Spring has Sprung

All the snow is gone.  The goats are sunning, the sheep are panting in their wool and the dogs are playing.


The kidding season is getting close and several goats qualify for "Wide Load" warning signs.

I'll do my best to keep posting as the babies start coming.  I'm expecting 7 sets of goat babies  (1-5 per set) and 5 or so lambs.  I'm glad the lambs are likely to all be singles since I'm a bit scared of the potential for a goat population explosion. Should be a huge amount of cuteness around here.  Time to tune up the milking machine and get everything ready.

Several garden beds are planted already.  There are greens in the greenhouse and we're now producing enough to keep us in salads.

Happy Spring, stand back at a safe distance!

Confessions

Okay, I confess.  The reason I farm is to make sure I spend enough time outside because I believe that is the most loving thing I can do for myself.  It's also the way I can give myself enough time away from modern technology and modern distractions.  Being outside in nature is an immersion in the peacefulness of current, local reality.

I confess that I am excited about learning in so many topic areas that I can easily get stuck in front of a computer or reading books for more hours than is balanced.  Between barn chores to get me outside and all the gardens that surround the house it is hard to get back inside once I leave the house.  Each morning during winter I head out and do morning chores and then I laze around with the goats and dogs in the pasture.  There's always something to explore, someone who wants to be scratched or rubbed.  I finally drag myself away because I have desk work to do and flower essence orders to pack.  During the summer  it's similar but there is the added attraction of gardens to commune with.

How would I live if I didn't have to run a business?  I'd probably rarely go back inside.  I'm pretty good at going without much food from years of farming as a young mother with not enough hours in the day.  A handful of nuts in a pocket and I'm good for the hours!  I can pretty easily fall into the herd schedule of lazing around in the sun with a few forays into different parts of the pasture.

There is at least one other reason I farm.  I really like to eat good food.  Well, let me amend that.  I actually end up spending more time growing good food than eating it but I like to make food happen!  Fruit, nuts, vegetables, herbs, edible flowers.....it's all exciting to me!  The only way I know to make sure I eat quality food is to know where it came from and how it was grown.  That's pretty hard at a supermarket.  When I was 19 and growing most of my food someone expressed that it must be difficult to do that.  My reply was that it seemed a lot easier than to have such a huge disconnect between me and the food I put into my body.  Most of the food I ate was part of my life from seed onwards at that time and in those days not much distraction from the rest of the world to dilute my relationship with my food crops.

This year I'm working on finding balance in my schedule.  I seek to create days with less information distraction from the greater world and more information from the extremely local world.  I'll keep you posted!

Here's a photo of one of my close neighbors, also focused on an extremely local world.

Photo note: I took this photo several years ago.  She/he is about the size of an almond.  I spent hours watching the 10 that hatched in one of the water lily ponds here.

February's Golden Sun

Finally remembered to take a camera up to the barn.  It was below freezing but I figured I could get a few photos before the camera shut down.

Today some notes on a few little things that have worked out well in our barn.

First of all, I love how much sun comes in.  The goat side is on the west and the light streams into their stalls and their run in area.
Here's the stall.  Notice the black rubber bumpy itching panels.  They still haven't really gotten the hang of them.  Notice Vera watching in the doorway keeping an eye on the does.  Do you think she's counting to make sure everyone is in?

Here's the other end of the same stall.

Here's the doe stall for when I separate the milkers from their kids overnight.  They can still see each other and often sleep near each other on opposite sides of the wire panel.

There's a goat and dog sized door into the run-in area.  Here's Stella peeking out.  She's due April 4 but it's her fist pregnancy and she's not big yet.  I hope she only has 1 or 2.

The run-in area is nice and large.  The does have half of it and the ewes have the other half.  I put a platform in the goat side and my brother built a dog house.

I chose the size of the doghouse to be big enough for both to fit in but small enough that they could build up some heat in there.  The opening faces the exit in case they need to leave and do livestock guardian duties quickly. The siting of the doghouse also provides a windbreak against west winds, something the goats appreciate.  They like to lounge on top of it in the afternoon sun when it's not windy.

Then there are those goat housekeeping problems....

So after a couple of years of grabbing a handful of waste hay to sweep off the goat "berries" I decided that maybe what I really needed was a windshield brush since it would do double duty; sweep off berries and the scraper could be used when they'd been stepped on and smooshed onto the surface!  It hangs nearby on a bit of framing.

Another idea I had was the piece of scrap 2X6 that I lay along the top of one of the hay mangers on the center aisle side of the stall.  It allowed me to balance feed bowls, flakes of hay and buckets of water up there so I didn't have to be holding stuff when sidling through the gates.  While that worked well the board did get in the way of filling the manger it was on so I had to move it and sometimes it would fall off into the aisle.  I decided it should be hinged so that it could be flipped up when the manger needed filling and down when I needed to balance stuff on it.  Feed pans and water bucket on it waiting to be taken away when I leave the stall.

Here it is flipped up for manger filling.

You  may notice that the goats are pretty pudgy.  (They only get 1/4 cup of grain so they are not being overfed, honest!)  Between all their fur and their full rumens they rather look like ottomans with heads and tails.  Because of this I've been considering myself to be royalty; Queen of the Ottoman Empire!

Here is the ewe stall.  They are expecting dinner.....

Chores are done and Vera is on watch duty.  Fergey is probably patrolling the perimeter already.

Upstairs in the Barn

Okay......and up the stairs we go.  I must admit it's lovely not to have to climb a ladder each time I head up to get hay.

Here's the hayloft.  Some bedding straw is visible on the left but most of what's here is lovely second cutting hay.

The barn upstairs is so big because  it extends out over the run-in/solarium areas on both ends so we decided to put a warm barn office for record storage, chatting with goat/sheep buyers and for waiting out long nights of expectant does or ewes.  This barn is a hike up the hill from the house and checking on a mom-to-be every few hours all night would be exhausting.  This way I can crash on one of the daybeds along the window and pull my overalls on to walk down the stairs for maternity checks as often as I want without being totally fried the next day.  It's a fairly large space so we put some kitchen base cabinets along part of one wall.  They have an electric tea kettle, a few utensils and tea in them as well as a wash basin for washing up the tea mugs.  I think I'll put  a couple cans of soup up there for extra long nights or days during kidding/lambing season.  The floor is shiny because it's a fake wood laminate......I much prefer real wood but I couldn't justify the extra expense and this has the benefit of being easy to wipe clean.  Under the daybeds is a storage area......who knows what would need storing but it seemed silly to wall off that space with no access.

Here's the same wall of windows/daybeds but the other end of it.

The snack and tea area.  The top is just some boards....not sanded or finished but that's okay since this isn't a kitchen....more storage than anything.  The file box with all registrations, health charts, breeding notes, etc. is kept in one of these cabinets.  

The book shelves and coat rack area......

Notice how my brother used sections of curved birch to make shelf supports.  The coat/hat hooks were a gift from my partner Joseph.  He made them the year before.

Here is the strip of LED lights that I put up behind the beam to light up the shelf of tea stuff.  They adhered perfectly on half of the V-groove of the roof paneling.  They cast an amazing amount of warm light.

So, that's it!  I think I'm pretty much caught up with barn updates. Hope you've enjoyed them!!!

More Barn Photos

Okay.....just a quick bit of barn news.
Here's where I milk.  It's a cool blue room, small but big enough to hold a milking stand and supplies.  I keep small bins with grain and alfalfa for feeding the does during milking.  My milking machine bucket hangs up to drain.  The actual machine part of it lives through the wall in a tiny room that also houses the barn electrical panel and a few tools.

Next door to the milking room is the milk processing room.  That's still a work in progress as I wait for a sink.  Jeff did a great job putting up the plastic wall covering, trimming it out and then caulking everything.  There is a floor drain and someday there'll be a huge 3 bay sink in here as well as a separate hand-washing sink.  I'm not planning on being a Grade A Dairy but I don't want to do something I have to undo and redo if I choose to go for Grade A designation.  Right now we're waiting for the caulk smell to dissipate and hopefully soon I'll find the right sink.

And last, but not least is my "bucket loo" as the British call them.  This is a bathroom option for those who would rather compost their own waste rather than use drinking water to flush it away somewhere. We have regular toilets in our house but I had no intention of a septic system at the barn.  My brother built this beautiful little indoor outhouse.  After each use some peat moss is added to cover.  When the bucket is full it goes to a special composting area and can later be used on non-food crops.  Actually, most of the world uses human manure  (humanure)  on food crops but since I have lots of animal manure options I'll only use it on non-food crops.

This little indoor outhouse is located just past the well/pump box, tucked into a small area not needed for anything else.

I'll post photos of the grain room and tool storage soon but next up is the barn office and hayloft!

Barn Update

Okay, at last an update on the barn project.  I've been too busy to write.  I hope the ewes and does are all bred.  If so it's going to be achingly cute around here this spring!  I'm hoping the barn will hold the increase in animals.

I forgot to get some shots of the front of the barn so we'll start with the center aisle.

Here is the main goat stall.  All the does live here and the milking does are separated overnight into an abutting stall to the left.

The below photo is of the stall the does stay in overnight.  Two junior does are watching.....
I like that when separating moms and babies they can still see each other and indeed sometimes sleep next to each other on either side of the wire.

This photo doesn't show this area very clearly but there is a aisle (with gate on it so it can be yet another pen) with 3 potential kidding/lambing pens to the left and one double sized pen at the end.  I say 3 potential pens because the pens are created by sliding 2X6 lumber into metal tracks and that allows the creation of more small pens or less larger pens depending upon what is needed.  I also have 2 medium sized pens 8X12 and 8X16 that are available for weaning groups, sick bays or whatever.  Note the gaps in the gates at adult eye height.  That's so they can see out, see their neighbors, see the new babies in the next pen, etc.  The gaps are high enough to not create drafts for the kids but low enough that kids can peek out once they are coordinated enough to stand on their hind legs.

Below is the ewe stall.  Like the main goat stall it opens out into what I call their "solarium".  (No, they don't have a den, rec. room or library!)  I don't yet have any photos of the solarium area showing the clear panels that my brother Jeff built to cut down on wind while allowing maximum light.  These panels are either removable (on the east and west sides) or in sliding barn door form  (on the north side) so that summer's breezes will be welcomed into the area.

Also like the main goat stall, it has 2 doors out into the solarium.  A human-size door and a sheep sized door.  I like two doors when there are new herd/flock introductions because no members can be cornered inside.  For instance I kept both doors open when I first put the ram in with the ewes.  I keep only the smaller door open when it's cold and I want to minimize breezes in the barn.

Below is the insulated box that covers my well  (yes, we built the barn around it on purpose), the pump, the hot water heater, and the batteries that run the pump.  The well pump is by Simple Pump  ( www.simplepump.com  )  and runs off of 2 car batteries with a battery tender that keeps  them charged.  If we lose grid power the batteries would likely run the pump for close to a month without recharging.  Attaching a handle I have would allow us to pump by  hand if we needed to or a solar panel could be used to recharge the batteries.  I like this pump a lot.  When animals depend upon me for water I need to know I have access to water even if the grid goes down because of a bad storm or other grid damage.

The insulated well box comes off (the side aisle side of it) for access to work on it.  The top hinges open for quick access.  It hasn't frozen yet and I can put a light bulb in there for heat if needed but the 4 gallon hot water heater keeps it warm enough in conjunction with the rigid foam insulation.

Notice the bucket stand that Jeff made.  It makes it easy to fill both the small buckets and the 5 gallon buckets.  The laundry faucet is kept from freezing with a small insulated box that fits over it when I finish chores.  It's a perfect system.  The bucket stand top is lined in roofing rubber to keep small spills from going all over the floor or rotting the bucket stand.  I love having cold, warm or hot water whenever I need it!!  This really beats carrying water by hand to the small barn we used last winter.

I think I'll stop this post here and do another one with photos of the milking and milk room and other parts of the barn.

Handsome Rams Arrive!

The Boys are here!!!!

Handsome and sweet looking, isn't he?  He's not named yet.  I'm waiting for his breeders to name him.  Dick brought the rams down from Maine.  Having Dick deliver the rams was a boon given how busy I am with working on the barn.

Our two rams were born this spring and they have been here only a few days. Today was their first chance to leave their stall and go out into their pasture.  They sniffed and could clearly smell the herd of young ewes but they couldn't see them.  They tried flirting with my herd of Nigerian Dwarf Goats and got a couple of the goats kind of interested.  They ate a lot of grass, butted heads a few times and generally seemed to have a good time.  Tomorrow will be another day in and out.  In a few days we'll divide our ewes into 2 breeding flocks and let these boys get to work sparking next springs lamb crop!