Updates from the farm

Farm life is in full swing over here in the"Little House". As you can tell by my sporatic postings, we are thoroughly enjoying this warm weather and taking advantage of the outdoors every chance we get! So many of you have asked how our farm animals are doing, so this post is dedicated just to the animals!

CHICKENS:
For starters, the baby chicks are not so small anymore! After our first group of 20 chicks, we purchased another group of 17 2 weeks later! As the chicks grew quickly, Robbie had to build a new brooder to house them all. We just put the first 20 outside in the big chicken coop and hopefully the next group will be ready in a week or two!

Our 4 hens have turned into 2. We have always only had 2 hens that laid eggs for us and now those are the 2 hens that are gone. We think they left to go build a nest and try to hatch out eggs (which would be impossible since we don't have a rooster but I guess they don't know that!). We have looked for a nest unsuccessfully and assume that they are never coming back. Robbie says he is going to butcher the other 2 soon since they won't lay, but I'm not sure I want any part of plucking feathers and cutting a live dead bird. That might be a little much for this novice farm girl!

Here are CR and CH holding our useless birds that they now think are their pets!

Goat Life: Mira's babies are growing quickly and growing on us! The worst part of baby goats for me was the day I had to take them to get their horns disbudded - oh, what an aweful smell it was I cringe even now to think about the process of burning off their little buds. But, they were fine as soon as we left and I know they will be better for it. I think we will probably keep the baby girl now and Mira may be the one to get the boot! She is a fiesty and kicky milker; therefore, we have only milked her a handful of times. It's time to work with her though, so we are committed to taking this week and milking her everyday (I think!).

Betty had her babies this morning!! CR went to the barn around 8:00 to let them out and came back in the house to tell us he saw 2 babies in the barn! We quickly ran out the door to check on them and from the looks of it, she had just delivered them. One goat was still soaking wet from the delivery and Betty was in the process of cleaning off the other one. Both babies are girls and have the same funny ears that Betty has!

BUD: Bud is no longer a bull calf but is sadly now a steer. The good news is he is now roaming free in the pasture with all the other cows, so maybe he will think the pain was worth it?!!! The kids love to get on the 4-wheelers and go find him to see how he is. Can you believe I actually want us to get some more baby calves to raise?!! CR has loved it, and the others too!

CHIEF: Chief, the dog, has found a special place in the kids' hearts. He is super gentle with them, hence the reason they always try to ride him. He is also very protective over our yard and the street for that matter! I'm not so sure that he is serving his purpose of guarding the goats and chickens, since we won't let him in the field with them b/c he chases them, but he does keep animals and people away!

CRITTERS:

Thankfully we have only found a couple dead mice in the basement through the winter and not much else to write about. But, spring is here and all the little critters are just beginning to show their ugly faces. We have had numerous ticks to pull already and wasp and flies galour! Today the kids were outside playing and I could hear them yelling from inside the house. I stepped out to see what was going on and they were all screaming "SNAKE, SNAKE!". Now, you country folk are probably used to nasty snakes, but us city people don't like to even look at one! I ran in to get the Boss Man kindly asked him to use my (though I have never shot it!) pistol to get rid of it! Daddy came to the rescue and killed that sucker with one shot! I think he had so much fun he wanted another one to shoot!