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.