ksalvagno's farm journal - Time for change

Wow sorry to hear about all the snow. I think we got about 3-4" and the kids school got canceled. I am working from home today but my hubby's drive took him over an hour and it's usually only 25-30 min. I hope you made it out to your new job ok today.
 
Luckily we a 4-wheel drive truck. I took that to work today. The drifts were almost as deep as when we last plowed last night. But, there were parts of the driveway that weren't bad. It stopped snowing around midnight and didn't snow after that.

First day on the job. I'm BEAT! I boxed up chicks from 8am to 3:15pm. You are on your feet all day and constantly moving. Everyone there is very nice and very helpful. I think it is going to be a good part time job for me. If this ends up working out, I may ask if they will take me back next year. I don't mind the seasonal part at all. It reminds me of shearing day for alpacas. You work your butt off, you are sore as heck but you walk away feeling like you had a good day and it was enjoyable to be with the other people.

I made mayonnaise this weekend. I had a recipe in a cookbook that I have. It definitely tastes different than the store bought stuff. It tastes good but leaves us slightly sick to our stomachs. Is this normal or did I do something wrong? I think I need to use less lemon juice and apple cider vinegar. You can actually taste it in there.
 
How are things up your way K? I hope you guys aren't having that awful flooding.
 
We flooded on Monday. We had to put the goats in the hayloft and put the alpacas out front. Our house and front yard were ok but the rest of the property was under water. We were up at 3:30am moving things off the barn floors and getting animals moved. It was horrible. Luckily the chicken coop was high enough that they were ok.

We are praying that we don't get flooded tonight or tomorrow. We are ready but getting the goats back up into the hayloft will be a pain. Not to mention it worries me to do that with so many pregnant girls. Plus I would hate to put the alpacas out in the rain if we don't have to.
 
Luckily only our turnaround flooded on Saturday. But now we have to prepare for Wednesday's rain. They are predicting about an inch of rain. I'm hoping just the turnaround floods but no guarantees. They have rain in the forecast every couple of days. Not all of it is hard rain but if the ground never has a chance to dry, then we are constantly in a threat for flooding.

With all this flooding and threats of flooding, I have decided to downsize the livestock. We just can't keep this up. We have nowhere to put the goats but up in the hayloft. Do you know how hard it is to get very pregnant goats up and down stairs?

I will be selling Millie after she births and nurses her kids. She is a great goat and a great milker but I don't need that much milk and want to stick with the Nigerians. So far everyone who has bought from me wants registered stock. So if anyone would be interested in Millie, PM me. I will be asking $200 for her. You could probably milk her for 3 years before needing to rebreed her. She went 2 years and took over 3 months to dry up. She is very friendly and easy to milk.

I am also selling my guard llama. She is a great guard. She is currently guarding alpacas but she has had interactions with the goats and has gotten used to them. I'm asking $150.

I am also going to work harder at getting the alpacas sold this year. Just got 2 little male alpacas sold and now just down to my 3 pregnant females. I'm hoping to get at least one sold before they give birth so I don't have 6 alpacas to sell.

This has been a frustrating week and a half and I guess it is just making me realize a lot of things. We were already planning to downsize in livestock but now I'm going to downsize more and try to get animals sold faster than my original plan.
 
i wish i had my place already, id love alpaca, i was drooling over the 2 young guys :P
 
This weather has about done me in too :/ Wish I had room for Millie, she sounds like a great doe.
 
you said it K, this has been a very hard week for everyone. we are bracing for the next rain and trying to stay cheerful.

the good news for us is that we were able to keep the basement dry. we found and sealed a leak - thank heaven.

of course i'm still cursing the former owners. i specifically asked them if there was a problem with drainage..... i'm still mad they were such liars. dang!

oh well. gravel is my friend.

hang in there K!
ps what kind of goat is Millie? full size?
 
I know what you mean about the previous owners. There were a lot of things that weren't disclosed to us that we have had to correct. Our "move in ready" house ended up needing a lot of work that cost us a lot of money. This was even after we had an inspector go over the house. Hopefully your basement won't flood anymore. Luckily the house is on high enough ground that we haven't had any water in the basement but having water in the barns is bad enough.

Millie is an Alpine or Alpine mix. I don't know much about Alpines but she seems to have more butterfat and sweeter milk than what I have read about Alpines so I'm wondering if she has some Nubian in her.

Here is a picture of her.
1324_millie1.jpg
 
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