UPDATE FOR MAY 27, 2020 PROGRESS

We have made some progress on projects lately. got a new package of bees and got them into the hive. We checked on them yesterday and did not see the queen but we did see new larvae. I also went a round to the neighbors and assisted him in capturing a swarm of bees that landed in a tree on his property. we used another neighbors 32 foot extension ladder and with a lot of luck and the bravery of the neighbor got most of the bees. yeasterday he again went up into the tree to retrieve the rest of the bees. I have to admit that if it were up to me to go up that ladder, the bees would still be in the tree.

We, with the help of our eldest son made more progress on the new greenhouse. see new pictures at the bottom of the associated post.

Also we have been using electric fence to allow the cattle to graze more of our property, saves feed, and I don't have to weed eat.

Janice has been getting our garden going, working like a mad woman, and doing a great job.

Last but not least we had the metal building people come back and install a roll up door in the bottom end of the cows barn, I will try to get new pictures of that up soon. Eden the cow is making great headway getting used to Janice handling her, the little guy not so much, you can stand close just don't try to touch him.

SWITCHING TO CATTLE

Well we are in the process of switching from Nubian Goats to Dexter Cattle. we currently have one three year old cow and her three month old calf. She was not worked with, so even though she is a nice cow she is not used to being handled. I think she will come around , but I think this is going to take some time.  We are also planning on obtaining another cow and a Bull, ones that have been handled. Her registered name is Singing Springs Eden.
Dexter's are a small Irish breed of cattle, that are known for very good dispositions and easy to keep on just grass. Most Dexter's are at most about 48 inches at the top of the shoulder.

 A little hard to see in this pic as it is so far away, but this is Eden, most likely spelled her name wrong, anyway she is a three year old and with her we have a three month old calf, who will be a butcher calf in roughly a year.

 This picture is closer but the calf is hard to see as he is on the other side of his mom. He is without a name, but he is a Dunn color as his dad was a red bull. Dexter's only come in Black, Red, and Dunn.

 Peekaboo, I see you!

 Dexter's are a good duel purpose breed, as they can provide milk and are very good beef animals. The next cow and bull we get we are wanting Red colors.

 Janice is impatient to be able to start handling Eden, she only arrived about an hour prior to this try to make friends. We will only be keeping registered Dexter's.

Eden and the calf were great, the person we purchased from delivered them here, just backed the trailer into our entrance gate, one person blocked the driveway and the open pasture gate was right there and they just wondered in, very calm with no fuss.

FRUIT HARVEST 2019

Our Heavenly Father truly blessed us this year with a bountiful fruit harvest.

 Today Janice and I took three and a half hours to harvest our apples and Bosc pears.

 The variety of apples we picked are Spartan (a cultivar of Mackintosh) these were the two boxes at the front of the bed and the two buckets, these were the most numerous. Then there were the Liberty apples which are the two boxes stacked next the Bosc Pears (the dark green fruit in the left rear of the Gator. 

 Then came the Honey Crisp, love these, they are the box just left of the two buckets.

 The next variety was Freedom Apples, in the box on the passenger seat. the Liberty and Freedom Apples were both developed is a study in New York State. The freedom trees are still very small in fact this is the first year some trees started producing. we have a total of six Freedom Apple trees, one stating to produce pretty good several only had four or five apples this year, a couple had none yet.

 The next variety is the mystery apple. When we purchased the tree it was supposed to be a Yellow Delicious, when it produced it's first fruit it was green and stayed that way into November, so we assumed then it could be a Granny Smith. Well then the apples started to get a slight blush, and were decidedly sweeter, so now they are the mystery apple.

This is not to mention the Bartlett Pears and the Asian Pears that were ripe a month ago. I absolutely love the Asian pears, really sweet and supper juicy along with pretty crispy. We have three Asian Pear trees but this year we only harvested one tree, and one tree the Racoon's got to before we could, the other is not producing yet. I did not mention the two Fuji Apple trees, they actually produced very small apples but we need to move them to better locations as they are in well tiles alone the driveway and don't do well there. I also did not mention that many of these trees I grafted myself while teaching grafting for the local Master Gardeners.

CLEAN UP AND FIREWOOD

Well it is time to get the place cleaned up a bit. The hillside behind the house was getting pretty over grown, so we hire Matt Bailey, Budget Tree Service, to remove several large trees that were pretty dangerous and could have hit the house, with the neighbors permission. It took them several days to down the trees and chip the brush and it sure opened up the hillside, but there are still some to take down. We did not take any of the evergreens as per the neighbors directions. 

Well at this point I have most of the wood at least cut up, just a few logs left down here to cut and a couple up the hill to the south end of the property left to gather and cut.

 We have quite a bit of the wood split up also, between Janice her father, Emil, and I we have built a pretty good pile. Just for reference, that square garden frame leaning against the dirt pile in the back is four foot by four foot.

 some of the stuff cut but still needing to be split.

Every year we get very familiar with the splitter, and I think I am developing calluses on my bottom from sitting on that log. 

During the splitting process we generate quite a bit of kindling, hey it burns right?

All that is left of the large pile of wood, at least out of the woodshed, is some scrap bark.

The area all c,eared out.

the next two pics are the wood we put into the woodshed minus what we have already burned.

 Not a bad amount of wood for the winter, roughly three cords.

I had a picture of the kindling that we got from all of the chips, but at present have lost track of it.

GETTING READY FOR MORE CHANGES

We are getting ready for more changes, as we ordered two steel structures, one 12x20 car port, that will go down by the old calf shed. this will be the new barn for the Billy Goat and his weather friend (actually his first son born here).

 In this picture you are looking down from just below the gate to the pasture. The carport structure will run length wise to the red line in the photo. the other side will be along the front of the shed, although the roof of the car port will be straddling the front of the roof of the shed. The ends will be open when first installed, although we plan on adding 2x12x12' pressure treated boards to the closest end to make a short, three foot, retaining wall.

 this picture is pretty dark so you have to use your imagination as to the structure going across the front of the shed. It will run from about one foot to the left side of the shed in the picture over the front of the shed for twenty feet.

 Finally got to play with my transit I had purchased some years ago. Kind of a learning curve but not to terribly bad. Don't pay attention to the mangled gate up above, some oak trees fell on it a couple years ago, it is going to be replaced.

We have started putting down some deck blocks for the building frame to sit on, at this point we have four of the pier blocks set for the building to sit on, on this side.

 This is looking at the other side away from the shed, at this time we only have the two corners set on this side.

 This is just another view from lower in the pasture.

Janice is a great help and worked very hard on this project right alone with me, Maybe harder.

Well we finally have the basic structure installed that will be the living abode for the boy goats. we just added a simple carport over the front of what used to be the calf shed.

this is a view from what will the back of their barn. we are going to build a four foot retaining wall immediately at the rear of the structure and then add greenhouse plastic for this wall so they get good light and are protected from storms. to the right in the picture we plan on building a feeder into the wall of the carport with a roofed hay storage area immediately behind that. I was able to get the construction people to leave some extra metal they had which I will use to fill some areas such as the gable ends and the upper side above the calf shed.

The side that only has upper tan metal we are going to leave open as this is the side facing away from most storms. the end facing down hill will be left open so we can get in this the tractor to clean the area out.
this post is far from complete, but I am going to post now and make additions as we progress.

We are making progress, we have about half of this side done. to finish this side we need to finish installing the 2x12s along the bottom, and some metal and greenhouse plastic on the far two sections, between the uprights.

I have some retaining wall done on this end, now I need to fill the peak with sheet metal and install greenhouse plastic between the retaining wall and the sheet metal in the peak. in this picture you can also see the oak stump I have cut on in order to build a small hay storage and feeder along the side where the ladder is leaning now.

Here you can see the sheet metal I have installed above the old calf shed in order to incorporate it into the barn for the boys goats. Actually only one piece is installed as the second is currently only clamped into place.

 Well I made a little more progress. This end is almost complete, just need to finish the metal up in the peak. filling the little side piece was kind of a pain, but at least it is done.

in this picture you can see I have gotten metal up on the last four foot section on the left, along with some flake board inside to protect the   metal from the boy goats.

The open eight foot section is where we will build a feed shed and feeder.

I still need to bury this culvert and get the French drain installed at the end of the barn and feed shed.

 I really like this side of the barn now that the 2x12s, sheet metal and greenhouse plastic are up.

I started filling the back behind the barn, although I still need to install the French drain across this end in a gravel bed as I finish filling.

WELL IT IS THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN, BABIES

Our first doe to kid this year was a humdinger. Meg birthed quadruplets, yes four healthy active little ones. It was a tough delivery for her and we had to have the vet come out to assist. Meg was very weak, but had produced enough colostrum so the babies all got a good tummy full the first day. Janice and I have had to bottle feed, especially since Meg was so weakened from the births and she was not really producing milk. 

There are three bucklings and one doeling. Meg has been recovering well and has started to produce milk, just not up to full steam yet.

We were also lucky we still had a bucket of milk replacer on hand and were saved the trouble of scrambling around trying to get some.

 In this first picture you can see two of the boys with good sized white patches on their heads, the other is the little girl, who only has a very small white spot on her head. I think they all have white ears.

In this second picture all of the babies are shown, the little one facing to the back, was the last born and was the weakest, but is doing well now, although he has a little bit of an over bite. we had one last year with an over bite also and he grew out of it and ended being the largest of the babies last year. The little guy in the front of the pic, we decided to name Romper, as he jumps and plays more than the others right now.

This is a little closer view of him, he has already gained the name Misfit.

This is a close picture of the little girl, she is eating well and going great.

Personally I think this little guy is going to be the biggest this year, as he is an absolute pig. he is a very avid eater, and also very active.

 These next two pictures are of the babies daddy, he is registered Nubian, Grizzly. The other goat in the back ground is Grizzly's first baby, Star, we kept him as a buddy for Grizzly, since we keep the does and buck separated as we want good tasting milk.

The little guy below is named Dribbles, because he dribbles when he eats.

 This goat is Ginger the doe that is due to kid at any time.

 

 The picture below is Meg the doe that just had the triplets and in the back Ginger again.

 This picture below is Misfit on the right, and Romper on the left or bottom.

 In the below picture from left to right are Dribbles, Girl, and Romper, you can just see a little of Misfits back.

At this age, about four days old they are very difficult to photograph, as they are very active.