The Post That has been So Hard To Start

I know it must look like my blog has died, but I can explain.

I've gone over this post a million times in my head, but couldn't figure out the wording to write it. Well here goes. 

I've been extremely busy getting ready for big life changes. The biggest life change I've ever experienced, because I have lived in the same house practically my entire life. I guess the biggest move I've ever had was moving across the hall to my brothers room after he moved out.

I'm having to sort through all my treasured items and decide what stays behind, what goes with me, and what to sell, give away or throw away. And the hardest of all, selling almost all of the goats, all of the sheep, and many of the rabbits. My mom is going to keep some of the goats, but she can only care for a small number of them. I am going to take 6 rabbits with me.

Even though I am really scared, this is going to be very exciting, and I truly am happy about this decision. As to where I'm going, I'm going to keep that a secret till I get there ; )

Hopefully in a few months I will be moved and settled, and will give you all a update on my new adventures in this crazy thing called life!

Kimberly

Spring Happenings

Did you think I fell off the face of the earth?

I know I haven't blogged in a really long time. I have this thing about writing blog posts with someone in the room. When people are looking over my shoulder, asking about what I am writing and the pictures I am using it throws me off, and then I can't remember what I was going to write rrrrrrr! But that's only part of my excuse. Do I really need to make excuses though? Its my blog and I can write as often as I like *Smile*.

I have been playing catch up on lots of projects, and things that just flat out need to get done. 

I have been fencing in our backyard around the rabbit area. I have been wanting to do this for a long time, but had to wait till the tree got partially trimmed or it would crush my fence when the branches were cut. So that got done. The goats and sheep loved the mulberry branches. After the fence is up I am going to turn my guinea pigs loose in that area. They will be able to eat all the food that the rabbits in raised cages throw out of their food bowls and all the hay that they waste. So they will act as my little cleaners. I am also growing grass for them, but its hard to grow grass when you have to constantly walk on it. The fence is also for prevention in the case a stay dog comes into the yard. I have seen too many pictures of peoples rabbits that  got their toes chewed off from under the cage (and much worse) by their neighbors wandering dogs.

Butchering rabbits. Call me weird, crazy, bunny killer. I don't care. It turns out that after a few rounds in butchering rabbits now, and getting past the not so good feeling of having to take an animals life, that I actually enjoy processing rabbits. No its not fun taking an animals life, but that's part of life, and to live life must be taken (all you vegans, don't even bother commenting). Butchering is time consuming, and work, but I enjoy doing it. Its rather interesting to be able to thoroughly inspect every part of your food as its processed. You get to see the liver, gallbladder, kidneys, heart, etc. and make sure that there is nothing wrong with it. 

I had to clean out all the rabbit pens when our major rains came to an end. All the shavings, and wasted hay was beginning to break down with their poo. I shoveled it all out and dumped load after load in one of my raised beds to fill it up. I should say that this is after I took half of my raised bed frames and set them on top of the other frames to make them twice as high and half as many. So now my garden is less to maintain. It was getting to be to much to water and weed. I decided over the winter that it was something that I needed to cut back on. I only have so much time and energy, and I had to decide on what things are most important. I had a extra pack of pepper plants that I didn't have room to plant in the main garden, so decided to plant them in the raised bed in the garden that I filled from the rabbit pens. The hay and shavings hadn't had the chance to break down all the way, so I wasn't sure if the plants would do well. It has been a few weeks and those plants are now twice the size of the pepper plants in the main garden and much greener.

A couple months back our neighbor had a black rabbit show up in his yard and he caught it and penned it up. Then about a week later my mom woke me up at 2 AM saying that one of my rabbits got loose and was running around the yard. Oh goody! I pulled on a jacket and shoes and we headed out to catch this rabbit she said was white. Then we found a fawn colored doe. It wasn't mine. I put it in a cage and we looked all over to find the white rabbit and never did find it, but none of my rabbits were loose. This was a nice little surprise to have this rabbit show up, because I had been thinking about buying a normal furred doe for breeding, so I could see what its like to process normal furred rabbits, because I only have Rex and they are harder to skin than normally furred rabbits. A couple weeks later the fawn doe pulled hair and made a nest. She wasn't pregnant, but she wanted to be a mom. So after a trip to visit my Rex buck, she has kindled 5 nice big healthy kits.

Almost all our goats and sheep have kidded / lambed for the season. At least I hope! Hyacinth is due any day and I'm still waiting on one of our standard size sheep. A couple months back my mom took me to my doctors appointment. Its out of town, so its kinda kills our whole day, but we enjoy the trip, as my doctor lives in a really beautiful mountainous area. When we got home that evening I went out to feed the sheep and goats before eating dinner, and Puddin was in labor. She was pushing and pushing, but there was no sign of any lamb. With all the goats we have had kid, we've had VERY FEW that needed assistance and that is usually just pulling a large kid that was presented normally.  I tried feeling around for hooves or a head and couldn't make out what I was feeling. My mom tried and had the same problem. It was dark out and it felt like I was working on a ship in a bottle while blindfolded. Whatever direction it was in, it wasn't making it into the birth canal in that position. My mom went inside and called a friend that used to raise sheep, while I tried more. I couldn't tell if I was feeling a ear or what. Our friend said to feel for a tail. That was it, a short Shetland tail. Trying to turn it seemed impossible, her contractions were fighting against everything I was trying to do. Finally I managed to find a hock and followed it WAY up inside her uterus and grabbed its hoof and then found the other and as carefully as possible pulled them around. Then I pulled the big ram lamb out backwards. He was a big guy, its a no wonder it was so hard to maneuver him around in there. We expected that by this time he was dead. At some point in the maneuvering I felt his leg move, but thought it was just me. No he was alive! I couldn't believe it. I swung him around to get the fluid out of him. and we dried and stimulated him with towels. Puddin practically needed some stimulation herself at this time, she was spent. It took her several minutes to regain herself and then she started to lick her baby. I put him on to nurse for a while and then we got Puddin up. She was shaky, but OK and then she was STARVING. After getting that giant baby out of her she wanted FOOD. We have had goats do this after having big babies. They suddenly have room to eat! I was so glad Puddin had a live baby, since she lost her baby last year thank to our goat Jetta. She loves her son and keeps him at her side at all times. Such a cute mama.

Back I think the end of January I got the idea to plant some seeds out in our main garden and put 2 liter soda bottles over them as mini hot houses. This wasn't completely my idea as Herrick Kimball of The Deliberate Agrarian had done a post on how he plants tomato seeds and puts Wall-O-Water's around them. But those things are expensive! We have one main slicing tomato that we all love and that's Ananas Noire. You cannot plant the garden without planting Ananas. Well my little experiment worked. The tomatoes and squash germinated. I think my onion seeds were too old, and come to think of it the pepper seeds I used didn't germinate for me last year, so they must not be any good.

At the time that we would usually be planting our garden we had tomato plants blooming. There are now some little fruit on the plants.

If I remember right, my goat Dandelion was the first to kid of the season, and had a sweet little white buckling. At three days old something ate him out in the back of our pasture. I had taken the alpaca out of our pasture when she kidded, so that he wouldn't bother her. Unfortunately that was a mistake. Lesson learned.

My other goat Daffodil had a beautiful set of twins.

Doeling

Buckling

I have been supplementing her morning and even. After a while Daffodil didn't like her nursing on her (she's rough on her moms udder), so she wasn't getting enough to eat. Now when she see's me she comes pouncing up to me. Its so cute!

Do you remember Dolly? Our sweet little bottle baby from last year that was born with contracted tendons. Here she is with her darling son. She delivered him all by herself, and he has nice strong legs. Most people would have culled her for fear that she would pass it on to her children, but it wasn't genetic it was a lack of room in the womb. She's turning out to be a good mom and her son is oh so sweet.

Here are some of the lambs playing. The one in the front is Puddin's ram lamb, behind him is Maizee's ewe lamb, and in the background is Mugsy our lamb from last year with her own ewe lamb.

And our standard cross with Shetland lambs peeking out from behind the tree.

I have another blog post in the works, but its going to take me a while to get it all together.

Kimberly

Random Pictures

We have had a nice break in our weather. We had quite a bit of rain, and its finally starting to dry up before the next storm moves in. So I took a wander around with the camera yesterday.

 Sugar and Eddie standing behind him.

 Mugsy at her perching spot.

 A woolly feeding frenzy.

 Goat feeding time.

 Maxwell eating with his goats.

 I've started noticing some interesting mushrooms coming up in our pasture the last couple of years.

 I like these yellow ones. My battery died on the camera, so I had to pluck it out of the pasture for a later picture.

 These ones grow on an rotting board.

 This is growing on our mulberry tree in the front yard.

 Recuperating bunny. Had some tummy trouble. She liked to dump her water as you can see.

And the princess, Vicky, in her blankets.

Kimberly 

Rooing Puddin

One of the great things about Shetland Sheep is that they were bred to release their wool naturally by shedding. A lot of breeders have bred out this trait, since it is faster to shear a sheep than to roo it (pluck the wool). I was so happy when I discovered that Puddin was shedding her hair.

I started out with her on this plywood, but there was a breeze wanting to blow the wool into the dirt, and a bit hard on my legs trying to get down to her level. So I moved her to the stanchion. I never locked her head in the stanchion (she's to short), instead I tied her lead to the headpiece. She stood still, and seemed to really enjoy the process. I think it must have felt good.

There are 3 types of Shetland fleece. Her type is called Kindly. It means she has a fine, single coat with no guard hairs.

Although she looks like she has bald spots in the picture, she doesn't, it's just the way the sun shone through her wool in the picture.

She was left with a short fuzzy coat, but not as short as if she had been sheared.

My hands got a very heavy bath in lanolin. Sheep shears must have really soft hands.

The result was 2 cartloads of her beautiful fleece for me to play with (I think it weighed about 2 1/2 pounds), and a much more comfortable Puddin.

To find out more about Shetland Sheep go to the North American Shetland Sheepbreeders Association website.

Kimberly

Sweet Shetland Sheep Times Three

A lot has happened since the last time I posted. 

My sweet Myrtle died. She got bottle jaw, and we tried everything, but she died anyways. Unfortunately that's part of raising animals, and it always seems to be my favorite ones.

Welcoming my Brother and Sister-in-law's new Son Ashton to the family. Notice the onesie. My Brother is a mechanic, so their getting him started early.

I crocheted this hat for my Sister-in-laws baby shower. It's made out of Satin Angora from the rabbits I used to raise years ago. The problem with crocheting a hat for a baby that's not here yet is you don't know how big of head its going to have. So I went by the measurements I found for a newborn hat, but when he was born, it was to small. He was 7 lbs. 13 oz. I guess our family makes big babies. So now I'm going to redo it, hoping I have enough yarn left.

Sophia taking a nap on me while visiting. She's such a little doll. I love having babies around.

If you saw my last post from the National Heirloom Expo, I posted pictures of the sweet Shetland Sheep they had there on display. Well.... My Mom got a trio of them.

 The goats were afraid of the newcomers at first. It was kinda funny. Eddie (the ram) was just trying to check them out, but they acted like we had just turned a monster loose in the pasture.

I cut down all those thistles the next day, but I still have a lot scattered through the pasture calling my name.

We sold Maestro (the bottle ram we raised) a couple days later. He had rammed me once. (Hey he put my back back in place for me!) That was to be expected being a bottle ram, and I was willing to deal with having a bottle ram, but since he had already done his job this year, and we got the new Shetland ram, we just didn't need him. Before we made the decision, I looked into crossing the Suffolk ewes with a Shetland ram, and it seems to be a very desirable cross. Since Shetlands are small it greatly reduces the lambing problems, and Shetland meat is supposedly much better than the commercial breeds of  lamb meat. I'm curious to see if the lambs will come out with short or long tails, since Shetlands are naturally short tailed, but I will have to wait till Spring 2016 to find out.

Sir Locksley died a few days ago. Lucky for me, his wife is pregnant. So hopefully their will be a boar in the litter. They are a really hard breed to find.

 I found this yarn I spun many years ago from Kool-Aid dyed mohair from the Angora goats I raised. So I crocheted a hat out of it, but haven't taken a picture of it yet.

 On one of my recent visits to my favorite doctor, we arrived early. So my Mom and I checked out the local thrift store. I found this book for $2 that I have been wanting for a long time.

 And these boutique cotton yarns for $1 each.

 And a totally hippy skirt. I love it!

Kimberly