Chauntel's on spring break...watch your backs.

Here is our first calf of the season, King Juan Carlos! (As you can tell, I named him.) His mama is Orange 4, who tends to have calves unusually early. She's also quite gentle - even with Reuben, our Aussie Cattledog, snapping at her heels and me practically crawling over King Juan Carlos, she was willing to flash her ginger locks and stately horns for the camera.

I'm home for my spring break, and the weather's really gone to my head so far. Dad and I went up on the hill and cut cedars for fence posts, which hopefully will materialize into my riding ring/holding pen for horses and cattle. Hold up - what I mean by "Dad and I" is "Dad cut the posts and loaded them into the truck while Jack and I wandered through the woods and took rather breathtaking photographs". And of course by "Jack and I" I mean "I" took pictures, which you can judge for yourself as to their breathtaking qualities.

Okay, okay. I'm nearly done with my blabbering. The horses and cows are pretty happy under the warm sun, and they've been busying themselves with catching up on some Z's. So far I've been working on cleaning up the horses after the long hard winter. I've worked on shedding out their coats, trimming their manes, applying hoof oil...only for them to turn around and roll in the mud.

We'v even got chicks! Except that Mom made a grave error in accidentally ordering straight-run chicks. That means it's 50-50 male-female, pulled straight from the hatchings and not sexed. So we have a hundred chicks, right? Probability means fifty roosters. You heard me. Fifty roosters. At least for now they're all just really cute.

So, in short, I've got a long and yet far too short week ahead. It's been a smidgen harder getting up than I expected, since now I'm expected to rise with the sun (fail) and my sleeping habits have become lax at school. (oh, look, it's 10 in the morning. I don't have class for another hour. Sleep? Win.) Tommorrow I'm giving baths, so the horses have yet another excuse to roll in the mud. And maybe, for the first time in a few months, I'll get to ride my own horses!

Chauntel

Spring Forward Sunday

Again I was reminded about this blog-o-roo. Well, it certainly seems like spring outside. Sunny, warm, 50 degrees. Horses are running about in the mud, cows are lounging in the sunshine, the chickens and ducks are like Visa cards- they are every where they wanna be ( and every where I don't)!
Checked the honey bees, everything seems good to go. Moved around some hives and put some stored honey to start with the spring build up. I am trying to scale back to 10 hives. I only ordered 2 replacement packages of bees with an Italian Queen because I thought I would try my hand at Nucs. I ordered to Carniolian Queens for those. Something different this year.
I'll do a hiving demonstration for the Essex County 4-H the end of April. And I think we will make beeswax lip balm as well, something for the kids to go home with. So it should be a fun afternoon. I have an ancient beekeeper's suit that I think would be fun to stuff with straw for a scarecrow. We will see how the time goes and how many families show up. I try to do a bee/honey craft, eat an early picnic supper at the pond or river and then hive the bees at sunset.
Jasmine the Jersey is due to freshen around the 24th of March. She is a "first calf" heifer and she is just perking along in the barn being pampered. She just like to be brushed and watch the commotion outside.
My old milk cow, Lily, is out with beef crowd. She has Shaun well trained when the other cows go to the hay feedings in the field- Lily slowly moves at a turtle's pace off in the opposite direction -to the barn. Where Shaun meets her with her special grain and her own hay and sometimes she lets a heifer or 2 join her. She moves very slowly so as not to attract attention of the big bossy beef cows. She is ancient for a Jersey milk cow, we figure she is somewhere around 18-20 years old. She comes when called, leads on a rope, freshens every year and will nurse any calf on her 3 quarters.
I have the first order of chicks arriving this week. I ordered 75 for the first go round. I ordered black stars, red stars, and ameracaunas. You can't beat those sex link hens for eggs. Leghorns are supposed to be the heaviest layers but they are just pains. They are not friendly, they try to never lay in a nest box, so its always a game of egg hide and seek. Its that old 80%-20% rule. I waste most of my time of birds that I don't like. I thought the white eggs would be nice to have with the brown, blue. and green. Next chicks to arrive will be meat birds.
Ducks are doing just great of course. These easy going creatures just want to make a joyful noise all day long. Pardon Me, the blue slate turkey, is still looking for a turkey friend. We have a huge wild flock that passes through but she doesn't seem interested in joining them.
The horse are just full of themselves. We almost had Solara put down. One morning she was in the field and couldn't walk. She was a 3 legged horse. It turned out to be a strep infection. The was going to require a hospital stay, surgery, trailer ride several hours away to get her there, etc. And of course no guarantee on the recovery.
Long Story short but we had her joint fluid removed, pumped her full of "fluid gold" antibiotic, prayed, repeated it , and prayed some more. Well, with the outcome not looking good, we brought Baby Girl home from college to say "goodbye" to the equine Barbie doll. Maybe Solara just missed Baby Girl but she perked up and has recovered. So it was good news at the farm.