May Begins

Farm life is good! Everything, well mostly everything, has been going well. In crops, we've harvested our very first strawberry! This little guy even beat out Dad's established bed of strawberries. It was very delicious, and there are more ripening! Success!!

We also planted the last of the seeds today- corn, cucumber, pumpkin and bush beans. I also added a tomato plant we found at Lowe's - an heirloom variety that grows HUGE fruits, and an eggplant plant. The other stuff is still coming up, some better than others. The snow peas have blooms so we should have some peas soon. I LOVE snow peas.

Our first strawberry!

All the animals are doing well. Dinkey the Donkey has adjusted quickly and he and Roscoe seem to enjoy each others company. Dinkey is getting used to walking with a halter and lead rope. He gets to come out of the paddock to munch on our lawn and get brushed. Roscoe gets to come out less often since I have to make sure he doesn't eat the ornamental plants. Goats- jeez! At least the new super hot fence is keeping him where he's supposed to be.

The does are giving us about a gallon of delicious milk each day. Polliwog is still with us- we never heard from the family that took Niblet and said they wanted P-wog, too, so we have some deciding to do on that front. He's doing well and is so cute with those blue eyes.

We're still not having any luck with the cream separator. Chuck has called the company to do some trouble shooting but it looks like he'll be calling them again. He has, however, figured out how to make cheese! He's made a couple of batches of simple cheese and tonight made fresh goats milk mozzarella. It was very yummy and is already gone. Luckily, more milk to come in the morning.

Cheese and Quackers have moved from the brooder to a small pen in Rascal's coop. They have most of their big duck feathers but still have that awkward teenager look. Pictures to come soon when they're all prettied up! Rascal continues to be a lot of fun. She makes a mess of the fish pond, but it makes her happy so Chuck just rinses the filter several times a day.

Here they are practicing their pirate routine.

And here are the chickens hoping for a treat.

We have 2 weeks until the delivery of our next poultry order, and tentatively 3 weeks until processing of about 15 chickens. The bunnies will be ready to breed soon, too.

That catches us up for now!