It's Winter on the Farm...

The holidays have come and past and it's winter on the farm. We've just had our second snowfall of the season in a whirlwind of weather. Yesterday, we saw snow. We saw hail. We saw rain and then snow again. At times we had almost five inches, then two or three and then four again. The weather dipped down into the low 20's over night and we reached a high 28 degrees when I went out to feed the lot at 3:45 today. What is left is now about two or three inches of crunchy, partially fluffy glistening snow and judging by today's news report, it looks like its here to stay a day or two more. My father, who lives across the street, took 35 minutes and 10 trys to make it up his driveway to my house so I believe it's safe to say: we aren't going anywhere anytime soon and were perfectly happy with that! After being snowed in three weeks in previous years, its safe to say I properly stock up the house for all of us. From October through March, we always have at least three weeks plus of rations for all members of our house: whether human or not!

Here's the homestead around 1:30 or so when we arrived home from running a few last minute errands and stocking up for the weekend on Wednesday.


It was snowing so hard that in the fifteen minutes or so it took to empty the car, my tracks were gone. And oh my, was it fun getting home too! I have a van and we were sliding (and even burned some rubber) getting up the hill that day. Just ask the kids - they were so scared! The little one even wanted me to stop so she could walk up, silly girl. Honestly, I would have if it wasn't for the fact that if I stopped, I would have never of made it.

And here is what it looked liked around 7pm or so, about 4 compacted inches of snow, rain and hail. There was about two inches on the roads, but it was also nice, crunchy and compacted. All in all, not fun stuff but it sure looks pretty!


And with the snow, we used the opportunity to try out Mama B's new winter coat. It is technically a foal coat, but there is no such thing as a "goat coat" so this works. Unfortunately, it's still too big so I think I will start looking for a mini-horse coat. Mini horses tend to be the same size as goats so we will see. And yes, that is duck tape you see. With it being to big, it kept coming down in the front and she would trip. It's pretty funny that the first thing I grab was duck tape to help me, but hey, duck tape solves everything right? Every household she have duck tape if you ask me! LOL In any case, it works great and Mama doesn't mind! :-)


And here are a few more pictures from today (Thursday Dec 30th)at feeding time around the farm. You can tell it's frozen and cold as the animal pen is not muddy like it usually is. I made a few "chicken hills" around the yard as the chicks do not have anything to dig. My chicken hills are a mound of orchard grass hay that I feed all the animals with that has some chick feed with a touch of scratch in it. They love these mounds and gives them something to do during these cold days.

Waste & Hormones

Yes, I know - WASTE AND HORMONES?!?!?! But here me out... This is what my day has been filled with. The goats having been wasting so much of their food that I went and bought a 'actual' feeder. They previously had a 20 gallon metal bin that worked great until Miss Snowflake decided to claim it as her bed! Pee. Poop. Yeah, I don't blame them for not wanting to eat the food in there! So, I went down to the local feed store and bought them a cattle feeder. A 2x4, some plywood, a handful of screws and here is what I created...



Not to bad on a budget. The trick was putting it up all by myself without having anyone help me hold it up. Took me a bit while, but it happened!

As for hormones you ask? OMG - Belle, the oldest 'baby' goat (she'll be one years old two days after Christmas), is heat AND DRIVING ME NUTS! NUTS I TELL YOU!! She has been bleeting (the noise they make) pretty much all day long without stopping! I called the vet to confirm and she did. We get to enjoy the annoyance for 3-4 days - OH JOY! For those of you who are wondering how you can tell if a goats in heat...

*If happens in fall, it can happen about every 21 days until they are out of the season. (BUT, the vet warned me it can happen ALL YEAR ROUND. Please, let us all pray that it does not happen to me or I might be short a goat!)
*She wags or flutters her tail continuously. My girls say it looks like "she's wag her tail like a poodle"
*Her girly parts get swollen and red.
*She stops eating.
*She bleets NON-STOP. Nothing makes her happy. Although, Belle seems to quite up when I am outside with her, petting her, holding her head. But even then, it doesn't work all the time.

All I can say is, if ,we, the human female counterparts are anything like the female goats: MEN - I AM SO SORRY! But, at the same time, you do not understand how much it SUCKS for us too!

PS - The baby chickens are officially FREE RANGED chickens! I put them outside today. They were stinking up my garage in their indoor coop. Here's to having 12 babies tomorrow morning! ;-)

It's official... the blog is here!

Finally, I have the blog the way I want it! I know, I know - why a blog you ask? She's not much of a typer? Has she lost her mind?

Well, it's like this: I fill way to much non-sense about my farm on Facebook! Why not have all my nonsense somewhere else so that I can still write AND if anyone wants to read, they can! To quote Hannah Montana... "It's the best of both worlds!" And yes - I am off my rocker! What's new? ;-)

Now, on to the farm. It's not much, but with 19 animals, by golly I think it should be a farm! One rooster (Jack "Sparrow"), a dozen baby chicks (well, not so small now but still 12), four goats (Mama B, her baby Belle and the twins: "Doc"tor William and his sister Snowflake), my dog (Carla) mommy's right hand gal and our one horse (Princess "Kiera") who is kept at a stable in town. Not too much right? Maybe you should talk to my husband LOL. No no, he knows I am PURELY crazy, but he loves me just the same! :-)

So here it goes... my blog! Stay tuned.......