More babies!

 How do you get baby goats? Go out of town. Poor Scarlett has been looking like she was going to pop for the last 3 weeks, plus we have 3 others that should be expecting. I've been waiting and waiting for her kids, but Chuck and I had planned a weekend in Banner Elk for our 15th anniversary (awww!). Naturally, I got a call from Madison Saturday morning while I enjoyed the coffee and view- courtesy of The Banner Elk Winery and Villa. "Mom! Ebony had her baby-What do we do?!" Of course, having to be the welcome wagon for one kid is not enough.  Scarlett had 3 more Saturday night so Madison, Willow and Mimi could get in plenty of practice tying umbilical cords. They did a great job, and we have 4 new bucklings! Ebony's kidding went great, and her buckling is doing well. Scarlet has one buckling that is thriving but the other two are currently being bottle fed since they haven't been able to latch on and the little brown fellow had contracted tendons so we had to splint his front legs. We're calling him Forrest since Chuck had to make him his special walking shoes and the little black one we're feeding is being called Bubba. The other two have not been named yet.

Forrest - see his special shoes?

Bubba

Un-named buckling and Scarlett

Ebony's buckling

All the other animals are doing well. the baby bunnies will be ready for new homes in about 2 weeks. Anyone looking for Silver Fox pets or breeding stock? The chickies and duckies are together in a larger playpen and the rabbits are enjoying their new hutches as well. We'll have some more baby ducks soon- I thought Willow was gathering the black runner duck's eggs- nope.

Chickies and Duckies

Laying flock enjoying some leftover cake

New rabbit hutch- we have 2 of these now, plus the tractor.

Bunnies-we hold them a lot so they'll be good pets

Black Runner on her clutch 

We also have some baby plants! I have chard, carrots, lettuce and pea plants peaking through the soil. The strawberries are beginning to ripen - now to cover them so the chickens leave us some.

peaking plants

Strawberries

Wisteria in bloom

 For my inside projects- I've been sewing like mad! I'm so excited because I'm putting in a table at the WRD Spring Fling! I'm making plenty of shirts with WRD logos, but I'll also have a couple of ruffle purses, hair things, luggage tags and what not. Still need to get an e-commerce spot going. I'll be shopping around web designers if anyone has recommendations please send me an email.

Baby Taggie Blanket

Shorts with pockets and a sting ray

That's all for tonight- the new blogger interface was not playing nice.

Spring 2012

We've been busy, really busy. Sorry for the long-time-no-post. A brief run down of what's happened then current state.

Last summer was a doozie! Luke (Dane) got bit by something- we're leaning toward brown recluse, but it could have been a copperhead. He made many trips to the vet for bandaging and removal of the necrotic tissue but he's fine now, with just a small scar. Next, Angel (horse) choked on hay and had a couple of vet visits, and he was back to normal. Next up - it comes in 3's, remember - I broke my foot, and spent 8 weeks in a boot. In case you were wondering, doing farm chores in the rain with a garbage bag wrapped around your booted foot is not fun. I, too, am back to normal. The only other hurdle has been a fox picking off chickens and my Sasha duck, but that's life on a farm.

Fall and winter passed with no big changes; just waiting on spring. We made or pilgrimage to Disney World to escape the cold and had a great time. Once we came back it was time to start getting ready for all the newbies.

The newbies started arriving mid-march with our first doeling. Sage gave birth to one blue-eyed, blonde doe (so much for Flash adding color). The girls settled on Peppermint for a name. She'll be ready for her new home in mid May. Next up for kids should be Scarlet- she's huge and looking miserable.

Peppermint Sunning

At the end of March, we had a litter of bunnies born. We have 6, 3 grey and 3 black. We're trying to keep them friendly and will offer them as pets when they get old enough. We also successfully incubated adn hatched about 20 chicks. They're barnyard mixes- all the roosters will be dinner and maybe even some of the hens depending on the ratio. It was really fun and educational to have them inside to incubate. The girls were excited to candle the eggs to watch the chicks grow and they even got to watch a few as they came out of the shell. Next we'll try hatching some duck eggs!

Baby Bunnies- 4 is the most I can keep together.

Chickies

The garden is about to go in. We've been adding compost and soil over the winter. Willow is helping out with that, as she has started her own worm farm. It's been running for almost a month now. She started with 2 pounds of red wigglers in a worm factory 360 and they're supposed to double in volume in about 90 days. Between the goats, the chickens and now the worms, there is very little food waste from the kitchen!

Willow has also taken over the egg sales. She gathers them, then helps wash and package. Chuck takes most of them to work, and Willow gets any money above feed and packaging costs. Egg customers will notice we've switched packaging as well. The plastic cartons, while very nice looking, were a pain to deal with. We've gone to recycled/recyclable cardboard and are still using the 3x4 design.

Willow turning bread into eggs.

As for me, I have a new hobby (since I have so much free time), sewing! Who would've though? I really enjoy it and am hoping to start selling on the website soon.

Circle Skirt and Appliqued Shirt

Luke- modeling a reversible bandana

Reversible Bandana

Pillowcase Dress with Minnie applique

Ruffle back skirts(fronts are flat) for Animal Kingdom

Humming Bird Ruffle purse

Custom Ruffle UNC purse for my Sister-in-Law

That's all for now- more to come soon!

Almost Summer

Whew! Have you been staying cool? We're trying our best here at Lazy Danes. The chickens hang out under the porch or the larger trees. The ducks swim a lot. The hoofed animals lay in the shade of the woods. The dogs and humans stay in the air conditioning. Chores are done early in the morning and late in the evening. The morning and evening is great on the farm,though. My magnolia tree has been blooming and the fragrance lingers in the air. I love that smell! It's just what the south should smell like, and the flowers are so pretty.

Under my fragrant tree

The crops continue to do well. We harvested our first carrots, eggplants and zucchini. I've been experimenting with new recipes, and found a good baked eggplant recipe. We're very impatiently waiting for our first tomatoes. The bushes are huge! Peas, carrots and lettuce are done until the fall crops get planted, and pumpkins go in this weekend. The berry farm is about to gear up, there will be bushes of blue and black berries very soon. Yum!

Carrots straight out of the garden have a great flavor!

Eggs and milk are still coming in strong. Even with only 1 goat in production we have plenty to drink. We haven't had the extra to make cheese and ice cream though, so definitely looking forward to that next year.

The does- 4 will be giving milk this time next year.

The chickens and ducks that are marked for the stew pot are growing well. Our pet ones are doing well, too. The cochin hens and polish crested are so much fun to watch. The pet duck- the girls call it Pascal, Chuck and I call it Sasha- is doing great! She/he follows me around while I do chores. Sasha is still in the shed, but needs a larger house very soon. I'd like to keep her up at the house, just trying to decide how.

Duck in the daisies

Duck in the house, wearing her diaper and being guarded by a Dane.

The kids and I have been doing some school prep and going to the Y. They both have horse camp coming up, and they're wanting to add some karate camp and sewing lessons in there somewhere, too. At least if they're busy, they're not fighting.

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.

Spring - for real this time!

I'm sure hoping this beautiful weather is here to stay. I'm on the front porch as I type this, watching the antics of the various animals. Perfect! The field is freshly plowed with red bud trees blooming in the background; crops are coming up in the raised beds- peas, strawberries, beets, and lettuce are coming up nicely.Peking Ducks hanging out under the redbud trees. The picture below is one of our black giants that has moved into the duck pen to (fingers crossed) hatch some more Peking eggs so we don't have to purchase ducklings this year.

On the Mcmurray Hatchery order we lost a total of 12 chickies in the 1st 3 days. Mcmurray is a great hatchery though with awesome customer service, we received our replacement chicks on March 29th. They're doing great- the postoffice called as soon as they arrived this time- 6:00 am, and they were home and warm shortly after.

This little peep is 4 weeks old. I'm really looking forward to the Polish growing up- so funny looking! Below is all the older ones in the brooder coop.

Also in the coop, a guinea has been laying her eggs. She may start trying to sit them- she had her male marching back and forth across the coop today while she set.

Here are our 3 Ancona Ducks, neat pets but definitely not the size of the Pekings. Hard to justify using them for meat.

The goat situation is mostly under control. I'm still not able to rotate grazing as I would like, but we'll get there. Hopefully the weather will be more cooperative now.

Here's Roscoe, chilling as usual-just wishing he had someone to play head-butt with. His new partner is below, Flash. As soon as he's big enough, they'll get to hang out together.

Here is the rest of the herd. Chipper has gone to his new home and one of Scarlet's went there as well. We're keeping what we have left. Rosemary will get a year off of breeding, we'll breed her doe, Sage, to Flash for Nigerian kids and Ebony (Scarlet's doeling). Scarlet and Petunia will be bred to Roscoe. We should have PLENTY of milk next year and I'm hoping to start making soap and such with it.

And of course, there's Dinkey. He's getting some out-of-paddock-time to help BeepBeep keep the grass mowed. He comes running when he hears me come out- just in case I have nibbles for him.

We suffered another disappointment with the rabbits. Foxy delivered 3 kits that were dead when I found them the next morning, She didn't even put them in the nest box. I'm really not sure how to convince rabbits to be good moms. We're trying again with Cleo, but may be out of the Silver Fox business if it doesn't go any better. For rabbits- they don't reproduce like rabbits.

So that gets us up to date- time to enjoy more of this sunshine!