Yep. And we have proof. Toby actually playing fetch and enjoying it!
So far the only thing he’ll fetch are his bones and eventually it turns into more chase than fetch but, we’re enjoying it!
The boys love to throw the bone for him but when Toby actually chases it they (especially Oliver) change thier minds and scream.
So they stand on the sidelines holding their bones as Zoe throws one for Toby.
I can’t believe I haven’t shared about this awesome coop Greg made. We have constructed our share of chicken coops. I am happy to report that after a few months of use I think we finally have the perfect coop. The inside is about the same size as their last but this one is made of “real” wood. You know, the kind from an actual store that is all the same size. No make-shifting on this one. We have two real doors with windows! The door to the run area even has a doggie door which should help with heat in the winter. It even has lanolium flooring!
The other great addition to this one is the large storage area on the side. This houses all the food we need for the animals close at hand. It is now full of pig, chicken and sheep food. The last thing that makes this my favorite doesn’t have anything to do with the house itself (sorry honey!) but with bedding. We used to use straw but it gets smelly and disgusting really fast. We switched over to wood pellets and absolutely LOVE it! It pretty much just smells like wood shavings. It seldom needs to be cleaned out. You just kick the pellets around a bit and it freshens up. If you have chickens you need to use pellets…hands down. And of course painted Barn Red with white trim because my husband loves me.
Lets finish up with the chickens (since they are now in our freezer).
Warning: If you have any aversion to butchering chickens or blood do not read further. This is life on a farm folks.
A little about their short life. Broiler chickens are only around for about 2 months before they are ready for butchering. It is crazy they grow so fast. The chicken tractor Greg made worked wonderfully. We moved them each day to a fresh plot of grass. It’s funny to look at our back yard now as a super green line zig-zags through it. Great fertilizer! This year was so wet and cold we lost more chickens than we were expecting. They were looking so miserable we ended up putting their heat light back in. They immediately looked better and although it seemed silly to be babying these chickens they needed to stop dying and use their energy to get fat.
Our chickens were a little smaller than we were hoping for. Some of it was due to the weather I’m sure and we had a little bit of a time crunch with vacations and only had a small window to get it done.
This is the first year we have done chickens. We were so extremely blessed to have so many wonderful helpers. Even a family we had only really met a week before (if that). They are the professionals butchering more than 300 chickens each year. Talk about experience! The Lord provides our every need…even when it comes to butchering chickens. And given the fact our camera was (still is) missing we were also fortunate to have our very own photographer (Thank you Ruth!)
I loved how interested the kids were with the whole process. Eager to help.
These are the best things ever. Well, maybe not ever but they are so helpful. Properly called Kill Cones these babies contain the blood that would otherwise be splattered everywhere.
Then off comes they head. It takes a bit of muscle apparently.
We chose to skin them this year instead of trying to pluck them all. Much faster and cleaner.
Homeschool at it’s best.
At each step there was teaching and learning. The sharing of knowledge was in full swing.
Then the REAL professional showed up 🙂 A real live butcher to show us how it’s done.
Some of the meals may be a little surprise.
Lets not forget the broth. All in all we had a great butchering day. One of the best things…because of all the help I was able to hang back and “manage” the happenings. That and run errands as needed. And let me tell you, I was SO thankful for that. Thanks again to all the friends that made this day go so smoothly. You are wonderful!
Well, the due date (Wednesday) has come and gone. Still no baby. My doctor isn’t concerned and I’m not either…just ready. Last night I was having enough contractions to actually start writing down times but as soon as I sat down they all stopped. But we made good use of our due date and got baby pigs instead! At least some sort of baby came into the Thames household (farm-hold?) I guess.
So there they are. I believe we have decided on the names Mr. Pork Chop (left) and Smoked (right). It was fun this year to actually be able to pick out which ones we wanted. The person we got them from had a couple that were black and white (pink i guess) so we got one of those to make it easier to tell them apart they look so cute. We ended up with two boys. We didn’t plan it that way it just so happened. I don’t know if it will make a difference. Last year we had two girls. If nothing else they should be bigger in the end.
I had forgotten how cute they are at this age. They love their house. They completely bury themselves in the straw at night and they sleep in in the morning. Our last pigs weren’t early risers either. Maybe it’s just the pig way. Works for me. I’m not much of a (happy) early riser either.
The latest (but not last) addition to our mini farm were broilers (AKA meat chicks). We did 3 a couple years ago as a little experiment and I was not too crazy about it. So this year we are doing 35 (well 34 now. We lost one).
Greg as built these little guys (and or girls) a nice little chicken tractor that we will move around the back yard each day. About another week and they will be moved from this area to thier tractor. (pictures of that later)
We will only have to keep the broilers for 2 months before they are ready for processing. Still not something I am looking forward to but again, thanks to good, knowlegeble freinds who are willing to help we will try out this new adventure. And don’t you worry…I’ll keep you updated 🙂
Well, Greg and I had talked about getting sheep…in the future. The purpose of the sheep would be for meat. We are not into the wool thing or milking (sorry Jen). We had done a little research on the kind we would get if we went that route but that was about it. Well, remember how I said we rushed to get the pig pen done and then we were without pigs? Greg made one last attempt to find pigs at the animal auction. There were no pigs but I received a text from him a little while after the auction started stating I was now the new proud owner of 2 sheep. Sheep? What? I thought that was a future prospect. Folks…the future is now!
We are indeed the proud new owners of two sheep. They are Katahdin or African Hair Sheep. They don’thave wool but hair that is shed each year. I teased him he just wanted an animal to put in that great pen he made. Didn’t really matter what it was 🙂 Turns out it was a mama and baby combo. No idea how old either of them were. He came home to pick us up and the truck to bring them home. Now, on they way there he tells me “I don’t know if I can eat them Merriann. They are really cute.” That’s what I was afraid of!!! Pigs and cows are nasty when they get big. Easy to put in the freezer. Sheep…still cute. The other thing. Their names. The mama is Lily (named by Zoe) and the baby is Shannon (named by Greg). Do those sound like food names to you? Nope. We had an agreement. Any animal we were going to eat was going to have a food name.
Thank goodness for the Internet because we had to give ourselves a quick study on sheep care and run to the feed store for some food. At least they were safe in the pen and had water. I am also thankful for friends that didn’t think we were totally insane for getting an animal we knew so little about. We have had a lot of fun learning as we go. We have a guesstimate Lily is about 4 years. Shannon is a little more confusing. She seems so small but what looking at her teeth she looks to be over a year. Somewhere between 12 -18 months. We will have to look into that one some more.
Greg has made them a pen of their own so when we do get pigs (hopefully in May) we’ll be ready. Their own house is on the list of things to do. We are trying to decide if we will be breading these two or eating them. Lily is a bit on the old side for eating and Shannon is so cute! Again, We’ll see how that goes. Sheep are pretty easy (at least from what our vast knowledge and experience has shown us) so we wouldn’t mind getting a little flock going and breading.
One of our first projects was building a secure pig pen. Last year we had a few problems with the pigs getting out. This year we are doing all we can to keep them in. We set up hog panels and electric fencing around the bottom. Greg also built this board walk type thing around much of the pen. The pen will not be green for long. It will soon just look like a dirt/mud pit as the pigs do what they do best…root. The board walk will help keep us out of the mud when we need to go inside and it should keep them from being able to ground out the electric fencing with dirt.
Zoe helping by balancing things on a stick 🙂
Greg built this fabulous pig house and even bought me Bard Red and white paint. I am a sucker for red barns. We don’t have enough room to actually have a barn but at least our animal houses will be my favorite colors. We are hoping to get many years of use out of it. The kids had fun playing in it…at least until it starts to stink. The house and most of the pen were completed in one day. As is often the case in this area we were being threatened with rain. All was fine until we opened the can of paint. We were expecting to get our little piggies the next day and had to get the house painted before they got in there. Thankfully, it never started raining too much so we just kept painting. It is just a pig house after all. We were able to get all the red and most of the roof painted white before having to call it quits. Unfortunately, after the rush to get this done we were not able to get the piggies. Apparently pigs are hard to come by this early in the year and the man we were getting them from had accidentally over promised and was out. Oh well. We have a great home from the ones we are scheduled to get in May.
Yeah, I guess you could call us a mini farm now. We have been busy, busy these last few weeks. I will attempt to update on all the fun changes and activities we have been up to. Here’s the list I can remember so far. I will expand on some of them later. We took down (with the help of a professional) a 60 ft fir tree, finished the fencing to keep kids and dog in the back yard, fenced a pig pen with hog panels and electric fencing (they better not get out this year), built a pig house and chicken tractor, fenced off the remaining “animal area” for the sheep, dug a trench to get water to the back of the property, got power to the back, made soap, gone on field trips, and just picked up our meat chicks today. We still have quite a list on the white board but they it is reducing. Well maybe not reducing but the list is progressing. Amazing how new things keep getting on it. And of course when I say “we” I mostly mean Greg. He has been working so hard to get things done and I keep getting in trouble for trying to do too much. It is not in my nature to sit and watch him work on these things but as he says “I don’t want the baby coming out right NOW.” OK, OK, I get it. So, we go out there to keep him company, provide moral support and hand him tools.
Apparently that’s all my brain will handle at the moment because it has stopped working (I hope it comes back soon). But for now I will leave you with some pictures of some darn cute hard working kids.
Oliver 1yr
Zeke 2 yrs
Zoe 6 yrs
It has occurred to me we haven’t updated on the pigs. Not sure how that got a way from me…oh wait…never mind, I do. So, our piggies Saucy and Barbie. WAY back in November we had the butcher come out to do the dirty work and hang them for us for a few days. Greg really wanted to do the butchering himself so when we got our pigs back they weren’t wrapped in little white packages like the cow was but rather just cut in half. It was rather odd to see them in the back of the truck but there they were. Zoe really wanted to go with him to the butcher to pick them up. When they got home they entertained the boys and I with a song they made up on the way home. Sung to the tune of this old man:
This fat man
He ate two
He ate saucy and Bar-B-Q
With a mmm, mmm, Yum, yum gi’me another one
This fat man came rolling home.
What a great way to start our butchering day! Or as Greg called it Bacon Makin’ Day! It was a busy day but it was great. Some experienced friends come over in the morning to get us started on the right track. We had gone to their house when they did their pigs to get in a little practice and see the whole thing in operation but it was such a blessing to have them come out and get us going. Greg was cutting outside and we were inside wrapping, grinding sausage, labelling and freezing. We made 2 different types of sausage, breakfast and hot Italian. Zoe was a total champ on the grinder. Especially when our helpers had to leave. She stepped right in and didn’t stop until we were done.
We took our hams in the next day to have them cured and smoked by the butcher. Let me tell you…the ham was soooo good. Huge! And so incredibly tasty. When all was done our freezer was over 3/4 full of just pork. I absolutely love having all of it out the freezer ready to be used. We will be doing pigs again this year. We learned a lot and will be applying some changes to the whole process but we are excited to give it another go.
Now it must be said that Zoe loved Saucy best out of the two pigs. She was a lot more active and loved to play in the mud and run around crazy. I guess Zoe could relate to this. So, any time we were eating pork (especially in the beginning) she would say we were eating Barbie. We don’t eat Saucy.
It’s been a while since we’ve given an update about the chickens. I’m not sure there are many of you out there that were wondering but, Sis, this is for you. We have been in a love/hate relationship with our chickens. I love the eggs we get from them but I hate when they are always getting out. Just about the time you think you have them contained they figure out some other way to escape. I mean really their just chickens! Greg got to the point where he said the next one I see out gets shot. I was all for it. Zoe, on the other, hand was not. She made sure to check the chickens before Daddy to get any back in that may have gotten out.
So another chicken coop was designed and built. I will say we didn’t like the one we had before, or the one before that, or the one before that. From all our research it really is just a matter of preference what type you want. I for one want one we can fully walk into to clean out, gather eggs, and fill food. The new coop does all that. It has a wood floor, perches, and perfect laying boxes (milk crates). Zoe does most of the chicken care and it has been much easier for her to use. The chickens have a larger pen area that is tall and completely covered (we had a jumper). Greg still isn’t fully happy with it. I think it will get a coat of paint this spring (red of course). Other than that I love it. It is easy to clean which was the biggest plus for me. Chickens are dirty. And one of the best parts of this new coop? It was all free or recycled from the previous coop (with the exception of screws) The biggest score was 3 full sheets of plywood on craigslist.
And the chickens? They love it too. Look at all those eggs. I think that was 3 days worth. They have continued to lay all winter. Not as much as the spring/summer months mind you but enough that I have not had to buy eggs this winter. With feeding 13 chickens I refused to buy eggs. That also means we will have A LOT of eggs this spring. You know its bad when your kids are excited to eat oatmeal for breakfast.
The Bellingham Thames 
