River Conforms – Barely

Ending the Season

Fall has arrived once again.   Except for goats, all sales are over.   We sold the last of our processed chickens and the hens are molting and have stopped laying.  By the time they’re done the days will be short and cold, so they’re done for the year.

The garden is slowly stopping production.  The herb garden is done, and the grapevines are shedding leaves.  Everything is going to sleep for the coming winter.

We also lost our elderly mouser to Lymphoma on Friday.  He was 19ish and would wait for hours for a mouse to come out of a hole.  He loved to lay with people and gave the dogs as good as he got.  His season is over.  This is the second pet we’ve lost this past year.

 

Kennel Cough

We adopted a new dog.  He is a 5 month old Malinois mix.  Unfortunately, despite having to be vaccinated for travel, he brought kennel cough with him.  Our other Mal mix caught it.   We have no way to separate the dogs, so we are keeping watch and I will be making an herbal lung support formula as soon as I can find the ingredients.

Here is our new cutie, Remy (the one with the bat ears sitting down):

 

Layla (3 yo Mal Mix), Topher (2 yo Husky) and our newest member Remy (5 month Mal mix).

 

We think he may have a bit of Husky in him.  He talks just like our Husky does.  In fact, he gets quite LOUD.

Anyone needing to pick up eggs or chicken – please leave any dogs at home or in your car until further notice.

Update:  See my comment in the comments.  We believe the vet was wrong.  We did inform our vet that one of the dogs had chewed on a thin blue scrubby, but my impression that Layla had something caught in her throat was shot down, despite our mentioning she was hacking as well (like she was trying to get something out).   Our dog coughed for less than two days and stopped.   I think we were right.

CSA

We had thought about doing a small CSA this year with a few people who were interested.  Maybe even have a canning get-together.  Unfortunately, we lost over half our starter plants to Catzilla, so we’re delaying that plan.

Now if we can figure out how he got to them.  The little snot.  I need a greenhouse.

 

A Fear of Many Livestock Owners

A friend posted about her friend’s family.  They had a barn fire.  Over 50 animals were lost.   The family only wrote a simple blog post about it, but really what can one say?

http://www.rachylsgoatmilksoap.com/blog/2014/03/18/March-10-2014.aspx

A fundraiser was set up on Facebook to help them:

https://www.facebook.com/travisfamilyfarmfirefund

I can’t imagine the heartbreak of losing several at once much less 50 and so many of them babies.  Our prayers are with them as they deal with this and rebuild their “baby” barn.

 

Making a Graphic

So… I suck at graphics, but we are going to attempt to make one for our farm to put on labels, website, FB and a sign.  All I know is I want our name plus all four seasons shown somehow.  Maybe at least one chicken, goat, turkey and maybe a Jacobs sheep (future planned addition).  We were going to do a picture of the house/front of property with four sections (each representing a season) until we realized we’d have to redo it when we finally get to move.  We don’t want to do that.  It has to be something that we can keep no matter where we go.

One son thinks he can do it, but I don’t know.  We’ll see.  Right now we’re tossing ideas around.  Think I can get all the critters together for a group picture?

 

Cold, Eggs, Seeds and Chickens

It’s was a wonderful – 10 degrees last night.   It’s warmed up to a balmy 5 degrees at 8 am.   What?  My toes are blue?  They’re supposed to be that color.  Yeah… that’s it.

Someone please stew the groundhog.  Thanks.

We’re getting 7-9 eggs a day now.  “Full production” is 8-10 eggs.   Time change is next weekend, so I think we’ll be back at full then.   Time for the neighbors to receive their free weekly eggs again.  Once the eggs stop freezing before I can get to them, we’ll start selling.  🙂

I’m still waiting on the S.C. crowd to send me their warmth.

Just sayin’.

With one dog being ill, I haven’t had a chance to set up and start seeds, get down to the store to order meat chickens, or find out an estimate arrival date of the Nigerian.   Right now, I’m trying to get warm before calling the canine cardiologist. I don’t think he’d appreciate chattering teeth.  Well, he might, but then I’d have to charge per minute.

Btw, it’s amazing what bored goats will do to a barn when you’re an hour late getting out there to release them.  I have no idea how they got part of the roof ventilation (Spring install) off the loft which is about 8 feet off the ground.  I need to think about getting a LGD, so I can let them roam at night without worrying about coyotes and bob cats.

Hopefully, within the next few days I’ll be able to get the seed area set up and peppers and celery started.  Anyone else planting or have already planted?