Tuesday, December 29, 2009

December Funny Farm News

There isn’t much going on as far as Funny Farm news during this BLAH winter time.

Out of the 25 baby chicks I ordered in September, there are *7* left. I’ve discovered that I am not a very good baby chick mama, and that baby chicks die…..easily.
Out of the 7 out there, there are 2 Red Stars, one of which is a rooster and will be sold, 1 Rhode Island Red, and 4 Easter Eggers, but at least one of them is a rooster and will not be kept. I will be asking our chicken buddy Shawn if he would like him though, because he is going to be GORGEOUS!!! He already is almost twice the size as the other babies out there the same age.


See his light green legs? That's an Easter Egger trait. See how pink his comb area already is? And the start of his tail? In the chicken world, he’s gonna be a hottie! ;-)

We are not breeding or showing any buns at the moment. I think there is a show in January, but we still are not sure we are going to get to it—it’s 3 hours away. We cut back for the winter, but are anxious for spring to get here to start breeding again. We plan on showing hard this summer! I have high hopes of getting the Hotots to finally breed! If not, the buck will be sold and replaced. I’ve never ever heard of a rabbit that didn’t want to breed, but of coarse, one had to land here. And yes…I am SURE he’s a he…he’s got the jelly beans to prove it.
The boys each have their individual plans to breed thier rabbits, so hopefully lots of baby buns will be at our house this spring!



Still have not gotten Kirby cut. I'm afraid D is going to have to bribe his buddies with cases of beer or rolls of chew to get them out there, because it's going to take several guys and not going to be easy.  He's looking "bullish" these days so he's got to be cut from his man hood soon. He's looking nice though, and I told him he had 2 nice looking roasts on his butt when he walked away from the me the other day. (I can NOT wait to have "homegrown" beef in the freezer!) That calf will eat out of D's hand, but when I am out there, he won't come anywhere near us. It's like I am "the wicked lady in the purple coat that haunts his dreams." Absolutely terrified of me.

Chewy is...well...Chewy. He won't be cut, he will be banded. Our vet recommended he be banded due to his rough start and small size. He's REALLY small, especially since he's out there with beef cattle. Jerseys are not large cattle at all anyway, and given he's been stunted a bit, well, I fully expect to have this conversation some day:
"Cute calf you have out there. How old is he?"
"Oh, that’s Chewy. He's 3."
"3 months?"
"No, 3 years."
Oh well. We love him. Still very much more dog than cow, but is getting better since having cattle companions.
Rosy is HUGE. She seriously looks like a dump truck with legs and a head. D is REALLY hoping she's pregnant, and not just fat. If she IS just fat, *I* don't feed, so he can't blame me! ;-) I'm thinking we'll have a calf this spring though. Knowing our luck, the day AFTER we leave for vacation!


We have started planning our garden. Talking about what worked, what didn’t, what we want to add. He wants to plant some garlic, so we will be looking into that. And I am going to add some jalapenos this year, as the ones we got from our friends Melanie and Sue ROCKED!!! My goal for this coming season is to have salsa TOTALLY made from our homegrown veggies!! (I still have enough leftover tomatoes in my freezer for at another batch of salsa. Not as good as Melanie who I am sure has red ripe tomatoes right now in her green house! ;-) )
Anyway, we’ve already been receiving gardening catalogs in the mail, and have been drooling and marking what we want.

Christmas is over now, so hurry up spring!!

1 comments:

Melanie said...

Amen to spring!! No ripe tomatoes yet, but nice looking ones on 5 different varieties. Hopefully soon. I've been checking over my catalogs too, can hardly decide!! Don't forget to plant the cilantro though!! And near as I can figure, will have to freeze it when it is ready, cause it will never make it till the tomatos are--my lesson learned LAST year!!