Here's the "little ones" today. The chickens are flying up to the roost and around the coop. The ducks are just adorable.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to my Mother, Sisters, Nieces and all who give motherly care.

Update: My family took me to see the new Star Trek movie. It was terrific! My husband enjoyed the campy way they connected this new cast to the 1960's cast. My daughters enjoyed the 'eye candy'! All in all its a great flick.

And how does your garden grow?

Here's a look at our black raspberry patch, concord grapes, lettuce and spinach bed, strawberries and lastly our new asparagus patch. See the tall things that look like weeds? That's the asparagus. We can't harvest the asparagus this year. We need to wait a year. I anxiously await next year's harvest. We used last fall's leaves to mulch around our strawberries and asparagus. Enjoy.

Always something

It's always something... sounds like something Roseann Roseanna Danna would say! Now you probably have an inkling of how old I am too! ;)
The rain wouldn't go away so we had to cancel our shearing festivities for tonight. We're bummed. But we rescheduled for a couple weeks from now. However, our shearers informed us (being new to the alpaca thing) that we need to get a fan for our alpacas to survive the summer heat. So this means... digging a trench out to the barns and running electric in our barns so we can run a fan for them. I wanted electric anyway to have light in the winter so I can see to feed and maintain good clean care.
Good news is, a neighboring farmer wanted to sell her alpaca and we made a deal for him. So tonight we will have another alpaca arriving to our small hobby farm. We are definitely excited. She is downsizing her farm and wanted him to go to a good home. I'm glad she chose us.
Think of all the fiber we will have to spin! My young spinners can't wait.
Until the next 'something'...

Poultry update!

The Ducks are getting quite large. Their feet have grown as have their beaks. They are getting whiter too! The chickens wings have all feathered out, their getting tall and gangly too. I can't wait until they are larger than the holes in my fence so they can get outside. The ducks however can start spending time outside. I think that will begin this weekend. Shearing day is tomorrow. We are all excited.
Until then...

Sunday, Sunday....

Well, we let the ducks out of the chicken coop for a while today. They like to follow Allison and Emily around the farm. It is too cute to see the girls being followed by two little ducks! *smile*

Dad and I were sitting on the back patio resting between weeding and mowing and discussed how the grass was getting high in the chicken run. So I said why don't we move an Alpaca into the run for a while and let them 'em at it. So that is what we did. As a family we rounded up the Alpacas and put the halter on the young one...because Dad messed up the halter for the older one. (Don't take me there). Now this boy resists being led. Oh Yeah! He wasn't going to budge. He got so ticked he started spitting!!! After some extensive prodding we got him into the chicken run. He was still upset, so we all just walked away to give him time to cool down. And cool down he did, especially when he figured out there was all this grass... just for him! He enjoyed his time in the chicken run. I wonder if we'll have a problem next time we decide to use him as a mower?
This Friday is the big day. We will be having our first shearing day after work. We can't wait, but I'm sure the Alpacas will think otherwise.

As far as the gardening is concerned, we have been weeding the hugest dandelions we have ever seen. Maybe we'll have to turn ourselves into a dandelion farm! *wink* Our lettuce bed is prospering, however our peas didn't fair as well. We think they may have gotten frozen. So we replanted them today.

Grandma has a little flower garden next to her deck. We thought it would be cool to turn this into a SUNFLOWER garden this year. I bought some seeds this weekend and will plant according to the Farmer's Almanac. I'm learning my lesson about planting. It seems as though their (Farmer's Almanc) magic works the best.

More farm news later!

Tonight's update

Thought we'd show you how fast the chicks and ducks are growing in just one week! The wings are feathering out on the chicks and the ducks are getting lighter/white-er everyday. There is another picture of our two barns. The left one is for the Alpacas and the right is the new chicken coop. All Amish made! And we also included COOKIE our little (old) beagle. Good Night.