Ranch Newsletter | May 2024

Originally sent to subscribers on June 1st, 2024

Farm Update May/June

May started out to be a very good and productive month, but did not turn out to be such a nice month for us. I don't intend to dwell only on the hardships we've had recently, but I do always want to be authentic and show all the sides of this homestead/ranching life we lead.

The weather was moody and kept me guessing as to when there would and would not be frost/freeze. I covered much of the warm weather plants and kept them cover with freeze cloth for about week only to discover that despite my best efforts to protect my plants, the cold still got to them and wiped out about half of the garden I'd planted so far.

The last major wind storm we had put several dead/dying trees along the irrigation ditch in a precarious position and we realized they needed to come down ASAP before they chose to fall down onto our garage. Our neighbor was in the same position, so we joined up and hired someone to come out and take the trees down for us. As grateful as I am to have those trees not threatening our house anymore, the falling branches and trunks took out 2 of my baby elderberry plants I'd planted only the week before - before we knew the trees needed to come down. I'm still a bit miffed over that.

We also had to take our 15 year old cat Sawyer to the vet because he's been losing weight at an alarming rate. It appears he has early onset kidney failure. Tango, one of our mousers, also took a trip to the vet because I thought his tail might be broken, but it wasn't. He just had a really nasty bite on his tail that had abscessed, most likely from another cat.

Our oldest chicken, Rosemary, and the last of our first batch of chickens, has been slowly declining in health as well and about the same time we were taking cats to the vet, she starting having more and more trouble walking. We are very likely going to have to put her down soon.

And finally, the worst thing to happen in May. Honey finally had her babies on May 28th. She gave birth to 4 bucklings. I was there for the birth of all of them, and when I was helping to clean off the first little boy, it was clear something was not quite right with him. He couldn't walk. I will spare you most of the details. Craig had to go out of town for work the morning they were born and returned home yesterday. I spent two days consulting with other goat people, and doing round the clock care and feedings for this little boy, hoping that whatever was ailing him could be reversed. Unfortunately, it did not look like that was going to happen and Craig took him to a large animal vet an hour away and it was determined that something had gone wrong with his umbilical cord in the womb and he had irreversible brain damage and we had to put him down.

Since I had been checking on Honey every 4 hours through the night for five nights before she gave birth, I was so exhausted and stressed I felt sick. Craig took over for me as soon as he got home and I've spent the last day and half recuperating. I'm still not 100% back to full energy, but I'm getting there.

Okay, enough of the bad news from May. It's a new month full of new possibilities, new challenges, and new discoveries.

In CSA news: Our CSA starts in two weeks! I was able to replace most of the plants I lost to the cold with starts from the nursery. One of our neighbors had a greenhouse the same size as ours, and the windstorm that jeopardized our trees, took out the frame of their greenhouse, but the cover was still intact and they gave it to us, so we have a working greenhouse again and our tomatoes and peppers and very happy, so we are on track to have a very good start to the season.

In goat news: We have three new adorable baby boys on the ranch and they are all doing very well. (Pictures below) Caspian has been weaned off the bottle (he's not very happy about, but I am). Honey is doing great after birthing quads. The three boys will be up for sale once they are weaned. I will updating the website with those detail later in June.

In chicken news: Peppermint hatched out two healthy babies and it's pretty clear who the real mother is - Paprika, our Turken. (Pictures below) We also received 6 baby chicks from McMurray Hatchery yesterday morning and they are all doing well. This brings our chicken count up to 19! And I really do think I'll have to quit adding for awhile so Craig doesn't have to build another chicken coop.

In soap news: I have decided that any markets I participate in this year are going to be local markets only.

• I will be at most of the Eden Coffee & Cocoa Sunday markets this summer.

•  I will also be at the Huntsville 4th of July festival with Mountain Arts & Music. They hold a market in the square behind the shops in Huntsville town and have live music all day. It's a lot of fun and I'm excited to be apart of it again this year.

• I will also be a vendor at the Historic Monastery Farmer's Market as well.

In book news: I've written a children's picture book about goats! It is now available for purchase! I have plenty of copies on hand if you'd like one. It's called If You Give A Goat A Flower and the goat in the book is based on our very own Finnick!

In workshop news: This kid's workshops start THIS Tuesday. I still have spots available if you've been thinking about signing your kids up. The link to see all the classes, and to register it below.

I also decided to create some classes for adults along the same theme as the kid's workshops - Where Food Comes From. Those will be offered on Saturday afternoons throughout the summer and you can see them on our events page

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