Bonnie and Clyde

Second addition to the farm!

Here come Bonnie and Clyde.

These two little sweethearts make their way to the farm via new friends.
Both under a year old, Clyde (dressed in white) and Bonnie (the little one on the roof) have arrived on the farm! These pygmy goats are small, easy to care for and full of fun!

A long drive to Fort McCoy, which is waaaaaaaay out on 19 through the Ocala National Forest ended us up in the tucked away sanctuary that only a few of us could dream of.

Here awaited to friendly young pygmy goats ready to go to their new home. (was kind of sad to take them away)

But you know these goats are going to get nothing but LOVE.

Not to be upstaged, their Great Pyrenees dogs had just had puppies a few days prior! Sorry I could not get a pic! But this is what a Great Pyrenees looks like!

and this is what their puppies will like in a couple of months...

Lastly, on the way home, K decides to drop the bomb shell of questions about mating after hearing much discussion on our hopes that our new little additions will mate and have babies.
But Mom, HOW do they mate. 
But HOW EXACTLY.
But HOW does the baby get out.
Oy,
After much hemming and hawing about "hugging" and other lame attempts. I resulted to YouTube.
Don't judge me. She got to see modest mating AND a goat having a baby! Done.
Thank you, YouTube. Making lessons about the birds and the bees easier for parents around the world.

One day we hope to show you our own video like this:

I'm Building a Farm!

Okay, I GUESS you could say "we're" building a farm. But hey! I'm building a farm! Not sure what is wrong with me actually.

Here is the latest on what will probably be the running project of the farm. The chook house. The "Hatch" as some people want to name it. It has been painted and is taking real form and Farmer Brown already wants to build a new one. Oy.

I have learned much from the farm already.

You are going to get hurt.
You are going to get hurt...a lot.
You are going to be out of breath.
You are going to be out of breath...a lot.
You are going to get dirt underneath your fingernails. (Wha?)
It may not come out for days if it is oil based paint.
You are going to discover a love for Tractor Supply, Ace Hardware and Lowe's. 
It feels GREAT.

There is no doubt that the farm girls on the farm are going to love it. They're naturals.But they are also getting little injuries. And I am finding new ways to protect them. They have no inhibitions, no fear and no squeamishness. It's amazing.

I had a new friend lend me a book called "The Dirty Life" a book on farming, food and love written by Kristin Kimball. She told me I had to read it and lent it to me after she heard me poll Facebook whether I should have a "Disney-esque" looking farm or a "natural" looking  farm. She thought it would give me a glimpse into what farm life is really like.

Hahahahahahaha. My new friend doesn't know me yet. It only showed me just what was possible. It did not deter me or slow me down, it spurred me on. WOW, I can build that Dirty Life! Whoops.

I am not sure what it is that makes me always have to have some other project going on besides wifedom, homeschooling and mothering but until that answer plops into my lap, one that I probably don't want to hear anyway, on we go.

Did I mention, I'm building a FARM???

Farm Girl Badge #2--a quickie project without the hubs

With a little help from daughter number 2, we ventured into our first farm project sans Farmer Brown. He was on his way with two howling felines to a butcher of a different kind. The kind that ends with no deep howling kitties in the middle of the night or yucky smell around the house from cat spray! Yes, the last two are off to get fixed bringing our barn cat number to the lowest ever, the fab four.  And that is the END of our cat collection at Pemberley.

At any rate, the coop is not done yet and I did not want to keep ten pullets in the brooder so I had the idea to take some wire and place it around the brooder with some zip ties. Function, people. Think function. 

We fashioned the super temporary pen so they could get out of the brooder a bit while the coop is nearing completion. We did not want to put our original three in with them quite yet so those three got the 5 star treatment on our back porch for the night!

We have a bunch of extra wire on the property that at first I balked at. MORE junk on the property...

                      ...but now I know what treasure we have since it will be used for everything!

These boots right here belong to daughter number two who got a good laugh when one of our original three flew up onto my back while fashioning the pen, as if on attack! He flapped his uncut wings to beat the band and I was running around like a chicken without her head trying to escape him! Finally dislodging him, I exclaim without thought obviously, what the HE**!!!! Daughter got SUCH a laugh at of this, I see my expletive did not cause her any harm but she is in no way used to seeing me doing a farm project, let alone even seeing me in the yard much so I can see how she was probably in shock and uber curious when I recruited her help for this in the first place.

 

I am finding very quickly that the idea in your head and the product in reality can be two very different things on a farm! The new coop also needs a small run built and painting, let alone accessorizing with watering devices and feeders. Sigh. This project definitely took (is taking) too long. I must say though there is something oddly comforting about there always being an outdoor project needing handling.

Farming musts to think about in the future: Efficiency-Frugality-Function

Chook House Downs

Forget naming the farm, this chook house right here, (new farm lingo I am picking up) is overkill enough to be named itself. We picked up the chickens this morning....and this is where they still are.

Because this Chook House is still. not. done. 

The idea was to let the heat rise out of the monster tresses up there...but once we decided not to fully enclose, the tresses aren't really necessary anymore. Ah, I imagine this is going to be just one of the many "first tries" on the farm.

Will Chook House Downs every be complete?
Will the girls in the back of Farmer Brown's Nissan truck be nicknamed "The Titan Girls?"
Our homeless girls will hopefully find housing before they start laying eggs. Titan Eggs.
Hey, I can sell that.

Don't Put Your Hand in That.

Well, this is exciting. My very first post on the new blog! (Forgive the simple layout, blog is under construction along with everything else on the farm) Pemberley Fields is in "Year One" of development and my first "big deal" purchase was this amazing 1903 wheat thresher.

Originally purchased to use for display and educational purposes, the thresher appears to be working just fine. Which led me to do a quick Google search on growing wheat in Florida. Evidently, yes you CAN. So, now of course, I think it would be super-farm-cool to grow a small patch of wheat and allow the thresher to do its thing, even if we just save the seed to replant the patch!

Researching just a bit on threshers, I was a tad heavy-hearted to have found that even this bit of "progress" which, in my farm-bubble-utopia, I considered super old school, caused a lot of problems. Seems the thresher,  invented by Scottish mechanical engineer Andrew Meikle (c.1784) caused the Swing Riots, an uprising of agricultural workers as they got displaced from their jobs. For thousands of years, grain was separated by hand with flails, and was very laborious and time consuming, taking about one-quarter of agricultural labor by the 18th century. Mechanization of this process took much of the drudgery out of farm labor but also took the workers out of the field.

Alas, we are the owners of said thresher....whose history we will never know, and whose future is yet uncertain.  We have a lot planned for the farm. From chickens to beef and hydroponics to honey. We are not totally sure what it will end up looking like in the end, but we do know that with all things, just like the thresher,  we will take the good and let the chaff blow away.