Babies Everywhere!

Spring is slowly creeping up and there are babies everywhere on the farm!

I was a little worried going into this new year. Over the first two months we had a sow due, all of our cows and of course myself. I was really hoping that the babies would not all come at the same time!

It ended up working fabulously.

Lady, the sow had her litter towards the end of January. Unlike our other farrowings on the farm, this one went excellently!

She farrowed over the daytime, on Matt's weekend, on the warmest weekend I think I have seen in January!

The were 14 all together, blacks, pinks and reds with spots.

We ended up loosing a few of the weaker ones and a couple to injury in the first few days, but we were kind of expecting that. Its always hard, but we were pretty satisfied with 10 vigorous piglets!

Who would have thought it would be this warm in the barn in January! It was a great time for piglets to come!

They have been growing super fast, we have weaned the biggest ones off of mom and the little farmers and I are starting to tame them up. They are so cute and frisky that its not a chore in the least!

This baby is growing well too.

This picture and the next were taken by little farm girl when we went out to grain the horses one afternoon.

For fun we were asking them to sit down onto a hay bale. Tansy has actually sat down on her rump on the hay with her hind feet sticking up in the air, which is pretty fun, and a little silly. Little farm girl took this one from way up on the hay pile in the barn.

And of course, the newest farm boy made his appearance as well! He is growing very well and has been a joy for the whole family!
He is keeping me pretty busy so there may not be too many blog posts for a while!

And we have been excitedly anticipating our very first calving on the farm. It was thrilling this morning to go out and find our first two babies!

It was quite an adventure and a bit of a learning curve. The first was born in the shelter that Matt had bedded thickly with hay, and was up and vigorous. The second was born in a bowl in the snow and was shivering in a puddle. Matt pulled it out and bedded it with hay before he went to work. I spent the morning checking it, pulling it back out of the hole, rubbing and drying it, trying to fill the hole thickly enough that when the calf floundered back in he would stay dry. Hours and hours passed and she calf was still shivery and unable to stand. 

It was hard to decide what needed to be done as we haven't done this before. The mother cow is our very most wild and thankfully allowed us to handle the calf, but there was no chance of getting near her or confining her in anyway to get some colostrum.

As the day wore on and the calf didn't show any sign of strengthening or getting up, we decided that we should probably intervene. We ended up mixing up some powdered colostrum and feeding the little guy from a bottle. He sucked well and within 20 minutes was on his feet and following his dam, and this afternoon has been nursing on her happily.

2 down, 14 more to go!

Winter Beef

Winter is finally here!

Its been pretty slow in arriving this year

These picture were taken on the day we went and picked our Christmas tree. Usually we go snowmobiling to get it, but not this year!

Other years we have had to slog through really deep snow to find the right one.

Our girls have arrived too!

We just bought a small herd of Red Angus crosses

Matt is pretty thrilled to have them. They are actually getting a little spoiled!

If Matt is around they get some grain for breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner, bedtime snack....

No. 9 (Flossy) is the favourite around here. She was likely a bucket baby and is curious and nosy and has a deep interest in buckets.

She is the smallest of the bunch, possibly stunted in her growth a little, but we really like her.

Its really homey to be able to look out my window and see them out there

I can't quite tell them all apart, but Matt has got there markings and temperaments all figured out

Bucket loving #9

Tonka is back in her natural habitat now that there is snow

And I am have having lots of fun with little Milo. He is catching onto the games we play and is just the cutest little thing. He even held his feet up on the jack-stand so I could "trim" them yesterday.

He is looking pretty bum high at the moment. Grow little guy, grow!

Winter is here!

I think we finally have finished all (or most) of our winter preparations!
It feels good to have things cleaned up and in their right places now that the flurries are flying.



All of our pigs have gone now. They were quite personable so they are easy to miss. We won't keep any through the winter this year and our lovely sow Lady has been given to a friend.

It was kind of a hard choice, but at the same time, for where we are at, it feels right. At about the halfway point of this pregnancy I ended up with a hernia, which really was not fun. Matt ended up doing all the chores and farm work for me before and after his day job, so the less lifting and hauling over this winter, the better!



Over this fall, once the veggies slowed down, we actually got to some tasks that have been overlooked for years!





We got out as much as we could from the garden. Again, having a hernia has really changed the fall for me.
Little farm girl and I joked that this year we accidentally grew armling potatoes instead of fingerlings. They make for some really long french fries!



We have also started the prep for having our own beef cattle. This has been Matt's dream since he was very little. The hay he made over the summer is stacked and covered, round bale feeders are in the pasture waiting and we have our plans for spring calving ready to be put in place!



Our fencing got some much needed upgrades before (hopefully!) our cows come. This section was especially run down and I feel relatively safe saying it should hold them now.



Little farm girl is growing into quite a responsible and hard working little lady and we felt she was old enough for a kitten of her own. This is Sunny.



Somehow, as tiny as he is, he seems to possess enough personality to fill three cats.
His favourite things so far include: sucking on things (toys, toes, earlobes), getting closed into the fridge, getting to the toilet while it is still flushing (and a good percentage of the time falling in too) and sleeping right in the warm spot against the dogs belly.



Tonka just loves him and they spend many hours wrestling. Little farm girl often complains about how slimy her kitten is, but it keeps them both out of trouble!

I just had to snap this picture one evening. Sunny took over licking the gravy off the plate, and Tonka's disgusted expression made me laugh out loud. 

Little farm girl has been training everything. The chicks have an obstacle course they are getting quite adept at running through, and even the cat has a hoop it jumps through.

Oh, the things that keep us busy in the winter...



I just got the chickens tucked into the barn yesterday. They were extremely unimpressed with snow and would refuse to leave the camper for the whole day if there was even a dusting!

And another new addition on the farm, and she is just as sweet as she looks too!

I thought after my little Charlie horse sold it would be a good plan to pick out a weanling for me to raise and be able to ride and train once my babies are a bit more grown.

Matt knew how much I thoroughly loved having a horse to ride and train so he convinced me to consider have another young project. This filly will be ready to start in the spring, or whenever I can squeeze in some time! I have been doing lots of ground work with her in the meantime and I am so impressed with her gentle and quiet nature and how quickly she is picking up on things.



Tex photo-bombed this but it still shows what I was trying to capture. The belly on her is so huge!
When I looked at her I assumed she was just boney and wormy and young. Now I have had her a month and I have wormed her thoroughly, I am going to use one more small spectrum variety just to make sure I didn't miss anything. I have her on hay and grain and I work her a few times a week so she should be getting protein and building muscle. The weird thing is, it keeps getting worse! She seems healthy in every other was so I figure its either just an awkward stage, or there is a foal on the way!



And this little guy is the little weanling I fell in love with. He just came home a couple days ago and is still settling in.
We are calling him Milo, and I am already quite impressed with the little guy! He has such a nice hip on him and when he lopes, it looks totally effortless! I can just imagine all the adventures we are going to have together.



I haven't played with him too much yet. Its been a big change for him over the last couple days and he is still warming up to me and getting used to the little farmers. But, as you can probably imagine, I have big plans for the little guy!