Less Than One Week

The Freedom Rangers all smooshed in the box.

The hours old chicks in the big brooder

The Meaties are coming back to the farm in less than a week! Actually, we are going to Tangent next week and will pick up our second batch of Freedom Rangers. As soon as that happens and we get them home, the countdown starts.

This year we are letting them grow out for just under 14 weeks. Our last batch was right around 11 weeks and the smallest was 3.5 lbs and the biggest may have been 4.5 lbs. I would like the smaller ones in this year's batch to have a chance to get just a little heftier by harvest day.

My other goal is to get to harvest day with a whole lot less loss than we had last year. Due to our inexperience we lost 9 chicks around week 4-ish. We should have started withholding food and keeping them to only daytime feeding. It was a huge lesson learned and now we know better.

Farm Life!

Tuesday, February 19, 2019

This past Tuesday I had it in mind to not do anything around our little farm other than the daily feedings. We had spent the previous 3 days working on projects and I wanted to take a break from the farm.

Well, Fiona had a very different idea for our day and decided it was time....for piglets.

What the WHAT?!

Tom was waiting for me in the car and I had the thought that Miss Fiona needed to be checked on. Tom mentioned that she was having a hard time getting up when he was bringing their food out. You never know if there is a problem.

However, when I walked over, this is what I saw...

It might be hard to see, but there is a piglet at her head and another that was just born.

Okay, I guess we are staying home and tending to Fiona instead.

After changing back into my overalls I made my way back out to observe Fiona as she was pushing those little itty-bitty piglets out. Seriously, they really were the size of a soda can with little itty-bitty legs!

This was a first for her and for us - so we had really no idea what to expect. What I didn't expect was for her to create a trench for herself and to plop down into it. It wasn't deep, but it was deep enough that she was unable to really move and when she did move her piglet that was climbing between her and the shed fell down behind her and she proceeded to lean on the poor little thing...oh the squealing!

So tiny!

Since she could shift around every few minutes it was just best to remove the piglets from around her and place them nearby. I don't know if that's advisable, but if we didn't, the babies would be squished. And SQUEALING...

After the five piglets were born - one didn't make it shortly after...she proceeded to continue laboring. So it was hard to tell if there were more coming or not. After probably 30 to 45 minutes the afterbirth was expelled. I'm not sure if that's the average length of time, but she seemed to have a rough time for a while there.

Even while she was in her trench I would get her piglets closer to her, but she just remained in her trench shivering. It was cold out and her babies were also very cold...so we tried a heat lamp, but needed a red bulb so that it would radiate more heat on them. So while they were set up in a shelter nearby, we continued to try to get her on her side. It took a little bit, but we were able to get her to get up and feed her a bit of food...then when she went back to in front of the shed we were able to get her on her side and I brought her babies over. By that time it had been several hours since they were born and they should have been suckling within an hour or two. A couple of them were extremely weak and of the two that were a little more active, one was starting to lose it's strength as well. The last one actually tried to suckle, but we weren't sure there was any milk. Throughout the afternoon I had been in contact with Farmer Jason at Cascade Meadows Farm and he had some suggestions on how to make things work out.

This sweet little thing tried and tried!

In the end, the piglets did not make it through the night and while it was a disappointing thing - I wasn't totally surprised. The whole afternoon did not lend itself to being a successful experience.

What WAS a success was that she was pregnant and she had a litter. So we know that she will be bred again and hopefully the next time will be during the warmer summer months and within the shelter that is being revamped at this time.

A lot of work has been done on this since this photo was taken.

Am I sad that things didn't work out, sure...but I'm glad that we had this experience now instead of having a healthy and successful first litter and then experience a loss.

The Lord knew that the timing was not ideal. We have some things that we are working on and will be working on sooner than later and it would have been hard for either of us to be away with babies on the farm.

I'm confident that the next litter will come and we can celebrate even more so when it happens! Fiona won't know the difference, but we will and that's what matters the most.

Our sweet girl became a sow, but unfortunately not a mother.

Farm Life...

Trying This....

photo credit Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds

Would you look at this beauty of a watermelon...I'm trying this because according to the description - the watermelon is ready to harvest when the skin turn yellow. Hence the name Royal Golden Watermelon.

Watermelon is one of my absolute favorite summer fruit especially the watermelons from Hermiston. They are the best! However, if we could grow this on our property - we'll have to get creative about getting enough heat to the plants - then I'll be one happy camper!

Go HERE to order your seeds today!

Social Media

This morning as I was getting myself ready for work I was thinking about how many of the homesteaders we follow are on the Facebook. That's right I said the Facebook...

As much as I would like to follow them on the Facebook I can't (or maybe I won't). Why is that?

Well let me tell you....a few months ago while at work I encountered a person who visited the station on a couple of occasions. The first time this person came in there wasn't anyone available to talk to her about the "study" that she was conducting. My suggestion to her was to call at a later date and schedule to sit down with one of the firefighters and I handed her one of my business cards. And off she went. Oh yeah...got rid of a snoopy-snooperson...

Her request was odd and I didn't get a good vibe from her. After nearly 25 years, sometimes you get that feeling. So when she came in again, I had to chit chat with her while she waited for someone to come to the office.

Then it happened...she turned to me and asked if she could ask me about my activity and stuff since she could see on facebook that I had done 5k & 10k races. AND as it turns out - this "study" was not even an official thing for a college class or anything. It was an Independent Study.

So with the weirdness of it all, I looked at her and said "NO - I would rather not to be a part of the study."

Within two days I deactivated my account.

Okay, so I don't care if someone is going to look me up out of curiosity - my account was private so not much information was out there really. Just don't tell me that you have looked me up. Then ask me about doing an Independent Study - ESPECIALLY if I don't know you...end of conversation.

Honestly, I don't miss the junk that often shows up on facebook. However, with so many of the homesteading YouTuber's out there that are also on Facebook - I am wondering if maybe I should re-create an account just for homesteading purposes without the crazy.

I keep thinking maybe, but maybe might be no. Actually it probably is no. I don't know...maybe could be possibly. No...definitely no....

Okay, back to regularly scheduled programming...

Less Than A Month...

In less than a month we'll be heading back to Tangent, OR to pick up...

Twenty-five Freedom Rangers

I'm so excited!! We are down to 4 or 5 chickens in the freezer right now so it's time to fill it up again!

This year will be better and we'll reach processing day with more meaties. Last year we ended up with 16 after losing 9 of them due to our inexperience. We are in the know and I'm confident that we will have more on processing day than last September.

I do love me a project and so I'll be posting their progress here weekly and by then we'll be in full swing getting gardens planted and more chicks and a couple of goslings as well. It's almost go time!

Farm living is the life...

Booch

A couple of years ago I tried Wonder Drink brewed right across the river from us in Portland. I hadn't tried it before and actually had not heard of it until I started watching Justin Rhodes. In several of their videos Rebekah would mention either Iced Hibiscus Tea or Kombucha.

The hibiscus tea wasn't a mystery to me, but the Kombucha? Well I had to do a little hunt for that and found it in the area of Natural Foods at Fred Meyer (before the big re-modeling of the store). The price was three bucks and change. More than I would normally spend on any kind of beverage, but I wanted to try it so I bought one.

My first sip of the booch made me pucker a little as it reminded me of Apple Cider Vinegar. BUT, I liked it and I decided that I would pick up a couple here and there. The price really slowed me down so a few months after buying single bottles I decided to check Azure Standard to see if they had it available by the case which cost $32.95. At less than $3 a bottle it seemed like a good deal so it was the first and last time I ordered it. Since I don't place orders with Azure Standard that often I decided to just go back to buying a bottle here and there.

Last summer I started watching a different homesteader's YouTube channel which included a vlog on brewing your own Kombucha. A ha! I can do this myself?! Well,  several months passed and I still didn't make any, but I did continue to think about it. I even went so far to find a vessel suitable for at least starting my new brewing adventure.

This year I have decided to try doing new things, especially things that will save money in the long run. A couple of weeks ago I found an article HERE on Mother Earth News and the author is a local...lives in Battle Ground. I also found some good information on a different website HERE - which had lots of photos.

Between the two articles I have this now:

SCOBY growing batch

On Saturday I decided it was time to "harvest" my SCOBY. While I was at it, I tried what was in the jar and it wasn't half bad. I decided since it was the liquid that I was growing the SCOBY in I decided to go ahead and start over and brew a brand fresh new batch of Booch.

I'm no expert, but I think this turned out alright. I look forward to a fresh batch of Kombucha. I haven't had a bottle of Wonder Drink in a long time, but from now on I won't need to buy another bottle and I look forward to keeping this up and saving money in the long run.

Check back later I'll have a post on the finished product. I asked Alexa to remind me when to check the brew - that will be on February 11 - I'm excited!

DIY is the best!