The Donkey Boys

 The darling little Donkey Boys are now 11 months old and full of vim and vigor. They hit the 10 month mark and decided they hated to be next to each other, and really hated to be apart. Very sad to hear donkeys cry.

The testosterone everyone told me would flow heavily in the spring finally kicked in a while back and I had to make the decision to make them less manly with the help of the Vet, Bruce. I love Bruce. Thank Goodness for Bruce. Of course, Doyle was gone to Alaska by this point. So it was all me (and my awesome In-Laws who knew that I would have a hard time seeing them hurting even if they were out cold).

Poncho still remains the most photogenic miniature donkey ever created. He likes the camera and stands still for me to take his picture. Paco, not so much! Word to the wise if you ever have the vet come out to geld your donkeys....... don't let the chickens out that day, just sayin'. With the first toss of no longer useful boy parts, the chicks came running. All twenty four of them. They vet was spooked. Guess he's never been around such friendly chickens who always think you have a treat for them.

It seems funny now but it really wasn't so funny then. I am sure Dr. Gardener was feeling a little bit like Dr. Doolittle. Poor man.

The testosterone took fourteen days to clear their system and now they love each other again. I think watching mini-donks fight was like watching kindergartners duke it out in the school yard.  Not a pleasant sight. All is well again on my little farm. I am hoping to till a few things and start planting the garden this weekend. Progress reports to come..... stay tuned.

Why Not the Nest Boxes?

When we so lovingly built our chicken house, the nest boxes took some thought. What wall to put them on to minimize a possible draft? How high in relation to the roosts? What size to build them dimensionally? We thought it out well, we consulted books and the internet. Well, the chicken ladies have other ideas.

We painted them red so they would be fun to lay eggs in. And about half of the girls use them regularly. The other half..... not so much.

This girl is laying in a nest they built out of a straw bale in the barn. About 6 to 8 eggs per day are found here.

Another three or four are found in this garbage can full of chopped up goat floor and hay. This will go into my compost tumbler this spring. I just don't seem to have the heart to take away a favorite nesting area. They don't seem to mind the fake fawn much either. That thing is another story all together.

This is a one ton grain tote that I filled with clean wood shavings for winter use in the chicken house. The chicks climb right in and down into it about 3 foot. I find a couple eggs per week in this thing. Silly chickens.

And finally we have our first broody hen. She is one diligent mama wanna-be. She has been at this sitting thing for weeks. I thought she was sick and dieing when she first started and even took her to the vet. He got a good laugh out of it, refused to take my money and thanked me for being one of the first to ever bring him a chicken. I guess folks around here eat their questionable birds. I happen to like mine too much to do that but I can see their point. Plus my muscle is in Alaska and I cannot do that kind of deed myself. I have toyed with slipping some day old chicks under her at night so she will finally stop this madness but I don't have the heart to possibly go out and find that she wasn't a good mother after all. Seems a little like murder if the experiment does not work. I have been kicking her off the nest all day long on the days that I am home. She seems to like it in there.

I Did It!

Happy Mother's Day to you all! I hope you're relaxing in exactly the manner you planned for today, whatever that may be!

I wanted to share with you my weekend accomplishment.... No it doesn't have anything to do with gardening but I'm still proud of myself! We ran 3.1 miles and it went very well. I went from a couch potato (computer, really) to a 5K runner in 8 weeks. The program is 9 weeks but I only had eight to do it in. Great program if anyone else is interested and if I can do it, anyone can~

There I am, out in the crush, doing something stupid with my arm! (Still not sure what that is.) We waited for 10 minutes or so to even start since the pile of people didn't begin to move for quite a while. The problem with that logic was then we had to pass them all, which my friend and running partner said was like playing Frogger with humans.

Here we are after the race. We timed ourselves since this was the Race for the Cure and it wasn't really a race, just a great cause. We finished in 31:41, which really was good considering all the bobbing and weaving we had to do to miss running into people.

Mindy's daughter (whom, I might add, did not train for this) ran the whole thing and in front of us! The strength of youth is somewhat staggering to me. We had fun and it went really fast since there was so much to look at. People watching is the best!

NEXT POST: Gardening, I promise. Scout's Honor, really.

Birthday Present to Myself

I have wanted an old fashioned garden hod for years. To me, this screams "I am a real gardener now...... look at me!" I know I did not need it to be a real gardener, I just wanted it and that's how I justify things I want. I ordered this from Burpee's Seed Company and when it got here I could not believe how big it really was. Catalog photos are not always good at rendering dimension in my mind.

The quality is wonderful and it looks so professional. I can't wait to harvest tomatoes with it, although it may be too heavy to pick up once full of my summer bounty!

I have had a really hard time getting excited about the gardens this year. I did finally order and receive my seeds for the year but motivation is seriously lacking. My husband (The muscle around here~) has gone to Alaska to fall timber for three months. I am usually not a whiner but I suppose I did not realize just how much he did on our place. I'll be sure to thank him when he gets home. My morning routine, which consists of lots of coffee and my computer for at least two hours before I get ready for work, has been interrupted by having to feed animals. It doesn't take long but Doyle took care of all of that and now I go to work with hay in my hair. It looks awesome and lends authenticity to my farm-girl image. Only a few patients have actually been allergic to me so all is well on that front. It's just hard when part of my team is missing. On a high note he'll be very happy to be back tackling my honey-do list since he swears he will never step foot in Alaska again as long as he draws breath. I guess a logging camp is not the way to tour that state.

Thanks to all of you who have inquired about my whereabouts. I am coming back, I miss you all and your blogs have always been a huge source of motivation for me! That is really what I need right now!

One last thing I have been up to.... On Saturday I run (yes, I said run, hehe) my first 5K for the Susan G Komen, Race for the Cure! I am very excited and have been training using the Couch to 5K plan for the last nine weeks. When I started, the intervals were 60 seconds of run alternating with 90 seconds of walk and that was hard. I completed week nine yesterday morning and we ran 3.1 miles to see how long it will take us on Saturday. I think (if all the strollers and walkers wait to start until the runners go) that we will complete the 5K in 29 minutes. I am really proud of myself and no, it's not a coincidence that this new goal coincided with my 37th birthday! I needed to get myself moving so I can garden well into my nineties. Mission accomplished and we just signed up for a 10K on July 10th. New training plan in the works~

Winter Reading

Well here it is. The stack I have been meaning to read. The pile I couldn't wait for winter to be able to dive into. The current bane of my existence. What I mean to say is that I almost always look forward to winter because I am generally burnt out from gardening around the clock all summer. This winter was no exception. I have a confession to make. I haven't started most of them yet. A couple I have read and had planned to re-read, like the miniature donkey book, Beekeeping for Dummies and Square Foot Gardening. It never hurts to brush up on your knowledge, right? Except I haven't yet and spring is closing in on me. I mean really, it's Groundhog Day already and I haven't even started. (For those of you that don't already know, I love Groundhog Day. Not sure why but always have. )

I am starting to panic a little and I haven't ordered my seeds yet. I haven't even looked through and dogeared every page in 30 seed catalogs. What on earth is wrong with me? Maybe I am sick. Ooh, maybe I have Malaria. This really isn't normal for me and it truly baffles me a little. OK, a lot but who's keeping track. I do get over to peruse blogs I love (you all know who you are) but I can't even seem to muster the energy to leave comments which up until recently was something I got out of bed an hour earlier to do.  

So I am throwing down the challenge to myself. Heather (that's me): Get your butt in gear and get it done! There I said it to myself, to you and to my mom who occasionally reads my blog. I am going back to my old ways and I am gearing up for spring, whether I like it or not. Watch out blogland........ I'm coming to comment on your posts and stop lurking secretly. I am also going to plan my seed order. I am going to ready my stack 'o books.  On Friday night.

A Sunny Winter Day

 Today was a good day in animal land. The sun finally came out for the afternoon and I must say the farm pets enjoyed it thoroughly.  In this picture the mother goat is nearly asleep. The goats are so fair weather that they won't go out of the barn for water when the wind blows, let along when it's snowing. The chickens love the goats for some reason and the goats don't seem to mind the chicken ladies too much either.

 The donkey boys like the sun to shine too! They were caught several times throughout the day laying down and just soaking it all in. That is, when the mother goat isn't chasing them and stomping her feet in their direction. Funniest thing I have ever seen as that darn goat is afraid of her own shadow but acts very tough when the donkeys are around. You should see a pygmy goat put the sneak on a pair of miniature donkeys. It's almost sad. It really seems to empower her, nutty goat.

 And here is Ollie and the mother goat hanging out in the snow. It seems humorous to me that they won't go out into the snow in the barnyard which they have access to all day but put them out in the orchard area and snow doesn't seem to bother them at all.

Donkey Boys

It is harder than one might think to get a picture of a baby mini donkey with goofy Christmas antlers on his head. It is next to impossible to get a picture of two of them together.

So we bribed them. The boys love carrots. This one is the shyer of the two and he seems to know that manners will get him further than pushy behavior. His brother is still learning this lesson.

He is also more photogenic. He will actually stand there and let you take his picture even if he hates dumb antlers that make him look silly.

Poncho has to be snuck up on to get a picture. He comes running to see if you have treats in your pocket so getting a decent photo of him becomes more challenging. Most of my pictures of him are from 1 foot above his sweet little face while he begs for carrots.

Now that the ground is covered in snow the boys stay a little closer to the barn. Doyle plows them areas to hang out in but all that sticks through the snow to graze on is chicory. Too bad them chewing on the tops wouldn't kill the stuff like it did all my cherry trees. These guys can prune very fast when you aren't looking.

Hello 2010, Come On In!

Hello 2010, I have been waiting for you! I knew you would get here eventually. You just had to go about it in your own way. Well I have a spot all made up for you. You can even stay a year if you want to.

These were my homemade gifts to my family and close friends this year. I made two quart sized soup mixes.

Then I added applesauce, plum jelly, pear or peach butter and jalepeno jelly.

We put them together in assembly line fashion. A slow assembly line. These graced my dining room table for over a week waiting for the point when I could make the fudge to add to the matching tins.

The presentation was nice but the trays themselves flexed when you picked it up so I hot glued every jar to the tray and then used basket wrap and a blow dryer to shrink the wrapping. It didn't fix the problem but who complains about home made gifts. At least it isn't done out loud.

They turned out all right. Next year I am going to find some kind of boxes to put them in. Maybe 1/2 sized wooden crates. They will be a lot more secure that way. I think every one liked their gifts. I made 12 of them and it took a lot of time but it seems more fitting for me to give of my garden than spend so much time and money on things they probably won't ever use. Been there, done that.

First Poultry Loss This Morning

We had our first poultry loss this morning. My husband noticed that one of our hens was craning her neck and 'gasping' for breath last night. We raced into the house and started trying to figure out what it could be. She still wanted to roost with the others, moved around like normal but kept opening her mouth wide and arcing her neck.

I raced in the house and spent the rest of the night trying to figure out how to help her. It hasn't been too cold the last week so we left her in the coop where she was certain to have less stress. We got up at 5:00 this morning to check our forum board questions for answers to no avail. Doyle also headed to the chicken house and she was dead on the floor. I think he is going to try a necropsy on her to see if anything obvious was the culprit. We were pretty discouraged. We knew things could go wrong but we had a false sense of security because we have had such good luck with all the chickens we raised this year. I am sad but I also know that on the 'farm' anything can go wrong.

All of the other girls look good this morning. Begging for treats is the norm for them. Doyle's warm oatmeal during the bitter cold snap must have singed a nice memory in their minds' as they mob you when you walk in the door. We will keep a very close eye on them to make sure nothing seems to be amis with anyone else.

New Bird House

A neighbor brought this beauty into my work as a Christmas gift. What a wonderful suprise! His craftmanship is amazing. He even made it look like my chicken house, complete with two barnstars on each side.

It is feeder on the front side and the birds can dine in the 'run'. The back side is a bird house for shelter. Some lucky bird is going to each right near his home!

I was so excited! Dave made my whole week. I asked him if it would weather enough to be used outdoors and he told me it was barnwood from the barn next door, should weather just fine!

Feeding Birds

I have been busily refilling bird feeders around here. When the harsher weather comes I feel the need to supplement their diet and make it easier for them to sustain life.

I have an assortment of different feeder. Some large and ugly such as this one.

And this one.

I have pretty good variety of diners today. Here you see the Western Goldfinches. I have also been feeding Juncos, Red House Finches and Black Capped Chickadees. All are fun to watch. I am going to build an oriole feeder to attract them to stay around too. Apparently they like jelly and citrus. I can accomodate both.

The chicken ladies even like to come out and see what is going on. They don't love the snow but they do love to be running around. Here they are with a bare patch of grass, grazing. They also like to peck at the paint on my house. Yikes! Might be time to repaint.

Almost Full.... Boy that happened fast!

It sure didn't take me long to fill up my new pantry. We finished the floor to ceiling shelves over a two weekend stretch and I started moving from the old (small) pantry into the newly converted guest room pantry about six weeks ago. I needed a place to store the fruits of my labor and the only place I had to expand into was the hardly used guest bedroom.

At first I suffered guilt and anxiety over my decision. Then I got over it.

As I started to move into my new space I realized I had hit the storage bonanza. Not only could I store all the food I had canned and preserved but I could feed my need to collect large quantities of store bought as well.

Now all my oversized appliances had a home, my canning jars had a home and my large party serving junk had a house too. Yeah me!

But now that you have seen all three functional corners (the door is housed in the fourth), you can see that I am completely out of room. How the heck did that happen you ask? Well I might have mentioned higher up on this post that I like to collect food. Where I once was hampered my lack of space now I have lots of places to stash things. Seriously, who needs 20 boxes of rice at a time? Apparently I do. I also have a weakness for Costco and all things large sized. It's an illness which means I am off the hook because I really can't control it. Really.

PS~ I took these pictures before I finished the 98 jars of applesauce, those apples are no longer on the floor, thank goodness.

Still Busy!

I have been on blogging hiatus but still busy like always.  I decided that I was going to run low on applesauce so I contacted a local orchard and they still had lots of apples. Silly me.

I bought 5 boxes of apples and proceeded to make 98 more jars of sauce. At least now I have something else to add to my homemade Xmas gifts besided just jelly.

They were nice apples and I really like that they were grown semi-locally, about an hour away. I used Red Delicious, Golden Delicious and Granny Smith. Only one Granny Smith to four of the others. I think it turned out well enough.

The staging area for cooling jars was my mudroom. It was hard to not share some every time someone came by. I suppose that is what I made it for.

And finally the funny shot of the day, my Cat in a Hat! Seems old Rusty liked napping in my birthday sombrero. Go figure.

An Idaho Moment

This is something you don't see every day. Thank goodness! Goats being herded down the highway in rural America. These goats are used to eat noxious weeds in our state. There are many herds similar to this one and apparently they earn their keep.

There are fat ones, skinny ones, and even some very young ones thrown into the mix. I thought this was worth sharing as I have only seen it one other time. They actually stopped highway traffic to move these goats to a new place and cars did not seem to faze them at all.

I promise to be back to a normal blogging cycle soon. I am suffering from end of the season blahs and trying to get ready for the holidays all at the same time. I suppose I could start sharing my snow pictures with you as that seems to be all there is to see right now. Hope you all have a wonderful Turkey day!

Trying to Live By This Creed

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even to the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
they are vexatious to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love,
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

~Max Ehrmann, Desiderata

When I was a little kid my mom had this hanging in our one bathroom. I have grown up reading this poem and it has always spoken to me. Except the part about Taking Kindly to the Council of the Years. I do not subscribe calmly to that part. But the rest I like a lot. When life seems a little hectic or untethered, I go back to my mom's bathroom, yes she still has this hanging in front of the potty, and I read it a few times over. At different times, different parts of the poem jump out at me. 

I love this and really need to get one of my own. I probably won't hang it in my bathroom although it seems to touch many who frequent my mom's. Aww heck, maybe I will hang it in my bathroom. Think I can get the mean girl in my life to read it? She really, really, really needs to. Maybe I will leave it for her to find.

All of The Sudden It's Winter

Winter has finally come to my neck of the woods and I can honestly tell you that Jack Frost is not high on my list of faves right now. Dang it, I forgot how cold winter is. I thought I was ready but maybe not quite yet. My raised bed garden is looking pretty sad right about now. Part of my heart sings about that and the other part is in a schizophrenic depression. It changes hour by hour.

The chickens weren't totally sure the first time they came out into the snow. Funny thing was I couldn't figure out what was wrong with the chickens. Silly us. We were all having a brain malfunction!

We added this little shelf and mini fridge to the chicken house this morning. We figured that with both of us working we would not always be available for egg dispersal. Now we have serve yourself. This also solves the problem of having too many dozen in the fridge inside the house. This will easily hold more than I care to stock. I thought I would let my daughter make a money can for the folks that want to pick up eggs this way.

This ought to work like a dream. There are actually some folks in my town who live rurally and have a full size refrigerator out by the highway. People are welcome to just help themselves. I have always wondered if everyone pays or if they get stiffed with any regularity. I haven't had the nerve to ask them yet. I figure this will be somewhat more controlled. Only those we want to know about it will.

And just for fun a cute picture of one of the boys! They are so darn sweet! We play with them every day and every day shows strides in what they learn. No buyer's remorse here~

FOOD, Inc.

I pre-ordered this movie several months ago and finally got it in the mail. If you have not seen FOOD, Inc., you must. I have struggled all summer with raising my own meat to eat. We raised meat chickens in the spring and now again in the fall. The beef we eat comes off our place. And our pork is raised 30 miles away by a man who does a small amount every year. I still cried at the time of process and feel bad each time we eat it. I do know that what we are doing is the right thing for my family. Raising your own, in my experience, has not been a money saving experience. It costs more to feed animals well and to keep them healthy and happy. Our egg layers live in what has been coined the Chicken Taj Mahal. And as far as chickens go, I think they are happy as clams.

What I do know is this: If, as a country, we do not do something about the inhumane ways animals for food are raised and processed, we will be in bigger trouble than we already are. If school do not do something to make meals for children healthier, our kids will continue to gain weight and take on obesity oriented diseases. At what point did it become common place for an apple to cost more than a $.99 hamburger. Families are doing what they can to put food on their tables, the food industry is changing what that food is. There is a petition you can sign to change the food served in schools. Hungry For Change can be found here and is a great way to begin getting involved.

We have chosen to continue our adventure into homegrown and home raised. We will keep on doing our part at our level to have a healthier lifestyle. Those of you in cities also have options. You can join CSAs, which are Community Supported Agriculture options. You can chose to spend a little more at the grocer to buy healthier and fresher foods and leave behind some of the more convenient foods. Eventually this will cause the store buyers to stock healthier options and leave out the cruddier ones. They are only going to stock what people are purchasing. Frequenting farmer and growers markets are also a wonderful way to support the local farmer and to feed your family from local sources. So much food these days is grown in other countries. I am trying to go for a 100 mile radius. Simply keeping it within the USA is a noble approach too.

Maybe I sound like a raving maniac and maybe all of this sounds like an unreasonable attempt to take on a giant. But as a nation we took on the Tobacco industry and we won, to some degree. But it is heading in the right direction. It can be done, it just takes us caring about it at home.

The Boys are Here!

Well, the newest additions to our little farm are here! The boys came yesterday and are all installed in their new (temporary) corral. They had an hour and a half trek from their old home to ours and they seem to have made the trip very well. Here they are still in the horse trailer, unsure of how happy they are to get out into the unknown.

We let them stay out in the yard for a while to acclimate to their new surroundings. It's probably colder here than where they were born so we have them in a temporary area until we can get them into the barn. The meat chickens are still in that area of the barn so the boys had to wait another week to get into their new digs. We are also going to change up the barnyard a bit to accommodate both donkeys and pygmy goats. They can't live together as the donkeys play rougher than goats do.

So far my nieces and our granddaughter have come to see them and seem to be pretty excited. We did not let them in with the donkeys yet but as time goes on we will introduce them and all should be great. No need to traumatize the poor boys anymore than they have already suffered. When they are comfortable with the new digs, we will let the kids touch them.  Until then, the boys get a reprieve!