Meet the Goats and New Chickens

Pippen-Alpine Billy-rather bashful

Brandon-Boer Billy

Tulip-Alpine Nanny

White Legs-Alpine Nanny-She doesn’t have white legs

Fresh goat milk

Rob milking on the stanchion he built from just a peek at a picture in an old book. I think he did a fantastic job!

Black Jap Roosters- I have never heard of  this breed. Anyone have a link on any info?

A random bantam breed. The gal I got them from couldn’t remember the name of the breed but they are pure bred. Any ideas? I am going to do a search tonight.

Ant these three fellas get the ax tonight.

Off to buy freezer paper. As soon as I get videos loaded I’ll post those too!

The Raised Beds

Here are the promised photos. You’ll have to visit my flickr to see the notes on the photo of the entire spread of the yard garden.

More photos in a couple days of bunnies, and goats and progress on the goat fencing that is getting finished tomorrow since storms rolled through today.

BABIES!!!!!!

Delilah had her babes sometime last night. Her litter had seven but two didn’t make it. It’s so neat to see the little pink wiggly babies!

Some in the nest…

Some out of the nest…

And the proud mama!

I’ll take video in a couple of days. Presently, mama is a little jittery upon opening the hutch, so I’ll leave the little family alone for a couple of days.

Backyard Garden

Just a short video of my transplant garden, ever expanding…

Chicks Outside

More chick videos later!

Backyard Bounty

There is more food in your backyard-even if you don’t plant a garden, and provided you have herbicide and pesticided the crap out of your environment-than you may realize. In the three years that this has been our home, I have successfully identified over 50 edibles growing in the forest and grassy spaces-free of chemicals, nurtured by Mother Nature Herself.

In the video in the last post I mentioned these things: Dandelions, Sorrel, Nettle, New Jersey Tea (Buckthorn) and Violets. Here are some links to some great sites offering info on the crafting, foraging and eating of the delish bounty the EARTH provides free of charge! How is that for frugal living?

The University of Minnesota

Abundantly Wild

Do It Green

Edible Plants

Those are just a couple of sites. If you did a Google search, I am sure that you can come up with any number of sites, and you can cater the search to your state or region of the country. In the next couple of weeks, the fiddle head ferns shall appear and boy oh boy are they going to be tasty!

Eat your weeds!

A short video on a few nearby wild edibles. Next post I’ll have a few recipes and some great wild harvest sites.

Meet Yogi

Yogi is a great boy we adopted yesterday. He is 1/2 white shepherd and 1/2 white lab. He is 15 months old so still young enough to be trained in the rules of the homestead. There has only been one barking incident early this morning so that is a great thing! He is already protective and mindful of the girls. The plan had been to build his doghouse but ROb found one up at the Hackensack hardware store, made of cedar and insulated for $130. It’s a great house and priced right considering what it might have cost us to manufacture something similar.

I am uploading some videos at the moment so there shall be something to view later. Videos consist of chicks, foraging, the dog, a fleur garden and more chicks(one with a crooked toe that needs fixing using a pipe cleaner and med tape.)

SIlkies are hatching-everyone is hatching, really, so more chick videos are coming in the next few days. we are picking up a freecycled swingset for the girls today, measuring and plotting for the goat pen and housing and goats are coming in the next 2 weeks time. Sannens and Boers, possibly some pygmies for the fun of it 😉 It’s busy busy busy here!!

Raised Beds

Rob is gung-ho over raised beds. I had put in mounds last year and they worked nicely, but I am on board with Rob on the raised beds. Opportunity for deeper beds, stronger and longer roots and better food. Here is the video I took today of Rob getting some of the beds in:

The soil temp is about 8 degrees less than the needed 60 degrees. By next week, maybe sooner after laying black plastic down, planting outside shall commence! good thing too because our tomato transplants from Seed Savers should be here tomorrow.

It’s going to be busy here in the next few days. I am still recovering from a mild concussion this past Saturday, so I am not much help right now, but I do what I can. Off to go make spaghetti. Have frugal fun tonight!

Farm Videos

I didn’t get the video made of Rob taking care of getting the raised beds filled today. It started to rain so I brought the camera inside. Here are the videos of the chicks, the rabbits and the chicken flock outside, however.

To update, the video of the chicks shows a chick that had help hatching. S/He is doing great, drinking and eating and chirping and peeping along with it’s brothers and sisters. So that makes 4 hatchlings so far. I hear chirping int he one incubator he had been in, so there are more coming in the next few days. I’ll sex them in about two weeks. They are fed on non-medicated chick start that we buy from an organic feed supplier over in Wadena. Their feed is a bit pricier but worth it to not contribute to the destruction of Cargill and the likes. No GMOs in my chicken feed thankyouverymuch!

Okay! So with the shows….

The Rabbits:

Just a note there are going to be vermiculture bins underneath the rabbit hutches for a mini-eco-system. I am friends with Ellen Sandbeck and plan to get my bins directly from her this summer on a trip over to Duluth.

The Chicks:

The Coop and Henhouse: