mysunwolf - four acres and some sheep

[mysunwolf]

Love the pictures! You already have a garden in??

Yes! This is the garden we started in summer 2019 and have just kind of kept going. I think we're Zone 6B or something like that, so we use row cover and mulch and plant good winter crops. The #1 winter crop we grow is spinach, followed by curly kale, lettuce, and turnips. I really want to try carrots this year! The beets we left in the ground and they stayed good until December. Then I left them in the soil until this week so they would keep weeds down and aeration up. This week I pulled them, fed them to my sheep, and planted peas. It's about time to plant spinach, kale, etc again too! I'm obsessed with year-round gardening and hope to have a greenhouse someday.

 

[mysunwolf]

I love the pictures, the animals look so healthy. You take good care of them. I used to say that when you have a baby, you drop out of life for the first two years. LOL I'm glad that you dropped in to say hello to us, I know your hands are full.

You are TOO RIGHT, this baby thing sure takes up a lot of time I thought I was busy before, but man was I surprised. We're doing okay now that we got the poor thing sleep trained, he sleeps 7:30p-6:30a daily and gives me some time to work in the evenings. Plus naps, and I carry him around a whole lot! Even though he's over 22lbs

 

[Baymule]

Babies are great, you will see the world all brand new again through his eyes.

 

[Mike CHS]

I planted a lot of beets last year but they never seemed to be drawn to them. They nibbled on the greens and I pulled and chopped a bunch but they just left them. Who knows what draws their taste buds?

 

[Baymule]

I planted a lot of beets last year but they never seemed to be drawn to them. They nibbled on the greens and I pulled and chopped a bunch but they just left them. Who knows what draws their taste buds?

Plant them some pumpkins. Mine love pumpkins. It's fun to feed pumpkins to sheep. I hoist one over my head and slam it on the ground. It busts open, they swarm it like hungry wolves. LOL

 

[mysunwolf]

Hey all, I know it's been a long time! Just wanted to stop in and give the annual report

SO MUCH happened in 2020! Covid hit our pottery business hard in the first half of the year (since small gift shops had to remain closed, and many shut down). Luckily we had just gotten into wholesaling, and were able to see the business bounce back once our larger and/or online retailers went live again. The holidays were so crazy that DW didn't sleep much at all.

In May 2020 I quit my job at the local dairy, right before they started laying people off! I decided to stay home with my babe and take care of the farm. We also decided to get pregnant again, so look out for boy #2 coming in June!

In February 2020, my mom made an offer on the land next door (28 acres), and eventually we acquired it! She lives in FL, and bought it for us to farm on. She helped pay for some fencing, and in August 2020 her and my uncle invested in a herd of 9 bred Angus/cross cows with calves at their sides. They've needed a bit of TLC due to having accidentally been bred too young the first time, but they are beautiful stock. We added our two bottles calves, an older lame cow from the dairy I used to work at, and a guardian donkey with a torn ear to the herd (she is a useless guardian, but it's nice to have a donkey to look at).

We had a streak of bad luck starting in March 2020. It began with my totaling my old Toyota Highlander (best car ever), and didn't stop until Thanksgiving.

In this bad luck, I adopted an older puppy, Bash, to be trained by Puff, my best Pyrenees/Anatolian boy. Then Puff died of a large seizure (he had a history of them) only a few months into training the new recruit. I adopted a puppy, Lil, and an adult dog, Sully, in the hopes of creating a good pack, but had trouble keeping the adult dog in the fences and training him with the stock. I rehomed him with a rescue to a pet home, and kept both puppies. Lil we adopted at 3 months old in May 2020. She was a Karakachan cross, who had incredible instinct and was terrific with the stock. The older puppy, Bash, we adopted in March 2020. He needed a lot of work, and now I was out my best dog and had to do all the training myself. Then the small puppy disappeared after only 3 months of being an excellent little trainee and a wonderful companion. We're still not sure what happened, but all resources were exhausted and no trace of her anywhere.

Meanwhile, Bash was left alone on the new property, so I brought him back over to our home property and chained him up until I found some time to train him. He is still our only LGD right now, though we will probably get a puppy in Spring 2022. A few months back he finally started to understand his job, and I can watch the wheels in his head click as he continues to make more connections and become a better dog.

In July I purchased a kunekune quad consisting of a boar, a barrow, and two gilts. They were 3+ years old and had never bred, but I decided to take a chance because they looked like nice stock. I added them to my boar and gilt that I already had, and watched my home boar start breeding the new females. 3 months, 3 weeks, 3 days later, the gilts all became sows! Millie, my original girl, only had two and promptly squished them. I fattened her up and culled her a few months later (we're still eating and selling her delicious meat).

The other two sows were excellent moms, each having 6 babies and doing a fantastic job of raising them. I sold 5/12 from the two litters and decided to retain the rest, either due to defects or keeping back some females. In January 2021, I purchased my first registered kunekune, a nice young boar to breed with my two sows! Plus their gilts when the time comes. We are officially in the kunekune business.

We raised double the number of turkeys that we usually do, and still managed to sell all 24! Two days of processing later, and I swore I'd never do another turkey season again. Guess we'll see. We don't make quite enough money for it to be worth it, but it's a nice service to the community to provide fresh-never-frozen, local, pasture raised, nonGMO fed, broad breasted bronze turkeys for Thanksgiving.

We raised two batches of meat birds in 2020. Due to Covid and the meat scare, we sold out of the first batch which was actually intended for us! So I was forced to ask the hatchery to ship us another round of birds for our own freezer. We love love LOVE Freedom Ranger Hatchery and their birds. This year we raised Color Yields, and they are some lovely tender birds with white pin feathers that are still excellent foragers with great tenderness and flavor in the meat.

We did very well keeping all the lambs from getting barber pole worms this year! Instead, my market lambs all started to drop dead from a combination of coccidiosis and clostridium about a month before they were supposed to go to market. I actually had to contact a lamb share customer and inform them that I had lost their lamb and couldn't fulfill their order. What a horrible reminder that sheep are so fragile. My ewes and ewe lambs avoided the deadly outbreak as they were separated, so that was the good news. We bred everyone for more lambs in August/September 2020, and began lambing last week (January 2021).

The good news is that lambing has gone well so far, and we're getting a decent number of ewe lambs this year. We're going to try some different techniques for raising them in 2021 as clearly I can't properly manage a feedlot-style operation for my ram lambs.

Towards the end of the season, we decided to go visit my family in FL for Christmas despite Covid. I slaughtered a bunch of animals in preparation, including a rabbit we had acquired from out of nowhere, and two piglets that I didn't want to carry over the winter. In doing this, I got to use a rifle and shoot my first animal, one of the piglets! This was only the second time I've ever fired a gun. I've got a lot more practice to do, but I was proud to be as accurate as I was. The FL visit went great, we mostly wore masks and distanced when possible, and we got to ring in the new year in a much warmer place.

All in all, we struggled a lot all 2020 financially with the baby, loss of income, and a lot of new farm critters to feed. I still haven't paid the man for the cattle that we have, but he seemed just fine with that. Hopefully I will not lose enough money this winter that I can pay him this coming summer. We are behind on farm and house goals because we had to divert all money to paying electricity and food. I know many folks live like this all the time, and I'm grateful that our savings carried us through. And towards the end of the year and the holidays, business picked up enough that we could stop worrying so much.

Currently, I have a bunch of lambs and kunekune piglets running around. There will be a fresh batch of pullet chicks to add to the brooder in February. The cattle will be calving in March, as well as our ewe lambs lambing. I'm going to breed my kunekunes again in April, and will hopefully be delivering my second baby in June.

Wishing you all a peaceful 2021!

 

[Baymule]

Whew! That's a LOT going on! First up, CONGRATULATIONS on the baby coming in June. Really happy for you!

Sorry that 2020 has been so tough for y'all. It hit lots of people real hard, I am glad that things are getting better.

The pigs are sounding good, you have quite the herd going, wish you much success with them. Around here, with Covid, suddenly everyone wants to be a farmer and raise pigs and a garden, oh and chickens too. Slaughter facilities are booked out over a year in advance and feeder pig prices are just stupid.

Cows! Calves and more to come! Are y'all going to keep a steer for the freezer?

 

[mysunwolf]

Whew! That's a LOT going on! First up, CONGRATULATIONS on the baby coming in June. Really happy for you!

Sorry that 2020 has been so tough for y'all. It hit lots of people real hard, I am glad that things are getting better.

The pigs are sounding good, you have quite the herd going, wish you much success with them. Around here, with Covid, suddenly everyone wants to be a farmer and raise pigs and a garden, oh and chickens too. Slaughter facilities are booked out over a year in advance and feeder pig prices are just stupid.

Cows! Calves and more to come! Are y'all going to keep a steer for the freezer?

Bay, I am so glad to talk to you!

2020 was a rollercoaster, I'm glad to be off that particular ride. I think a lot of people had it much worse than us, so that looking back I feel lucky. In the moment, I certainly felt cursed.

We have been able to get pig slots 8-10 months in advance, but beef slots have been impossible. Luckily there's a processor about 3hrs away that has openings. I have scheduled 2 bottle babies for February and 5 steers for September. I've been grateful, we scheduled a pig date right when the Covid mess hit and were able to get some processed, even if they were small. The kunekunes take 12-18months to reach 200lbs, BUT we don't feed them May through October, they just forage. I'll take that as a win. We are also perfectly capable of butchering our own, but it's so nice to have some to sell for customers.

Since my mom and uncle own part of the herd, I told them we can share some beef with them But they pay for processing! So far so good. We are keeping a beef back for us to eat on, but also to have some more product to sell at the farmers market and start establishing a reputation as beef folks so that we can sell more shares instead of sending so many to auction.

Can you tell I'm excited to be expanding my farm?

OOPS and forgot the most exciting thing. In the Fall of 2020, I enrolled in the local community college and am taking science courses. I already have a bachelor's in sociology, but I want to apply to a veterinary sciences program. Doing school part time, I should be done with my vet school pre-requisites by Spring 2023 and can apply to vet programs for that fall.

Do I sound crazy yet?

 

[Baymule]

Not crazy at all. Sounds to me that you are living a life others can only dream about. Reach for that golden ring on the merry go round, grab it and go for it!

 

[Baymule]

With all you have going on, I know life is going to be busy, busy, busy. BUT, please check in with us from time to time!