HeatherLynnKy on the farm Ranting and hormone crazy tonight warning

[BarredBuff]

I am planning to start a herb garden next year. We have raised culinary herbs but never medicinal ones, and thats a goal for next year.

 

[heatherlynnky]

Home medicinals are my next big project. I really want to be able to take care of most of our needs, in the hopes of not having to depend on an unstable health system very often. I know for some stuff i still need a doctor but for the most part they don't offer much for my daily health. Even when problems arise they are not much help.

Edited this morning to add. WOOT we are getting another heifer after all. The first one ended up selling before we could get over there to look at her but this morning i called on another one and angus cross. Jersey/angus cross. Hopefully with a bit of angus "fertilizer" we will eventually produce meat calves also. She is a beautiful super dark brown with one little white flower on her head. Of course that fit in so perfect with the name I wanted to use next. So Blossom will be joining us in just a couple hours. YAY

 

[SSDreamin]

on Blossom! You should post pictures of all the 'B's" and others We have two Jersey/Angus mix miniatures - with the same thought in mind. Hopefully, any heifers will be good milkers and any bull calves will be good freezer beef. Our girl (Ice Cream) is 3/4 Jersey, 1/4 Angus. The bull (Ferdinand) is her negative - 3/4 Angus, 1/4 Jersey.

We have several things in common, you and I. My DH is a 'reformed' city boy I home school my son and I have begun to 'return to my roots' and get back to farming. I look forward to following along with your journal!

Cindi

 

[heatherlynnky]

I am working on getting a picture of her now. She is not as fat and happy as I would like but she will be. The people we got her from, we got our Bessie from also. Give her a month and she will be shining with health. She is a little doll though. She already had her first bottle with us and her first dose of probiotics. Mom already ran a fecal over to the vet just so we can have some basic knowledge on any issues. I know she has a bit of the runs already. Bessie had parasite issues when we first got her also, but the vet took care of that pretty quick. For the most part I think she just did not get fed enough. She was one of 2 females in a group of about a dozen bull calves. Bessie was smallish when we got her too and now she is a beautiful big girl.

Speaking of my beautiful big girl, we figured out why she started crying last night and knocked my son over this morning. I gave her a bit of extra feed and was rubbing her belly a bit. Off chance looked at her rear and just knew she was i heat. Turned my back on her to yell that out to my mom and Bessie tried to mount me. I am very very sore now but relieved this is only temporary and hopefully she will be my big sweet girl again soon. We talked about it and we are just going to deal with these heats till March or April and then get her bred. She is very very unhappy right now with no bull. Hoping the gate can stand up to her pushing against it.

For now our self sufficient little farm is settling in for the holidays. I will finish any running that must be done tomorrow and then its home till next week for us. Stocked up on food and movies. We are ready for a bit of solitude and thankfulness.

Betsy

Betty

Hot Wheels Holly

Crystal

Olivia

Bessie ( I would like to add for a full jersey she is pretty fat and happy)

Blossom ( our new baby girl 3/4 angus 1/4 jersey and only 2 weeks old. We will probably bottle feed her till she hits 10 weeks or so and I would bet by then she will be as peppy, affectionate and pretty as my Bessie girl)

 

[BarredBuff]

Nice cattle and goats! This year as many will testify, I had a goat with a baby for a week, which might possibly have been the worst of my summer. But oh well, I wasn't ready or prepared for it. Then (before that) for my 16th birthday this year, I wanted a Jersey heifer calf to raise and use as a family cow. Well I had one for 12 hours, and it mysteriously died. But my dream still lives on, and maybe when I move to my own homestead in the next 10 years it will happen. Meanwhile, I love seeing your pictures!

 

[heatherlynnky]

It took several years of me showing my parents, husband and kids pictures to get people on board with the idea. Goats was going no where till I made an ultimatum. I either got a goat baby or a real baby but one of those was going to show up. They voted on the goat baby. Of course you can't get just one. So my poor Minka had to have a friend, unfortuneately she died. She had not gotten colostrum soon enough and all the work I put into her was not enough. So then I had Minka's little friend Holly all by herself. Not that she was sad or lonely because I sat out there for hours playing goat with her. The kids would come out and play with us too. I knew she still needed a friend though and someone on backyardherds was very kind and helpful and offered to sell me 2 of her girls. So Crystal and Olivia came to stay. They are honestly 2 of the sweetest little goats alive I think. Love them to pieces. Then I want milk but was afraid to breed Olivia and Crystal because they are a bit small still, so I bought 2 pregnant goats who are just about as onery as they can be. I love them and every once in a while they allow me a quick cuddle or a pet but they are not as tame as all my bottle baby girls.

During that whole mess my parents thought it would be cool to surprise me with a Jersey heifer. ( another thing I had been asking for, I had been showing pictures for a few years when they surprised me) We got Bessie and she was not in the best shape. She has such bad runs and was so undersized. But lots of food, vet bills and love later she is my gorgeous insane heifer. She just hit heifer puberty today and is not taking it well( hence the insane). Poor thing has just about moo'd herself hoarse. She has gone none stop for 24 hours. I am told it will be over very soon and she will get back to being herself.

Anywho then we got bobby the bull which was a stupid idea from the start but my dad wanted to do it and we went along with it. We ended up selling him to a great home that wanted a pet/ servicing bull. They had a bottle baby bull before but had it put down after 13 years ( something wrong with it) Anywho she wanted another and i agreed to sell her bobby. So today we took the money from bobby and grabbed this gal. I knew she was in a little rough shape but she can be saved i think. The vet already ran fecals and did something with some snot we collected. We are to watch her breathing for now but right off the bat we are starting treatment for E coli and scours. She is of course a bottle baby, so I am adding her probiotic powder in her milk replacer. Tonight she is locked in the hay barn on a thick pad of straw. I am going to go out with another bottle at 9 and then tuck her in with a baby blanket and hopefully not go check on her too many times during the night.

Anywho for tonight its all under control. I have my oldest with a severe ear infection and she is supposed to be up and getting ready for another performance at the school tomorrow. Praying this ear infection improves. I already did the ear drops, tylenol and benedryl. Nothing more I can do. After this its a trip to the immediate care center. Not sure how she is going to pull off her schedule tomorrow in the shape she is in. Thankfully my husband starts a mini vacation tomorrow and he will be available to help a bit more. Mom is falling so far behind I am not sure how I will catch up without help.

Oh but don't think i am not thankful. Already made a date with the hubby to take at least 10 minutes outside to admire the stars and reflect on how great this year has been ( I am thankful even for the hard stuff, we really developed this year I think)

 

[BarredBuff]

Well as that song goes "if what doesn't kill us makes us stronger" and that is the truth if we didnt have the trying bad things then how would the good things remind us how good God is? And then we would cherish the lessons we gleaned from it. Just my thoughts for the day...

 

[heatherlynnky]

I am so tired. I keep asking my husband if its normal to be this tired ( I worry I am not aging well). His response is " No, but then neither is the amount of work you get done." Nice thing to hear. I hope he is right. Thanksgiving is just a couple days off now. I have one floor of the house clean, 2 loads of laundry washed and put away another 4 i did yesterday. I got the oldest kids room cleaned up( they clean but I always do it myself before family visits). Scrubbed down the kitched. Got oldest DD to her dance performance. So far so good. My husband and son went with my father to do firewood, then hopefully they are coming back to finish winterizing the rest of the chicken barn and clean out the cow and goat stalls for me. I am not starting cooking until tomorrow, so I think I will get everything else done today. I have 2 bathrooms still to tackle ( ugggg). We have 35 people over Thursday so really every bathroom is needed.

Trying to keep my mom from over doing it and that is not going well. She has developed a bit of an odd cough which has her worried. I think a trip to the doctor is warranted. Everyone has bronchitis so it may be nothing but when parents are older I swear you worry about them as much as your children. Even with medicare and another insurance they struggle to get doctors to do what is needed. No one wants to pay anything and so my parents avoid going. Not ideal at all, it ends up taking me going to each appointment and really being a bulldog style advocate to get them taken care of. One of those things they do not tell you when you decide to take care of your parents. Mom and Dad are horrible about slowing down though. No amount of work I get done seems to slow them down, they just make up more work to get done so they can keep running around like mad.

Our new girl Blossom is doing well. She is still isolated from the others till we know she is ok and has nothing to spread. She has to get another set of shots tomorrow. Not sure what we are giving her but its the result of the stool sample we sent to the vet. 2 shots every other day. She is a lot more active today and is eating well. A bit more perky but that is probably the little bit of molassas i put in her milk. Our last calf did so well with it, I decided to treat her the same. I have to go out shortly and check on her again, check her poo and such. We are keeping an eye on the scours situation but the vet does not yet want us to give her any of the scours liquid. He gave us something that will treat the cause of it and he said just make sure she drinks her full bottles. I think she will be a great little heifer some day but for now she is the spoiled baby. My son has taken to walking her around with him each time he goes out to get her used to it. She is more than willing.

Stopped by Walgreens to start on stocking stuffers. My mom is just doing stockings for all the kids, so I have 11 stockings to get done. I hate shopping during the holidays so I am attempting to get all this done before tomorrow. I am already done with my shopping, so now I am moving on to hers. I had to go to 2 different ones to get enough of something I wanted and ended up with 2 coupons for $10 of if I spent $35. Perfect. I set aside $60 to help my nephews family out with some gifts. They have 4 littles themselves and on a small income it gets tight. Anywho, Walgreens has the 3 for $13 deals. So I buy 9 of those toys. Thats $39 then get $10 off right. I do that twice and I can put 18 gifts under their tree for $60. So on top of regular discount then I get $20 off the top as long as I split the purchase in 2. WOOT. Boggles my husbands mind how I try to work all this out but I have to stretch things every way I can so that I can afford to help everyone out I want to. We have one income which makes helping out a challenge at times. Being frugal makes it possible thankfully. Now i just need to find a way to get a really nice family picture made on the super cheap side and I have the holidays settled and on budget.

Ahh well, its time to scrub some toilets and straighten some bookshelves and then off to pick up DD and to the craft store real fast ( making a pretty centerpiece out of a foam cone, a bit of ribbon, and the pods from cotton plants). Then I guess some more afternoon chores. So tired.

 

[BarredBuff]

I hope you get some rest, you make me tired

 

[the funny farm6]

love your goats! i have a lot of fun with mine.