Wow - you never really pay that much attention to the weather until you become a farmer. We are now COLD again. There was frost this morning and hail and snow just east of us a couple of hills.
Yesterday afternoon arrived with hail coming down while the sun was shining. The picture above is beautiful, but it was absolutely breathtaking in person.
We added to our family a couple of nights ago. We now have 2 friendly nanny goats and 9 kids! Some of them were bottle fed, so they are super friendly, but even the others will let you pet them. The smallest is about 14" tall - so, so cute. We are in the process of weaning them. I call the picture of them eating a "kid pinwheel".
We now have 13 cows, 2 horses, 7 sheep, 11 goats, 4 pigs, 200 chickens and 8 turkeys. There are 180 fruit trees, 500 olive trees and about 35,000 vegetable plants. Lots of work, but lots of fun too.
Egg sales are going well. Chickens start out laying small eggs and graduate to larger eggs as they get older. Some of them are whoppers.
The baby chicks are growing like little weeds. I couldn't figure out why the chicks we raised in July grew so much slower. It came to me the other day. In the summer, we have to turn off the heat lamps during the day so they won't overheat. When we do that, they go to sleep. I have been leaving the lights on 24/7 with this flock and they have been eating 24/7 and growing 24/7. We will be moving them from the brooders within the next 10 days.
Our sheep are eating constantly too. Unfortunately, the grass is growing faster than they can eat it. Maybe this cool weather will help them get caught up.
I'm very excited about the Bradley School coming to the farm for a field trip in June. They are all going to bring flat rocks to their classroom between now and then. We will supply acrylic paint and paintbrushes and a list of our fruit trees. They can use their imagination to make a "name rock" and then place it under the corresponding tree. This is such a great little school. The 8th graders will be at their 8th Grade Camp, so we will have Kindergarten through 7th grades.
I have so many irons in the fire right now (so to speak). I am co-chair for the Paso Robles Agribusiness Tour which will be held on May 4th. Our daughter is getting married this May also. June will be our niece's wedding and July is the 3rd Annual Central Coast Lavender Festival held in the Paso Robles Park. I am secretary for the Central Coast Lavender Growers Association which puts on this event in conjunction with the PR Downtown Association.
There are SOOOO many things going on in our area this weekend. The San Antonio Mission has their Mission Days celebration on Saturday. There will be re-enactors in costume portraying soldados, artisans, vaqueros and neophytes. Demonstrations will include adobe brick making, bell ringing, early Californio dancing and more. The New World Baroque Orchestra will play original music composed the Mission San Antonio. This sounds like a great day and I hope to get to enjoy it. If not, there is always paperwork!
I thought I'd add a bit this morning (Saturday) before heading over to the Mission.
The bad news about baby goats is that the Coyotes think we have the "dinner ready" sign out. They love them. Although we want them around to eat the squirrels and rabbits, they have to respect our livestock. Every once in a while, one will start circling like a shark, even with the dogs on patrol. When this happens, they have to be eradicated or we will start missing animals. Marvin has seen one the past couple of days which was becoming a nuisance and was able to take car of him yesterday. It makes us sad to have to do it, but it's part of farm life.
We have one big palm tree out our back door. The photo above shows 2 of our barn owls that are living in it. It seems like an odd place for owls, but they seem to like it. These guys are great rodent patrol. They will fly off at dusk and hunt all night for gophers and mice and small varmints. Just another reason we don't use poison on the farm. They are really very beautiful when they are silhouetted against the dusky sky.
Thanks so much to those of you who have called to let us know how you are enjoying our eggs. They really are outstanding. We have also received calls from a couple of people who would like to come stay with us for a couple of days and see how a real old fashioned farm runs. We are so looking forward to having this available one day, but at this point, we just don't have the facilities. We do however invite daytime visitors so don't hesitate to let us know if you are in the area. You can call Marvin at (805) 801-1899 or leave a message on our machine at (805) 472-2126.
I'm being called to go review our new southern entrance that Marvin is building for our veggie/fruit/egg stand so time to go back to work!
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