Around The Farm April 24 2015

So much for my intentions of updating every week.  :-)  It gets BUSY here in the spring! (everything in italics is copied from facebook posts)

We have babies!

Addie had a baby boy yesterday - leaving us with just one pregnant goat (Piper) left this spring. We have 10 baby goats right now - 6 girls, 4 boys.

 

At BSF this week some of the women asked how many baby goats we have now, & I told them I expected more by the time I got home today. Sure enough, another set of boy girl twins. Any time we have a storm come through, if we have goats close to giving birth they usually have babies then. I think it has something to do with the air pressure change. I don't know what it is exactly, but I do know we have had babies born with every storm in the past week

 

We got a llama!!

Statements normal people probably do not utter - "I'm running late, I can either feed you guys or feed the llama, I don't have time for both." (I made supper, Dan fed the llama)

We've been looking for a llama for awhile now. We've had a few others watching for us too - we wanted a really friendly one.  You can't get more friendly than Barnaby!  He comes running when we drive up the lane, and waits at the fence for us to come pet and fuss over him.  He's super, super soft too. 

Meet Peabody the 2nd

I found a gorgeous, older, peacock at the Middleburg livestock auction today, & was prepared to pay a ridiculous amount of money for him. I won't even tell you how much - just know it was a truly ridiculous amount. (I don't care for jewelry, I'd rather have livestock & amusing poultry) And yet I was still outbid. The kicker? After they outbid me, they commented that they didn't know where they were going to put him, they guessed they would have to move some chickens. I have a backyard landscaped around a zoo sized peacock pen, and a female peahen here - but they spent all that money and don't even know where they are going to put him. Life is so not fair.

Then a few hours later:

So Dan found me peacocks. smile emoticon I'm going with "because he really loves me", but it may be that he found out what I almost spent today & decided to make sure that didn't happen again.

And

He rode home in the car, on my lap, because it was how I thought he would be safest. We passed a truck driver, and I think he almost wrecked his truck after he looked down into our car... Peabody on my lap, tail over the console and back across the folded down back seats...My life is just plain weird. But it's never, ever, dull. (Sometimes I pray for a little dull. Just a little.)

I went to Middleburg this week - 

Every Tuesday there is a livestock auction in Middleburg.  They have the largest weekly poultry sale that I am aware of, in this area.  I went looking for a peacock, guineas, and silkies.  I came home with Lavendar Guineas, and a silkie with 6 babies.  

I had forgotten how noisy guineas are.  :-)

(We have 5 of them - at least one is a girl)

The Cows

We're down to just the three cows (2 steers and 1 cow technically) - we sold those black ones that we simply could not keep fenced.  They were angus limousine cross, which apparently is one of the worst breeds - VERY high strung.  The one almost broke a wall, and the auctioneer hid from her, at the sale.  I'm so relieved they are gone!

 This cow isn't ours - it belongs to our neighbors.  I love her.  Dan won't let me have longhorns, and I've never seen another breed with this coloring.


Dan and the boys took down the fence on the center island here, and rebuilt it.  It looks so much nicer!

Right now we have the billy goat in there, along with the goats that are not pregnant this year.  That freed up the goat pasture for just the moms & babies.

Garden - 
I haven't planted a single thing yet this year.  Not so much as an onion.  I'm kind of glad I didn't - we had a hard freeze last night.  Because I'm so far behind, I didn't have to cover anything.  :-)  I'll try to have the beds all planted and nice looking for the Skeet Shoot here on May 9th.

I know you are all very upset over this cold weather, but I'm over here going "yay! It's ok that my garden isn't in & I haven't planted any flowers!" smile emoticon I'm looking forward to two days of catching up on things inside this house.

All of that tiny green plant all over?  I think that is sweet annie.  It's seeded all through the herb bed, and through a lot of the yard - especially where the mole had dug up around the outside of this herb bed earlier this year.