Pine Needle Farm

It's time to haul the rest of the hay for this year.  20 tons to go.  I call it my "concentrated strength training" for the year.  One thing about it, I sure don't need a gym membership!  I still use the small square bales.  Living on a hill and not having a big tractor to move the big round or square bales around, I like the small bales.  They are way more labor intensive than the big bales, but they sure are easier to feed when one has multiple pens of goats. 

  We now have a mini horse added to the crew.  I rescued him from some people up in the northern part of the valley who had no idea how to take care of one.  His feet were horribly over-grown.  It took me an hour just to do his back feet, and about an hour and a half to do his front.  They still aren't normal, but at least he's standing straight again.  I'm going to finish the trimming this week.  He's a really nice looking little guy.  If I had registration papers on him, I could show him. 

   We finally had a guinea hatch out a single baby.  It didn't last the day, once the parents left the nest and took it with them.  I found it dead laying in the buck pen.  He didn't kill it, the parents weren't keeping it warm enough, and expecting the little thing to go wherever they went, even though it's little legs were too short to follow them.  Guineas do not make good parents!  If any more hatch out anywhere, I am going to catch them and put them in a brooder till they are old enough to make it on their own.

   Well, that's it for now.... 

I've been busy lately, as have most farmers.  We are finally getting the rest of our 20 acres fenced.  We are down to the last side and the last roll of wire.  Today when I was pounding in the posts and rolling out the field fence, I saw a fairly fresh pile of bear doo-doo!  No wonder the dogs were going crazy last night!  The bear had come in fairly close to the goat pens.  Good thing we have Nellie, our Great Pyrenees!  She's keeping everything away. 

   The goats are going to be very fat and happy when they get out into the new area.  The vegetation is very nice and high.  Hopefully we will get a little more rain after they are in the new half, so the old half can grow back some.  Then I can rotate them between the two.

    I got approved to sell goat meat at the Farmers' Market in Kalispell now!!    I took in some packages of burger and a couple of roasts last week, and sold all but 1 package of burger and one roast.  So this is good.  People around here are finally eating something besides beef, pork and chicken.

   Well, that's it for now....

  There are 14 turkey babies, and 13 baby goats now.  The kids are doing great, all are looking like they will have some nice cashmere.  The baby turkeys are running around peeping.  The two turkey hens and the hen chicken that hatched them out are all watching them. 

  Today the two turkey hens were fighting!  They must have been arguing over who gets to watch over which babies.  The chicken just kept her four and was happy.  Silly birds. 

  The two toms, RT for red tom and BT for bronze tom had a huge fight and now RT has been de-throned.   I'm not sure how that is going to work, since all three of the hens are Bourbon Reds like RT.  BT is a Standard Bronze.  We kept him just in case RT died or something. Plus his feathers are really pretty!   All the little babies look like Bourbon Reds, so I don't think RT let him near the hens.  But now that the roles have been reversed, it will be interesting to see what happens with the next hatch. 

   There has been a big Raven hanging around lately.  It lands in the goat pen and the kids follow it around to see what it is doing.  That is cute watching them.  It also has landed among the chickens and guineas when they were in the driveway one day.   Didn't do anything to any of them, so I don't know what is going on.  The baby turkeys are in the turkey house behind a chicken wire fence to keep them in till they are bigger, so it can't get to them.

  Strange things are happening around here.  Nellie, our Great Pyrenees has been keeping all the predators at bay.  We have everything up here, from foxes to mountain lions and bears. 

   The guineas actually chased a red fox away a couple of years ago.  It was rather funny to watch.  Six of the guineas got together and sounded their alarm call while running after the fox, who turned around and trotted away.  It probably couldn't handle the loud noise they were making!  So far the foxes and coyotes have left the poultry alone.  I did lose a goat to a mountain lion 4 years ago.  The lion didn't get to eat the goat, I heard it happen and chased the lion away.  So it didn't get to taste the goat.  It never came back, and it must have passed the word around to others to not bother trying to get one of my goats.  None have come around again. 

  It would be nice to have the grass start growing a bit faster around here.  It's been so cold, it's rather slow growing.  Yesterday we had snow again.  It didn't stick for very long, but it was cold, and today was chilly, too.

  Well, that's it for this entry.