Frustratedearthmother's Journaling Journey

[Wannabefree]

I'll tell you like I tell the kids..."Have a nice trip, see ya next Fall" I have done the same thing SO many times...and usually it is pretty funny. Hope you aren't too sore!!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

You know for an old woman, I took that fall pretty well - I am quite proud of myself, lol. They say practice makes perfect and it hasn't been that long since I busted my patootey out there anyway. I can literally go years without ever falling, and then fall 3 or 4 times in a month or so.... sheesh.

I went home at lunch to meet a guy who is giving me an estimate on doing sheetrock repair and paint prep in my garage apt. It's been sitting empty since DS trashed it about 5 years ago. Now, he didn't trash it on purpose - he's just a slob.... geeze. The sheetrock got wet under a window air conditioner that was leaking and the carpet just didn't take kindly to having engines rebuilt on it.... GRRRRRR!

Just the sheetrock work and painting is gonna be $1600 bucks - argh. If I - oops let me rephrase that - WHEN DS paints it I'll save $350 off that price. And when DS rips out the old carpet that'll save me a few bucks too. By golly, he's gonna work off some of this. My boss has a friend that's looking for a place to live while he's recovering from a divorce and I told him he could stay there for a small donation each month. I may have to raise the price of the donation since it's prolly gonna cost me purt near an arm and a couple legs to get it back in shape.
Always summpin'

I'm thinning out the Pygmy goat herd. I should have a couple babies going home Saturday morning and maybe another yearling. I don't need to keep 20+ pygmies if I'm switching over to Nubians and Kinders. Although, there'll always be a few Pygmies gracing my patures - they were my first goat love and I can't abandon all of 'em. Besides all that - Pygmy milk is the most delicious-ness tasting thing on the planet. Much richer and sweeter than the Nubian milk - and Nubian milk is pretty darn good. I've been telling folks for years that Pygmy milk tastes like a melted vanilla milkshake.... pure yummilicious!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Woke up to rain this morning....eh...whaddya do except be grateful. In the long run- rain is better than no rain and what weve been getting is not torrential. For the last few months it's been metered out in fairly decent amounts. I can only think of one or two times that we've had much standing water. Only downside right now is that yesterday I took down all the tarps that I had in the chicken pens for shade. Same tarps were covering some of the feeders - and now - oops, I probably have some wet, wasted chicken feed out there. It's alright though cuz I was planning on re-arranging those areas anyway. I want to turn some of the breeds out of their pens and free range them since I probably won't do any hatching before early spring. I'll set up an area in the outer barn with a feeder and nest area protected from the goats and mini-horses and hope that they will lay in that area and not drop eggs all over the pasture for the LGD to eat.

It's time to start thinking about setting up the quail in breeder pens. I haven't even really paid attention to how many males and females I have out there, but with over 5 dozen birds to choose from I'm sure I can come up with plenty of breeding trios or quads. The rest will be harvested for us and the dogs. Then the cycle starts again. I've seen one bird with a crossed beak and another with a club foot, so they will be the easy decisions for culling. Then I'll look at the extra males.

Question for my quail breeding friends: Do ya'll have your breeders set up in pairs, trios, quads???

I sold two goats yesterday! Woo hoo! I had a sweet set of twin doelings that found their new home yesterday. I wish I'd had a dozen more cuz I had three or 4 potential buyers lined up for them, but I'm happy with the lady who got them. She's starting new in goats, but is an experienced animal person. She has pigs, donkeys, and horses so I'm confident she'll do just fine with the goats.

Time for another cup of coffee... and I'm thinking it might taste better in the hot tub!

 

[Wannabefree]

Pygmy milk hmm.....may have to try me some of that

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Oh, it is absolutely divine! I've converted quite a few folks to goat milk when I give them a taste of pygmy juice, lol.

I've got a buck who is just dang near three legged. I think maybe his pen mate smacked the heck out or him. I think his issue is in his shoulder and I really can't say that it'll get better fast. He literally won't touch that foot to the ground. I've poked and prodded him from the ground up and get no pain reaction until I start manipulating his shoulder... geeze. I've got him in a very small pen hoping he'll rest it. At it's worst - it's a front leg so it shouldn't take away his ability to breed. He can stand up on two legs just fine.

Came home from work and found a quail pen open. Geeze, about six of 'em were running around, but they kinda just stood there and let me pick 'em up and put 'em back in their pen. Good quail, lol! It'll be time to start culling real soon... might take out a few of 'em with problems this weekend. The crippled one and the one with the crossed beak will be the first to go. AFter that I'll start separating them into breeding pens. AND, soon enough, they should be laying and we can start the cycle alllll over again.

I'm sleepy tonight, but can't go to bed until The Voice is over... I looove music and I loooove that show.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

TGIF!

I'm all alone at work today... one co-worker is off, another one is sick, and another one is just part-time and doesn't work fridays anyway. It'll make for a quiet day and I can get a few things done without interruption. Thats nice, but gee whiz it's almost toooo quiet around here. There are no students on Fridays and the halls are deserted!

I'm gonna tack 30 minutes on to my lunch hour today and go vote. Today is the last day of early voting, so I wanna get that out of the way. Then I need to go to Home Depot to pick up a few things to finish off the quail breeder cages. I've got some cages at home that are made from more 'traditional' wire mesh, but I'm making up a few out of shelving material and need to get just a little more material to make cage dividers. Then I'll hang 'em this weekend and start moving breeders into 'em. I thought these guys were older, but I checked the calender and they're only hitting 4 weeks this weekend. But, I still want to get them established in their new digs.

Most of my does are in rip-roaring, raging heat right now. I've already bred two for early spring babies. I might breed one more doe for spring, but after that I think I'm gonna hold off. I want to have some fall babies to try and spread out the does that will be in milk. I do NOT want any summer babies - the heat is just toooo hard on 'em. That means I'm gonna have to breed early summer for my fall kiddings. That means waiting until around May for those breedings. I think that'll work... it shouldn't be so hot by then to interfere with the bucks fertility.

It rained, rained, rained Wednesday and Thursday so it's nasty and muddy and mucky and swampy at my place right now. Doesn't change the fact that I need to get a lot done this weekend, but it sure will make it more of a challenge.

 

[Wannabefree]

We got 2 inches of rain yesterday....soggy soggy mess :/ Sounds like ya had a peaceful day at work I have yet to have a quail with cross beak. Bad legs here and there, and a few other minor issues, but never cross beak. Poor lil guy, at least he can eat apparently. I would cull him too. Are they really just 4 weeks? wow...it does seem like it has been longer.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Ewwwweeeee, still soggy and yucky out there! A neighboring community - 'bout 10 miles away recorded 9 inches between Wednesday and Thursday...

Yep, WBF, hard to believe them little critters are only 4 weeks old today - they're getting BIG! The one with the crossed beak came from the other eggs my brother bought me off ebay...didn't come from your stock!

I built a two-hole breeder cage today and finished repairing the old 3 holer. I'm about to go out and hang 'em, and do some more critter re-arranging.

DH has been working on a gate post that was rotted off at ground level. He's got the old rotten post out and has the gate off of it. He's even got the new post in the ground but has gone to town to get some cement to put in the hole. Should get the gate re-hung before dark. Then we're gonna start on our all out war against RATS.. I hate rats!

Ever since I've locked up the Westie for being a chicken murderess the rats have been making a comeback. So, I'm gonna put out some major poison this weekend and hope they eat it. After that, I might have to turn the little 4-legged rat/chicken exterminator loose to commit harey-karey on any and all survivors. I really do love that little $hi*head even though she's nuttin but trouble, lol. I just admire her rebel spirit.

Gotta get back to work - but I'm definitely thinkin' that tonight is a hot tub night!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Woo hoo! My new drive to the barn is about half-way done! The dump truck got here a day early with two loads of concrete washout so I was "forced" to come home early yesterday and be on hand. My wonderful neighbor also took a half-day off and spent a couple hours spreading it and then went hunting, lol. Since then I've had two more loads of the concrete washout delivered and it's just sitting here waiting on neighbor J to get home from his trip. He said that he would probably finish it up on Saturday.

We did something tht I've never done before... I was told by some folks that there is a woven fabric type material that is good to put under the driveway material. I went and got a roll of it and even though it was pricey, I think it is going to work very well. For starters, it seems to make the material go much further. We got much more done than I thought we would with just the first two loads. I think we'll finish the project with one load less than I'd planned on.

I've spent allllll day outside catching up on goat maintenance. I needed to worm all the pygmies...whew. But, first - I built a chute system to make it easier to catch the little buggers. Most of 'em are friendly enough, but they all seem to have ESP when it comes time to do anything to 'em and they head for the hills. It took me a couple hours to get that done, and then another hour or so just to get the worming taken care of - but I'm finished - for now anyway. I'll do it again in late winter, after a good freeze, and that oughta hold 'em until late spring/early summer - just depends on the weather.

I neeeeeds to cull a few quail. I've got the two white ones, the crip, and the crossed beak that gotta go. They're big enough to get a little meat off of and I don't need to feed 'em anymore. Not sure if they'll go to the dogs or us, lol. Depends on how tired I am when I finally decide to do it.

DH got home a little early today and I told him that it's a hot tub night so his first chore is to check the water. My po' body is startin' to ache with all the physical efforts of today, lol! But, I always say that all this work keeps me strong... it keeps me healthy... it is worth it... I do love it... it keeps me strong....it keeps me healthy...... it is....blah, blah, blah!

Time to go start the chores again before it gets dark - ugh!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

I know it's only Wednesday, but I'm already trying to plan out my weekend. I think, weather permitting, that it's gonna be a bird processing weekend. I'm gonna really cut down the chicken flock - don't need to feed them all over the winter. I'm giving up on the Black Copper Marans. I think I've got 3 hens and a roo. The hens were old when I bought em and they lay sporadically at best. They'll make good stew hens as they are full-bodied and heavy. If nothing else, I'll can some broth.... which kinda means I needa pluck 'em, cuz in my opinion the skin really helps the flavor.

After that, it's time to process some quail. The grow-out pen is full and I noticed one or two of the extra males in there are missing some feathers - so I needa get on it. I'm not very fast at chicken processing, but I'm thinking/hoping the quail will be lots easier and faster. And, I'm anxious to cook some of 'em up! After that I need to really consider what I want to keep. Right now I've got 4 breeding pens set up. Two of them have quads in 'em, and two of 'em in smaller pens have trios. I've got another pen ready to go, so I'll set up two more sets of breeders in there. After that, I could keep another couple trios or quads in the brooder pens - but they have solid floors instead of wire and are more trouble to keep clean. I need to think on that one.

Every stinking goat on my place is sick. Most of 'em just get a runny nose for a day or two and bounce back on their own - but I put a young wether and a young buck on antibiotics and they're doing lots better. They were baaaaaad - didn't eat and didn't move for a day or so. Didn't really have much choice - it was medicate them or let 'em die and I'm not good at giving up! This morning I noticed that two other young bucks haven't cleaned up their feed for a couple days now - so they might be next in the pin cushion line up. I hate to give antibiotics when I think that their immune system can handle it - but with the big weather change that might be asking too much.

We were in the 30's this morning and I know that a lot of ya'll are much colder than that - but for us - brrrrrrrrrrr! Poor critters - around here it's usually summer one day - winter the next, lol. Not so much this year though - we had a more gradual change...almost like a real fall season. However, our high today is 20 degrees below normal for this time of year. What's going on here????

Milking is slowing down, but I'm not quitting. It takes three of the gals that are still in milk to give me 2 quarts combined at one milking. Now, it's still over three quarts a day, but it's time for me to make Christmas cajeta - so they need to quit slacking, lol. Wonder when I'll have time to do that. I'm gonna have to get on it though, can't let that milk sit in the fridge too long - even though I routinely drink milk that is two weeks old and it's still good! I looooove me some raw milk. The other day I came home from work and saw the morning's milk still sitting in the bucket. Dang it - I forgot to put it in the fridge. No loss though, cuz it makes great clabber. That is some tasty stuff - even though at first I was afraid to try it. You can use it like sour cream - or you can drizzle it over berries and sprinkle a little brown sugar on top (my dad taught me that one!) Pure yumaliciousness!