Farm Stuff

Oh, that's right . . . we are farmers. As Grace has been praying so often for me lately, I am trying to find my joy again. Farming has been more therapy than joy this past year: a good reason to get my sorry self out of the house and do something constructive. All my well laid out plans for worldly success has ceased to be enough, and I have just been in survival mode. Rob and I have committed to no major life changes (we've been very tempted, but have stayed the course) at this point, knowing that grief does crazy things to you. So I continue to fight to find my joy in what used to bring great joy: kids, horses, goats, simply living. These cute little critters have helped lately. I'm slowly remembering why we dared to attempt to make this dream come true five years ago.
We now have seven surviving goat kid's: 5 bucklings and 2 doelings. Cole and I have started milking five does in the mornings and are getting a measly gallon-and-a-quarter a day. If we had been better farmers and started milking right away the girls would have been doubling that amount ... Yeesh! I'm surprised the earth hasn't opened right up and swallowed me for all the grumbling I've been doing around here lately. Grumble, grumble, grumble. Grumble that the coffee doesn't taste good, grumble that the puppies bark all night, grumble that I have four kids and an old farmhouse in the middle of a long {unbelievably easy, nearly tropical} Wisconsin winter. Finding myself on my backside looking up at the evening sky after slipping on the ice helped changed the grumbling into thankfulness for not having a broken leg last night. 1,000 blessings here I come.

One first-timer doe is due this weekend: Jacob's first offspring~ I can't wait! Actually, I forgot about the poor little doe being due, as she is the only one expecting this month (unless, of course, I miscalculated the other two first-timer doe's due dates, which is very possible.) If all goes well, and Lord willing, we will hope to add three Holstein bottle-calves to the farm next week. They will be raised off of goats milk, and unless milk production increases dramatically, some supplement milk-replacer.

Chickens ... now that's where the farm money is.

Our first batch of 100 chicks have graduated out of the basement and into Cole's chicken coop with a heat lamp, leaving the newest 100 little chicks in the basement to get off to a good start.

These chicks will all be raised for resale (except for a few replacement hens for us) as egg layers, unless of course Rob's nightmare comes true and we become the next "Egg and I" story with 600 chickens this summer. Poor man to have to live with a woman who's dreams consist of critters, and more critters.