Once again it’s been entirely too long since I’ve sat down to do this. So much has gone on, I’m really not sure where to start. Well, let’s get to it.

Fall has come and gone, and winter is officially here now. We have gotten so much done around the farm and yet there still seems to be so much to do. Now that the holidays are over, we can start focusing on the long list of things that need to be completed around here.

All of the meat birds have made their way to freezer camp. I’m not sure if I want to raise this breed again. They taste great and are incredibly healthy, but they’re kind of a pain to process. We’ll see what happens come springtime, I may change my mind. I did keep a few hens and a rooster and I may breed my own chicks to raise next time. They are dual purpose so we’ll see how they do.

We wrapped up breeding season with most dairy goat breeds in November. With that being said, most of our girls seem to be successfully bred. We have had a couple of mishaps however. Dorothy, one our Nigerian Dwarf goats had what we believe was a false pregnancy. Initially we thought she was having a miscarriage, but there was never a baby. The plus side of that was that we were able to milk her. Holy cow was it delicious! She didn’t produce very much milk, just enough to get the kids hooked on it. We’ve since dried her off since she really wasn’t producing much at all. After giving her some time to heal up, she’s been bred to Bill and is now due the week of Easter. Hopefully this time around is more successful.

The pigs finally reached the 300+/- mark which means that the majority of them went to freezer camp right before winter. They’ve been finishing out their days in our garden area, rooting it up and fertilizing it. We realized that it was time not only because of their size, but once Hammy decided to get out of BOTH fences and head down the road to the neighbor’s. Luckily she wasn’t aggressive but with how big she was, it wasn’t exactly easy to get her moving in the direction we wanted her to go. After about an hour, and the help of our neighbors, we finally got her back in the pen with the others. She gave quite a good return in meat for Derby with meat so dark that it almost looked like beef. She lived a great life, and served her purpose well, even if she did escape every chance she could.

Barn construction started earlier in the fall as well. It’s not quite finished yet but we did manage to get a kidding stall built for my two goats that delivered at the end of November. Once the last of the pigs make their way to freezer camp, we should be able to work on the barn more.

On that note, Waldo Fuzzybritches and Holly made their debut. They are so incredibly cute! If you’ve never seen baby goats jumping around, head over to YouTube and look up some videos. You’ll thank me later 🤣. The plus side of having baby goats, is that mom’s make milk! We are getting about 3 pints a day right now, but once we wean the babies, we should get considerably more.

More than likely we’ll keep Waldo, but as a pet. He’ll get castrated and hang out around the farm being the spoiled little brat that he is. He’s such a funny little critter and absolutely loves attention. We don’t need anymore bucks, which is why he’ll just be a pet.

Holly on the other hand, well we’re not sure if we will keep her yet or not. She’s part meat goat and we’ve been considering keeping her and breeding her to produce offspring for meat purposes as opposed to milk. We still have time to decide so we’ll see.

When we started milking Holly’s mom Sandy, it was a total nightmare. She kicked with both feet and fought almost nonstop. I came close to giving up multiple times, but I was reminded by my goat mentor and good friend that she’ll get better. Now she’s at the point where she runs to the milkstand, and has actually gotten out of her pen and met me at the stand, bellowing like a cow. I just have to make sure that I finish milking before she’s done eating her grain or she tries to head out.

All in all, things are good around here. I plan to try to take time to do this more often, so hopefully I can accomplish that goal haha! Now that we are getting milk, we’ll be talking about cheese and other fun things that can be made with milk.

Stay happy and healthy! 😁