Tag: goats

Posted on by Josh

Fezzik the buck is visiting for a few weeks, so we’ll probably have another crop of kids in the spring.

We have tons of orach sprouting in the garden from the stalks that went to seed. We’ll see if it lasts through winter. The Chinese broccoli is still going, and doing better, in fact, with the aphids diminishing as the weather gets cooler.

We haven’t had any mushrooms so far this fall, but we still have plenty preserved from last year.

We decided that try harvesting black walnuts from the tree across the road. They are notorious for their hard shells. First we gathered them and removed the meaty outer fruit, which can be used to make ink or dye. Now we’re letting them dry for a few weeks. Then we’ll try cracking them and extracting the nut meat.

We’re down to five chickens at the moment. We’re still getting some eggs.

Heather is doing the pumpkin drop-off site again by road, and the pumpkins are pouring in.

The garlic Heather planted a few weeks ago is barely sprouting. We’ll see what happens.

Posted on by Josh

Lots to catch up on…

The peas just kept on peaing through the summer. We got the last of them, for the most part, a week or so ago, but we’re still getting a few more here and there.

The green beans finally started producing and we got plenty for a few weeks, but they’re about done now.

We harvested the last corn on the cob last week. It was probably about a week past it’s prime.

I planted Chinese broccoli in early August, I think. It bolted quickly, but I cut and used the stalks. It also got aphids real bad on the buds and flowers, so I tossed those parts. We planted kale right next to the Chinese broccoli a few weeks ago, and a few aphids were showing up there, too. But we’ve been able to start picking some kale (and chard) last week.

The potato and chickpea harvests have been good. The tomatoes were late this year, but they’ve been doing well. We bottled about 36 points of pizza sauce. We’ll make salsa with our next batch. Which reminds me: the peppers have been solid producers this year: banana, jalapeño, and poblano.

Our plum tree about killed itself this year. Literally, several branches broke from the weight of the fruit. We made some great plum BBQ sauce and sweet & sour sauce. We harvested a bunch of purple plums from Wayne’s tree a few weeks ago and dehydrated them.

Heather started planting garlic today.

We harvested two of the young goats with much-appreciated help from our son-in-law. It’s a hard thing to do. He got one and we kept the other. We put 20 pounds of meat in our freezer. Heather was able to sell the other two young goats this week. They went to a lovely piece of land a few miles west of here to work in brush management.

Posted on by Josh

We banded the boy goats today. Makes me sad, but it’s part of the process on the farm. I suppose it was probably easier than disbudding them, which I wasn’t involved in.

Posted on by Josh

I planted Oregon sugar peas and the first 12 sweet corn seeds in row 1 of the garden.  The dirt on that row seems really compacted, so we’ll see how it goes.

We planted potatoes in part of row 2 a few weeks ago. They’re up and looking good.

We’ve had a good amount of volunteer lettuce and orach growing that we’ve been harvesting and enjoying at the dinner table.

We transplanted tomatoes and peppers last weekend.

We watched a deer decimate the fresh leaves on our grapevines yesterday. I’m glad the netting around the garden is working to keep them out.

The baby goats are all growing quickly. They’ve all been disbudded. In a few weeks, they’ll get banded and turned into wethers.

I think I’ve already ruined the new chainsaw engine. Not sure what’s going on.

Posted on by Josh

Update: Juniper’s kids are boys, not girls. We have four baby boy goats.

Juniper’s baby goats (both girls) were born Sunday evening. We were at a church meeting, and when we got home, they had just been born. Like Hazel’s kids, they have spent most of the first couple days sleeping. They have also seemed like they were shivering, but it seems to be subsiding today. They haven’t had problems nursing, though. And they went out into the back pasture with their mom today.

Hazel’s kids are bonkers now, running and jumping all over the place. After about a week of us helping them with nursing, they gradually figured it out and don’t need our help anymore.

My chainsaw stopped running, and I had to replace the engine. From what I’ve learned, the scoring on the exhaust side of the piston meant that I wasn’t giving it a chance to warm up, so the exhaust side was getting hot quicker than the intake side.

Posted on by Josh

Hazel gave birth to two baby boy goats yesterday morning. No human intervention was needed. I heard goat sounds out my office window, but higher pitched, and went out to find two kids.

They’ve had a hard time getting the hang of nursing. We think it’s because Hazel’s teats are very big. We have had to help them latch on, and then they can suck and get milk. I hope they’re getting enough. They slept a lot yesterday. They looked a little better today, but I don’t think we’re in the clear yet.