Kitty Prints

Yesterday we poured the floors for the holding area and the exit area/mechanical room in the dairy barn. Finished the holding area and moved to the exit area. Went back to the holding area and there were the prettiest little kitty foot prints in the cement. My husband asked if I wanted him to fix it. I said, "NOPE! These are special." So now we have nice little kitty prints in our milk barn courtesy of Rylie the barn cat. :)

My Favorite Time of Year....one of them anyway :)

It's the middle of December and this is truly one of my favorite times of year. Yes, it's the holiday season, but who cares?! I have seed catalogs!!!!!!

That's right! It's cold outside, the fire is warm and the seed catalogs are calling my name!

As I pour over all of the beautiful plants in my catalogs my mind starts to wonder and I imagine my gardens as they will be come spring and summer. As the signs of spring emerge, so do all of my beautiful garden plants. I have lettuce, onions, spinach, radishes and carrots. I have broccoli and potatoes and the most gorgeous sugar snap peas you have ever seen! As spring time warms we are planting tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers, squash, melons and on and on. The gardens are by far the most gorgeous gardens you have ever seen! All of the plants are big and tall and strong! The soil is dark, rich and fertile and there is not a weed in sight!

Still in my mind I am looking at the wonderful bounty that we are harvesting from our gardens and taking to the area farmer's markets. All of the local market clientele are just as thrilled as we are with the bounty of the harvest and as much as we enjoy sharing our harvest with our clients we are relishing in the annual renewal of those friendships!

After several hours of sitting with my catalogs open while staring blankly into space I slowly come back into reality and as I close my catalogs for the evening I know that only one portion of the above dream will be easy. That portion is the annual friendship renewal, but the other parts of the dream are what makes farmers farmers. Without the dream, it is all for naught.
As long we have anticipation and expectations the American (or is it HUMAN) dream lives on.

So I do my chores and hurry through dinner so that I can once again get back to my seed catalogs and stare off into space until I am called back to reality and head off to bed with the eagerness of child knowing that I will get to "re-live" the experience again tomorrow evening.

Have a GREAT night and we'll see you at the market!

News or Lack Thereof

I haven't posted in a while. :(

I was sick for a full week then spent a week preparing for my parents 50th Wedding Anniversary, which turned out GREAT by the way. Then spent a week preparing for Thanksgiving, which was also Wonderful!

Today our dairy inspector came out for a "progress" visit. He was just looking to see what all we have gotten done on the new dairy and creamery and to answer some of our questions. The visit went really well and he answered a lot of questions favorably. Chrys and I both felt very good after he left. I think we are on the right track. :)

.......on the other hand I am so ready to be done with the construction part of this and get on to kidding season then milking and making cheese. This should prove to be a very interesting venture. :)

Weekend Productivity

This past weekend was VERY productive!

We finally managed to get all of the outside insulation and metal onto the new creamery. We still have some trim to put on, but the doors are installed and the walls are up so at least we are dried in and can work "inside" throughout the upcoming winter days.

I didn't get any pictures this weekend, but will try to get some tonight and post them on here tomorrow.

It feels sooo good to be another step closer to our goal. :)

SADIE WORKING......or not.....

The big brave livestock guardian dog is not so big and brave when it comes to the sound of a gun shot (or the site of a spot light for that matter). Last night Sadie pushed her way in the house when Megan came home then promptly took up post beside the wood stove. Meg layed down on the rug with her and they both snoozed for a bit, then Sadie had to go back outside to help the other two LGDs with their goat herd responsibilities for the night.

Makes me really wonder what all kinds of trouble Sadie got into in her pre-Canyon Ridge Farms days. :)

.....PROGRESS.....

It's been a few days since I have posted.

I was off work (from my day job) most of last week. This afforded some daytime hours to be working on the milk barn and creamery. There wasn't that much visual progress, but I was sure busy all week. I did get a trench dug from the end of the new creamery to the South end of the milk barn for our drains (sure hope they are deep enough). It was hard work because every bit had to be dug by hand but Megan and Peyton helped so that made it better. Below are pictures of Peyton helping. :)

Kymberly cleaned out the milk parlor and milk room. With all of the construction going on this is an endless job. She also went around adding more screws to the interior and exterior walls of the milk barn.

Yesterday was a looong day to Oklahoma City. Very very tired by the time we got home but this morning........it proved to be well worth the trip. More on this to come later..... :)

Creamery Construction

Below are a couple of pictures of the new creamery while in construction.

You can see where it will attach to the current milk barn.

This is a 16x32 structure.

Below are pictures of the drainage pipes in the creamery prior to the slab floor being poured.

More pictures to come as I get time to post.

Productive Day

This turned out to be a fairly productive day. I got the pump room cleaned out and threw out and burned a lot of stuff that was just taking up space. Once that was done I went to work on cleaning stuff out of the milk barn. Sounds fairly easy? Well, not only were all of the milking supplies and misc. stuff needed for the goats in there, but all of the tools and misc. supplies that we have been using for the construction projects were in there as well. I left most of the construction supplies and tools since we are not done with the projects yet, but most everything else has been moved out and stored in the pump room.

Put the little girls out on the front pasture today since I was home and could keep an eye on them. Also put Tecumseh out in the little girls pasture while they were out front. He didn't seem as impressed as I thought he would be, but we did get to spend some one on one time today and that is always a good thing. :)

More Barn Remodel

These are pictures of the "old" barn and milk parlor prior to construction.

This view is from the north end with housing on either side and the milk parlor and milk room in the middle.

The new housing barn is on the south end (you can see a "hint" of the roof sticking out above the old barn).

The new processing facility will be on the north end of the milk barn and will be a 16x32 structure.

The "old" barn will continue to be the milk parlor and milk room in the middle with a feed room and holding area on the east side and a storage room and mechanical area along with the exit area on the west side.

We will post more pictures and information as everything pulls together.

2010 Breeding Season

The 2010 breeding season has officially begun! We put our senior buck, Longman's SA Arousing Cheers, in with the older girls on Saturday. Both Cheers and all of the girls seem quite happy now. :)

Our junior buck, Tecumseh, is a little sad because he is now all alone, but he is not nearly as whiny as I thought that he would be.

Below is a picture of Cheers. I really need to get a good one of him when he is not in rut but for now, this is all I have.

Longman's SA Arousing Cheers

Here is also a picture of Cheers dam and sire.

dam: Longman's Baron's Ariella 11*M

sire: Longman's Serenade's Salute +*B

Jane Doe

This is Jane Doe, affectionately known as Janey.

A week ago, we woke up to find Janey with a broken leg.

The only thing that we could figure is that she got her leg hung up in something. :(

We set her leg in a splint and wrapped it good, then this weekend we took the splint off and then re-wrapped it in vet wrap. It is still quite sore for her, but she is tough and is getting around really well considering.

We have several pretty colors of vet wrap so that as we have to re-wrap Janey's leg she can be the most stylish goat in the paddock. :)

LIVESTOCK GUARDIAN DOGS

Guardians for your livestock are essential. Don't believe me? Check out our Livestock Guardian Dog page on our website at www.canyonridgefarms.com and read our story about the importance of livestock protection on our Livestock Guardian Dog page.

All three of our girls are part Anatolian Shepard and part Great Pyrenees. I truly love this mix.

This is Sadie and her favorite person in the whole entire world. I don't guess I blame her. He is my favorite person in the world too. :)

This is Shasta. This is not a good picture of her because she is an absolutely gorgeous girl and normally doesn't have that silly look on her face. Shasta is the the girl that is almost always right with the goats. The other girls guard perimeters and area but the goats belong to Shasta.

This is Gypsy. Gypsy and Shasta are full sisters and littermates. For some reason Gypsy didn't want to look towards the camera at all when I was taking pictures.



Sadie and Shasta

2010 Doelings

Not much to post today.

We have enjoyed the rain and cooler weather that we have gotten the last couple of days.

Below are just some pictures of the 2010 doelings. These girls will be added to our milk line next year. There are 16 girls in this group.

Relaxing under a tree.

Here are the girls when they saw me come out and I guess they figured they would come up just to see if they could talk me into feeding them ....... "again".

Here is a shot of the young girls playing on the composting hay pile.

This is Latte perched atop the "temporary housing" for the young girls. We are using this trailer as their housing while we are doing construction with the new housing barn and milk barn.

Blessings

I arrived home from work yesterday ready to start putting more screws into the metal on the new housing barn. What a wonderful surprise I had to see that all of the screws on the east side of the barn were already in. I was told that the barn fairies arrived about mid day and took care of that little chore............I LOVE my Daddy! :)

New Housing Barn

It was a very productive weekend! We actually got the metal on the roof and the metal on the side walls of the barn. We still have to completely secure all of the metal, put the ridge cap on the roof and put metal up on the gable ends but after "all" of that all we have to do is trim it out and build the sliding doors (3 of them), OH and bring in more fill dirt......and then it is done! :)

View of the inside from the milking parlor.

Kymberly is helping Chrys cut a sheet of metal and it

looks like daddy is watching the goats again. This is a view of the east side of the new housing barn.

You can see on the fright where it attaches to the holding area of the milk barn.

Another view of the east side of the barn and a better view of where
it will attach to the milk barn.
Also notice Sadie (one of the livestock guardian dogs) checking things out.


A shot of the south end.

Another shot of the south end.

That's it for now. More pictures will be posted as soon as we progress on this project.

First Cool Day

WOW! We are having a wonderfully cool day. :)

After so many weeks of 100 degree weather it is 86 degrees right now at 2:00 this afternoon and it is suppose to be even cooler tomorrow. This is such a welcome relief to us and I can only imagine how nice it is for the critters. Now if we could just add a little bit of rain, the ground, plants and trees could sure use it.

Housing Barn

The first image is a view of the barn just prior to starting the new addition. You are looking at if from the South end. At this point, housing for the goats is on each side and the milk parlor is in the middle. The new housing barn is attached to the South end of the existing structure and will be a 24 x 50 x 10. We hope to have the trusses set this week so that we can start putting the metal on next weekend......if the weather cools enough.

PICTURES

These are just some random pictures of some of our babies from this year.

Here they are all following Megan with the feed bucket. It was getting dark so it is hard to see, but they are so cute!





This picture was taken just prior to the previous one. They are exploring the freshly tilled garden.



The two pictures below are just the babies exploring and eating fresh grass and weeds along the driveway.

The spotted one in the last picture is Pynk Baby Goat (named by our 2 year old granddaughter). We affectionately call he Pynkie. I bet no one else in the world has a "pink" goat. LOL :)

Baby Goats

......I guess I am a sucker! I went to look at some goats the other evening. The pictures posted on the internet looked alright so I thought I would take a gander at them.

We got there and it was so sad. Both of the mature does literally looked like a bag of bones. They were lethargic and had the runs. The buck didn't look much better and he had a bad foot on top of all of that. There were three little doelings with the youngest being about a month old and the other two being about 2 months old. These poor babies are not much bigger than my newborns. Their hair coats are rough and their bellies are huge. They look like little starving orphans from a third world country. :(

Well.......I guess Chrys couldn't stand it either (he really is a softy :) ). We just didn't have a place to keep the older three separated from the herd and honestly, at least one of the does may not have made it through the night. We did go ahead and bring the three little doelings home with us. They have their own little deluxe accommodations in the barn with an outside pen and a fan plugged in to give them a breeze inside.

We started the de-worming ritual on them when we brought them home. They have received their shots and now have all of the hay, weeds and grain that they want to eat. I am giving them a bottle twice a day, but I guess they as so used to not getting enough that they don't drink much. My normal babies would be drinking a gallon per day "each" and these little girls are not quite drinking a gallon between the three of them.

Oh! They have names now too! :)
The smallest one is Jersey
The biggest one is Penny
and the middle one is Aurora

I don't have pictures yet but I guess I need to post some on here so that when these girls are big and beautiful that we can all see the difference.

Goats and Projects

We went to Little Rock, Arkansas on Saturday evening and picked up 5 really pretty Nubian does. The old girl is name Rusti and the middle aged girl is named Mozli (these were the names that they came with). I have figured out names for the twins (4-5 months old). They are Mocha Swirl and Frappe'. I still have yet to decide on a name for the yearling.

Mozli has some problems with her front hooves. It appears that she has been foundered. :( Chrys and I got her down yesterday.......got her on the milk stank, laid her down, I laid on top of her while Chrys worked on her feet........and was actually able to take about 3/8-1/2 inch off of her front hooves before it started getting tender. There is still along ways to go, but at least we are headed in the right direction.

The construction on the new housing barn is going slow. Chrys, Megan, my Dad and me are "The Construction Crew" and the weather is SO hot right now. We are only able to work on the weekends and then only in the early morning and late evening. Then if we take time out to run to Little Rock and get goats or Wichita, Kansas like we are going next weekend then it takes a little bit longer for things to get going. We do have most of the poles up and set. We have six more poles to set....hopefully this evening.

I will post pictures of the new girls and the barn soon.

hhhmmmmmm

There is not a lot to write about right now except it is HOT!!!!! Much much to hot!

With plenty of shade and lots of fresh cool water, all of the critters are fairing pretty well.

A week from Saturday (8/14/10) we will be going to Leon, Kansas to pick up some new girls to add to our milk line. I am really really excited about that, I just hope that the weather has cooled off some before then. If not, it may have to be a middle of the night ride back home so that they don't get to hot.

Excited!!!

I am SOOO excited! We went yesterday and ordered the materials for our new housing barn! We were really hoping to have someone else build it, but it would have just blown our entire budget.......so........I guess "WE" are the construction crew. :)

The barn will be a 24 x 50 with 3 sliding doors (one on the South end, one on the West side and one on the East side) for ventilation. Not really worried about the inside configuration right now. We can take care of all of that once the construction project(s) are complete. The housing barn will butt up to the milk barn so that none of these "royal little princesses" will have to go outside in inclimate weather and ruin their pedicures! LOL

Keep checking back for updates!

New Buckling

We went Saturday and got a new junior buckling. He is a fine looking little fellow and comes from a long line of Superior Genetics and milk. It was kind of hard to actually be in the market for another buckling after loosing Norman, but the fact is we will have does that need to be bred this winter and I am really looking forward to seeing what this fella brings to the herd.

I found the perfect name for him, but alas, "other" people in the family want a different name.........I will update here when a final decision has been made. Pictures coming soon!

Yesterday was a sad sad day at Canyon Ridge Farms. Norman was losing his battle with urinary calculi and it became evident that it was in his best interest to end his suffering. This was one wonderful boy who had a regal yet gentle and loving nature. He will be greatly missed.

We want to thank all who have offered support and advice and we want to give a special thank you to an email acquaintance who has become a special friend. Suriyah of Good Goats offered her medications and advice to help Norman while we were trying to get meds located and in stock. Suriyah's love and caring means so much to us and I'm sure, that had Norman met her, he would have loved her too. Thank you Suriyah!

Well......yesterday was kind of a sad day at our place. We sold off the horses. :(

I'm not really sure why I feel so sad about it. Fargo (the gelding) was sure a pain in the butt! He would bite my goats and that would really upset me. He would wreck havoc anytime that we were trying to do anything with the other animals on the place. He would pick up the baby calves by their necks. He was just a general pain but Etta (the filly) was a sweet little thing (even if she did tend to follow Fargo's lead).

Anyway, the people who got them sure got some nice horses.......

Well.....it has been a few days since our last blog so here is a quick update.

GARDENS - The gardens are not doing so well. It seems that we have a little (big) problem with our soil. The plants get up so big and quit or they "start" putting on fruit and then quit! We are working to make the corrections to the soil, but it doesn't look like it is going to be a quick fix...this may actually be a long term issue. What ever it is with the soil it seems to be great for broccoli but not much of anything else. We will probably have some produce for market in a few weeks, but that is not for certain. Right now, I am just canning what we are able to get out of the gardens. :(

GOATS - The goats are doing well for the most part. We got two new little doelings and they are doing fine. Cute little things. :) All of the other babies are doing well too.

We have moved the milkers from twice a day milking to once a day milking. They aren't liking it very much but right now, that is the best situation for us.

We avoided a near disaster with our yearling buck, Norman, yesterday. It appears that he had urinary calculi but we think the we got the problem diverted in a timely manner and he seems to be doing fine now. A big thanks to my brother and my wonderful husband for their help with this.

COWS - The cows are doing fine. We were trying to work them yesterday so that they could be moved to the rented pasture. The horses through a glitch in that! As soon as we started trying to get the cows up, the horses started running the cows and caused major havock with the whole bunch! We were only able to actually get 1 cow and her calf worked.

HORSES - Horses STINK! See cows for reasoning on this determination.

FAMILY - The family is doing great! We had a big family dinner this past weekend. We sadly had 3 of the neices/nephew who were not able to attend, but everyone that was there seemed to have a good time. It is always great to get the whole family together!

Spring Broccoli is Finished :(

Well, it is official. The spring broccoli crop is finished. We harvested the remainder of the broccoli for market weekend before last and Chrys tilled up the broccoli gardens to get ready to plant more summer produce.

In the pictures you will see Chrys tilling the front garden area where the broccoli was and then the result. It's kind of sad looking. Those were sure some big beautiful plants. Chrys has one more tilling to do (hopefully it will be dry enough tonight) and then we can start setting in the remainder of the summer veggies.

Sunshine

Finally! We sure needed this sunshine and it looks like we are going to get serveral days of sun and NO STORMS! It is amazing how much better the sun makes you feel. Here is a picture of the sky one evening this week after a storm.

Sugar and Pepper are doing really well on the milk stand now for the most part anyway. The last two milkings I have milked them two handed which means that I didn't have to hold a leg or hang onto my milk bucket. (I sure hope I didn't just jinx it.)

Enjoy YOUR weekend!

Wednesday Already!

WOW! It's already Wednesday!

The Farmer's Markets went great this last weekend. We sold out of everything at two markets and almost everything at the third market. We now have a little bit of a break before our summer produce is ready, but honestly, I am already missing our customers. I can't wait to get back to market.

The weather is....Oklahoma weather I suppose. Lots and lots of rain on Monday. Really nice day with lots of sunshine on Tuesday and now back to rain on Wednesday. :( I am just tired of mud!

Sugar has had a complete turn around on the milk stand. Monday I contacted my brother and told him how horrible she was. Monday night she started acting like an angel. I wonder if he went over and had a talk with her. I really don't care how it happened as long as it continues. I actually really like her now.

Pepper is a little different story. She started out pretty good, then got really good and now she has regressed a little since Sugar has started behaving. Still not to bad, but it could be better.

When I got home last night, Chrys and Daddy were working in the garden. We already have little baby squash and little tiny baby cucumbers! This is SO exciting! After I milked, I managed to get almost 1/2 of the yard mowed while the guys worked the garden. I could have probably gotten all of it before night fall if the lawn mower hadn't been acting up.

We have kind of slowed down a little on our cheese making, but today we got an order for four different kinds so I guess we need to step it up a bit. This weekend we are planning to start some cheddar and mozzarella.....I'll let you know how it goes.

Rain, Rain, Rain

WOW! Lots and lots of rain today! I know we needed the rain, but we really didn't need it all at one time. More rain is predicted for the next couple of days....

We did have the forsight to at least start picking produce last night when we had a clear spell. We got about half of the garden picked and that much at least is ready to go to market tomorrow. Dad called earlier and said that he was going to go out and start picking more while we have a little break in the rain this afternoon. :)

We went out to milk this morning and I guess the "honeymoon" is over with Sugar and Pepper. Actually, Pepper isn't doing that bad, but Sugar, well, that's another story. I think she is part bucking bull. LOL .....I just can't wait to go milk tonight.

Have a GREAT weekend!

Sugar & Pepper and the Weather

My brother's goats, Sugar & Pepper, have come to live with their "Auntie" for a few months while my brother is tied up with other things.

We brought them home night before last. Understand that our goats are kind of hateful little ladies for a while to any newcomers in the herd. Well, Sugar took a couple of good hits from Stormie and Patty joined in a time or two then Maggie thought that it was her turn to torment them. She got her hair all bristled up and headed in for the head butt....just as she was about to butt Sugar, she stopped and sniffed her...then she started rubbing her neck and licking her head. I swear, she realized that these "new girls" were her babies. After a few minutes of that, Thunder got all bristled up and was moving in to see if she could get in a good butt or two. Maggie stepped between Thunder and the girls and wouldn't let Thunder do anything to them. Then Thunder settled down and started rubbing on them too. Animals REALLY ARE intelligent!

I went out yesterday and bought Pepper & Sugar new necklaces (collars) and then last night, I got out the scissors and clippers and trimmed their tails, udders, and bellies. That sure makes it easier to milk and much more pleasant for both them and me. I finished up the make-over with a nice relaxing (hah!) pedicure. The girls took it all very well and this morning they came right back onto the milk milkstand as if I hadn't just completely worked them over last night. Good Girls!

We went out to milk at 4:00 this morning. It was soooo hot and muggy! We just finished up and got back in the house when it started raining. As I was about half way through my morning shower, Chrys hollers at me and tells me to get a move on because there were storms moving in pretty quickly. Luckily, the storms just kind of split around us and we didn't get more than just a little rain. They lost power in a lot of the Tulsa area and I have even heard that an F1 tornado touched down in the Jenks area. I love spring but hate the storms! I am always very very glad to get into June when the tornado season is mostly over.

Have a Blessed day!

Spring in N.E. Oklahoma

We will start by saying that we have lost (forgetful old mind) our old blog spot so we have decided to start another one.

It has been a fun year here at Canyon Ridge Farms. We had a winter that seemed much to long and so far we have had a terrfic spring.

The goats have all kidded and most were weaned......until we decided to save back some more doelings. We made this decision and then of course the two does that were pregnant had four kids and only one doeling. The doeling, affectionaley known as Pynkie is "ROTTEN". Then with Pynkie being the only doeling, she was lonely so we decided to get a few more doelings. Fortunately for us, my brother had two does that he had gotten out of one our best milkers and our younger buck. They had four kids (3 doelings and one buckling....lucky him). Anyway, we were able to acquire the doelings so that Pynkie would not be so lonely. Unfortunately, she is still "ROTTEN".

The gardens have been doing great so far this year. We had a crop failure with our sugar snap peas, but other than that the gardens are going great. Almost all of the spring time veggies are nearly done for the season. We probably only have one more harvest and then we "try" to patiently wait for the summer crops to mature.

We will keep you updated on the farm happenings (hopefully quite frequenlty).