A lot has transpired since I last posted. I really want to get better with posting, but whew things have been a bit busy.
If you read the page on our animals, you know BJ wanted a few chickens. Welp! We got ’em. 32 to be exact, plus 2 turkeys. We acquired them all back in March, and unfortunately we lost 2 chickens and 1 of our turkeys. We are pretty sure the first chic got too cold back in that deep freeze we had. We had left while it was nice and sunny and warm, so I had the heat lamp off, but sadly got home much later than anticipated and it got pretty cold in the coop. The second one was just last week. The poor gal had gotten under the coop and we couldn’t coax her out. She managed to live a *whole week* down there. When we finally got her out, she was so emaciated, it was quite pitiful. In about 36 hours after her coming out, she passed. Our other turkey, we aren’t 100% sure, but feel it was likely that he messed with a rat that died from poison. We noticed *rats* in the pen a while ago. We tried the buckets, traps, and as a last resort: poison! I was hesitant, but it worked! And I wanted to rid the nasty critters. (Don’t judge me, but they carry diseases, are incredibly destructive, and I am not paying for feed to feed those lil unwelcomed visitors). I saw a dead rat in the run, I immediately got it out. It was still soft, so I was sure I caught it before anyone else saw it and pecked at it. It was that night that Mr. Turkey started behaving excessively lethargic and uninterested in food or water. He was passed by morning.
Can I be honest with you?? I had to really decide if I wanted to keep going after all this loss. Yes, we are growing some of these animals for food, but the thought of them passing due to freezing, starving, or worse *poisoning* is just so brutal and hard. Yet, here we are, still going.
In much lighter news…… we are expecting a birth in the next few weeks. Ms. Allie will be kidding very soon. I think she will be a great Mama. I can’t wait to see if she will have one or two, see what colors, gender, all the things of the new baby!!
I do plan on milking her. I have been trying to soak up allllllll the information and haven’t decided if I will milk twice a day or once day. Do you milk your goats? Or have you in the past? Please leave some comments and tell me your experience and any advice you have.
The garden is/has doing/done so well. We’ve had some delicious tomatoes, peppers, melons, squash, and corn so far. I am very excited to see the strawberries and asparagus doing really well, and simply can’t wait to get to harvest both next year. The grapes should also be ready next year. Our berries will likely need two more seasons, as they were just little saplings when we planted them this year.
We were able to have some delicious blackberry jam this year. Aren’t they just gorgeous????
Speaking of gorgeous… Wouldja just look at it!!!
That Lily though!!!
If you know anything about me, you know I *LOVE* watermelon!! (water- mel- own)
But, my cottage garden has brought me so much joy this season. So many butterflies, birds, colors, aromas! It’s been my happy place this season. I have barely even walked to the pond all season!!!
I can’t give an update and not share what the hubs has been up to. He’s pretty proud of his hard work, and who can blame him?!? We are at a standstill for the moment while we wait for a surveyor to replace a marker that has been lost, but again, wouldja just look at it!
When it’s all said and done we can finally give everyone more leg room aannnnnddd add some cows 🙂
Speaking of my handsome stud. Isn’t he adorable?? We just celebrated him and one more trip around the sun. He certainly makes life more enjoyable!!!
You can’t really see what he’s looking at in the standing pic, but juuust off the pic there’s a humming bird he’s determined to befriend.
Finally, we had our first vendor market. I took sandwich bread, cheesy bread, brownies, oatmeal raisin cookies, and mini blueberry loaves, as well as a few crafts. The cookies didn’t budge, the brownies and blueberry loaves did okay. The sandwich bread did very well, and completely sold out of the cheesy bread. Embarrassingly I only sold two of my crafts, and that was only because the first one the customer purchased broke. Obviously, I had to replace that one. I will be working with a few other recipes to see what I can come up to ensure durability as well unique and fun.
If you lasted this long, please drop a comment and say “hi”, you can also subscribe for future updates. This is now going to be more of a priority as we are going to be adding more to the farm, to market, and of course, will be updating Ms. Allie’s new kid(s).