Days have come and gone by quickly and slowly, depending on the season and life issues of the time.
This past spring we made several trips to Arkansas for camping, fishing, and visiting long time friends. We had these trips planned for a year. We shifted around our usual schedule of breeding our livestock, planting our gardens, and several other yearly farm related goings on we do to be gone on these trips............................. only to learn we will not make the same mistake again. Better to go in the fall season than spring.
Calving season is not good in June nor July, too many flies. Also, causes the breeding season to begin late again, only to calve late in summer and hard to get the cycle of calving back in early spring, where we like it. The garden suffered too, being late planted, late harvested and late canning. All has not been lost, as lessons have been learned well.
A new chicken coop has been built. Much larger to house the small amount of chickens, ducks and geese we have. Of which we have two roosters, 7 hens, 4 ducks and two pairs of geese. I am laying out at new area for the ducks and geese, still utilizing the chicken coop, but for them to have access to the side creek. The ducks are beginning to lay and I want to incubate some for hatching as my females are getting old.
The rabbits have done well this year; each mama had two litters, yielding a total of 24 babies. We have butchered and canned most of them, only have 8 left to process, hopefully next week. I did have a gentleman come and show me how to sex them and I separated them into different pens. I did not want more bunnies.
I have begun feeding the rabbits apples and fresh greens from the garden, mustard and turnip. I have found out they love the chickweed growing along the creek bank, as do the fowl.
At the barn I and grand son took two days cleaning and organizing the feed stall. Feels wonderful when everything is in its place and a place for everything. Husband and I found a couple that videoed their milking stall and gave a blueprint of it as well. It is very functional and will be perfect for an empty stall we have. I am working with one of our dexter heifers, Hershey, who is due to calve in March. She is a first timer and I want to train her to be in a head gate, me in control of when she leaves the stall, even if she is done eating before I can finish milking her or not. She is a very calm heifer and I am almost sure she will be a good milker. I am working with her now and she does not move much at all, but I still want full control.
The cows being late calving, puts me milking all winter, which I normally don't do. All is going well so far, though we have had no real winter weather, but I have prepared myself with clothing and the barn for the cows.
One of the calves born this summer was a bull calf out of Start. He is full dexter and we are keeping him for another sire for our first time heifers coming up. His name is Dun Bar, he is reddish brown in color. He stays at the barn side of the pasture. Our older bull, Chaco, is at the pond side pasture, which is a ways off, but we are in the know of keeping them out of sight out of mind and smell. It maybe by the time Dun Bar is ready to breed, Chaco will have gone to the sale barn, as he is getting along in years, about 11. He has been an excellent sire, producing mostly heifers.
Some projects we accomplished within this past year, the spring house, doors on our main barn, earthen oven, shed in the feed lot for the steer.
A few upcoming projects we hope to see fulfilled, a small produce stand here at the farm, more work on the old general store we bought, a corn crib, root cellar, and plowing up a new large field to grow corn and sunflowers.
I suppose I will wrap this up. I do have some thoughts to share soon on homesteading, giving some reviews of some you tubes and blogs I have watched and read, share some pictures of our completed projects, and other topics of interest, hopefully.
Till then, God is good, always full of mercy, loving us and desiring our fellowship.
In Joy.
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