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| Cinnamon, our 4-year old Alpine dairy goat, had twin girls today! One dun-grey colored and one solid black, both gorgeous! K8 and K7 stayed out in the goat shed through out the delivery - filming, photographing, and comforting. We still have one more goat expecting in late May, and two cows due in early July, so the Wanch crew continues to grow... |
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| K7 returning from the pasture with his faithful companion Belle. |
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| K8 headed out to the pasture to adjust the water bubbler. |
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| Our stream curves around our farm and joins a second stream before literally crossing our road a half mile from our house. |
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| Putting fish in our pond builds muscle (note to K5, check out the big sneakers K8 is wearing - they are your old ones). |
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| Egg production is up! |
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| Putting in a french drain along the barn and goat shed. |
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| Digging under the trampoline legs in order to level it. |
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| Moving a piano in preparation for a big music concert put on by our symphony and choir this Saturday evening. |
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| Sometimes parents wonder about their sons... |
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| S took on the major job of cleaning out the chicken coop and goat shed flooring of old hay, which should greatly help our compost bins. |
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| Plus the goats and chickens are real happy with their new, clean flooring. Smells very nice as well... |
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| We placed an order for fish several weeks ago, and today was delivery day. We filled a couple of troughs with pond water and drove into town to the MFA feed store. We had one trough for Black Crappie, one for Hybrid Blue Gil, and one for the minnows that will be the food for the bigger fish. |
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| As you can see, K8 was pretty excited about the fish. |
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| K7 and I were inspecting the pastures, and discovered a marvelous treasure from heaven - asparagus growing wild! Probably seeds dropped by a bird, or I fed the cows hay that had seed in it. Who knows, but I got real excited since I love fresh asparagus and have always wanted to grow it. |
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| This was the day after all the rain finally stopped, and the paddocks behind me were pretty soggy. I dug up a dozen plants with massive muddy root balls. |
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| And now I have a head start on the asparagus bed I had been dreaming of putting in some day in the future. I also had the added treat of eating lots of fresh asparagus while digging and planting. Now if we can just finish getting a fence up and around our garden to keep the goat from eating everything... |
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| I hadn't seen any bees coming out of my little hive lately, so I opened it up to find a sad sight. They had eaten all their stores of honey and then starved and froze to death. |
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| There was no brood (eggs, larvae, or young), and very few bees in general. This particular hive has always struggled with a weak queen, and I had planned to replace her this spring, but they didn't make it to spring. |
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| I could blame the queen, but I could have helped them with some sugar water and bee paste there at the end of winter. It appears they never had full stores of honey, and they ate every drop they had. I had K7 scrap out the bee's wax and clean the box and frames. |
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| Then I had K6 paint the outside of the wooden boxes. |
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| I decided to have him paint the big, active hive as well. He said he didn't need to suit up with protective gear, but I assured him that his cockiness would result in a very painful experience. I insisted he suit-up properly. |
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| I told him to paint the sides and back first, and do the front entrance last, since that would be when the bees would get really riled. I wish I had stayed around with the camera because I heard him scream like a girl and saw him running for his life after he started on the front. I wonder if he left the can of paint on the top of hive? |
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| After several days of rain, our little stream can not get any fuller. |
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| Wild but beautiful. |
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| K6 is standing on the bank wearing a green and black jacket, wishing he could go for a swim. I vetoed the idea. |
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| The rain had stopped, and the K-boys and their cousins were out jumping on the trampoline last Saturday. Then the hail just started hammering down without any warning. The sound was incredibly loud banging on our metal roof. |
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| Most of the hail was golf ball size, with some as small as marbles and others as large as tennis ball size. |
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| It took a while for the ice balls to melt. |
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| K7 and I decided to give our cattle and sheep a little treat after their rough treatment from the hail. They were all happy to see us and the treats (alfalfa cubes). |
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| Most of their paddock became very soggy, so we had to move them to higher ground and with tree cover. |
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| A heavy mist started to roll across our little glen while I was spreading the last of our grass seed on bare spots in the corral . Then lightening and thunder cracks returned overhead, so we beat a quick retreat back into the house. |
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| No, not snow...sheep. You see I had sold "Shaggy" and her daughter Saturday to a nice family in northwestern Missouri. It decreased the size of our flock from 10 to 8, but it was the first official livestock sold from the farm. I called S and all 4 boys into the dining room after the sale and divided the profits. If everybody works, everybody gets paid. Of course S and I, as the two biggest stock-holders received the biggest share of the profit. I am trying to teach the boys old school American capitalism... As for K7's color and style coordination, yes, he does it all by himself. |
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| That was Saturday. So early this morning (Thursday), I looked out the window and what do I see? Two new bright white little puff-balls in the middle of my pasture. Also, you can see the color of the grass change along the right-hand fence line. We rotate all the animals to a new paddock every Thursday to ensure they get plenty of fresh grass. |
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| "Snow White" had delivered 2 little girls just before dawn. |
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| I am selling "Spot", "Yogurt" and her twins this month, but keeping "Booboo", "Snow White" and her 2 daughters (above) as a harem for our tough ram, "Mutt". Should have 8 new babies this time next year. After seeing how much hardy, disease resistant St Croix sheep sell for, K7 asked me this morning if he could buy "Yogurt" to start his own flock. The kid is thinking, so I just might sell her to him with a slight family discount... |
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| Friday afternoon saw our Boy Scout troop arrive and set-up camp across the stream in a small pasture up on our wooded hill side. Both the rain and temperature began to fall before they got all the tents up. The cold weather was actually a blessing in disguise - it got rid of all the nasty ticks for the night. Temp got down to 37 degrees F by morning. |
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| Thank goodness for my brother-in-law's tractor! After driving up and down my muddy track several times in the rain guiding various late arrivals, my truck got struck half-way up hill on last trip. Had to walk home and get tractor to pull it out. Didn't have good camera with me, so had to resort to the iPhone camera which is not my favorite |
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| The camp-out was only part of the reason the Boy Scouts were on the Wanch. They were here to earn money for their summer camp by working all morning clearing brush along our fence lines. This was the last major job I wanted to accomplish on the north 20 acres. |
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| The sun didn't show itself or warm up until after the scouts finished at 1:00, but the boys and their adult leaders sure did a great job. |
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| I have cut-up logs to donate as firewood and several large brush piles that will be burned after a few weeks of drying-out. |
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| It is still early spring, and we have many flowering white dogwood and eastern redbud trees in bloom along the road and on the hill side. |
