It's now March & spring is right around the corner!

The first Daffodil of the season!

Quiche made with fresh eggs.

Just two days worth of eggs collected!

I am so excited that it is now the month of March! Our Hens have begun to lay their many eggs again. We have gone from having 2-3 eggs per week during the winter months to getting more than a dozen a day! The kids & I collected 15 fresh warm eggs just today! So, other than giving some cartons away to my mom down the road & a few others...we will be putting our "Fresh Free Range Farm Eggs For Sale" sign up on the road soon. What fun! This morning I made an egg, spinach, feta cheese & mushroom quiche. We enjoyed our first day of March!

Yummy!

Gertrude

Notice Gertie's new chick!

Honey!

We had a good honey flow this summer! The kids enjoyed helping me collect the honey & straining them into the mason jars. Dahlia & Dawson plan on taking the Bee Keepers classes that are offered at our local Corp. Ext. this winter. 

This is just what I received from the first few frames...we collected a lot more!

It's spring time!

My antique spinning wheel that Dean gave me for Christmas. I will be spinning our alpacas' wool as part of our homesteading.

My special spinning wheel from Dean.

 Well, we had a very busy winter on our family farm. We ended up having a total of six mama goats deliver within a month and a half! Two mama's had single births, three mamas had a set of twins & our last mama goat, Maple had triplets!...making that eleven new kids on our farm! Very exciting! Thankfully all of the deliveries went well. The very last one from the triplets was the only one that was breach (The head was not first.) All of the mamas have been doing really well nursing their little ones. We were ready to bottle fed them if we needed to, but the Lord helped us out by not adding that heavy job on us with so many. They are all old enough & are frolicking outside in the pasture in the warm weather. They were in their stalls with their mamas from January 20th thru March 20th (First day of spring.) We dehorned the does at two weeks old.

Little Bella, the first born being dehorned :-(.  

More "kids"!

Lilly & her "kids".

Mama & her "kid".

Make that 8 "kids" total within these past two weeks born to five of our does. Yes, three mama goats had a set of twins each (one male & one female). The other two mama's had a single birth each (one of each.) Making it a total of four doelings & four bucklings! Here are some photos of our recent additions.

Opossum & her "kid".

To see the other two mamas & their kids, scroll below to the previous post...

Two sets of twins!

Clover's "kids"! Dahlia is still working on some names.

Clover & her kids.

Well, it has been a busy week at the Jacobs' family farm! We knew several of our does were expecting & we were waiting with anticipation for the births. Clover, Dahlia's doe delivered a set of twins on Tuesday, January 20th. A doe & a buck! It was such a nice warm day. We spotted her way out in our pasture underneath one of our large evergreen trees. She had already delivered hours prior as they were already clean, standing, nursing & doing well! What a nice surprise!

Dahlia videoing the birth.

Pepper delivering her second kid while her first one stays close. 

Last night, January 25th, we were all in our pasture. We had just picked up Peanut & Donkey to add to our farm family. Well, what a day!!! Everybody (alpacas, goats, pig, chickens & ducks) were all in an uproar with these new additions. It usually takes the animals a day or two to settle down when we introduce a new farm friend. During all of this time, our doe, Pepper started to go into labor! We were trying to get her into the barn & into our "nursery". We finally were able to get her inside. During all of this time, while we were trying to get Peanut & Donkey into their new stalls, our pig decided to chase & bite Donkey! That really started a frenzy! Peanut & Donkey then started running & somewhat chasing our alpacas! During all of this, Pepper was delivering her first kid! We were all able to be there to witness this miracle of birth! Oh did I mention that with all of the ruckus, Peanut wanted out of her stall & the hinges came off with all of her force! I also tried to get our ducks into their pen to help from being trampled. What a night! We had to really observe Pepper to make sure her kids were nursing. Thank the Lord, all is well & the sun is shinning this new day. Peanut & Donkey are in the larger pasture. All of the others animals are on the smaller side. They are checking each other out over the fence.

Donkey & Peanut in their new pasture.

Horses & "Donkey"!

We have been blessed to be able to adopt three horses & a donkey!

Diamond & Beau

Donkey

Through our 4H club, we found out about two horses that need a new home. Beau & Diamond. The family are packing up & hitting the road to travel across the country. Beau is an Arabian & Diamond is a Tennessee Walker. We are getting another horse named Peanut, which is a Quarter horse & a Sicilian donkey named Donkey from some homeschool friends in our group. Their daughter is preparing for college & so they needed to find a new home for them too. Well, before we moved up to the mountains almost 4 years ago & eventually bought our farm, we had a "wish" list of what we would love to have one day on our farm. Dahlia had a horse on her list & Dawson had a donkey on his. I of course wanted a horse, as I had one for a short while when I was a teen. We will be adding them to our pasture this January/February. We have plenty of ridding trails right around us with cascading waterfalls to enjoy. We are very thankful for this blessing, as they are donated to us for adoption. My Art lessons that I teach in the upstairs part of our barn will help pay for the upkeep of  having them :-).

Peanut

Mushroom Harvest & Camp-Out!

We have had some "fruiting" from our  Shitake Mushroom logs. We made some yummy cream of mushroom soup with our harvest this month!



We had a wonderful Iron Teens camp-out on the 24th. Over 40 students in attendance. We enjoyed Bible study & worship & had breakfast at the B&B Inn next door.

Worship around the bon fire.

Photo taken while looking down from the Inn next door.

Concod Grape Jam making!

Here I am making several batches of jam! A fella from our church gave us several half bushels of grapes. I made enough jars of jam to be shared by many. I made enough to go towards our 4-H Homesteaders fundraiser sales.

Here is only one of the half bushels!

I had to separate the skin of the grapes first.

Cooking the pulp.

Pushing the cooked pulp through a colander to get the seeds out.

.

Cooking the skins back in brings out the wonderful grape color!

Here are some of the finished jars of jam. More to make!

Yummy grape jam!

Delicious product of my labor!

Hens brooding & chicks hatching!

Here are some of our hens brooding. You can see some of the eggs while the other mother hen is out for a bit.

We have several hens brooding on their eggs. We have several around our farmhouse under some bushes near our front porch. We also have several sitting on eggs in their nesting boxes in the barn. Dean was working on his tractor & Dawson was outside & they heard the chicks! I ran outside & sure enough, some had hatched! Dawson helped me gather them up & we set up a nursery for them in the back bathroom. We were afraid that some predators may get them, as our chickens are free rangers & would go throughout our acreage. We have all kinds of predators from hawks, raccoons, skunks & coyotes to name a few.

Here are our 9 new chicks.

Notice how our fried duck egg is in the shape of our state of North Carolina!

Here is one of our duck eggs being fried. It is equal in size to two chicken eggs.

Garden Harvest, roosters go to auction & bounty of eggs...

Some items from our garden...tomatoes, banana peppers, jalapeno peppers & okra.

Dahlia holding some of our harvest veggies.

 

Dawson catching the roosters & putting them into their bean crates.

Some of our roosters going to auction!



2-3 days worth of eggs! We have been selling them to the Innkeepers at the B&B next door!

We now have a pig on our farm!

This is Lucy with dirt on her snout.

Well, we now have a pig, guinea hog to be exact. We adopted her from some home school friends of ours. Her name is Lucy.



It was so funny introducing her to our pasture. The chickens, ducks, goats & alpacas were all in an uproar over this new pasture residence. They were all running, flying away form her. Lucy is very friendly & comes when she is called. She was only trying to get to know her new friends, but they were not going to have anything to do with her except watching her from a distance.





Our kitten, StellaLuna was curious...she's behind Lucy.