Ragdollcatlady's Just a Little Patch of Weeds Farm journal

[jodief100]

So sorry about the babies. Possums and raccoons SUCK.

 

[ragdollcatlady]

Thanks Jodie.... I was so looking forward to having them around. Now I just have the one mahogany.

We went out and finished the poop board in the yellow faverolle house. I need to make a closable door to keep them safe every night. And rearrange the shelf/nest box....not sure the best way to go about that. I want to make it easier for them to get up to the roosting bars.

I went and sat in the girl goats pen and just loved on them for awhile....that was nice! Getting fat bellies.... should have some Spartagus babies in a short while.....They have full undercoats with this crazy cold (down to 18 degrees) weather we had last week!!!! BBBBBRRRRRR!!! Other than that it has been getting down to 30 or so every night. I am not liking the cold! Good news though, Mom and Dad are getting us a wood burning stove for a family christmas present! yeah!

 

[ragdollcatlady]

Yesterday I took Sir Leaks-a-lot to work... he got neutered and had his rear dewclaws removed. He had double dews on each back foot! They looked like dragon claws when they were taken off.....The poor guy was shaking hard the whole way to work, probably convinced that he was going to be abandoned again! Now he is official though, so he can stay. He was starting fights with Beaux Jangles, trying to keep Beaux away from me.....too much testosterone I guess. He about jumped out of his skin when he saw that I brought him back home after work!

The vets were surprised that I was willing to knock down and monitor my own animal under anesthesia.....my ragdolls never did very well under anesthesia and I used to ask the other techs to do my cats for me. They were so sensitive to the drugs. It was nerve-wracking! But Leaky did great. He came home with some antibiotics and drugs for pain, so he is feeling just fine!

We went Christmas shopping...I took the kids shopping for each other. Usually the DH and I each take 2 to shop for the other 2, then the third helps wrap so they know what they are all giving each other, but I had to take all 4 to shop for each other on the same trip...only because I hate shopping so close to the actual day and wanted to get it over with....but we survived.

We finally finished juicing the last half of the lemons...about another 150 I believe. I now have a whole shelf of frozen lemon juice! I do like that! Lemon bar time! Our lemons and oranges get cross-pollinated from the bees since they bloom at the same time, so our lemons are really very sweet and our oranges a little bit tangy. We had to pick all the lemons early this year because the chickens and a couple of big baby turkeys were roosting in the lemon bush/trees and breaking the branches. Well the weight of a ton of lemons and the giant baby birds were too much combined I should say!

Today we did the last 3 meat bird girls. 2 fit in my turkey pan and one was cut up and kind of fit in the crock-pot. (I have a bowl on top of the crock-pot, attempting to hold the lid down.)

We wrapped presents tonight and filled out cards to send to a few family members.

I made a new Christmas tradition a few years ago that I find makes the holiday so much simpler....we do Papa Murphys take-n-bake pizza for Christmas day lunch/dinner. We have coffee/hot chocolate and home made pumpkin chocolate chip scones for breakfast all morning and then pizza for dinner. Easy! So I buy the pizzas the week before, the day they are on sale, and freeze them. This year my favorite kind was on sale thursday, so I bought 2 with tomato sauce and 2 with garlic sauce!

I usually mix up most of the ingredients for the scones the night before to save time in the morning, so we have hot scones straight out of the oven! One year I was too sick to make the scones so my oldest (13 at the time) made them....from scratch, even grinding the wheat and they were awesome! That tradition just had to be kept! The only year we haven't had them was the year DH insisted on letting the outdoor dogs in the house because "it's Christmas!" OK whatever, but he refused to put them outside while we went to church. They had bad house manners and I didn't want them teaching the better behaved indoor dogs bad things....Well we came home to the whole bowl of scone mix, I believe it was 4x the recipe, on the floor, every last bit eaten by the dogs and the oven door was broken because Satchel, his 120 lb lab/shepherd mix had apparently used the oven door as a step to climb up and grab the bowl....door to the oven is still broken, Satchel and Charlie are both gone....still remember that Christmas!

 

[ragdollcatlady]

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and that all plans for new years eve are safe ones!

We had a nice Christmas, quiet. Just us. We had our Scones and coffee/chocolate, eggnog and pizza, homemade raviolis and bolognese sauce....

I visited the ladies I used to take care of at my old job. They recognized me and were sooo excited to see me. It was so wonderful to see them again. I really love them and I am sad that I am not there anymore.

My dad was down for a few days installing the wood burning stove. We are just waiting for a missing pipe to arrive in the mail. Then we will be toasty and warm. Mom and dad gave us the stove for a Christmas present. I had mentioned that I wanted one I could cook on so they found one. It has a fancy skillet that fits the top so I am set!

I caught a possum in the garage...but now I don't know what to do with him. It is a smallish little thing so it is young. I don't have a gun to shoot it and I know it was just trying to eat, but it could've eaten the cat food and my eggs instead of my fancy chickens! DD thinks he is going to stay and named him Porridge......

 

[ragdollcatlady]

Happy new year!
May all your critters, friends and family be healthy, safe and happy this coming year!

 

[jodief100]

So what happened to the possum?

 

[ragdollcatlady]

Uuuummmmm...........at the moment he is sleeping in the little round basket in the big 2 story cat cage in the garage........( I am trying to summon up the courage to call our friend to see if he wants to skin it....but I would rather turn him loose a few miles from here....but then I don't want him to then become someone elses problem, or worse, find his way back here......)

 

[babsbag]

Ravi is a really nice looking girl; I am glad you are still enjoying her. I hope if you get babies that you gets some spots, that would be fun. I have 3 boers due anytime; 2 are red like her and one is solid black, hoping for some spotted babies, especially a black and white spotted doe, that would be really awesome.

Those chickens are adorable, really sorry you lost some. I have a new LGD that is making sure that I need to buy new chicks next year I know he will outgrow it but I do wish he would hurry up. At least I know that there will be no varmints in the coop when he is on duty; I like having the coop in the goat pasture, keeps them nice and safe.

So I take you are working as a vet tech now? That is really awesome.

 

[ragdollcatlady]

Thanks Babs,

Yeah I am working as a tech again! Pretty exciting!

I absolutely love Ravi! She is my favorite of all the goats. Thank you for letting me have her! She is super loud but that suits me just fine. I am OK with her telling me how much she loves me every time she sees me....or is that she is always hungry????...same difference I guess! I just have to laugh out loud when she hollers at me with a mouth full of food, some of which falls out because she is talking, trying to tell me how hungry she is.... She loves to be petted, which is one of my favorite pastimes so we get along just great!

I tried to breed Ravi, but Andy is too inexperienced and we had to assist then call it quits for the time being. I don't want her to get hurt.....

You will have to let me know if you get a black and white paint or spotted girl that needs a new home, that is my next boer desire......

Sorry about your chicks! I get pretty attached to the birds too....

 

[babsbag]

My one spotted doe is just not settling. She is almost 2 and has been in with the buck since June. The other 3 does are obviously bred, even though I never saw the deed so no idea when they are due. I had the pregnancy test done on Sept 2 and they were open so I know that they can't be due before 1/15, but anytime after that is nothing but a guess.

I am really frustrated that the other doe is not bred; she appeared to be in heat a while back so I just did a blood test on her, maybe she is finally bred. If she is still open I will talk to my vet about getting some lute to force a heat, and I will separate her from the buck for a while, just so I can see if and when she comes into heat. The boers are pretty sneaky compared to the Alpines.

I should get some spots from this match as 2 of the does I am breeding back to their sire which is ok for one generation but would never breed any does I get this time to the same sire. I am really hoping that I get a bunch of spotted kids that I can sell for enough money to make this worth my while. I am working towards building a dairy and creamery so the boers have to either pay their way or leave as they have no role in the future dairy. If the black doe gives me a black spotted doe I will probably keep her, we will see.