fall / winter greens

This week just a few tomatoes and the last of the cucumbers.

I emptied a compost pile

 And spread it on a bed, getting ready for fall planting.

 

Can you see the coyote? This is a young one that comes and plays in the creek.

Have had some pretty good days at the Globe-Miami Farmers Market. Just one market left, then I'll be going to the Superior Farmers Market over the winter.

Miss Esmarelda is the only girl I"m planning to breed this fall, just trying to decide if I want to breed her to kid mid-March or early April. I don't want kids later than that because we get so hot.

Farmer Friday 8-18-2023

A baby Tiger Salamander that was in the kitchen sink. 

I think that’s a tarantula hawk

Huge deep ground squirrel hole

A bright blue dragonfly 

Me and Bambi

Tomatoes. Not as many as there have been. 

Got a fair amount of stuff done. 

My old computer area. Trying to get it cleaned out. 

More to do but most of the desk is dismantled and the floor swept

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