I was hoping to write weekly…but then…life! It happens!! So I think I’m going to not say when the next update will be, only to leave you all in suspense!
So the past few weeks have been busy…
1. We started calving! Yes, about a week or two early this year, babies have been dropping out of mamma cows, and I have to say, I am always happy this time of year! There’s nothing like going out to the calving grounds and looking for new babies! The kids have fun guessing what the baby is going to look like based on mom and which bull they potentially mated with. The weather has been absolutely beautiful, so far, and all the babies have been born healthy and strong.
The heifer’s escaped to the lake, and this one calved. Fortunately both mom & baby were ok.
2. More babies! We hatched out our first eggs on our own! I bought an incubator and we had to fill it immediately. It only holds 7 eggs, so I can’t become the crazy chicken lady too fast (because having 40 hens does NOT qualify you as a crazy chicken lady–haha!). We set 7 eggs and 4 hatched. The other 3 were clear (not fertilized) and the 4 chicks are healthy and doing great! If you follow me on Instagram (@crookedlakefarm) you can see the progression of our chicks under my saved Stories. I have to admit it was an experience, and our entire family was excited when the first chick started pipping up until the last one hatched!
Chick drying off & enjoying a nap in the incubator
Newly hatched and dried chick
3. We started spring field work. It’s been a relatively dry spring here so far, unfortunately. Not that it’s a bad thing, because we’ve been able to get a lot of work done in the fields (pulling old fence lines and cleaning up brush) that we haven’t been able to get to in the past few years. But we’re really hoping for some rain to get the grass started, frost out of the ground, and help the crops grow. We just started harrowing (it’s like raking the ground) the fields to get them ready to seed. I don’t expect us to be seeding until later next week, but stay tuned!
The youngest getting to go harrow with dad
That’s about it. It doesn’t sound like much, but add daily life & homeschooling on top of that, it gets pretty busy! Until next time…
