The seed Catalogs are here!

It is so cruel to send those beautiful seed catalogs full of colorful fruits and veggies...in winter! At least here I will be able to plant things a month or more earlier than in Colorado. You can't plant there until Mother's Day. I am hoping to get some cold hardy plants in the ground by late March. I am Taking one of the pups, the boy I call Tank, to his new owner Friday. He is trading me some Hair Sheep ewes for him. They are Dorper/Katahandin crosses and are supposed to be good meat sheep. I am trading another pup for some goats. Bartering is fun.

It's almost Christmas!

I love this time of year. We got a little bit of snow so I feel very festive. All the animals are doing well. I had a great Thanksgiving with my Best friend, Crystal and her family. The kids already got one of their presents. We adopted 3 shelter cats. They are making themselves right at home. the are total love bugs. Bella my Maremma had 6 puppies. They are 6 weeks old now. They will be going home soon. I am trading 2 of them for goats and sheep.They look like baby polar bears.

     I have a ton of housework to do, I haven't made cookies, I haven't wrapped anything, I need to make more bunny cages and get some more rabbit pellets. My pigs got out of the pen and dug an amazing amount of holes in my yard. One got his tail bit off from the neighbors dog. I would normally be mad but since the pig was visiting her house I figured he deserved it. He is the one we are eating anyway but he recovered and didn't learn his lesson at all. I hope everyone has  wonderful Christmas. Be back after the Holidays...or sooner, you never know.

Yucky Day

In Colorado if it rained you were so excited because it was so rare. Here it is sort of annoying. Since last time I wrote My Maremma Dog Bella has had 6 puppies. They are so fat and fluffy. They will be 2 weeks old on Thursday and I hope their eyes open soon. I have 2 black guinea hogs. They are wilbur and Rocket J pig. They are a very rare and threatened breed so I hope to be able to breed my own next year. They are a perfect pig for small farms and homesteaders. Now I am trying to get my mind on thanksgiving and my best friend visiting.

We bought the farm!

We finally closed on the house on Friday. Then as a bonus Craig took me to get a car because I left my van in Colorado with a friend. We got a Toyota Highlander Hybrid. Even though technically it is mine, Craig will use it to commute to work to save on gas and to drive in the HOV lane. I love the new SUV but I will be using the truck during the day. I am the one who hauls stuff anyway. Speaking of which...Saturday I spent most of the day driving to pick up a bunch of bunnies.
    I got about 12 Californian Rabbits. Most of them are girls so I imagine in a month I could be swimming in Bun buns. I plan on selling the meat both as human and dried into Jerky as fancy dog treats. I will write and post pics later as i am so tired and i am heading to bed.

My Ike is home!

I have missed my dog Ike so much since I left Colorado. He is the sweetest dog ever. He is a Maremma or Italian sheepdog. He looks like a golden retriever but pure white. I was so worried he and Bella would have either forgotten me or get really mad at me for leaving them for a month. They were so happy to see me. Dogs are the most forgiving, grateful mammals on the planet. So all is good in the dog department.
    It was funny when ike got off the truck. First he kissed Bella (His Wife) for 10 minutes then he kissed me and got a belly rub.Then he went and peed on every bush and tree in the yard! I guess he owns the place now.

  In other news, I had to go to the title place and submit a ton of more paperwork and sign it all. I am going to have a permanent claw if I have to sign my name much more! Then I decided to be healthy and get my flu shot. I actually did it for the 10% off your entire purchase coupon that CVS has going. I definitely don't want the flu. No one takes care of the Mom when she gets sick.  I just realized I am exhausted. I also built a closet organizer for my son Mason's room and I moved a bunch of boxes out of the POD. If I go to bed now at 7:30 I wonder if the kids will take care of themselves for the rest of the night?

Duck Trouble

I got 10 baby ducks on Saturday and I made them a fenced shelter. As soon as I put them in they went right through the fence like it wasn't there. So My hubby and I doubled up the fence and then it was too dark to do anything else so we called it a night,
   This morning when I went to check I only counted 7 and I thought they got eaten by something or escaped. I heard quacking so I walked down to the neighbors pond and there was a duck swimming very happily. I didnt see the other 2 so i figured they were lost. A few hours later I counted 9 ducks and there was a different duck in the pond.
     So I went to the store and got a lot of small hole fencing and redid their entire enclosure. It looked great and I even put a baby pool in there so they had a pond. As I was finishing up I see the one swimming ducky coming through the grass. I grabbed him and put him in with the others. They all walked around catching bugs so I went in and got in the tub. I have a great window to look out of from the tub so I look out and what do I see?
All the frikin ducks in a single file leaving the yard!
    Soooo, tomorrow I will be hunting for all my duckies. I bet I find them in the darn pond again.


     In other news one of my doggies came home from Colorado. Bella is my female Maremma. She is pregnant from my other Maremma, Ike. He will be here in a day or so. He got sick on the way and had to stop off at the vet. She seems to really love the new house and yard. The puppies are due in a month or so. I can't wait now that I have a nice barn to whelp them in. The last time I had a litter of Ike puppies there were in my laundry room and after a few weeks having 8, 40lb puppies was a LOT of work. A barn will be better.

Rain Rain...Go away

Ok, as a farmer it seems very wrong to be tired of rain, especially coming from Colorado. But in the last week we have had over 8 inches of rain and it just rains all day without letting up. The good thing is that there doesn't seem to be any large areas of standing water. I have been in touch with a few goat and sheep breeders. I want to start raising Hair sheep like Dorpers, Katahdin, and possibly some other hair breeds. They don't need shearing and they are very meaty. As for meat Goats I think i will stick to Boers, Kikos, and Fainting Goats.The market for meat goats and sheep is very high and we have to import over 70% of them to America. I don't know how many I will get before winter. I really want to concentrate on getting the alpacas out here first. I am also getting a guinea hog. he is so cute. We will probably fall in love with the little porker and have to use him as a stud instead of eating him.

So Much to update!

I know suck at updating. A lot has happened in a short period of time so I will explain...No there is too much, let me sum up. Instead of moving to Colorado Springs as planned we ended up in Warrenton, VA. I was very against the move at first. I couldn't stand the thought of leaving my farm partner Colleen. We are here now and I have to say it is one of the prettiest places I have ever seen. It is so green and full of trees. I can not wait until fall to see the leaves.
   i do miss Colorado and my friends. I am trying to figure a way to get all my animals out here too. It is not easy to move 20+ alpacas and goats and dogs and ducks and everything else out here. I am also still unpacking. This is a smaller house than we had but twice the land and the barn is so nice. I will continue updating as I finish settling in and start my farm back up.

Ah...June.

It seemed that we went straight from winter into summer this year. When you go from 50's to 80's in a day it can be very shocking to your system. I prefer the cool weather but my farming partner loves the heat. Needless to say one of us is usually grumpy about the weather but not at the same time. I might not hate the heat as much as I detest the wind here. I lost the roof off my 2nd barn a month or so ago. I had to move all the alpacas over to Colleen's house so a certain nosy person in the neighborhood wouldn't call the humane society on me.
     We lived through shearing day, again. Ivan does a great job and it is actually fun but a ton of work. I had cut my hand up on fencing even before we started. An accident prone farmer is a scary thing. It went pretty smoothly and we finished up relatively unscathed.  Now i have a lot of skinny, pipe cleaner looking animals. They look pretty hilarious!
    Since my brother's wedding in early april my family has been dealing with my dad being very sick. He has spent the last 2 months in and out of ICU and a rehab nursing home. He is only 57 and it is very hard to see him go through all this. He really isn't going to recover from all his medical issues but I don't want him to suffer. He seems relatively stable now and will prob go home until he falls and we have to take him back to the hospital again.
   Planting this year has really been a challenge because of the weather. I have put everything into pots this year so that if we move to a bigger place I can just bring them all with me. I hate the thought of leaving all my fruit trees I planted over the years but I guess it can't be helped. I have never lived anywhere this long, it will be 5 years in August. It will be hard to leave but I sure do want some more acreage for my critters to roam.

Why I have not written anything lately

Well I got really mad because I had linked to Amazon as an affiliate but because of Colorado charging sales tax they wouldn't let me. Hopefully there will be other affiliates that won't mind the sales tax thing. I also just got back my Sony Vaio Laptop. I have had to have it fixed like 3 times in a year.It is really making me mad and if it breaks again I may just go with another laptop.
    On the farming side, The weather has been terrible. I have not been able to plant because of the cold. I had all the seedlings in my window and the cats either ate most of them or layed on them until they were flat. Still, I am keeping up the hope that I will be able to plant this weekend. I have several seedlings left so maybe I will have some success. I am doing great with the animals. We still have a lot of beef left from Spot and eggs everyday and a lot of milk. Now if I can get a few tomatoes, lettuce, beans and cucumbers I will be a happy camper.

So much to do...

   Well it has been a very productive day. I did not get more than 2 hours of sleep last night but after getting the kids off to school I got on my overalls and went to work. You know you are addicted to farming when standing ankle deep in soil and alpaca poo makes you happy. At least I was happy until I accidentally cut my headphones in half with my pruning shears! I did get my spring garden plowed up with fresh soil and compost and later today I plan to plant my cold weather veggies.
   In other news my new milk cow is in labor. I am praying for a safe delivery, she is a small cow and I am afraid this first calf will be hard for her. I am excited abut having the extra milk, both for our customers and for us. I want to make cheese and you need a good amount of milk to do that. I am very good at making 30 minute mozzarella. I am going to make some tonight and have it with tomatoes. I love Caprese salad.
   I have a fancy wedding to go to soon. This means no farm clothes plus I probably have to wear heels. Still it is my little brothers wedding so I am happy to go. I am having no luck finding a dress though. It will be good to see all my brothers. i have 4 of them and they are spread out, both in America and overseas so it is special whenever we can get together.
   Now that I have had lunch I think I am going to take a nap before I plant. No sleep is catching up with me.

Tattoo cont.

I picked snowflakes for part of my tattoo because I adore watching snow fall. I am watching it right now actually. It makes me feel so cozy and calm. I added the black design to be a little bolder than just snowflakes.  I will post a pic as soon as it heals. It is itching like Crazy!!! It hurt quite a bit but the last 10 minutes were plain torture. It took 2 hours total and it looks great according to Hubby.
   We celebrated both My 14 yr old son, Jack and my Husband Craig's birthday on the 15th. Craig turned 40 so it was a big one. I made him a thanksgiving type dinner from one of our own farm turkeys and his sister Staci and her Husband Richard came up for a visit. It was fun but what did my extremely smart, hardworking husband want for his 40th birthday??? An Xbox and Modern Warfare 2 so he could play against our 8 yr old. He still can't beat him but he has spent MANY hours trying to. I am an X box widow. I have had a pretty bad cold for a few days now so I am just happy they are keeping busy and not bugging me.
  We have a new cow named Coco. She is so cute and chocolate colored. She is way pregnant and we can't wait to add her to our dairy but she is a little skittish. We are feeding her lots of treats and petting her so hopefully she will be calmer after she has the baby and it is time to milk her. I have sold 3 milk goats this week so I am feeling rather like a farmer now. It is nice to see some money coming in instead of constantly going out. Still, farming isn't about money to Colleen and I. We just want good food to be available for our families and customers.

The Tattoo

So my Co-Farmers daughter Kim just turned 16. A year ago she bought a feeder cow with her own money that she was planning to feed and keep for a year then sell for meat. Well she started getting attached to "Spot" and by the time she was done bottle feeding him she didn't want to eat him. Her mom and I plus farmers everywhere understand this predicament. six months later Kim was ok with selling him because she almost never saw him on a day to day basis but she still didn't want us eating him. Her mom made a deal with her that if she let us have spot without fussing Kim would be allowed to get a tattoo on her 16th birthday.
    This Made me happy for 2 reasons. Fist when I met Kim 3 years ago I jokingly told her I would be the like the Aunt who took her to get her first tattoo. Her mom was very "Over My Dead Body". How far Colleen has come. I am very proud. Second I thought it would be a good time for me to get another tattoo. I haven't had one since I was 19 and I had that removed after I had 2 kids and it had expanded like a Lion Balloon then deflated. Ladies, Never get a tattoo on your stomach before you have kids.
     My Hubby was actually excited and wanted me to get a Tramp Stamp. You know, that tattoo on the back right above the underwear. I wanted it where it would be covered up if I had to go be professional so the back was a good place. It was hard picking a design. I wanted something that represented me, like an alpaca or a pink tractor, not something trite like a butterfly. I finally picked the design and the big day was yesterday. I will give you the whole story in painful detail when I return.

Trash Day

I really have a love/hate thing going with Tuesdays. On one hand I love getting all the trash out of the house. On the other I hate dragging all those heavy trash cans down my very long driveway and if I  miss the garbage men (who come way to early) Then I have to wait a whole week to do it again.
    I got into a big fight with Hubby last week over trash. I was already up so I took out all of the trash and let him sleep. Then fed all the animals and came in and made him coffee and breakfast. After all that he got mad at me because the kitchen was messy. I went off on him big time. I said if I am doing all his chores plus making him breakfast and getting the kids off to school, the least he could do is shut up and clean the kitchen. He actually realized he was wrong and took me out to cheer me up. It worked.

I Went Skiing!!!!

I know that doesn't seem monumental but for me it is. My feet are so damaged from the army that for the last 3 years skiing has felt like my feet were being burned off. Yesterday I tried snowblading, with very short skiis, and wider boots and I was able to ski! It still hurt but like a 4 instead of an unbearable 12. That is on a scale of 10. I was able to ski with my almost 9 year old and that was so fun. He is amazing, just zooming down the mountain.He called me a slowpoke but i was skiing behind him to see how well he could ski. After i saw that he was fine I took off and passed him and he was so surprised! After the fun of that I came home to find out that my septic tank has backed up into my basement tub. Gross! I called the septic people and they will be out tomorrow. I guess you have to take the good with the bad. If it is between skiing and plumbing well it really is not as easy a decision as you might think.

This is a great book

I recently met this author and I really liked him. He does a great job telling of the struggle Raw Milk Farmers are having with the Government and  How we have to fight to have the right to choose what we want to eat. Read this and you will know how hard it is to do what Colleen and I do.

Old posts from website

Feb 20, 2010
 I am adding thses blogs from the past. They were on my website www.freespiritfarmcolorado.com. Enjoy!

Feb 19, 2010

You know how you never feel more like a parent than when your child is throwing up at 2 AM? Well you never feel more like a farmer than feeding triplet goat kids in the dark while it is snowing. I love it though and prefer freezing and being covered in milk and Who knows what else to any sort of paperwork. I feel called to farming in a way that I used to feel called to work in the pediatric ER. I got my new chicks or Peeps as I like to call them, on Tuesday. They were supposed to be delivered on Monday but it was a holiday so by the time I got them most were already dead. Thankfully Mcmurry Hatchery will replace the dead ones. They are a good company. I also ordered my Muscovy Ducks but they wont be ready until June. They are ugly as sin but they are good eating, less fatty than other ducks and they reproduce and lay eggs well.  I also want some Sebastopol Geese but they are sooo expensive, but beautiful. All the rest of my animals are fine. I have 8 baby goats, and 3 fainting goats that I just added. I will be looking to get some boer goats soon for meat. We processed out meat cow a few weeks ago and I am thrilled with how it turned out. I recommend grass fed, clean processed beef for any meat eater out there. Our Milk cow rosie is having a small bout of mastitis in one of her quarters, so we are treating her for that and we won't be able to drink her milk for 4 days...UGH! Plastic milk is disgusting and we will just go without until Tuesday. I just got into the show Lost, so I am watching it on DVD. I am on season 2, it is very good, so I am going to go now.
    

Jan 21, 2010

Ah... A new year. Since I haven't updated since september here is a short recap. I have 4 wonderful alpaca babies. One girl, Gweniver, and 3 boys, Aston Martin, Ace and Jose Cuervo. They are adorable and I will post pics soon. Last night and today we had 5 baby goats. 4 boys and a girl. Mia is the last milk goat to kid. It will be very soon. We may have some pregnant boer goats but it is still hard to tell. We have 2 milk customers for the cow, so she is feeding 4 families. Not bad for 1 cow. Now that the goats are kidding we will be milking them soon. The alpaca breeding went well and I believe at least 3 are pregnant. Any other breedings will happen in early summer. We don't want any babies born during a blizzard if we can help it. I thought we might have to move to Virginia for my Hubby's job but he got a better offer in Co springs so we don't have to move! Hopefully the house will sell in Summer and we can look for our ranch. That will be so exciting. Christmas was wonderful because Not only was my Husband home from overseas but my youngest brother came home too. I hope neither one has to go back. We got the inside of the house painted and it looks great. Can't wait to get the rest of the things done around the house. It is so hard to look at all the snow here and know I am too injured to ski, so I am going to try to learn to ski in a special chair or on a bike. If I do not kill myself maybe I will be able to enjoy skiing again. My favorite show, Burn Notice, is on so I will update again soon.

September 21, 2009

So even though the leaves haven't turned colors and fell off the trees yet, I am actually looking at our first snow of the Fall/Winter. It is the earliest I have ever seen. It just tickles me to see it too, I love snow and snow days. I just don't expect them in September!
I have decided that October will be the month I write a diary and I will post it. I am horrible about updating so that will be a challenge. There isn't a lot to do in october either but I do want to get some food canned and make some jelly and cheese so I can at least document that.  I did get some corn the other day and it was delicious.  So this year I can add growing corn successfully and milking a cow to my list of new things. Craig seems to be doing well in Africa and has his own bathroom over there. That is a thrill to him because now there are no more midnight treks in the desert to answer nature's call.

September 8, 2009

Well Fall is almost here. I love fall. so what have we done since summer started? Well I got a few tomatoes, blueberries, cherries and apples this year. The birds stole the rest. That was nice to get something though. I may have some corn soon. I would be happy with an ear or two. I have planted a fall garden of brussel sprouts, cauliflower, and carrots. I plan on putting greenhouse panels on my barn frame so I will be able to grow in the fall and winter, I hope. I have planted over 20 trees including maple, cottonwood, willow and apple. I love red leaves in the fall. I have 4 new baby alpacas and a new girl. Belle has a very promising son from Axion Jaxion, Meg had a boy named Ace, Spirit had a boy named Aston Martin and Espy's girl is Gweniver.  The little boys have a lot of potential and I can't wait to see them grow.  All the girls will be bred in about a week, that should be a real hoot! Craig is heading to Africa for awhile. After that who knows where he will go? We had a good summer of goat milking and now we have bred them and drying them up. Our cow Rosie has us drowning in milk so no need to get any from the store. I have become very good at making Mozzarella cheese and butter. I want to make hard cheese but it takes so looong. I really want to move to more acreage with some good barns and outbuildings. I will have to get the house ready for selling and that should take about 6 months and over 10k. I do love this house but I want to have all my animals in one place. The boys have started school. Jack is in 8th and Mason is in 3rd. I can not believe my kids are getting so old, and they are dragging me with them! Tomorrow is My 14th anniversary. I am in shock, more because Craig is actually here. I think this is the 5th anniversay we have been together. We are going out to eat at a cool restaurant where you cook your food on a 1000 degree lava rock. Other than that we have both boys down with the flu so we won't be parting too hard. I will probably be writing soon but knowing me it may be awhile.


June 5, 2009

Well I suck at updating , I know but I have been busy. I went to farm school in Washington State and it was Awesome! Not only did I learn so much stuff like making cheese, jelly, grafting trees, and eating what I previously thought were weeds, but I met some of the Best people. We had a chef making all of our meals and I think I ate like 18 lbs of bread. It was soooo yummy. My alpaca, Espy, had a baby girl and both mom and baby are doing well.  Our cow, Rosie, had a baby calf also a girl. Lucy is very cute. Rosie will be bred to a mini Jersey stud so we can eventually have mini Cows! I have been so busy in the garden. Farm school inspired me to come home and work like a dog. So I have planted all kinds of flowers and veggies. My fruit trees have been doing well until the long necked goats (alpacas) ate the dang leaves off most of them. UGH! hopefully I will still get some fruit. Milking has been going well. We joined the Raw Milk Association of colorado so we can sell our goat and cow milk raw. I have made a lot of goat mozzarella. it is so easy and very mild, not goaty. Can't wait to try making stuff out of the cow milk. We have had so much rain in the last 2 weeks. It is so green. I thought I was looking out the window at Dublin. My pastures are finally growing back so I will have some alpaca munchies by mid summer. Kids are out of school and Craig is headed back to afganistan again. I have the gardens and the animals to keep me busy though. I will write again in a few days...or weeks if I can remember Darn ADD I keep getting distracted by shiny things.

May 1, 2009

Well since the last updating we have had wet weather every weekend. I can not complain because we need the rain or snow, as the case may be, very much. I had 30 trees planted last thursday. Actually they were like big twigs. Well we were supposed to get rain the whole weekend but there was none friday or saturday. So since sunday was so sunny  I loaded my van with containers of water and compost. Of course I spilled a ton of it in my van, but i got all 30 trees watered by hand. About 3 hours later it started raining and then we got 4 inches of snow!  Oh well, At least the trees are really well watered. I have sold 6 puppies and I have 2 left. They all have gone to really good homes. I am happy about that but it is always sad to say goodbye to a puppy. Today started out good... craig and I took a puppy to his new home, the did some errands and went out to eat. then when we got home one of our sweet young alpacas was sick and laying down in the field. I couldn't get any vet on the phone because it was 5 PM on a saturday, and despite trying to revive her Karina died. We are all mourning. She had a lot of potential to be a great award winning animal and it is such a loss.  On a good note though my little goaty, Leroy, found a great home with a nice lady named Dawn. I think he will be spoiled beyond belief over there. I am so glad when one of my animals can go to someone who will love them. Our Jersey cow will be here monday. Rosie will be having her calf in June then we will have some delicious milk and cheese and yogurt. I think between the cow and the goats we will have milk coming out our ears. If anyone out there needs some fresh, clean, beyond organic milk you know where to find me.


April 13, 2009

I seriously can not belive how fast time goes until I write the date here.  Mason had his 8th birthday. He got a 4 wheeler and he is putting it together with my dad. It is really sweet. I think I will wrap him in bubble wrap when he rides it. 4 of the 8 pups have found their new homes. I can't wait to see them grow. I made everyone promise to email me pics as they get bigger. I have a bottle baby goat that is running around my house like a nut. He was a triplet but he is the only one who lived.  At least I know next time to take the babies away and feed them because Mia didn't do so good at it.  We are getting milk out our ears now so I guess we will join the raw milk association so we can share the joy of goat milk eith others. it really is good and sure tastes better than the soy I have been drinking  for 10 years. I have had a long day and I have just been dissapointed by my favorite show HOUSE so I think I will call it a night.

March 28, 2009

I really need to update more and I am sorry. Since The last time I updated we have Had Jack's 13th birthday. Craig came home from another business trip, we finally got a good snowfall, The inlaws came to visit and we had an early 8th birthday for Mason. Oh and I crashed Craig's truck into the frikin' mailroom! I will post a pic as soon as I can. All the animals are doing well, except my new peeps did not make it. I do't know what happened there since I have been raising chicks for 3 years and I have never had them die like that. My replacements will be here this week so I will try harder this time. I am looking foward to spring really coming and getting some plants in the ground. I realy hope to get some fruit from my trees this year. We got some new neighbors, Quincy, Kelly and their kids. I sure hope they like animals.  I think they will be a good addition to the neighborhood. They seem really friendly and they have a boy Jack's age so hopefully they can play together. Quincy even dug my dad out when he drove his SUV into the ditch after the snowstorm.Thats a nice way to meet a neighbor! Thank you Q! Colleen took the boy goats away from their mom's a few days ago and now my nubians are giving me twice as much milk or even 3 times. Those boys were stealing all my milk! from the size of them i will need to look up some good goat recipies in a few months. I will write again soon. Promise.

Jan 20, 2009

This has been a rough week for me. My poor mom got really sick tuesday morning and i made her go to the ER. It was a good thing she went because it turned out to be an abdominal aortic aneurysm. She had emergency surgery and spent 3 days in ICU. She is still in the hospital but doing much better. Thank You SKY RIDGE MEDICAL CENTER for taking such good care of my mom. As if that wasn't enough my dog had 8 puppies saturday morning. Thankfully all of the puppies are healthy and sooo cute. Lakota my Shiloh Shepherd turned out to be a good mom. Sunday Colleen and I took the kids to idaho Springs to pick up some brewers's grain to feed out animals. It will hopefully cut down on out feed expenses this year. Monday my Husband Craig had to go get a mole biopsy, but the doc said it was probably nothing. We will see. We have been having really nice warm weather so I really need to clean the pasture. There is always so much work to be done.

Jan 22, 2009

It is one thing after another here. The good stuff: I was able to get my mom out of the hospital. She was so doped up that she was hallucinating and it was soooo funny. Also, I had 3 baby goats born yesterday. I actually had a wierd day dream that they would be born that day, I am a psycho...I mean psychic. The bad news: my stupid van decided to die on me as I was taking my kids to school. So I had to have it towed back to my house and I have no idea what it will cost to get it fixed. I wanted to trade the darn thing in anyway for a SUV but I decided to wait until we had refinanced the house. So that plan has gone a bit south. Oh well God gives us the good and the bad and we roll with it. I am actually blessed beyond words.

Jan 26 2009

I had 2 more goats both girls. But then we had a pregnant goat and her babies die. It is always good with bad. I am so looking foward to getting some milk for us soon. The babies will get all of it for a week or two then we will start milking for the humans. Nubian milk is quite tasty and makes some darn good ice cream. we will be selling Milk shares in a week or so after we get the production up.

Jan 31, 2009

I did a ton of work today! I went to Idaho Springs wich is about 1.5 hours away and scooped a pick up truck full of beer grain. We use it to feed the animals. It is very heavy when it is wet. Then I came home and scooped alpaca poo for about 2 hours until it got dark. I can barely lift my arms but at least I won't feel guilty for eating a lot of superbowl snacks. I am not into football but I am  all about the snacks. My puppies are 2 weeks old today. They have opened their eyes and are such little fat things. I will put up a pic tomorrow. At this point I can not imagine letting any of them go but if I kept them along with their mom and dad I would literally have a half ton of dogs! That's a little much. My total baby goats is 7, 4 girls and 3 boys. I gave one baby girl to colleen because she nursed it back to life after amost dying twice! Her name is flopsy and she is now a bottle baby and just Looooves Colleen. My last pregnant girl isn't due for awhile.  In a month or so we will have baby goaties all over the place.

Feb 21, 2009

I haven't written in a while but i have been very busy. The Pups are 5 weeks old today! They are so cute and puffy and snuggly. I can't believe how fast they grew. I will be working on finding them good homes in the next 3 weeks. They were in the laundry room but after being up all night with with the yippers, I moved them to the garage with a nice cozy area and within hours it was all torn up and poopy. 8 puppies are way more messy that I thought. We have had some really nice weather lately so I moved all of them into the dog run so they could have some sun and dirt and some more room to move around. They really liked it. I took craig over to see the goaties today. he had never seen the babies and they loved him!

Craig with Flopsy

Is it Friday yet?

I have been working my butt off this week. My farm partner had to go away for almost a week so I had to do all the milking myself. Thankfully one of our milk customers came over in the morning and helped me. I loaned Colleen's son Eric my car so he took my son to school and picked him up. That was a huge help. Saturday I went to a great Raw Milk Association of Colorado (RMAC) meeting with colleen. We got lots of information about the Colorado slow food movement and all kinds of healthy foods. I ate the best raisin bread I have ever tasted and got to hear a great author speak about investigating how the Government treats Raw milk farmers like crack dealers. It is very sad and anger inducing to read about. It sure was nice to be around other people who don't think you are some crazy hippie because you farm and drink raw milk. When you swap stories of how to process your own chickens, and how you milk your goats and cows and no one is looking at you funny it is a very freeing feeling. On the way home we stopped and picked up my new Maremma Puppy. Her name is Bella, NO, not from twilight but from Bellisima because she is an Italian Sheepdog. She is to be a friend for my Other Maremma, Ike. He is so happy to have a playmate. The cats don't really care for having their butts sniffed by a 100lb dog for some reason. My husband has been keeping me up waaay past my 11 pm bedtime. Normally I am the night owl but not that I get up at 5:30 am and work my butt off, I am pretty tired at night. We are watching a Lost marathon. I didn't want to watch it when it first came out but I am hooked now. I am off to bed.

Busy Day

I got up at my regular time 5:30 am and got the grumpy 13yr old up and ready for school. Then I got the 8 yr old up and we had to make fresh juice because I promised him yesterday that we would. We made orange, pineapple, grape juice and it was very good. I love fresh juice. So I got him off to school then I had a terrible headache but I still had goats, cats, chicks, chickens, and a dog to feed. I set the coffee pot to start at 7 am and I forgot about it so as I was walking by it it started grinding the beans and scared the bejesus out of me. I went upstairs and geve hubby a cup of coffee and then slept until 11 am. I still felt crappy so Craif took me for a massage and a little lunch. That made me feel much better so I did all my evening chores,cleaned out the chick pen, milked the cow and goat with colleen then made a good dinner. Now I feel  pretty good about myself. I always feel better when I do a lot of work.

Started slow but got better

After staying up way too late because the hubby had to watch tv, I got up at 5:30 to get my oldest off to school. He very adamantly wanted a snow day but here we have to have like 6 inches or more to even consider it so no go on that. The poor guy has to ride an hour and a half each way to school  but it is a therapeutic behavior school so he needs it. He can't seem to handle a large class so this school is very small, has constant supervision and is all on computers so it is the right fit for him. So I went back to sleep and had to drive my younger son, mason to school and it was snowy and icy and lets just say the drive didn't go well. Then I had to talk to the principal about how many absences Jack has had. Its been a lot. I was relieved to have that part over so I calmed down while browsing my favorite ranch store Big R. Got some chick equiptment then went to the post offie and picked up my 40 replacement chicks. I ordered 50 a week ago but they came on Presidents day and I couldn't get them so most of them died. I got them home and fed and watered then fed my triplet baby goats and got eggs. I just now got a nice hot shower and I think I will relax for a few minutes until I have to go pick up mason from school. Then I have to get started on my Evening chores. 

Getting the hang of it

Ok, so I posted a link on my website www.freespiritfarmcolorado.com so my friends and family can find this blog. So to get started for real I will explain more about me, the farm projects I am doing and several other topics including how the USDA hates small farms and it adamant against people drinking raw milk. I am also going to put the previous posts I added to my website just so they can all be in one place. I am deeply interested in small farming practices. The buzz word these days is "green" Living (Which although I support the word is just annoying and overused). I prefer the word "Sustainable". That is what I want for my farm and family. I want to be able to produce most of my food, and eventually have as much alternative energy sources. Living in Colorado I should have no problem with using solar and wind, which we have plenty of. Most of this stuff in new to me so I am learning as I go. Most of the time I mess up and have to redo everything but it is funny sometimes and tragic other times. Farming is hard as I am sure most people know but it is also so rewarding that I can not imagine not doing it. I feel called to farm and to provide healthy food for my family and then to the public. Thankfully I have met my farming soul mate in my neighbor Colleen. I met her one day while walking my dog and she was pulling all these multicolored kids out of her van, like a clown car. I asked her if they were all hers and she told me some were fosters, some biological and one adopted. That really struck a chord with me as I have always wanted to adopt a child. I made cookies for her family and then she made some for mine and then we became great friends. It really rocks that she is also a Psychologist because my entire family including me is nuts! I have saved a ton of money because of all the free therapy she gives me. Must take a break then I will get back to the story.

I still don't get it

Ok, so I have a blog on my website www.freespiritfarmcolorado.com. I don't think I am doing it right so I started a new one. That one has the longest name ever and it is not on my website so I don't think I am doing that right either. My super genius husband can fix a network and a ton of other computer things but has no clue about blogs. So I will be looking around the internet for help then if I don't figure it out I will call Godaddy and ask them. I hate not knowing how to do something. Eventually I will figure this out and I will be able to blog about all the nutty things that go on as I try to run a farm.