Growing like a weed!

Joel in his favorite outfit... nothing but a diaper. He's got 4 teeth now. He loves my home made yogurt and cottage cheese. But bananas are still his favorite food!

Future Farmer

This is Joel. He's growing faster than the weeds in my garden. It won't be long before Brian decides it's time to teach him to ride a pig! lol   (Just kidding Emily, he'll only teach him to bronc ride the sheep!)

Seriously, I can't think of a better place to raise kids than a farm. Whether it's a few acres or 100's of acres. The is nothing like nature's big backyard to learn about life and living.

New Blog: Piglet's Progress

We have a bottle baby pig right now.



She has her own blog!



You can follow her progress @

http://pigletprogress.blogspot.com/

Baby Brunch

Brian's oldest daughter is expecting her first child. We're excited about our first grandchild. :) I wanted to have a baby shower for Katie, but because I work nights on the weekends I had to get a little creative. So I decided to throw a "Baby Brunch".
I invited Katie's guests and family to show up at 10:30 am for brunch. On the buffet, I set up Apricot/Cream cheese stuffed backed French toast, hash brown casserole, sausage balls with dipping sauces, juice, and coffee. Katie loves pink so the table cloth, napkins and plates were pink with ribbon curls and pink flowers for decoration on the table.
We had a nice brunch and watched the slide show of Katie when she was little then opened presents and visited and traded baby tales. It was nice, low key and met Katie's criteria of "no stupid games that measure my belly!"

Pile O' Piglets

These are Petunia's piglets when they were just a day or so old. I love this pic. Baby piglets are sooooo cute!!

What a surprize!

Brian called me at work last night. He never calls me at work unless something is wrong so my heart skipped a beat as I picked up the phone.
"It's a girl!" he laughed.
"What do you mean 'It's a girl!' Did Brandy have her calf?"
"Nope," he said. "Rosie did!!"
I was speachless, Rosie wasn't even showing any signs of being close when we checked her yesterday morning. We thought she'd be at least another 10-14 days.
It seems my sister was coming up to visit and noticed a calf in our field, so she told Brian. He didn't really believe her since we have sheep in that field too and she could have been mistaken. He asked her to look again on her way out the driveway. She called him back from her cell phone "Yep, it's a calf!"
She stayed and helped Brian get Rosie and her new dunn heifer into the barn with the others.
This little girl is the biggest of the Dexter calves so far. She's beautiful and perfect. Her momma is very protective of her. Rosie staked out the warmest corner of the barn for her baby.
Guess what we're naming her?
KMGF Grass Kissed Evening Surprize!

Of Winter Gear and frosty mornings...

IT's COLD!

I've been trying to get up and do chores on my days off before Brian wakes up. He really needs to take it easy on his foot until after he's had his surgery on the 30th and recovered for 6 weeks. So this morning I glanced at the thermometer; -10 degrees, looked out the window; tree limbs waving in the wind- and wondered how many layers I could put on and still be able to walk.
Turtle neck, followed by polar fleece hoody, over leggings with sweatpants, 2 pairs of socks - 1 cotton, 1 insulated hunting socks. Next comes the Carhart subzero overalls, then the balaclava with the hood of my polar fleece jacket pulled up over it. Finally on top of it all was my Carhart coat. Add 2 pairs of knit gloves and boots. There that about does it. I can't find a scarf this morning.
I step over the dogs in front of the heater on my way out. They aren't moving. First I feed the big hogs and then the small hogs. They aren't moving either. They just look up at me from their hay nests and snuggle back down. Then up the driveway to check the cows and their babies. Everybody's up eating hay.
Nursing mommas need lots of water. The ice on the water trough in the barn has to be broken. It's nearly 6 inches thick. I close my eyes with every whack of the pick to avoid getting ice slivers in my eyes.
By now my eye lashes are full of frost. Thank goodness there is a heater in the other water trough. A couple of bucket of water from the heated trough get carried over to the mommas' trough in the barn. Then a quick head count of cows, horses and sheep and I'm headed back to the house.
I stop on the way to feed the cats and fill the bird feeders...
Here is a "self portrait"! Note the frost in my hair!
IT's really COLD! :)