Check Out Our New Logo!

After much discussion and many, many revisions we finally have a logo for our farm! 

We wanted something that let people know we were a farm, but we really wanted to stay away from the traditional red barn and silo look - because we are sooooooooooooo not a "traditional" farm. We wanted it to show we were a family farm and that we love our animals.  We also wanted to make sure it had lots of blue sky to make people think of the perfect day!

Here is what the designer came up with:

It represents all 5 of our kids interacting with some of the animals we have here on the farm. 

Let us know what you think!

Rollercoaster - What a difference a day makes.

Yesterday morning, Lacy was not doing well. She was so weak she could not stand. By the afternoon she could not pick up her head anymore. After countless online searches trying to find anything - any site that offers a treatment - instead of just the "death typically occurs 24 - 36 hours after onset...." I finally found one little paragraph that mentioned something that might help.

Weak as she was I could not feed her. I had to give her 24 hours of nothing but water mixed with baking soda. And I was only supposed to give her 2 teaspoons of that mixture every 4 hours. An entire day with no food and minimal water. How could I be so cruel on what was probably her last day alive anyway? Well, on the hope that it will work, I was determined to try.

By the afternoon when she could not pick up her head anymore I was certain I was killing her. Really though, what choice did I have? Chances were good she was going to die anyway. So I would pick up her limp little body and wrap it in a towel and take her onto my porch and rock her in my arms as I sat in the rocking chair. Yeah, I know, some "farmer" I am turning out to be.

At 6 pm I laid Lacy outside in the flowerbed where she always liked to be when she was napping back when she was healthier. I helped Alexia with the nighttime farm chores. Around 7pm Ted and I had to leave to go to one of Preston's band concerts. I went and put down fresh towels in our bathtub (Lacy's "bedroom") and went outside to grab her so I could put her to bed before we left. She wasn't where I had left her. She was about 6 feet away - sleeping. I woke her and tried to get her to stand, she couldn't, so I assumed Quinlynn had picked her up and moved her.

This morning I did not want to check on her. I just knew she was going to be dead when I went in there. After all, she never made a sound all night.

After spending much longer than normal getting out of bed I went into the bathroom and turned on the light. I leaned over the bathtub and there she was, sleeping. I petted her back and lifted her head a little. She opened her eyes while I spoke to her. I let her head go and she held it up for only a second before it flopped back down onto her side.

I went into the kitchen and warmed up some milk for a bottle. I brought it back into the bathroom and there was Lacy - standing! Not just standing, mind you, but standing on her back two legs with her front two legs up on the edge of the bathtub and she gave this loud Baaaaaaaah! as soon as she saw the bottle.

She drank the whole thing, by herself, no tube needed. When I set her back down she walked around the tub for a little while, sniffing everything, before she turned back to me and put her front two legs back up on the side of the tub.  So, I took her outside and set her in the front yard where she immediately began walking around and chewing whatever weeds she could find.

Ok, I am not trying to get my hopes up here but WOW! What a difference a day makes. Let's just hope this wonderful change continues!

Therapeutic Interventions: How Much Is Too Much?

I have been really struggling with my conscience lately. It all revolves around the little doeling that I have blogged about before. We have named her Chantilly Lace - we call her Lacy.  When Lacy was born she weighed only about 4.5 pounds - that's about half the size of a normal, healthy goat kid.  She was immediately rejected by her mother who focused all of her attention on Lacy's sister - the 8 pound doeling we named Delilah.  I left Lacy with her mom for as long as I could stand it before I took her away to bottle feed her.  When I brought her in the house I noticed she was bleeding from her umbilical cord - more blood than I would have considered normal. Even more than I would describe as a "significant amount". I contacted our "goat mentor" and was told not to worry about it.  An hour later, with a blood soaked towel in hand, I checked out what I could find on the internet page "Goat 911" (yes, that really exists). Again, it seemed like I was the one making a big deal out of what most would consider a minor situation. The advice I found was to tie off the umbilical cord with dental floss.  I did. It slowed the blood loss down quite a bit, but it was far from stopping it.

In the meantime, I was trying to get Lacy to take a bottle. She just couldn't get the hang of it. I tried switching to different nipples. I tried warming the milk, cooling the milk - nothing. Finally I resorted to tube feeding her.  The above mentioned bleeding stopped after 3 days. After several days, she seemed to be getting stronger.   We would bring her outside and she would run and play with my children. She was your typical bouncy baby goat. Adorable. We finally got to the point where she was taking a bottle for her entire meal - no more tube feeding.

Then, a turn for the worse. She stopped being interested in eating. Taking less and less by bottle and more and more from a tube. Soon it was like all of her strength was gone and she would just lay there. When I would take her outside she would stand - wobbly - and take a few very shaky steps, and fall over. Heartbreaking. I looked it up and figured she had something called "Floppy Kid Syndrome".  A call to the vet was not reassuring when I was told "sometimes you just have to let them go".

So here is my problem. I really wanted to embrace the Nature's Harmony Farm model of letting nature take its course. But I can't seem to let this one go.  As I spend my 3 a.m.'s tube feeding, I wonder if I am doing the right thing. After all, she would not have survived long "in nature" since her mom rejected her at birth. (Obviously knowing something was seriously wrong.) Am I just prolonging her suffering? Not that it seems like she is suffering at all - but how do I know she is not suffering. I don't. And she is not telling me.

So, against my "original" intentions of not stepping in when nature is cruel - I am currently warming yet another bottle of milk and preparing to feed delicate little Lacy through a tube in the hopes that today is the day she will make a turn around. That maybe soon she can join her sister and half-brothers in the pasture and be the bouncy happy kid she deserves to be.

And yet in the back of my mind I still wonder - Is this right?

Tube Feeding a Little Doeling

Maybe it was all the training we had with our 4 preemie babies, but tube feeding this little doeling has been a breeze.  I just wish we didn't have to do it. I wish she was big and healthy like her sister.

She is progressing just like our "real" kids did when they were preemies. First it is the entire meal through a tube. After a few days, there will be some interest in taking a bottle - but only a little - so the rest of the meal is fed through a tube. Then, finally, the baby is strong enough to take a bottle for the entire meal.  Once that happens, there is no looking back - they eat like mad and grow like weeds.

The only thing that is a little bothersome is inserting the tube down her throat and into her belly.  It doesn't seem to bother her at all - just me.  I can't imagine what that feels like - having a tube in your throat. I would think you would have a constant gagging/choking feeling. Yuck! This little doeling just takes it all in stride. No problems. Just insert tube, feed, remove tube, sleep.

Today, she finally took a bottle for the entire meal. Yeah! She is much stronger now. She spends her days playing in the yard with the kids and her nights warm in our garden tub in our master bathroom.  She has quite a set-up. A room for royalty. Her bed is lined with soft towels and she has a heater in the bathroom to keep the room at a comfy 80 degrees. She gets "breakfast in bed" at 3am. What a charmed life!!

We just need to pick a name for her.

Complaining Gets You What You Want

Apparently if you complain on your blog about getting nothing but bucklings then your next doe will kid doelings.  Jane, our eldest and most docile Saanen of our goat family gave birth yesterday to two doelings.  We have yet to name them, we leave that to our oh so imaginative 3 year old daughter, Quinlynn. 

Quin has named all of our Rhode Island Red chickens (see our first image of our first blog) Larry.  The only Rooster of the bunch was named Charlie, our ducklings were named Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  She named our calf flower.  She even named the puppy that was sewn onto her shirt Breakfast.  She's got quite the imagination, for a three year old her vocabulary will amaze you.  Everyday she makes me laugh by just what she says.  I mean how many 3 year olds say "Thank you for the (whatever), it was extremely delicious and my tummy enjoyed it very much".  She used to say words incorrectly and it was cute.  Like the word burrfly instead of butterfly, but now she can say it correctly and just for fun if someone calls it a burrfly she will put her hands on her hips and correct how you say it... you might even get a finger wagging in your face while she tells you how to say the word correctly.

So, getting back on topic.... Jane's babies.  One of them is healthy as can be but unfortunately one of them is a runt and we are feeding her our self.  She is right now residing in our bath tub and will come out when it is feeding time.  Her development is slow so for the first 6 feedings Nicole had to tube feed her.  This evening our oldest daughter, Alexia was successful in bottle feeding her which is a very important step, it means that she is gaining strength and the will to survive.  Since she is staying in the house with us, we put a diaper on her and let her roam the house.

Up next is our 2nd Nubian, Primrose (Prim for short).  She was bred just three days after Jane was bred so we should be right back in the action of new babies on Thursday if we are lucky.  Maybe I should complain more about the boys we got earlier to ensure doelings from Prim..... here's hoping.

so the preliminary names that Quinlynn has given them is "Baby Jane and Little Baby Jane"

Bucklings, The New Way to Network

So we have had two of our does give birth so far, in the beginning of March, Blush, our two year old Nubian gave birth to twin bucklings.  This past Tuesday our Clover gave birth to a large Saanan buckling.  We are happy that both of the births came without incident and that we were lucky enough to have Nicole right there during both births so she can help the mommy's out.  All that aside... come...on... couldn't we get at least one little doe!!!? 

Alot of dairy goat farmers call bucklings a useless animal and it is not uncommon to drown the little guys before they have a chance to even make their first baby goat baa sound.  I have found that these three little guys, athough not useful in dairy production, have helped us in a way no doe of ours could do.  They have given us a contact to some families that really love animals.  Some of the families who get these little guys are using them to naturally clear fields and some families are opting to have their buckling registered and using our bloodline as their own stud service.  For whatever the reason for buying the boys from us, we get to learn about, and from, their new owners.

Last night Nicole and I spent a good amount of time with really friendly and positive people.  They saw our ad on Craigslist for the sale of our Saanan buckling, emailed us, and gave us their phone number to contact them.  They arrived at our house around 8 last night and we didn't get back into our house until almost 10. 

Right off the bat we found that they were from Michigan (we are taking over Georgia) so if nothing else we already had something in common to talk about.  But the talk of Michigan was short lived, we started talking about how we got to the point we are now, why we are doing this and where we are trying to go.  We have found so many like-minded people that, if nothing else, appreciate and adapt some our methods to be part of their own. 

Now beyond our rant of feed, pasture grazing, our rotational pastures of our chickens, the free range ducks (that would rather stay near the house than the pond), all of our raised vegetable gardens, our bees (and the organic ways to treat them), the soon to arrive turkeys, our cows, and the future pigs (come to think of it, we talk alot); we got to listen to how and why they got their goats, the neat tradition they have every year making and preserving apple cider, their hay bailing business and their overall values of starting and maintaining their new small farm venture. 

When they decided they should leave, we ended up with someone we can call if ever we need to bounce ideas off of, and we made sure that if they needed help with anything that they are more than welcome to call, stop by or contact us anytime they wanted.

We, by no means, know all the answers but we have tried and failed enough times in different aspects of this farm and we are more than willing to share what we did, how we screwed up, and help others, hopefully costing them alot less in expenses (and time) than it cost us.

This is our little Saanan that was sold last night

The above two nubians were our very first bucklings, notice the little diapers we had on them so they could stay in our house. 

Farm School Weekend at Nature's Harmony Farm

This weekend Ted and I went to a Farm School Weekend at Nature's Harmony Farm.  All I can say is "WOW!".  Before I get into the details of all the things we saw and learned, let me give you a bit of the backstory as to how we ended up at Nature's Harmony Farm.

It started with the movie Food, Inc.  It is a great movie and I was really amazed at what it had to say.  I was touched by the farmers featured on the film - especially one in particular, Joe Salatin.  Well, if you are into the agriculture farming sustainable living type of thing you know that Joe Salatin has "rock star-like" status in the farming world.  Anyway, when I got the chance, I bought a bunch of his books off of Amazon and started reading. 

During that time, Ted and I had signed up for a kind of "on-line farmer's market" called Athen's Locally Grown (ALG).  We started selling our surplus of eggs to the online members (at what we considered an amazing price but what was considered "fair market value" for free-range, farm fresh, natural brown eggs).  We quickly realized that our chickens were going to be able to pay for all the feed that we need for all the animals on the farm with money left over!  We were thrilled and knew we were going to be regular sellers on the ALG market!

During this time I had seen an ad in Acres magazine for a "Field-Day on July 9th" at Joe Salatin's Polyface Farm. It would require us to travel to VA, and have family fly here from Michigan to watch the kids, but I finally convinced Ted that we "needed" to go.

About the third time we listed (and sold out) our eggs on ALG, I was just finishing reading the last Joe Salatin book I had purchased.  As anyone who knows me can tell you, I am never without a book for long.  It just so happened Tim and Liz Young from Nature's Harmony Farm posted their new book "The Accidental Farmers" for sale that week on Athen's Locally Grown.  I thought about buying it, but didn't. 

That week when I was delivering the egg order placed online, I parked next to the large delivery truck of Nature's Harmony Farm.  I saw a couple of people talking at the back of the truck so I quickly checked my purse to see if I had any cash.  I headed over to the man and woman and asked if they happened to have any books left over that I could buy.  That is how I met Tim and Liz Young.

Our conversation wasn't long or life changing or anything, but I left them with that good feeling you get when you meet someone so nice it really make's your day better. Later that night I started to read the book....and....didn't.....stop.  I swear, it was like someone had written my and Ted's story.  Obviously, some of the details were different but it was "our story" nonetheless. 

Forget Joe Salatin - I had new "farming 'Rock Star' idols" and it was Tim and Liz Young.

Their book motivated me to check out the Nature's Harmony Farm website.  While there, I discovered the "Farm School Weekend" upcoming event.  This time, it didn't take much convincing at all.  Ted saw that Nature's Harmony Farm was only an hour and a half away and that meant no long car rides, hotel costs or visting relatives so he told me to "sign us up".

All winter I was looking forward to that weekend. I was so excited! Then, about a week before "the big event" I discovered that Preston's Solo & Ensemble music festival (which he was in four different events and in one of them was performing a piece of music that he had arrainged himself) AND Preston's prom was on that same Saturday.

Let's just say, I am probably not in the running for mother of the year for 2011.  I told Preston that since this was not his senior prom then it really doesn't count anyway and I asked him to ask some of his friends to take him to and home from the music festival.  Honestly, I am not as heartless as this makes me sound.  I really, really, really wanted to go to the festival - and I probably would have if I didn't know we would loose the $900 we paid for the farm weekend.  Although, I do admit, I was indifferent on the Prom thing.  Preston is a Sophomore after all, he still has plenty of "proming opportunities" ahead of him.

The Thursday before the "big weekend" Ted and I got in a horrible fight.  The kind that makes you change your facebook status to "divorced" (yes, I really did that, I was that mad - LOL).  It was so bad we didn't even talk to each other on Friday.  Friday evening I asked Ted if he was still coming to the farm weekend with me and he said "I don't know, I'll see".  UGH!  Needless to say Saturday morning the car ride to Nature's Harmony Farm was tense and I could tell that Ted was not looking forward to spending the weekend with Tim and Liz as I was (what can I say, he didn't read the book - LOL!).  We arrived at 8:55am and "school" started at 9. 

You'll hear all about Farm School Weekend 2011 in the next post.

Tim and Liz Young
Nature's Harmony Farm