Spring has Sprung

Rain, rain, rain! It has made the ground so soft, so much easier to work with than usual. Yes in places it has been just downright sopping, but, I would rather have the rain than none! My hair on the other hand could do without all the humidity! Oh well!
     It has been a VERY fruitful spring so far here on the homestead. Almost 3 weeks ago, Toastie my cat, had kittens, 6 adorable kittens. There are 2 males and 4 females, she had them in a box in our bathroom (like any good cat should).  Two nights ago she decided for whatever reason she wanted to move them. I imagine it is because she felt I was taking to many liberties with picking them up and petting them. I was started to let the kids pet them and I assume she just felt they would do better under my nightstand. As long as I know where they are, I am fine with that!
     We have had a brooding hen ( a black silkie) for about five weeks now. I have never seen a brooding hen in action before, it is VERY neat. Basiclly she sits in her nesting box ALL DAY, she seemed to have started laying on one or so of her eggs. Now that the other hens know she is brooding, they climb up in the box with her and lay their egg (pretty much on top of her) and she scoops that egg into her clutch and sits on it. This hen DOES NOT get up. We have a hen that *thinks* she is a brooder but she gets bored after about 2 days and gets down. I suspect she has ADD and just can't sit still that long.  :) Anyway this hen had about 10 eggs under her at one point. Unless you mark them ( which we should probably start doing) there is no way to know which egg is which. So you just wait for a chick. A chick hatched last friday, it is such a cute little thing. It seems to be doing well. This is an experiment, letting her hatch her own eggs. We will have to see what the chicks disposition is like , my philosophy is "everyone does better with a momma" so we will see!
---------WARNING EXPLICIT CONTENT--------- I wanted to update the chick section of this blog. Last night I brought in a bunch of eggs from our ADD hen. I told Stewy that since she doesn't sit on them consistently we need to make sure they are taken from her.  He started cracking the eggs ( there are sure to be embryo's in them we are just uncertain of the stage) he cracked an egg and it started chirping!!! I almost started crying as I said, "STOP STOP!! Take it back out and put in under the momma!!!! " So hopefully, we didn't damage that one to badly and it will hatch in a few more days!!------END EXPLICIT CONTENT-----    Sunday we added a new line of mammal to the farm.  I purchased 2 GOS (Glouchester Old Spot) and Large Black (creative huh?) mix hogs.  These both are rare heritage breeds and are meant to be raised on pasture (which is better for them anyway than raising them on grain , IMO) The meat with these guys is said to be much richer and smoother. Now, I already LOVE pork so a better tasting pork sounds GREAT to me. They are also AMAZING rooters. As long as they stay where they are supposed to, we plan on putting these girls to work having them turn over the land. We can then reseed and move them to another area of pasture. Between the chickens and the pigs, I am anticipating GREAT things! We got two females. My intent is to see how the summer goes with raising them. If we decide that pigs aren't our thing ( like we did with goats) then we will butcher both girls. If I like the idea and it works out well we have talked about butchering one and breeding the other. I named them "scrapple", the one that I anticipated that we would be eating, and,  "sweetie", the one that I anticipated that we would be breeding. However their dispositions did a little flip flop and Scrapple is the one who wants the attention and Sweetie is the one who thinks she is being murdered when you try to pet her.  They come when they are called (it's so fun to watch them come running). They have big floppy ears that act as blinders, so they are not as jumpy as some other pigs that you've seen. This is a neat new venture that I am very excited about!
    As far as the humans go, we are all doing well. The kids love the animals (especially the kittens) and #1 is always eager to go get the eggs for us. They are all such a big help (some days more than others, but we are working on that). We are still doing school and will continue with at least math and reading all year around. We plan to take breaks here and there as needed. That is the beauty of Home Schooling is you can do what is best for your children and for you ( but more of that for another time) .
    Enjoy the rain, God has given it to us for a reason.  Yes, it makes things hard to mow, and yes, there is lots of mud; but, there are SO MANY worse problems we could have. So my recommendation is go with it! The August dry heat will be here before you know it!