Full-time farming: July 2015

Turns out those concrete trucks I saw at the end of my last post were pouring the concrete in the garage. Then we went on vacation to the beach the week of June 13-20. Despite the weather being perfect that week, the framing didn't start because the power company encountered some major rocks when attempting to bury the power line, so that held up progress for a few days. But now temporary electricity is in place and framing is well underway.

Our freshly concreted garage

Standing on our new garage floor

Checking it out with the fam

Ezra was super excited

I took several pics of our fabulous pair of guineas a few days before we left on vacation. Little did I know that the male (on the right) would get killed by a hawk on the day before we got back from vacation. He was really mean to the rest of the flock, but he sure was beautiful. The girl (on the left) seems to be doing fine now without him - she's befriended a chicken hen and they seem to enjoy each other's company.

RIP beautiful guinea

We moved the Americaunas out to the farm in the upstairs (blue) coop shortly before leaving for vacation

That's them tucked in the corner on the right

We started building a new coop to accommodate all of these new chicks. We decided to make the bulk of it in the garage back home (where we had shade and a fan, not to mention electricity) and then disassemble it and take it out to the farm when we got far enough along.

Jason picked out the color and I painted it.

We moved the goats' electric fence around so they could move on to greener pastures so to speak

Fabulous Opal showing off her grill

While at the beach, we made a sand llama. Jason sniffed its butt.

When we got back from vacation, we took Ruby and Opal over to our neighbors Scott and Brenda's house to do a little clearing on some of their land. Turns out they don't really eat enough to earn an hourly wage. But we had a good time hanging out with them while we floated in the lake.

Opal chillin next to the lake

Jason got the tractor out to try to grade the land where the new coop is going.

He did a pretty good job!

Here's where the power company ran into the problem with the big rocks

Closer view of the rock issue

But we eventually got our transformer box and temporary power

Virgin power meter

We got our first building materials delivered

We hatched out a duck from eggs that one of the ancona ducks we bought last summer and took over to Scott and Brenda's laid. The duck laid a clutch of eggs in their fire pit and she was miserably hot sitting on the eggs in the heat of summer, so we took the eggs from her and attempted to hatch them out.

Ezra went swimming with the little duckling

Two more hatched out for a total of three. They had a great time swimming in the pool.

The framing started on July 3rd. After several dry weeks, it turned rainy for the July 4th weekend, but that didn't stop the framers. They got the floor beams put in that day.

There was a big pool of water underneath.

Brutus pecking around with the chickens

We disassembled the coop in our garage and brought it out to the farm for reassembly.

We moved the goats' fence around again.

The coop

Ezra helped with the reassembly.

New coop with new house in the background

We moved the Llamas on the Loose Farm original chicks that we hatched out in May downstairs to live with the Diva chickens (AKA layers) and Big Blue the rooster because it was getting crazy crowded in the upstairs coop.

They were a little spooked at first but seem to be getting more comfortable in their new home

Ezra liked the floor of the new coop.

The goat quad

Framing progress - walls are going up!

That's our old dog TJ - we used to take him out to the farm to hang out with the llamas for the day, and one day a couple of years ago he ran off. Our neighbors in the back found him and adopted him. They brought their kids (5 & 7) over to see the llamas and TJ came with them. He had a great time and continued hanging out with us when the neighbors went back home.