In The Greenhouse

Just a few photos from the greenhouse this week:

Uncovered row bed, facing south in the greenhouse.

Chard & Arugula

Kale & Red-veined Sorrel

These went into a lovely, big salad yesterday. Next time, we'll share a photo of the salad, before it's all gone!

Volunteers On The Farm

We've been pretty busy on the farm and are always looking for volunteers to help.

Two of our current volunteers and Justin and Tara Wagner. They are traveling full-time and are staying with us for several weeks with their 10 year old son. (The kids have all had fun playing!) They have taken part in milking the cow and goats, tending to the gardens and fields, helping with projects (like building chicken tractors and sealing adobe floors) and eating good food.

Here are some photos Tara took:











If you are interested in volunteering, let me know!

Nigerian Dwarf Goats for Sale

This is Itsy, the larger of the two does. She is the mother of two bucklings and one doeling.


This is Bitsy. She is very small yet easily raised three kids.

The doeling in the foreground is out of Bitsy, and the one in the background is a real beauty out of Itsy.
Another doeling out of Bitsy.

Here's Itsy's beautiful girl. We call her Cloud.

This is Bitsy's buckling. He is a real character and definitely the most animated of the three.

This is a boy who knows where his food comes from

We take animal slaughtering very seriously and the kids are on hand to help or watch if they so choose. So far Eliza has chosen to opt out, but Scotty has been a willing and thoughtful helper.

Here is our outdoor abattoir, or chicken slaughterhouse.

Scotty helps to bring in the chickens and keeps them calm


and he has begun to learn how to eviscerate them. Here he is working with Crystal, our most faithful helper on butchering day.

Bee swarm capture

Our neighbor recently discovered a swarm of honey bees in a tree on her land. Chris and the kids were out camping that day, but fortunately I had an empty hive and a couple of fine helpers and was not only able to capture the swarm but got some great photos taken of the process!

The swarm was in a small tree and the neighbor didn't mind if we lopped off the whole branch. I felt kind of guilty topping the tree that way but it really was a great way to capture the swarm with few losses.


I approached the tree with the loppers and quickly realized that I wouldn't be able to cut the branch AND hold onto it at the same time but luckily my helper Stephanie was willing to do the lopping. Swarming bees are usually very docile so she was pretty safe doing so.



After we cut the branch I carefully lowered the whole thing into the hive. It was surprisingly heavy! I had placed a top bar with a honey comb on it from another hive into the new hive so that the girls would feel at home.


Next I cut off as many of the peripheral branches as I could so that I could close up the hive.


Then I added the top bars until it was shut tight.




I left the hive there for the rest of the day so that any remaining bees could find their way inside, then moved it over to our place that evening. The next day I pulled out the rest of the branch and let them make themselves at home. They were quite pleased and set about making new comb right away! I now have four hives and have harvested over four gallons of honey so far this season.

Recent livestock photos

I went out recently with the camera to snap some photos of the cows because they were looking particularly beautiful now that they had shed their winter coats. The pasture and sky were also lovely that day.
The sheep are spending the summer on the next door neighbor's pasture. This year they are sharing the pasture with two beautiful horses.


Here are the new goats, Itsy and Bitsy. No, I did not name them, and their names would have been changed in an instant were it not for the fact that I happened to mention them to the kids, who thought they were great and completely vetoed any renaming. In this shot they are both very pregnant.


The piglets are growing fast and learning all of their mothers' bad habits. They are small enough to get through the cattle panels and graze the irrigation ditches.

Bear

As promised, here are some photos of our new livestock guardian dog, Bear. Bear is around 14 months old and he came to us from a farm in very rural Kansas where he was the faithful guardian of a flock of chickens. We chose to purchase Bear as opposed to a new puppy because he was already trained to work with birds and he was also good with kids. He does not disappoint! He has settled in beautifully here at the farm and he guards his poultry with great attention to detail. He even protected them from a ferocious toad the other evening. I caught the toad and reassured Bear that toads are welcome visitors on the farm, but it was pretty funny to see him snarling and growling at the poor toad.

Bear is a Great Pyrenees dog, a large breed that is historically used for guarding livestock. I became interested in this breed for several reasons, not the least of which was meeting Thistle, a Pyr owned by our farm friends at Sunflower River. Bear is a big boy--he is about 105 pounds right now and will grow a bit more. A nice thing about Pyrs is that they don't eat very much relative to other breeds so even though he's big, we are able to feed him well with bones, organs, and other meat products from the farm (chicken heads, etc). We have not lost one chicken to raccoons since he came home. He lives with the chickens but gets lots of love and attention during the day from people. We are just thrilled with him and will probably never again be without a livestock guardian dog, at least for as long as we have livestock.

Here he is hamming it up for the camera:

Here he is meeting Sylvia for the first time. This gives you an idea of his size and his love of people.

Oh, and he works sometimes too! Here he is patrolling the chicken yard for invaders.