Farm Fresh: Hatching eggs

We spent a lot of time on Thursday just staring at this incubator.

 The little cracks widened until finally a wet chick popped out.

 Here is the incubator right before I opened the lid to transfer the chicks to the brooder. (The last three days of incubation are called "lockdown" because you are not supposed to open the lid, lest you ruin the hatching). 

Over the course of about 36 hours, 20 of the 21 eggs in the incubator hatched. 

 It is so miraculous to put in a bunch of regular every day eggs from our chickens and then see chicks popping out 21 days later.

Visiting Yorktown Buddies

 It is great to have good friends -- these are the kind of friends that you can just hang out with for 4 days with no particular plans, but you never get bored or run out of things to talk about. 

 They shared some of their favorite games and homeschool activities with us. 

 

 And of course we moms kept ourselves busy cooking, gardening, sewing, and talking decorating ideas.

 Everyone was pleased to stay an extra day because of a snowstorm.

 

Holiday Fun: St. Patrick's Day and PJ day

For St. Patricks's Day daddy brought home green krispie kreme doughnuts and made green maltomeal.

 

  We kept our Pjs on for Bruster's Ice Cream on Saturday.  Free waffle cones with 2 scoops for anyone in their pjs.

 It was sunny, but chilly. We got in the car after a few minutes on this bench.

Farm Fresh: Maple Syrup and Kittens

On Thursday I went out to the barn to find that Cinder had indeed had kittens.

 Their are three: one mostly black, one brown tabby, and one orange tabby.

Cinder is sweet mama kitty and she let us hold them today.  We moved them into the basement for a little while since it has been very cold outside and I am worried about what the dogs might unintentionally do to such tiny kittens.

 And we got our first goose eggs this week. They are extra large!

 Here are our eggs for comparison (left to right): a chicken egg, a duck egg, and a goose egg.  I candled the goose eggs that we have and I don't think any are fertile, but I will give them a couple more days to make sure.  We have some people who have been asking about buying fertile goose eggs from us. 

 Here are some of the girls taking a dust bath in the garden:

 I finally got the chicks moved outside. I partitioned the goose house to give them a home until I dispatch the extra geese.

 They were getting way too big for the basement brooder and hopefully (if all goes well with our incubator) we will be hatching some new chicks soon.

 And lastly, our good friends helped us tap the few maples that we have on our property and we are actually harvesting some sap! It is not enough to make much syrup since the ratio is 40:1, but it is fun to experience the process. 

Grandmama and Grandpa J come to visit

We had wonderful time the last 10 days or so visiting with Grandmama and Grandpa J. Big sister A jammed with Grandmama on her guitar. Grandpa J fixed a clogged sink for me and put up a new motion sensor light in the pantry.

 The power went out for about 24 hours during a big windstorm and we tested our level of emergency preparedness.

Grandmama helped with cooking, cleaning, and sewing.  She made brother S a new backpack and managed the kiddos while I sewed some Spring skirts for Miss L.

  Meanwhile, Grandpa J got a work-out! Hubby took off from work for a couple days and they got busy putting up our larger permanent garden fence. Now it is 70' x 32'.  We borrowed an auger attachment for the tractor and they got all the corner posts firmly in place.

 Then they put up the wire and ratchets to hold everything tightly.

  Then they added and used the tractor to tighten the welded wire fencing around it. They left an opening at either end for the gates. The gate in the picture below will open into the future poultry yard. That way in the fall/winter I can let the chickens et al. into the garden to till it up and eat any leftover crops.  We were approved for our high tunnel grant this week too! That means we will be installing that behind the garden as soon as we can clear out the monster stump and get the land tilled/fairly level.

 Grandmama and Grandpa J spoiled us with lots of treats.   The kids went to Macdonalds with them on the last morning before they had to leave.

Farm Love: Miss L and her puppies

 She takes the pillow out of the gazebo and lays on it with the doggies.

  In all kinds of weather...

  And today she fell asleep while she was out there.

 And I gave the pups their monthly flea&tick medicine right then because I'd rather not have any trouble with that, especially considering how much time all of us spend with them. I put it in a hot dog and they were dying to eat it.

Farm Work: Monster Stump

 Hubby had already started digging out a few stumps and could not get to them with the stump grinder. He had to finish digging them out with the tractor.

 And then there is the monster of all stumps. He already ground off some of it with the stump grinder, but it is huge! And it is in the way of our future high tunnel... so it has to go. Somehow... I suggested that we build a huge bonfire in the pit. 

 See that mound that looks like a volcano with a ditch around it?  THAT is 1/3 of the stump.

 The roots are the size of logs.