On January 30 my mother passed away after a long battle with cancer. Mom was a fighter and went on her own steam until there was no steam left. She wanted to stay home and have her family take care of her. My brothers, sister, and I pulled together to make this happen for her. Losing mom is very hard on me. Mom was my best friend, we talked everyday. She knew everything about my life and she was also my biggest encouragement to this farm. The days are still hard, but life will go on and it seems that everything I do now, is for mom.
On February 10th our Randall Cows arrived from New Hampshire. We are so excited to welcome them to our farm! April, Marissa, and Milly are all pregnant and due in March and April. They have settled in nicely, come when we call them, and love to be pet and scratched.
The Randall Cattle Breed is a critically rare endangered breed. There are less than 500 of these cows in existence. The Randall Cattle are the only surviving genetically pure land race breed left in the United States. These cows are what our ancestors brought to this country when America was first being settled. You can read more about the Randall Cattle at http://www.randallcattleregistry.org/ We were extremely lucky to be able to purchase these 3 girls. When we contacted the registry about getting on the 3 year waiting list for bottle calves, we were contacted by the woman who actually saved the breed in the 1980s. She knew of someone who had to sell her girls and wanted to know if we were interested. Of course we were, and the girls are now here. We really believe that there was a higher power at work for us to receive these wonderful girls.
Our chickens are finally starting to increase their egg production. We have eggs available again for you to purchase. Since we moved, the poultry has not been free-ranging all the time. Only when we are home. This is for several reasons, mainly for their protection. We are still learning what our predators are here and don't want to put our birds safety at risk. The Guinea Fowl are also a big reason to why they have not been let out of the covered pen all the time. Adult Guinea Fowl are very hard to move. Guineas are very structured animals that thrive on routine. When we moved and put them in a new location, they pretty much freaked out in their OCD guinea fashion. They had to be contained or we would have lost every single one of them. They would have wandered off, not being able to return home because they didn't know where home was. They probably would have attempted to return to the old house. The guineas have now settled in nicely and have been roaming nicely when they are let out. They haven't ventured too farm from the house and barns yet, but they will. I'm please with their progress and have no doubt that within a few weeks they will be able to roam all the time again.
I will be adding some posts soon about what we plan to do this year. I also plan to add some information about why we made the choices we did on what we will raise and how we will raise it.
See you soon!
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