Devonviolet Acres

[Baymule]

It was great seeing y’all yesterday, we enjoyed our visit so much. We knew y’all needed a day off from all that exhausting work, so we plopped our butts down at your table, drank your coffee with your goat cream, ate your delicious treat that BJ helped you make, visited, and BJ cleaned up the kitchen so you could sit down and REST!

Sometimes you just have to take a day off. Next time y’all need a day off, come see us and we’ll all have a blabbermouth good time!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

No wonder you don't have time to post! Sounds like ya'll are perpetual motion and perpetual work. I know it's a labor of love but don't forget to take a day off like @Baymule suggested!

 

[Mini Horses]

I've been wondering "where you were". Thought maybe you have been doing the farmer markets again BUT -- see you have no time for that right now. Surely glad to hear DH is doing so well.

I commend you for being able to sell a couple goats. It's hard, especially with dairy, because we form such a relationship with these milkers...and their kids. A couple months ago I took 2 does to auction, along with 6 bucklings. That wasn't so hard as I never milked them & they weren't "friendly". Two more to go but would not load. Now, they are bred so will wait & sell after kidding. It's HARD!! You love them, like your own kids!

Tree cutting? Not me. Not if over a few inch diameter, you know really small ones. Once a big one is down, I'll go for it to cut up & all that. You are braver than me. I could sure jump right in there and build something -- in for that one. Time is always an issue.

Try not to be a stranger. Pop in a little more often and just say hello, we are ok.

 

[Bruce]

Really glad to hear from you Devon

so we plopped our butts down at your table, drank your coffee with your goat cream, ate your delicious treat that BJ helped you make, visited, and BJ cleaned up the kitchen so you could sit down and REST!

And you didn't show your appreciation by putting that deck belt on the mower?
You don't really even need to lift up the tractor to change that belt. Of course that does require a fair bit of lying on your side.

 

[Devonviolet]

Thanks @frustratedearthmother. Yes, it IS a labor of love. I DO love my goats!!!! Every single one of them is special, including our stinky Danny Boy. He does love his scritches on his neck, and he doesn’t even try to head butt my hand anymore. Although, I do have to go in and wash my hands and arms after petting him.

Our two little wethers are SO sweet and the meat goat part of them is showing. They are so meaty and their hair is shiny and soft. They love it when I pull them to me and pet them.

I agree @Mini Horses. Since we can’t afford to keep all our kids, the boys will be going in the freezer next year. And it IS almost as hard to sell them. We sold my sweet Calendula and Faith (Hope’s sister), which has helped a bit on the feed bill.

ETA: Selling Faith was especially hard, because she was so sweet and I loved that she followed me every where. Whenever I needed a cuddle (which was often) she stood patiently, while I loved on her. She seemed to really enjoy it. Calendula was much the same. The major consolation to that, is that I know they both went to great homes, where they will get lots of lovin’.

But, I’m still waiting to see if everyone breeds this Fall. Rosemary and April are in with Danny Boy right now. Shortly after they went in with him, he bred April. But, I’m puzzled that he has shown no interest in breeding Rosemary, and she no interest in him. It was pretty much the same last year, and she still hasn’t been bred. I’m not sure what is going on. If she doesn’t get bred this year, I will have to sell her. I adore her, so that will be hard. Next week I plan to put him with Angelica and Hope, who were both bred by him last year, so I’m pretty confident that they will get bred again this year.

We enjoyed yesterday too, @Baymule! That was so sweet when BJ jumped in to help me make the Keto buns, that I put under the blueberries and cream. That WAS yummy, wasn’t it? Then he just kept working until the kitchen was all clean and all the dishes were washed. You have a real treasure there, Bay.

It looks like the next couple of weeks are going to be super busy, with building the hay shed and then going to pick up a couple round bales, to fill the shed with.

Yeah @Bruce, you won’t get me on the ground to work on a mower. I can’t get up once I’m down. Getting up is a major undertaking. DH has a problem with a bad hip. So, being able to hoist the mower up, on a chain between two trees makes the job doable.

You crack me up, Mini! I LOVE cutting trees down with a chainsaw. I had never cut a tree down, until we moved here. But, I seem to have a knack for getting the trees to go exactly where I want them. Although, you do have a point. Cleaning the branches up afterwards is hard work! Not my favorite part of the job.

 

[Baymule]

I just had a brain fart on your hay shed. If I get this correct, you will back the trailer up to the shed, then y’all use manual labor to push/roll (even they don’t roll worth a durn) the bale off the trailer into the shed. Got a couple ideas....

1. Make the floor a bit lower than the trailer. You sure don’t need a 2-3 inch step UP to overcome.

2. On that manual labor thing..... take a 4x4 and sink it 3-4 feet in the ground at the back of the shed. Cut out floor around it. Make it maybe 4’ above the floor. Cut a brace piece that slants toward the front of the shed, screw it to the straight 4x4 and the floor. Go around the hay bale with a wratchet strap. Attach come along to it and the straight 4x4. The brace will act as a stablizer against the force of winching the hay bale in with the come along. I probably haven’t explained this very well, but there’s got to be an easier way than pushing the bale.

 

[Bruce]

It looks like the next couple of weeks are going to be super busy, with building the hay shed and then going to pick up a couple round bales, to fill the shed with.

I think you are supposed to get the bales first then build the shed around them. That way you know they will fit

Getting up is a major undertaking.

I know that one as well. And the longer I'm sitting or lying the longer it takes me to get up off the ground. Does that mean we are old?

 

[Devonviolet]

I think you are supposed to get the bales first then build the shed around them. That way you know they will fit

About getting the round bales first, and building the shed around them, so I will know they fit, we get them from the same guy every year, his bales are pretty much consistently 5’ in diameter and 4’ wide. We are actually planning to make the shed 16’ long and 8’ wide, to allow plenty of room to move around inside. The length will allow us to keep three bales at a time in the shed.

We have the barn wired with electric, so we are going to wire the shed, for lights, so we can see what we are doing. I also thought it would be cool if we put a door from the barn into the hay shed, so we can get hay from the barn when it is cold, windy and/or rainy.

I know that one as well. And the longer I'm sitting or lying the longer it takes me to get up off the ground. Does that mean we are old?

Yeah, I guess it does. . Actually, I have some major nerve damage, to my left knee from an injury caused by a fall when I was 20. I can’t put any weight on that knee, because it feels like I am kneeling on glass. So, getting up off the ground is not fun or easy.

 

[Devonviolet]

I just had a brain fart on your hay shed. If I get this correct, you will back the trailer up to the shed, then y’all use manual labor to push/roll (even they don’t roll worth a durn) the bale off the trailer into the shed. Got a couple ideas....

1. Make the floor a bit lower than the trailer. You sure don’t need a 2-3 inch step UP to overcome.

2. On that manual labor thing..... take a 4x4 and sink it 3-4 feet in the ground at the back of the shed. Cut out floor around it. Make it maybe 4’ above the floor. Cut a brace piece that slants toward the front of the shed, screw it to the straight 4x4 and the floor. Go around the hay bale with a wratchet strap. Attach come along to it and the straight 4x4. The brace will act as a stablizer against the force of winching the hay bale in with the come along. I probably haven’t explained this very well, but there’s got to be an easier way than pushing the bale.

1. The plan is to have the floor lower than the bed of the trailer, so thee bales can be rolled DOWN the ramp.
2. On the manual labor thing. Once the bale is off the flat spot caused by the weight of the bale sitting on the trailer, it roles fairly easily. I’m not so sure sliding 1000+ pounds of hay (using a come along), on the rough surface of the tailgate, would be all that easy. Nice thought though.

 

[Devonviolet]

Hey y’all! I haven’t been on here lately, as we have had a lot going on and have been doing a lot of re-evaluating and soul searching. While he is doing a LOT better since his heart surgery, my husband IS getting older and slowing down quite a bit. My right foot is still giving me a lot of grief after seven surgeries, and we have to start cutting back on the work load around here. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

After a great deal of thought and prayer, we have decided to sell the goats. I love my goats, but I have to be realistic.

I have tested sensitive to milk, but when I first started milking my goats, I found that if I didn’t pasteurize the milk, I didn’t react (phlegm in the throat). However, last Spring, I started noticing that I was getting a lot of phlegm when I drank our milk. Even my Kefir was causing it. So, my main reason for having dairy goats is out the window.

I have also been evaluating the cost of keeping the goats, and considering that I am not getting any income from the goats, we can’t really afford to keep them. It is costing $200+ per month for all our feed. Granted, that includes chicken feed and dog food, but we just can’t afford to keep the goats as pets - which is basically what they are at this point. Our only source of income is social security, and we are having a hard time making ends meet.

So, I have listed four of our seven goats on CraigsList - three purebred pregnant dairy goats and our purebred Myotonic buck. The sad thing I’m finding is that I paid good money for quality goats. Everyone wants quality goats for bottom dollar. I actually had one lady email me, asking if one of the does ($275) was registered. She is purebred, pregnant, a second freshener, excellent milk production, from registered lines, but isn’t registered. The lady wasn’t interested. She wanted all that AND she wanted a registered goat!!! Another guy didn’t want to pay for my LaMancha/Nubian cross doe. He wanted to trade a Nubian buck for her.

@Baymule has given me the names of some FB groups, where I can list my goats, locally. I plan to do that tomorrow and will see how that goes.

We will be keeping Rosemary, because last year she did not get pregnant. This year, we have not seen her appear to be in heat, and never saw Danny Boy mount her. I put a marking harness on Danny Boy, but that wasn‘t until after he had been with Rosemary for a while. She never had any markings on her rump. But, it is possible that he bred her (before that) and we just didn’t see it. If she goes past February (which would be four months after I put the marking harness on Danny Boy) and she shows no signs of pregnancy, we will take her to the butcher.

We will also keep the two wethers born in June, and will take them to the butcher in April or May.

Once all the goats are gone, we will have to decide what to do about the dogs. I think that is going to be the hardest decision to make. They have been together since birth, and I hate to separate them. But, I have been told (by someone whom I trust and who knows about these things), that I could keep one and sell the other. There again . . . People want quality, but they don’t want to pay for it. We paid a lot of money for quality purebred Maremma LGDs. However, around here, it is common to find Great Pyrenees going for $100. I just don’t know how I am going to be able to get my money back, if I sell these amazing Livestock Guardian Dogs.

We have quite a few older chickens and ducks, which have all stopped laying. Since about mid-September, we haven’t gottten one egg from our birds. So, we are planning to butcher most of them. We will be keeping the pullets and one rooster, that hatched in July. We have six roosters in a separate run, from that same hatching. They will also get butchered with the older birds. By cutting back to ten chickens (from 45 chickens and ducks), that will cut way down on our feed bill, as well.

This Winter, we will be cutting down quite a few trees, that have been shading an area that could be used for vegetable garden. Next Spring, I want to get a good size garden in, so we will have vegetables, flowers and herbs, to sell at Farmer’s Market.

As I said, we have been really busy lately, so I don’t have a lot of time to hang out, on BYH. But, I will be checking in as I am able..