Welcome Babies!

We welcomed another kid last Friday.

Our first baby goat!  The kids have named him Buttons.  So far mama and baby are doing great.

And then on Sunday, when I went out to do chores, I was greeted by two more little ones!

Our second doe, Brownie, had twins!  The boys are thinking of naming them Chocolate Chip and Sugar Cookie.

We have one more doe expecting, but she doesn't look to be due for a couple more weeks.

Farm Life

Farm life has been keeping me busy.  

Besides chores, I'm not really sure what I've been doing.  But somehow, the days go by faster than I can explain =)

We've welcomed 2 litters of rabbits (5 and 6) which brings the total up to 14 now.  But when they're this cute...

You can't help but wanting more =)

Our chickens we hatched this spring are getting so big.  I caught a couple of the new roosters trying to crow the other day- they sound so funny at this point.

And we had a hen hatch out another 6 chicks.  That brings our total up to 33 chickens.  With our ducks, we have 36 birds and more eggs than we know what to do with.

We had to build a new goat pen.  With 5 goats, they were crowding out the chickens in the chicken yard.  

No, we haven't gotten horses (Girly keeps hoping).  These are our neighbors horses.  They have a habit of getting out of their pasture and going around the neighborhood seeing who will feed them.

As the days start getting cooler (ok, not really, but I can hope!) we're starting to plan our fall garden.  We're going to plant mostly cool weather crops and try to winter them over as long as possible.

And with fall fast approaching, we're focusing on the kids lessons again- which they are thrilled about ;)  With the routine of school again, I'm hoping to get more time to write.  That should mean that this blog isn't ignored any more lol!

Meet the Newest Addition...

Late on Thursday afternoon, we figured it was time.  So we contacted Mrs. Barbara to let her know we were ready.  Everything was set and ready to go.  We were just waiting on the delivery.

Sunday afternoon the truck pulled up the driveway and we saw our newest critters =)

Without boring you with the rest of the details, I give you  Billy (goat) Madison, Mary Poppins and Nanny McPhee.

What, you thought this post was going to introduce you to the newest member of Kid 4ce?

We also had a hen that hatched out 8 chicks.

They're a cute little bunch.  Little fluff balls running around in the brooder.  In a few weeks they'll be joining the juvenile delinquents we hatched out after Easter.

Three of them hiding in the brush and eating bugs.

We getting closer to our goal of being self- sustaining around here.  The only thing we haven't been too successful at is getting our garden going.  But, that will take time.  It's hard to get the gardens going when the soil is rocks and clay =)

Say Cheese!

Those of you who are friends with me on Facebook might have seen pictures of us making cheese this week.  It started as a science lesson for the kids, but I ended up enjoying it more than they did =)

Making mozzarella cheese is surprisingly easy.  All you need are milk, citric acid, rennet and salt.  We used this cheese making kit.

I had the kids carefully read the directions before we started and then they got to measure out how much citric acid and rennet we needed.  Then it was combined and they had to carefully watch the thermometer.

Since we were using raw milk (please, no comments on the safety of raw milk.) we had to watch the temperature a bit closer and let it sit longer for the *magic* to happen.

Once the curds had set, they had to be cut (you can imagine the laughter when the boys said they had to cut the cheese...), rinsed and then heated again.  After this, we added salt and herbs.

And then chilled it to set.  Once we started eating it, we realized that we hadn't heated it enough the second time around, because it was more like cheese curds (it even squeaked!) than mozzarella.  But, it didn't take away from the flavor at all =)

Now, I've ordered different cultures to try making other types of cheese.  Looks like I'll have to make another milk run...

Our Little Farm...

continues to grow.

In the last few weeks we've added rabbits 

Hello bunny 

We have 4 New Zealand whites.  They're not the friendliest right now, but are finally starting to come out of hiding when we're in the pen with veggie scraps.

And we've added four ducks.

Sweet Pea had to keep Muttley from jumping in with the ducks.

And, of course, before we could move the ducks out into a bigger pen, I had to build them a house.

And we're hatching out some more chickens.

Just a few should be hatching around Easter =)

And, on top of everything we're doing with the animals, we're also experimenting with some of the local plants.  Last fall we played around with prickly pear fruit (jelly and wine) and this spring we tried some red bud jelly.

Yes, the same red bud trees you see all over in the spring.

Isn't it beautiful?  It has a wonderfully sweet flavor that is a cross between an apple and a plum.

And, since the red bud worked so well, we thought we would try violets.

The petals have to soak for 24 hours, so it'll be tomorrow before we can see if it works =)

As if that wasn't keeping me busy enough, I'm continuing to get my runs in and am looking forward to my marathon at the end of the month.