My new farm

(My Mother's Day "Love" rose)

Been a busy couple of months.
I have always wanted a farm. When I was a little girl I had a pretend farm where horses were the main item, but I grew most my own food, too. I even joined the Future Farmers of America in high school to prepare myself. There I met the most perfect man for me. We dated for three years (waiting to be old enough to marry), and had our wedding six months after I graduated.

He hates animals.

Well, ok, he “says” he hates animals, but actually tolerates them if they don’t interfere with life too much and aren’t too expensive.

We lived in an apartment for eleven years, so we were limited to cats and fish for that time. Then we moved to a condo for two years. There we had a dog (who went back to the pound. It was a bad personality fit), a rabbit, and two ducks. We turned the ducks loose at a private lake (with owner’s permission) and the rabbit died. We gave the fish to a friend. Then we lived in a camp trailer for seven months after moving here.

Shortly after buying our house, we adopted a puppy from the pound. He was a good dog, though I think he was too smart. I don’t get along well with animals smarter than me. Unfortunately, he was hit by a car.
(Picture of a Bernese Mountain Dog. This is just what Bear looked like, though he was a mutt)

We also let our oldest adopt a cat. Good ole’ Mr. Whiskers was a stodgy old man who would wrestle with my dad, meet us in the window after we had been gone, and bathe in the middle of the living room for school time. Otherwise, he completely ignored our existence. He contracted cancer and we had him put down.

Someone gave us a kitten my oldest son named
Smokey. She was his cat. He should have named her Houdini. We never could keep her in the house no matter what. And my being a bit of a procrastinator, we didn’t quite get her down to be fixed…

Then we had three kittens. One we gave to a sister at church. The other two we couldn’t find homes for, so they just hung around. Shortly before Whiskers died, Smokey got out again. We still don’t know where, but she never came back. So we are back down to two cats; the kittens Peter and Susie (both duly fixed).

Last November we adopted a Labrador X named Jiffy. Wonderful dog. A bit stupid and a lousy guard dog, but he gets along great with the children, has been fairly easy to teach to leave the animals alone, and is a RATTER!!! He has caught three now!
(Hunting in the garden)

Add in some goldfish, a round or two of parakeets, and a Corriente cow (the breed used in the rodeo) and her two calves (all three were delicious) and that covers nine years of animals.

Then we found out our friends were starting a farm and possibly moving to a more rural community. I don’t know if hubby just felt sorry for me or didn’t realize until then how much I wanted animals, or if it simply hadn’t been God’s timing before, but it has been like a damn breaking around here.

Hubby found some rabbits on craigslist.com. We bought two girls and a boy Red Satins for my oldest daughter. Their fur is translucent giving them a deep shine. “Red” in rabbit colors is really a shade of reddish orange. Two weeks ago we had our first bunnies. A litter of two. This is normal for a first time mom. Unfortunately it is also very normal to loose one or two babies per litter. One died. The other now has its eyes open and even jumped out of the nest box today. So adorable! (New Mom Satin)(Daddy Red)
(Due Next Week Velvet)
Then hubby found an add on Craig’s list for milk cows and meat calves. We went over and looked and arranged to pick up two calves for the freezer. For a variety of reasons we didn’t’ actually get them until last week. One is a Holstein and the other a Holstein/ Jersey cross (not the best meat breeds but so cheap it doesn’t matter). Their names are Quarter Pounder (my oldest son’s calf) and Well Done (for my oldest daughter. I know from experience that teaching these calves will give my children a great deal of patience and confidence.

(Well Done) (Quarter-Pounder)

Then our friends found a local dairy with two cows for sale. The cheapy one was an eight year old who is now infertile (For those who may not know, a cow must give birth to a calf in order to give milk. Most must calve every year, though the record on one calving is six years). This cow has now been two years without birthing a calf and at ONLY six gallons a day, was not earning her keep. We bought her with the knowledge that we would only have milk for a short time and then we get hamburger.

This cow (Buttercup) thinks she is a puppy dog. She follows the children around the yard investigating what they are up to. She continually tries to groom us!

We have put her on all alfalfa (no grain) because it is more natural for her, reduces her stress making her healthier, reduces the bacteria in her manure, and is cheaper to boot. This lowers her milk production. For this and other reasons, she gave about four gallons per day (!) until about a week ago when she dropped to three and a half. I am still hoping she will come back up.

Needless to say, I now know how to churn butter, make yogurt and now cheese from scratch, as well as letting the children drink all they want (our fridge didn’t hold enough to allow that before), plus I get to share with friends. We have discovered EVERYONE we know who is dairy intolerant can drink this raw milk with no problems. (From my backyard. Really!)
(OK, so this is what most of my backyard looks like)(and this is my whole "Orchard")
Add to all this, we found chicks at a feed store Monday.

So now we have (to the tune of twelve days of Christmas):

Twelve scraggly fruit trees
Eight happy children
Seven weedy garden beds
Six baby chickies
Two blue-gray cats
Whoooo knows how many goldfish
Four red rabbits
One goofy doggy
Two eaten’ steers
Aaannnddd
One Jersey milk-en cow

:-)