So much has happened in the last year, I'm not really sure where to start. Let's see:
Family - Everyone has celebrated another birthday, though the kids enjoyed getting older more than we did. Christmas was very nice! It was the first Christmas in a very long time that we didn't have to ground someone or clean up a mess from an "episode". (This was also the first Christmas in a long time that no one received any video games.... hhhhmmmm - I think there's a connection?) Both of the boys have grown so much since last summer, they are both almost as tall as I am. Schooling has been somewhat laid back and we're realizing that we may need to seek outside help from an established program, or at least that's what I'm trying to explain to DH. The kids are doing well despite my lackadaisical efforts. Where they lack in one area they have excelled in others. Tyler continues to surprise me with his building abilities - he is definitely a "hands-on" type learner. Hunter, still obsessed with superheroes, has started creating his own comic books. DH has been retired from the Air Force for 8 months and is now working at a company building ambulances. He LOVES it! I wish that I would have had taken videos of him doing his "happy dance". Me - I tried working but I realized that my place is at home with my boys and my farm.
Chickens - The 25 chicks that we got in June are all grown up and started laying at the end of October. We had one of our hens go broody (which means that she wants to hatch a set of eggs) so we let her and our neighbor even threw in a few marans eggs. In return she gave us a roo and a hen marans - this breed lays the most amazingly dark chocolate-colored egg! All of the chickens have picked up speed and we are now getting roughly 2 dozen eggs every day. We have another broody hen and we've put about a dozen eggs under her for our replacement layers. So we'll be slaughtering and butchering some chickens soon. We're also going to get some broiler chickens to raise for meat for the year.
Rabbits - We purchased 3 rabbits from a breeder - 2 adults and a "teenager". We bred the adults and 4 weeks later we had a litter of 8 bunnies. Unfortunately, 2 weeks after they were born (they had just opened their eyes), their mother died unexpectedly. We were left with two options - try our hand at bottle feeding or let them die. You can guess which one we chose. The first few weeks were the roughest; we lost 4 of them. The remaining 4 grew up wonderfully! Since I couldn't bear the thought of eating them, I sold 2 to a friend and we kept 2 for breeding. Hopefully the next round will go a little smoother.
Goats - We now have 3 goats - all does. We had a wether but ... well, let's just say that he's very good cured and smoked! We were presented with an opportunity to purchase a doe that was "in milk" last July and we just couldn't refuse. We quickly learned how to milk a goat and we haven't bought milk since! By the middle of fall, we started carefully watching for signs that they were ready for breeding and we "borrowed" our neighbor's buck to do the deed. Since we never saw the "job get done" we're not convinced that both of the older goats were bred so we're in limbo waiting to see what happens next. Although we're pretty sure that at least the oldest one will be freshening anytime.....
Pigs - We bought 2 piglets on my birthday last summer. They were so cute! They were about 30 pounds and hairy and squealed when you touched them. Every day they got bigger and bigger and bigger! When they were about 75 pounds, I couldn't go into their pen anymore for fear they would knock me over. Knowing they wouldn't be around much longer, my DH didn't mind taking over the chore of feeding them. Pigs reach butcher weight in about 6 months, which ironically was at Christmas time. My DH took care of the first pig - a lot of work! So much so that we opted to have the second one professionally done. On New Year's Day, the second pig was taken to the butcher and the results of our 6 months of labor has been delicious! We will definitely be raising pigs again!
Ducks - We just purchased our first ducks for the farm. We bought 10 Pekin ducks and they are growing fast! They drink A LOT of water! It's no wonder that they live near ponds - they need it for drinking! We are constantly filling up their waterer. Hopefully in about 4-6 weeks we'll be reaping those rewards too!
Garden - Our growing season got off to a late start last year due to the weather. It didn't stop raining until May and finally warmed up by the end of June! Needless to say, we had our hands full and we enjoyed every moment of it! We also had wild blackberries that grew at the edge of our pasture and we picked blackberries everyday throughout the summer! We had enough blackberries to put 25 pounds into the freezer, make plenty of desserts, and my DH even made a few gallons of wine. The zucchini grew out of control and the tomatoes finally ripened at the very end of summer. We even had about 6 pumpkins that I mashed and froze. On the other hand, we only had a few stalks of corn that produced (out of about 50 planted), the 10 pepper plants only produced 2 tiny peppers, and the sunflowers grew tall but the seeds didn't turn out like I expected (although the birds were very happy). The fruit trees did very well despite needing trimmed. We we able to find a really great deal on a fruit press and the parts to build a chicken plucker (you can view this in action on YouTube). We pressed both apples and pears (part of which became wine) and it was decided that we liked pear cider better than apple cider - though both were very good!
All in all, it was a great first year! This summer, we're expanding and hopefully we'll be more productive! Our goal is to be at the farmer's market.
Between the garden and what I purchased, I was able to preserve a lot of food for this past fall/winter/spring. DH and I had a lot of fun experimenting with different canning recipes. We're looking forward to finally using our pressure canner that we received many years ago. First on the list - chicken! We've enjoyed the "fruits of our labor" over the last few months and are ready for it all to begin again.
We're planning on getting an incubator so that we can hatch more chickens and ducks when we want to and we're also going to try hatching turkeys. We're hoping to raise our Thanksgiving turkey this year. We will also be creating more garden space. We'll be building a portable chicken coop to move the chickens over the pasture and we're going to use their current run as the new garden. We've also decided to get away from dairy goats and moooove on to bigger and better creatures (pun intended).
Lastly, we finally got our business license and we are now officially Hanaford Valley Farm!
Rabbits - We purchased 3 rabbits from a breeder - 2 adults and a "teenager". We bred the adults and 4 weeks later we had a litter of 8 bunnies. Unfortunately, 2 weeks after they were born (they had just opened their eyes), their mother died unexpectedly. We were left with two options - try our hand at bottle feeding or let them die. You can guess which one we chose. The first few weeks were the roughest; we lost 4 of them. The remaining 4 grew up wonderfully! Since I couldn't bear the thought of eating them, I sold 2 to a friend and we kept 2 for breeding. Hopefully the next round will go a little smoother.
 |
| Doc - the buck |
Goats - We now have 3 goats - all does. We had a wether but ... well, let's just say that he's very good cured and smoked! We were presented with an opportunity to purchase a doe that was "in milk" last July and we just couldn't refuse. We quickly learned how to milk a goat and we haven't bought milk since! By the middle of fall, we started carefully watching for signs that they were ready for breeding and we "borrowed" our neighbor's buck to do the deed. Since we never saw the "job get done" we're not convinced that both of the older goats were bred so we're in limbo waiting to see what happens next. Although we're pretty sure that at least the oldest one will be freshening anytime.....
 |
| Chili - the oldest |
 |
| Bonnie |
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| Yagi - the baby |
Pigs - We bought 2 piglets on my birthday last summer. They were so cute! They were about 30 pounds and hairy and squealed when you touched them. Every day they got bigger and bigger and bigger! When they were about 75 pounds, I couldn't go into their pen anymore for fear they would knock me over. Knowing they wouldn't be around much longer, my DH didn't mind taking over the chore of feeding them. Pigs reach butcher weight in about 6 months, which ironically was at Christmas time. My DH took care of the first pig - a lot of work! So much so that we opted to have the second one professionally done. On New Year's Day, the second pig was taken to the butcher and the results of our 6 months of labor has been delicious! We will definitely be raising pigs again!
Ducks - We just purchased our first ducks for the farm. We bought 10 Pekin ducks and they are growing fast! They drink A LOT of water! It's no wonder that they live near ponds - they need it for drinking! We are constantly filling up their waterer. Hopefully in about 4-6 weeks we'll be reaping those rewards too!
Garden - Our growing season got off to a late start last year due to the weather. It didn't stop raining until May and finally warmed up by the end of June! Needless to say, we had our hands full and we enjoyed every moment of it! We also had wild blackberries that grew at the edge of our pasture and we picked blackberries everyday throughout the summer! We had enough blackberries to put 25 pounds into the freezer, make plenty of desserts, and my DH even made a few gallons of wine. The zucchini grew out of control and the tomatoes finally ripened at the very end of summer. We even had about 6 pumpkins that I mashed and froze. On the other hand, we only had a few stalks of corn that produced (out of about 50 planted), the 10 pepper plants only produced 2 tiny peppers, and the sunflowers grew tall but the seeds didn't turn out like I expected (although the birds were very happy). The fruit trees did very well despite needing trimmed. We we able to find a really great deal on a fruit press and the parts to build a chicken plucker (you can view this in action on YouTube). We pressed both apples and pears (part of which became wine) and it was decided that we liked pear cider better than apple cider - though both were very good!
All in all, it was a great first year! This summer, we're expanding and hopefully we'll be more productive! Our goal is to be at the farmer's market.Between the garden and what I purchased, I was able to preserve a lot of food for this past fall/winter/spring. DH and I had a lot of fun experimenting with different canning recipes. We're looking forward to finally using our pressure canner that we received many years ago. First on the list - chicken! We've enjoyed the "fruits of our labor" over the last few months and are ready for it all to begin again.
We're planning on getting an incubator so that we can hatch more chickens and ducks when we want to and we're also going to try hatching turkeys. We're hoping to raise our Thanksgiving turkey this year. We will also be creating more garden space. We'll be building a portable chicken coop to move the chickens over the pasture and we're going to use their current run as the new garden. We've also decided to get away from dairy goats and moooove on to bigger and better creatures (pun intended).
Lastly, we finally got our business license and we are now officially Hanaford Valley Farm!
