Sunday Mumblings

It was frosty this morning.  Only our second frost this winter (and the first was yesterday).

But frosty mornings usually mean sunny days and, sure enough, today was lovely.

Everyone was out enjoying the sunshine.  The boss of the world thought he might herd the ducks.  They were having none of it, and fair enough, they're about twice his size.

The chooks have started laying.  They were hatched on New Year's Day, so bang on six months old.

Floppy (for obvious reasons) is a North Holland Blue, which looks very similar to Barred Rocks.

This girl is unnamed as yet and she's a mix of Light Sussex and Golden Laced Wyandotte.

We put the cows on the lawn to mow the grass.  Grass converting itself to beef, yum, yum.

I tried to work on my swallow quilt but the kids kept annoying me and each other so I got them outside for some sketching.  It worked a treat to get them settled down.

Mine's in the middle, but I think I like my daughter's on the left best.  Although my son's, on the right, might make an interesting quilting pattern!

Hope you had a lovely Sunday too.

Houdini Calves

No, that is not where they are meant to be.  

The calves are growing well, but not so big that they can't squeeze out gaps.  Mind you, it helps if you actually turn on the electric fencing! 

Only a few more weeks of milk feeding, thankfully.

Frump

I woke up this morning in a frump - a frowny grump.  I'm tired, the kids are home from school again with snotty noses and headaches and are stretching my patience, 'someone' (no one is owning up) squashed the vacuum cleaner plug so I can't clean the floors and they are crunchy with dirt, I've a to-do list as long as my arm and all of it tedious stuff, four calves to feed twice a day, it's rained every day for about three weeks solid...........see?  I could keep whining on and on but nobody likes a whiner.

So I gave my own butt a kick and decided to be consciously grateful for things today.

The sun is actually shining and looks promising for the whole day.  It hasn't done this for such a long time, it's so lovely.

Those calves that I have to feed twice a day are cute and healthy and that's a big thing.  I know how quickly bottle fed babies can get sick.

My five year old birthday girl wanted a simple heart birthday cake, not a mermaid castle masterpiece, and just an afternoon tea with her cousins - grateful!!  Gotta love the photo bomb by her cousin.

The first bulb is up in my orchard.  I planted heaps but thought the chickens might have scratched them all up so I'm very happy to see this early cheer.  And I can see an iris budding up too.

I've got my design wall up and functioning.  I might put another sheet of flannel covered polystyrene under this one but for now my long quilts can just hang.  So grateful to have a studio space to myself and room to have a big design wall.

Now hopefully I can keep my grateful mood right through the day, especially dinner time!  I'm off to enjoy the sun and get a little vitamin D in my system.

Rabbit on a Rampage

Well, not a rampage really, just a jaunt.  But I've had rabbits out on jaunts before, and it only ends one way! More rabbits!  A couple days ago we had howling wind and it was so strong it blew off the roof of the rabbit cage.  Mama bunny saw her chance and there she was the next morning, bouncing round on the lawn.

The ducks weren't quite sure what to make of her.  "She's white but she doesn't quack.  And whoa!  No waddle!  Definitely not one of us."

And looking at the background of that photo makes me realise I haven't pruned my fruit trees yet.....add it to the to do list.

Very shortly we will be getting some more of these wee sweeties.  It's serious calving time around here on all the dairy farms so it's the best time to get some calves that I'll then raise by hand.  A year or two later and they fill our freezer nicely.

I just witnessed the home kill of our last two big cows - which I kinda think is the right thing to do.  I've raised them, cared for them, shifted their paddocks every fortnight, chased them around when they've got out, and I like to see that they have as good an end as they did in life.  And they sure did.  Our home kill guy is great.  One shot and they drop like a stone.  No terror of trucks and abattoir, just contented grazing right to the end.

I used to be a vegetarian - kinda weird now when you think of what we do here: raise rabbits, chickens, sheep and cows for our freezer.  But my main complaint was the way they were raised and then slaughtered. I feel good about how our animals live and then die so I don't have any qualms about eating them.

But I have to be able to keep them in their paddocks/pens/cages first!!  So now I have to dig out the live capture possum trap and try and get that mischievous Mama Bunny back where she belongs.

Windyhill Farm Animals.

 Minty the lamb.  He is slowly being weaned and he has an appointment with a couple of rubber rings shortly.  He is boisterous and bouncy and would dearly love a playmate, but orphan lambs have been a little scarcer this year.

 These are the calves that I bottle-reared last year.  Growing fat and sassy on spring grass.

 This is Gloria - I still have hopes about her becoming my housecow.  I should have de-horned her when she was a baby but I didn't get around to it.  She lets me scratch her butt (and if I have bit of chow with molasses, well, she'll let me touch her anywhere!)

 This was Gloria when we first got her.  Ouch, painfully skinny.

And that's her in the middle.  She'll never be a fat cow after her underfed start, but for her she is nicely rounded around the rump.  Isn't it amazing how much darker she's gotten as she's grown?

And would a post about my animals be complete without a chook photo?  These are some eight week old chicks that I'm going to sell.  Two Light Sussex roosters (they'll probably end up in the pot) and three Light Sussex pullets.  Anyone need an egg factory?  $12 each. Cluck, cluck! 

How now, brown cow?

So what would you choose? A house cow or a house goat?

I've been pondering that question for a wee while now. Of course, I've been pondering the bigger question too: "House milk-bearing animal at all?"

My husband hates goats. With a passion. It goes back to a wild goat-cull he went on as a lad, got marooned and ended up having to eat half-cooked wild billy-goat....enough said. He reckons he can taste 'goat' in the meat, in the cheese, in the milk. Not that he drinks much milk anyway, he's a bit lactose intolerant.

I've never had that much to do with goats, but they look pretty cute! They are also smaller, but craftier, than cows. Apparently they do a lot of escaping. Everything I've read says you need to have at least two because they are such social animals. Then there is hoof trimming, shelter requirements and the fact that they never develop a resistance to internal worms.

Cows are big. If one stands on your foot, you know about it. They also produce a heck of a lot of milk. But you can separate off the cream and make butter. Goat milk and cream doesn't separate very well. Cow's milk and it's products are more accepted than goat milk.

Cows don't climb and eat trees (which we have a lot of young ones) and they don't need as much company as goats. But they are more expensive to buy and they take a lot longer to produce offspring. However, said offspring is easier to sell or eat.

As for the time factor of everyday milking - well, I reckon that's ok. I'm not a highly motivated person but things that need to get done, get done. Like 'chickens will starve if I don't feed them' versus 'nobody will starve if the floor stays unvacuumed'. Also, if you keep the calf/kid with mum then just lock it away for the night or a few hours, you can go away for a night or two and not worry about mastitis etc. You also get a naturally reared animal - much easier for you and much healthier for them.

The locking away thingy also brings up another point. I have no yards and no milking stand or crush. So the bigger the animal, the more expensive to build what I need.

I have a wee jersey heifer called Gloria, but it will be another year before I can get her in calf and then another nine months before I potentially have milk - and I'm itching to get into it now.

Oh so much to ponder!!

Anyone got any thoughts on this?

Being a lady of 'leisure' has it's advantages. I get to paint my toenails, eat bonbons and watch daytime televsion.......not.

The turkeys are getting big enough for some outside time. Every morning I catch them and put them in a run outside, this involves lots of squawking and flapping (mostly from them). Every evening I catch them again and put them back in their brooder box inside, even more squawking and flapping. I feed them and change their water, and I feed and change the chicks water while I'm at it.

I'm still milk feeding the calves twice a day. But I'm cutting down their morning milk as I'm planning to wean them soon. Instead, I lug big buckets of calf meal to them. Gloria has lost her famine-victim look and is developing a fetching black tinge to her muzzle.

I have started a garden! And on my days without the kidlets, I get to spend about and hour and a half in here before it gets too hot for digging. It's rained once in the last two months, so I lug the washing machine water, the sink water and the bath water out here to give the seedlings a fighting chance.

And in between housework, kidwrangling, quilting and blogging, I've finally baked my Christmas Cake.

Now, where did I put that last bonbon?

Morning moosings.

Rumpelsteakskin. He's finished his milk and now nibbling on a little meal, but he'd rather have more milk please.

Henrietta Hereford Hamburger, who has always shunned my attentions. She's really only hanging around because her mates think I'm alright. Oh, and there's calf meal on the offing.

And this little beauty came to visit today. Both my kidlets have butterfly nets, given to them by I can't remember who. I don't really like the idea of them, chasing down innocent little beasties just for fun. (Says me who was earlier scrabbling around on hands and knees catching slaters to feed to my two new turkey poults.) But if they hadn't had one, I had no way of stopping this little guy from buzzing himself to death on my ceiling. And actually, the kids have only ever used the nets to catch each other...

Excitement!

Digger coming tomorrow..........FINALLY!!

It's going to:
dig the base for the man's shed,
dig over my garden site and then dump more topsoil on top (lazy woman's double digging method),
dig me a duckpond (better incubate me some duck eggs!)
and flatten a second watertank site for us up the top of our hill.

I'm so excited by the prospect of a vege garden I almost piddled my pants.

Better go to bed so I can get up early enough to take 'before' pics.

PS all calves are still alive and healthy, feeling quite proud.

Meet the beef.

Please excuse the photo quality but these were taken last evening after feeding. I kinda forgot to take pics and then quickely grabbed some shots before it got too dark.


This is Black Pudding having a scratch. She really is the sweetest calf but is pretty keen on her feeds and will push and bunt the others out of her way even though she is the smallest!


Poor skinny Gloria. Someone at the saleyards said she looked like she had been taken off milk and needed to go back on and I agree, she needs feeding up. But she takes milk no probs and I've seen her chewing on grass too so I think she'll be ok. You can see Rumpelsteakskin and Black Pudding in the background.

In the foreground is Bunty Beef - she also knows how to get the good stuff and I've also seen her chewing on grass, she's definitely a bit older. And her penmate at the back is Henrietta Hereford Hamburger. We managed to get her back to the pen by letting out all the others and once she was in a group she settled down immediately. She's still not interested in milk though. I even straddled her, put the teat in her mouth and squirted milk down her throat - not interested! I have seen her urinate and have a grassy poo, and she is probably the best covered of the lot of them so I'm not concerned.

So that's our happy little bovine family.

On other farmy news, I have a new incubator and about an hour ago I set 21 eggs in it. Twelve purebreed eggs: Barnevelder, Araucana, Light Sussex, Barred Rock and Faverolle. And nine of my own: Araucana, Dorking, Golden Laced Wyandotte and Orpington all crossed with my Silver Laced Wyandotte Rooster. So in 21 days time, watch this space!!

Moo!

Saleyards are fun!

Especially when you come home with some new animals.

Pics tomorrow, but I now have;

Black Pudding: a four day old black heifer calf, probably mostly Angus,

Gloria: a sweet wee Jersey heifer calf who I hope will become my house cow in a couple of years,

Bunty Beef: a slightly older, chocolate coloured calf, guessing Murray Grey/Jersey/Angus, named Bunty because that's what she did to my backside when I took the bucket of milk off her,

Henrietta Hereford Hamburger: another slightly older, red and white calf who is currently spending the night out in the cold as she escaped the pen and YOU try tackling a frightened 45kg calf travelling at racehorse speed!

Two of these (we've yet to decide which two) will end up in my friend's paddock. It will probably be the two we can catch at the time (but not Gloria!).

Introducing Rumpelsteakskin

A week ago I approached the dairy farmer down the road to see if he had any bobby calves I could buy off him. He only had two cows left to go, this little guy had just been born and when the other one went we could have that too.

Unfortunately his herd mate is now part of the maternity mortality statistics and so we have only the one. He arrived today and is VERY cute. I know his eyes look devilish with the flash, but imagine liquid honey.....and so I named him Rumpelsteaksin to remind myself that I will be eating him eventually.

So tomorrow morning I have to teach this feisty little guy who will be missing his mummy, how to drink from a calfeteria (aka a sugar bucket with a humongous rubber teat in the side of it).

Wish me luck!

And now, to bed. Feeling a little fatigued after two 12 hour night shifts in a row.

Satisfaction is......

A bottled brew of gingerbeer.

A perfectly baked loaf of bread (admittedly from the breadmaker, but hey!)

A big pile of chopped down gorse.

Realising that this beautiful flowering flax used to be a small division just a couple of years ago, planted by me (or hubby or one of my dear friends!), and look at it now! We are making progress.

Building a calf shelter for the little bobby calves that I'm going to raise. Hot news: I have resigned so now I'll have the time (I hope) to do this sort of thing.

A beautiful Sunday spent with the family.