High Tunnel

After months of work, Eric finally completed the high tunnel!

Happy Halloween

  Last night, on Halloween, during the full Blue moon, two surprise kids were born, but let me start from the beginning....

This summer, Ned and Oscar became ridiculous in their behavior, seemingly starting into a rut in the middle of the summer. This was an odd behavior, as both Lola and Lucy were nursing their kids still (Winnie was 5 months old and Sherman and Zeek were 2 months old).  Since Ned was now related to most of the females in the barn (both Lucy and Winnie being his daughters), we decided it was time to sell him and let Oscar take over the herd as the primary buck. 

On June 7th, exit Ned.

The next few months were unremarkable and the barn once again became peaceful and quiet.  Winnie started to get a wee bit tubby, but she was also still readily nursing from Lola.  We joked about her little pudgy belly as watching her nurse became more and more ridiculous.  We were shocked that Lola wasn't cutting off this 10 month old "baby."  

It wasn't until the end of September, that we began to wonder if Winnie was pregnant. It seemed hard to imagine that Ned happened to breed his own daughter days before he was sold, but as her udder enlarged, we became a bit more suspicious.

Yesterday we took the goats for a walk and Winnie's udder looked like Lucy's udder...it was HUGE!  We were now fairly certain kids were coming any day now.  Eric closed down the barn at 9pm and no signs of labor were noted.  Teresa planned to wake at 4am to check in on Winnie again, but Eric awoke around midnight and was unable to fall back asleep.  Around 1:00am he meandered out to the barn to find a surprise, Winnie had already delivered the kids!

Pumpkin (little girl) and "Jack"-o-lantern (little boy) are both doing well.  Winnie is having a little edema of her udder, but being a champ at nursing.  She even managed to sneak in a quick nursing herself off of Lola this afternoon!  It was a "nursing train" of three generations.

And if anyone has any doubts...they're definitely Ned's:)

Pumpkin

Jack

Piggie, sit!

They say you can't teach an old dog new tricks, but you can sure teach a young pig.  Teresa's been working with the pigs to have better manners when receiving food.  While a piglet lunging at you for food is rather cute, a 300lb pig is NOT cute when it lunges at you. "Piggie, sit!"

 

Never too old to be a kid.

Everyone loves a good leaf pile!!

 

The Spice Swines

The piglets are settling in nicely now.  They've quickly learned at we typically come bearing gifts of tomatoes, cucumbers and the occasional vanilla cupcake.  They're venturing out into the yard more now and we often find them bedded down in the weeds, napping.

They are named from left to right as follows:

Peppercorn, Nutmeg, Cinnamon, and Rosemary.

Peppercorn is our sweet gentle boy. Nutmeg a typical nutty energetic pig.  Cinnamon is the smallest by far, but he holds his own at the food bowl, acting as one of the food bullies. He will "sit" for food treats, which cracks us up.  Rosemary is our only girl.  She's very brave and social.

 

Speechless

Sadly yesterday we lost our little Harriet.  She developed scour, which seemed to slowly cause her decline.  It took us both by surprise how suddenly her body stopped compensating.  While we knew that orphaned piglets don't always survive, after 3 good days with her, it started to feel safe, like she would overcome.  

Her little 1.5 pound body fought so hard and we dearly miss her.  While farm life brings about lots of new adventures, it's the losses like this that rip at your heart.    

  

We placed her outside the window in the wildflower garden so she can stay close by, as she dearly loved to snuggle. She would constantly crawl into our laps, especially at night when she was supposed to be going back to sleep.  She was amazing at stalling for bedtime.  She'd nuzzle her soft, pink nose into your body with her little tail wagging with delight.

She slept like a log in the dog crate, even with the vacuum cleaner running right next to her.  She would wake up, use her "toilet box", then you'd hear "click, click, click" as she ran around the wood floors, searching for you.  Our favorite was when she turned into a little shark and would "chomp, chomp, chomp" everything from the dog's paws to your face. 

For such a tiny creature, she certainly brought an incredible amount of joy to our home.  Words can't quite express the impact that she had on us in the short amount of time that we had her.  She was such an unexpected blessing, arriving into our lives and then so quickly departing that it hardly seems fair.

Rest peacefully our dear, sweet Harriet.

  

 

Saturday surprise.

 Today started out normal as we drove to the farm to pick up 4 piglets.  The farmer's son was holding a teeny newborn when we arrived.  We coddled over her a little, before the farmer asked us if we wanted to keep her?  Apparently her entire litter had already died, as the mother wasn't making milk.  She was planning to stick the piglet into the pen with another litter to see if there would be any luck the mom would adopt the lone piglet, but she wasn't very hopeful.  She asked if we would want to take her home with us.

Of course we said, "YES!"

So here we are now with our 4 new Fall piglets in the barn and little baby Harriet in the kitchen.  Hopefully the goat's milk will sustain her and she'll pull through. She's taking the bottle well, which is reassuring.

Piper is already "helping" and very excited about having a new baby in the house.

Harvey's New Jungle Gym

Hurricane Isaias came through last night and while the rain was greatly appreciated, the wind took a toll on the trees.  The only damage occurred to our buckwheat when the ancient maple fell.  While we weren't sad about the damage done to the cover crop, we were sad to lose this Old Giant.

Harvey on the other hand greatly enjoys his new jungle gym and the goats are benefiting from all the fresh leaves.

Why are all our posts about rodents lately!?!

 It was about 2:30am...

The typical "pitter-patter-pounce" noise started, alerting us to the fact that Harvey had caught a mouse.  Teresa flipped on the lights and jumped out of bed to see Harvey holding a baby mouse.  This being our first baby mouse we've caught, we were amazed how much easier it was to catch than the adult mice we've been known to chase around the bedroom for eternity.  The mouse was put into the bathroom garbage can, as normal, and the top covered.  We laid back down and went to sleep.

About 2:50am...

 From the other bedroom we hear, "pitter-patter-pounce-SQUEEK!" Well this is now getting interesting!  The light once again flies on and Teresa goes running to once again find Harvey with yet another baby mouse in his mouth.  This mouse joins the other in the can and they immediately snuggle in together.  We lay back down to sleep and now the adrenaline is pumping.  Teresa gets back up and goes downstairs to get the baby mice a watermelon snack from the fridge (in case they are hungry or thirsty of course).  

3:15am...

Another episode of "pitter-patter-pounce-squeek!" has Teresa once again jolting up in bed.  By this time Eric remains in bed, bored from the monotony of the evening or perhaps just growing more and more sleep deprived. Teresa collects a third baby mouse from Harvey and adds him to the ever growing mouse collection in the bathroom.  Well, now the adrenaline is just pumping fully and so at every little noise, Teresa is acting like a crazed lunatic: she continually jumps in and out of bed, turns the lights on and off, and runs around from room to room. By about 4am, she decides perhaps there are no more mice after all and some sleep will do the body good.  

So this morning 3 baby mice were released into the meadow, hopefully to find some shelter before the night.  Even more hopeful is that Harvey caught all of the baby mice last night and that we don't have to replay the madness again tonight!

Taming of the Shrew

Saturday turned out to be quite the adventure.  

We went over to a friend's to till their garden bed in order to help them prepare to plant their flower seedlings.  They are starting a cut flower business and it was super fun seeing all of their seedlings ready and waiting to get into the ground.  We were standing around chatting (minding our 6 foot COVID distances), when Eric stopped the tiller and picked something up.  He held it for a while and seemed interested enough that it got the three of us guessing what treasure he found...a colorful stone, a coat hanger, a piece of pottery.  He started to walk over to the side of the garden bed, then turned around and looked at us.  He gave a sheepish smile and a goofy wave and I knew something was up, so headed down to where he was.

LITTLE FRIENDS!

A nest of 5 (sadly two were already dead, likely crushed by the tiller on his first pass).  Eric knew I'd need to keep them of course, so was contemplating tossing them off to the side in order to avoid bringing home critters...good thing he knew better.   

I laid the remaining 3 rodents in the garden while everyone started to spread minerals into the soil.  Within a few minutes of the tiller being off, the soil started to move and I reached in to pull a 4th baby out, but nothing was there.  It took a few seconds for all the wires to connect, but I suddenly realized it might be their mom.  When this happened a second time, I stood quietly and watched and sure enough, a little nose popped out of the soil right around the babies.  While the other 3 finished spreading the minerals, I tried so hard to catch the mama, but with no luck.  She seemed to have a network of holes everywhere and the moment I tried to dig her out, she was gone.

Eric did another pass with the tiller and I replaced the babies into the garden, starting to lose hope that I'd be able to bring mom along.  She was more cautious this second time, not coming up to the surface as often.  Right before we were getting ready to leave, I figured it was now or never, so when I saw her nose poke through, I grabbed the soil as fast as possible and threw it into my little box.  To my utter surprise, a rodent jumped out of the box!  THE MAMA!!  I just responded with automatic reflexes and grabbed her with my hands as she ran across the soil.  I somehow miraculously managed to catch her and I threw her back into the box, slamming the lid shut.  I popped the 3 babies into the box and we taped the lid for safe measures.  I was so happy to have succeeded catching the mom to relocate with her babies AND our friends were happy to be rid of the rodent family in their garden.

When we got home we researched and it turns out I caught me a shrew family!  We learned that shrews eat 3x their body weight a day and eat insects and other rodents.  We realized that we'd never be able to feed the shrew adequately in captivity.  In the hour it took us to decide to release her, she'd already dug new tunnels in the aquarium and moved all 3 babies underground.  We dug a nice hole outside by the stone wall and dumped the mom into the hole and covered her with dirt.  We placed the babies on top and covered them with leaves.  Within 2 hours, one baby was already underground and the other two were crawling about on top of the leaves.  I moved the leaves to find a nice tunnel under them and placed both babies in the opening of the hole.  They began crawling down into the hole and out of site.  

Not sure if that's the last we'll see of the shrew family, but we certainly hope they enjoy living on the farm.

A few of my favorite things...

If ever I get distracted driving, it's not from texting on my phone, but rather transporting chicks home to the farm.  Their constant peeping and poking their heads out of the box is cute enough to make anyone lose focus and veer across the lanes!  Definitely one of my favorite things:)

Two buff orpingtons and a lavender orpington joined us this year along with 25 meat birds.

Izzy's birthday surprise

Tuesday we celebrated Izzy's 11th birthday.  That same day, Lucy was due to kid for the first time.  Before leaving for work, Teresa asked Lucy to wait until Thursday so she could be home for the delivery.  All day, as Eric checked in on Lucy, she was showing no signs of labor.  Teresa was very happy to arrive home and learn this, hopeful that Lucy would indeed hold off until Thursday.  

Around 6:30pm, we both ventured into the barn for a quick check after dinner and Lucy had an amnion hanging out!  (sneaky goat.) After about 45 minutes, she started pushing and out popped baby #1 (boy)!

We continued to wait for her to start pushing again, but she never started.  Typically if they don't start pushing again within 30-45 minutes, something isn't quite right.  After a little over an hour of waiting, the decision was made to reach in and see what was going on.  

Flashback - Deja vu:  Last year when Abby kidded (Lucy's mom), Lucy's brother (Andre the Giant) had to be manually extracted after Abby failed to start pushing.

Turns out, baby #2 was butt first with his legs tucked under him, so after some maneuvering, then panicking and more maneuvering, Teresa manged to get him untangled and pulled him out by his rear legs. He is a perfect mini-me of Oscar, white stripe on his side and all:)

So happy birthday Izzy...

and welcome to the farm, Sherman and Zeek!

Aerial Predator

And now for some COVID-19 reading material...

Today was a busy day of cleaning the goat pens of a whole winter's worth of bedding pack.  It is a smelly and back straining job but we had a beautiful day for this necessary task.  The goats were in the pasture and the chickens were contentedly pecking about in the yard.  Suddenly, from the front of the barn, a proper ruckus could be heard around the corner.  Chickens were squawking and feathers were flapping.  Rounding the corner to investigate, Eric determined that the very large bald eagle that was swooping out of a nearby maple tree was to blame.  The chickens scattered into the barn and the eagle flew over the yard and house, circling and climbing into the sky.  The poor chickens cowered in the barn for the remainder of the day and the eagle was not seen again.  Interestingly, we lost a very old and slow moving chicken last week to an unknown predator.  It now appears that this was not the eagle's first visit to the farm and had returned for another chicken meal.

Caribbean Adventure

We just returned from a Caribbean cruise on Holland America.  

We greatly enjoyed hanging out with the little squirrel monkeys in the Dominican Republic.  As you can see they greatly enjoyed hanging out on Eric!

 We spent time on Saint John and Half Moon Cay in the Bahamas, snorkeling with green sea turtles, rays, lemon sharks, and colorful fish of all shapes and sizes.  

Teresa managed to read 4 books and we enjoyed a great variety of movies and entertainment.  Eric experienced the surreal glow of the Bioluminescent Bay for the first time in Puerto Rico. 

Fun, fun fun!

Walter and Winnie

Introducing Walter and Winnie!

 Both kids have found their legs and are hop...hop...hopping around the barn:)

Lola strikes again!

At 3 days overdue, we knew Lola would imminently kid.  At 9pm, we tucked everyone to sleep in the barn as normal with no signs of labor.  When Teresa ran out to the barn for a quick check at 4:45am, there was Lola with her two kids!  In typical Lola fashion, she had everything already completely cleaned up.

 Her little girl (name to follow) appears more exhausted than Lola:)