The boy has arrived.

Our bull has arrived today. None of the heifers have spotted him yet, but they will be beside themselves when they do.

He is lovely and quiet, a big sook. Hopefully in about 9-10 months we will have some babies on the ground, depending on how fast he gets to work. ;)

The year is flying by....

Things have been a little crazy here over the last month or so. The days are going so quickly, and it's been very busy. I can't believe we are nearly half way through the year already. I went to Ann's scrapbooking retreat in May at Kilcoy. Managed to get a few pages done, was a bit off my mojo though, so didn't get as many as usual done, I procrastinated a lot, but I had a nice break. I travelled down with a girl friend, and we went the scenic route on the way down, and stopped at a lovely cheese shop at Goomeri and bought some beautiful cheeses and pastes to indulge in over our weekend. These are the few pages I did:

Kasey feeding some poddy calves at a friend's place.

 These are a couple of my favourite photos. I hired a truck to pick up a lounge I bought off ebay, and Toni came with me to help me load it up. The first photo was when we were about to set off on our way...while we were loading the lounge, it bucketed down on us, drenching us both, the 2nd photo is the after shot...

 Then I thought I would do a few pages with lots of photos to get through some of my huge stash of pics, the first was of my chickens:

 This page is still of my chickens, but this was a class we did  on the Saturday morning, the photo's are on flaps which open out, revealing lots more photos underneath.

 Then this page was of a visit we did to the Flying High bird sanctuary, Kasey wasn't real keen on the bird on her shoulder

 This pic is of our gorgeous pups

 This page was based on the chicken page, and also has lift up flaps depicting lots of things from our farm

 I loved doing this page, very simple but elegant at the same time, depicting a morning scene here on the farm

The puppies are doing well. I have finally managed to get Stella putting on some weight, she has finally hit the 2kg mark and she is coming out of her shell more and more each week. Here they are curled up together on the lounge.

Sam has the biggest personality. He is so cheeky and loveable. He loves to play in the dirt, and even though he is white, he manages to clean himself up quite well...especially considering when he does this:

We also did a weekend holiday over to Fraser Island with 3 other families, even though it was only from Friday through to Sunday, we had a great time. I had a local animal carer come in and feed and look after the animals for me, which made things a lot easier.

I had a clutch of araucana's ready to hatch when I got back from Fraser, I had 2 hatch out and then Max knocked the incubator off the bench where it was, and the 2 that had hatched survived, but a number of others cracked and either weren't fertile, or were dead, and the rest did not end up hatching...so I only ended up with 2 out of the 9 eggs...seems to be the way it is for me, only a small number...I hope I can improve on that in spring. I have got a couple of big tubs now set up with some lettuce, silverbeet and shallots growing, and a few cabbage planted in the garden.

  I hope to plant up 1 or 2 more tubs of vegies, but I don't want to go overboard at this stage, just a little at a time. We have also purchased our first bull, a purebred registered Droughtmaster, he is due to arrive tomorrow. He is a lovely quiet boy, and he has been tested for fertility as well, so I hope he is easy for us to manage. The heifers we have here are all at the age where they are ready to breed, and I will put him over our Jersey as well, to get her started also. We chose the Droughtmasters for a number of reasons, and the small calf size was a big swing for us as well with the first time heifers. We hope to sell the calves once they are about 6 months old, and start to build up a purebred droughtmaster herd. I had a big de-clutter session here last Friday, as we just don't have the room here to hoard stuff, so I got rid of old magazines and general bits and pieces, and de-cluttered the bathroom as well and re-arranged things a little. I still have to finish off my decorating. I requested and received a Kreg drill jig for Mothers Day, so I will start to build myself a few bits and pieces to decorate with. Damian has also started doing up my craft studio, but I think that will take a few more weeks yet, as we have had a few weekends away. Anyway, I think that is all for a bit of a catchup for now...hopefully the bull arrives tomorrow and I can post a few pics then...

The menagerie...........

Damian and I are in the process of applying for our gun licences. We feel it is important on the farm here to be able to put down an injured animal if needed, or shoot a fox, wild dog or wild pig if they are being a menace to other animals on the property. We went and did our safety course on the weekend which is a pre-requisite for applying for a licence. I have never shot a gun before, but managed quite ok and managed to hit the target on most occasions. We later did some practicing with some friends air rifles and managed to hone in our targeting skills quite a bit. We are planning on eventually processing our own beef, lamb and pork on the property, so a gun licence will be essential. There is a lot of cost in applying for the licence, the safe to keep any guns in, permits etc and then the cost for the firearms themselves. Just to set ourselves up with 1 gun would be in the vicinity of a couple of thousand dollars, a lot of money. It also takes quite some time to obtain a licence, which is a great thing these days.
We are also gradually increasing our animals here on the farm. I have purchased a couple of purebred Bichon Frise puppies, I hope to do some breeding down the track as a source of income. I wanted to get a dog that is good for Kasey's hayfever and allergies and also for Toni's allergies to dogs, so these would be perfect as they don't shed hair as they have a woolen coat. Diversifying is how to make the farm profitable, so looking at different options and income sources is essential.

(This is Sam, he is now 3 months old. He is full of personality and is very cheeky and loveable)

 (This is Stella, she is 5 months old. She is very tiny, elegant and refined...a real girly girl)

Stella came to me from another owner, and she hadn't been wormed, hadn't had her update vaccinations and was eating human food and cat food. Even though she is older than Sam, she is smaller than him. I have managed (with persistance and bribery) to get her eating a really good quality dry dog food and she has put on a little over 100 grams since getting her 3 weeks ago. She was also very shy and timid, but is now starting to come out of her shell a little and is more trusting of us. It makes me really cranky that people don't do the right things by their animals. At least this person had the common sense to re-home her...
I am also working on getting my heritage chicken breeds more established. Kasey wants to breed Guinea fowl for some pocket money, so we are working on getting her some grown ones of her own that she can breed with. The guinea fowl that hatched 3 weeks ago are powering along, we lost the first one born on about day 3 unfortunately, so only 2 of that batch left now, but I learnt quite a bit about the incubation process in the meantime.

(Guinea fowl keets at 3 weeks old)

I am increasing my chicken varieties all the time, and I have quite a few roosters at the moment too, so I need to get the girls to match them, so that I can keep the purebred heritage lines. It is really important to keep the heritage breeds, so I only breed these instead of cross bred chickens.

(Ancona Hen, she is a really good egg layer, a bit flighty though)

 (Ancona Rooster and Plymouth rock Hen, this little girl has just started laying. The rooster is very flighty, all the plymouth rocks are pretty laid back though)

 (Light Sussex hen - this girl is huge, a good dual purpose breed, good layer and good meat, she would weigh at least 4-5 kgs, not real keen on being handled but not a flighty bird)

 (A little pekin bantam, I got her for her broody qualities, so she can hatch eggs for me instead of using the incubator, very docile and easily handled, great kids pet)

 (The little pekin rooster - to breed more little pekin mothers, also very quiet and easily handled. Quite protective though)

 (My favourite - my gorgeous silver spangled hamburgh rooster. He is a stunning bird, and I am just waiting to find a couple of girls to start increasing this flock, he is just lovely)

(White leghorn hen - she is pretty flighty, but a good egg layer, she just got out of a dirt bath, so is pretty dirty!)

I also have a couple of girls sitting on eggs at the moment. I have the little frizzle, she is sitting on about 6 or so guinea fowl eggs. I was keeping the guinea fowl eggs in the corner nest for the guinea to nest on, but the frizzle beat her to it! She is a very determined egg sitter, and nothing will take her mind off her task.

The little araucana quickly followed suit, and she is also sitting on a couple of guinea fowl eggs.I did have her sitting on a couple of frizzle eggs but while I was away last week she escaped from her nest and sat in her old one, so I had to toss those eggs and put guinea fowl eggs under her as well. I am also wanting to get an araucana rooster to breed these. I really like the araucana's, they are great little layers, she lays green eggs, and they have a lovely temperament and love to be handled.

I also have a lovely speckled sussex rooster, he is huge and he is just starting to crow and also 2 other huge plymouth rock boys. One of the plymouth rock roosters will have to go, I don't need 2, and because they are so big they eat a LOT! They would all weigh about 4-5 kgs as well, and they look so funny when they run along, a bit gumby looking because their legs are so long and they are so big.

(One of the plymouth rock roosters with the girl the same age behind him)

 (Speckled sussex rooster, very pretty with burgundy, brown, green, white and black plumage)

These 4 seem to hang out together, but they all hatched at the same time. Even though there were 4 roosters out of the 5 eggs that hatched, there is no major fighting amongst them at the moment, we'll have to wait and see if that remains

 

This is my purebreed Australorp, I did originally have 2 of these, but I think Reggie may have dispatched of one. You can tell a purebred Australorp by their black legs and pure black eyes (no brown in them at all) They don't seem to like to be handled, but are great egg layers and make great mothers, they go broody once or twice a year.

 And then there are my guinea fowl. I only have 3 remaining adult ones left out of the 12 or so purchased (again thanks to Michael's dog Reggie) I did have a gorgeous lavender girl as well. So I am hoping to seriously add to this brood with the recent hatch and the ones that are due to hatch soon. I only have 1 adult female and 2 adult males, one adult male is the 3rd wheel at present. They can be noisy, but not too much, mainly when they are letting you know something unusual is around. Both the little white dogs have been bailed up by them, so they don't go near those big birds now. The guinea fowl do harrass the chooks though as they are very territorial, but not so bad up here on the farm, it was much worse on the smaller acreage.

And then there is my big boy - Ziggy. He is a purebred Quarter Horse. He is pretty laid back, but is a bit more on edge with no other horse around up here. I am hoping to get hold of a horse that needs a home to be a companion for him and that Kasey can learn to ride on, she is itching to learn. He is keeping in good condition bordering on fat on just the grass here, I have just started to give him 2 cups of pellets morning and night to get him coming up for rugging now that the cooler weather is closing in.

And Max and Diesel, they are still causing mischief as usual. Max is a big sooky lala, full of personality red cattle dog...

And Diesel is a very lazy blue cattle dog. He has serious front leg issues, so he has every excuse to be lazy. He is very hard to get cross at when he is naughty.

There is also 18 cows around here somewhere. We have just had the crush installed and Damian is in the process of moving the cattle yards up to where the crush and ramp is. Then I can look at getting Buttercup the Jersey cow put in to calf and start on that journey. We are not sure whether we will get a bull and breed from the other 17 brahman cross girls we have here or sell them on and concentrate on breeding with a specific breed of cattle suited specifically for good quality beef...just not sure yet. On the still to get list is:
:A donkey or 2 - just love them
:Alpacas - just love them too
:Heritage breed pigs - sussex or berkshire probably - Damian's want list
:Maybe some sheep - would only be for meat
:Maybe some angora goats - not sure on this yet, will research their temperament
:Maran chickens - want to get some for their chocolate brown eggs
:Partner chickens for the ones I already have to match up and complete breeding groups

So I am being called Mrs MacDonald and Mrs Doolittle by our friends, but that's ok. What's a farm without animals!

Farm update...

Damian was off work for 2 weeks, so it was a good chance to get a few things done around the farm that he hasn't had the time to do...not good for the wallet though as he only gets paid when he works. He built some shelving in the shed so we could tidy it up and get everything up off the floor. We also had some turf delivered last Friday which has gotten rid of the mud and dirt right outside the front door...ahh...bliss, it is so nice not having mud dragged all over the place. We still have a couple of little sections that we didn't quite have enough turf to finish off, but we have planted bits of grass throughout those areas, so they should grass over fairly quickly hopefully.

We also finished the fencing off around the house yard area, we have run barbed wire and quite small snake mesh, about 5 mm square mesh, so it should hopefully keep most snakes out, I am sure we may still get the occasional one, but we are hoping it keeps out the ones that accidentally end up in the shed area just on their way through to somewhere else.  It has also been an opportunity to start on a few small gardens to make the front area look a bit more homely, we are still finishing off the garden edging with rocks, we have lots here, I am just waiting for Damian to get back from Gladstone so he can drive the bobcat around while I put rocks in the front bucket, much easier that using a wheelbarrow!

The guinea fowl have started to hatch in the incubator, 3 hatched out yesterday and 2 others that were chirping died in their shells, they were a couple of days early, so I am thinking they may not have been quite strong enough to get out on their own...I know it is apparently not good to help them out of their shells, but I think I probably should have pipped the shells for them so they could do the rest on their own. The remaining 4 are not showing any signs of hatching yet, so I am not confident on those, we will see what happens over the next couple of days.

 (First egg pipped)

(Nearly there )

 (Just hatched)

 

(Drying out)

 

(3 Fluff balls)

We also have another new addition to our household, Stella, she is a Bichon Frise and will be a mate for Kasey's pup Sam. She is quite shy, but hopefully after another week or so she will be used to us and be playing with Sam.

 Kasey had a school disco last week, and she went as Catwoman...I have never seen so many little girls dressed as catwoman in all my life...I wonder what the attraction was..it was almost a catwoman parade! We just made her mask out of black cardboard and attached ears to a headband, and finished off with some diamantes, cheap and easy and I think it looked ok.

We have lots of family joining us here on the farm for Easter, so it should be a nice few days. I am hoping to get lots of reading done and some new dishcloths crocheted up. School holidays are here already....yippee, I can sleep in! I am looking forward to it...

Chook sagas...oh...and other stuff...

It's been an eventful few days around here as usual. Kasey was taking Max for a walk yesterday afternoon and came across a large carpet python on the driveway, about a metre and a half long. Damian went out to move it on with the broom, but it climbed up behind the grill of his car, over the engine bay and along the chassis rail, where we lost sight of it. We are hoping it came out overnight, otherwise it will be travelling around a bit. One of the plymouth rock chickens came down really sick late yesterday afternoon. She was all limp and had her eyes shut and was dribbling, we thought she was dead, but she wasn't. I put her in a box to see if she would start to recover but she showed no improvement overnight and seemed to be getting worse, so we had to give her the chop...first one we have done...not nice, but it had to be done, as she was suffering too much, at least it was quick. It was so sudden as she was totally fine yesterday morning, I would say she has been poisoned, either by a snake or spider, possibly even a toad?? Otherwise we have had some mushrooms pop up over the last few days, she may have eaten one and perhaps it was toxic...really don't know, it's all just guessing really. Such a shame as she was quite tame and would sit with me. That's 3 chooks we have lost over the last couple of weeks, Kasey's little pet chook was found dead one morning under their feeder, again a total mystery, we think her head may have got caught in the feeder? Then we lost Bertha the day before yesterday, but she died of old age, she was a good 10 years old!

(Bertha is the black Australorp chicken pictured here)

Damian spent today putting a couple of farm gates on the ends of the verandah in front of the shed to keep the horse and cattle out. Once the area in front of the shed is fenced off it will give us a house yard to keep animals out, and keep the dogs etc in when we need them to be.

He also installed the door at the top of the stairs a couple of days ago to keep the dogs out from upstairs, Max kept sneaking in while we weren't looking, and I found him curled up on our bed all wet and muddy, and that was the straw that broke the camels back, and the door went on. Still needs to be finished off, but it is keeping the dogs out which is the main thing for now.

I went and had my hair done today, I needed a change, and it was getting too long, so I went shorter and a little curly...I'm liking it a lot...

I'm off to a sewing retreat this weekend so I am leaving Daddy at home to look after Kasey and I will go and visit Michael and Toni while I am down there, it's Toni's 20th Birthday on Sunday, and I need to give her her present. So I will have 2 full days of sewing and socialising to do...yay...