Olde English Babydoll Southdown Lambs for sale

On the left is our two brother lambs a couple of days old and on the right is them now. They are inseperable and will be sold as a pair. One is black and one is white. Their wool is wonderful and would make a great addition for a spinner. They are both friendly and as sweet as can be. Their father is "Harley" a super nice ram and their mother is "Sweetie" and the name totally fits her.  In the morning when I go down to feed they tug on my pant leg, they always want to know what you are doing and will let you pick them up and they actually act like they enjoy it!

As you can see in the picture below and on the left, he wants to know what the camera is all about!

Bee inspection, a success!

The picture on the left is a very interesting comb that the bees have made in 3 days. I opened the hive up on Thursday morning and by Sunday morning they had successfully built this beautiful comb. In this picture they are busy working and...

in the picture on the right is after I had smoked them. It sends the bees running below and also calms them. In todays inspection I also saw each queen in both hives which is something I have never been able to do before. Some of the frames were drenched in honey and dripping. There was capped honey and each hive had brood (baby bees) as well. I am so happy with my hives and am looking forward to a great year of bee keeping!

 

Our New Chicken Coop

Here is our new chicken coop in the making. It is made from mostly recycled items that we got from here and there. The cage part is an old wildlife cage that I had, the fencing was being thrown away and we salvaged it. Tim also took down some old caging I had and is recycling the hardware cloth for the outer part of the fencing. In the future we will be building a greenhouse on to the front of the wooden part which will act as a solar heating area and will keep them warm in colder months.

Next is making some laying boxes which will be out of recycled items as well. We've already looked at it and are making some changes.

This picture below, is the chickens now about 7 weeks old and their first day out and about. They were chasing bugs and exploring whatever they could find.

The gangs all here...

The gangs all here...a typical day at breakfast time. It seems like I get up earlier and earlier every morning to keep the sheep quiet. Belle the ewe in the forefront of this picture has a big mouth. Do they make a sheep muzzle? She is teaching her lambs to have the same bad habits!

A Lambs gotta do what a lambs gotta do...

This is our new little ewe lamb "Lily". She got frustrated trying to get to the hay and decided to problem solve her way, she went high. I just happened to be walking into the barn and had camera in hand and caught this shot of her. She is quite the problem solver and very smart!

Another passing on the Farm...

Sadly old man, Fergus has passed away. He was old when we took him in last year where he was starving on a farm with our other llama, Angus. He was gentle & sweet and we will miss him so.

Installing the Bee Packages

Today we "installed the bees". This is just the term that is used when you are putting bees into a hive. The first hive went well, bees dropped down into the hive and the queen was released with very little effort. The second hive however gave me some trouble and the bees got a little annoyed and there were some bee stings! My coat took the brunt of it. In the first picture I am trying to get the can out of the center. It is filled with sugar water and is a bit heavy to get out. In the second picture a gentle tap of the package sends the bees down into the waiting frames in the hive. It was nice today to see the bees buzzing about. Everything is either in bloom or about to bloom so we got the bees right in time.

Our Bee Packages have arrived!

Our Bee Packages have arrived! In this picture is two "packages of bees". They are held together by small pieces of wood so they don't tip over. A queen is in each package. The top is held down by a piece of wood, under that wood is a can inverted with sugar water for the trip.

Each package contains three pounds of bees, which is the equivalant of 10,000 bees! In this picture the bees are clustered around the queen who is in a "Queen Cage" until we install them into the hives. We are very excited to have the bees back and I am sure our neighbors too, the gardens are always at their very best with the bees pollinating them! Between manure and bees you can never go wrong!

Herb Window Boxes for Sale

These Herb Window Boxes are available at our farmstand. Tim built the boxes, I painted them and we grew many of the herbs in the cold frame or over wintered them. We have culinary as well as tea boxes available. We have a large assortment for whatever herbs you may want. They make a great gift as well and are reasonably priced at just $8.00 for the small and $12.00 for the large one. The one in this picture is the large one. The farmstand will be opened every Sunday ffrom 12 to 4 weather permitting of course...

Shearing Day on the Farm!

It was Shearing Day here on the farm. This picture is of our two shearers, Rick on the left and Jeremiah on the right. These guys are pretty amazing, they managed to shear and cut teeth on 8 Alpacas, 2 Llamas and 5 Sheep in less than 3 hours. We had a lot of help, thanks to Elsa on the gate, a great help, my mom helping bag the fiber and Angel on the pull rope. It was sure hot out there, reaching 90 and with a lot of humidity. A lot of sweat and a lot of water being consumed! Thank goodness it's over until next year! Now it's time to get spinning the stuff I still have from last year...

Surprised Baby Chicks!

This picture cracks me up. I had the camera down in the big pool that they are in and they were so curious that they came over and had to see what it was, then I took the picture. They then got frightened and ran around the swimming pool and I felt bad. I just wanted to get a picture of them now that they have some feathers! Can't wait to get them outside!

Fiber on the carder

Here is a picture of some beautiful alpaca fiber I dyed pink. It reminds me of cotton candy! You almost want to eat it. It's so soft. The machine you see it on is called a "carder". It has hundreds of tiny metal teeth. The two drums meet and as it turns it seperates the fibers and turns it into a "batt" that makes it easy for spinning.

A Cool Invention--it makes Plant Pots

Check out this cool little invention called a "Pot Maker". You take news paper strips, wrap it around the wooden part of the pot maker and the fold the paper at the base, then use the base part to shape the bottom. This packs the paper into a useful pot to plant your seeds. Then when you are ready to plant, you just put the whole thing into the ground and the pot biodegrades allowing the plant to grow and extend it's roots. It's a very "green" product. I got this one on ebay.

The Cold Frame is full!

The Cold Frame is chock full with growing plants. This Cold Frame is one of the best things we ever built, or should I say Tim has ever built! We are growing everything this year, no buying plants from the store. We ordered organic and heirloom seeds. We are growing everything from tomatoes, peppers, and. Also in there is a couple of Patchouly plants as well as a few Bay plants. The Mesculin is getting there, can't wait to have a salad from them as well as the spinach and lettuce!

The loss of a bee hive

Each week this time of year, I take the top off the bee hive and see where they are and inspect for anything out of the norm, parasites, etc. Much to my sadness today I discovered most of my bees were dead. There were many baby bees, some about to emerge from their capped cells and bee larva present. The queen lay right in the center of a cluster dead. A few weeks ago I noticed one bee had a mite on it and have been treating them with a powdered sugar method. The best I can tell is that my bees died from this parasite or possible use of pesticides in this area? Bees are such an important part of our enviorment and I beg all my readers to please not use them! These things are not only deadly to bees but leach into our food supplies as well as our water and contaminate the very enviorment that we hold so precious.

Our new little boy Alpaca!

This sweet little boy arrived yesterday evening, what a beautiful boy! All the other Alpacas love him already and are actually fighting among themselves to see who can get closer to him.
He's curious about the lambs and other animals running around here.

He is 6 months old and we are leaning towards calling him "Jasper" because of the color of his highlights which remind me a bit of the gem. He definetly needs a hair cut!

The seeds are planted!

This year planting all my own herbs and vegetables was a major goal for me! No more genetically enginered stuff for this farm, we were going organic! I found seed from one line heirloom seed companies and ordered a vast array of seeds to benefit our future harvest.

For the past few days I have been sick with one of the worse cases of bronchitis I have had in a long time so it was a perfect sit down job to get done. I planted 4 kinds of basil, tomatoes, peppers, garlic, scallions, onions and the list goes on. This easy planter fit nicely in the cold frame which happens to be stock filled at this point, can't get much more in there!

So now the wait begins for some awesome produce to sow!

The baby chicks have arrived!

Our little Rhode Island Red Chicks arrived today! I had originally ordered 12 of them but when I was there, a couple had ordered 6 but only wanted 4 of them and gave me the two extra so we have 14! They are all doing fine, thriving, eating and drinking. We should have eggs in a few months. This breed of chicken lays extra large brown eggs. There is nothing better than fresh eggs that come from your own back yard. Just one more step to sustainability.

Bees in early Spring

After a long winter I got up to the bee hives today and was somewhat pleased with what I saw with the exception of a single Varroa mite I saw on one of the bees, which alarmed me. I instantly rushed down to look up how to treat this. I had a preventive in my hive over the winter but to no avail, the hive appears to still have them. I looked up some treatment but then went to Long Lane's bees site and found an organic treatment for the bees.

In the hive I spotted many workers, drones, baby bees as well as capped honey and capped brood. I did not find the queen but she was on the run when I smoked the hive and can very well be in this cluster of bees in this picture. She also could be out mating when I was inspecting the hive. If you look really careful at the picture you will see a dot of yellow, that is pollen one of the "girls" is carring into the hive.

Overall I am happy with what I saw and am hoping for a successful year of bee keeping.

The gang no worse for ware

Some of the gang after four straight days of record rain and no worse for ware. Finally some sunshine! Some of them look like drowned rats but with some nice sunshine they should dry up nicely! They choose to stand out in the rain even though they have lots of shelter, what are you gonna do?

A face any mother could love!

What a face any mother could love! This is one of "Sweetie's" little rams. He was taking a little snooze and took time to look up at me for a quick picture. Look at all his wringles he still has to grow in to.

Planting of the Cold Frame

Today we kept busy preparing our new raised garden beds and put our new Cold Frame to use. We planted spinach, lettuce and mesculin for our first plants of the year. We planted 1 row of each and will re-plant in 2 weeks so we have a steady supply of vegetables.
We used an organic combination of manure, peat moss and some nice humus soil laying in wait under the leaves. We will be folding some of our compost that we have been making all winter long for a rich, healthy soil that the plants will love.
The Cold Frame is designed to move to another spot as we grow our garden sow...

In memory of our Alpaca "Jax"

As we celebrate the birth of our new lambs this morning, we turn to the sadness of losing our Alpaca, "Jax". He died suddenly on the hill...we will miss him so. He was so gentle and easy going and will miss his calm spirit...thank you Jax for your gentle way and the occasional kick that I always seem to catch when you intended it for one of the others...God speed Jax...

Sweetie's Babies have finally arrived!

Here are "Sweetie's" new lambs, finally! It's like deja vu, a white and black lamb, except these are two very healthy rams! This morning I was watching the "lamb cam" and noticed Sweetie was not in her place but Belle was pacing and calling for her babies. Then off in the distance I could hear the newborn lambs. I flew down to the barn and discovered these two beautiful boys! All is well, both are strong and mom is doing good too! Lambing season 2010 is done, it's a lot of stress for this lamb grandma!

The lambs two weeks later...

Here are the lambs at two weeks of age. They are so big and healthy. Today they had their tails done and their first vaccines. They are not to happy with us right now. Soon after the bands were put on their tails they began to run around and drop to the ground like they are having a seizure, then run to mom for some milk and comfort. It hurts for a short time but it really must be done for sanitary purposes.

Composting 101

Let's talk about composting 101...it's just about Spring and many of us are thinking about our gardens, designing, what to grow and the thought of wonderful vegetables to enjoy throughout the summer. A compost bin is very simple to design as you can see mine in this picture. It was made from an old cage I had with a top on it. You can make a compost bin from old skids, hay bales, buy a professional one or just start a pile. This time of year is great to get started as we clean up our yards, old leaves that are already rotting, food scraps, egg shells, coffee grounds, banana peels, just about anything organic will do. Remember never meat! That can make the compost unhealthy and the worms that are sure to come up from the ground (to make your compost even more awesome) can get sick from it.

Turn your compost periodically for great results. There are tons of info on the web on how to design a compost and the proper things that can go in it. I promise, you will have an awesome garden with great results when using compost!

Maple Syrup Season is over...

The Maple Syrup season is done for the year, what a disappointing season it was. First it started off late due to a very cold, hard winter, which started off with the trees having a very dark sap because the ground was so frozen so there was no water for trees to bring up. We actually tapped 2 weeks behind schedule. When the season was underway it was short, with Spring coming up very fast. So, when you go to the store this year and notice the Maple Syrup prices are high, it is because the season was just terrible. We got about 1 1/2 gallons for all our efforts...let's hope for a better season next year...
Pictured here are our sap buckets cleaned and retired for next year...

The "Lamb Cam"...

Eagerly we are watching the "Lamb Cam" awaiting the next birth of lambs. Our other ewe,"Sweetie" is holding out. It gets so nerve wracking, we just want everything to go well with healthy lambs...and the wait goes on...

Taking a break to have a drink...

the little ram taking a moment out from his first outing to have a nursing break...his appetite is much bigger than his sister...

The lambs first outing...

today was the lambs first outing outside, they kicked and played and enjoyed life like a lamb should...as you can see they have little wool jackets on, made by Auntie Pam...

The lambs at two days old...

Our handsome sweet prince at two days old. He's doing well and is strong and eating like a little piggy! He's just as sweet as his dad, Harley who happens to be the sweetest ram ever.

and here is our little ewe, she has an obsession with her mom's food bowl. She can be found in here all the time. Maybe it reminds her of the womb...

Belle's beautiful babies!

Belle and her babies...all is well, everyone is nursing and we are watching from the house via the "Lamb Cam"...

...and here is the sweet prince...

Belle's second lamb is our first White Babydoll born here on the farm...he's such a handsome prince...

...and here he comes...

the next lamb about to be born...and here he comes...

The Lambs are here!

Belle surprised us this morning with the birth of her two new lambs, she wasn't due for at least a few more days, but as nature will always have it, they come when they come! The first lamb to be born was a little ewe (girl) pictured here. Olde English Southdown Babydolls come in Black or White, as you can see her ewe is black...Spring is here on the farm!

Handspun Alpaca Fiber

The winter brings some down time here on the farm, so it's a great time to sit by the wood burning stove and spin while staying warm. Here are three skeins of Alpaca fiber that was spun. It comes from our Alpacas, Winchester and Cyrus, who are our white Alpaca boys. It is soft and six times as warm as wool but not as heavy. These skeins will be available in our farmstand. The winder you see was given to me by a friends mom who has retired from spinning. If your interested in purchasing some just give us a call...