Panic over hay/Johnny Reid

Hello ya'll


We started this week off in a bit of a panic.  We are running out of hay and the fields are in rough shape.  The mild winters and little snow is not allowing the fields to grow back properly.  In addition to the fact that the spring has been unpredictable and the pasture we do have hasn't grown in fast enough.  Decisions, decisions.  When I got home Monday my honey was a little worried.  We hooked up the mule (the Kawasaki variety) with our home made mini harrow we use to drag the riding arena in fear that the fields were still to wet for the tractor.  That didn't make an impact on dragging the fields,  so the tractor it was.  To our surprise there was only one corner that couldn't accommodate the tractor.  We attached the spreader to the tractor and off my honey went,  first to fertilize and then to seed.  The horses will not be able to eat fresh pasture now until mid to late June to allow the pasture mix to catch and grow.  Poor little darlins, they are just itching to get out there but they will have to endure more hay until the fields are ready.


Tuesday was the Johnny Reid concert.  He was amazing as always.  His voice is so distinct.  His lyrics, so inspiring.  His energy made me jump up and dance and clap much to the regret of the people sitting behind me. Finally his wonderful personality shone through again.  He took special care of including the elderly and mentally and physically challenged.  In my book, if you can extend your kindness to special needs people you are an incredible human being.  You are a wonderful entertainer Mr. Johnny Reid and a joy to listen to.  Thank you for a memorable evening I enjoyed with my daughter Kaytlin.

Hockey is very boring this year.  My Montreal Canadiennes and Sergio's Boston Bruins are not playing plus there are no Canadian teams to cheer for so it's not very popular with me.  Now,  if my team was playing,  the play offs become my favourite TV watching time of the year.  I am their best cheerleader.  I also become a commentator, coach and Don Cherry's competition at home.  Everyone gets a kick out of my "enthusiasm".


The animals are just thriving.  The clover and dandelion is now ready to pick.  I spend almost an hour every day after school picking it for them.  They are soooo excited when I open the cage and they start eating fresh cut grasses.

The baby bunnies are finally out of the nest and hopping around the cage.  They were very interested in the fresh cut grasses today.  I double counted them this afternoon and there are 12 babies.  With the one that passed away this would make the biggest litter  we have had on the farm so far.

The babes at two weeks

Mommy and baby... sweet hunh

Aren't we adorable

Yummy

The chickens are doing well. One of them has been on strike since the snowstorm in April.  I have only been getting 5 eggs.  They are now laying 3 eggs by the time I get out to do morning chores.  I was very disappointed when I went in to collect my eggs  today.  After the three this morning,  there were no more eggs this afternoon.  Sergio had told me to leave them in the coop until they had all finished laying but I didn't want to leave them  all day so I brought them in the house.  I thought I had confused them and thrown them off their routine.  All is well though, my mom brought her neighbour and her grandchildren over for a visit this morning.  Mommy picked up the eggs and brought them in the house.  

Moomoo spent his first night outside last night.  I was a little worried that my little muffin would be upset or cold but I left the bedroom window open all night and didn't hear one little "moo".  This morning I snuck up on him in his pen and he was comfortably tucked in to his outdoor shelter.  He is still drinking two 2 litre bottles of  formula a day.  One in the morning and one at dinner time.  I have been told that I should be weaning him off the bottle but he is only 6 weeks old and too darn cute when he drinks it.  I will be bottle feeding him for a few more weeks or until I am ready.

My adorable Moomoo.  He is growing so much.

Here's Pepper our buck

Pepper is a handsome boy and a respectful buck. He is waiting anxiously to breed again but that will not happen until the end of the summer when  Mamma goat comes into heat. The two new goaties may be able to breed this year.  Goats will stay in heat until late November so hopefully they will be old enough to go into heat this year .Pepper has his moments where he gets up on his hind legs and looks like he's going to charge but we have that pretty well controlled.  He did head butt Cujo last week and THAT did not go over very well.  Cujo was very insulted. He began growling and when Pepper didn't back off he nipped him in the ear.  Lesson learned Pepper.  DON'T mess with the boss.  Needless to say, he hasn't bothered Cuj since.  Our old puppy does his job very well.  He is irreplaceable.

Mamma Goat is feeding only one baby.  The other one was sold two weeks ago so her udder is quite full. Her baby is due for harvesting this week end so I am hoping that she will accept the two new baby goats.  I am not very optimistic though.  Speaking of the baby goats, Nina the youngest has developed diarrhoea.  Thanks to Google, I was at the pharmacy last night buying pedialite and peptobismol in order to try and control it.  She had no other symptoms of anything more serious so let's hope she shows some improvement in the next few days.  It was quite comical though..  The pharmacist said she hoped I felt better as I was paying.   I told her that the medicine wasn't for me but my baby goat.  That sparked great conversation with her and the lady behind me.  I love talking to others about my babies.

With the warmer weather this week, the horses are losing hair like crazy.  Tonight we groomed Scottie and Booboo.  They were so handsome when they had a good brushing.  Sergio thought he'd hop on Scottie and go for a trail ride.  It was a nice day for it.

Have a good week end ya'll!!!  Talk to you soon.

A new home for the goats

Hello ya'll


It's been busy a busy week around the farm.  The baby bunnies now have fur and their eyes are open.  They are 10 days old now and absolutely adorable.  They will be jumping around in no time.  Cappucino is a wonderful mom.  Ronnie's babies are growing nicely.  Soon she will wean her babies because they are eating well.

The two new baby goats are finally eating well, growing and quite content.   Now that we have the beginnings of a little herd, it was definitely time to give them their own space. 

We had an old garden shed that was in the middle of the garden and not serving any particular purpose  so thanks to our dear neighbour Rheal, we moved it.  This was not an easy task!!  Sergio tried to drag it with the tractor but it was just ripping  apart.  Rheal showed up with his lovely front end loader with the large forks attached.  We decided to place it beside the barn so it was close enough that we could see the goats from the house and so Cujo could watch over them easily (he is getting older and he takes his job VERY seriously).  We removed all the tractor attachments and added some top soil so we could plant pasture mix to allow them to graze.  There are natural juts of rock and the footing is uneven which is perfect for the goats to jump and play.  The shed was carefully carried and placed on the foundation.  I was so pleased to see Rheal's skill in working the front end loader.  He placed it perfectly on the two railroad ties.  Might sound so simple but 2 1/2  later we had the beginnings of our goats' new home.  Wish I had pictures of the move but it was spur of the moment and so intense I didn't have time to get the camera.

Saturday morning we quickly but efficiently did all our barn chores and off we were to Home Depot to get materials to renovate the old garden shed for a cute little house for my growing herd. We picked a sand coloured panel siding, what we thought were more brown shingles, roofing nails and I got another surprise from my honey...a PINK hammer to match my PINK tool belt.  For those of you who know me, you know how important anything pink is to me.  Thank you my darling for all the little things, they mean so much to me.  We even bought a window for our little muffins.  We loaded up our materials anxious to get back home and get started.  

We began by stripping off the old shingles then carefully measured, cut and nailed in the siding.  Sergio loves to bring out the table saw and all his tools and I love to get in there like a dirty sock.  Demolition is my favourite thing to do.  He calls me a little bull in a china shop which is awesome because I have a little bull now!!  By the way Moomoo is growing exponentially .  He stays outside during the day and only comes in the barn at night now. The instalment of the window was interesting because where I wanted it placed where it was going to compromise the structure of  the building.  Putting two strong minded Italians together becomes very interesting, even trickier when one doesn't understand structural things and the other one does it for a living.  Like the awesome team we are VOILA!!!!!

The scaffolding you see in the picture was a great idea.  So much easier than balancing on a ladder on uneven surfaces especially when it came to shingling the roof.  Now I had never shingled before and my honey is not a teacher, so it took me a while to get the hang of it but once I did, me and my pink hammer were AMAZING!!  

Earlier on when I told you that we thought we had brown shingles...We were wrong.  We got black ones by accident.  Instead of going back into town, which leaving the farm on the week end is a stretch for me, we designed the shingles to match the interior of my car.  Black half way up and brown at the top. 

Unfortunately we couldn't finish our project because April 29th is an important day.  My eldest son celebrated his 25th birthday on Sunday.  Sunday dinner at the farm is a MUST show up unless you are dying day but because it was Kris' birthday and they just purchased their new home, Lesley made her honey family dinner at their house.  She did an AMAZING job. Enjoy the pics and good night ya'll.  Thanks to the people in Russia, Germany, Italy, USA and home for reading.