Well, I am trying to wrap my head around delivering goat "kids" this spring.  I have found the information at Fias Co. Farm extremly helpful.  I have been going over their "Birthing Kit" list and ordering all the things I need to have on hand.  Betadine, Iodine, Paper Towels, Garbage Bags, Bottles and Nipples just in case, Scissors etc.  And then there are the things we will need to do after like castration and horn debudding. Yikes!  I am trying to remember that I really wanted to be a farmer...  It will be an exciting time though! 

http://www.fiascofarm.com/

My sickness concoction...

I "think" I made it through without getting the sickness (real bad anyway)!  I felt sick a few times during the week, but it was minimal.  Every time I felt even the slight bit of nausea, I would take my "concoction" and pray it would work.  I definitely think I had the bug, but I was still functional and not as sick as the rest.  My concoction?? 

Echinacea, Odorless Garlic, Liquid Zeolite

No one else would take it.

Homekeeper's Journal 2/15/2011

This week’s Homekeeper’s Journal is about Spring Time Plans.

In my kitchen, I plan to ….. Get my recipes in order so I can start my low-carb diet again.  No sugar or simple carbs.  I feel so much better when I stick to eating this way. 

Plans with the children ….. Lots to do this spring with the kiddos.  We are planning on planting a gigantic garden this year and starting some seeds indoors.  I am going to include the kids in this project.  The goats will be having kids in May which will be a neat lesson for the kiddos (and me too!) 

Plans with the husband ….. I want to get a few babysitters lined up so that we can have some time out together at least once a month in the next few months.  Shh.  Its a secret. :)

Plans for my house ….. We are working on building a hearth in the living room and my husband is putting up sheet rock in there.  So, my plans are to paint the walls, get new curtains made, and paint the hardwood floor. (we were hoping to be able to restain it, but it just isn't nice enough wood.)

Garden Plans ….. Ooh, garden plans. I stand at the kitchen window just dreaming of the day I will be able to dig in the dirt and start planting!  As I said before, we are going to plant a huge (to me anyway) garden with 9 raised beds (5x10 each) and some standard rows.  I want to start some things from seed from heirloom seeds, so that will be a project for me and the kids.  I can't wait. 

Other Plans ….. We are starting a bookstore at our church and I am the person that was chosen to run it.  So, there will be lots of things going on with getting that started as well.  Exciting times!

http://christianhomekeeper.org/

It's Maple Syrup Time!

The headline at HamWeather is "Winter's Thaw." It is supposed to be above freezing during the day and below freezing at night for the next week or so. Time to tap the trees for maple syrup! Buckets are all washed out and ready to go outside...

Last year we only tapped 3 trees. We got a bit of maple syrup and it was delicious! This year we wanted to tap many more, but the snow is putting a damper on our efforts. The snow is too deep and we just do not have the equipment we need to get to the trees this year (like a snowmobile!). So, we have tapped 6 trees today and hopefully we will tap a few more in the next few days.

Sickness in the house.

The kids have been down this week with what I have been told is Rotavirus. Well, it stinks! My children aren't usually sick, so when they are it throws us all for a loop. I normally have a bottle or 2 of Children's ACF in the house and that has saved us numerous times from getting the "bug" going around at the time. This time I had nothing in the house except garlic capsules that the kids refuse to take. Whatever is going around has been going around for weeks and I really kinda thought we were out of the woods. Not so. Laura got it first, then Isaiah, then James. What are the chances I am not going to get it, probably slim to none, but there is always hope! Makes me more certain that I need to start making Elderberry syrup to have in the house and my own tincture that would be similar to the ACF (which is $18.99 a bottle!)for such a time as this! I purchased this book yesterday and it has a lot of great recipes I am going to make really soon!

A new home! We moved into our new home on New Year ’s Day! (Of course, it was snowing like crazy!) We are so thankful for good friends who helped us move. It’s an old cattle farm in a valley called “Shipman’s Hollow” with a good mix of pasture, hay, and timber. The land had been unfarmed for about 12 years, so there is much work to be done. This is the view from our upper field down onto our barn and house.

Isaiah Joseph Anderson ~ March 26, 2010 ~ 6lb 11 oz
We thank the Lord for our baby boy, Isaiah Joseph! Isaiah was born on March 26, 2010 at 10:11 pm. He weighed 6lb 11oz and was19.5” long and is a blonde like his mommy. He started rolling over in August at 4.5 months, cut his first tooth in October at 7 months, and started sitting up in November at 8 months. He is growing so fast, although is a bit little for his age. We call him “peanut”!

James turned 5 just before Isaiah was born. He started first grade this fall and is already writing in cursive! He is learning to read and doing such a great job! He enjoys working with Dad around the farm. It is his job to collect the eggs and check on the goats each day. He is quite the little farmer.

Laura turned 3 in January. It is hard to believe that she will be turning 4 next month. She has grown so much this year and has become quite the little lady. She enjoys playing with her baby dolls and carrying around the cats. June marked the three-year anniversary of Laura's shunt surgery. She has done remarkably well. We continue to pray for continued health for her and that the shunt continues to do its job!

Justin’s Dad In July we got the phone call that you always dread getting. Justin’s dad, Wayne, had a cardiac arrest and was in intensive care 8 hours away. Justin and his brother ,Chris, headed to Maine and spent the next week in the hospital with Mom and Dad. It was a week of miracles to say the least! On Sunday when we got the phone call he was unresponsive and in a coma. By Wednesday he was eating ice cream. The entire event displayed God’s awesome power and how He is in control of everything and we nothing. The dog he is holding is Muffin. He was the one who alerted Mary that something was wrong.


Maple Syrup We tapped a few maple trees this past spring. It was our first harvest and a great learning experience. Unseasonably warm weather in March cut production short, so we are looking forward to what this year has to offer.


Windy Acres Farm We named our farm “Windy Acres” because there isn’t a day goes by that the wind isn’t whipping on our farm! Our lack of farm knowledge prompted us to begin our venture with courses at Cornell University’s local cooperative extension. Justin took classes in chicken basics, raising small ruminants, and poultry processing. We have been busy planning and planting our garden, building chicken coops, repairing the barn, digging ditches for fences, and so much more. There has been so much work to do on our little farm!
This spring we added baby chicks to our farm just after Isaiah was born. We now have 14 hens and 1 rooster. We get about 8 eggs per day or about 4 dozen eggs a week. We have been selling a few and eating the rest. We have found that we need more chickens already to support egg sales. We raised 18 meat chickens this summer and plan to raise hundreds this coming summer. We even butchered a few ourselves (and took the rest to someone else until we get the proper equipment.) They were the best tasting chickens we have ever eaten. They did not last long in our freezer and now we wish we had raised more!
In April we got 4 Nubian Goats. We each named one of them. James named his goat “Glazey” because he knew he wanted a goat that was the color of a glazed donut and that is exactly what his goat looks like! Justin named his goat Brownie, Laura’s is named Oreo, and Jaime’s goat is named Cocoa. We plan on breeding them so that we can have goat milk in the spring, If the breeding goes well, we should have eight or more new “kids” in June and plenty of goat milk! We added a Nubian Buck named Buckwheat to our farm in late November as well as a Nubian whether named Holstein (because he has the coloring of a Holstein cow.) We also got 2 kittens in the spring, Tiger and Titus. One was supposed to be a boy (Titus) and one a girl (Tiger), but they are definitely both girls!

It has been a year of tremendous blessing for us. We are so thankful for all that God has given us. Family, friends, a warm house, a good job, food in abundance, a great church family, and so much more. Most of all at Christmastime and all year through we are thankful for Jesus. We are thankful that He was born so that He could die for us. His death makes our lives worth living, for without Him there is no hope. With Him there is hope of eternal life for all that believe in Him!

Our first death on the farm. :(

One of the little chickens died. :( We had purchased 8 hens about 8 weeks after we purchased our first batch because we didn't think we had got enough the first time. These chickens (the 2nd batch) have been a pain since the get go. They run away from you every time you get near them and they are fast! We have put them in the coop many times and every time they would fly out. One time one of them stayed. She stayed in along with the "free" ornamental chick they sent us. The free one has been able to stand her ground with the older chickens, but the little one has struggled from the beginning. One day she was all bloody, but she managed to stay in there and be fine. Then we added another one of the 5 that were left outside the coop. Both little ones would fly in and out of the coop at will. We thought they were fine, but the day before yesterday I saw the newest little one in there and her comb was all bloody. I said to James that we should take her out and put her with her old friends, but we decided to wait until daddy got home. We told him about the blood, but we didn't end up taking her out of the coop. I thought if she wanted to get out she would, but maybe she was injured enough that she couldn't fly out. Last night when they went out to shut the coop up for the night, they found her out in the chicken yard dead. :( I was so sad. I feel like it is my fault! Stinkin chickens. I am beginning not to really like them. They are fun to watch at times, but the pecking order thing just drives me crazy and makes me sad.