Where did May go?

Happy Memorial Day! Wow, it seems like it was just Easter. Things are certainly busy here at Lazy Danes, and not with just farming. The girls only have 2 weeks left in school and they have been super busy, too. I'm looking forward to having my junior farmhands home with me!

A lot has happened since the last post. We have some additions and losses to report in the livestock category. First, we lost Peck, the Cochin rooster. I found him in the coop one morning, with no outward signs of what caused his passing. We're all very sad to have lost him, he was a very special boy. We also lost 1 male and 1 female of the Ancona ducks. They decided to enter the backyard with the dogs. The last Ancona is very sad with out them, but he's adjusting OK to hanging out with the others.

For additions, I'm very pleased to announce the successful birth and rearing of 4 Silver fox bunnies! Cleopatra has been a great mom this go round. Finally!

Also added to the flock, we have 5 ducklings. The momma hen ended up abandoning the nest, but I had given 5 eggs to our neighbor to put in his incubator. Somehow we had a %100 hatching! One of the Pekins ran a couple days late, and was getting picked on by the others, so it's inside with us now, getting babied.

1 black runner and 3 pekin ducklings in the brooder

Pascal, the Pekin that lives inside

The guinea did try to set her eggs, and a few hatched but then disappeared the same day, not sure what happened to them. The young group of chickens is doing great. I'm pretty sure we only have one rooster in the polish, they are continuing to be so funny looking.

Funny Rooster- Madison wants his name to be Fluffer. Haha!

Dark Cornish

Female Cochin

I'm not sure if we'll try to pick up another Cochin Rooster or not. The females are neat looking too, and should make excellent mothers if we ant to continue trying to hatch our own.

The goats are all doing well. Flash is in his pen near Roscoe and Dinkey. Soon they'll all be able to play together. Scarlet spends the days away from Ebony and I milk her in the evening. I'm getting at least 1/2 gallon a day!

Roscoe

Ebony

In crops, the raised beds are doing phenomenally this year! Wintering the rabbits over them for fertilizers has made all the difference. We had a solid yeild of strawberries- not enough at one time to can, but we've had a lot of strawberry pie. The peas and lettuce have done well, and we just harvested a few beets with more to come. There are blooms on the tomato, pepper, egg plant and squash plants and the carrot tops are looking good. The corn has a good start, too. In the big field, watermelon, cantaloupe, sweet potatoes and beans have been planted.

Nice healthy plants- yay rabbit poop!

The last bit of news, last week I got our logo tattooed on my ankle!

The harlequin for our first Dane Calypso, the black for Bo and Luke

I think that catches me up. No big plans for the summer, maybe some fencing, a new rabbit hutch, and keeping cool.