Brush Hog | Build Me a Dream

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Two…The Next Step

Two…..two are a pair……a couple……a set of twins……a pair of socks…..the usual number of hands, feet, legs, arms, eyes, ears……and mouths. Let that sink in for a moment………..mouths????

GREAT BIG NEWS!!!! The farm is growing by two mouths!!

Two young Spanish Goat kids will be coming home on Monday, April 6th. They are both males….wethers…which means they will be castrated by the time they join the farm. One of the boys has been bottle fed, the other, nursed. One is black, and one is brown….both are extremely cute!!

The herd that our kids were bred into are not pastured…they roam around and eat down the brush on 252 acres….then come home every night to the barn. Spanish Goats are bred for this type of life….our forested terrain is perfect for them.

Sturdiness is synonymous with the Spanish Goat, and it is not unusual to have a buck reach 120 – 150 pounds. Although they may be large, they have a milder temperament, and doe’s generally do not need assistance when kidding…..good information for the future, ’cause right now, our two castrated males won’t even be thinking along the lines of being daddy….

Not a great picture….this guy was much cuter in person. Tony reminded me that we’re not looking for cute….these are meat goats that will clear the brush. They will have a job, whether it be to fill a freezer, or save us time on the tractor. Have you ever eaten goat meat (Chevron?) I have not. The farmer we are purchasing the kids from, said that it tastes suttle, like pork, unlike lamb that has a stronger flavor. We’ll see what happens.

There is a lot to do to get ready for these little brush hogs…..stay tuned!!!

Thank you for sharing in the next step of growth on the farm!! The next few weeks should be very exciting!!

Your friend from Oregon,

Tami

Category:

Brush Hog, Spanish Goats

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My Least Favorite Time of Year

Do you like summertime? I do! I like harvesting, sharing, and eating the beauties from my garden….

I like the long days that stretch into the later hours…

……and the hot summer night sounds from my neighbors Peacocks

I like the warmth of early summer….

…..when the ground is still green…

Happy chickens in the warmth of early summer.

THEN…..August thinks it can just come along and spoil the goodness of my green summer days……my least favorite time of the year!!

What’s that??? Hey who invited, August, to our summer party??

August brings the heat, and the dryness to the land. It is the time for getting poked from stickers that get stuck in your socks as you walk through the dry grasses.

Unfortunately, a bolt on the mowing implement attached to the tractor was broken for awhile at the end of June. Burn restrictions went up on July 3rd…since we have rocks, and metal blades against rocks can create sparks…sparks against dry grasses can create fires…mowing season ended earlier than usual. I didn’t have a chance to do the final cutting…so, unfortunately, the weeds are larger, and uglier than I am happy with…

YUCK!!

The chickens get hot, and scrounge the dry grasses for bugs and seeds. I hooked up a fan in the chicken house for relief of the hens while they conduct their “business”…then I turn the fan in the afternoon toward the roosting boards so they can find some relief as they need it.

The pond has receded….thankfully it has never gone dry! But this summer…actually, the past two summers, have really tested our little pond….

The pond is way down…this “green” area is usually not as large.

See the green ridge above the water line? This is where the pond usually recedes too…the ridge above it is where the pond sits when it full…I call that the NORMAL part of the year!!

Saturday, August 30th, did bring some relief…

Fall can’t come too soon!!

Thank you for sharing the first day of September with me. I hope your Labor Day is spectacular….put one on the barbie for me, and I’ll add a burger on my BBQ for you!!

Your friend from the NW,
Tami

Category:

Brush Hog, Buff Orphington / Rhode Island Red Mix, Buff Orpington, Chicken House, Chickens, Creeks in Oregon, Free Ranging Chickens, Great Dane, Hiking in Oregon, Homesteading, moving to Oregon, Mowing, Oregon, Penni the Great Dane, Pond, Summer, Summer Rain

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Guinea Pig Ranch..Hmmm

As I was mowing…mowing…mowing this past Friday, I so envied our neighbor’s goats. I could see them from across the far fencing..chomping, chomping, chomping the same green growth that I was mowing, mowing, mowing!!

Automatic lawn mowers.

After 3 hours, I stepped off the tractor looking at the finished product….

…it always looks nice when the grasses are shorter. If we had a small baler, the cut product wouldn’t go to waste…right now it just lies on the ground and degrades over time.

A small pile from one portion of a cut line.

As I gathered up the little pile above, I thought about a guinea pig we had named, Edgre,

Cute, little Edgre

…he could have made easy work of that pile of grass! Guinea pigs eat a ton…really, they eat so much more than it looks like they should. What if there were more of him? What if we had our own little gathering of guinea pigs that we housed, and securely moved from pasture to pasture…eating their way through the grasses and weeds? Hahahah…can you picture that?? Look at the pile below…it’s bigger than our little Karli.

The pile grew like a snowball as I moved it along.

So my mind wanders… Are there ways to securely pasture a guinea pig? I think they would burrow. How would one prevent the great escape by a rogue, burrowing guinea?? A little house to provide warmth and protection from the weather and predators, weatherized to provide the support they would need through the winter…HHMMMM… cute idea!! The following image is not mine…it is from: http://www.guineapigcages.com/photos/data/516/medium/237play_pen_2.JPG , notice how nicely trimmed the grasses are!!