Inky and Stamp

Inky and Stamp

And a Little of This and That

 Inky was dedicated and sat on her eggs for weeks.  She was rewarded with one little (and I mean tiny) chick who we named Stamp.

Stamp is the second animal born on our homestead.  So she will go down in history.  I say she because we hope she is a hen.  

Inky has been a ferocious protector of her little chick and prefers to keep little stamp safe under her wings.  I had to be careful as I maneuvered her off the nest to get these pictures.

Sheep Shearing 

Thank you to Natalie for a shearing lesson so that we can get our lambs show ready for this season’s fairs.  Look how handsome Lambert looks with his fresh cut.

This is a batch of raw wool  we got from shearing our two adult Southdown sheep Dolly and Rosie.  I researched how to wash it and dry.  Now I must decide if I will try dying or taking any other steps to process it.    I’m leaning towards felting instead of making yarn.  This was only a small sample of what we sheared.  I tried to be picky for this first attempt.

Farm Improvements 

Can you tell what is going on in this picture?  Pepere Larry and Justin are turning our two chicken coops into one duplex with a central winterized outdoor run.  This middle part will be fully predator proof.

While things are getting rearranged outside, the barn is also getting some helpful additions.  Here we have a full sized shelf for tools on the upstairs railing.

  

Look at how little extra room this functional railing is using up.

We have running water in the barn thanks again to Pepere Larry.  This has tremendously helped with the effort and time for morning and evening chores.

The electricity has been running, so we have lights and can run the heat lamp for the Turkey poults.

The Turkey Poults

We’re trying something new out with our turkeys and will keep a few for breeding.

I am putting together a post just about raising the heritage breed of Turkey.

Here is Pickles.  She is much bigger than her siblings because she arrived a couple weeks sooner.

Brownie came out on a little road trip to visit Acadia at hockey camp.  We hope you still get a chance to get away, get a break, and enjoy a summer trip.  Even if it is just a short drive.

 All About Goat

And her duck and chicken friends

Okay, so my title is misleading because we didn’t suddenly get a GOAT on our farm. We do however have a lovely little new Indian Runner duck named goat.  We adopted her from another farming family who did not want to send this beautiful little duck for processing with the other meat birds they had. We are very happy that they decided to re-home her and that we were able to take her onto our homestead.  

Click HERE to watch the 10 sec clip of Goat eating breakfast!

It was cute as the animals in the duck coop tried to decide if she was going to be with the ducks or if she was going to be with the chickens. She looks so much different than the other ducks that I think it took a little time for them to recognize her as a fellow duck.

She came with a name goat because of two little markings on the top of her head when she was little. We have started calling her by the nickname Goaty but sometimes just Goat especially to trick visiting friends or family that we have a new animal on our farm until they actually see her.

The chickens that share this coop with these ducks are Sulkies, that means they are a mix between the Silky chicken and Sultan chickens. One of these little girls whose name is Inky has been very broody and now she is sitting on two chicken eggs and one duck egg.  This process takes 21 days.. We have not completely been keeping track of the days but it has definitely been more than two weeks.  We have a rooster named Cameron and a drake, which is  a male duck, named Eggbert.  We expect that the eggs are fertilized.

So we are very excited to show you a baby chick peeking out from underneath her wings very soon. We will keep you posted as soon as we find one! 

Click HERE to listen to our Khaki Campbells sing Quack-a-pella!

Post written with the help of Avalea 

Welcome Goat!

What’s Two More?

I wasn’t born a farmer.  I didn’t dream of being one when I was a little girl.  It didn’t cross my mind while I was making my way through college.  It started as a slow growth like a seed being planted in the earth. First the large vegetable garden, then some blueberry bushes, and wouldn’t chickens be nice.  Our little seed of a farm grew to a seedling when some  years later  pigs seemed like a good addition, as they most certainly have. Now we have this growing herd of sheep.

Rosie and Dolly the Southdown sheep have joined our family farm.  They were both very shy their first night. We are expecting little lambs this February because they have been bred.  We can’t wait to update you when that happens.

It took a while for the new sheep to get friendly with our two Katahdins, but they did not fight or get aggressive as we expected.

They spent a lot of time in separate parts of the pasture.

Now they all spend more time together and are beginning to act like a herd.  

Justin’s staycation this October has been very fruitful.  A whole new pasture has been born behind the barn.  The sheep will have a pen in the big warm barn this winter.

Thank you for checking out our new additions and while you’re here, mark yourself a follower of our Castonguay This’N’That Family Farm.

Welcome Dolly and Rosie!

Garden Living: Processing Broccoli

Garden Living

    🥦 Processing Broccoli  🥦 

Broccoli is ready to be cut when the florets have that classic soft look.  It’s too early when it is still firm on top and too late when the flowers actually start to open into their little yellow flowers.  After you have cut the main head of broccoli, leave the trunk as you can continue to get shoots of broccoli all summer long; how much depends on the type of broccoli you have grown.

  

     

       

    
Too Early!

          Just Right!          Too Late!

                                                        

 Fresh broccoli is great right from the garden, but it does need to make one stop in a salt rinse first; we use our sink.  Any bugs or worms that are hiding in that luscious canopy will come to the surface to avoid the salty water, pluck them out and it’s ready for the pot or the fridge for another day.

Freezing broccoli for a later time: from experience, keep the stems short as the long pieces get quite firm and stringy. You could also peel the stems and freeze those in pieces. Freezing should occur the day you cut your broccoli, perhaps the next day with good results, but any later and you risk losing that fresh taste. 

Prepare your space:

• Soak your broccoli in the salt water as described above. Boil a pot of water
• Prepare an ice bath (a big bowl of icy water). You will need to have extra ice ready if you’ll be repeating this process multiple times.

Have freezer bags ready and labeled with the date.

Blanching: 

• Drop your broccoli in the boiling water and set your timer for two minutes.

• Be ready with your handled strainer.  This process from blanching to ice bath should be quick.

• Move all the broccoli to the ice bath and reset your timer for two minutes.

• Remove the broccoli from the ice bath and onto a clean dry cloth or skip this step and put them into the labeled freezer bag.

 

• Move to freezer bag and squeeze out as much water and air as possible and seal.

• Put your broccoli bags in the freezer; a deep freezer is best.

It’s great reaching into your freezer or canning shelf months from now, still eating a variety of veggies that you have preserved!  And it all started from these little plants in a well fertilized earth.

For more information on how to grow broccoli and other veggies in the garden... check out my post 

Garden Living: How to Battle the Elements.

Chicken Breeds; The Unique Ones and the Dependable

Backyard Chicken Breeds

The Unique Ones and The Dependable in our backyard

A chicken yard is certainly more fun when you have some handsome hens scratching around.  We really enjoy a spunky looking chicken; they hold a special spot in the flock and our hearts.  Most people begin raising chickens in their backyard for the fresh eggs. It doesn’t take too long to realize how much fun chickens really are and how it’s so easy to start raising chickens just because you love them so much.  We have always had the “feather foot” here or the “puff top” there mixed in with our more practical breeds. Since we live in Maine, we choose weather hardy chickens and good egg layers.  This year we added a new group of chicks much different then our past flocks.  Thanks to another backyard farmer, Glamour Chickens, we have introduced a fun variety of beautiful breeds to our farm.

The photo below shows the chicks on their arrival day to our farm. We were so excited to see how these girls looked full grown.  You can keep cruising down this blog to see more pictures, but the video above shows you how each chicken matured in a video format.

Serama-Cemani Mix this one is named Carless

 

Silkie-Sultan mix “Sulkies” named Angus and Isabelle

All of the chicks came with little bands on their feet to help with identification of breed and gender.  We clipped them off easily once they moved into their new coop.  These two chicks are Angus and Isabelle.. see below for their updated look a couple weeks later.

Lavendar Orpingtons

We did get a few of these birds.  They are very dependable egg layers.  As full size hens, they will be gray with a hint of lavendar.  They are a particularly popular breed of laying hens and average 200 medium sized eggs that are light brown in color. The one featured here is named Morgan.

There is also an Aracauna in our flock.

These young chickens are already getting up on their third floor perch by the fresh air.  I’m pretty impressed that these younguns were able to do that. And look at these photos below; Alexia made a swing for these new fancy chicks to play with.  They seemed to enjoy their first time giving it a try.

Jupiter is an Ayam Cemani Sizzle mix 

This baby chick is very unique and should grow up to be a curly dark hen. 

Angus Napping by Alexia

Inkie the Sulkie reminds me of the birds in Rio. Photo by Acadia.

Fuzzy Mozart: photo by Acadia and entered in 4H exhibit hall.

Fuzzy Mozart and the other chicks take a trip outside their coop and around the backyard

Jupiter up on the tower of the play set.  He was contemplating jumping off, so this photo shoot was cut short

Carless on the upturned wheelbarrow, such a natural place for a chick to hang out at the farm.

Fuzzy Mozart, getting a little blue on her cheek

                      The twins Abigail and Isabelle, we tell them apart by the color of their beaks.

Angus going for a walk.

Check back on this post... I’m sure you’re as interested as I am about how these girls will look as they age.   This year, the kids have been excited to meet this fun flock of girls.  They are such a great addition to the farm.

Cameron is a rooster strutting his stuff.

Jupiter, not all black anymore. He’s our feisty rooster!

The many nameless, Lavendar Orpingtons.  Only Morgan is named, she is plumper then the rest.  I’ll catch you a photo of her later and add it.  Morgan sleeps on the grain barrel at night.

Fuzzy Mozart all grown up: what a little fuzz ball she is.

Inky and Isabelle 

Cameron

Carless, we think is also a rooster.