Murphy

Someday, yes someday we will stop adding to the farm. But until that day comes you guys will be entertained by my stories of new additions to Spring Peeper Farm.

Dave thought it might be a good idea to get a "friend" for Susie and Thunder.

So we started searching for a boyfriend for the girls.

When we figured out that Susie was never pregnant like we were told she was, we thought we'd take matters into our own hands. Especially since we had 2 buyers for the baby.  It would have been hard to choose who to sell it to since I knew both people and they would have both given the baby a good home.

But alas it didn't pan out since she wasn't pregnant!

So a mini jack came up for sale in Mahone Bay. He's only 6 months old, but this way we can get to know him properly and he can grow up with us. 

So off we went for an adventure.  I got time off work, J. and Antonio came with us to.

Since Dave can't drive far (and it's a 3 hour drive) we tag team drove.  AND I drove for the first time with a trailer attached to the car!!!! And we all survived!

J. and Murphy meeting for the first time

Being led to the trailer.


I also found my dream property!!! Look at what I found!  How can this be more perfect?!!! A HUGE pasture, big trees, a HUMUNGOUS barn, perfect farm house on a LAKE no less!!

 Come a little closer and see it.  There was a downside to it...

It wasn't for sale! Bugger.

Just close your eyes and imagine this in the summer.

So we got home in record time and brought Murphy out of the trailer.  He actually came out well. He just jumped down.

Murphy

We walked him around a bit before bringing him in the pasture with the girls and the goats.

Of course they gave him a little bit of a hard time, but not much. Not even close to what I thought they would give him.

Thunder asking him where he's from, what he does for a living...

If you're wondering where we got the name 

(because I put alot of thought and effort into all

 the animal names here).

Well I wanted something unique.  I wanted to call him Donkey (like Shrek would call his sidekick), but that was way too plain.  

So I thought I'd name him after Eddie Murphy who played Donkey.  But I don't like the name Eddie. (plus our neighbour's name is Eddie. It might not have gone over so well.)

So Murphy it was.  

I think he looks like a Murphy...don't you?

Dave went and checked on him tonight and all three of them were sleeping together in the barn.

Have a Blessed Evening

Lisa

The Lost Lawn.

Several months ago I read in a magazine that some people were getting rid of their lawns and planting veggies instead.

That kinda struck a chord.  I started thinking about it and thinking about it.

I did want raised beds instead of the garden we have so I figure this was the best way.

The issue lay with Dave. Would he go for it?

He was a man that loved his lawn.

It didn't take much convincing.  So we did a bit of research on different sizes and ways of doing it. 

I wanted to put more photos but Blogger won't let me. So this little photo will have to do.

We went to the Annapolis Royal Gardens and they had some there.

We used Hackmatac. I didn't want to used pressure treated wood, an I couldn't find any tamarac around, so Hackmatac would have to do.

For those of you that don't know, Hackmatac and Tamarac are very slow to rot. So they are ideal for projects like this.

So we're starting with one. We had it built last month and I planted my garlic.  I have some soil left and I'm trying to find more Hackmatac to make another one.  I'd like to have two more before the snow flies.

We'll have to wait and see.

We are not going to put any in the backyard though. That we'd like to keep as a lawn.

Have a Blessed Day.

Lisa

Reunion

It's amazing how small our world is.  It sometimes freaks me out!  No, it always freaks me out!

Last week I was at a craft show selling my wares.  

I started talking to another vendor and she wanted to sell my soap next spring in her shop.  Plus she had goats so one thing led to another and we just chatted goat.

Then she said something that made me perk my ears. She started talking about her Nubian, Whisper. I kind of brushed it aside, but it was bugging me.

I asked her how old Whisper was, where she got her, etc...

Then I said, "I think that was our goat."

So I asked her to send photos of her.

It was our goat. Or J's goat. We had sold her to a guy on the other end of NS.  I knew he had sold her after awhile but I didn't know to who.  

I guess where she was sold to wasn't a good place. She got neglected. Then she came into the hands of Victoria Graham at Briarwood Farm. Thank goodness.

So we planned to go visit her one day. Briarwood farm is close if you go as the crow flies. 30 minutes across Saint Mary's Bay.  But I'm not a crow and I don't have a boat. So we have to drive for 2 hours and take 2 ferries.

Our opportunity to visit came sooner than I figured. We went yesterday.  So we made it a family fun day.

First we went to Digby and bought stuff for our Samaritan's Purse Christmas Boxes.  I love making those boxes.  If I could afford it, I'd make 30 boxes! It's so much fun.

Then Dave took us to a guy that has emus.

Emu egg.

Looks like something from The Flintstones.

 The we took a gander at all the windmills.  Eco-friendly ( a.k.a. expensive) energy

Then it was time for our first ferry ride.

Wow! The price went up since this summer! Especially since it's barely a 5 minute ride!

Then after another ferry ride and another $5.25 we got to Briarwood Farm.

We were welcomed by Victoria and her slew of animals!  We have donkeys for guardians...she has an alpaca.  He seemed to like us, which was a compliment according to Victoria.  He doesn't like many people.  He didn't spit at us.  Phew...

She had the cutest chickens which she told us the name of, but for the life of me I cannot remember.

And these gorgeous sheep!  I want one!  It kinda looks evil here, but it's not.

Then what J. was waiting for....a J. and Whisper reunion! It really was her.  J. said after we left that he was ready to cry when he saw her.  I said that I could tell.  I honestly think she remembered us.

We had gotten a wooden pic of Whisper made for J. that Christmas so we brought it along.

Awwww!!! Family reunion!

Victoria is a renown tapestry artist.  That's why she's got the sheep.  In the summer she even dresses in period costume.

That's one of her tapestries in the background.  She was coming back from a craft show , hence the Santa hat.

So after an hour long visit we had to leave to catch the ferry.  

It was a wonderful visit and hopefully Victoria will come and visit us!

Have a Blessed Day

Lisa

Vomit Burps

This has not been the best year for our farm.  First with the chicken mites. That meant no chickens...no eggs to sell. That's a large chunk of our farm income.  

Then in early summer IT hit.  

We were noticing that Stocking's milk was starting to taste...well...odd. It wasn't bad at first.  

When we first started drinking her milk it was great.

But like I said by the beginning of July it tasted strange.  At first we thought it was because it was so hot out.  So we figured when the temps cooled off it would be ok.

By mid July the milk was so disgusting that I couldn't even make cheese with it!

It didn't smell bad. But the taste.....

So we enlisted the help of our trusty vet, Dave MacHattie.

When he asked how it tasted the only way I could describe it was,

"You know when you burp and it tastes like vomit, or as I like to call them, a vomit burp. And it burns the back of your nose...well that's what it tastes like!"

"Oh. That's bad."

"Yup, it's bad."

We got her checked and nothing. Healthy goat. 

So the only logical thing to do was get the milk tested at the lab.

50$+ later the milk results came back perfect. Absolutely nothing wrong with the milk, zip..nada..nothing.

No bacteria, no virus, no weird creepy things crawling inside the milk ( like people that oppose raw milk would have us believe). The milk was in perfect condition.

So now what??!!!

Our goat god MacHattie was at the end of his rope. So were we. We had a useless goat. For a month or so we didn't bother milking her. We just let the kid nurse.

So we backtracked and made sure everything we did was perfect, sterile. 

Whatever we did we'd only change one thing, one week at a time.

First we changed to hand milking. Nothing.

Then the feed. Nothing.

Then the supplements. Nothing.

Then the hay...the flavour changed a little for a few days, but then went back to full vomit burp flavour.

Finally we decided that we'd give her one more week or then sell her as a pet.

So I talked to Alex C.  the guy that sold us Pisnak. He's got a gazzillion goats, he might have an idea.

He did some research.

Finally he told us to give her injections of Newcells. Once a day for 5 days.

After the second injection the flavour was 75% better, by day 4 it was back to normal!!!!

Hallelujah!!!!

It's been several weeks now and it's still good. She's also putting on some weight.  She's also eating more. I'm thinking something was missing in her diet.  What? I don't know.

But things are back to normal...whatever that is.

Hopefully that's the last of the excitement for a while.

Have a Blessed Evening

Lisa

Yarmouth's Farmers Market

The week before Halloween we went to the farmer's market.  We hadn't been in a while so it was time to go.

So I figured that I'd introduce you guys to a few of the vendors.  Please excuse me if I can't think of all their names.

This is Laurel Amirault. She is a wonderful artist, her specialty is painting on fungus.  We've collected several for her to paint.

Carino's Confections. Weez makes the best chocolates you can imagine.  If you're not there by 10am you're probably out of luck.  We usually email her our order that night before.  My favourite is the Planks and the Ritz things she makes.  I can never think of the name.  She takes two Ritz crackers with peanut butter in the middle then dunks it in the finest Belgian milk chocolate! It was around 10 am when this photo was taken and her table is almost empty.  Again...get there early!

Weez' pet rat.

Lovely tulip bulbs that my great friend Alice d'Entremont sells. She owns  Ouest-ville Perennials.

And here she is! Hi there Alice.

This is Simonne and Emilie's favourite person.  He makes the bestest dog treats on earth.  Well that's what the dogs tell me anyway.

Here is Evelyn and her produce from their farm Riverview Produce farm.  This time she had the tiniest, tenderest brussel sprouts for sale. YUM!

Vincent at the Market,  he's a great cook. He had chicken curry for that weeks special. One week he had vegetarian borcht it was fantabulous!

J. and Antonio eating .

Dave buying humunga bunga portabella mushrooms.

Can you guys see the little girls huge head of hair? She was gorgeous.

More yummy candy.

I apologize that I didn't get all of the vendors photos.  When I was taking these photos I wasn't planning on blogging them.  So next time I'll take photos of the rest of them.  They're all a great bunch of people.

There was one vendor that was new. He wasn't there when we were selling soap there.  I was trying to buy an eggplant from him, but he kept looking at me and not really listening to what I was saying.  I kept thinking, "Man, this guy is rude!"  

Then he says, 'You write that blog, don't you?  I read it often." 

I'm like, Oh cool!  You always wonder if anyone actually reads what I write. So I guess someone actually does!  I'm sorry I didn't get his name.  But I did buy the eggplant from him.  

So in case he's reading this...Hi there!  It was great meeting you.

Have a Blessed Day

Lisa

Tale of two kitties

Remember when I told you guys about Lacey and Miss Munch?  Well it didn't have a happy ending.  We still have Lacey (which we renamed Poutine) but we had to put Miss Munch down.  It was a very hard decision but she ended up with a chronic lung disease that wouldn't get better.  We were constantly giving her meds and even her eyes would get filled with pus and stay shut.  I was always washing her eyes, giving her drops and medication. After several weeks of it getting better, then worse, then better then worse again and one of our vets said that it was not going to get better and was also contagious to other cats, we decided it was best to send her to kitty heaven.  We were playing a game of Russian roulette waiting any longer. I didn't want Poutine and Binoo to get it.

I think what saved them was that Munch was constantly hiding under the bed and didn't want to be bothered by the other cats and they didn't want to bother her.

So fast forward a few weeks and Dave starts the hunt for a barn cat. A friend for Antonio and the others. He found two in Yarmouth. They were a bit older, more like teens. 

They were destined to be our barn cats....well that's what they started out as.  Then the lady that gave them to us told us....

The Tale of Two Kitties

This lady's husband worked for a furniture rental store.

One day he went to get some furniture that the people weren't paying and discovered that they had abandoned the house. He found these two kittens abandoned, almost dead!! He brought them home and his wife nursed them back to health, but they already had 4 cats in the house and couldn't keep these two. So she was giving them away.  

We were lucky enough to get them. We are not doing them a favour by adopting them, the kittens are doing us a favour by loving us.  

Dave brought them home fully intending to put them in the barn...and we did.  But they ran across the road to help our neighbour decorate for Halloween.  Without her knowing she locked them in her barn.  We looked and looked for them and couldn't find them. Later on the next day she calls and tells us she's got two cats in the house with her huge dogs!  She figured they were ours and told us to come get them whenever we were ready, but at the moment they were playing with the dogs!

So Dave went and got them, brought them in the house and said, "I don't think they should go in the barn. They're too cuddly, love to play with dogs and they've gone through enough. They need to have an easy life. I think they should stay in the house."

My kind of cat...lazy

So the next week we brought them to the vet to get them fixed and discovered they were 5 1/2 months old.

Pico

We named the black and white one Pico.  It's French for dot.  He's got dots all over him.

Slate

The grey striped one we called Slate.

So please welcome our new additions Pico and Mr. Slate.

Oh and Slate loves to massage people's heads and necks.

Can someone please tell me how you can abandon this little face?

 Have a Blessed Day
Lisa