Waiting Game

Tummies are getting awfully round.
For anyone curious our pregnant (and Gertie, who is half limo, here nursing still until last week!) have been fed nothing but good quality hay all winter. Haven't bought beef feed since last August. One of the benefits of old style cattle I guess.

In the last few days I've been building up their area with old hay from the loft, in expectation of some new little moos in the next month. We want them to have a nice, clean & dry place to have. I've been waiting very impatiently.

They were pasture bred so we don't have an accurate date they were bred, nor have we had the vet out since we don't have a chute.

However, the weather is predicted for a huge snow storm on Friday.

Little Flock of 2

Didn't take long at all! Billy & Andy are officially best buddies, and really enjoying each other's company.

The goats even escaped while I was cleaning out the chicken coop (back fence really needs to be replaced!); but Andy is too large to squeeze under the same spot in the fence, and Billy stayed with his new buddy instead of following the naughty goats out!

Black & White, Big & Small; they make quite the little flock of 2!

Jump Start on Spring Chores

2C is absolutely insane in Ottawa (we're zone 5b) it should be -20c, or less with the wind chill. So I took full advantage of the warm weather on Monday since hubs was home to watch the kids (holiday).

 Why my muscles hate me today!

The deep litter worked quite well, in some areas more the others. There was a lot of build up under the water buckets, but that's also were the litter was the most decomposed. I think for next year I'll water the litter and see if that helps it along. I'm also trying to think of a way to add some worms to the litter (since we can't have any come up through the dirt, it's a concrete floor) but the chickens will just eat them all.

 The goats are "helping" again. 

We got all these wood-chips from hydro when they trimmed back all the trees around us. Be careful what you wish for because we ended up with 3 giant piles! The ones of the farthest left and right are great, very nice chips. The pile in the middle has a lot of greenery in it, so it's composting and steaming quite a bit.

It was the middle pile I used for the chicken coop, mostly because I needed to break that pile up before the wood chars.

The goats are quite happy to help clear out the pile, judging by my "goat pruned" trees around here, they really love a little evergreen in their diet.

 This is the first time I've walked into the chicken coop and thought it smelled really good! The chips are mostly cedar so it's quite nice in there. The chickens seem very happy with their new bedding, and I really quite like it as a flooring too. Maybe not quite as warm as the straw that was down before, but we'll see. It's already composting well too so it's warm just from that.

Happy Chickens

And because that wasn't enough work

I also removed the 1-2' of deep litter from the pig pen. That was a lot of work. Lots & lots of very wet and composting straw and old hay. Plus I started just before their dinner time I was navigating very heavy fork-fulls around annoyed goats.

I used the mostly chip pile to fill up their pen with just a few inches of bedding. Pigs are so clean I can easily scoop out the back 4" of their pen every now and then over the summer to keep the whole pen clean. Then I threw some hay into the sty for them to make a new bed for themselves. They seem to eat quite a bit of the hay as well as sleeping under it, so I really think it's a good thing to keep giving them and they only take a few flakes a week.

Cook: Pasta Salad

We had a little soiree over the weekend, which is most of the reason I didn't get any posts out.

Pioneer's Woman's pasta salad was a big hit.
http://tastykitchen.com/recipes/salads/sundried-tomato-pasta-salad/

This was my, I already went shopping that morning, completely forgot about the pasta salad, guest going to be in here in a few hours, what do I have in my fridge?
What we ended up having looked a bit like the original recipe but mine went more like

16oz cooked fusilli pasta
8oz of sundried tomato anti-pasto
3 tbsp of balsamic vinegar
1 cup olive oil (would reduce for future may 750ml)
About 1 1/2 cups halved grape tomatoes
Sprinkle of old strong cheddar

It was really delicious & got lots of compliments on something I literally threw together out of things in my cupboard.

Steak

Is in BIG trouble.

We weaned him for 3-4 weeks and he's still drinking off mom, anyone want year old milk feed veal then?

We've got him separated again now which means a whole lot of bellowing going on in the yard, but he'll steal her new calves milk so he needed to be separated right away.

We'll have to send him off sooner then planed, although we haven't really figured out what that's going to be. For now he's enjoying the sacrifice paddock, the goats & sheep are locked in the barn (can't let them out without also letting steak out), and I'm hauling water buckets to the animals in the big paddock.

For once I'm not going to complain about this crazy weather, I'm glad we've had a thaw!

The cows should be due any time from a few weeks ago to a few weeks from now, so we're waiting, impatiently!

Turkey Names

The turkeys finally have names, given their ghoulish appearances but friendly demeanour I've decided to go with.

Morticia & Gomez

We sold our second tom (since we only have the one hen) and I hear he's living it up with a new girlfriend!

Happy Valentine's Day

Love is always in the air around here

Mads & Megs

Surv & Yank

Steak and...
OH gross! Steak!! Cut that out!!