Lost another one

Aw shucks, I'm feeling downright lonely around here now.

At long last, Emily got her own blog.

I must admit that her blog is cute though! You can check it out HERE.

~Caitlyn

Wordless Wednesday: Boots

Emily has been busy at her work....

~Caitlyn

At it again...

Just know that I am a farm girl.

And I'm at it again.

Mom and dad gave me permission to try again and get our little farm up and running, so I have been very busy working on just that!

Change number one started when I was at the annual Flock and Fiber Festival with my friends.... And saw an adorable rabbit.... To make a long story short, I saw a gorgeous Champagne D' Argent doe, who had excellent conformation, I haggled the price down to what I could afford and brought the poor thing home in a cardboard box. Don't ever take me shopping where there might be animals for sale. I would've brought a sheep home too, but there wasn't any room in the back of the van.... Next time maybe. ;)

Second half of that story is that when I first saw the rabbit, the area was crowded with people, The owner and I could barely hear each other because it was so loud and I was constantly being jostled while looking the rabbit over. I didn't do a thorough check, basically just looked at its conformation and whatnot. It wasn't until I got home that I did a very thorough check and found out that I just became the new owner of a lovely buck, and not a doe! I still have the goofy fellow, as the previous owners live over 5 hours away. Apparently they got mixed up about which rabbit was their doe and which was their buck. Oh well, he really is a nice buck; I wouldn't mind taking him to a show or two someday....

Change #2. We got chickies again!!

20 Deleware pullets to be exact. :D I chose these birds so that we could breed them with a Rhode Island Red rooster, and the resulting chicks will be sex-linked, meaning the males with be white and females will be red.

And change #3? Okay, this has been the biggest thing of all. After many months of praying, searching, learning, making phone calls, etc... Today, I became the new owner of a 14 day old Jersey heifer!!!

Isn't she sweet!?

I haven't decided on a name yet, but I'm thinking maybe 'Poppy'. ;)

She is such a sweetheart too. :) At first I was worried about how the goats would take to having a newcomer in their pasture, but thankfully they are fine with her around. :D

[sigh] I love bein' a farm girl....

~Caitlyn

Jes' bein' me

I couldn't resist the temptation of sharing this picture with y'all. ;)

The below picture is of me holding a baby Gopher Snake. Isn't it pretty? Okay, so I'm probably the only one who thinks so....

For some reason, I've always had a fascination with reptiles and amphibians. :)

~Caitlyn

Why don't they get it!?!?

I'll say it in public. USDA drives me crazy. These people just don't get it; we small farmers are not out to kill off the population by selling clean, fresh raw milk and unwashed eggs, like the government believes us to be. We know what's good. What's fit to eat. What builds health rather than utterly destroying it like factory foods do. Why on earth does FDA and USDA think that it's healthier to eat beef cattle that have been fattened on chicken manure, than it is to eat grass fed beef cattle that have never known what stress is? Why is it better to drink pasteurized milk from cows that are so pumped full of hormones and antibiotics that they rarely live to the age of five, than it is to drink raw milk from happy healthy cows (and goats!) that spend their day in a grassy pasture and are looked after very carefully?

I found This you-tube, about a Wisconsin farm raid, off a friend's blog and decided to put it here too. I love the background music: 'America the Beautiful'. Ain't we proud to live in a country where we aren't allowed to sell real food? I tried putting the video on my blog, but the whole screen wasn't showing. Sorry about that.

~ Caitlyn

P.S. I really am going to post about what's been going on around here! I'm waitin' for one more thing to get here before I blog.

Finished!!!

I did it. After 6 months of work, I finished a bag of fiber that someone sent me.

Normally, it would not take me this long to finish a project, but the fiber was baby Suri alpaca, which involves high twist, careful handling and slow, steady movements to create a lovely yarn that has incredible drape, luster and feel.

I got a total of 10 skeins from this fleece, which is pretty decent. Total yardage is somewhere around 1,200 yards.

And boy does it feel good to have finally finished this fleece! :)

Now, to go do the other two bags of Suri alpaca that are still upstairs....

Stay tuned to find out what else has been going on around here! With luck, I will do another post on Monday!

~Caitlyn