Easter and April happenings

We've been super busy, as seems to always be the case, this Spring.  Farm updates include the fact that we've managed to keep a baby turkey alive for almost a month now, which is a bigger accomplishment than you might think on the surface.  Baby turkeys, in general, seem to have a death wish.  Whether it's trying to drown itself in a puddle, trapping itself in the garage, or knocking over its water dish and dumping out all of the water 10 minutes after we fill it, this turkey has 9 (or more) lives.  So, as of tonight, it's still kicking.  We had two lambs born yesterday, and both seem to be thriving, so that's great news.  We had several lambs die shortly after birth last month because we were at work when they were born and their mothers didn't seem to know that they needed to take care of them.  So we're very thankful that these lambs are doing well and have attentive mothers.  Spring means gardening, and this is the first year since we've lived here that we didn't start any seeds in the fall.  So Aaron bought some tomato plants at the farmer's market and we've planted about 20 of them.  Hoping to have time in the next week or so to plant some seeds for summer veggies like squash, cucumbers, melons, etc.  We'll see...hoping to have time and actually having time are very different!

Kiddo updates include the exciting news that Kai is officially potty trained.  Hooray!  We took the slow and steady approach, which involved buying a TON of big boy underwear and tolerating frequent accidents for weeks, but it finally clicked, and he's figured it out.  Pla Shee's doing great--playing soccer with a church league here in Venus which is both convenient and non-competitive--both big positives in the craziness that is our life right now.  He's also doing really well at Venus Elementary...he really seems to be thriving academically and socially.  Ruby went in for her 6 month check-up this week and weighed in at 16.8 pounds.  I'm feeling good about the bet I made with Aaron that she will surpass Kai's weight (currently 23 pounds and holding) by the time she turns one.

Here are a few pics from Easter weekend:

Visiting Karen refugees in Garland on Saturday evening.

The kids at church on Sunday morning.  Kai forgot to smile.

 

 No one looks thrilled to be in this one.

The boys and their "cousins" decorating a bunny cake.  Well, by decorating I mean they're mostly eating candy.

Summer!

The semester's finally over, and it's time to get the blog back on track.  I saw that our last post was at the end of March, so we've missed a whole month and a half worth of fun stuff to share.  I'll break it up into a few categories for the sake of organization.

The garden:  Our neighbor, a farmer, has been gracious enough to share some of his land with us this year and Pu Lue has been gardening several acres of traditional Burmese and Thai vegetables that the refugees can't buy in stores here in the US.  It's been a great learning experience for all of us.  We have pictures and more details on our refugee blog:  www.oneworldoutreach.blogspot.com

Our backyard garden, though weedier than we would like, has also produced better this year.  Here are the onions that we laid out to dry last night.

The animals:  We have had a bumper year of baby animals born on the farm.  I think we're finally finished with all of the births as of yesterday, and our total count is 9 lambs, 6 goats, a donkey, and a baby chick.



We just placed several ads on Craigslist to sell them--check them out at these links:

http://dallas.craigslist.org/sdf/grd/2396809452.html
http://dallas.craigslist.org/sdf/grd/2396810302.html
http://dallas.craigslist.org/sdf/grd/2396818655.html

Our family: If you haven't heard the big news yet, our family is growing (hence the need to downsize some of our furry friends.  We're expecting a baby in mid-October, and of course we are super excited.  We should be able to find out the gender next week!



LOTS of lambs and sheep for sale!

We now have six 2011 lambs for sale, plus a few 2010 yearlings and a couple of older registered ewes we're ready to part with.  Please contact us quickly if you're interested, as we're planning to market them pretty agressively this year through Craigslist and local feed stores.  You can check out some of the pics on our For Sale page.

Spring Lambs are here!

We had our first lambs of the season born this week!  So far we have 3 girls (1 black, 1 white, 1 black with some very cute white spots) and 1 boy (white).  Here's a sneak peek of two of the lambs.  I'll post more pics this weekend.  All of our lambs are full-blooded babydolls, and we'll be selling them as unregistered stock this year--$300 a piece.  Shoot us an email if you're interested at mitschke@oneworldfarm.com.