Chicama Run Family Farm

Tomorrow is my birthday.... I'm turning (ack) 36. Right now I am sitting here and looking at a Christmas tree set up - and realizing it's the first time in my small history I have EVER put up a Christmas tree before my birthday - even though the kids big me every year to do it.

Here are some other odd thoughts that pass through my head as I think about the last 5 years. I chose 5 years because we have been here on the farm 3 year. So 2 years before that I was busy selling on eBay as my full-time job. Both kids were in school and I was ok with that. We lived in suburbia, I drove a fancy Land Cruiser *should have kept that*..... and life was good. If you had told me I would be farming, homeschooling, and even becoming Catholic in a few years I probably would have thought you were drunk or something - because that would NEVER happen in my little life.

Now - here I sit, in front of a lit tree noting that I am doing all those things and my life is actually better for it. We actually spend family time together and ENJOY it (though there are days where I say yeah right!)......we talk more..... we do more things together.... and amazingly - we listen more.

The whole farming thing - well shoot - that honestly blew up around us because of our wonderful customers. But I wouldn't change anything about it. Ok - some days I would - I mean - can't the chickens just feed themselves and let themselves out today - IT'S COLD!!!! Goofy stuff like that. But then you look out my window and you can't help but notice how blessed we have been.

Another year passes away...... and with a life like this - you can't WAIT to see what happens during the next year.

Ok everyone - I just wanted to let you know - I do not like the cold. Especially since it's NOVEMBER!!! I don't want all my waters frozen.... I don't want to have to take out warm water to defrost the water pumps. Just don't want to do this all yet. Oh well - we do need the freezing temps to kill a lot of the bugs that devestated Joe's gardens this past summer - but still.... 19 degrees?!?! Come on!!

OK that's my whining farming moment for the day.

Actually this time of year everything slows down - but we do start getting ready for babies soon. Unbelievable huh? But it's true! I think one of our goats will have kids in December or early January. Sheep start giving birth in January - none in February this year so we are actually taking that month off.

It's the season to start planning of next season. What a cycle it is :)

I have got to tell you all about this fencing we have. Ok - it's not new - we've used it for the past year + with the chickens. This year though we have started moving around the goats and the electric fence ROCKS!!!

We are using 2 units (196ft each) for the 7 big meat goats and 1 unit for the nigerian dwarf goats.

Right now we are running extension cords and plugging in the charger - but I would love to have a battery type unit that would shock them enough.

I think next year we might move some chickens around the same way - using the fence and therefore we could FINALLY use the back field for something other than weed production.

If anyone wants to take a look at it - visit: http://www.premier1supplies.com/fencing.php?mode=detail&fence_id=30

It's pretty cool and comes recommended by ME :)

Well it's been a few weeks and I think I'm recovered at this point. Our schedule seems to be getting back to normal which makes life a lot smoother.

The farm tour went really well - it's the 1st time I heard back from so many people telling me they had a great time and really enjoyed coming out. Usually I'll get a comment or 2 DURING the farm tour - but I'm talking about comments after the fact. What a wonderful feeling it is to know that people like coming out here. We do feel blessed with this farm - even though some days are "whew!" and tiring.

So far I know we have about 5 goats who should start giving birth in December. Sheep as well if I am correct. So I get a month "off" and then we watch every day to see what happened. FUN!!!!! Seriously - watching baby goats is a great joy - they are just too dang cute.

We ended up losing a TON of turkeys. Huge learning curve there - and now they will end up being Christmas turkeys instead of Thanksgiving because the ones that survived are the smaller ones (2 week difference from the others). This was upsetting to me - but what can you do? They seemed to get extremely stressed with the move from 1 pen to another and then said "Oh I can't take this - I guess I'll die!" and then the stress from watching other turkeys die - hey I guess I'll do the same thing - boom dead. Odd type of bird.

Oh well - we'll trudge on. This afternoon I move the goats to a new area that we need "cleaned up" from weeds and other stuff. But they love it so they can go out there. Should be interesting on how much they eat and how far we can move them. We need more electricity around the farm ;) Solar and battery backs can be used - but they don't seem to give enough "zap" to the goats. No idea why - maybe mine are just stubborn.

Off to work with the kids and school :)

Have you ever come home to a masacre in your back yard? We did. A fox had gotten itself into a frenzy on andreneline and killed 1/2 our flock when we had about 50-100 birds. Our poor rooster did everything he could to fend off the fox but lost the battle. We had come home and Joe was able to stand about 5-10 feet away from the fox, without it even noticing him, and shoot it.

Now we have 2 Great Pyreness dogs who stand guard and bark at things that should not be around our farm.

Personally I wish they didn't bark so much - but then I remember what it was like to pull up after Christmas shopping and see the number of chickens dead or left for dead on my yard. Then I also hear friends tell me about similar situations in their enclosed coops during the night - racoons getting in and killing all their chickens.....all of them.

Part of our livelihood depends on eggs. We are known for them and we sell out quickly (in case you didn't notice at the markets). If we were to lose our flock of chickens, it would mean a financial hardship in some ways.

So again, I wish the dogs didn't bark so much on clear nights when they can see everything. But at the same time, I really don't want to come home one day and no longer be able to pay a bill either.

I think these creatures want to die. I really do. We have lost a TON of the birds (maybe 20-30 so far? out of the 60 we got in!) That's why we had to stop taking orders for them. It's very stressful when you plan something out and nature just doesn't go along with the plan you have in mind. I hope to know a little more soon about the birds and WHY they all decided to just poop out and die on us. Our broilers never had this problem and we ran through a lot of them this past year.

Ok - so I didn't really want to butcher all 60 - so that's the positive part about it :) But I wanted to do 40 at least and it seems like that's just not going to happen.

Guess I'll be buying my own turkey for Thanksgiving this year.

So riding out to the pumpkin patch the other day - we just don't have too many pumpkins this year. It's heart breaking and MAYBE by the 18th we'll have more turn orange. But it was not a great year this time. Again, we planted late (and I remember planting and it was raining as we did it)..... and well bugs are up there.

So we'll see what happens. At least the hay ride will be going for the farm tour. And we WILL be cooking up yummy brats :)

What useful little creatures goats can be! We need weeds, trees and a bunch of junk removed from a pile of dirt and rocks so we can clear the pile (made when we had the pool built). So portable electric fencing with 5 little goats are busy at work! The electric fencing rocks! We are in the process of moving these guys around where ever we need them to clear stuff. See??? We do have working animals on here!

Yes - I brag about Joe a lot. Why? Because simply some days what he does just is great - and not any man will do what he does (and put up with my ark I seem to be building).

Yesterday he STARTED cleaning out the chicken coop. Oh - 800 chickens can make a MESS! And all summer long we've just been adding shavings as needed to help with the smell - not cleaning it all out. Well TODAY (Saturday) he finished and it looks just amazing!! I mean come on ladies - how many of you out there have a husband who will clean out a chicken coop which is a good 8 inches of.... well.... chicken poop!?!?!?!

So this is my public acknowledgement of how wonderful my husband can be :)

I know - it was 90 degrees two days ago and now we start planning for the winter! Stuff needs to get butchered - but we can't run as many animals during the middle of the winter - and honestly I think both Joe and myself want to slow down this year a little more than we tried to this year.

Slowing down is the hardest part. During the mad-dash of the fall we need to get all the butchering dates in - maybe try out a new butcher? (I'm checking that tomorrow).....finalize trucking the animals, picking up.... and then well we have to continue and plan school. And gosh darn it - it's the year I decided the kids need to start doing some other stuff - so my weeks are BOOKED!!!

I can truly say there is never a dull moment during this time of year. It's a rush that will leave us exhausted at the end - but hopefully a bill or 2 will be paid off!

I know it is.... but 92 degrees today is going to be HOT! I guess the kids can go in the pool for a little bit to cool off and I got the chickens out of their coops by 7:30 - but I can already feel the stickiness. At least the rest of the week will be in the 70's! Much better I think!

Come on! The A/C was off and I was hoping to keep it off - but it looks now like it will have to be on today until tomorrow.

I screw a lot of stuff up by changing it - but I felt I had to. I actually talk a lot and am on the computer....well a lot. But I wasn't adding to the blog and I feel it's a fun thing and amazing enough - people READ it!

So I was having problems with Wordpress and remembering to log in etc. Apparently with Blogger I can just put a little thing on my homepage (through igoogle.com) and type here and it posts on my blog! Super easy!

Ok - newest thing. Joe is down in the garage while they install a new walk-in freezer. It occured to us that when we have 8 steers butchered it MIGHT be a good idea to have SOMEPLACE to store at least some of the meat! The 2 - 72 cubic foot ones were not enough unfortunately when we do the larger quantities of custom processing. So in comes the 6x6x8 foot walk-in! It should be amazing when it's done I think. I guess it doesn't take THAT long - but they will come back and install the compressor (something like that).

I can't believe it's almost fall already. It seems like yesterday I was writing that we were about to plant stuff and now the season is coming to a close. And yes - I still need to can tomatoes even though I have about 36 quarts of spaghetti sauce canned so far. I've lost track of the hot pepper jelly I have made and Joe wants more pickled pepper rings.

Off to do more stuff (oh hey - isn't this template cool!?) Fingers crossed that we will have pumpkins for the fall tour!