Vitamins for Goats

Hi, it's Celia again!

Goats need more than good grain and fresh pasture to be healthy. They need vitamins, just like me! But I take mine in a pill (when I take it) and they take there's "loose". That means it's ground up.

 It's put in this little  feeder inside their shed.

 They can eat as much as they want. Jack loves it!

I give them baking soda, too.

Goats have 4 stomachs and baking soda helps weaken the acid in their first stomach (the rumen). I wouldn't want my stomach acid to be strong either if I spent my day spitting up my food, chewing it some more, swallowing it, spitting it back up, chewing it some more...It's like heartburn on demand. It's kinda gross when I think about it. So I don't think about it.

Micro Farm in Pictures (5)

Hi, Celia again!

Jack eating Mali's spilled grain

Raindrops on the window

What I do when I'm not farming

Jack's self portrait

Hope you enjoyed!

Making Friends

Hi, it's Celia again!

We want our baby goats to be very friendly to people. Friendly baby goats grow to be friendly adult goats, and friendly adult goats are easy to handle. I have one adult doe, Brie, who is not friendly. She runs away from me when I get near her. She just doesn't trust people.

There's a couple of ways you can get a kid to be friendly. You can bottle feed it (which is a lot of work) or you can spend time with it and make it think you are part of its herd. So I decided I was going to try to be as goaty as I could, and convince those kids I was one of them. So every day I go out to the goat pen and play with them. Unfortunately playing with baby goats can be very painful. They jump on you.

And even if you put your hood up they try to eat your hair.

And sometimes all three of the babies get you at once and knock you over.

Here we're playing "Leap Goat" which is similar to leap frog, except the goats don't take turns, they just kinda all go at once.

It's a high price to pay to have friendly goats!

Attack!

Hi, it's Celia again!

You do NOT want to go to the chicken yard and see feathers all over the ground:

Remember how I told you about those pullets Mom bought? You can go here to read about it. They were in the bad habit of roosting in the trees in the middle of the chicken yard at night, too high for me and Mom to get them down. So Mom would let them stay there and keep the electric fence on at night to keep them safe.

Well, Mom and I were home alone at night and we heard this strange screaming sound from outside. Mom yelled, "FOX!". Foxes sound like a lady screaming. We ran outside to check on the chickens. We looked around and didn't see anything, so Mom checked to make sure the hen house was locked up tight. But to do that she had to turn off the electric fence. AND SHE FORGOT TO TURN IT BACK ON!

Well, the next morning there were feathers all over the ground, and a dead chicken was stuck in the fence.

We don't think it was the fox we heard, but a raccoon.  Worst of all, five chickens were missing, and one was injured. One of the missing chickens came back, but the injured chicken died. So now we have 15 pullets left out of the 20.

Mom said she feels like the Job of chickens--you know, that guy in the Bible that had all that bad stuff happen to him. And it's not over. She still has a pullet that won't go in the hen house at night. So we put it in with the goats. The pullet will keep the bug population down in the goat pen, plus the goats will help keep it safe. We'll see!

Bee crazy

Hi, it's Celia again!

My Mom is a beekeeper. I'm not too thrilled with bees (actually I hate bees and any other bugs) but the honey we get is delicious. The other day Mom checked on her bees to see if they were making honey. They make most of their honey between April and June, so Mom gets very curious about how much they are making, and she checks on them a lot. She's bee crazy.

Mom convinced my very good friend, Morgan, to help her with the beehives. None of us kids will. I hate bugs, James hates nature (you can read more about that here and here.) and John quit helping because every time he helped he got stung. Even if one single bee flew out of the hive it would make a beeline to John and sting him. Of course Morgan knew none of this, so she was very eager to help Mom. I went, too, to take pictures of them. I stayed in the van though, so consider yourself warned that some of the pictures aren't too good.

Mom was going to add another honey super to each hive. This is the box where the bees will store honey that Mom will eventually take. Here she is putting on her full suit. Normally she just wears her helmet and veil for a quick job like this, but she let Morgan wear that and she put on the full suit. I think Mom looks like she's ready to handle some hazardous waste.

Here she is helping Morgan put on her veil. You  need to make sure it's snug, or a bee can squeeze under.

Mom put Morgan in charge of the smoker and carrying the tomato soup can.

When the bees build comb where Mom doesn't want it, she scrapes it off and puts it in the tomato soup can. Then she takes the comb in the house and melts it down for candles.

Here Mom is making sure the frames are the way they are supposed to be.

Morgan is very brave--she's not wearing shoes! The lines are from the window defroster. I made Mom close the hatch so bees wouldn't get into the van.

And here's Mom doing her thing (whatever that is!).

Farmer Fashion

Hi, it's Celia again!

If you would come to our house without telling us you were coming, you would see Mom and me dressed in our farm clothes. Even if we knew you were coming we might still be dressed in our farm clothes. Sometimes we try to look nice when people are coming, and sometimes, well, we just don't care.

Smart farmers always wear jeans. And shoes. And if it's not too hot, long sleeves. Always. Jeans, shoes, and long sleeves protect you from a lot of stuff:

~Pickers when you are in the woods harvesting food for your goats.
~Rooster attacks when the roosters get the idea in their bird brains that you look funny, or looked at them funny, or just didn't bring them enough treats.
~Getting your toes crushed when a goat stands on them.
~Keeping ticks, mites, mosquitoes, bees, and other bugs from getting on you.
~Stepping on poop. It's not so gross if you have shoes on. It's a rule of farming that no matter how careful you are you will step on poop. Especially if you are just quick running out to the goat or chicken pen in your Sunday shoes.

Jeans also gives you a good place to wipe your hands when they're too wet or dirty to hold your chopper, which you should always keep in your back pocket. Here's a picture of me in my farmer fashion. Don't you love my work gloves? Mom and I finally found a pair of leather work gloves in kid-size. They're great!

Stick with the Herd

Hi, it's Celia again!

Mom and I really want to fence in the whole property, but that's expensive. So we tether Mali, our milk goat, and let her eat all the grass, trees, and shrubs she can reach. Recently I started letting her baby, Babybel, out with her untethered. It was Farm Hand Dad's idea. He didn't think the baby would stray far from her mother. He is right! Babybel stays very close to Mali. So after I saw Babybel would stick around, I started letting Jack out. He stays around Mali, too, even though she's not his mother. I think it's because they are all part of the same herd, and the herd sticks together. Here's a picture of Mali, in the background, with Babybel. They're eating some of their favorite things--rosebushes!

Meet the King

Hi, it's Celia again!

I would like to introduce you to one more person in my family. It is my grandfather. His real name is Francis Henry "Bud" Golembiski, but everyone under the age of 13 calls him King Pa.

He got that name because he became a grandfather when he was very young. He didn't want to be called Grandpa, so my cousin Paul called him "Pa". When Paul didn't obey him, Pa told Paul he had to obey him because he was a king--King Pa. So that's what everyone calls him.

Last summer mom and I went camping with King Pa. There were some young boys camping across from us. Pa and I made a leaf bomb (a trash bag full of leaves that we hoisted into a tree). When people walked by we dropped the leaves on them. It was fun. For us.

Well the boys across from us came over to see the leaf bomb. I told them my name, and then I told them that my grandfather's name was King Pa. They looked like they didn't believe me, so my mom said he really is a king, but he didn't look like one because he had his camping clothes on. Well they ran right back to their mom and dad and said they just met a real king!

Pa is staying with us for a little while so I'll probably talk about him a lot. He used to be a farmer, and he helps us around the mini farm. He is very, very funny (Mom says I get my sense of humor from him). I think you'll like getting to know him!

Livestock = Deadstock

Hi, it's Celia again!

If you have livestock, sooner or later you will have deadstock.

When we were little (I mean really little) Mom would bury each animal as it died. She says it's because we were "less reasonable" than we are now. I think that means we cried a lot. And if an animal died over winter, she would put it in the freezer until the ground thawed so she could bury it for us. I remember we had a little white box in the freezer for months that had James' pet mouse and John's pet frog in it, just waiting for spring.

She doesn't do that anymore. Now if an animal dies she carries it deep into the woods and throws it on the ground. She says another animal will get it and eat it. She calls it the circle of life. I think she just doesn't have enough room in the freezer anymore.

Mom used to be very squeamish about picking up dead animals. She used to offer John money to carry them into the woods, but he wouldn't. So she would get a bag and wrap it around her hand, and then use it to pick up the animal. She wouldn't even look at the dead animal as she was carrying it. She's not that way anymore! Now she picks up the animal with her bare hands and examines it to see if she can tell how it died. She really wants to learn how to do chicken autopsies. She says she wants to be the Quincy of hens. I don't know who Quincy is, but she seems to have a lot of respect for him.

Here Mom is carrying a dead chicken to the woods. Sorry if you have a weak stomach!