Weather= Glorious, Mud, Not So Much...

We've almost had an entire week of above 30°. It's been wonderful to taste spring in the air even though we know winter will come back soon. 

The only downside to this heat wave is the mud. 

The entrance to the pasture is particularly bad. We still had some mulch left over from this fall, so I filled in some of the muddy spaces.

So much better! 

My little helper enjoyed the weather too...

The next mud we tackled was next to the steps of our deck. Now our feet won't get so muddy when we turn the corner to head next door. G relocated a big, flat rock to be a stepping stone. 

This is another frequently used pathway to go next door, taking the shortcut underneath the deck.

And finally, the muddy pathway to the compost area is no more!

G took advantage of the nice weather to burn some of the greenery the goats aren't eating. They can only eat so much of the coniferous branches and there's no way they'll get to everything G brought home from the garden center.

 

Picking Up Chicks

We decided our chicken eggs aren't colorful enough, so we ordered more chicks. 😅 25 to be exact, but some are for my dad. These breeds will lay a range of green/teal/olive and deep chocolate browns. 

In preparation for their arrival, G set up this gigantic box from the garden center in my in-laws' garage (with permission). Should be nice and cozy for them! 

Great way to hang a heat lamp -

They arrived Thursday morning! Shipped via USPS. 

They got to foraging right away, some even eating their shredded paper bedding. 

Eventually they huddled up for a group nap. 

Jaron loved them. We helped him pet one and he had a huge grin on his face the whole time. 😊

One last egg related thing... Our eggs are on the shelf at the co-op! Havenacre Homestead label and everything. I wonder how quickly they'll sell...

Mineral Feeder Upgrade

Remember how our mineral feeder was attached to the end of the milking stand? And how it would get full of poop / the chickens would scratch at the mineral so a lot was wasted? 

Well, I finally fixed it. 

It was an easy fix, although I tried a couple different ways before I ended up with something I could live with. 

Method number one was putting a board across the studs. I didn't love how much the feeders stuck out.

Next I tried a piece of wood between the studs. Better. They still stick out, but not as much. 

The best way would be if I could just screw them directly into the plywood wall between the studs.  

The problem with that is the plywood isn't thick enough, so the screws would poke through the other side. We definitely don't want that, so I had to settle for method number two.

Now let's see if I hung them high enough to avoid poop getting inside...

Speaking of high up: 

The Stander

Help Me Grow left us with a new tool to use with Jaron. It's a device that keeps him upright in a standing position to work on his balance and muscles needed for standing. He is such a busy boy that doesn't typically happen, so they thought this would be helpful for him as he learns to stand and walk. 

The first time we used it, he hated it, cried, and tried to escape. 

The second time, I had the idea to put it on a table so he could look out the window at the animals. That worked like a charm! 

He spent a good 15 to 20 minutes looking at all the animals outside. I took him out, and about 5 minutes later he wanted to get back in to look at the animals some more! So we did. 

 

Food Co-op

Our eggs are officially for sale at the St Peter Food Co-op! I did the first drop off of 11 half dozen duck eggs this morning. 

Last night we candled, washed, labeled, and packaged the eggs. When candling the eggs, I'm looking for cracks in the shell, thin areas in the shell, split yolks (from being frozen), and meat spots. Those eggs go in a separate pile for us to keep at home to eat ourselves. 

Our stamps haven't come yet, so G printed our logo and the safe handling instructions to attach to the cartons for now.

The breed of ducks we have lay colored eggs, but sometimes the pigment rubs off which can make the eggs look dirty. I was concerned customers would complain, so I had chat GPT write us up a little note to include inside our cartons.

I think our first delivery looks pretty official!

 

Uneven

The kids very obviously have a favorite side to nurse on. One side was very small and the other looked huge. We don't want her to get mastitis, so G milked her a bit to ease the tension and make the teats more even. Hopefully the kids will nurse from that side now. 

Our first goat milk from our goats:

We let the little family out of the back area yesterday afternoon. They've had their time to bond and the other goats miss Gerda. Senka is definitely the more adventurous of the two. Seems like she likes to explore. 

We took Jip for a walk and found the kids outside when we came back. Somehow I don't think they'd get this close if Jip were home...

Brighita bounced around like a kid herself, clearly loving the new additions to our homestead. 

Meet Senka and Chaiavar

I was right. 🥳

Gerda's twins were born Thursday late afternoon. 

This is Chaiavar, Chai for short. 

He was definitely the first born kid. By the time we found them, he was completely dried off and very steady on his feet. 

This is Senka, which means shadow, a little girl. She was mostly dry but Gerda continued to lick the wet spots on her back. She was still unsteady on her feet, but she'd gotten up on her own! 

It was unclear if she had nursed- just one of Gerda's teats was empty. We moved her close and she nosed around. She did latch eventually, so we knew she had colostrum, the first milk that's really rich and full of good stuff for energy and the immune system. 

The twins are small; the chickens are bigger! That's from the Norwegian Dwarf genetics on their dad's side (Cocoa, Svetlana and Fritz's son). 

Before we went in the house, we ushered the new little family to the back corner where they could bond and have some privacy. We'll keep them there for a couple of days to make sure the babies know who mama is and mama knows who her babies are.

Shed Clean Out and... Kids???

I know I keep saying that Gerda is really close to having her kids, but this time I really mean it. 😅 Her udder feels tight and full, and I'm pretty sure I saw some mucus coming out this morning. 

When I think back to how small her udder was in early December and how worried we were that she would kid when we were gone, I have to laugh. She's probably three times as big now as she was then. 😂 Well, now we know for next time. 

Thankfully we're in a warm stretch this week. My father-in-law was able to take Jaron for a couple hours this morning so I could tidy up in the shed.

Because of the cold stretch, the goats were stuck inside that whole time, and the poop has really built up. I wanted to clean out the back area so Gerda would have a fresh clean place for her babies. 

Turns out, there's about one foot of bedding on the goat side of the shed. I took this picture after I had cleaned out all of the hay from the back corner.

After it was all out, my protective bar was way too high up. The mama goats could walk right underneath it. (I also found a duck egg buried in the hay. I wonder if it's still good?)

The chickens loved scratching in the dirt once it was uncovered. A bunch of them gave themselves dust baths until I rebedded the area with straw.

The amount of hay I took out of the back corner:

Why is there so much? Well, most of it is wasted hay the goats were supposed to eat. We need to get a better feeder. Goats are actually pretty picky eaters; they really like eating leaves and not stems. So if the hay they're getting doesn't have a lot of leaves, they eat the good stuff and leave the bad stuff- aka the stems- behind. Sometimes they knock their feeder over (which is just a big tub) and everything falls out. We could put that hay back in, but if they poop on it before we can, that's no good, and the hay ends up as part of the bedding mound. 

So, a better feeder is at the top of the to-do list!

Back to the shed clean out...

Here's the lowered bar. I added another above it just in case.

After putting fresh straw down, the back area was finished. I thought about cleaning out more of the shed, but since it's only the beginning of February, there's still a lot of potential for cold weather. The deep bedding helps to keep the animals warm in two ways - one, by insulating them from the cold ground / keeping them higher off the floor; two, the bottom layers of bedding can decompose, providing heat. I'm not sure how deep the bedding has to be in order for part two to happen, but I figured it'd be better to leave it. 

Even if Gerta has her babies in the main area, we can easily move her into the back corner with her kids until they have bonded. Stay tuned on whether my prediction is correct!

Crockpot Quinoa Update

Quick quinoa update: 2 cups of quinoa is too much to put in my small crock-pot. One cup or 1.5 cups would be much better. 

Some of the quinoa didn't cook, probably because it got pushed above the water. Some of the quinoa was a little mushy. I wonder if I had less in the crock pot if it would work better. 🤔

Slow Cooker Quinoa

Still no kids yet! 

Tonight will be a busy night for us; there's an MLC vs BLC basketball game at 7:30pm (my brother-in-law coaches for MLC), and before that Help Me Grow is hosting a parent/kid night from 4:30-6pm. 

So, there's a small window to quick eat supper! We have leftover stir fry veggies in the fridge I'm planning to heat up, but no rice to go on the bottom. 

I'm going to try making quinoa in the crockpot. Instructions are simple - put 2c quinoa in a crockpot, then 4c water. Cook on low for 4-6h. Perfect! 

A friend of mine made her quinoa in a crockpot overnight, so I think it should be fine if I start it now... Hopefully I picked the right size crockpot! 

Visitation and Funeral

The visitation at the garden center went very well. The lines were set up for an easy flow, friends of the family made popcorn and hot dogs for visitors to snack on while they waited, the funeral flower arrangements were stunning. 

I witnessed this one being put together on Saturday, by far the most magnificent:

Everyone forgot to take pictures of the visitation, but there was lots of positive feedback about how well it went having it at the garden center. A number of people joked about the garden center branching out for more people to rent it for their wakes.

Apple Cider Vinegar Mother

In my cleaning the fridge efforts, I used up the rest of the apples from this fall in applesauce. That left me with little apple scraps perfect for making apple cider vinegar. Even better, I found a bag of apple scraps in the freezer so this batch would be a nice size. 

As I mixed it up, I dug out a jar of ACV I made earlier this year looking for a mother to jumpstart the vinegar process in this batch. 

The first jar I grabbed had one! 

And then I grabbed the jar next to it...

Yes, that mother is as thick as my finger. 

Isn't it amazing that things like that grow "wild" in our pantry? 😜

Snow Fun

G's cousin came for a visit this morning. In addition to being a big Jaron lover, she's a big animal lover, so she wanted to check out the animals in the shed and have Jaron and me come too. 

It was 11 degrees outside not including windchill so we bundled up.

No baby goats! We played with Jip, got the eggs, and then played in the snow. 

First time trying a video on the blog, so we'll see how this goes...

As much fun as Jaron had outside, there did come a point where he pointed to the door and said "done." 😆