Progress is progressing

The chickens are enjoying the lack of cold and have spent most afternoons pecking and scratching about the place. As you can see the flock is well integrated now.

Honey's a bit wider and starting to waddle a little but not much. When the goats are laying around in the afternoon sun, it just looks like she's had a good meal. The vet will be by in a couple weeks to give both goats their annual vaccines. Giving Honey her vaccine 4 weeks before kidding means the babies get a free ride on her antibodies until they're old enough for their first shots at two months old.

I've been trying to keep track of everything for the farm and house on paper and that just was NOT working, especially for the things that have to happen more than once. It's sometimes hard to keep track of the last time the filter on the cat's water was changed (for example) and it's even harder when there's two people who might have done it; which is why Hugslut and I have been developing our household systems so that the little things don't fall through the cracks. 

We're using a project management program now and it seems to be helping because we can mark tasks with any combination of start dates, due dates, sub-tasks, tags, and even mark a task as "waiting on"/"blocked by" another task that has to be done first. I've also found that with a little tweaking, we can now even use it as our meal planning and grocery list app.

Getting organized like this has been on both of our mental lists for a while and I'm feeling less stressed out knowing that everything is in one place and if I'm not sure what to do next, I can confidently just look there. 

We're also looking into getting a whole home battery backup for the times when the power goes out. Much quieter and more convenient than a generator, especially since the outages here rarely seem to last a whole day. This will let us run the well pump and water UV system as well as keep the fridges and freezers cold. The system we're looking at should even allow us to run The a heatpump to keep the pipes from freezing in the middle of winter (But not both heatpumps let alone the baseboard heaters, so a long outage in the winter would still mean bundling up).

The spring sunshine is finally strong enough, and the nights are above zero for over a week straight at a time which has allowed the greens I planted in the fall to actually start growing! I harvested a bunch of salad greens and planted some other seeds like peas and carrots.

It was SO good to have fresh greens from our own greenhouse again. :-) I found a deal on beef at the grocery store to slowcook in the crockpot, and made a goat cheese and basil dressing for the salad greens.

It's not all been lovely. I've been trying for weeks now to get Samsung to send me a replacement part for our fridge. It's not the end of the world but it's just so frustrating that they've sent me the wrong part TWICE now and if I were to buy the correct part directly it would make my entire fridge out of warranty.

The broken original with the first wrong part.

I got them on the phone and after a BUNCH of time we figured out the first person wrote down my fridge's model number with a letter O instead of a zero... okay well mistakes happen. He sent me a link and I confirmed that the one he was showing me was the right part... and then they sent me this.

The broken original with the second wrong part.

I already got back in touch and got it escalated to a supervisor and all that and HOPEFULLY they'll be sending the right part now. I also asked that they look into how on earth they sent me the right part for the wrong fridge and then the wrong part for the right fridge... but I don't hold out much hope.

Thankfully the fridge isn't missing an essential part and it's just the thing that helps keep the door shut snug but damn. I'm also trying to get a replacement part for one of our windows. So there's been a BUNCH of back and forth with folks who MIGHT be able to help. I was supposed to get a call back on that one last Wednesday but... **shrug** Guess I'm calling them again this week.

I made a "deer resistant" flower bed along the driveway this past Friday, and nature decided to have one more snow the next morning. It all melted by the end of Sunday (which was yesterday) so it seems mother nature played her April Fools Joke a couple days early.

Here's a little drawing by The Latest Kate that I ran into the other day when I needed it. Hope it helps someone else.

Spring a leak

The last snow of our season came through and of course it was a week AFTER that melted away that the snowblower I ordered actually arrived. Oh well. Just means that we're prepared for the two or three storms we'll get next year.

At the end of February I spotted a tiny puddle by the hot water heater and by the end of the day it was a significant puddle. I made sure it wasn't coming from the tap and unfortunately it definitely was dripping from a screw in the bottom pan, and on top of that it was rusty water. I called a plumber to be sure but it was definitely rusted out. One year after the warranty ran out too. Well, replacing a water heater isn't rocket science so we got a new one and I installed it. I'm pretty sure the previous owners didn't bother with maintenance so our new one should last longer.

Spring has returned and the goats are enjoying being able to lie around in the sun again. I really love watching them run and prance about. They were very cautious with the snow and ice (thank goodness) but they can get solid traction on the turf. We went for a hike through the woods again. It was too muddy to go far but they love chomping on new bushes.

I've designed the Kid Corner for the barn. It'll fold out of the way for the off season. We got the lumber and hardware and now I've got a month to get it built and installed so it's ready a few weeks before Honey kidding. Having everything ready 2 weeks early not only gives some safety window, but also allows the goats to get used to the new setup.

All the chickens are laying again and I decided it's time they start earning their keep. I'm selling the eggs on the farm here so there's not really any regulations I have to worry about.

They're labelled as "farm fresh" and "wash before use" mostly as a precaution. I would be quite upset if someone get sick over improper handling. Hopefully in a few months I'll have some veggies to sell as well.

Winter Hibernation Leading to Spring Expansion

If you know what you're looking for, Honey is definitely pregnant! We're at the end of the second month and the way goat pregnancy progresses, she won't "show" much at all until she gets BIG at the end of the fourth month and HUGE in the fifth month.

I'm working on building a "kid corner" for the barn. The idea will be that it can be set up for kidding season and folded up for the other half of the year. It's gonna be a bit before I have anything to show you but I'm working on the blueprints.

I've also been working on curtains for the chickens. I've finished the ones separating the nest boxes (it keeps them from fighting),but I also want to sew a roll up curtain for the wall between the goats and chickens. This will provide them with a nice dark area to roost even if I need lights in the goat area at night. They're made out of old feed bags which are a kind of woven plastic fabric, so they're not going to mildew or anything but I can also take them down and wash them in the washing machine when they do get dusty/dirty.

Kelly and Isabella are laying again. I spotted Jennifer on a nest today and Marsha hiding under the nests the past few days so we might have them all laying again soon! That said, even with just the new girls laying over winter, we had lots of extra eggs to give to neighbours and this past week we dropped off 5 half-dozen at the community food pantry.

Unfortunately, Mother Nature decided to send Hugslut some nasty weather for her birthday so we didn't get to go to Yarmouth for dinner. We planned ahead and hunkered down but those two trips out to the barn each day were not fun. The animals complained on day one when I wouldn't let them out but by that night when the wind had kicked up and howled they understood and just relaxed in the barn for the next couple days.

It's tax season of course so among all the rest we're getting our tax documents together for Hugslut's work-from-home office job and I realized that if I ever plan to sell, I really should start keeping farm records instead of just treating it as an expensive hobby. This means that I've of course given myself yet another new project, "learn what sort of expenses can be partially written off of farm income". Not that I have any farm income yet but it'll be good to get into the record keeping.

Gardening won't be an issue for a few more weeks at least. ;-)

Happy Holidays

The seeds I planted at the beginning of December are sprouted and are existing in a state of limbo waiting for the days to get longet before growing any more. This is fine and good. They can develop roots with the amounts of light they're getting and should be all the healthier for it. It's also going to give me a better idea about when the plants prefer to grow for future reference.

Honey came into heat Dec 15th which means the first time didn't take. We took her back to the buck and she was much less shy which means we were probably a day early last time. Jan 8th there was no signs of another heat which means she's likely preggers and due mid May.

There's a slight chance she didn't catch and just naturally didn't cycle again due to being done for the year, but I'm hopeful. Honey now more vocal about things these days. She used to be Star's silent partner but now is happy to tell you when she's unhappy.

 

On Dec 9th I was just eating lunch and one molar just cracked a chunk right off. Thankfully it wasn't deep and it doesn't hurt. I'm on the cancellation list at the dentist as they're booking into the summer. My intake appointment on Dec 18th went well. I like the dentist and they're pretty high tech. In addition to xrays they used a little pencil sized camera to take photos and the records are all digitized. It was pretty neat. :-)

I've had two cleaning appointments because I've not been to a dentist since getting my wisdom teeth out in 2021 but I'm still waiting on a fix for chipped tooth. The dental hygienist gets more cancellations it seems.

Hugslut quit nicotine all together in December which had a drastic withdrawal effect on her causing her to be super sleepy and brain-foggy. It's easing up now but wow that was harsh.

My arm is still giving me troubles off and on, but less so and now with the milking machine I'm not re-aggravating it every day. I ran the machine without attaching it a few times so they'd learn it wasn't a dangerous noise, and after that it only took Star just a day or two to get used to the new routine.

A big snow storm rolled in right before Christmas so we got in some extra food and did our usual on Christmas day of staying in with lots of snacks and watching movies which was nice. I also baked some cookies and bread and after a week of rest and recuperation, we rang in the new year quietly at home.

Even in winter the goats love a hike through the woods. I've been spending the last week or so doing some work planning this year's garden.