llama Grove Groove

The farm is starting again. When the last of the animals left Llama Grove we thought it might be a long time before animals were brought to the new homestead. But a couple weeks ago, we did just that! Six baby chickens have made their way to the new Llama Grove. To the left is their chicken tractor. It’s pretty big, but we’re able to move it around the property. It also matches the house, with it’s steep angles and high-fronted design.

The kids love the little fluff balls. The chicks started off in the mud room. Today there is no wind and a lot of sunlight, so the chickens are outside enjoying the green grass and spiders that run through it. The chicks get a fair bit of handling, so we’re hoping for chickens that come to us and don’t jump when we reach for them. They already jump a lot. We never thought that we’d be trying to clip the wings of pullets before they were fully laying.

More mowing, more fields. This is a lot of fun, really.

Llama Grove is moving. Are you a real farmer when you say things like, “Gotta mow the field before that storm gets in.”

These are the last daffydils from the flower bed. It’s a little sad to think that we will not get flowers from teh same bulbs next year, but plans for moving llama Grove proceed apace. We may have to rename the farm now that we’re changing to the top of a foothill rather than an enclosed hillside.

It’s been wonderful planning how we can make this land viable, sustainable, and productive.

Come on Spring! Bring that warm weather and beautiful veg. We’re ready for you! The spices are all organized and the last of last years sarkaut and pickling is done! When will the snow end? When will the sun come out? Will we be making our own apple juice or will we have to buy it? We’re ready for you growth. Come get us!

The top shelf of the pantry is kombucha, vanilla, ginger ale and other fermentation jars, the next shelf down is all spices, the next shelf is a combinaiton of baking needs, coffee and emergency cans of stuff we might not have been able to stock up on. the final shelf is flour, cane crystals, etc. Oils on the ground, more spices hanging on the door. We are so ready!

We’re not sure if this is the permanent homestead. The view is unbeatable, but the slopes don’t accomodate the larger animals without putting the soil in jeapordy. The chickens love the space that used to belong to the female Alpacas! So roomy and full of worms. They also have the entire barn to themselves. We’ll be looking for a new site soon enough, but hope to return to the llama grove as soon as we can. <3

The rhubarb and garlic are growing already! We’ve had such warm weather that today I was sweeping wasps nests off the roof and found a wasp. The nights have been very cold, though. there is no cloud cover at night, so we have a real risk of frost taking the buds off the apple trees and killing the garlic and rhubarb.

The chickens continue to lay as though it was summer time. They are doing great.

Well, everyone is gone now. We will miss everyone who went to live with other farms permanently. The cows were really lovable and the llama was probably the most beautiful llama we’ve ever seen. He quite a personality on top of that. We’d really been looking forward to training him for hikes.

Brody, the horse is staying at Gaston Irish Sporthorses. He will remain there and be trained by the extremely competent trainer until someone comes to take him to another home, or until we build a dry barn. Whichever comes first. He’s such a big love that we know he’ll be in good hands either way.

On the up side, we’re in the middle of winter and getting 6 to 8 eggs a day from the chickens! This is great news. The weather has been rainy, but nice and warm for the time of year. The big question is without llamas and alpacas, what will we do for large-ish scale garden composting?

As the rain continues, so does the exodus from the soggy barn. We’re very sorry to see them go, but without proper drainage, the barn is simply too wet for our animals to spend the winter. The French drain didn’t hold under the weight of the cows and horse.

Cinnamon, our juvenile milk cow, has found a new home where we hope she will be very happy. She is a sweetie who loves having her cheeks scratched and really only has one motivation in life: a little treat.

Leif the guard llama is auditioning for a 4-H family this weekend. We expect that he will probably find a new home Saturday.

Brody the horse is looking for a new home as well. He’s going to go stay with our friends and horse trainer to be keep company with other horses for a while. We’ll bring him back when we are able to do so or he will find some family looking for a wonderful Georgian Grande pinto who also have time to train him.

The chicken stall is still dry, so they will be able to stay safe and dry. What’s  a life without our chickens?

It’s hard to see, but the insanely wet and cold weather we’ve had gave us our first hail this week. Unfortunately we’ve been getting over an inch of rain each each day.

The really sad thing about this is that our barn flooded again! Horses and cows are too heavy for french drains.

Because of this and our lack of time, we gave up our beef cow. He’ll have a gret time with the cows in the new pasture he’s going to live in, well, for a while. He is a Jersey Angus cross steer, so he’s not really slated for a long life.

Leif the llama protects his cows. The horse, though, he could do without.

Fall seems to have exploded this week. Somehow we weren’t looking and the leaves changed colors this week. Cherry trees, maples, walnuts and apples are all suddenly yellow and red.

This weekend we doubled the size of our flock. A neighbor gave us five laying hens they didn’t want to keep any longer. There are four Rhode Island Reds and the big coup for us was a silver araucana that lays blue eggs! We’ve bought so many araucanas looking for one that lays blue or green eggs.

To this end, Ray built three more nesting boxes and another roost. The heating lamp was turned on, too, given the low overnight temperatures.

This was one hard weekend. Ray took every gate off their posts and re-did their fittings to keep the horse from pulling the gates off their hinges. He also had to fix three stall door closures because the horse had been having a good time pulling on them to get at grain.

That and a few minor barn changes got us a far way to ready for winter. It looks like all that’s left is stall bedding material purchases and we’ll be ready for the snow.

In addition to all this work, Ray worked on the horses hooves and pulled out the chainsaw to take care of branches that were overhanging driveways and fences.  There was a fence post shorting out the electric fence, allowing the llama and one of the cows to repeatedly escape that needed fixed as well. The entire outer perimeter was walked just to check for shorts as well.