New Arrival!

They're here!! It may have been a 24+hr drive back but we all made it safe and sound. The newbies are Nettle and Hawthorn, from MackBrin Farm in NY, and Fern and Phlox from Val d'Or SCI Goats in MD.

Here's little Nettle with her momma at MackBrin (taken by the breeder before I bought her. She now has no horns due to an unfortunate accident. But she is still cute as a button.) We are working on hand feeding and getting used to handling. Leash training will be awful fun!

When I arrived, the committee was there to meet me.

She had some adorable quadruplets out of the same mom as Hawthorn, the buck I brought home.  

This is Chile, Hawthorns dad. Look at those horns!

They also raise a variety of chickens and bunnies. The chicken coop was really clever with plastic trays that hung so they could easily be popped out and cleaned. I love the roost on the front without a front wall to make cleaning even easier. 

Over in Maryland, Thunder and Cognac (I don't remember who was who) were gorgeous! They are the fathers to Fern and Phlox. 

Check out the "Does" page on our website for pictures of the girls and Hawthorn!

-M

NY or Bust!

I'm on my way to NY/MD to get the new girls! I left late yesterday and made it to Knoxville. It'll be a long drive today, I have to get all the way to NY and through NYC before I stop so I can be at the farm early tomorrow.

Glow is not a very good co-pilot. Her cute little sleepy face doesn't help at all.

We stopped for Chick-fil-a before we got out of the South and she wasn't very pleased that I wouldn't share with her. So sorry!!

-M

Dyed and Spun

This weekend we worked on some spinning and dying demonstrations. One of the volunteers at my work has decided her "senior project" for high school will be how to process wool all the way through to a finished woven project! I'm so happy she's found inspiration and an interest in fiber.

I set up a little display with my wheel and hand carder, rug hooking, knitting, and felting. I really should pick, but  how can I?

And I tried spinning with this little guy, just for pictures sake. He just wanted his bottle.

dyed skeins and cleaned fleece. It looks so bright! Most of the skeins will end up in my rug (one of these days....)

Tomorrow I leave for NY/MD to get the newbies!
That's all for now!

-M

Grazing Time

Paneling has been moved once again. I'm hoping to have two more sections of fence cleared before my trip to NY/MD, and I have faith the girls can pull it off. That will leave one last area for the girls to work on while I'm gone and this portion of the pasture cleared and we can start tearing out the old posts. :)

One week left before the new girls arrive!

-M

Pumpkins, doors, and compost.

Just a quick update

Pumpkins are here! Finally, the little guys are popping up. So far the irrigation is working (although we've had enough rain that we haven't really had to use it).

 To top that off, the stall doors and walls are done!! they look beautiful and are all from reclaimed wood from building projects and old fence boards (minus a handful of new boards for the posts). A little wire for the tops and we're golden. So far the girls aren't amused at being confined.

And, I moved out our compost bin to be close to the pumpkins so I can keep my mulch for top dressing the hugelkultur mounds later. It is also made from reclaimed material- this time plastic fencing from a business who installed this type of fencing and decided they didn't want to keep all of their displays when they moved so they gave us the mismatched pieces.

Just two weeks until the new girls (and boy) arrive plus sheep/alpaca shearing will be finished in the next two weeks as well. Praise the Lord!

-M

Goats to the left of me, pumpkins to the right....

It feels so good to be home, to really be home for good. I’ve lived between places for most of my life, spending as much time at the farm as possible but only transiently. This past Monday I moved what was left of my apartment in Athens and am now here for good!

I started putting things away and am just enjoying putting down roots knowing that in a few months when many of my friends are starting back to classes I will be happily working in the job I love and living in the most beautiful county in GA. It really hit home yesterday when I finished working in the pumpkin patch and I came back to the house to water the garden and climb into bed, and that was it! I didn’t have to think about getting back to whatever other place I am living at part-time to do whatever it is I am supposed to be doing or studying whatever I am supposed to be reading. I still have reading and studying, but it is for my own benefit- not for some presentation or test coming up. I love it! Oh, and total plus that I now can be called ‘doctor’.

 

Aside from the craziness that is moving and trying to unpack everything (which I can see is going to take me a very long time), I have also been hard at work trying to renovate the farm and get the pumpkins in. The last two days I’ve been hauling mulch and hay and breaking a sweat to get the hills finished and they are done! Don’t they look pretty?

 

I also bought some things to fix up an irrigation system that is, as of yet, not in working order. It’ll get there. But I did buy a mower and have spent a considerable amount of time the past two days mowing the one acre field the pumpkin hugelkultur is in. The field looks so much better with a fresh clip job, and it added a substantial amount of nitrogen-rich mulch to the hugelkulturs so everything is ready to roll.

Tonight as the sun was setting I popped in the seeds. I did 20 hills of ‘Montana Jack’ pumpkins ( a traditional orange jack-o-lantern type of pumpkin), 10 hills of Jarrahdale (a creamy blue-green), 12 hills of Musquee de Provence (a short, ribbed pumpkin also called the ‘cinderella pumpkin’), three hills of Pipian from Tuxpan (a green striped pumpkin), and 3 hills of Juane Gros de Paris (100lb peach-cream colored giants). Once I finish clearing the fence on the road I’ll add a few hills of a warted gourd mixture which should be planted around mid June.  Hopefully in a week or so I will see little baby pumpkin plants popping up all over.

 

 

 
 

 

Tomorrow is for the goats, I’ve got some fences to move and the new barn stalls to work on. Hopefully in a few weeks my little herd will be growing a bit more with some new additions from upstate New York…

 

 

The setting sun over the pumpkin patch

 

 

-M