Baby chicks and Baptisms

Hello ya'll 


It's been a while... we are now in full summer mode.  The garden is growing.  We are eating salad, arugula, spinach and radishes so far.  Can't beat fresh salad for supper every night.  One problem though.  As the garden grows so do the weeds.  We spend several hours daily when it is not raining removing the weeds so the plants can grow.

We have had a few new additions to our farm family.  We have six beautiful new egg layers in the chicken coop.  They are very colourful and much larger than our other chickens but unfortunately have not started to lay eggs yet.  I am waiting very patiently.

It was now time to make them truly free range.  We fenced in area for them and during the day they roam around the outside of the chicken coop, basking in the sun and eat fresh grass, dirt and bugs to their hearts content.  We bring them in at night for their safety and Cujo's and my piece of mind

Eleven day olds  have also been added to the barn.  They are so sweet and need to stay under a heat lamp for two weeks but in eight to ten weeks, our cute baby chicks will be full grown capons ready to harvest and roast.  So we now also have fresh free range meat chickens added to the Cacciotti menu!!

We have added another baby girl to our goat herd.  "Trinity" arrived on June 13th only two days old, abandoned by her mother and very ill with a cold.  Thanks to some patience, determination and a trip to the drugstore for some cold medication she is doing very well.  She has since been back to her old home to have her horns removed.

the black marks on her head is the medicine to disinfect where her horns were removed

I was two days away from completely weaning Nina and Fiona (now nine and a half weeks old)  and excited to put the baby bottles away only to start all over again but this little girl is worth it.  I still give the other girls a bottle at night time just until this week end though.  

bottle feeding begins again...Trinity 11 days old

Moomoo is getting massive.  We decided to put him in the front coral to give him more room and to graze to his heart's content.  He is way to strong to be so close to him.  He thinks he's playing but easily lifts me off the ground when I would go into his pen to tend to his needs. 

 In the front field I can feed and water him from the fence...much safer.  Katie went in to play with him today while I was in the next field picking clover.  I heard her scream and when I looked over he was so excited bucking and romping around she started to run and he chased her to the other end of the field.  It was hilarious!

Sergio bringing moomoo to his new hang out...Cujo is supervising!

We put up this shelter to protect him from the sun and rain.  He doesn't use it much.  He enjoys basking in the sun and loves his showers when it rains. 
 A funny story though.  The morning after his move, I took my coffee and went on the deck to check on him.  I couldn't see him.  I tip toed out to the coral with my camera to catch him sleeping but he was nowhere to be found.  I checked the whole coral and no Moomoo.  Panic set in and I started running around the farm looking for him.  Believe it or not he was in the barn, in Leroy's old stall with the door latched.  We still have no idea if someone played a prank or if one of our neighbours found him out and about and put him in the stall.  No one has taken the credit for saving a lost little cow so I am seriously thinking that Cujo may have herded him up there and somehow closed the latch.  Who knows maybe he is Super Farm Dog!!


We made cheese twice this month.  It was an awesome night cheese making with Jana and Grant both super enthused for the experience.

When we made our cheese we did something a little different.  We cut up pieces of olives and mixed it with the cheese.  It was delicious.

Yummy!!

We did a lot of non-farm things this month so far.  Three baptisms...
Congratulations to Adriano

Marika

and Carter on your special days.

Happy belated Father's Day by the way to any dads that may be reading.  I brought Sergio to Toronto to see WAR HORSE!!  It was fabulous.  Being a horse person, it was a very emotional experience as was the movie.  The horses portrayed in the theatre were puppeteered by some amazingly talented people.  .  The movements of the horse's ears and head were so life like I didn't notice the artists working them after the first scene.  Congratulations to the Princess 
of Wales Theatre the cast and those behind the stage to make this production one of my best theatre experiences so far.


Three days of work left till my summer vacation...from my day job that is!!!


Good night ya'll


Live Laugh Love

An imperfect perfect week

Hello ya'll


Lots of different things to tell you this week.  My horses have their home back.  Our border Jack, has moved on to bigger and brighter things.  Good Luck to you with your new training.  I thought Leroy would be bothered by it because they really got along but they all seem very content.  Great news though we opened up the small field for them to graze on.  Yippee!!  They were very pleased with that decision and now I can see them straight out my dining room window.  That makes me MUCH happier when I wake to see them right off the deck while I enjoy my first coffee of the day.

Isn't my Booboo beautiful

Moomoo is getting gigantic and he is still on his bottle but his milk is very diluted.  It's a mommy thing.  I know how much he loves it and I just can't bear to take it away just yet.  He is getting stronger when he tries to play with me and he doesn't know his own strength so it is a few minutes that I can be close to him to pet him without him hurting me by accident.  

The goats are all awesome.  They babies are starting to eat grain more regularly and will be off their bottles within a few more weeks.

The bunny and chicken coop is thriving and everyone is on their summer routine.

This week was the pool opening and there were major problems.  The water level was very low.  I patched a tear in the liner last year.  When I went in to wash the liner, I noticed the patch had come unglued in a corner.  I got the pump out and pumped the water out below the patch so I could patch it.  That was easy.  Then I turned the water on.  Now we are on a well so filling up the water would take about 24 hours.  I cleaned out all the leaves and bugs which took hours but I got a great tan.  I put the all the chemicals in so as the pool filled it would clear up.  When I went to take all the plugs out I noticed the skimmer was crushed. It must have happened due to the movement of the deck over the winter.  Instead of relying on the pool boy to open the pool this year we decided to do it ourselves.  Sergio went out and bought the replacement part and yes after a lot of sweat because he was on the deck and a multitude of bug bites because I was under the deck, the job was a success!!  As I continued my barn chores, Sergio attached the hoses and installed the pump.  I set my alarm every few hours during the night to make sure all was okay.  In the morning when the pool was still not full, Sergio checked around the pool a little closer and there was water gushing out under the deck that wasn't gushing before.  I put a wet suit on and went in the freezing water to search for the problem.  There was a brand new gash at the bottom of the pool and when I investigated I found a sharp rock that had sliced the liner.  It was 7 o'clock on a Sunday morning, nothing was open especially a pool store, and all my well water was gushing out and being wasted...PANIC!!!!!  I tried to use a patch that I already had but it didn't stick.  I was able to squish it in the hole and plug it temporarily.  My honey saved the day again.  He called the owner of the pool store at home and they met at the pool store to buy an underwater patch kit.  This time I made him put the wet suit on and get in the freezing water.  Another success!!  We turned the water back on and went about our day.  Finally at 8 o'clock that night the water level was high enough that I could turn the pump on.  It didn't work.  I waited a bit and then it started to make a very WRONG sound so I shut it off.  Upon my inspection of the hoses, it didn't look right and called the boss!!  I had told him it didn't look right after he did it but my memory isn't as great as it used to be and trusted that the man would know what he was doing.  At prime mosquito feeding time out we went to battle hoses full of water and change the hook-up.  It wasn't the funnest thing I have ever done but like the troopers we are, got the job done.

It has been very hot and no rain since we planted the garden so I have been watering it like crazy.  We finally got a nice downpour of rain Wednesday night and everything started popping up out of the garden. 

spinach

salad

beans

potatoes

Unfortunately, on Friday morning there was a huge frost and I lost my basil, a couple of tomato and pepper plants and all my marigolds.  I was told not to put in the plants in until after June but I just wanted all done.  Lesson learned.  Next year I will plant my seeds earlier and my plants later.


Our riding arena began leaning last year so they came to fix it this week.  They dug around all the columns, reinforced them, tightened the cables and  fixed the overhead doors.  The arena is home to many pigeons who nest above the overhead doors.  They are very messy and unwelcome guests.  I usually go up on a ladder or Sergio lifts me up with the bucket of the tractor to destroy eggs and dispose of as many as I can to try and control the population.  The pigeons have since built nests high in the corners of the arena where I cannot reach.  They had a huge scissor lift!!  I asked if they would get the nest high in the corner.  When they brought the nest down there was a baby pigeon that was only a few days old.  Poor little thing.  I couldn't destroy something so small so I put in some grass in a pail to deal with it later.  With a bit of convincing they let me go up on the scissor lift to see if there were any baby pigeons left above the overhead doors.  There were four.  Now I have harvested pigeons with a stick but never with my bare hands and these guys were watching me so I was a little anxious in what to do.  The guys were blocking them in one corner so could catch them.  One at a time, I harvested them.  I had seen Sergio clean them before but had never done it myself.  I wanted to surprise him with roasted pigeon for supper so away I went.  I put a foot on either wing grabbed the legs and pulled.  It didn't work out as planned, the legs came off instead of just the breast.  I managed as best I could then ran inside to clean them and prepared them for supper.


Roasted Pigeon and Potato Recipe

• salt and pepper the inside of the breast cavity
• stuff fresh sage, rosemary, minced garlic and diced red onion inside the breast cavity
• wrap each breast with bacon
• place an a roasting pan that has a thin layer of olive oil on it breast up
• clean and quarter four potatoes and place around the pigeon
• sprinkle with salt pepper and rosemary
• bake at 350 for about 45 minutes

Voila!!

Roasted pigeon and potatoes

You can also cook quail and partridge this way.


Now I had the teeny pigeon to deal with.  When I went back out to the barn to get it she was shivering.  I brought it into the house, wrapped it with cloths and put it under a lamp.  Now what to feed it.  I took soy nuts, pecans some cow starter, goat milk and molasses and ground it up in the magic bullet. I used tweezers and gently opened her beak and put the food in her mouth.  She happily ate.  I also used the baby bunny bottle and squeezed drops of water in her beak.  I continued this all evening.  The cats were very curious so ad bedtime I put her in my bathroom sink under the lamp and closed the door to keep her safe.

The cutest ugliest muffin ever

Unfortunately when I woke up in the morning the baby pigeon was lifeless in the nest I made for her.

The kitties are getting along much better.  They chase and play but Jaydee still growls at Kyana every once in a while.  I have moved Kyana's litter box and food into Jaydee's room and that is going well.

The riding arena is complete.  Sergio used the tractor to even out all the RCMP mix.  We dragged it over and over again to even it out and picked up a muleful of rocks that were left after they dug out the columns and voila!!

It is a gloomy, rainy Saturday morning.  It has been raining since last night which is awesome for the garden and the fields.  It also means life around the farm this week end will be lazy and restful.  Enjoy your week end ya'll. 

Live Laugh Love