Piggies and more...

Our farm is improving every day and our garden is just bursting with food. Unfortunately we've been away for nearly two weeks so we are hearing this from our dear friends and family who have volunteered to take on the task of caring for our place while we've been gone.

In May we bought, along with our dear neighbors and friends, three pigs. They don't live on our property right now - they are at our neighbors'. They had a great shelter which we improved by pouring a concrete floor as well as ample space for movable pig yards so that they could always have clean space to dig. They are thriving and we are getting ready to think about the fall slaughter.




Our lambs are also growing well. This spring we purchased some solar-electric fencing - this has been wonderful to use with the sheep. They are able to be moved every day or every-other-day to a new location in order to provide them with fresh pasture. This has helped them grow beautifully and healthily. Fresh grass often and no time for parasites to complete their cycle.

I have much to catch up on after not having blogged for so long that it will take several posts in order to catch up. More posts will be squeezed in between farm tasks. Happy gardening!

More Lambs!

We have three more lambs - and one was a complete surprise. Some excerpts from my farm-calendar notes:

Saturday, April 5th:

We went to the Strissel's to work on their shelter for the pigs and when we got back in the afternoon Mercury had just had a lamb. I think that we startled her by arriving just as the lamb had been born.

The lamb had some trouble latching on and getting interested in nursing. After about 24 hours of "forcing" it to nurse we sheared Mercury (who was very wooly) so that the lamb could more easily find the teat. It helped right away and the lamb is doing fine now.

Male

Tuesday, April 8th:

After Tuesday night yoga Joni and I went out ... for a bite to eat and a beer and to knit. We were taking too long with our talk and knitting and Paso Del Norte wanted to close, so we headed back to (business building they own)... do the rest of our knitting there. Joni had to call Alan to get the code to get into the building and when she called him he told her that Reed had been trying to get in touch with me because a sheep was in labor.

We called Reed right away and he said that Earth had been acting funny and even though we didn't think that she was pregnant he went to move her with the rest of the females and lambs. He then saw, after he moved her, that there were hooves coming out of her. He left her alone so that she could continue if he hadn't stalled things too badly, but she lambed just fine and had a teeny male. We haven't seen it nurse much but it is doing fine (I'm writing this over a week later).

Male

Reed has also been working hard on the garden and in the greenhouse and is getting excited about taking a class on making hard cider this summer. He'll register this week. We are also getting set up to build our woodshed. Reed and his grandpa felled some cedars that were going to be shaded out anyway to use for the posts and main beams of the shed. His grandpa has a draw knife that must have belonged to his father or grandfather. He had never used it! Reed's grandpa will be 87 in June, so this drawknife could be over 100 years old! It worked like a dream to remove the bark from the poles.

Springing!

Spring is here and we are busy at Haldan Farm and loving it. We are busy getting plants started, grafting trees, lambing, and preparing to build a new woodshed.

On Wednesday, March 12th, we welcomed two new lambs. Skelda, who lambed for the third time since coming to live with us, had her first set of twins. Reed came running in after going out at about 8 pm to get some wood for the fire. "You want some cheery news? We have a lamb!"

Up until now Skelda has only had single births so we though that the one lamb was it. We went out to see that all was okay with the new lamb and that Skelda was okay and I just had this feeling from watching her interact with her lamb that we would be seeing another. She was the good mother that she always is, licking her lamb and stimulating it, but she seemed more distracted than I've seen her after lambing. I watched her sides and I could see that she was still in labor. Sure enough, a few minutes later, another was born while we watched! It was very exciting as it was the first birth I've witnessed other than my own children.


Last year, on my birthday (almost exactly a year ago - March 17th), I went to a fruit tree grafting workshop with one of my former elementary students (now in his early twenties!) who was visiting from Wisconsin. What fun! I got very excited about grafting trees and then Reed jumped on the grafting bandwagon, too.

Last weekend we grafted 22 apple scion (the part which grows into the tree and produces the fruit)onto three different varieties of rootstock. We ordered most of the scion, but a few were cuttings from our own trees.


Our gardens are getting cleaned up and the beds prepared. We plan on having a very large garden this year. We would like to grow about 50% of our food this year, increasing each year until we are growing or raising 85 - 95% of our own food.

The children have loved working outdoors and the weather, for the most part, has cooperated - we've had one of the nicest springs I've experienced here the Pacific NW. It has been sunny, but with enough rain to keep things as moist as they need to be. It's also been warm.

As soon as I get to the library or somewhere else that has faster internet access (we can only get dial-up right now) I'll post some pictures.

Donkeys on the horizon

After visiting our friends in eastern Washington we have renewed excitement about our upcoming miniature donkeys. It will be about a year and a half before we get them, but we will spend the time planning where they will live and building suitable shelter and paddocks for them. We will also begin to acquire the accoutrements we desire, such as a small cart and saddles. These donkeys are so intelligent and sweet and they just love people. We plan to keep them as pets, but they will also be able to pull carts through our orchards when we prune (to collect scion) and when we harvest (collecting fruit). One donkey can pull two adults so two donkeys will be more than able to pull our whole family. We are so excited and will spend the next year and a half reading like crazy about donkeys.

Eggs, eggs, eggs!

After what seemed like the longest molt ever our hens are laying again - with gusto! Even though we only have 16 hens we got 18 eggs two days ago and 20 eggs yesterday. Pretty amazing, especially considering that we don't even have a laying variety. Our Dominique hens are considered "dual purpose" chickens - laying and meat - though we don't raise them for meat. Egg laying varieties of hens usually produce about one egg per day. Occasionally they will produce one egg every 20 to 22 hours, which means that occassionally there will be two eggs in one "day." Dual purpose hens usually produce about 5 to 7 eggs per week, so getting such big yields from our Dominiques is exciting!

On a very sad note, our very-old-dog died today. He was 13+ years old - very old for such a large dog. It has been a difficult few months for him, escalating this past week. We will miss him terribly.

Fall 2007 Knitting

I've been busy this fall, but have found bits and pieces of time to work on my knitting. I've knitted Samara a blue sweater and tam, inspired by Elizabeth Zimmermann's seamless yoke sweaters utilizing EPS.

For Thomas, I've knitted a hat featuring anchors in purl stitches (his current passion is sailing and sail boats) and a pair of mittens featuring cables which, following EZ spirit, I knitted up and later added "afterthought" thumbs. What fun, and he loves them!

Welcome to our Blog!

Welcome to our blog - we'll post information and pictures about our activities here at Haldan Farm. Haldan Farm is the home to two adults, two children, one very-old-dog, one cat, two tiny fish, six Shetland sheep, 16 Dominque hens and one Dominique rooster. I hope you enjoy exploring our blog!