More New Kids on the Block

Several new youngsters have joined us here at The Haven recently.  Geneva kidded a week after Luz in mid-April.  Another girl!  We named her Catalina.  Flora, Dora, and Catalina are all doing well and enjoy playing together.  Next, we found a good mate for Pearl.  We had to go all the way to North Carolina for him, but he is a great "little" boar.  He was almost 5 months old, when we got him in April, and he is growing fast.  We named him Alpha (after Alpha Pig, a character in one of Raine's favorite tv shows).  Despite being 4 months younger than Pearl and still smaller than she is, he's definitely the boss of the pig pen.  Lastly, we acquired a new Great Pyrenees puppy.  She was just 8 weeks old, when we got her in May.  Athena is adorable and people friendly, but we are trying very hard not to love on her and handle her too much so that her primary attachments won't be with people but rather the animals she will one day protect.  She and Xander are getting along well, and hopefully, he will teach her all about being a good guardian.  We plan to breed them too someday.

Google earth

Our little corner of the world.

2014 Kidding Season is Here!

Luz, the dominant Spanish doe, had her kids today.  She had two girls, which we are considering naming Dora and Flora.  Mother and daughters are doing well.

Purple Iris

Goings on

Thinking it might be nice to have more regular updates on here, so some shorter ones more frequently may be happening.
Things are finally thawing out for us.  The daffodil bloom has come and gone.  Our chicken losses have slowed but continue.  We lost one tonight to drop us down to 3 total.  That's a far cry from almost 20 this past fall.  Pearl continues to grow, and it turns out a good suitor is hard to find.  Hopefully we will find her fella within the next two weeks.  Our 3 pregnant goats just aren't sure they're ready to release their babies on the world.  Seems like they must pop in the next few days, but we've been thinking that for weeks now.

In the plant world, the garden is coming along, lots of seedlings are in the ground and more in the greenhouse. Peppers, potatoes, tomatoes, basil, eggplants, and greens.  We had fresh spinach as part of Annie's birthday dinner last night.  Also before the recent rains we planted a lot of cover crops - mostly rye grass, but some sorghum and buckwheat.  Hoping the rains didn't wash that away - so the goats get an especially good salad bar this summer.

All in all its an exciting time of year to have a farm!   -Jeff

Do not cast your pearls before swine.

Meet Pearl, the pig!  Pearl is a 7 month old Berkshire gilt (young female pig).  Raine referred to her as our new friend, when she came to us about 3 weeks ago.  In the photo, Jeff is trying to comfort Pearl and get her to enter her new pen.  Pearl ended up spending the night in our new, old and crusty livestock trailer (Fred is now working on fixing it up a bit more for us).  The need to relieve herself and a new tactic used by Jeff finally convinced her to leave the trailer (poor thing!).  Pearl is now settling in well in her new digs.  She has been trained to the electric fence and has gained access to a large pasture area, which she is beginning to explore.  We have not gotten a boar yet and are considering attempting artificial insemination.  AI is supposed to be fairly easy (and, yes, there is a you-tube video on that) and is far less expensive than keeping a boar.  The challenge is detecting her estrus cycle, so everything can be timed just right.  We have been checking her for the signs of estrus twice a day, and, possibly, we saw some of the signs yesterday.  Possibly.

It is also possible that the goats will be kidding soon.  Their udders have started filling out, so it shouldn't be long now.  In fact, they will probably all give birth right after we leave town for a short vacation later this week.  In any event, hopefully all will go smoothly.

Spring is definitely around the corner.  The daffodils are just past the peak of their bloom, and the forsythia are just starting.  Things are starting to green up, so the animals will soon have lots of fresh forage.

Annie

Introducing Twisted Oak Farm

Last fall, we had a small gathering of family and friends to celebrate the new developments that year on our 10 acres across the road as well as the naming of the land, Twisted Oak Farm.  We all walked the property, visited with the animals, feasted on Fred's stew, and enjoyed a big fire in the new fire pit we made by the goat barn.  Since then, we have built a shelter for hay bales and firewood as well as a new pig hut.

Pig hut, goat barn, and shelter

Our goat herd currently consists of 4 goats: the buck and 3 does.  We slaughtered all of last year's Spanish kids for meat, since they turned out to be so small.  However, the does are definitely starting to show, so we should have a new batch of kids in the coming months, which will hopefully grow better.  We also hope that we will be past any further crazy cold spells by then.

Predators have taken a huge toll on our chicken flock.  We are down to only 6 hens.  We have trapped a couple large coons and 2 small possums, since the beginning of November (when we had 17 hens and a rooster).  We had been making the coop harder and harder to get into, but the last coon kept eluding the trap and eventually getting through our defenses.  Finally, a larger and sturdier trap caught it.  Right now, we are not planning to rebuild The Haven flock.  Instead, we may start raising meat birds at Twisted Oak and eventually start a new laying flock there as well.  Xander, our livestock guardian dog, appears to be doing well with the goats.  We shall see how he does with other animals.

Portable pig hut

As the mention of the pig hut indicates, we are gearing up for more pigs.  Jeff raised 2 feeder pigs a couple of years ago, but this time, we are going to try our hand at breeding pigs.  We hope the pigs will help with land clearing and plowing gardening space.  We aim to develop a rotational grazing system with the pigs, goats,and chickens to maximize the health and productivity of the land and the animals and minimize the amount of commercial feed needed for the animals.  Fred is taking part in this new pig adventure too. He and Jeff built the pig hut, which is portable, so it can be moved to different pastures as needed.  Jeff is excited about raising Berkshire pigs, which have been referred to as the Kobe beef of pigs.

Composting tumbler

I have started lots of seed for this year's garden, and all of the garlic I planted last fall appears to be doing well.  We purchased a deeply discounted greenhouse kit, which we have set up in the clearing behind our blueberry bushes at The Haven.  It will help with getting young plants started plus other gardening needs.  Jeff also built us a composting tumbler, which will hopefully produce compost more quickly and easily.  We found a good local source of used food grade metal barrels for making composting tumblers plus other things such as a smoker.

We acquired 6 apple trees last weekend.  Our first fruit trees!  We'd visited a local apple orchard about a month ago and got a great tour from the very nice and knowledgeable owner.  We chose a variety of southern heirlooms with which to start: Gold Rush, King David, Liberty, Roxbury Russett, Lowry, and Black Twig.  We prefer tart apples, but we got a couple of sweet ones too.  We also took into consideration time of maturity and natural disease resistance.  They are planted along the middle of the southern property line of Twisted Oak.  At the recommendation of the grower, we will pick the blossoms for the next 2 years, making our first harvest the year Raine turns 5.

Yule log burning

Jeff thoroughly enjoyed the cob building workshop he attended in TN last fall.  He is eager to start experimenting with cob here, using our soil.  As soon as the weather gets warm enough, we will build a cob oven at The Haven, as our first cob project.  The whole family is registered to attend a cob building workshop in KY, during the first week of May.  Even Raine will get involved as part of the associated kids' camp.

Jeff and I are very happy about starting to develop our land, and we are excited about all of our plans, especially building our own home.  Of course, there is some apprehension too, as we wonder about having the time and resources to accomplish everything and managing the other challenges we might face.  However, we will do our best to figure it all out as we go along.  Furthermore, I suppose when we are finally able to start living on our land - at least in some capacity, we will rename this blog again.  :-)