Meet The Flockers

Chickens. Gardens. Cheap Promises.

(I'm going to post about crafts, I swear!)

Blondie the Hen

First, I owe you a little farm update. Brace yourself. In short, we had some chicken dinners. There were too many roosters. It was getting crazy in the yard with squawking and crowing and feathers flapping all day long. A dirty job, not my favorite part of homesteading, but it feels really good to know that they all had a happy life and died quickly. Its all part of the experience of knowing where our food comes from and appreciating what it means to eat meat.

RIP Cocky and Squawky. They were jerks anyway.

Everybody knows that you put the poor chicken on a chopping block and chop it's head off. Well now I know that if you want the feathers to all pull out easily, submerge the body in a pot of boiling water for 60 seconds.  Some vegetarian I turned out to be.

The final champion rooster is none other than Big Mac himself. You may remember Big Mac from my old posts about raising chicks, when Big Mac or "McNugget" was the little baby chick who was getting pecked at by the other birds. As the flock matured, Big Mac became the biggest and strongest bird, and when the roosters were all going at it he made it clear that this was HIS flock, and he was Big Daddy.

Our new silky is enjoying some sour goat's milk. The chickens love it.

Here is Big Mac with our new girl from last weekend's poultry swap. After the roosters were gone and the girls started laying, we wanted to increase the flock. There were mostly young birds and roosters at the swap but I scored this beautiful Partridge Silky who is already laying.

These chicks are 4 weeks old.

I also picked out six chicks, mostly Americaunas. They will grow to be full size birds.

 Apparently they lay blue eggs. Fun!

Little rooster and the elusive silkies.

Now we have six birds remaining of the original twelve chicks. Three of these are bantam silkies, who have their own little roost in the chicken tractor. The silky rooster and the two frizzly girls stick together, and the new silky nests with them.

Watching the chickens integrate and socialize is so entertaining. The girls were heinously jealous of the new arrival, and of course the roosters just wanted to mate with her right away. Because the other hens were bullying her and establishing the pecking order, she is still staying close to Big Daddy where it is safe. I can't help but compare them to humans.

Hey, get out of the garden!!!!

From left: Ken, Gordon, and Lucy. Firefly is hiding in the back.

The herd is down to four. It seems small but I like it that way right now. I give up on Lucy, the little brown doeling. She goes into her pen at night and doesn't make any trouble. She is shy like her mom, Firefly, and Firefly is a great milker, so you never know. The big tan billy goat on the other hand (Gordon) has become quite tame and will eat from my hand and let me scratch behind his ears and pet him. Which is funny, because I'm the one that castrated him! Sorry big guy!

He is so big, he is almost as big as his mama already. That must be the alpine genes coming through from Barney - though my Ken (the mom) is no tinkerbell either. I have high hopes of turning Gordon into a pack goat. First I have to train him to be led willingly. Then I will see if he'll carry a couple of side packs. If that works, I could hook him up to a cart and then we'd REALLY be in business.

Okay, crafts are happening, seriously, they are. I have been sewing and quilting and I've just been terrible about documenting and taking pictures, forgive me. Right now I'm making bags for the summer farmer's market, which starts next weekend! I'm hoping to flog some baked bread and maybe some veggies later on.

I took this shot of the back of the house today and I really like it. It makes it look like I live in a big funky shack. (Here is where I stop and ask myself - wait, DO I?) This pic is taken from the perspective of the goats, who have altered the landscape and eaten some of the paneling off of the back door.

We have had two weeks of solid sunshine. It feels like July already!

Happy Gardening and Happy Summer!

Thanks so much for reading.

Back To The Blog

What a whirlwind beginning to summer this has been. As it turns out, I had a break from goat tending after all when my parents came up for a visit last week and we rendezvoused for a vacation and some family time.

David was so excited to greet them and sad to return home. He had an amazing time with my family, who he doesn't get to see often, and was showered with love and presents and ice cream.

We went to a local farm and saw the cows getting milked, did the wine tasting tour and left with many bottles of delicious wine and fancy spiced cheeses.

At the farm there were a couple of baby goats, sheep, and this stunning llama, Karl. He was so sweet, he didn't even get up but he let us scratch his ears and pet him and even pose for photos as he sat there happily chewing his cud. How I wish I had the room in my yard for a llama!

The family trekked around through old growth forests and mountainous lakes, big beaches, and waterfalls. 

Only a light rain fell on us as we visited The Butchart Gardens, in Victoria on Vancouver Island.

Somehow the rain added a dreamy effect to the exquisite grounds and luckily we didn't get wet as the sun kept peeking out from behind the clouds.

The diversity of the flowers as Butchart Gardens is just amazing. So many different colors of iris were blooming, from blue to yellow to maroon and a deep purple that was almost black. The rhododendrons were in full flower, the roses were just beginning, and the japanese garden was full of blue poppies and gnarly bonsai.

The visit ended too soon, but we were cheered up by the discovery of our first eggs in the chicken coop when we returned home! The girls laid a beautiful clutch of little eggs while we were gone.

The eggs aren't full size yet but several of them have had double yolks!

The garden is full of greens and the strawberries are beginning to ripen, the onion crop is probably a write-off this year (they were neglected and planted out late) but the potatoes and garlic are looking good. With any luck we'll have some beets and tomatoes in a couple of months.

It is amazing how much more I'm able to do in the garden now that David is a little older. When he was a baby I remember kneeling in the garden, trying to plant onions with him at my breast, and raking leaves with him strapped to my back. Now he is three and he loves to help me out with his little shovel or the watering can. The radishes we planted are ready to be pulled out to make room for something else, maybe some "magic beans" (all beans are magic in David's world).

Purple peppermint in memory of Snowdrop.

The sadness of losing baby Snowdrop has ebbed somewhat, though I will never forget her and she will truly always have a special place in my heart. Life keeps moving on, and the other goats are growing. I have some new updates on the herd and I finished a quilt while I was on vacation. 

More photos and blogging to come! 

Thank you for reading and I promise to pay a visit to my blogroll friends.

Summer Fun

The theme for right now is "work hard, party hard".

I have been working like mad and putting in the garden, still getting fresh milk in the morning and patiently waiting for the discovery of our first chicken egg (probably in the next week or two!!)

The weather has been sunny and delicious and David and I have been hitting the beach.

In our rural community there are several roadside stands. This one is our favorite - the cookie stand!

A real perk to living on an island is having friends with boats.

We scooted out into the bay for a swim and David was so excited.

The Arbutus trees are flowering right now and they are putting on a beautiful display. These trees are very special to me. They only grow near the sea, and they have a special smooth and papery bark. They are usually great for climbing and after they flower they produce lovely little berries that can be made into jewelry. The native people thought these trees to be sacred. 

I still remember the moment when I moved out to the coast and these majestic trees greeted me at the shore, as if to say, "Welcome Home."

I look at these next photos and I think, "Dear David, sorry about your bangs. Love, Mom"
Good thing he doesn't care what they look like.

Here is David playing on the dock and eating some junkies after a long day in the sun.

Something about this picture strikes me as hilarious.

I dug out my old wet suits from my surfing girl days and some friends and I went snorkeling. The dudes were spear fishing and we had a big fish for dinner on the beach.

Cloudy sunset

As if that wasn't enough fun and socializing, for breakfast there was a sourdough waffle party. Needless to say all of my crafts are getting neglected! However I do have some photos of the garden to share. Every year I think I'm going to scale down the garden, plant fewer beds and less plants, and every year I get carried away in the Spring and the garden gets bigger.

C'est la vie. Should be some good eating this summer.

Wishing you all a blessed day.

May you have just what you need in this moment!

Ode To Snowdrop

Hello, blog world. I've taken the last week off from the internet and spent time healing with my family and the goat herd. We lost our beautiful baby goat, Snowdrop, last Sunday.

Snowdrop

I relocated three of my goats to a new home and during the scuffle of transport I somehow left Snowdrop in the house. We did this often, as she would eat some grain and join us in the living room to get some treats, or get brushed, or pet and played with.

But this time she decided to explore another area of the house, the door was open, and the chicken food was in there. I didn't know anything had happened until the next day and by that time, it was too late. She was ill and died very quickly. I tried everything to save her. I was devastated.

Firefly and her daughter, Lucy. I love Firefly's eyes in this photo, dilated and full of sympathy.

When I told the rest of the herd that Snowdrop was gone, I was sobbing. From her first moments, rescuing her from the snow and then bottle feeding her round the clock after her mother rejected her, lying on the sawdust with those two little kids at 3 am, the look in her eyes when I gave her the bottle. I swear it was like nursing a baby, the love she gave us. She followed me like a puppy.

Lucy was bewildered when I grieved with the herd.  

We are trying to bond more with baby Lucy, but the connection is not the same, because she has not been bottle-fed or handled often. In time I hope that she will learn to trust and love us as Snowdrop did.

Firefly the great.

The thing about goats, although they form strong bonds with each other and their caregivers, is that they forget. When a baby is removed from it's mother, the mother will cry for a while and then move on. (Unlike elephants, who do not forget lost members of the herd and continue to honor them and grieve, as a human would.) So while the goats understood that I was in pain and they were silently sympathetic, they no longer care to remember their lost friend, and Snowdrop's mother was sold, so she is not here to grieve her, either.

Gordon, the whether

It was difficult to go out and be with the herd after her death, because so many goats were gone. I not only missed my baby who died, but the three other goats who had found a new home. The herd felt so small, and there was -and still is- a big hole left by Snowdrop's passing. She had so much personality, and was so beautiful.

I grieved because I will never get to milk her, or attend her birth and raise her kids as well. For all that we had been through together, all of my hard work and nurturing, only to lose her to one stupid mistake.

As you can tell I am still very sad, though the pain is healing and I have realized that in no way am I interested in boarding out my goats, I love them all. They are so giving. They give me milk, meat, poop for the garden, strong leather, and most of all they are loving and adoring animals. Milking my goats is the best part of my day, a time for quiet, for appreciation, reflection.

I visited the goats that I sold, including Nemo, my youngest milker, who licked the tears from my face when I told her that Snowdrop was gone, even though she didn't understand. They are very happy and have lots of salal and brambles to eat at their new home.

I will continue to mourn this loving creature that I was blessed to care for, for only ten weeks. She has traveled across the rainbow bridge and I can only hope to breed my billy goat from the same line as Snowdrop, who was the only girl goat left from Barney, the gentle Alpine goat I bought last fall and then sold after breeding him.

We will never forget you, little thing. Thank you for blessing our lives with your companionship.

She was a part of my family.

Thank you for visiting and for reading my story.

Photos: Gardening In Gowns

My friend held a work party in her garden today, with a dress code.

We all wore gowns and fancy duds to work.

It was a fun party with all of us there in our party clothes and we filled many wheelbarrows up with weeds, to make way for raspberries and vegetables.

The little ones were helping out with tools and we built a little fort in the garden.

David breaking for some shade and a drink, on the pile of costumes.

The boys playing cars.

It was a great day full of sunshine, gin and tonics, gowns, some cross dressing, and wonderful friends.

Thank you for visiting and have an awesome day!