Gardner’s California Homestead

[GardnerHomestead]

We had wonderful, crazy busy christmas. Christmas eve our pregnant dog started acting funny, restless, clearly uncomfortable. Me and her were up all night and she gave us 7 healthy puppies. 6 boys, 1 girl. She is young, only about 18 months old so i was concerned about how she would take to motherhood. but she has done so well, minimal intervention from me was needed. They are the cutest, i love watching her with them it is so sweet.

I have deposits on 3 and 1 I promised to a friend, hoping they all go quickly so im not tempted to keep them

Not to be topped by the dog, Two of our "young (if 7 months is still considered young )" pullets gave us an olive and greenish egg on Christmas morning.

Both of our immediate families came over to celebrate, i made chili Verde from our homegrown pork it was amazing. I have so much to be grateful for this year, and its a conflicted feeling because i know alot of ppl have lost so much. But i am proud about how far we have come and our ability to maneuver around the obstacles that were thrown at us. Heres to 2021!

 

[Baymule]

It looks like you had an extraordinary wonderful Christmas! Kids, Grand kids (LOL) puppies and eggs!

 

[Senile_Texas_Aggie]

Happy New Year, Miss @GardnerHomestead!

 

[GardnerHomestead]

Happy New Year, Miss @GardnerHomestead!

Happy new year @Senile_Texas_Aggie

 

[GardnerHomestead]

The bucklings have been sold off, mama goat is missing them terribly. Been milking her a little each day to help with the full bag. Dont have alot of interest in her as a milk goat as her teats are so small and hard to milk, so just need to get her to dry up. The two doelings I'm retaining are growing out nicely. Goats are enjoying the unseasonably nice weather. Storms coming in today for the next week so they will hate that (spoiled California goats). Have three more pregnant does (including my favorite) due to kid between February 1st and March 1st. Everyone has had their hooves trimmed, selenium and copper given. I also got put on the list for a buckling from a local breeder in late spring.

The pups are getting really big. Its been chaotic to say the least. Mama dog got Mastitis a couple weeks back. Poor thing was in so much pain. I had her on penicillin but needed to get some pain relief for her so we took her to the vet. The infection really wiped her out and she spend 5-6 days just laying on the couch, I would bring the babies to her every few hours. She desperately wanted to care for them and would try and get to the box but was just so sick. After several failed attempts to empty the infected teat it abscessed and popped. She instantly felt better and the wound is healing up nicely. In the meantime I became mother dog and started supplementing puppies with formula and wet puppy food, cleaning them and their box, and my favorite part - snuggling them. They are thriving and she is now back to being a great mother. All pups are claimed and going to their new homes on Valentines day.

Chicken news.... not much, getting about 7-9 eggs a day, one easter egger egg (i have 3 birds ), one olive egger egg, many leghorn eggs (these birds are champions) and a couple of my lavenders are starting to lay again. Lifelong dream realized when i bought my first Brinsea incubator this week Im super impatient so i put 25 eggs in that i had sitting around. Will end up with pure lavender chicks, orpington x leghorn, orpington x olive egger, and orpington x easter egger. Will be cool to see what they look like.

Did a feeding and a "winter" bee hive inspection. We lost our weaker hive, its upsetting and we arent sure what we did wrong. Learning from our mistakes and trying to do better. All garden boxes are repaired and ready for spring, picked up some seeds from the store. Need to put up some fencing on one side to keep the deer out before planting.

My husband took our son on his first duck hunt last weekend, he got his first duck! he was so excited, they are going again this weekend. Its all he can talk about.

 

[Baymule]

I'm glad that your mamma dog is better. Adorable puppies, love puppy breath! And you got an incubator! Congratulations on that, that is fantastic. Hope you hatch lots of chicks. The excess roos make good fried chicken. Watching the chicks hatch out is so much fun.

Did you cook the duck your son got, for supper?

 

[GardnerHomestead]

I'm glad that your mamma dog is better. Adorable puppies, love puppy breath! And you got an incubator! Congratulations on that, that is fantastic. Hope you hatch lots of chicks. The excess roos make good fried chicken. Watching the chicks hatch out is so much fun.

Did you cook the duck your son got, for supper?

Me too, she is the best dog and we were really worried about her. Ive had quite a few incubators, but only the inexpensive styrofoam ones. ive been drooling over this one for years. The hatching chicks never get old! As far as the duck goes my husband is going to have it stuffed since its his first. Beautiful bird. Hopefully they get more this weekend to eat!

 

[GardnerHomestead]

Winter is here!

The kids had a good few days of sledding and school closures/delays before it rained and washed it all away. The sun is back but its cold. Chickens stopped laying a couple days after the snow. all of them 19 eggs still in the incubator, 6 of the eggs weren't fertilized so i removed them. They were all from my California whites, which is a leghorn hybrid. They are small birds and im wondering if my rooster is to big for them to be property fertilized.

Preparing puppies to go to their new homes, shots were given, stopped wetting their food so they are on hard kibble now. Honey is still feeding them in the morning and at night but in progressively shorter spurts. They are sweet puppies and im going to miss them but so.much.work.

I scored a free dehydrator from someone on facebook, we made banana chips and some jerky so far. Cant wait to make great use of it this summer. I have been baking alot of bread and rolls since our yeast shortage seems to be over for now.

I have already bought all the seeds i need for the garden, learned my lesson on waiting til march last year i want to get a greenhouse in this spring but not sure thats going to happen. My daffodil and tulips are coming up despite the snow. Tough little flowers. A woman near me was giving away rose campion plants so i got a few and planted them around. Supposed to be deer resistant, we will see if they are goat resistant. The gopher at all my larkspur so i will have to get more and put them into gopher baskets this spring. Speaking of that gopher, I ordered a new gopher trap on amazon, set it up and had that gopher in less than a half hour!! Now im not delusional enough to think theres only one causing this mass destruction, but catching him was probably the best day of 2021 so far, revenge is mine. I will await fresh holes and set the trap again.

 

[thistlebloom]

What sort of trap did you use? I've always done pretty good with Macabees, but now we have two male barn cats that are hunting machines and we had no gophers last year. Yay! Gophers are absurdly frustrating to get control of.

 

[GardnerHomestead]

What sort of trap did you use? I've always done pretty good with Macabees, but now we have two male barn cats that are hunting machines and we had no gophers last year. Yay! Gophers are absurdly frustrating to get control of.

i have one pretty good hunting cat but i dont think she can keep up. Its called the gopher hawk, got it off amazon, was reading a review about it on a facebook group im on and they swore by it. they werent wrong, best $25 ive ever spent. no fresh holes but the weather hasnt been great, they seem to be more active when its not raining.