This is a slow time for the farm but we're still managing to come up with things to do. There's been a lot of organizing of the barn, kid barn clean out, and garden work. With all of the rain the garden has been flooding so trenches to drain the water are needed. This is to ensure that your crops don't drown. The barn is about 100 feet long and 30 feet deep with stuff that the farm has accumulated over the years. We have a tractor and about 5 accessories that can be hooked up to either haul, tear up the soil, or bundle hay. There's also feed, fencing supplies, wood, a small bike repair shop, saws, drills, pipes, lawn mowers....you get the point, there's a lot of crap. We actually bundled some tarps and put them in the rafters. I got to climb to the top and wander around like a monkey (man I miss climbing). The animal pens need to be cleaned out once a year so we finished this task. It involves removing the hay mixed with poop and other animal goodies to make way for a clean floor. I'm sure the animals would thank us if they knew how
With the joyous Hallmark-driven holiday of Valentine's Day around the corner I figure I should share some love stories that are circulating around the farm. For the past few weeks now our goats have been kidding. I posted a picture of Billy Jack on my previous post. Since then, we've had four new kids born. One of the does had triplets (one of which didn't make it) in record time. Apparently she went into labor and had the kids out in about 15 minutes! One of the new kids is named Cookie and is black and white spotted.
Goat kids are awesome to play with. They will treat you as their jungle gym if you give them the chance. Another great love story unfolding here is between a rooster, Bruce, and hen, Lady.
Bruce
Lady
We have a hand full of chickens that have learned how to get out of the gate so they wander the farm as they please. Back when Lady used to return to the coops Bruce would wander over and help get her out every morning. They would wander around near the barn and sit with each other all day long. It is a classic Milo and Otis story. Now Lady roams free and is always with her 'honey'. The last tale of love involves the rabbit folks. A few of the rabbits on the farm are preggers and are expecting anytime in the next few weeks.
Today we're putting out the first nesting box. Rabbits use these boxes to create a nest using straw that we give them. 
We hope that one morning we'll awake to some baby rabbits. In case you've never seen a rabbit eating, they look very content with life.One reason that we have to rabbits is for compost. The rabbit cage hangs mostly over an area of grass that is fertilized with their compost. The cage that they are in has a fine mesh that allows their feces to drop through where it sits. The earth beneath the rabbits is full of worms. These worms work to compost the feces and turn it into brown gold also known as compost. We then take the fresh soil and throw it onto the nearby grass. The grass is then fed to the rabbits creating a sustainable circle. It's a very easy way to teach young kids about composting.
In my last post I talked about the broken chick tractor. We have since devised a new design that will allow precipitation to run off so as to prevent excess weight being put on the structure. The chicks are happy because they have new perches that work to keep them off the ground and give those that stay on the ground more room. When they were in the barn after the rain, they were suffocating each other on a daily basis (not the best thing to wake up to). The new design can be seen below.
With life comes death. One of our does, Saxon, has had a disease called mastitis. Mastitis is a disease of the breast tissue that causes swelling and pain. In her case she got it in one of her udders. For the past week she was separated from the herd to prevent the spread of the disease. She would cry in pain all day long. Yesterday we decided to take her life, putting her at peace. She will be missed.
On Mondays and Thursdays we have class related to an aspect of the farm. Monday we had a class on soil. It sounds boring but it was really pretty interesting. We learned about the amount of worms, bacteria, fungus, and other creatures in the top 6 inches of an acre of soil as well as what role they play in the production of soil. One interesting fact is you can have up to 1000 lbs of worms in this area (keep in mind that this same area has 2 million lbs of soil total). One cool thing we saw was a picture of an earth worm dragging a leaf down to digest it below the surface. They dig tunnels and secrete the nutrients through their skin. Their tunnels act as a way for larger insects to move around in the soil more easily. We have the second part of the class in a week or two. The idea is to be able to apply the information to the farm or in your own garden. It's pretty informative stuff.
This past Monday we had a going away part for one of the live-ins. She is going to Zambia to do environmental work with the Peacecorps (which was started at the University of Michigan!). To celebrate, we decided to have a pirates and viking party.
We played full-size Battleship and had a dance party. We used four bed sheets as the grid (one for where we've already hit and one to show where ours were) and verbally said which grid we thought the 'ship' was in.
Instead of ships, we had truths or, mostly, dares put down on the mat that were given to us by the opposing team. If you got a hit, the other team had to pull a name and that person would have to follow whatever instructions were on the card. Some of these included putting a shirt on a really smelly goat, getting a fecal sample from the same goat for medical purposes, standing up every time the farm director walks in the room and saying, "Ahoy, Captain!", and, one of mine, writing a story in the suggestion box including the words Billy Jack, well pump, Jesus, my name, and diarrhea. Needless to say, it's been a pretty entertaining week.I've always heard about ear candles but had never seen one....until Tuesday. Two of the girls here decided to try it and see what they could get out of their ears. The idea is that the candle needs oxygen to burn and draws some up from your wear pulling our the wax. As the candle burns you're supposed to cut off the charred remains. The first girl decided to lie down on the couch with the candle at a slight angle out of her ear to allow us to catch the charred pieces with a cup of water. The instructions say to have a damp towel around the head and to sit up right.
The candle burned and eventually was put out. The second girl did the same thing. Everything was going well until one of the charred pieces missed the cup...and landed in her hair. When everything was said and done, she had some charred hairs and a small burn on her neck.
Kids, follow the instructions or you'll get burned!This weekend I'm going to Austin. As nice as it is being on the farm, I need some non-agrarian stimulation. With no car and the weather we've been having I haven't been able to bike around town. Also, with the cold we've been worrying about the animals more than we would normally. I will end by restating the open invitation for anyone to come out here! It's like nothing else you've ever done and worth the trip over any distance. Peace, love, and goats.
