Winter at Last?
January 10, 2019This winter has been a strange one. Normally in our area, we should have had FEET of snow by this time. (Last year, a single snowstorm at Christmas time dumped seven feet on us.) This year, we’ve had mostly wind and lots of rain. Today is the first day in quite some time that we’re seeing significant snowfall. I think they’re calling for about a foot, but I guess we’ll see. I had joked up to this point that the reason we have had such a mild winter is because we spent money rushing to get our snowblower repaired so…
Farm & Family Goals for 2019
Raise more poultry for meat. In 2016, our first year on the farm, we raised 25 meat chickens. In 2017, we meant to raise more but ended up taking the year off. Last year, we raised 4 turkeys and 27…
Christmas 2018
Merry Christmas from our family to yours! Wishing you all the best for a happy and prosperous new year!
Our 2019 Goat Breeding Plans
The weather in northwestern Pennsylvania has been almost non-stop rain for weeks. The leaves are mostly fallen, but it’s hard to enjoy the fall with everything being so wet and dreary. One upside: it’s the time of year where we…
Best Dairy Doe in Show at the 2018 Albion Fair!
This was our third year showing our goats at the Albion Fair. It turned out to be a year of ups and downs. We had some great wins with our goats, but also ended up being sick and missing half…
Pickles & Peaches
I feel like I’m getting a very late start on canning this year. My own garden is pretty sparse, so I went to a couple local fruit stands to get pickling cucumbers and peaches. I spent this past Saturday evening…
The Heartbreak of Elderly Pets
This is Gracie. This photo was taken on February 23, 2018, the day before my 36th birthday. She was so sick in this picture, and we were on the way to the vet for what I was convinced would be her…
Garden Failures: How I Broke the Cycle
I’ve said this time and time again, but when it comes to homestead skills, gardening is one area where I am sorely lacking. Year after year, I have good intentions to grow a garden and each year I fail, oftentimes…
Raising Thanksgiving Dinner
Say hello to Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, and Lunchmeat. (Yes. Those are their names. Excuse our oddball sense of humor.) They are eight-week-old Broad Breasted Whites and Broad Breasted Bronzes. In the last three summers on our farm, we’ve raised a variety…
Simple Pulse Milker: Assembly Overview
In my first video showing the unboxing of our Simple Pulse milker, I mentioned how intimidated I was when I ordered it. I wasn’t sure what all the parts were, and I certainly didn’t know how to put it all together and…
Just One More
Our little yearling, Maizey, gave us a surprise blue-eyed buckling today just after noon. It was very nice of her to decide to birth her little boy on a day I was working from home, conveniently during my lunch hour.…
Expanding Our Home Dairy: Unboxing the SIMPLE PULSE Milking Machine
When I began researching what milking machine to buy, I quickly felt overwhelmed. It seems most dairy supply companies take for granted that customers understand how milking machines work and know exactly what they need to order. Here’s the thing:…
Baby Goats, 2018
I had intended to post this sooner, but I was exhausted. Mama goat Candy started showing signs of being ready to give birth late in the evening on March 28th: her udder was filling, her ligaments were soft, her back…
