For the last couple of years, “taking down the tree” after Christmas, in our house, ultimately ends up as “planting out the tree”.  Last year’s Christmas tree hung around in its pot until late summer when it was added to the south wind break we’ve taken to calling, “the tree line” At least this year we got the tree in the ground before the end of January! Continue reading →

In Sue’s Christmas letter, you may have read that we still had not lost any of the birds to predation… we’ve been here for 3 years now and that is a really long time with no deaths from hawks, owls, coyotes or other predators. Well, yesterday we had our first. Sue interrupted a hawk that had just dispatched Wheezy. Poor Wheezy. Sue feels bad, but all the other chickens were hiding, Wheezy just never liked going into the tractor. First chicken in three years. That’s pretty amazing. Continue reading →

I promised you a goose update today… so here we go, short and sweet. Sue had one egg crack. It wasn’t viable – there were a couple she thought were not going to make it, and I think this was one of them. It had really started to stink, so she removed it from the incubator. They are at day 25 today and I found this sight that has information from day 1 through to hatching. It’s pretty interesting if you want to check it out here.  I’m just going to borrow their day 25 photo for now.  This is what the embryo would look like at day 25. We’re hoping we have a couple that make it, but you just never know… especially since this is the first attempt. The book David gave me for Christmas has really helped Sue out a great deal. At this juncture, as of tomorrow, the eggs won’t be turned any more, or submerged in water. Sometimes it can take up to 3 days for them to hatch completely. Keeping our fingers crossed! We’ll keep you updated, until then, as always~
Thanks for reading!

Today’s Weather: Became rather cloudy. Maybe expecting rain on Thursday. Our high today was 67°, currently – at 7:52 p.m., it is 55°. Overnight low going down to 37° – that’s pretty warm for us compared to the last few ,mornings. Sunrise was at 7:20, and sunset at 5:40 today.

Egg Report: Monday – 16 chicken, 4 duck, 0 goose.   Tuesday – 14 chicken, 2 duck, 1 goose.

We are all kinds of crazy here. We don’t really try to hide it; generally, we embrace it. Good thing too, with all our crazy animals, we fit right in. There’s always something funny going on over here. You just never know what you’ll see on any given day. Sometimes they’re just small little cute things, sometimes they are things that really make you go hmm? Continue reading →

We are enjoying the final days of Christmas; the tree is lit and shining, all the lights are on the bureau, and the candles are lit in the little votives. Tomorrow is the last day of Christmas and we’ll begin removing the decorations. We were so busy this season that only yesterday did we sit down and write our respective holiday missives, Sue did a great job of summing up the farm info, and I added a few other remembrances, so thought we’d just recap here. Some of you may be receiving the entire recap in the mail soon, so if you want to skip this one, feel free. Continue reading →