Dog Shaming

My pups are angels, angels I tell you, 99% of the time. But when they go rogue, boy do they ever. 

At least Rex has the grace to look abashed for his antics. Penny, god love her, as usual, looks clueless as to why Mama's miffed. Chickens aren't chew toys, Pen. 

It seems that it may be my lot in life to be surrounded by adorable hooligans. Oy...

Pie Cherries in Bloom

My gorgeous Montmorency sour cherry tree is packed with blossoms this year. And our two colonies of Italian(?) honeybees come this weekend, hopefully in time to fertilize the heck out of each and every one of these flowers!

By the 4th of July, I'm optimistic that I'll have at least enough homegrown sour cherries to make one purty little lattice-topped pie that I may or may not end up eating all by myself with a fat scoop of goats milk vanilla ice cream on top. Hurry, Summer, HURRY!

What's in (an odd) middle name?

Not that this has anything to do with anything farm-ish, but I've been missing my Grandmas lately. I posted this on my personal FB page, then thought I might like to share it with y'all too. MJ 

I've been noticing that the name "Ivy" is increasing in popularity all of a sudden. I grew up not loving my middle name, learned to appreciate its uniqueness and it's significance (named after my Grammy) and now suddenly feel very protective of it. Don't screw this up for me, Beyonce. 

At least mine is spelled a little different! 

This is a pic of my Grandma for whom I am named, Ivie Loretta, being held by my Great-Grandma, Ruth Piety Julian Ford. Grandma's twin sister, Avie, is being held by my Great-Great-Grandma. ♥ Miss you, G.G.!

Great-Grandma Ford and 7/15ths of her eventual brood, and her mother-in-law. Raising fifteen kids during the great depression - can you imagine? I come from some tough gals! :)

The Three Little Piggies - Week 4

Not a lot new to report on the piggy front. Not even new pics. Yes, sirs and madames, I'm precisely that lame.

Not to digress too much, but it has been a rather full week - goat sales, chicken murders and three big birthdays in a 48-hour period have kept me on my toes, ergo no porky paparazzi shots this week.

We will start milking the goats later this week or early next, so the milk will be joining the mix just as the bulk organic grains that we've been feeding them will be wrapping up. The piggies have been enjoying their soybean/sorghum/corn/cracked wheat porridge, but from here on out, I anticipate that the bulk of their meals will be baked goods and goat milk, with a few kitchen scraps and garden gleanings tossed in as they are available. Luckily these three don't seem to be too picky about their chow, so long as it doesn't contain bananas. Who knew?

I'm going to have to do a little research on estimating/guesstimating pig weight, since I have no earthly idea how much these three have grown in the past month. Does anyone have any suggestions here? Do I use a weight tape? Does the breed matter? I could fill a book with what I don't know. :-\

Anyhoo - the three little piggies seem happy and healthy, and thus far we're still really enjoying having them. Now, when the weather finally heats up and the odeur de cochon becomes wind-borne.... well, I guess we'll cross that funky bridge when we come to it.

Craft-a-palooza!

With the much anticipated return of energy and mobility, following my knee replacement, came a big fat wave of crafting inspiration.

Being a very visually oriented person, I'm a major Pinterest junkie. Right now, it's all bent forks and blue mason jars over there and I'm digging it!

People have found uses for mason jars that never even crossed my mind - pendant lights, hand soap pumps, sconces - you name it. And all this time I though they were just for canning and for hosting my uber-grande ghetto macchiato.

32-ounces of Mmm, Mmm Good. :)

I, like everybody else, it seems, really like the old, bluish and greenish mason jars of my Grandma's era, which are quite a bit harder to come by. I priced a few at some local antique malls....GAH! $19 for a single pint jar. Has the world gone mad?!

So, I was super stoked when I saw/heard that Ball Mason was putting out a 100th anniversary edition of their blue jars. They are still a little hard to come by, but amazon carries them presently. I predict that once my fellow crafty folk get wind of these babies, they will fly right outta there, so, if you're so inclined, get some while the getting is still good!

So I did what any crafty hoarder would do, and ordered four cases of them. I have some pretty grand plans for these lovelies. If they turn out at all decent, I'll post pics and I *may* do a giveaway as well. Stay tuned!

Aside from Mason jar mania, I'm pretty excited to try one of these bent fork projects -

I bought some random, el cheapo, non-silver forks from Goodwill to work with in an attempt to hone my skillz a little before destroying serviceable silverware. We'll see how that pans out...

I'm just so, SO glad to have a shred of my former creative, happy energy back, following all of this downtime and pharmaceutical fog. Dare I say I feel somewhat optimistic and.... generally happy today?

Brace yourselves, people of Etsy/Pinterest/the interwebs - Mama's got a new camera and she's feeling mighty crafty. Yarn/jar/fork explosion forthcoming....

The Three Little Piggies - Week 3

Our happy little hogs are growing!

Baykin, one of our two 9 week old gilts. Brother Porkchop is standing just behind her, and Miss Prosciutto is... somewhere else.

They still are a little people-shy, that is, unless you're Scarlet, the bringer of doughnuts.

Scarlet-girl loving on one of last Spring's chicks. She's a little mommy!

This week's diet has remained mostly the same - Pig porridge once daily (a 50% larger ration than last week), a dozen packages of bakery outlet yummies and a case box of random produce.

We have our awesome fellow farmer neighbors, D & R, to thank for the produce. They get a mighty haul of unsold and imperfect produce from the same source the we used to, and are kind enough to have shared several cases of it with us this week. We probably will check in with our/their source (a locally owned grocery store) to see if there is any more free produce to be had, since our piggies appetites seem to be growing daily.

Another big dietary change is just around the corner for our porky pals, just as soon as we finally start milking our goats. We have nine does who are in milk, eight of whom are milkable (When it comes to milking, Blue is civilly disobedient). We anticipate that we will get a good 2-3 gallons or so, milking just once a day. Last year, we had just two girls in milk, and got roughly 3 quarts per day, and were frequently overwhelmed by the bounty. The pigs are here to make sure that not a single drop goes to waste!

In the meantime, our chickens are helping us shoulder the burden of providing these growing pigs with adequate protein. In addition to the generous serving of porridge, produce and bread products, we have been giving the pigs some whole, hard boiled eggs each day. First it was the Easter eggs that the girls had to dye, but refused to eat. They were so well received that I started adding a few eggs to their porridge on days when there is no other protein to offer them. Everything counts at this stage in their development!

Critter Census - Spring 2013

For better or for worse, these numbers are likely to change due to either loss or gain - hopefully gain - within the next 12 weeks leading up to Summer.

Chickens - 14

Sir Rosco Peckins - Lavender Orpington roo
Leroy Brown - Splash Cochin roo
Leon - Black-laced Red Wyandotte roo
Lacy - Silver-laced Cochin hen
Coo-Coo - White/Wheaten Americauna hen
Amelia - Dark Americauna hen
Rose - Brown Americauna hen
Gracie - Golden-laced black Polish hen
Puffy - White Silkie hen (currently sitting on 9 eggs at last count)
Ewok - Brown Americauna hen
Miss Bitey Pants - Black "Policauna" hen
Jasmine - Black Policauna hen
Australorp hens who's names I don't remember (2 of them)

The coyote seems to have picked off a few look-alike hens without our notice, based upon our slowly but steadily shrinking flock. 

Guinea Fowl - 2

Spotty & Sylvia - Pearl Grey hens

Rabbits - 1

Prince Charming - Neutered mini-Rex male

Goats - 19 (Aye, chihuahua!)

Blue - 11 year old Agouti Grey, disbudded Nigerian Dwarf doe
Chardonnay - 5 year old Caramel brown, blue-eyed, gopher-eared, disbudded mini-Lamancha doe
  Chardy's twins - dark in color, doelings
Hop - 2 year old Fawn & White spotted, gopher-eared, mini-Lamancha doe
  Hop's male kid - White & Grey, ND "erect" eared, disbudded mini-Lamancha wether
Valentina - 2 year old Fawn colored, elf-eared, mini-Lamancha doe
  Valentina's twins - Fawn/buckskin colored, gopher-eared
Liberty - 1 year old Caramel brown, blue-eyed, gopher-eared, mini-Lamancha doe
  Liberty's kid - Black with white markings, disbudded
Hope - 1 year old Caramel brown, blue-eyed, gopher-eared, mini-Lamancha doe
  Hope's kid - Fawn colored, disbudded
Sidney - 4 year old, White with black markings, erect-eared, disbudded Alpine doe
  Sidney's kid - disbudded wether
Sophie - 3 year old, White with black markings, erect-eared, disbudded Alpine doe
  Sophie's kids - Black & White, gopher-eared, disbudded, mini-Lamancha/Alpine doeling
                         Black & White, erect-eared, disbudded, mini-Lamancha/Alpine wether
Buckley - 2 year old, Buckskin colored, gopher-eared, mini-Lamancha buck

I feel bad that I can't recall off the top of my head all of the pertinent details about all of the new babies, but between my memory issues and the landslide of babies born in the past two weeks, I'm just out of my depth at the moment. :\

Pigs - 3 (I'm not too committed to learning these guys' names, and so I venture a guess at who's who here.)

Baykin(?) - 9 week old spotted gilt
Prosciutto(?) - 9 week old black gilt
Porkchop(?) - 9 week old black barrow

In addition to our livestock, we have the pets - dogs, Rex & Penny, curmudgeonly old box turtle, Bob, and our lone parakeet, Applesauce. That brings our grand total to 43 critters. HOLY CRAP.