New website

I started a website that has a blog built in, so I won't be keeping up with this one. You can now find me at www.flamingarrowfarm.com. See you there!

Update

It's been a LONG time since I've sat down to write here. I'm sorry! Things are moving along day by day here. Here's a quick snapshot update: Bees are doing good. We were able to harvest one box from them and still leave them with 2 full boxes of honey. They have an empty 3rd box on the hive for winter. I went back and forth on whether to leave it or not and figured, they don't get to make a tree smaller so I left it. The size of the hive has really shrunk since the height of the nectar flow. They are definitely preparing for winter. They have glued shut every little opening so I am not opening to disturb them. One window is still accessible so at least I can check on them that way. They were still flying about this morning, though I don't know where they are packing anything away in there. The pugs are doing well. Basil is currently in heat so we are keeping them separate the best we can. They have bested our efforts a couple times but I'm pretty sure we were able to catch them before anything happened. Twice I have had Barley with me in the goat area and turn around to find Basil with us. Sneaky little girl! Another time I locked Barley in the crate only to leave the house and get a call from Wolf a few minutes later that he just saw both of them run through the yard! Fingers crossed she isn't pregnant! There were a few days Barely was going absolutely nuts not being able to get to her. He has calmed back down a bit so hopefully she's on her way out of heat. The dang foxes have come back around a couple times looking for another meal so we decided to get a couple Livestock Guardian Dogs to protect our chickens. Lots of reading beforehand to make sure we knew what we were getting into. Glad I did the research! They are very different than a house dog. Of course, most of the info you find is for people who have herds of sheep or goats. Since we only have 2 goats and some chickens for them to guard (the cows and horses fend for themselves pretty well) our training situation is a little different and we don't subscribe to the non-socializing theories out there. We couldn't find any LGD here in CO so Wolf Pup (aka Little Owl) and I took a road trip to KS, OK, and TX. We came back with 4 dogs and 3 chickens. We sold one of the dogs and delivered the chickens to their owner. The other 3 pups are doing well so far. They are huge and so different than what I am used to for a puppy. They get excited but calm down really fast and just lay around. They are good with the chickens so far, only needing a reminder here and there, that they aren't toys. I'm sure they will continue needing to be reminded until they are grown, but overall it's nothing like the interest another dog would show. The calf, Little Man, has gotten pretty big already. He's only a few inches shorter than his mom. He is still very skittish and won't let us touch him much. I'm sure a lot of you already know about my adventure with Estelle (our cow). We needed to inseminate her so she can freshen for next year. To do this you need to give 2 shots 2 weeks apart and then load her in the trailer and take her to the vets office. I researched online and saw that the best place was the neck, but then the lady at the vet's office told me to do it in the buttocks. So when the time came I stood up by Estelle's head while she was eating, leaned over and stuck the HUGE needle right in her butt. She flipped around so fast and kicked me in the thigh so fast I didn't have time to react. She kicked so hard I fell backwards into the horses. Luckily they didn't kick even though I startled them pretty good. She also flipped so fast I couldn't pull the needle out of her. She wouldn't let us anywhere near her after that so the needle had to fall out on it's own. Unfortunately for me, I had to leave town on a work trip a few short hours after all this. My thigh was very swollen and started bruising immediately. Wolf figured out she ripped some of my muscle tissue there (quadricep contusion). I wasn't able to keep ice on it once I left home so it got pretty painful, especially when changing positions. Standing up and walking really hurt. It's been more than a month now and there is still some small lumps where the muscle is healing and the whole area is a grey color. There is also a big divet in my thigh. Before the next shot we built a milking stanchion to try to hold her so we wouldn't get killed. I made Wolf give her the next shot. I was having too much anxiety about it and didn't want her associating me with pain too much. He did it in the neck and while she freaked out she didn't kick anyone! The next adventure was getting her in the trailer to go to the vet. She did not want anything to do with it or our treats. It took Wolf and I 2 hours to finally get her in the trailer. It took 3 fences and an atv but we did it. Fingers crossed it took! The garden this year was atrocious. We got a few scrawny tomatoes, some teeny potatoes, a handful of baby eggplant, 1 cucumber, small onions, and 1 squash. We didn't get anything in the ground until late June. We had a very wet soggy spring and then a very dry summer. It was crazy weather. The good news: 1) I didn't amend the soil at all and things grew. That means next year when I do amend it should do great. 2) The hail netting I bought did a great job. It protected the plants from a couple hail storms beautifully. I think that's about it. One of these days I'll make some posts on individual things.