Meanie pants rooster

He's GONE! A couple of very nice people came and picked him up on Friday, so no more picking on my rooster. Mr. Roo is still in hiding and a little leary of being in the coop, but hopefully that goes away. The other two roos are letting him eat and not picking on him, so I'm hoping he'll get over his exile soon. YAY!

Today I get to strip cloth diapers (lucky me). I usually buy the Rockin' Green ammonia detergent, but since I'm out and don't feel like buying another bag I'm going to try boiling them with a little dawn dish soap. I heard it works pretty well. We haven't been using the cloth diapers as much because our inserts just stink. Here goes nothin'...

Mr. Roo

Today was it. I have had enough. Our new rooster, the big Buff one, has been placed up for sale. He's a beautiful boy, but he's been so mean to my Mr. Roo! It's either him or Mr. Roo. Hubby and I picked Mr. Roo. The other roos are being absolute gentlemen. No issues whatsoever, but this one...damn. He hunts my poor bird. Prevents him from eating all day, so he's starting to lose weight.The poor thing is completely emasculated and actually whimpers. Ever heard a rooster whimper? It tears at your heart strings. Mr. Roo won't roost in the coop anymore, so he's been roosting outside until I can find him to put him up. Between the not eating and roosting alone in the cold, in 20 degree or lower temps that's basically a death sentence if it goes on any longer.

Tonight we're having freezing rain, which means cold, and in the morning ICE. Not looking forward to tomorrow. But, hopefully, tomorrow someone will come get this rooster. I need my Mr. Roo back to his old self.

On the brighter side, I found a bunch of eggs! I think the girls we took in are starting to lay again. 6 eggs! Our latest daily tally for eggs has been 2-3. Yippee!

O, Christmas Tree

Right now is one of my absolute favorite times of the year. I love everything about it. Christmas lights. Feasts. Christmas Tree. And since we've lived in Utah, the snow. That's one of the things we didn't have on near the coast was snow, at least not anywhere near our home.

I put the tree up a couple of days ago. It's a beautiful tree, but unfortunately it's also big and unlit. It's a 7.5 ft artificial fir with little pinecones and berries scattered all over. Most of the berries have long been pulled off by curious kids or fallen off with yearly set-up/take-down routines. It took me about 6 hours to set up the tree and cover it in lights. My arms were completely ripped up from the fake needles by the end. My 3 yr old and I are decorating it tonight for Daddy. She's been so excited about Christmas ornaments that it's been keeping her up at night. I just brought up the ornaments from outside, so we're gonna have a fun night. The thick fog has rolled in again for the evening. I can't see past our barn anymore. And we're gonna have a decked out house tonight. Yup, Christmas-time, yule-tide, winter-time, winter solstice...take your pick... they all happen at the same time of the year, and they're ALL my favorite, FAVORITE time of year.

Soay Sheep in the Fog

I have to admit, these are cool sheep. They aren't phased by much. Snow, fog, heat...they don't care for drizzly rain, gale force winds or blistering hot days, but really, who does?

Today I got a text from the woman with the Leicester Longwool sheep. She said 2 other people had inquired, and one of them was also interested in purchasing in the spring.  So, unless we can get them in the next month or two, it probably won't happen. I've got time though, so even if it doesn't happen, it'll be ok. 

Feed Store

Maybe I'm just a weirdo, but I absolutely LOVE going to the feed store. Nowadays getting out of the house is a rarity, so today with the hubby home we ran some errands. One of the errands was going to the feed store to get chicken and sheep feed, another salt lick for the sheep, an infrared bulb, bedding, etc. I was actually excited. I know, I know. I don't get out much. But, seriously, I love my feed store. It's a huge store with everything from boots and outerwear to livestock feed and dog bones. It's just an awesome place. It's fun to just walk around and look at everything.

And...more inversion

We're in one of our week long inversion cycles here again, except it's complete with thick fog! Being a former coastal living girl, I have a soft side for fog. It reminds me of home. Well, except home doesn't have 20 degree, freezing foggy inversions. Anyway, we've had fog for 2 days now, all day, and even thicker fog cover at night. Last-night I went outside to close up chickens and it was so foggy I couldn't see ANY lights around us besides my very close nextdoor neighbor. Now THAT is foggy. It also makes for beautiful frosting on everything outside. I took a few photos today with my handy dandy new camera, and I have to admit they turned out pretty good. I have no photography skills whatsoever, but this camera does help with that handicap.

Minimalising...

Minimalising in all the right places

With the land around me asleep for the winter, any and all outside projects I may have had are temporarily on hold. Not that I was busting a move to get them done this year - this hasn't exactly been my sterling year for accomplishing much, or busting a move for that matter!  Between taking care of my own brood of young'uns and taking care of myself, things have been slow going here, even for everyday household type things. Once the cow was sold this spring things slowed down outside massively. Dairy cows are a lot of work, even non-lactating ones. Lots of attention. Lots of feeding. Lots of handling to keep her happy and easy to manage. Now that she's gone, Hubby generally goes outside to let chickens out before work, check on sheep and he's off. He does the lion's share of work out there, which isn't a whole lot now, fortunately.

One of the major projects I'm still working on is minimalising our possessions. Yes, we're going minimalist, or at least as much as we can with 5 1/2 kids. You know how people with lots of kids, or even just a couple of kids, have a hard time keeping up with it all? Yeah. It's reality. And the reality is in my home that I don't want to deal with trying to keep STUFF picked up constantly. I think I actually have an allergy to clutter. I get really, really irritated with things covering flat surfaces. I get sluggish, cranky and irritable if my living area is crammed full of stuff. I like minimal, streamlined, simple and open spaces. Maybe that's why I like living out in the country better. Hmmm..that makes a lot of sense, actually, now that I think about it. Really, if it weren't for my hubby and kids, I'd probably be a hermit in Alaska somewhere living in the bush. Chalk it up to my introvert nature. Anyway, so, given this 'allergy', there has to be a change. I don't enjoy cleaning. It's one of those things you have to do, but don't really want to do. And, with that in mind, we're purging the excess 'stuff' that gets drug out, stepped on and in generally in the way every time anyone does anything.

It's actually amazing how much 'stuff' people collect over the course of time. When the hubby and I got married he literally moved in with a suitcase. No, a duffle bag, and not a big one. I had a house already, but it was a small, circa 1923, 2 bedroom bungalow. I moved in with the smallest moving truck that U-Haul has in their fleet. I didn't have a whole lot of stuff. Then comes the wedding when people gift you a ton of things -some useful, and many more novel than practical- and you feel bad about giving them away. Like the shish kabob machine. Practical? No. Cool? Kinda. I think I've used it twice. Fondue set? Yup. Have we used it in the 5 years we've been married? Nope. But it's cool! I think. I don't think I've ever even opened it, now that I think about it! Just with everyday living we accumulate 'stuff'. Junk mail. Grocery ads. Happy Meal toys. Over time it just piles up. So, with me being pregnant and not able to do much besides sorting and light cleaning, I'm doing just that - sorting and light cleaning. I've got a donation stack going, and a garbage pile that is cleaned up every week. Have we used it in a year? Nope. Sometimes the answer is Yes, and even then I have to look at it and ask myself : 'Do I like this enough for it to take up valuable space in my life?'. If the answer to that is 'Er, uh, well, maybe' - it goes. If it's no, obviously, it's gone. Very few things have made the 'Yup, it's needed' cut so far. And it's one extremely liberating, true happiness inducing feeling to turn over your living space into something fresh and new. Throwing out the relics of the past to make way for the adventure of tomorrow is exciting. It's an adventure and I don't even need to leave my home. Maybe, just maybe, before this baby comes I'll have things kinda sorted through here so I can finish painting and other home improvement DIY projects. It's wishful thinking, but at this point it's something to work toward while I sit at my kitchen table with a hot cup of tea, resting my achey pregnant bones and wistfully gaze out the window at the snowy pastoral landscape and dream.

Inversion

 It's definitely a curl up on the sofa with a cup of hot coffee kind of day here. Outside of my window a thick, white fog sits over the expansive horizon as far as I can see. At first it looks very wintery and festive, until you have to go out in it. Then it's just nasty, thick SMOG. I can actually taste the air, which is never a good thing. Gross.

One of the awful things about winter in Utah is the bi-seasonal inversions we get here - summer and winter. We basically live in a bowl here between mountain ranges, along with about 1 million other people, who all drive lots of cars and with no airflow to clear out the exhaust the smog builds up and doesn't have anywhere to go. So, this puts a damper on any and all outside activities (not that I had many to begin with), but being pregnant and having young children with preemie lungs puts us in the high risk category for being affected by the nasty air. The inversion makes the temps drop outside too, so along with thick air, it's colder than it would be normally. Chickens are hanging out close to the barn. Dogs are snoozing. I don't think anything phases them, well, besides gale force winds. Even they don't care for that kind of weather. :)

Never a dull day

As I passed my kitchen window I saw my sheep looking kinda uncomfortable, and thinking they were hungry decided to go outside to give them some more feed. Turned out they weren't hungry (far from it actually...these sheep are well fed, let me tell ya) and were simply checking out the view in my backyard, which looked like a massacre occurred. I thought it was remnants of some cow bone marrow that the dogs chewed out of the fresh cow femur bones we bought them. They love cow bones. It's like early Christmas for them. No, it wasn't the bone marrow. Yes, it was my dog. I didn't even notice it because Bear was prancing around like he normally does, albeit more than usual because he was defending his bone. I pieced together what happened: Polly dug up Bear's buried bone, his 'precious' and a ferocious dog fight ensued. Bear's ear lost. He had a 1" tear at the bottom of his ear. He's nearly 9, pretty ancient for a St. Bernard, and Polly being 3 years younger (and more aggressive from the get-go, anyway) won pretty easily. Fortunately, it was easy enough to fix and it wasn't bleeding a whole lot. He let me wrap it up pretty easy, only whining a little. This whole thing reminded me I have to get a veterinary first aid kit together, something I've been putting on the back burner for way too long. Styptic powder. Neosporin. Veterinary wrap...for starters. Dogs. Sheesh.

Leicester Longwool Sheep!

So, I've been drooling over these sheep for a while now. Yes, drooling. I know I'm odd, but it's in a good way. They are the classic Beatrix Potter English countryside fluffy white sheep. And, as per my usual luck, extremely hard to find (i.e. EXPENSIVE). Only a handful of people in the US even raise them, and they're classified as 'critically rare' by the American Livestock Breed Conservancy. I had looked for this breed online only to find a very small number of breeders, none closeby and only one in my state. The out of state breeders wanted $600+ for a single lamb, and that wasn't including shipping, veterinary certificates and state mandated lab work. Around $1000 for ONE sheep was a little to steep a price for me. I gave up.


Remember I said there was a breeder in Utah? Yeah, I tried to contact her before I even bought these soay sheep, but she never got back to me. Until today! The one breeder here has been trying to sell her flock off and on for nearly a year. The last time I saw the ad it had been up for almost a month, and dropped off the board before I could get the number. Today I saw the same ad up with 2 days left before expiring. I texted her, and they're still available.I'll be contacting her to see if she's willing to sell them individually next year, maybe in the spring! Since it doesn't look like she's in a huge hurry to sell them, I'm hoping she'll be receptive to the idea. Yup. I'm a little excited. :D

My goals for the farm would then have to be changed if we do get these sheep. Instead of goats, we'd be doing sheep, which would be ok by me. I do really love sheep and they're much easier to contain than goats. Our fences would be ok for sheep; they wouldn't keep a wanderlusting goat in for more than 10 seconds, max. I was talking to my mom (aka the fiber diva) about possibly marketing the sheep products (rovings, batts, yarn, fleeces, etc.), as she's in an area much more receptive to humanely produced, sustainable farm-to-consumer type products. Salt Lake City has a small, family run fiber mill that handles smaller farm orders. We could get batts, roving, yarn - basically whatever would sell. Instead of trying to market raw fleeces, which probably wouldn't go very well, we could make it a value added product for knitters, fiber enthusiasts, spinners, etc. I think they'd do well out her way, especially with the number of year round farmers markets, yarn shops and other venues to market the products. Utah, unfortunately, just doesn't excel in those areas. We have very limited farmers markets, not a lot of yarn shops and somehow an almost non-existent fiber arts community. For a state that profited greatly from the sheep industry, you wouldn't know it by the lack of fiber anything in this place. Ugh. Sometimes I really miss California. If I could earn enough $$$ off the sheep products to pay for the feed it'd be worth it. Keep ya posted!

Goals

It's good to have goals. And I realized I haven't formally written down any goals for this mini farm of ours, so it was time. Ran it by the hubby, and he liked it, so we're in business. Here's what the plan is, assuming we're here for another year or two (see previous post for explanation):

Mini Farm Goals

Our mini farm consists of 0.84 acres, including 2 small pasture areas (largest is ~0.5 ac, 2^nd pasture area is  ~0.16  ac and a homesite acreage of approx.. 0.25 ac.), a 2000 sq ft, 4 stall large livestock barn + sheep/goat barn/tack room and goat shed. All areas can be farmed to some extent and used for gardening, but animal husbandry will occur solely on the back 2/3 of the property. Gardening areas will be located behind barn (largest garden area with full sun exposure for entirety of day), along with small garden plots in the front pasture with full southern exposure, backyard and front yard where growing conditions would be favorable.

Goals: 
1)  Produce at least 50% of our food in the next 2 years and increasing production in subsequent years to ultimately produce 75%+ of our food for a family of 8+. 
2)    Raise chickens for meat and eggs (can have comfortably 20 birds in current coop. Can add an additional 12-15 meat bird coop to chicken stall).
3) Keep goats for milk (maybe 4-6?)
4)Grow fodder for our animals in the winter (late Nov-early May) 
5) Start with beekeeping. Sell honey, beeswax & value added products (lip balms, salves, lotions, etc.)

How will we meet these goals?

To meet Goal #1 –

Employ bio-intensive gardening techniques using straw bale gardening. Also learn to extend growing season to grow greens and hardier vegetables through the winter months. Planting a small orchard, grape vines and berry bushes would also help to increase our self sufficiency (depends on timeframe for us staying in this home). Set up greenhouse ASAP. Begin seriously composting to recycle chicken manure, bedding and garden/household green matter. 

To meet Goal #2 –

Already in progress. We have 14 hens and 4 roosters. Have been raising egg layers since April 2012. Started with 11 hens, 1 rooster. Would need to add another coop specifically for the meat birds. Have squeamishness about butchering chickens myself. Would need someone to train me or hire someone to do it. Local mobile slaughterers have a 25 bird min. and charge $2-3/bird.  Sell eggs to offset costs OR start making our own feed from scratch/growing food for chickens. Latter would be easier to accomplish as our family goes through eggs quickly. Ideally need a 30+ layer flock to keep up with egg needs for 8 people. 

To meet Goal #3 –

Would need to upgrade fencing/repair existing fencing AND install at least 2 levels of electric fence wire. Would need to buy/build milking stanchion.  Multiple local goat dairies to purchase quality dairy stock – la mancha, saanan, alpine or nubian

To meet Goal #4 –

Find a local supplier for bulk unhulled livestock grain. Would need a relatively heated area to sprout grasses; trays; soaker hoses. Unlikely to happen in the house we’re in bc of space issues. Maybe a greenhouse? 

To meet Goal #5 –

Order hive and bee nuc. Get registered with state as a licensed apiary. Order books about how to keep bees. Get over fear of stinging insects. :)

What a year!

I've always been terrible at keeping up on writing. I was a terrible penpal. And now I'm a terrible blogger. I do have a good reason though - I'm BUSY! Hard to believe it's been nearly a year since I updated this blog. Ouch. My bad. It's been a very, very busy year.

Family News:

The babies are getting huge. Everyone is walking, semi-talking and getting into everything. My big baby is nearly fully potty trained, which is a huge accomplishment. She's very proud of herself and I think we're all relieved that she is no longer in diapers (she was getting a bit big for diapies...). Hubby is staying really, really ridiculously busy with the business and he's been great at keeping up with everything. It's looking like next year will be busier than this year as far as bookings go, so I don't know how that's going to go. This year was already extraordinarily busy, so I'll just have to become wonder woman on steroids to keep up with it all.

Oh, and the big news -

I'm pregnant again. And...IT'S A BOY!

Yup. Prego. With child. The first 4 months sucked big time. I was sicker than a dog. Not so much throwing up, but nausea. I think never-ending nausea is exponentially worse than throwing up all day. It finally subsided and since then I've felt pretty good, although I'm the size of a small planet already and losing stamina fast. I'm only 22 weeks. Yikes.

Let's see...

Farm News:

Not a whole lot is going on now, being colder than hell outside does that. We have about 8 inches of blanketed snow on the ground, icicles in abundance and temps dipping down into the negatives (or near negatives) at night routinely. It's supposed to get warmer this week, only to dip down into the single digits again at night. So, that means ICE. And a lot of it. I'd rather have snow. At least it stays warmer. I haven't been able to get a whole lot done this year because of babies and prengnacy, so things are a little helter skelter out there. We did manage to get a few garden things done, but it was not very productive. I  planted some tomato plants, squash, herbs, etc. but most of them died in the heat because our secondary water was very hard to access (and was very limited) this year. Sprinkler system died. All 0.84 acres of our property had to be hand watered with a sprinkler or hose and had time limits. It was miserable. Next year, we're trying something different and starting earlier!

Cow News:

We sold the cow. I still miss her, but it was for the best. Selling her was a chore, but she finally went to a family who planned to use her as a dairy cow and picked her up quickly. She's probably very pregnant right now and hopefully living high on alfalfa.

Out of everyone in the house, we have at least 3 kids who are a little dairy intolerant. They drink milk, but get upset tummies from it or constipated if they drink/eat too much of it. So far we've had success with sheep's milk and goat milk, but cow milk and products (specifically cheese and butter) not so much.

Chicken News:

Over the summer we lost 1 chicken. Not quite sure how, as we found her literally belly up without a mark on her. The theory is she was scared to death. She was otherwise a big, healthy Brahma chicken who was one of my better layers. Bummer. I had a close encounter with a skunk in the coop. One night I went out to close them up and there was a skunk hovering over the uncollected eggs. Scared the hell outta me. And the skunk! Since then we've been much, much better about collecting eggs and closing everyone in early. We had a skunk kill one of our birds the summer before, but didn't think we still had so many around. Guess we were wrong.

We were down to 9 chickens this year, including the rooster and I had plans to buy more chicks in the spring to bring our numbers back up to around 15 or so. However, our neighbor across the street came over the other day asking if we'd like to take her chickens. Her and her husband were moving to Rock Springs, WY and SLC, UT, respectively (I think they're divorcing, but I didn't ask) and they needed them gone in a hurry. I came over to look at them and decided to take them. They were so happy we took them that they even paid for a bag of feed and gave us some nest boxes. Score! They're younger birds, probably around a year or so, 6 hens and 3 roosters. One of the hens is terribly skinny, but bright eyed and otherwise healthy. She seems to be eating well and everything, so I think she was just not getting enough food. The flock of birds included: 2 RIR hens, 2 beautiful big Buff Orpington hens, 1 skinny partridge colored hen and 1 black/white speckled hen (a common breed, but I can't remember it right now). Of the roosters, we have a huge Buff Orpington boy I named Henry; a black and white speckled roo (handsome boy!), completely chill rooster I've named Wickham; and a cute, tiny little bantam Amerucana I've named Napoleon. Two of the roosters have frostbitten combs, which is pretty common in the area when we get a cold snap fast. The neighbors didn't put the heat lamp in the coop in time to prevent it, so we're treating one rooster for it. It got very, very cold here really fast so it took everyone by surprise. I'm hoping his comb will survive the winter, but we'll see. The frostbite wasn't terribly bad, so there's a chance it'll be ok. So, now we're up to 14 hens and 4 roosters. The Buff hens tend to be broody, so maybe we'll get some chicks in the spring!

Sheep News:

We still have the sheep. I was planning on sending them to freezer camp, but decided to keep them around solely as grass eaters, at least until we can get the fences fixed. The plan right now is to get milk goats, but we can't do that until our fencing situation is fixed. The cow did a serious number on our already flimsy fences. The sheep are very, very easy to keep penned (they don't challenge fences AT ALL), so it's not a problem. They eat the grass and I don't have to mow it. They don't eat a ton of food or require much in the way of maintenance. Hard to justify butchering them when they are providing me a service. :)

Other News:

Also there's a slight problem of a big, gigantic freeway that the state is planning to build way too close for comfort. So, depending on what is decided on that, we may be moving sooner than we had planned.  Though it won't be going through our house, like they had initially planned, it will be going in 5 houses down and we may possibly have an on/off ramp literally right next to our house. The traffic on this little country road is already too heavy/fast for comfort, and adding another big road onto it will only increase the traffic. If that happens, we're definitely gone. The environmental studies are being held up right now by the Dept of Interior because of  environmentalist concerns over migratory birds (THANK YOU ENVIRONMENTALISTS!), so it may delay the road going in indefinitely. Though, there was a similar thing that happened on the Legacy Highway here and it just delayed the road by about 10 years. Bummer. I do like my little home and land. Having something like this happen puts a serious damper on any long term plans I may have for this place. I guess only time will tell.

Ok, that's all the highlights! Merry Christmas!

-Nat