What a Week!

Egg production is way up cuz, you know, it’s spring. Loving the colors this year. 

Spent a lot of time watching Posie have what seemed like early labor, even making me think more than once that pushing would start any minute. Then she’d get up and eat hay. My friend and I joked she was holding out for the snowstorm predicted for Friday night. 

Her due date March 9th came and went. 

I thought she would literally pop. She seemed pretty serious on Thursday night. And then it quit again. They were forecasting rain Friday morning with rain and snow showers Friday night and Saturday morning. And the wind was blowing like crazy. 

So I bought a new, bigger tarp and buttoned up the pen the best I could, leaving a little window for her to see out. 

A lot of Friday looked like the rest of the week but more intense. Paw up a nest, lay down about a minute then get up, pee, eat hay and do it all over again. Finally about mid afternoon some strings of mucus appeared. 

The sun came out in the afternoon and I hoped she’d speed things up. But nope. Didn’t get really busy until about 930 when the pushing finally started. Or corse it’s a little difficult to push a kid through a chain link panel. The little white lumps in the sac are the kids front feet. 

But she moved just enough and this cute little girl was born. Posie was a great mom and cleaned her up good. I helped with a towel just because it was so cold   And it was snowing!

And then she had this big boy. 

It took a few minutes to get them dried off. 

In about 30 minutes they were up and ready to eat. I put sweaters on them to help keep them warm because the wind was so cold. 

The little boy had wobbly legs so this morning he got a vitamin shot to help. I gave Posie one too just to help her recover and so some of the vitamins would go into her milk too. 

Today everyone is doing good, all their plumbing is working correctly and they seem to be eating well. I weighed them today. The buck weighs 11 pounds and the doe weighs 8.5. Me, I’m exhausted. 

#appreciation

Today I’m appreciating that everything went pretty smoothly, I didn’t have to do any real intervention and everyone seems to be doing good. And nothing on the planet is as cute as a baby goat. 

Three Month Catch Up!

Roots & Greens at Superior FM

Well oh dear it's been 3 months since I post last. I am so bad! Well here are a few highlights! In November we started doing a small farmer's market in Superior, Arizona, about 20 minutes away. A small mining town they don't have any large stores and have been buying up the produce I bring like crazy. It's hosted by a lovely lady named Willa, owner of the SunFlour Market. We started out on the patio, but when the weather got bad Willa insisted we come inside.

End of tomato season

The end of tomato season is always a bit sad, but at the same time it's a relief because by the end of the season I'm sick of picking all those little cherry tomatoes!

Trombonccino on the trellis

259 pounds!

There is a 30 foot long trellis across the back of my house. There were about 5 Trombonccino plants, a couple of birdhouse gourds, a loofah and a spaghetti squash planted along it. As the first really hard frost threatened in  Nov I picked them all. 259 pounds of Trombonccino. That doesn't count a few I picked in September and it doesn't count all the little green ones I picked during the summer. When I add that in we might be pushing 300 pounds!

BO cockerel, Reserve English

Snow on the mountains

We got a little rain in November with some snow on the Pinal Mountains to the south. Went to the Tucson poultry show where my young Buff Orpington cockerel placed Reserve English.

eggs

Seeds from Baker Creek Heirlooms

Finally the old girls are done with their molt and the younger girls are starting to lay too so egg production is picking up a little. While 2016 was crummy for hatching and growing out chicks I am very pleased with the color on my Marans eggs!  My order came in from Baker Creek Heirlooms and I'm really looking forward to the coming growing season! I'm especially looking forward to tasting those black tomatoes!

greenhouse clean up

compost chickens at work

It took some work to get all the squash vines down off the trellis and put up the plastic to turn it back into a greenhouse. Almost done with the clean up in there. On a sunny day it's 95.  The compost chickens are doing well. If there aren't enough food scraps they get a half ration of commercial feed. They find a lot of worms and grubs in the compost too. Some are still molting, but the oldest girl I have, in the bottom of the pic is laying about every other day. She'll be 4 next month.

DiCicco Broccoli

cauliflower 1 1/2 pounds!

The broccoli and cauliflower are doing amazingly well. If you didn't know, cauliflower is a once over crop. You cut the nice big head and you are done, pull the plant and plant something else. Broccoli however makes a nice head and when you cut that off it makes side shoots so you get several more pickings. And the small leaves and stems are also edible and have about the same nutritional value as the heads.