New Life

The farm is teaming with new life today. Over the last two days our first chicken hatchlings have broken free of their shells and roamed the incubator until becoming strong enough to be placed under a heat lamp in the garage. Hopefully in a few weeks they will be ready for the outside brooder and others will have taken their place. I am very pleased that we have finally found a way to keep the incubators regulated with enough consistency that the embryo's are developing and we have hatching eggs!

We moved three pens this weekend which was quite a bit of work, but something that needed to be done. We never had intentions of keeping ducks so close to the kids play area. They really can be quite messy and they have tendency to poo in their "pond" which can make the water smelly even though it gets changed twice a day, because it's so hot here in Florida. I'd really love it if the ducks could be free range, but the hawks in my area are terrible and I've seen a really big bird (I'm not sure what kind) pick up and fly off with a full grown Buff Orpington Hen!  The Ducks seem to be happy in their new location but I was a bit upset they only gave me one egg today... Not sure what that was all about, I usually get more than one and I'd expect to get more as I have two drakes and eight hens in that pen.

The baby goats, Yin and Yang, were moved out of their tiny pen and placed with Baby. Baby wasn't really to happy about that but when she tried to assert her dominance over Yin, he wasn't going to put up with any nonsense. Yin at only 3 months old had Baby against the fence and pinned her there. That was all it took to get Baby to back off and now all three are living together in harmony. It's so funny to see them all jumping and kicking out, bucking and just being generally silly with one another. Baby seems happier to as she's no longer alone. When we bought Baby last August  we thought she was a young goat but now that time has passed we realize that she must be some kind of miniature pygmy or something because Yin and Yang are as tall as she is!

The garden is in bloom! The squash has very pretty yellow flowers, the strawberries have a little reddish / dark pink flowers and the peppers have tiny white flowers. I am very happy to see so many colors in my garden because I know that my plants are "happy and healthy" which was something I was not certain I would be able to accomplish as a first time gardener.

With the demands placed upon my husband and myself because our children were sick all week and our car broke down... YAY.. NOT!   We did not get as much accomplished this weekend as we would have liked. None of the raised beds were built and only one rabbit hutch was made but we are hopeful that we will be able to complete some of these activities during the week, provided my husband makes it home at a decent time.