Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Late night on the farm

Sorry about the lack of pictures lately. It's been so darn cold outside I haven't wanted to spend an extra moment out there. The pipes on the washing machine froze the other day. Thankfully, the rest of the pipes are still clear. I fell asleep early on the couch last night, so of course I am now awake in the middle of the night. Well, early, early morning I guess.

I was going to make sausage, but the meat is still frozen. I guess I'll have to wait until tomorrow. I'm over booked tomorrow already. Teaching, phone calls, cleaning the chicken coop (ugh!). I suppose I will find time.

The goats are happy despite the cold. Carissima is back from "goat camp" and hopefully is pregnant. I'll do a test in a couple of weeks. I will be bringing Whisper up to get bred soon too. There could be a lot of goats around here this spring! I was debating whether to breed Whisper this year, as she is a little small, but Jenny is moving in with her three boys and the extra milk would be wonderful. Whisper has also hit a growth spurt in the last month, so I think she is big enough now. That could mean anywhere from 4-8 new goat kids. 95% of the time goat births happen without any trouble at all. I'm not so confident of being able to handle a troublesome birth, so I hope it doesn't come to that. Jenny seems more confident than I that we would be able to handle the situation.

The thought of having Jenny and the three boys move in is amazing. The boys sound excited about baby chicks, piglets, and goat kids. We are planning to raise heritage breed pigs this year. It will be a little more expensive for the weaner pigs, but hopefully it will be worth it in the end. The meat is supposed to be amazing. We are looking at two breeds. Pure bred Berkshires or a breed called the Red Wattle. Either one sounds great. The Red Wattle is a threatened breed, so it would be nice to encourage the continued viability of the breed. We'll just have to see how it pans out with the breeders.

I'll try to take some pictures tomorrow and get something more interesting posted than my musings. Have a blessed day.

1 comment:

  1. Can't wait to see the pictures. I also want to raise pigs, but I just don't see me doing it right now. I have to concentrate on one thing at a time. The goats are top priority right now.

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