Author Archives: chickwithawhistle

Headed home from work today and as I did my evening chores had a wet surprise in the barn tonight. February has been a record snowfall and now that were in March all of that snow is starting to melt. As you can see in the pictures, the water has nowhere to go, especially sinceContinue reading “Let the flooding begin”

The temperatures have been pretty cold and we have Ben quickly going through our bales of hay. Everyone enjoying some bales of alfalfa to cheer them up on a frigid evening. As you can see Sadie is enjoying a snowy Saturday. The pigs are a couple of weeks away from delivery to the butcher. ThisContinue reading “Cold temps and lots of snow… fun”

On the farm, we generally raise our pigs anywhere from 250 to 300 lbs. before butchering. Some may wonder how do you know how big they are. I will admit that our butcher is in such high demand that we generally schedule our butchering date at least 6 months in advance. Outside of observation, however,Continue reading “How much do the pigs weigh?”

The farm has been full of general routine and new adventures over the past month. PIGS: This batch of pigs have been a little different than our previous batch. They are the Berkshire/ Duroc mix with a Hereford. The larger size and white face is showing up predominantly in this current batch of pigs fromContinue reading “Christmas Fun”

The cold weather has arrived and the farm had a fun filled October month. The neighborhood looks forward to seeing the goats and this year the kids decided to match the goat costumes. Sadie and Ruby were unicorns while Eli and Rosie were Vikings. Everyone on the farm enjoy a pumpkin treat. Dustin bought outContinue reading

It is always an exciting time when another batch of baby pigs arrive on the farm. We have had such demand for orders, a seventh pig snuck into the batch. This year we decided to go with a little sturdier shelter for the babies. We generally have them stay in the garden while they areContinue reading “The babies are here.”

We took advantage of having an extra long weekend and good weather and cleared all the brush in the back field. With the lack of water we could mow the field pretty close to the pond. Dustin also got to put to use his excavator. The field was cleaned so well I was able toContinue reading “Labor Day Weekend Cleaning”

Now that the county fair is over we have been weaning the babies off and have been enjoying fresh goat milk around the house. Below is my milking set up in the barn. My barn isn’t super large so I use a surplus stall to be able to keep in whoever is milking and keepContinue reading “Goat Milk”

My recent new learning has been around getting more educated around goat milk. Vanilla Bean has been nursing the baby goats and I have had it easy around milking duties for the morning and evening chores. Lately I have started weaning the babies off and have had to focus on my own learning around milkingContinue reading “New Adventure … again”

The past few months have been quite a journey with the goats. I feel like I was a part of a condensed college course on everything you need to know about kidding in 2 months. Ironically the birthing was the easiest part of the process. Vanilla Bean wasn’t first doe that delivered. She delivered 5Continue reading “Small vacation”