May Counts

May counts..... or what I actually counted in May. One of the problems about trying to farm and reconstruct an old farmstead is that you have to deal with things not being ideally set up all the time, especially when it comes time to tear down the barn where most of the critters reside. Such was the month of May for us. All of the corrals, coops, and pastures are central around the barn that we tore down, which means everything is pretty much in chaos until the new barn and corrals are built again. The chickens are now free ranging and laying their eggs wherever they can find to hide them. After some certain children confessed to how much fun it was to throw those eggs that they found at the pigs, and the dog was found with the evidence in her mouth of her new found taste for fresh eggs, we were able to gather 85 of them, or just over 7 dozen. I keep telling myself the new barn will be so worth it in the end.
*
The goats have also lost their home. They have taken to escaping whenever and wherever they can. I have now planted the same lilac patch about 6 times over the past couple of years and the new blackberries have been destroyed just when they were looking beautiful and were loaded with berries. No stalls to separate the goats means no more milking.....sigh..... I miss my mornings with my girls. Trent and I did have a 9 day sprint before the construction started and recorded 1,030 ounces, just over 8 gallons from Dixie, Santana, Lucille and Susan. The does are also raising their babies so we were very happy with that much milk, especially considering two of them are first timers. We traded Posie and Amelia this month so we are now closer to our full blooded Nubian herd. One registered buck and one registered doe has us hoping to be closer to a fully papered herd one day, too.

We added a weaned calf to the farm making 3 Holstein calves. Rob and the boys banded them, they are officially off of milk replacer and onto pasture, and they are growing nicely. The other steers are looking pretty good and are getting fat off of all the good green pasture.
*
Nika and Rootbeer were added to the farm as well, two more yearling horses to play with. Rootbeer has quickly become tamed and loves attention. Trent has taken him over and is so happy to have a "real" horse, one that will be bigger than he is rather than the other way around. Nika is still skittish and shy, but is slowly coming around. They have gained a nice amount of weight and lost all of their winter coat now. I love seeing a couple of beautiful paints out in my pasture. We were able to enjoy some trail rides with the other horses as well this month.

Garden preparation was high on my list this month. We spent time weeding the strawberries, blueberries, rhubarb and raspberries. Russell had some rhubarb plants to get rid of so we transplanted them into the garden. Our rhubarb is looking amazing after putting some heavy clay soil and a load of compost on it last fall. We picked some rhubarb from a friends' house and froze 6 gallons for later use. I fertilized all of the berry plants as well as the fruit trees. Only one of our three apricot trees came back, and that only with a couple of little leaves at the bottom of the tree. The 8 apple trees look pretty good. A couple of them have considerable deer damage but should be fine, and the one at the cabin sight that only has a couple of little leaves coming will hopefully make it through. Our various other trees that we transplanted along the roadside and at the cabin sight did very well over the winter, too, and most of them are coming back. Happy spring!