Living The Country Life!!

Living The Country Life!!

Saturday, July 26, 2014

Welcome Home Tully!!


How cute is this little puppy?  She came into the household yesterday, and she is seven weeks old.  She shares a birthday with Farm Man, June 9th.


We spent her first full day doing a photo shoot, playing with Pete, getting introduced to all the peeps and cats.


Pete wanted to play with her so bad, but I told him he had to take it easy since she is so much smaller than him.


I think she is looking forward to spending her life with us and with the other farm animals.


She has her first vet appointment on Monday.  As you can see in the photo above, she is showing Pete how she can stand up on two legs.  Such a smart little puppy!


She can't wait until she puts on a little more weight so she can run around the yard with her big brother!

Thursday, July 24, 2014

Happiness Is...


Can anyone tell me what time it is?  Raspberry jam time!  When I was a teenager, I used to pick raspberries...and I absolutely hated it!  Picking the berries was no problem...it was the spiders that hung out in the vines.  Ewww!  And everyone knows how much I hate spidies!  I buy my berries down the road at another farm.  And I buy them already picked!  The price went up this year to $20 a flat which holds 12 1/2 pints.  I'm thinking that the price is still pretty good.  Especially since I didn't have to pick them!


I also put up some applesauce.  We have a transparent apple tree and really, the only thing you can do with transparents is make applesauce.  No sugar added.  Just apples and cinnamon.  The apples are too soft for pies, and since goats only have bottom teeth, they are loving the soft apples.    


I found some tattler lids!  I'm kind of apprehensive about using them...at least with the metal lids I can tell if they are sealed or not.  But I will give them a go and do an update on the blog.


We had some birds move in to the bird house down in the front yard.  One of the openings was immediately stuffed.  Hummm...I wonder why?  Was that in a kids' room?


Twitter and Prudence were getting a little snack from Farm Man.


The other goats saw that the other two were getting a snack, and wanted one too.  As much as they all tried, they just couldn't reach the tree branch.


Can you kind of see the outline in the yard?  That is the outline of our pond.  It's going to be a big one.  I can't wait!!


Farm Man had to move some implements around.  They were sitting next to the trees that will be coming down, so he got the tractor and rearranged all the fencing and added the implements under the big holly tree.


I know Farm Man looks at all of this and thinks to himself, "Man, I can't wait until I start putting the fence back up."


All the peeps are doing good.  They come running to me when I go out, thinking I might have a snack or something.  Yeah, I have a snack!  Start laying and you'll get a snack!  I have your snack right here buddy....   

Monday, July 21, 2014

Welcome Back!!

Hello!  Yes, I'm back!  We just have so much going on here at Fuzzy Heart Farm that I wanted to include all of our family and friends!  Plus, Farm Man has been bugging me forever to start another blog!  What better way than Living The Country Life?!  As you can see from the above photo we are logging!  Correction...we are logging EVERYTHING!!!  Well, except the fruit, maple and cascara trees.  Let me tell you about the sunshine!!  We have lots of sunshine!!  We have sunshine where it hasn't shined in over 65 years!  As you can tell, I am pretty excited!  These fir trees are too big - they should have been logged years ago.  We were getting so sick and tired of our farm looking like a war zone after every wind storm.  So far, our shop, laundry room and main house roofs were damaged due to flying limbs.  It was only a matter of time before one of the animals or even one of us, got hurt.  So we hired Mark and his crew who started logging the trees in the back and halfway up the side.  Once they have those trees loaded, then they will work on the front and the rest of the sides.  We have lots of trees - estimated about 40-50 logging trucks full.  Now after reading this, you are probably thinking "Hey Farm Girl, what about all that fencing Farm Man put up?!"   Well, lets talk about our fencing!  Farm Man and his brother had to take down ALL of the fencing from the back!  Yes, some of it was temporary fencing, but some of it wasn't.  We've had to move some animals around, but our animals LOVE change.  (ahem!)  I will get to the changes in a moment.  In the mean time, take a peek at my garden:




Farm Man put up two huge hoop houses for me.  They are about 12 feet tall, 12 feet wide and 40, (yes, you read that right - forty) feet long!  I absolutely love them!!!  The number one reason I wanted hoop houses was to extend my growing season.  As you can see from the photo above, my veggies are doing awesome!  I should have done this years ago!  But you live and learn.  (And learn some more!)

I also am trying turkeys!  For pets mind you - not dinner!  Farm Man built me a brooder out behind the shop and I have two royal palm turkeys, a silkie pullet, two black oriental bantams, and then two keets that I hatched on Fathers Day.

They are enjoying their life at the farm.  They haven't been integrated with the other peeps yet - in due time.  Maybe once the logging is finished and the babies are a bit older and bigger.  The turkeys are pretty big now though, and could probably hold their own.  I love my turkeys!  They are so friendly, and love to talk.  They also love to eat.  In fact, they get 3 boiled eggs every morning for breakfast.  Just don't tell the guinea's.  Yes, I am using the guinea eggs to feed the turkeys.  Shhhhh.  Ewww....I haven't really thought that through...that isn't cannibalism is it?


Here are the guineas.  I am up to 8.  Let me rephrase that.  I am up to a LOUD 8!  And let me tell you a little something about guineas.  Everyone knows how loud they can be when something is just a little different - like a leaf blowing around.  Well, try cutting down trees - 3 chain saws going, trees falling down here and there, and over all of that noise you can hear the guineas.  I don't make this stuff up!  So, if you live up north from us, or south, and was wondering what all that noise was, it was our guineas.  Sorry about that.


Here is a photo of part of the back that is getting logged.  It is amazing how much light we have just by taking out the trees in the back.  Hey, I love trees too!  And for those of you that are shaking your head, disbelieving the destruction of our property, just remember this...oh never mind.  I have already explained how dangerous it has been, the damage that has been done, and it is amazing how many tree huggers there really is out there.  It is amazing how people talk about how we should have left our trees, and yet their property is empty of trees.  AND they live in a house built with wood!  Whats up with that?  Blah blah blah!  Enough already! 


Goat time!  We are up to seven goats!  We have decided to go with lamancha's.  Here are five of them - Bo (who is our billy goat and he is on the very left in the above photo), he was born April 10th of this year, Twitter, (she is on the beams) and her birthday is April 4th.  Then also in the photo is Prudence and Emma Louise.  We also have Prudence's daughter Addie who you can see right behind Twitter's behind, and then we have two nigerian dwarfs, Vicki and Julia who we have sold to Mark.  Hopefully Bo will have done his duty to the girls, and we should have babies next year!  And when Mark takes Julia and Vicki home towards the end of the year, they will also be pregnant.


Here is Addie.  She is a little cutie. 


Here are some of my peeps.  I am up to 13 of them - 12 hens and one Rooster.  (Not counting the babies I have in the brooder.)  Guess, with having 12 hens, how many eggs do I get a day?  NOT MANY!!!  I swear, if these hens aren't broody, then they're molting!  Any reason not to lay!  On a good day, I might get 3 eggs.  Fresh chicken and dumplings are sounding mighty good these days!


  And yes, we still have Molly and Mr. Pete.  Molly is about 10 or 11 this year, and is getting a little gray.

Mr. Pete is 6 months younger then Molly and tells her every chance that he gets of that fact.




Well, I think you're up to date on just about everything.  And for a little bit of wisdom for you folks out there....enjoy your fuzzy butts while you can.