Early Morning Visitors. Part 1!

There are two kinds of early morning visitors when you live on a farm. The painful 'there is something dead' kind and the 'oh look aren't they beautiful kind.' This last week on the farm we've had both kinds of visitors.

These two beautiful does showed up as Papa was finishing up chores one morning. He came into our room and pointed them out to me :) The kids were all asleep so I took some quick shots. They stayed for almost 20 minutes until the dogs noticed them and Tucker chased them off. He vibrates when he gets that excited :) 

The unwanted kind of visitors will be coming in a post soon.. 

I was going post them together but the beauty of the deer shouldn't be sullied with the horror of the other. 

G's Pigtails.. Way Too Cute!!!

I was trying to get her face in the mirror but it's a bit dark.

Smiling girl!! Looks so grown up with her hair back! 

Oh yes I am SO cute!!! 

Two little tails :) 

The Chicks On Grass :)

It's a family affair :) 

J, L and E caught almost all the chicks and put them in the crates in the barn. Papa and I put the crates on the trailer and we drove them over to the yard. This worked MUCH better then any other year and we are very glad we got the crates. This and this is how we've done it in the past both have proven to be more trouble then anything and I think we've finally got this figured!! 

Filling up waterers before letting chicks out. 

Their protected area.. which they aren't even using as it's warm enough! 

Note: the wheel barrow is how we mix feed with milk to be able to feed it to the chicks.

They love this feed mix! 

Oldest and Youngest helping :) She loves them. 

Chickens chickens everywhere!! Oh and kids :) A friend stopped by and his little girl helped unpack the chicks. 

I love this picture. If you squint you can see the cows in the back behind the house, the laying hens loose on the yard, the calves in their pen in the left and Tucker by the trampoline. If there was a cat and a pig we'd have one of each critter in this picture. 

E took this picture of  holding a chick. It's a great picture!! 

Happy chicks on grass!! 

G and Papa having a quick cuddle. 

Happy happy happy chicks.

A great picture of Tucker.. he really didn't care about any of this chick mess.. still doesn't.

We bought those crates last winter for this very thing and they worked GREAT!! 

Chip LOVES chicks. He worries over them, walks around the pen constantly and just totally enjoys every minute of them. If one gets out he worries about it until it goes back in. He loves all babies but really chicks and Papa are his too favorite things. 

Lazy dogs, chicks checking out the fence :) 

Papa and I sat in the pen and watched chicks for about half an hour after we let them out. Relaxing. 

This little chick kept getting into trouble with the fence so Papa picked it up and told it to behave and put it on his lap. I snapped this picture quickly and was glad I did as she did NOT stay long!! She had attitude!! 

We are much happier with the chicks this year. We bought unsexed Cornish Giants and we have big cocks, a bit smaller hens and only a few road runners *those little throw backs to the plymouth rocks... normally these are about 3% of the flock and take longer to grow into a good size if they ever do. 

Just one more note :) Cornish Giants are a cross breed of a Cornish game bird and a Plymouth rock. 

The same way a Mule is a cross between a horse and a donkey :) 

A Piglet Feeding :)

Ham likes to sit to eat and Bacon prefers to stand :) 

Thank you L for taking these great pictures!!! 

Rhubarb :)

A year ago today I posted this and today we made the same recipe for the first time this year. Though this time I doubled it and I remembered the sugar :) This time though J3, G and I had a nap while J, L, E and R harvested the rhubarb and washed it. When I got up from my nap I chopped it all up and we worked together to get the crisp all put together and in the oven :) I love having BIGGER kids :)

One of these gallon buckets made the bottom roaster full! 

The other two went into the fridge for more yummy crisp soon!! 

Hmm.. Now the big question is

Is this dessert tonight???

Or breakfast tomorrow???

Or BOTH :) 

Grandpa's Fish!

Ham and Bacon Update. A Piglet Story II

24 hours old.

Two weeks old.

Amazing what 2 weeks and all the milk they can drink can do!! 

And No they do not live in that tote :) They are living in the big tote in this post minus the heat lamp but added a 1 by 4 fence around the top :) as Bacon got out one day!! 

They just visit this tote when we clean out the big tote :) 

Peggy Sue

Is on the road once more :) 

Sows and Cubs

We went zipping by this sow bear and her 3 cubs the other day on the way home from the City. Papa swung around so we could get a better look. She had 2 black cubs and a brown cub. You can see the brown one in the middle of the picture. She is off to the right a bit. 

Here is a better picture of her but the cubs were all hiding in the top area there. 

Several weeks later I saw another black bear with 3 black cubs racing along a lake about 10 minutes drive from this area. Apparently some one else has seen a sow with 2 brown cubs and 1 black cub near this area too!! Must be a good year for black bears!! 

Ah... Hot Dog Roast :)

First some stick clean up. We had 8 six month old pigs in this pen for about a month and they did a fantastic job tilling in the leftover hay, flattening it out and pulling out sticks!! Papa spread some seed in there about a week before we moved them which is a super easy way to get some nice seeding done!! A little bit of raking around the edges and we have a nice flat seeded area! 

Tucker had a stick too.. but he really didn't think we should BURN it.. he'd rather chew on it :) 

Sitting back relaxing next to the house waiting for the fire to die down a bit so we could roast hotdogs. 

Ahh what a fun way to spend a Saturday afternoon!!