The Boys (Meet the Cast 2)

Second part of what should have been consecutive posts, introducing the cast and crew around here.

The kids.

Two little Alpine wether goats.  They're brothers, twins, Pendragon is the one standing in this picture, Arthur is the one laying down.  Arthur is a bit smaller then his brother.

We originally got them to keep my horse company and to help keep the pasture down since they eat things the horse doesn't find to tasty.  Some time next summer I want to use them to help us clear land for my rabbit barns.  They'll get to eat to their heart's content, and I'll get nice clean land ready for me to build on.

 The horse.

This is my 22 year old Appaloosa/Welsh Mountain pony.  His name is Sparky.  He's got the stubbornness and smarts of the Appaloosa, and the strength of the Mountain Pony.

He's a good little horse, at this point in his life though I consider him more of a pet horse then much else.  I once told someone he's like an over grown puppy dog.  He gets love, pets, treats, food and doesn't have to work for it.  He was green broke when I got him and I could never get him fully trained so he just kinda hangs around.  He likes it, I like it, it works well for both of us.

Pretty much this is the end of the long awaited post of the boys, so I'll end it with a picture of Arthur in front of the barn from this summer.

 

A Temporary Ducky Home

Well the Pekin and Rouen hens and drakes finally got moved to their new winter home.  It's just an old dog pen that's been winterized with a duck house inside till spring.  Come spring everyone will be moved into what I hope will be a duck barn with divided stalls so the Pekin will be separate from the Rouen.  As for my drake per hen ratio, I only kept one drake of each breed with my hens (for the hens safety.  To many drakes in with hens can be bad to the hens and can hurt or even kill them.  The safety of all of my girls is always important to me.)  Come spring I'll be getting more ducklings of both breeds so I have more hens (and baby ducks are just so cute to raise up, even if they can be messy.)

The ducks are actually very happy with their new home.  They have grass in it, which they ate all of in the other pen, and lots of room.  It's warm, comfy, and snuggly, though they can still play in the rain if it falls right for them.  It took them about one day to settle into the new home and start 'redecorating it' to make it their own.

Bedding Them Down For Winter

So we finally got almost everyone settled into their winter pens.  I say almost everyone cause there's always going to be that one set of animals that needs to be moved it looks like.

The main flock of chickens is all set, their run roof is fixed, everyone who's supposed to be in there is settled in.  In addition to the rooster from the Meet the Cast post  there are now two other young ones, a large Buff Orpington named Roy by my husband because the rooster used to live with my horse till he got a bit older, and we would randomly see him riding the horse.  We also added a Barred Rock rooster, not named that's a sweetheart.  We had to remove our Road Island Red rooster earlier this year after he decided stalking me would be a good idea so I wanted to replace him.  I try to keep a child safe area here, and a rooster that decides he wants to attack people is one thing I will not allow.  That and since I hatch out my own chicks I like to keep fresh blood in my stock. 

The little Bantam chickens got moved into part of my veggie garden in a house for this winter.  My soil in the garden is very very sterile, it's more rocks and sand then soil right now.  I'm letting my chickens stay in it, that way they can build up the soil and work it for me.  I mix in loads of leaves into where their staying as well, and come spring I'll move them and turn over the soil and mix in more organic matter like grass clippings or wood chips. 

The only ones not ready for winter are my Rouen and Pekin ducks.  The pen I want to move the hens and the drakes I'm keeping into for the winter was damaged last spring, and we've been working on it.  Right now the only thing it needs is part of the roof replaced and several loads of leaves before everyone can move into it.  That ideally should be ready in a week or so, so my ducks can be nice and snuggly warm for winter.

Chicken Math Example

Pictures are always worth a bit I think, even if it's just an 'aww' moment for everyone.


This is an example of chicken math.


The mama you see on the left decided that she had to have babies, right when it was due to get cold. 


After trying multiple times to tell her no I finally gave in and let her sit out some eggs thinking she wouldn't actually stay the entire time.


About a month later...

Chicken math at work!

Chicken Math in Action

There exists a thing known as 'chicken math.'  What is this you may ask.  Simply put, one chicken plus one chicken will end up being twenty chickens.

Yes, it works like that.

We have a minor case of chicken math in action here now.

I had meant to write 3 posts introducing all of the animals on the farm back in September. 

Then chicken math struck.

I've now got 3 hens with chicks, more ducks, and of all things turkey.  Add to that today I was out and saw a little Old English Game Hen I had to bring home so she's here too now.

I keep taking pictures to share everyone, then get more, then want to wait to do a blog post when I have all the pictures, which in turn pushes everything back because before I can I end up with more birds.

Ah, chicken math at it's finest.

Perhaps what's really in order is a monthly update of new additions for that month.

Pumpkin Time!

I easliy get distracted from doing things like, oh I dunno, updaiting blogs, when the fall rolls around.  There's just so many things to do before winter, get veggies canned, get the fruit in, and then there's pumpkins.

Like, this one:

That's my kitty Specter by the way. 

I had meant to do an introduction post for all of the cats, and horse, and everyone by now but a few things happened to distract me.  Computers, real life, animals, fruit.

Mostly the animals and fruit... and of course now the pumpkins.




Most people look at pumpkins and see a jack-o-lantern, pumpkin carving, and all of that fun stuff.  I see something else, pumpkins appear in stores or at farmers stands and instead I start dreaming of pies, and cookies, and most importantly pumpkin butter.

Yes, you read that right, pumpkin butter.  Most people haven't heard of this wonderful fall treat, and the ones that have almost immediately start dreaming of it when they hear the name.  But what is it you may be wondering?  It's like apple butter, a creamy fruit spread you can put on anything from toast to ice cream.  I love it on pancakes and french toast.  You can also use it in cooking  in breads and other things like that.  In the case of pumpkin butter it's almost like a pumpkin pie, in a jar.  Just remove the pie shell, and egg, and of course the milk, and just leave being the pumpkin and the spices. 

Sounds yummy?  It is.  The first year I made it, by almost accident, I canned my first batch of 15 jars.  Almost as soon as they were cooled people had bought them up. I ended up doing 3 more batches of 20 jars each that year.  All of my batches take around two days to make, from the time the pumpkin is peeled and chopped, to the time its placed in a slow cooker and allowed to cook over night on low, to the point is canned in jars.  I really do think letting it cook slowly in a slow cooker allows the spices to spread threw the butter a bit better so each spoonful has that glorious pumpkin pie flavor.

I'll stop now before I make myself or anyone who may be reading this hungry.

The point was, it's pumpkin season, and for me that means butter time, which also means my house smells like warm pies for days on end.  Really fresh butter, from fresh fruit are one of the best things to wake up smelling as they cook.

The Birdies (Meet the Cast Part 1)

The Flock, the ladies and their mister.

I have a mixed flock of chickens. My original starter flock was a mixture of Road Island Reds, and White Leghorn-Ameraucana mixes.  A year later I added 10 Road Island Red hens and 3 Brown Leghorns, and this year we added four Golden Laced Wyandotte and an Australorp, along with various chicks I hatched out from our eggs.  We have around 45 hens in my current large bird chicken flock.  

 They lay me a rainbow of eggs, tans, browns, blues, whites.  I love getting the blue eggs from them, packaging them when people tell me they don't care what color eggs they get, then watching their reactions when they see the blue ones.

(The blue eggs don't show up very well in this photo.)

I also have a second group of chickens, my bantams.   I've got a few bantam Cochin of various colors, buff, blue, white.

I also have Raven, seen front and center in this picture.   Raven is a Black Sumatra Bantam, and who we ended up naming our farm after.

Little Dove bird is seen to the right, Dove was a Blue Old English Game Bantam, about the size of an actual dove, and one of the most fun chickens I've ever had the luck to raise.  I've never been outside working on a chicken pen and had a tiny, hand sized chicken fly past my head till she did.  Dove was sadly killed by a fox recently.

 

Also seen is one of the twins, a Blue bantam Chochin, well her back at least, my Cochins don't like having their picture taken.  I have around 6 Bantams, but plan to add a few more in the spring.

Finally, bird wise, and perhaps the most insane out of the bunch, the ducks.

Ducks have an amazing ability, when you change their water and want to get a good picture of them, by the time you turn off the hose, get a camera, and get back outside the water will be a mess again.  It's both rather amazing and rather annoying.

Anyway, this is my flock of nutcases in their baby pen waiting to move to their big kids home.  It's a flock of 9 Rouen and 7 Pekin.  My boy Rouen have just started getting their boy colors in spots, so when they finally get fully pretty I'll post an updated picture.  Of the two breeds I find the Pekin to be more striking of the two, something about snowy white ducks just loses me when I stair at them.  The Rouen are pretty in their own regards, and with the two combined I can find myself watching them for hours if I'm not careful.


The odd scoop and funnel system seen in the picture feeds to a hose that goes into my garden.  When the pools get cleaned the water goes directly into my veggie garden and feeds and waters my plants.  The plants love it, the ducks don't mind, and I don't waste water so overall everyone is happy with it.

The plan for our ducks is to sell duck eggs locally.  No one that I know of around here sells them, and they are simply wonderful in baking, so I have a nitch market almost.  I've mentioned I have the ducks to a few people and almost have a waiting list already.  The flock will be cut down come this winter though, I only plan to keep 3 of the boys with the girls, come spring the ducks will be separated by breed so I can hatch out pure breed babies and increase my duck numbers a bit.

That's pretty much all of the birds we have right now. 

For now at least, there's talk of Turkey in our future so you never know.

So Welcome To the Farm

My husband and I bought our farm about two years ago.  It's about 9 acres, in the middle of farm country in southern Virginia.  We spent the first year getting the house livable as it had been abandoned for some time and needed a lot of work.  The land, an over grown mess needed to wait till we could move into our home.

This year we really started looking into what we had land wise.  The house still needs a bit of work but it can wait, for now we're enjoying see what and all is hidden on our property.

We had known about our apple trees and grapes, much to my joy I found peaches last fall but wasn't in time to do anything with them.  This spring I made sure to be out there in time to cut the wilderness back from the trees so they had space and air to grow.  Then one day, while walking out to our barn I found growing happily under trees and poison ivy a strawberry patch.  Not the wild ones you find around randomly, but real ones people plant for the berries.   Again I was not in time to save the fruit for the harvest, but I can make sure their area is cleared in the spring next year.

Much of the back of our property is over grown, and I can't wait to see what other goodies are hidden back there, waiting to be rescued.