Our life continues to gather more and more speed and pick up more and more things to juggle.  It’s not a simple farm life around here contrary to what many may think.  Maybe I should rename the blog…The Not So Simple Farm Life Blog?

Our hot summer quickly turned into a dry unimpressive-semi-fall season, which turned cold very quickly!  We’ve already had several frosts and have been back into breaking up the ice on the animal water already.

This week, the boys bought a trailer load of hay from our neighbor.  The grass is already gone for the winter and we’re having to feed our animals hay.  They still have to get some of those huge round bales, but they were glad to get the square bales put away in the milk barn.

I’ve got some strong boys!  They heaved almost 100 hay bales on top of the lean-to roof of the milk barn.  I suggested that they build some hay bale steps so it would be easier to throw the bales up there—- they both looked at me, not liking the idea, saying that was “girly”.  Ok…nevermind…..they did it their way and were proud of their bruised shoulders the next day!?!

They took turns throwing the bales up on top of the roof and then putting them away in the loft.

The cows enjoyed the loose hay that the busy 2 year old fed them.

Here are some of the hay bales for the milk cows and sheep for the winter.  We still have more hay to get, but it’s a good start.  Now to conquer the firewood!

So our 7 year old and 9 year old boys were promoted and assumed all chicken and egg chores. They check on the chickens every day giving them feed and water and keeping a general eye on them. They collect eggs daily and are also responsible for making sure the eggs make it into the house, get washed up and put in egg cartons to be stored in the extra refrigerator.

We’ve had some mishaps, like the time one of them tripped over the goat and broke all the eggs in his basket or the time that they sat the egg filled baskets down on the back porch and the dog gobbled up the eggs. But for the most part, they have done very well with assuming such a responsibility and are very proud of their work.

We have a handful of egg customers that the boys sell to every week. They love to sell their eggs and are very proud of the product they provide. We recently ordered more egg cartons as we had run out. Having a plenteous supply of cartons makes the egg chores much easier! However, often times, the chickens lay huge eggs that don’t really fit that well in large size egg cartons.

I’m still in awe at the wonder of new life.  She was just moving and kicking inside me and now she is in my arms making sweet baby sounds.  For so long we talked about what she would look like and be like.  Now she is here and we are thoroughly enjoying getting to know little Mercy.  I’m on a babymoon for a while enjoying all her newbornness I can! 

The piglets are growing fast….and have tried our patience more than once since they have arrived.  All the bad manners and character traits that pigs are known for have become all the more real to us.  

Don’t eat like a pig…  Your room looks like a pigsty…  He’s hogging all my toys…

Pigs do not have any manners whatsoever.  They are a creature we can learn from for sure.  They are messy, rude, selfish, gluttonous and our pigs are thieves and escape artists and incredibly difficult to catch. 

While we do enjoy fresh farm raised pork, we’ve learned that raising pork takes patience and long suffering.  We’re looking forward to getting this group of pigs turned into pork!  Next time, well employ electric fencing earlier and be more proactive in training them to electric shock! 

I wish I was in a condition to be working on a Fall garden.  However, I’ve given up on the idea and turned my focus to getting my house organized and prepared for the birth.  I’ll think about gardening and flowers and all the wonderful outdoors work that I love later. 

Our boys, however, have spent a considerable amount of time in the summer heat working on the farm.  They’ve been running fence wire to contain animal in new grassy paddocks.  Hopefully soon, we will decrease our cow and pig population soon as we take a bunch of them to the butcher this Fall. 

The younger ones have enjoyed swimming in the little plastic swimming pool in the back yard.  We had an interesting incident the other day when the girls were swimming one afternoon.  I heard them screaming and yelling and found them very upset at our friendly milk cow, May.  She had found her way to the back yard and noticed the nice cool water the girls were playing in.  She proceeded to drink the swimming pool water and didn’t mind a bit that the girls were very upset about the situation.

We had 4 hens hatch out chicks this summer.  The boys noticed the hens go broody and were able to separate them and place them in their own small chicken tractor so predators didn’t bother them.  Within a few weeks each hen hatched out a batch of chicks.  I think we have about 24 new chicks running around here.  We have several more broody bantam chickens so we are awaiting to see if they are successful.  It’s always exciting to see the farm replicate itself and provide new animals instead of us buying them

The kids are very excited about the new baby.  My rambunctious 2 year old takes special time out of his busy day to come sit by me and pat my belly gently…occasionally offering the baby a kiss.  My 9 year old made an unsolicited, loving comment to me the other day on how I must be getting close to having the baby because I “look just like the sheep do right before they give birth.”   That was nice to know

We are hoping to get some new blog posts up soon about some of the happening things here on the farm. 

This year we have maxed out our pasture land and have been making efforts to clear some wooded areas to make new pasture land to expand our grazing areas with the increase in our animals.  It’s a very slow process.  We are looking forward to the fall and winter to give us the opportunity to work in the cleared wooded areas and hopefully get some fencing, gates up and watering infrastructure figured out. 

There is lots of firewood to be gathered, which we plan on starting soon.  If only more hours in the day….