GRANDMA'S VISIT

Grandma came to visit us for the day.

We played video games and had lunch with her.

Then she takes us for ice cream!

Thanks Gram Cracker!

Us with Gram Cracker

A PATRIOTIC CELEBRATION!

We went to our towns Patriotic Celebration. 

They had food, water dunk tank, bounce house, trolley rides, barrel tractor rides, music and lots of fireworks. Thought I would get you in the mood for our 4th of July celebration early.

Here is a little movie!

Rabbit Hutch and Random Animal Photos

RABBIT HUTCH DONE!

This is the current set up Aspen has been in for the past 2-3 years.

Its a good size cage for her, but not as safe for her to be in outside as we would like her to be.

Let's be real, rabbits smell.

Got it done. Yes at night. 

Almost everything gets done late at night.

Aspen

Got the rabbit (Aspen) moved out of the garage and in her hutch.

She isn't too sure about the new set up yet.

Give her time and she will adjust.

And bribery always works.

POND LIFE!

We have set up jug lines in the pond to catch the snapping turtles.

It has worked we caught and shot several. We know there are more and always will be with a pond. 

Our dog Cuddles likes to go out in the boat with us. She is becoming a good farm dog.

We were wondering if we had fish in our pond. With the jug lines in this is one of what we caught.
(Won't show any turtles)

We have catfish and bluegill so far. I think a fishing day is coming soon. We also have a ton of frogs.

Cuddles

DUCK HOUSE

We have started to build the duck house. Just not enough hours in the day to get this project done.

Girls are painting it today before the roof goes on. Not sure of the feeder I am gonna use for them yet.

Any suggestions?

UPDATE ON (SURVIVOR) THE INJURED DUCK

I think the duck might be a female. She is doing good. She wasn't too thrilled about being inside anymore. She was ready to go. Her wounds are healing nicely. I don't know if she will be able to swim yet.

Picture above we added her to the 4 new babies we got. She really likes the company and I don't blame her. The family was also ready for her and her smell to go. Another one of our animals that smell real bad too.

Yep these are the 1st set of baby ducks. Not babies anymore and sure are bigger than Survivor. I don't think she is ready to be added to the mix yet. So we put her in the cage with the babies and they are put in the garage at night for now. Letting her heal a little more and let the babies get a little bigger. Once we get the duck house done we might add all of them together.

BIG CAT 

About a month after we moved in we found out we have a cat living in our barn. Don't see it much, don't water her, doesn't require any attention from us, no litter box to clean. We do feed her a little everyday. She mostly hangs out with our bigger chickens and the meatie. She really liked hanging out with the 1st set of meaties. She missed them when we butchered them and then we started seeing her more and more in the hen house with the chickens. She doesn't bother them and they don't mind her either. I think she might be pregnant. Oh boy!

CHICKENS

The bull is curious with the gunieas.

A good project for the girls. We moved the older baby chicks out of the shed and put them in the hen house with our older girls. We are gonna convert this tank for the new baby chicks. I have 15 of them and the tote is getting a little small for them.

So we put the tank inside the shed and moved the Banty chicks out there too. Its big enough for both.

This chick is crazy looking.

ONE LEGGED MEATIE UPDATE

He is doing good!

He is getting all around in the dog run we have him in. He is growing slower than the other meaties. We lower the protein %, so he will not get big so quick and a bummed leg. He also enjoys the other chickens hanging out with him.

Usually the turkey is over by the meatie.

Our rooster Mybuddy.

Almost all of them. Missing about 5-6 of them.

Added more nesting boxes.

Now that is a lot of hens. Sure wish all was laying.

They are getting closer. The 2 that were laying, got taken by the fox. 

So that was a quick update around the homestead.

Hope you enjoyed it.

No More Dock

When we moved into our homestead the pond was a highlighted feature. Except for the fallen dock. It is time to go. So while the girls were gone at camp we worked on this project.

 Tim wasted no time to getting this dock underway.

 This section only had 1 post. 

The other one was so rotted.

 We talked about fixing it but, everything had to be replaced.

There was no center board in the middle of the planks for support.

Everything was rotted and weak. Tim got the close stuff but had me go out in the boat to strap the farther one he couldn't reach. I had the option of going in the boat or running the mini excavator.
I chose to go in the boat with the heavy chain to wrap around the post.

 So after the hard effort of doing 3 of the post, I told hubby he gets the last one. It was so hard holding on to a heavy chain and trying to paddle towards the post. I broke a HUGE sweat doing this and was so filthy from the chain.

Yep, that is me bringing in the last post.

No more broken down dock.

Our plans is to put a new one in. 

We will add that to our every growing list of things to do.

Alpaca Sheering

Field Trip For 4-H Knitting Class

By: Kaitlin

My mother, my sister and me, went to see Alpacas's get sheared!

We went around the end of April. I am in 4-H so this year I took

Knitting, my knitting teacher invited the class to come and learn

about where the yarn comes from.........  

 In this picture the Alpaca shearers are setting up, 

the Alpaca's in the back are females they keep the

male and female Alpaca's separate so they don't 

constantly breed.

 In this picture the shearer's are taking off the 'bedding'

the top coat they shear it's the yarn material.

The bottom coat is rug making material it's rougher.

Notice the ropes on the Alpaca's front and back legs?

It's so the shearer's don't get kicked! The male Alpaca's

get their teeth ground down, because they grow to long,

when their sheared that's another reason to strap them down.

Anyways, once you take the fiber that was sheared off you spin it

meaning you use a spinning wheel or drop spindle to make it into

yarn, then it's ready to use!

Hope you learned something,

INJURED DUCK - INJURED KAITLIN!

There is something always going on and things change daily. One day some thing is fine or we get it fixed, a problem solved, some new cage being built, moving animals around. So we finally get things fixed/handled and calmed down from dealing with the raccoon and we get another animal injured.

This time our baby duck was attacked and survived by a snapping turtle. This happened yesterday and I am still caring for it. It took part of its foot off and its leg is swollen. Thats not the worst of it. Her or His (not sure of the sex yet) chest is sliced open. I can see everything inside of it even the bones. I will not show the wound as it is too graphic. Not something I usually can handle but this little duck needs us. So I got her cleaned up and bandaged up last night. Not sure if the duck will live through the night there wasn't much else I could do as the stores I needed all closed. The duck is still alive this morning and was up moving as much as it could. It was eating and pooping.  Heading to the store for meds for this little survivor. I was told blu kote and some anabiotics will help. I will rebathe it later and put new bandages on it.

Kaitlin helped me care for it last night.

This is the little one this morning. From what I have read they can survive a lot.

KAITLIN INJURED!
So this evening we, Mom, Skylar and I, were locking up the guinea. The guinea was being stubborn and started climbing up the wall to our laying hens coop, I was corralling it when it started climbing, then it flew in my face and clawed/winged me. It really hurt, but we still managed to corral the guinea.

Kaitlin last night