Finally- A Nice Weekend!

Hooray for 60 degree days and sunshine! We had 2 glorious weekend days which means lots of progress on the farm. On the shed project, the floor has been painted, and shelves and peg board have been installed. There is still a bit left to do such as the sink and trim painting but it's coming along. The little chickies have been moved in. As nice as it is to hear their little chirps, they are a huge mess when they start getting their big bird feathers.

The second goat padddock is DONE!!! Scarlet, MerryWeather and Roscoe got to munch their way through previously unexplored territory. The new fence line takes them by the back yard so the boys were barking their fool heads off. The goats were unfazed, all that mattered was the yummy.

We have planted our first vegetables! Fingers crossed and all since growing things has never been my forte, plus this crazy weather has not been good for farming. The soil is still saturated in the field, but the raised beds seem to be draining well. This weekend we sowed beets, head lettuce, spinach and snow peas. Maybe the weather will be more cooperative as we get closer to spring.

In other farm news, Harry the Rooster made his last run at Willow. She ended up with 2 gashes that needed Dermabond and a scratch below her eye that has evolved into quite the shiner. She's fine and seems to enjoy telling war stories to anyone that happens to ask "What happened?" Harry on the other hand is no longer with us.

Rascal the Duck is doing quite well on the farm. She has been coming up on the porch to swim in a big tub. Then Saturday we decided to see how she did free range. Turns out she follows me around constantly- to the barn, to the goat pen, to the porch, a quick dip in the fish pond while I plant seeds. In all, I am very much enjoying the new duck.

Just Ducky

It's a happy day at Lazy Danes as we welcome Rascal the duck. Rascal is a white pekin duck that is about 2. She was raised inside and loves people and cereal. The kids are very excited to add something they don't have to worry about as being food later and Rascal is happy to find a home where she will not be food. For now she's on the front porch, she had her welcome home bath in the girls tub. This evening and for several days she will spend time in turkey pen (they have moved out) until she figures out this is home. I'll pick her up a little dog house tonight and we may give her a separate pen depending on how she does with the other birds.

Bath time! Video coming soon....

The little peeps are growing into chickens. It's still amazing how fast they change. They are quite content in their indoor brooder and since we continue to get snow and below freezing temperatures they get to stay in the house. At least I can feed and water them in a climate controlled environment even if it means vacuuming a lot of wispy chick feathers.

Feathers in on the wings and tail feathers coming in. this is at 1 week old.

Next up in poultry- more turkeys!

A Few Setbacks...

"The best laid schemes o' mice an' men

Gang aft a-gley," ~Robert Burns

After such noticeable progress here at Lazy Danes, the last week has been quite unproductive! Weather and injury (hammer to finger-OWWWW!) are the contributing factors and while the injury is mending nicely the weather is still being very uncooperative. So here is a status update of our various projects...

Chick brooder- mostly done. I need to add the wire and cut the hole for the lamp in the top still. The chicks have arrived, but they're not missing their brooder. Instead of being in the big brooder in the shed they are nestled in a rubbermaid tote in the dining room. We have the weather to thank for that since I really don't think I could keep them warm enough out there right now.

Goat fence- posts in, wire run to gate. Now we just need more clips and weather conducive to running wire.

Shed- mostly painted. Trim and detail work still needs to be done. How about some dry days?

Raised beds- still need to be painted since they were untreated wood. They are also still under a couple inched of snow. Again, how about some dry days?

Unfortunately, there is more rain/freezing rain called for this weekend so there still won't be any outside work getting done. On the upside, we had some great sledding, built a snowman and let the Danes play in the 7 inches we got a week ago. Crazy weather this year.

And now, on to the chicks! After last years very messy experience of brooding the chicks inside, and since I didn't want to get as emotionally involed with birds I'm planning to eat we were going to brood this batch in the shed. I had planned a nice, large, wooden brooder to keep them warmer than the little cardboard job from last year. All very well thought out if we were having a "normal" NC winter of barely below freezing at night and 40-50's during the day. Well, Chuck got to drive though snow and ice to get the little biddies Monday morning and into the house they came. I do like hearing their little peep-peep-peep but I'm dreading the feathers flying. We only lost 4 to shipping stress and with the weather like it is, that's not too bad. We're left with 28, in some combination of Delaware, Americana and a mystery chick. They're harder to tell apart in this batch so we'll just have to see when they grow up a bit.