I had some time off following Anna’s arrival, and we’ve been taking things a bit slower as she becomes more acclimated to us. It’s amazing what you take notice of when you’re not quite so rushed. Here’s a few things that have come clear here on the homestead as of late: If A Chicken Can Fit, So Can A Goat It’s Autumn, which means that the doe goats are coming into heat and our resident buck Johnny is in rut….
Summer always seems to go quickly around here. No matter what happens, the garden seems to get away from us. We were actually on top of getting things in on time this year, but then our chickens decided they wanted to be free range chickens and started flying out of their pen. Okay, fine, you do you, chickens. Except we realized too late that they were tearing up our garden. Now it looks like it’s another year of just pumpkins…
You’re all very lucky! With Rachel and I both temporarily out of work due to COVID-19, you’re likely to get a lot more posts than we’ve been providing these last six months or so. At the moment we’re in need of more hens. With the grocery stores cleared out of essentials, I told Rachel that we’ll never again be caught with fewer than 8 laying hens and 2 goats in milk at all times. She readily agreed. So, a few…
This is the time last year we were buying both milk and eggs from the store. This year, Pepper hasn’t dried off yet and has been consistently providing us with a half gallon of milk a day. So we’ve largely avoided having to buy milk this year, and with Peony due to kid any day now having just delivered this evening (!) we will probably not have to buy milk for the foreseeable future. Eggs have been a different story….
Our animals did a good job of disillusioning us of the thought that we were falling into a good rhythm around here. We’d past the point of getting the hang of it, now we were starting to think we might even be (dare I say it) experienced! Yeah, maybe not. Animals can be humbling like that. Pepper is on a milk stand strike. What is a milk stand strike? Why, it’s where a goat refuses to get up on the…