More Babies & the Garden

WOW!  We went a FULL week without having any babies at all!  BUT at approximately 6:30 am yesterday Splash presented us with a single buckling.  THEN, at about 2:00 pm Rosie delivered twins (1 boy and 1 girl) and finally, at 2:30 pm Helga presented us with a single buckling.  I have been expecting Chino to kid any day for the last two weeks.  In fact, I went out to check her just before typing this so that if she had, I could include pictures of her baby(s).

 

Splash's buckling

 

Rosie's twins.

 

Helga's buckling.

Finally, a couple of pictures of the gardens.

 

Here is one of the broccoli gardens.  The broccoli is now over a foot tall and I can taste that sweet tender broccoli already.  If you look at the top left of the picture (very closely) you can see a hint of the other broccoli garden.  Oh........and please excuse the weeds.  The rains was great for the veggies but unfortunately it was also good for the weeks.

 

And last but not least,  a picture of the snow peas.  Growing, but not as well as we would like.

Garden Update

I thought that it is probably time to update on the gardens.  We haven't gotten anything else planted (because of all the baby goats being born), but what we have already planted is looking GREAT!

 

 Pictured above and below is the broccoli that we planted 3 weeks ago.  If you look back at those pictures, you can barely see the plants in the garden.  Now the plants are about 10 inches tall.  We're not sure that they will be ready yet when the farmers' markets open, but when they are ready you can bet that they will be DELICIOUS!  (Hopefully this nice warm spring won't ruin them.)

Below are pictures of the snow peas.  mmmm.......I can just sit out in the garden and eat these!  In the second picture, we planted radishes between the rows of snow peas.  (These pictures were a little challenging to get since I was dodging the sprinkler while taking pictures.)

Spring Planting

The girls came out yesterday and we had a "Planting Party". The gardens were finally dry enough to till for the final time and be able to start setting plants.

We managed to get around 2,500 plants in yesterday and Chrys and I were able to get another approximate 1,200 plants in today. We really need for the rain we are suppose to get tonight and tomorrow to hold off for a few more days, but...........this old body is SORE and TIRED.........I think I might be able to handle a rain day. :)


The last picture of a full greenhouse this year.
See all of the Snow Peas to the far left. MMMMM.....I can taste them already!

We were to tired to take pictures of the garden when we finished last night, but I got to it this morning after I finished milking. We will post pictures every week or two so that you can watch the gardens grow too.

A Snowy Morning...With A SURPRISE!

There was a time when I LOVED snow. Although I still think it is pretty to look at, it sure does make life on the farm so much more difficult. In fact, I am not a fan of cold weather (never have been). When the weather is cold and cold and snowy, then everything is harder. Not only do you have to make sure that all of the critters are well taken care of, even if you are freezing to death, but even just the layers of clothes that you put on to try to stay warm make every move feel like you are climbing a mountain. I much prefer summer, and shorts and flip flops. :)

Below are just a few photos from this morning at the farm and the surprise that we received with the first snow of 2012.


Shasta (the LGD) and Helga together watching the snow from the open doorway.

A HUGE pile of goats huddled together in the middle of the barn. This was actually kind of strange that the majority of the girls were huddled together like this. First of all, it wasn't that cold in there and second of all, usually when they huddle together they will do it in small groups rather than in one BIG group like this.

Jynger, sitting in the middle of the group, looks completely miserable. She "sat" like this for about 5 minutes or so. Poor thing. Just a few more weeks and her babies will be born then she can regain her slim and trim figure and be a whole lot more comfortable.

The plants in the greenhouse this morning. They are looking SO good. On the far right where it looks like just dirt in the pots we have snow peas coming up. MMMMM.......can't wait for a good stir fry. Who am I kidding? I like to just sit out in the garden and "graze" on snow peas! :) Notice the snow on the top of the greenhouse.

View looking out the south door of the greenhouse this morning at one of the gardens. It's kind of hard to believe that if we get enough drying in the gardens this week to till again that we will begin planting this next weekend.

And NOW>>>>>>>>>>For the SURPRISE>>>>>>>>>>>>

Little miss Mattie (one of the Saanen does that we purchased a few weeks ago) kidded this morning with a big healthy single GIRL!!!!!!! I brought her in to the house and finished cleaning her up and got her warm and dry then fed her some colostrum (boy can she eat!) then I took her back out to the barn so that her mom can take care of her for a couple of days. I have no idea what to name her, but Snow keeps coming into my mind. I guess because (1) she is white and (2) she was born on the first snow day of the year. :)

Working In The Gardens

Chrys has been working on getting compost spread onto the gardens over the last week or so and this afternoon he started tilling it in so........the first till of the season is now complete! :) Now he will go back and do a "deep" till (but not to deep) and then finally another shallow till.

This is the yard garden. It was windy enough today that Chrys no more than got it tilled and the dirt was all drying out already by the time I got my camera.

The two pictures above are of the South West garden. The soil looks very nice......sure hope that it grows some "very nice" veggies.

The South East garden hasn't been tilled yet, but Daddy has been working on it this winter doing some leveling so that our irrigation works better.

The pictures above are of the plants in the greenhouse. It has now been almost three weeks since we started planting in the greenhouse and our little plants are growing nicely. :)

Seedlings

We did some planting in the greenhouse about a week ago. Just as always, once the seeds were in the dirt and all watered in, we go out everyday (and sometimes two or three times a day) hoping to see the first signs of new plant life. Yesterday we were rewarded with quite a few new little seedlings. :) Hopefully this is a sign of better gardens this year.

The picture below is not very good because......well, because I'm not a very good photographer, BUT if you look very closely, you can see the little heart shaped green seedling. mmmm....I am hungry for fresh produce already.

Greenhouse Items

Here are just a couple of snap shots of the some of the things in the greenhouse. These seedlings are right at a week old when I took the pictures.

Spinach

Fancy Greens

Buttercrunch Lettuce

Greenhouse

We held a "Planting Party" with our kids last night. We had pizza and soda pop and lots of fun! And.......we even managed to get over 6,000 seeds planted and nestled into the greenhouse.

We should soon be seeing our little seedlings breaking through the soil and oh I can not wait to be tasting some of that "super" spinach, "lavish" lettuce and "gorgeous" greens! It makes my mouth water just thinking about it. mmmm.........

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!

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.

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.

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).