Some big things are in store for the site. Some of you feed subscribers got wind of some changes thanks to the automatic feed that went out with lots of dummy giberish text after we did a website makeover *facepalm* Many apologies for that. Its also been a while since I posted an update. The […]
Category: From city to country life
Electric fencing is a pain in the ASS!
I’m really unimpressed with electric fencing. We already decided that we wanted permanent fencing for our “barnyard” where the barn animals will have free rein. Heck, we even invested in the rolls of fencing and it’s laying out in the grass near the area that needs fenced in.
Meeting Winnie, running over a lamb and shock fencing…
Last week was a roller coaster, we are still reeling from it. You see we were pointed in the direction of a homeless livestock guardian dog. We’ve known we needed one since our beloved family dog lost her life last fall. Luckily we’ve only had one farm predator issue since losing our farm guard dog, […]
What Sam the lamb taught me…
Somewhere along the line I became convinced that information you needed to know could be found if you looked hard enough. I value the infinite resource that is the internet. I’ll wade through personal opinion posts on forums, I’ll read blog posts and articles to find the info I seek…
Lambing, incubating and poop logs…
Today has been a whirlwind ending with lamb for supper…
Mercury in retrograde is effing with us- big time.
It’s been ages since I’ve last posted, we’ve been knee deep in sickness and live upheaval. October has sure kept us scrambling but we’ve come through it. Here is what we’ve been taking on, one step at a time: In mid October madness began… there was a steady rain that wouldn’t quit. Then a chick went […]
All before 8am on a farm…
Most mornings I’ve got Nathan to help me with a portion of the homestead chores but harvest season is upon us so he’s been off working occasional early mornings and even right through the weekends around Tanglefoot Ranch. This means I’ll fly solo for the chores here on the homestead. Here is a glimpse of what flying […]
It came back positive… We’re pregnant!
We got the blood test results back, we are seriously expecting babies this fall… goat kids- you thought I was pregnant again didn’t you? Sheesh! Anyway, On labor day a vet friend came out to draw some of our doe, Poptart’s blood for us. We wanted a pregnancy test for her because lots of things […]
You never can predict or control things on a farm…
Things haven’t been dull or slow here. Sure we bought a clearance hammock to hang in a tree and the change of season is nearing but… We’ve had a wet few weeks and our turkey tractor (aka the rolling poultry pen) has been flooded out twice. Last week a turkey became sick and died. I […]
We have hatching…
Over the last three weeks we’ve been monitoring the humidity and temperature of our homemade “Coolerbator” egg incubator. My last post was about counting our chickens before they’d hatched.. So far, our 15 mail order chicks have arrived and are thriving. Today our incubated eggs are cheeping & beginning to hatch! The eggs have been […]
Swimming in chicks this fall… or not?
I’m trying to not count my eggs before they hatch but we might be swimming in chicks soon! Let’s see, where was the beginning of this chicken saga? I believe it all started when we found our beloved Bernice, an Americauna hen, dead near the stock trailer. She was from the first batch of chicks […]
It’s hard to control a limp teat!
We are almost a week into goat ownership right now and we are loving it. We got our milker, Poptart, on a slightly later milking schedule so we aren’t quiet as tired as initially in the first few days. Yay! As newbie goat owners, we’ve had a few scares. The first one was when Clay, […]
Newbie goat milking at the butt crack of dawn…
It is 5 am and I’m up. Yesterday we brought home our milking goat, Poptart, a 2 yr old Alpine goat. She’s had a certain type of feed and a certain milking schedule… and since we’ve uprooted her living arrangement and shuttled her to our home, in a thunderstorm… we figured the least we could do was […]
To Celebrate our one month anniversary with farm life…
A month ago today we crammed all our things, our animals and our kids into vehicles and we drove two hours to our new country home in southern Illinois. We’ve been here a month now and things are becoming more routine. Farm life is going well and we’ve been making adjustments to better fit our […]
Herding instincts, birthday joy and milking goats…
It’s been 25 days since me and Nathan have watched TV. The one thing about farm life that differs from what we were doing before is, we are working LESS hours but we are working HARDER… Not so hard that you want to fall over and die, just hard as in each part of the body […]
On crashing and lessons learned during the first week of farm life.
We’ve officially completed our first week on Tanglefoot Ranch. Its been a major whirlwind of activity but its been really great. Speaking of Tanglefoot, are you on our mailing list yet?Seeds have been sowed, our future chicken/ garden space is being readied. I’ve taken over care of the 40 meat birds. Nathan learned to drive […]
We’ve made it to Tanglefoot Ranch.
It was a steamy, stormy day but we we loaded a trailer, a stock trailer, a van and two cars with our stuff and drove two hours away to make a new life in the country. The Tanglefoot crew came out and helped us load our lives up and make the trek. They are a […]
On uncertainty and quality of life on moving day…
As you know, we are making a big life transition right now to live our dreams. Emotions are a roller coaster right now. No, we don’t regret what we are leaving behind… but there has been some worry, of course, as that last paycheck comes in and the last day of being insured goes by. Then […]
We’re leaving the suburbs for farm life next week!
We are just counting down the days until moving day. I’m both excited and a bit shocked that moving day is just a few days away. The walls are literally lined with packed boxes, all the obvious things are packed… now we have all the hidden spaces to pack up (the garage, the attic, the […]
Tales from the backyard flock: Are they cooked or do they have chicks in them?
For the last week, maybe two, we have had significantly fewer eggs each day from our six laying hens. Initially I thought that the hens that were not laying had nutritional imbalances since they’ve been eating chicks starter food (against our wishes). We’ve recently integrated our baby chicks to our adult flock, our Rhode Island Reds […]