Around the farm

Today we managed to get the electric wiring done in Pasture 2 so we could move the pigs into that pasture. It took us all day, first moving the shed, then finishing the barbed wire fencing in one area and then putting in the electric. But it's done! I am so glad DH built the pig shed on skids so we could move it from area to area. The Farmall got put to work today!

All we haven't done yet is put a pig water nipple on the waterer on that side, so we left the small gate between the two pastures open and will add the water nipple tomorrow.


This is the double sided waterer we were lucky enough to inherit with the house and land. If you look closely, you can see my wonderful DH has added a pig water nipple on the front and connected it to the waterworks. SO wonderful not to have to carry buckets of water around! The pigs love it too. We installed the green gate on the left last weekend, that is our human gate between the two pastures, we don't have the livestock gate in yet, so the animals use this too. Butterbelle was a bit hesitant, but has since adapted to it quite nicely. DH is going to add another water nipple on the other side of this waterer so the pigs will have water available in both pastures.

Exploring the wonderful green grass. I am pretty excited that our rotational grazing plan is coming along nicely. We still need to divide the third area in two and then we'll have four pastures total, with a possible fifth in our vegetable area.

Our little Daredevil. He has caused a bit of havoc on the farm in the last week! He was climbing on the haybales and knocked one onto the chicks container after I moved them into the garage. They haybale broke the container so I had to figure something else out for them. What we have now is actually better, I'll share a photo of that later. He also rode into one of our newly planted fruit trees today, luckily no damage, but he was grounded from the ATV for the rest of the afternoon.

The tree in question, as you can see it's just fine. Look at those buds! Other things are doing great on the farm as well....

The garlic.

The spinach, broccoli and cauliflower bed. They are doing wonderfully well. We had some really strong winds here the last few days, and a lot of the greenery you see is those "helicopter" seeds blown down from one of our trees.

The gooseberry bush we got from Henry Fields. I cut it down to half its height after we planted it. We've never had gooseberries before.. so we really hope they're good!

Grapes coming along nicely.

DH gave lessons to our oldest DD and oldest DS on how to drive the tractor. They both did great!




The chickens haven't quite been pulling their weight. We have 13 laying hens and only get about 8 eggs a day. They've definitely slowed in production, so we're looking at adding oyster shell to their feed again.

Today was a very busy, but productive and satisfying day!

December 2010

Just a few photos from December. Not much going on farm-wise, but we're keeping very busy!















Finally enough snow to play in!




















After riding slowly over the horseshoe field we compacted the snow enough that the tractor could ride on a path without bogging down. Great sledding fun!













































And our DS turned 12 years old. What a wonderful age!
















Our Jesse tree. A new Christmas tradition.

Moving the pig shed

The piggies are moving to the big pasture!

We hooked the shed up to the Farmall with chains. Dan built it on skids so we could move it easily.















And in its new home next to Butterbelle's shed.
















We made a makeshift livestock trailer. Getting the pigs in was tricky, but we managed! Five kids went along for the ride :)












Re-homed and happy. Butterbelle is very curious about her new neighbors!

The Tractor is Running!!!

Dan got the tractor to run after changing the battery and the fuel strainer (filter). Go Dan!!! Of course everybody had to get a ride to celebrate :)

Work on the milk shed

When we got home from church today we found a trailer with an auger sitting in our yard. Our friend who is loaning us his tractor dropped it off after we left for church. After church he came out to help drill the holes for the milk shed. We are so very thankful we don't have to dig those holes by hand!

No pictures sadly... I think there is a video somewhere, but I'll need to upload it.

She's home!

Welcome home Little Red :)

A busy week!

We've had a busy last couple of days. We got the part for the tractor that needed welded, so Dan could get out there and bush hog. Of course everybody had to have a turn sitting on dad's lap :)







Our pasture looks so much nicer now and we can actually find Butterbelle when we go look for her.

We also got the electric fence fixed, so now the piggies can't root near the fence anymore. They're not very happy with us though and spent yesterday sulking and stayed in their shed all day. They're a little happier today. They have tamed up enough that when we feed them they will allow us to scratch them if we move slowly.

The one has been named "Little Miss Personality" or "Little Miss" for short. She sure HAS a whole bunch of personality and is always running around acting goofy. The other piglet is more reserved. We'll probably eat her. LOL. As Dan says: "No slackers allowed." I guess she's slacking in the personality department. Kidding aside though, we're keeping one pig for breeding and one for butchering, so we'll keep the friendlier pig which at this point is Little Miss. Next month we will be picking up our Mulefoot Boar and we'll breed an Ossabaw / Mulefoot cross for butchering.

Also, in other news, Dan finally bought a tractor! It is a 1941 Farmall H. He bought it at an online auction and will go pick it up on Saturday. It will need a new battery and some TLC, but it's only ever had one owner and has been stored in the barn. We're quite excited.


Our new (to us) tractor


Plus a very dusty Bradley sickle mower

Glad to finally have a tractor, it sure has been prayed for!

Tractor and bush hogging.

One of our friends from church noticed that we had been cutting the grass in the horseshoe section and offered his tractor and bush hog to cut the rest of our overgrown pastures. On Monday night we were invited out to other friends for dinner, and when we got home, this was waiting for us by the pasture:



So Dan called up our friend the next day (we got home very late the day before) and said: "Man! I was praying real hard for a tractor last night, and when I woke up I found this tractor sitting out there waiting for me!" Hehe.

Kidding aside, Dan has been researching and watching tractors on craigslist and local auctions.

This is what our pastures look like, they're all overgrown. The bit that is cut was cut with our trusty John Deere garden tractor, but we'll tear it up trying to cut the rest of the pasture with it.





We had to hold off on actually getting the bush hogging done, because some part needed to be welded first, so we'll get to it soon.

Making hay, yard work and more!

Dan has been keeping the "horseshoe" part of our circular driveway growing so we could try our hand at making hay. It was nice quality grass, with very few weeds. Since we don't have a scythe yet, he cut it with the JD garden tractor and then we let it dry for a bit and then raked it into windrows. We don't have hay rakes, so used regular leaf rakes. The three eldest helped.






Had to add a picture of myself too under grave duress. I hate pictures of myself.

Lots of hard work! Now to leave it to dry so we can bale it.

Today we also played a lot of catch up with mowing and general garden work. The girls and I weeded, mulched and mowed the soft fruit area so now it looks much nicer.


General view of the area


Blackberries


Raspberries


Grapes


Strawberries

Everything growing here looks really good. We haven't had any fruit from any of these plants yet, with the exception of the strawberries. The raspberries are supposed to produce in the fall, but I don't think that will be happening. The grapes had some small little grape clusters but the chickens pecked them all off, so now they are fenced. They're all really healthy though, so hopefully next year we'll have a really good crop.

Oh, while I'm at it, our beans are growing like crazy! Looking forward to picking beans. We planted Blue Lake Bush and Contender.



While we were busy with the soft fruit area, the boys were using the JD garden tractor to move logs, branches and other yard waste to our burn pile area. I don't know what we'd do without that tractor!

New photos

Just a bunch of new photos today, put here especially for Mike Jr. :)

Map of our planned outlay for our 5 acres.

Pic of the kids playing "Stargate." You can see how GREEN everything is in these pics!

One of our two grapevines. We planted Concord and Reliance.

Dan tilling with our "new to us" garden tractor. These little tractor is FABULOUS! Love it.

The cute little chicks have grown! We have also added 4 barred rocks to our collection.

The temporary chicken coop. Can't seem to keep the kids out of it! LOL.

They all love the chickens :)

No really... they LOVE spending time with the chickens!

We've seen lots and lots of snakes here. None of them venomous though. As long as they keep the mouse/rat population down, I'm happy to have them!

Hail we got back in the beginning of April. This was one of the largest hailstones.