Our very own chicks started hatching out yesterday!!!!  We were all so excited to wake up in the morning to find a few cracks and hear some peeping!  It was one after another, then another!  Seven total yesterday and looking forward to about the same number today!  Everyone is healthy and happy.  Even though we broke a cardinal rule of "don't help the chick out of its shell"!  We helped two and will not do that again!  Thankfully and surprisingly, they both survived and seem to be thriving. See for yourself.  The best advice is to have patience!  

By the way....Congrats to the daddy...Mr. Champ!!!!    

The goat who cried NOT pregnant!  Or is she?  Here I am again blogging about Honey's maternal status!  I first would like to clarify that I do have an IQ in the triple digits.  I have had two children of my own and been around hundreds of pregnant horses.  I felt I was, at the very least, somewhat qualified to notice if a goat were to be pregnant.  I was wrong!  To recap:  Honey was bred on November 9th.  I was there... I saw it happen!  Within 18 days she was in a full blown heat.  Like clockwork she came in heat almost every 18 days following.  I "assumed" she was not pregnant.  As winter progressed, Honey's winter coat came in and only started to notice in the past 4 weeks how bulbous she was looking.  It must be the feed, or her coat, right?  Not one thought of pergnancy.  Making many excuses for her global figure (I have years of experience doing that for myself!!).  Ironically, 2 weeks ago, we had just returned, in the evening, from getting 2 of our other does bred up at Rusty Repp's, while David and I stood in the paddock with all the goaties, David commented on how round Honey was looking.  We just paused in silence for a moment staring  at Honey, slowly looked back at each other with eyebrows up!  No... she can't be.  It was getting dark fast, so had to wait until the next day to get a solid look at everything.  First thing, put her on the milkstand and gave her a full exam!  She definitely felt round and tight, but just couldn't tell about the udder with all the hair.  She is not freakishly big, so it's not ultra obvious.  With the hair, it was really hard to tell definitively.  We actually spent last week, convinced she wasn't pregnant.  Back to the hair excuse!  It has been quite warm the past few days and the goats seemed to be a little stressed with their winter coats.  We decided to rough clip a couple to give them some relief.  We did Bear, and Nilly first.  Pulled Honey out, and with each swipe of the blade across her side, we became more certain, this may be a baby. The ultimate test...what was happening with her udder.  You be the judge!    We are still not 100% convinced, but are erring on the side of caution, getting all our supplies and fixing her a nice place to have her baby.  Here due date would be April 3rd...two weeks!  Check out our blog posts regarding Honey's pregnancy  11/15/2010 and 1/19/2011 

Amoung all the busy days filled with the work that spring seems to suddenly heap upon us, I believe it's vital to not forget the beauty and miracles spring brings year after year.  The camellia's are blooming, daffodils in full swing with their sunny faces sprinkled around the property, and radishes, lettuces, spinach, beets and peas are all pushing their way through the soil.  We love and appreciate having the opportunity to be stewards of this land and our animals. 

The great thing about gardening is that you can easily put on the hat of scientist and the garden is your laboratory.  Potatoes are one of those food items if we don't buy organic, we don't buy it.  Commercial potato growers spray massive amounts of chemicals to kill the foliage before harvesting the potato from the ground.  Potatoes have a soft, porous skin...you do the math.  So to say the least, we were very excited about growing our own.  Our feed store got in a few sacks of "seed potatoes", and I picked up some red and gold for planting.  You can't use the ones from the grocery store, because they are treated with an agent that prevents buds from sprouting. (Another reason to buy organic!) It was suggested to me by a friend not to cut them and plant them directly into the soil, rather cut them and let them air dry (out of direct sunlight) until they harden up a little on the cut sides.  It is supposed to reduce possible rotting when planted.  I quartered them, placed them on trays and let them sit for about a week on my kitchen table.  The above picture is what they looked like prior to going into the ground.   

Another nifty idea is to plant them in stacked tires or a garbage can.  As you can see, I opted for the garbage can which I "sacrificed" by cutting it in half and removing the bottom.  I've heard, it makes harvesting very easy, just tipping over the containers and pulling out the taters!  I planted 2 levels of potatoes.  If this method is successful, we will be able to easily double or triple our plantings with more barrels, since they free up so much garden space planted this way. 

Fingers crossed, hopefully we will be harvesting our own organic potatoes!! 

Stay tuned!!  :)

Our sweet goats seem to always have a smile on their face. (Why wouldn't they!)  Especially our sweet Saanen wether, Bear.  He truly is a gentle giant living amoung the little Nigerian girls.  The one thing he can't understand is why he can't sit in laps like the girls can.  We give him as many hugs and scratches as possible, but I know he is just begging for a lap!

True love is waiting 2 years to eat asparagus from the garden!  I planted asparagus from seed two years ago and this is the spring we will get to finally eat some!  Asparagus is one of those wonderful perennial vegetables that you can count on for up to 20 years.  The front load investment is that you need to let all the spears grow without cutting any for the first two growing seasons so the rhizome can fully develop and get strong for a long life of harvesting.  You still need to be careful even when you are harvesting not to over-harvest the plant and leave some of the spears to grow out.  I have 4 beds planted, which should be enough for our family. (For me anyways!)  

Finally fully jumped into the chicken bizz!  We have been collecting eggs for the past couple of days in anticipation of receiving the incubator today.  UPS showed up around noon and we immediately got to work setting it up and loading in the eggs!  We set Black, Silver Laced and Blue Laced Red Wyandottes.  It will be so exciting to hear our own little peeps in 21 days!  For anyone interested in hatching their own eggs, I found the best deal with Murray McMurray Hatchery.  I ordered the incubator with the fan, automatic thermostat and automatic egg turner.  Total cost with shipping was about $200.  That was substantially cheaper than anywhere else.  We will be candling the eggs in 8 days to see how many viable eggs we have.

Can horses smile?  I would love to think so. Becca was out this past weekend taking pictures of "her love", Polka.   Looking at these pictures, it sure looks like he is smiling to us!  See for yourself! Polka is a 29 year old Thoroughbred gelding that has, for Becca, lit a blaze of passion for everything Thoroughbred!  Check out her blog, Bits N' Bunny  and you will see what I mean!  She has been writing for years on her laptop, and decided to "put it out there".  In two weeks, she has received over 500 hits!!!!  from all over the world and comments from horse racing icons!  We are very proud of our Bunny and encourage her to stay true to her passion.  We acquired Polka 4 years ago, and it has been a gift of such great magnitude that we never expected! We love you Polka and Bunny!!!