Vacation time before the county fair.

It has been a couple of weeks since I have written a post due to some travelling. 

I spent the beginning of July travelling to Boston for a work trip.  It was a great trip with a good balance of work, eating, and sightseeing.

 A couple days after I returned home the kids and I headed up to Duluth for some extended time with family.  We are planning for a country wedding.  I enjoyed designing all the decorations.  The theme was burlap, blue and country.


In less than a 24 hour turnaround the kids and I were on the road for a week long road trip to the Michigan Upper Peninsula.  I enjoyed the drive through the country to see all the barn quilts and the amazing water views.


The kids and I are excited to hang out with the animals and have some down time.

Barn Update

It’s been awhile since I’ve written a post life sure gets busy during the summer. The chickens are enjoying the nice summer days with warm days and summer storms that night.

I was out of town last weekend and right before we left we had a pretty huge summer storm. Pretty high winds came through the backyard and some of the barn doors were open and in all the commotion Loki hurt his foot. His toes are curled over and he was walking on his knuckles. Would give him a few days to see if it would get better but it didn’t. So we finally took another trip to the emergency vet I was out of town last weekend and right before we left we had a pretty huge summer storm. Pretty high winds came through the back yard and some of the barn doors are open and it all the commotion low key hurt his foot. Is still sore curled over and he was walking on his knuckles.  We gave him a few days to see if his foot would get better but it didn’t. So headed to the emergency vet again to see what they would say. They did x-rays and told us that it was not broken and gave her some pain meds. We’ve had him in the house doing physical therapy but still haven’t seen improvements.


Over the weekend when I was gone and came back the garden went into high gear. We suddenly had enough food to last us through the summer. The kids enjoyed all the treats we made. Lady made herself a tea party with zucchini cupcakes.

Loki- the up and coming rooster

This morning I was able to capture Loki working on his crow.  He is 13 weeks old.  Enjoy.

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When the kids play

The family headed up north to see family for the weekend so the animals were on their own.  When we arrived home on Sunday, they were all full of energy, including the goats.  A video probably captures their excitement better than words:

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Daily Chores

 

Chicken Update: 1 broody chicken (Marilyn), 2 post-broody chickens (Jackie & Lahaina) = only 6 laying hens.

We are ramping up to get ready for the wright county fair and getting the kids settled in 4-H.  One of the big pieces of 4-H is having the kids raise the animals and be able to speak about these new skills.

So, the kids have gotten into the routine of taking care of the goats and tonight the goats wanted to join in.

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The other nightly task is taking a look on Dustin’s garden and we have been pleasantly surprised how well the garden has been doing.  Eli is showing off the sunflowers.  We recently have been having a good mix of sun during the day and rain at night.  So far we have eaten the radishes and kohlrabi. We are waiting for the rest of the crops which include:

  • Sweet Corn
  • Garlic
  • Raspberries
  • Sunflowers
  • cantaloupe
  • radish
  • zucchini
  • summer squash
  • pumpkins
  • tomatoes
  • potatoes
  • onions

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A hay filled father’s day

It was a 90 plus Sunday which is a great day to be at the lake.  However, storms were planned for tonight so we offered to help the neighbors with their hay. 

They have previously offered to bail our back field so it was a good trade.  The kids were in charge of raking the hay when it would blow out of the rows, Sadie was in charge of refilling our drinks and jumping on the bails when they werent flat.

When all was done we were able to pile over 200 bails of hay.  This is why I don’t exercise.  

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Eli took a break to make a fort.  The neighnor dog was on the hunt for a 10 year old kid.

Are you smarter than a goat?

The barn is set up to house both the goats and chickens.  The problem with that is we have to have a large gate that lets the goats roam free bht them locks out the chickens.  I had done some research on goat proof chicken feeders and doirs and decided to try and creafe a door. 

This is our prototype.

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The door is a u shape in hopes the goats can’t make the turn.

However, the nigerian dwarfs are still pretty small and we have done all the work to discover Aspen can still get through

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So, i either work on the feeder or hope Aspen will continue to grow and eventually not be able to squeeze theough the spot.

Goat Show Day

We were able to have all 3 goats trimmed and we were off and running by 7:30 am for the youth goat show.  One of the benefits of Nigerians is we were able to get all our supplies, family of 4, and 3 goats into a Pilot.

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The drive was about an hour drive to St. Cloud from the house with everyone doing a pretty good job on the ride.  Once we arrived to the fairgrounds we headed to check in and get ready.  We had originally rented a stall but after talking with some veterans many families just camped out of their cars to avoid having to clean the stall at the end of the day.  We decided to try the same and it ended up going pretty smoothly.

Shortly after ten the show began and the first round was showmanship.  I had the kids rushing to change into their white shirts and black pants.  If the kids enjoy this we will have to invest in all white outfits.  The kids were divided by age and both the kids would be competing in the same round.  From what I understand the showmanship is more about the kids as to how well they handle the goats and their own knowledge about their breed.  The kids were asked to do several show movements such as lining up the goats, walking in pairs towards the judge, how to turn a goat, and how judges but goats in order.  Once they were done the judge asked each kid questions about their goat.  We were very proud of the kids for their first time.  The kids had a little break and then Eli competed with Charlie in the wether category.  This was pretty humorous since this category is predominantly for meat goats and the judge was describing the goats like a butcher listing off his meat.  We were prepared to have Charlie be last, which did happen.  We figured it would be good practice.  The last category was by breed.  One of the other neat pieces was the door prizes which the intention that there is one for each kid.

After the long day we enjoyed a calm night hanging out at the barn.  The latest update is I can confirm that I have one rooster in my group of bantams.  He was crowing a couple of weeks ago and tonight we was trying to mount a couple of the other bantams.  With this new discovery we have moved to naming the chicks.  Here is what we have come up with so far:

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Dustin is naming the bantam rooster Loki.

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These two silver laced wyandottes will be named Snow White and Black Beauty.  You can guess which one is which.

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The two cuckoo marans will be salt and pepper and the barred rock will be called Roxy.  We still haven’t come up with a name for the ameraucana.  We are waiting till we figure out the name for the bantam ameraucana at the same time.  20160528_145549

We haven’t decided which one but we are recycling the names Nancy, Barbara and Margaret.  We just need to come up with 2 more.

I know this was a longer blog but I will end it with the goats playing around.

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Getting ready for the show

It has been I’m busy couple of weeks. The kids last day of school came and we have enjoyed some hot humid summer days. This is perfect timing for us to try our hand at clipping the goats for the kids first youth goat show. The goat breeder was gracious enough to invite us back up to the farm to show us how to clip the goats and gave the kids a little tutorial for the goat show. I have to admit that clipping a goat is much harder than it looks on YouTube.

There are many steps to do it properly and you don’t realize how many nooks and crannies goat has. One other surprise was the discovery that the goats skin had a different pattern than their fur.

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Here is Aspen doing a great job being patient while I learn the craft.  The clipping timing is perfect since the weather has been over 90 with high humidity. Here are some pictures of the group once we were done unfortunately it was pretty dark so we’ll have to get better pictures in the morning.

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One of those surprise that we discovered in the barn tonight was Lahaina roosting with the rest of the chickens. Lahaina has been broody for some time now and preferred to lay on the floor instead of Roost. I am hoping that this means that the eggs will start coming.

Well it’s bed time we have an early day tomorrow to tackle our first goat show.