Homestead News, Volume 19

 It seems a number of things around here are aging, animals, people and such. Pearl, our Great Pyrenees, is now 10 years old and is showing some wear and tear. She is slower to get around and takes an arthritis medication regularly. Recently she started making this huffing sound, not really coughing, just a quick breath out, everyday. We took her to the vet, did x-rays and found out she has an enlarged heart, which isn't unusual for a dog her age and size. She weighs about 120 pounds. Now she takes Lasix.  

One Stripe

One Stripe, our old lady goat, no longer gets to have kids. Two years ago she had her last, Two Tone. We had to take One Stripe to the vet to have the kid pulled because of a bony protrusion that had grown down into the birth canal. Without that assistance, they both would have died, I just couldn't get the kid out. We really thought the kid was dead, but she wasn't. The challenge then was to keep them both alive since neither could walk for about a week. One Stripe because of the trauma of birth, and because when we were loading her in the trailer to go to the vet, I pulled her leg out sideways trying to lift her hind quarters. Two Tone had front leg trauma from the long birth process where first I, then the vet, tried to pull her. We splinted her front legs for about two weeks before the ligaments were strong enough to hold her upright. It was a long haul to recovery, but they both finally made it.

Two Tone

This year Two Tone had her first kids. I have only been milking her for about three weeks, but it appears she will be a good milker.

There are a bunch of turnips still in the garden. Last fall we picked and canned a batch, then picked, cooked and froze about eight quarts. Now we plan to till them in and plant some more. We are going to try a perpetual turnip bed. We don't eat the turnips, by the way, only the greens. I have found a type of turnip seed that doesn't make a turnip bulb, just mostly greens, that I will try this year. The vast majority of my seeds come from R.H. Shumway's. The turnips I grew in the greenhouse last winter did well enough for us to pick and cook a batch every week or so. Then, when I planted them out in the garden in the spring instead of taking off and giving us a head start on greens, they surprised me, and went to seed. I saved the seed, but let them cook in the greenhouse too long while they were drying, killing off most of the viability. Now, our experiment will be to establish a turnip patch, let them go to seed the following spring since they are biennials, and see if they will reseed themselves. That is the theory anyway, we'll see how it works out in practice. 

We've been working on getting the barnyard to the garden when we can get into the corral through the mud. This past late summer and fall were exceptionally wet, and the trend has not changed. We are tired of the mud and would like a little more sunshine.

After Frank's bypass he was anemic for about nine months. We tried iron pills, which he could not tolerate, we ate lots of liver and spinach. During my research at that time I found out turnip greens are much more nutritious than spinach and are higher in iron. We were surprised, and since turnips grow much more prolifically here than spinach, which just doesn't tolerate our hot summer weather, we are now even more determined to have turnip greens on the shelf and in the ground. 

 

I've started the Pot Maker routine and have planted some carrots in the greenhouse. Next will be beets. I'll wait until later in the month to start tomato, pepper and squash seedlings. The new garden map is planned and awaiting warmer weather to put into action. 

 
We have started the cheese making season with mozzarella, which we had run out of in the freezer. We still have chevre and cheddar from last year, so mozzarella was first on the list.

From mozzarella comes pizza, of course. The difference now is using sourdough for the crust instead of the previous white flour recipe we used before.

Right now I'm milking five does and we have way too many babies running around. I'll do a goat tail story before long and get you up to speed on all of them.

So, how do you like our new Frank & Fern logo? It was Frank's idea.

Life on the farm is good. Very good. We wouldn't live any other way. We need your comments positive and negative, we need your ideas. We are all in this together. We need to share. How are things in your neck of the woods?

Until next time - Fern

Please Enjoy the View

Sorry, folks. We interrupt this blog to tend to our health. I am happy to announce we are home from the hospital this afternoon. Please browse through the older posts and see if you find anything of interest. We will be back after a day or two. In the meantime, here are some random pictures from around the farm.

We are blessed.

Until next time - Fern

Giving Pearl a Haircut

It's that time of year again when we give our Great Pyrenees a haircut. It gets hot and humid around here in the summertime and she needs to be able to cool off. On top of that, last summer she got a hot spot on her back that was bothering her, so she licked it. Then the fire ants discovered the spots and started chewing on her. So she tried to chew on them and before we knew it, she had an infection. The problem was, it took us a while to figure out it was the ants that kept the infection and chewing going. We are going to try to prevent this problem this year with an early haircut and being more vigilant.
 

Look at that smile!

Pearl is a very laid back dog. She didn't budge an inch when I fired up the clippers and started whacking away. In fact, when I wanted her to budge, it took some coaxing.

A dog groomer I'm not. Her hair is much shorter, but it is not a nice, smooth looking hairdo. She still has a lot of underfur which is very thick, but a lot of it will shed out before long. Combing it out helps some, too.

For some reason this year she has more black spots on her back and neck than she used to. Before now, she had the large patch on her shoulders and some markings on her ears. Now she has many black spots up and down her back. Interesting.

Pearl is a great livestock guardian. We would recommend this breed of dog for anyone looking for a guardian. Before we bought Pearl, we got a book and read up on how to train her. Pyrenees personalities are very different from the Labs we used to raise and train. Without the guidelines we read in the book, I don't think Pearl's training would have been near as successful.

Her first haircut is complete. A good start before the summer heat sets in. Now, back to the garden and finishing off the school year. What chores are on your list this time of year?

Until next time - Fern 

Fixing a Baby Goat's Ear

We raise Nubian milk goats and they have long floppy ears and they are beautiful, of course. Just ask Ivory.

When the kids are born their ears are folded shut. They usually open out flat in a short period of time, but not always.

One Stripe had a single doe kid (from an accidental breeding i.e. the billy goat got the gate open in July for a few hours) in January. 
 

One of her ears stayed folded over like this. This is Copper. Frank named her. See the copper colored rings around her eyes? 



The fix for this ear called for scissors, a piece of cardboard from a cereal box and some duct tape. We cut a piece of cardboard about the same width as the tape and long enough to fold over and cover both sides of her ear. The tape will only have to stick to some of the hair on the outside of her ear. She is only a few days old and we don't want the tape to irritate the flesh on the under side of her ear or tear the flesh when we take it off. So we are very careful. If we can get her to leave it on for 24 hours, the ear should be flat.

Here she is, all taped up.

The next day, when we took the cardboard off, she looked great. Two nice flat ears.

Since Copper was born about a month before any other kids, she got to do things a little different. When I started milking One Stripe, I would bring Copper in and let her play on the milk stand

as long as she didn't mess with my milk bucket. Then she graduated to running around under my chair and playing with Pearl, our Great Pyrenees. They became good friends. Copper is one of my favorites, next to her mom.

Copper is ready to breed now and will have her own kids in December, or so we plan. Obviously, our efforts to control the breeding of our does doesn't always go according to plan. 

 

I have high hopes for Copper as a milk goat since her mom and sister, Velvet, are great milkers. It's always fun to see how things turn out. This is Velvet. She had her first kid this March and is a promising milk goat.


Every year is another learning experience when it comes to breeding and birthing goats. It is a very satisfying way of life. Not always easy or smooth or enjoyable, but very satisfying. We will keep you updated on how all of the goats progress. They are an everyday part of our lives.

Until next time - Fern