Moss Creek Farm

It has been a slow winter so far with only one set of goat kids born.  I really thought we would have had more kids on the ground by this time.  We have been busy in the daylily field weeding and getting the daylily rows mulched in anticipation of spring.

We are planning to plant about a half of acre of highbush blueberries this spring.  I have been studying blueberry recommendations for this area and I want to choose a planting that will give me an extended blueberry season for picking!  I look forward to spring – a time of renewed growth and birth of young animals.  We are looking forward to a productive spring with the planting of a garden with many heirloom vegetables. Nothing seems to chase away the winter blues like a new seed catalog delivered in the mail.  It is wonderful to study the different plant and vegetable varieties that are available for planting!

The weatherman is calling for more snow the first of the week.  I know that I will be busy hauling in hay for the animals tomorrow.  There is satisfaction in knowing that I might be ahead of the snow and getting the hay in place for the upcoming storm.

Until next time – may the snow fall softly and the sun warm your heart.

After a long, hot and dry summer, the rains and cooler fall weather are a welcome relief.  We are busy at the farm gearing up for the breeding season for our goats and sheep.. We will be attending some fall fiber shows with our Leicester Longwool sheep.  The Leicester Longwool sheep are listed on the ALBC  ”critically endangered”  list.  It will be nice to get to some shows and mingle with other farmers and fiber enthusiasts!

We have purchased minature donkeys and will be breeding them in February.  The minature donkeys are listed on the American Livestock Breeds Conservatory (ALBC) listing on their conservation priority list.  Our farm is dedicated to the preservation of rare and historic breeds of farm animals.

This is such a busy time – we still have approximately 500 daylilies to plant and must prepare the ground for the blueberries that we will plant in the spring.  We are excited about planting the blueberries and hope that this will bring more people to the farm during peak daylily bloom!

Until next time   ……..

Brrrrrrr**** it is cold!  The temperature fell to 17 degrees F last night and is only in the 20′s now.  The goat’s are cold – standing in the pasture.  We had frozen water again today outside.  It is really a chore to keep the water  for the livestock to drink in this weather.  I had to pick up a ton of feed today.  The goats and sheep will need the extra nutrition in the mix to help with the development of embryos. I took Alex ( a foreign exchange student from the Ukraine) to a Christmas Tree farm near here.  It was the first time he has seen the process of Christmas tree harvest.  It was a really neat experience for him.  He comes to our farm from a city of 1.5 million people.  Our county only has about 20,000 people.  This is truly a different experience for this young man.  I hope he enjoys his time spent on our small farm with our family.  We are certainly learning a lot from him! I must go out to finish the afternoon chores.  Until next time.

It is a wonderful December day with just a little chill in the air and some talk of snow flurries.  The goats are staying close to the barn (maybe they know something we don’t)!  The sheep are still in the pasture grazing and seem unbothered by any signs of inclement weather. We have Olde English Southdown and Leceister Longwool Sheep and hopefully all are bred.  We are looking forward to some really nice lambs this year.  I have taken a felting class and will use the wool from the Leceister Longwools for some of my felting projects.  It gives me great satisfaction to process the wool from our own sheep into a usable product!We have been really busy on the farm.  We have about 60 does that will begin kidding the end of January.  We have the Boer meat goats, Toggenburg and Nubian dairy goats.  We make goats milk soap and lotions from our milk.  The milk from the dairy goats makes such a rich and soothing  soap and lotion.  I am really looking forward to the kidding and lambing season.  Even though it is quite tiring at the time with the nightly checks at the barn, it bring about a renewed wonder and feeling with the birth of each goat kid or lamb.  Even though I have owned sheep and goats for many years, it still bring me joy and a feeling of accomplishment when you see those kids and lambs up nursing their mothers.With that said, I now know why I am still drawn to agriculture and simply put “It is a good life”.Until next time—.

Today is really chilly when compared to the warm weekend temperatures (60′s).  Although, this would be considered a nice day for February (mid 40′s), it is a perfect day for goat kids to be born.  We have just about finished with our Boer meat goats kidding.  Our dairy does will start in March after a short break.  We had 25 does kid in a two week period with little rest for us.  We had one set of triplets born, several twins and about five singles born.  The kids are doing well and it really brings a smile to my face when I watch the kids playing with not a care in the world.  It really makes the long hours in the barn during kidding season worth it.  We had a really hectic two week period in January where we were in the barn many nights past eleven p.m. without a thought as to when we would eat supper and finish some housekeeping chores that had been neglected.   Since it is nice outside, I want to feed a little early and come in to have supper before 8:00 p.m.  I hope to have a relaxed evening with no birthing problems that need assistance at the barn.  What a nice thought!

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