These dogs never cease to amaze me! Our Great Pyrenees girls decided that Patrick should move in with them. Here Cheyenne is trying to convince him that she could be trusted.
So Patrick now lives with the girls and seems quite content! He is the youngest critter they have ever raised and I am grateful for their assistance.
Meet Patrick everyone!!!
He was born on St. Patrick’s day and lost his Momma. He is enjoying being a house-lamb and is actually very well behaved. (for now, lol!)
I’ve raised many animals over the years but this is my first adventure into sheep. Patrick will be my herd ram and I will be looking to find some ladies for him.
Sheep actually eat different plants than cows so their primary use here on the farm will be pasture management. I have a pretty strict rule that every hoof or toe that comes to live on the farm have a purpose that can be traced to our goals. Now sometimes that line is a little wiggly and dotted but it should be there. We do have some grandfathered in tenants that don’t have any line toward goals. cough…horses… cough.
It’s been almost a year since I left Corporate America for the dream of running the farm full-time. It’s been a very busy time but an amazing experience and has truly spoken to my heart.
The framework for the ecosystem of the farm is up and running as I had hoped and envisioned. I have been focusing on utilizing the animals for food and labor assistance. Everyone has a job (well, almost everyone…horses…cough..cough..) We get fresh milk from Annie and she feeds us, Abbie (her 5 month old heifer) and the pigs. The goats clear poison ivy. The chickens give us wonderful fresh eggs, egg drop soup and yummy chicken pot pie. They also clear brush with their little chicken talons. We’ll have bacon and fresh pork beginning this fall. The Great Pyrenees girls keep the foxes and other predator losses at a minimum and the horses…well they’re pretty much free loaders but we do love them. All the animals contribute to compost which feeds our soil and will improve the forage to feed the livestock over time making the farm more self sustaining. Our garden has provided vegetables for both us and the critters.
Having the dairy up is so amazing!!! So far this year I’ve made butter, yogurt, kefir, cream cheese, paneer cheese, sour cream, custard and ICE CREAM!!!! Yum!! The pigs think helping with the dairy leftovers is a great plan and love having a warm breakfast and dinner every day of organic grains mixed with two gallons of milk and a little molasses. They won’t be happy if my cheese making improves though since failed experiments end up in their trough.
I’ve learned quite a bit this year, primarily about cows and pigs. Lessons learned as we would say in project management. Speaking of lessons learned, I could have done a better job of risk analysis on purchasing a dairy cow from Wisconsin and shipping her here in the spring. The climate change was extremely hard on her and brought about additional time and money commitments. She is such a sweet cow though it reminds me that everything happens for a reason.
One surprise, I didn’t think pigs would be so much fun. They are quite the comedians of the farm and it’s fun to learn how smart they really are. They were jumping up on the fence when I feed them and I realized if they are smarter than dogs as rumored then I can certainly teach them not to jump. After just a few days of only pouring the feed when they get down as told, they are much better. We’re still working on it but it’s obvious they are learning and responding to commands.
Stay tuned as we learn and grow!!
Melanie
This will be my 4th adventure into goats. Spanish brush goats when the kids were babies, Nubian/Togg Myotonic crosses, Nigerians and Pygmy’s when we moved to the mountains, Boers when I was running it as a business and now registered Nigerian Dwarf’s to help with weeding.
After being so weary at the end of the meat goat adventure even I’m surprised that I would venture here again. I obviously knew there was a chance I would return to goats as I kept all of my goat supplies.
It is because of my previous experience with goats that has caused me to venture back as I know what value they bring. People say to me… “They really eat Poison Ivy?” I say “Why, yes, they do…”
Here was one of my Boer does…
As someone who refuses to use chemical weed killer, I’m dying here. Vinegar, while effective for small weeds, can’t handle our poison ivy load.
So here we are with 3 new babies…
The main project I need assistance with is the “hay barn” where a 1930’s barn collapsed years ago. It will be our new goats permanent home when they get a little bigger.
The goat adventure begins again.
Maggie, our wonderful little Jersey is going to have another adorable calf. I finally gave her a pregnancy test and it showed she is in late term. She is due June 30 and i can’t wait! Selfishly I have to admit I miss not having raw milk and cream and butter and fresh kifer and yogurt…ok I’ll stop. Let’s just say I really miss having the dairy running.
We’re here prepping for our 3rd snow storm in the last 3 weeks. It’s already technically spring but Mother Nature is clearly in the driver seat and we are along for the ride.
Last weekend we got about 3 inches.
Here we are in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains wondering how much snow we’ll get this week.
Only couple of weeks left and old man winter will be wandering on his way…