Horses, Puppies And Stuff On The Farm

It has gotten very busy here now that spring is upon us!  I still have a little more school before I can take off for summer break.  It is taking a little longer for me because of all the horses I've had to ride and getting hay, chores, etc.  But after this I only have one more year and I'm graduated!  I hope to gradate at 17!

Well, Frankie went back home last week.  I miss him - he is a cool horse :)  We get to go up there soon to ride and mom gets to ride him though!  I asked Marlene which of their horses was "the outlaw" and she picked the big gelding that bucks and hasn't been ridden in 2 years :)  So I'll probably ride that one...

Me and Frankie up Lost Horse

I am also buying a 3 year old mustang mare!  She is completely unbroken and very smart!  I'm getting her as a project horse and I'll either sell her or Apache when she's trained.  Which ever one I keep I plan on breeding.  The mustang has better lines and breeding so she'd be a better option for that - we'll see :)

Oh!!!  And the lady I'm buying the horse from had Blue Heeler puppies for sale!  They are under a week old and I committed to one of the girls.  I am going to put a deposit down on her when we pick up the filly and get the pup when it is ready to leave her mother.

And we finally got our White Leghorn chickens!  We are keeping 3 hens and a rooster and giving away the other 5 roosters - we will now have some as day old chicks next year for sale, along with the Buckeyes.  We also have 4 mixed breed chickens.  It has taken awhile to replenish the flock after a dog came through and destroyed it.

Here are the 4 cross breeds:

It's kind of hard to get a photo of these chicks because they are quite wild!

Trixie and Tris

Tris

Stumpy's little girl!  This is the one we are keeping so we can take a vacation and not have to have someone milk for us

Oh and I just had to put these pics of Caleb on here - he is getting so big!  He's taller than me and is getting quite buffed up! lol  In these's pics he is pretending to have a hard time lifting one pound weights :) He is quite a clown sometimes!  He brings so much joy to everyone in the family!

Chickens and Goats!

Last week we butchered the rest of our freedom rangers.  Hannah has started to help - she is the door manager for the chicken coop so no chickens escape!  It took us hardly any time at all now that Dad has tuned in all the equipment, he is so talented!  My jobs are usually: catching chickens during the first part of the butchering, I help Mom with the gutting, then me and grandma wrap.  The system has smoothed out so much especially with the packaging system.  We buy our bags from The Deliberate Agrarian - click HERE to purchase or read about them.  Here are some pics from the day:

Yucko!

Caleb was doing hurtles over the pipe the whole time

Hannah

We miss your help Bianchis!!!!

Mom at her station

Grandpa was alternating between supervising and playing with the dog

And we also just got another batch of chicks!  We tried a new variety - they are still freedom rangers but Just a different color - gray (and I think they are way cuter as chicks! :) lol)

Stumpy had her kids a few days ago!!!  There are 2 girls and a boy - and they are just SOOO adorable and tiny!

They sure are little cuties!!! :)

Stuff Around The Farm

Hi y'all!  We added another goat to the flock - she's a purebred Nigerian Dwarf milk goat and she is pregnant, her name is Cassie but we have started calling her Stumpy because of her body structure :) lol  Don't know if I told you that Buttons and Eowyn are gone (they've been gone for quite awhile now).  So we have 5 adult ewes and 2 kid ewes right now.  Hannah decided to sell Snowy and get a pony - so Snowy is on craigslist now - and we now have a yearling stud pony that mom and Hannah are going to break.....he's pretty cute but quite a pill already!!!  I haven't taken many pictures of Stumpy but she is behind Hannah in this pic:

And here is a funny pic of Tilly...the escape artist!

We also just hatched 27 chicks - they are a mix of breeds for our layer flock.  And they are SO cute! :)  We've been letting our layers free range over the whole property lately now that we know Brutus won't eat them.  It is such a blessing to see them running around hunting for bugs!  Mom has been (unsuccessfully) trying to train them to stay off the porch :)