Farm Updates

For those of you reading our blog's description that this blog is supposed to be about "musings about daily life on a small family farm," I want you to know that I do realize that many of my posting are not at all about the farm.  But, in blogs as in life, we live what we know, and our lives have been focused on working with the refugees we talk about in recent months. 

So, to give an update on farm happenings:

The Sheep:  Petey and Richie were able to retire this summer after 8 years of doing their manly duties.  We took them to a wonderful Texas vineyard and Bed and Breakfast in Athens, TX, where they will spend their retirement grazing between grapevines.  Tara Winery and Vineyard is literally postcard-esque.  Check it out at http://www.tarawinery.com/.  We purchased a new ram from our friends at Jager Acres in Savoy, TX.  He is a white 2 year old whose name is Shrek, and he is a sweetheart.

The Goats:  Nothing much new to report here.  We are still swimming in Weezy's goat milk, and we've continued to milk her twice a day since March.  We were going to dry her off in August to breed her again this fall, but decided not to because we are enjoying the milk so much.  Lenny and Carl are friendly as ever, though very mischevious.  They are constantly escaping from our latest fencing arrangements.

The Chickens:  Despite having increased the size of our flock over the spring and summer to about 30, we are still not gettting a whole lot of egg production.  We think it may be because we have 3 roosters, which is 2 too many, and they are wearing the "ladies" out.  We will address this problem shortly!  ;)  We have invested in our first piece of yard art--meet King Rooster, who guards the chickens from hawks, coyotes, and sometimes Bonnie.

The garden:  We have had TONS of rain lately, and are really happy that we tried a fall garden for the first time this year.  Everything has really taken off like crazy, and we're getting more production from most of the vegetables than we did in June.  This is a huge watermelon we picked yesterday.  It is called "moon & stars" and is an heirloom variety from Baker Creek.

Straight neck squash from the fall garden:

More to come later!