Alpacas are sheared for the summer!

Well, our alpacas, Cadee & Cricket were sheared this morning. I would have some photos of the shearing, but my batteries of our camera were exhausted. It went well & we learned a lot.



Cadee & Cricket
 

We saved their wool in hopes to have it cleaned, spun & ready for weaving. We learned that the wool is numbered by where it is on the alpaca. The "firsts" are on the main middle body. The "seconds" are around the neck & the "thirds" are around the lower legs & the tail area. All of this wool can be used, but the thirds are usually used for weaving purses & hats. The better quality wool is used as scarves, which are close to your neck & are softer.

Chicken Processing!

We have now processed a chicken! We processed two of our roosters yesterday as a family. Dean & Dawson had the not so pleasant task of  gathering the roosters from their free ranging on our land. They enticed them with some corn scratchings. Dean, with sharpen axe be-headed them. He then hung them up & skinned them, Skinning them helps us avoid having to de-feather them.
 

"Hey, has anyone seen Tonto?", "No, but I'm sure he's just hanging around somewhere."
Seriously though, we do teach our children to respect all life. We are thankful for the opportunity to raise, process & eat from our land.

Dahlia & I then gutted them. It was a tedious step, as you have to pull it all out in one motion. You have to try & not puncture any organs. Puncturing could cause unwanted items from the bladder, oil gland & such all over & not be good. You get the idea.

 

Dahlia's face says it all! She really did not mind, as she enjoyed dissecting when she took Biology. She was simply "posing" for cameraman, Dawson. 

We cut the chicken in portions to add to stews, dumpling's & such for later. For now, it is all in our freezer.

Our Alpacas & Bees have arrived!

Here is the daughter, Cricket.  She has some hay in her mouth.

Here is the mother, Cadee running.


 

Our alpacas arrived this past Saturday! Mother & daughter have been busy exploring their new acreage. Our critters that are sharing the pasture with them are our chickens, ducks & goats. They are trying to figure out who these strange Muppet like creatures are. 



Yes, I am not using any safety gear like the suit, hat or gloves. I have always been inspired by the movie,
 Fried Green Tomatoes...Idgie Threadgoode, the Bee charmer...one of my favorite movie characters. :-)

I picked up my NUCS this morning & immediately started installing them into my hive boxes. Thankfully, I did not get stung & had a pleasant experience doing all of this for the first time. I was able to spot the queen in each NUC while placing the frames in. The colonies were very strong. Good brood & capped honey already visible. The honey flow will be coming up next month, where  I will be extracting the honey for our family.

Here you can see the bees. The items on the bottom are the NUC
 boxes that the bees came in. I transferred the frames with bees, brood & honey into the new hive boxes.



Here is a short video of the bees entering their new home.

Bee hives & Goat stand...

Here they are loaded in the car!

Well, we have been extra busy on our farm. I had over 20+ hive boxes donated to me. Some of the boxes are probably close to 50 years old. The owner kept bees many years ago & he is in his eighties, I believe. I have been cleaning them up & getting them ready for my bees. The weather has held them up as they will be coming from the orange groves in Florida. They can not travel in the storms & so they have been on hold for a while due to the storms across the South East. They should be here early next week.


What a blessing to receive these donated hives with frames!!!

I have them in the sun for cleaning. Goat stand is also in photo.

Here is a goat stand that Dean made. It will be used to trim our goat's hooves & also for milking.


Dean's goat stand, I'm so proud of it!

Bee Keeping & Alpacas!

I passed my test!

I am now a Certified Bee Keeper!!!!

I have my Nucs ordered & will be picking up my established colonies next month. I am very excited about this.

We are also welcoming a pair of Suri Alpacas next month! There is a Alpaca farm in Canton, NC donating a pair for a 4-H family that is looking into possible fiber weaving from their wool. Word got around & we were asked if we'd be interested in this new endeavor. I will post an update with photos once I have our bees & alpacas.

Hens brooding!

Cowboy, our proud papa!!

Honey, our araucana hen

Sweetie Pie, our sussex hen

Some of our hens are "brooding", which means that they are sitting on their eggs! They have found some cozy spots on our front porch & are in great view for us to keep watch over them. We should have some fuzzy chicks by springtime! It will be nice to see them follow their mothers around our farm. How exciting!

Goats Milk Soap

Our homeschool 4-H club, The Homesteaders made another batch of goats milk soap. We meet at the local community center once a month.

Here Dahlia is stirring up the mixture (Including Dangerous LYE). The mixture heats up pretty quickly when the LYE is added. You then have to place your bowl quickly in an ice bath to bring the temperature down. This is added to her chemistry lesson in our homeschooling.

We added oatmeal & lavender to one batch,
citrus & thyme to the other.

Here the soaps will sit for up to 6 weeks to "cure". The metal mold tray was lined with plastic liners to prevent a chemical reaction with the LYE.

15 inches of snow!

Cousin Dakoda, Dahlia & Dawson

We are in a true Winter Wonderland here in the mountains! The snow started on Tuesday & it snowed up until this morning. Last night was the heaviest of the snowfall. We woke up to find 15 inches of snow! I have a photo attached of the yardstick that I used to measure it. The kids have enjoyed sledding & snowboarding all down the hills. We enjoyed making snow cream, yum! Dean is in Haiti on a mission trip till next week, so we built him a snowman with the hopes that some of it will still be visible when he returns. We miss him.




15 inches of snow!

Dean's snowman.
 

Snow cream!



Ducklings & Chicks!

Well, our Peking ducklings are now outside in their own space in the barn. They will be enjoying our pasture once it is spring & will have a more permanent home of their own.

Our Christmas Eve chicks have really grown & have their own corner of the barn. They have plenty of room to spread their wings. Once it is spring, they too will be roaming the grounds & enjoying the land.

We want to introduce our new farm resident..."Chickadee". She is a 6 year old black Australorp hen. She no longer lays eggs & needed a new home. She is enjoying overseeing our chicks & being a good "granny hen". We will introduce her to our adult free range chickens in a few weeks, once she is used to her new surroundings.

Chickadee

Shitake Mushrooms!

The weather was nice this weekend, so we inoculated some more logs for our shitake mushroom crop. This is all part of our forest farming that we are doing up in the acreage behind our home on our mountain. It is always a family affair when we work on our mushrooms.

Dean has 30 Oak logs in the back of his Jeep truck. He unloaded them in the upper part of our barn where we worked on them together.

The guys drill the holes in the logs, I inoculate them with the mushroom spores & Dahlia covers the inoculated holes with melted bees wax. The logs will then rest for about 8 months. We will then begin soaking them on a rotation schedule in our stream & then stack them in a "Lincoln Log" pattern. They will then begin to "fruit" & be ready for harvesting. We really enjoyed our first harvest last spring. Dean's mushroom soup was scrumptious. Mr. Tom at the Inn next door still raves about it & is asking for more!

The Ducklings have arrived!

We now have 9 Peking ducklings added to our farm. They are only 3 weeks old & still have their yellow fuzz. At about 8 weeks old, they should have their solid white feathers & be ready to be outside. In the meantime, I will be preparing their cozy duck haven near the barn for the springtime.

Notice how they are waiting in line to take a dip in the "water hole".

 

Here they are taking a bath.

 

Beekeeping & 9 ducklings!

I'm very excited as I start my 6 weeks of beekeeping classes on Monday. Also, we pick-up our 9 new baby ducklings on Tuesday...More info. will be posted once I have some photos to share. God Bless!

Our bounty of eggs...

These eggs were collected over a span of maybe 2-3 days. Our Araucana hens lay the most unique eggs, they are dark brown, light & dark greens. There were even a few light purple ones! One of our Rhode Island Reds gave us some light pink eggs.There is one hen that has found her way to our front porch. She has been leaving us an egg the last few mornings. They have made it to the frying pan & to the table within 5 minutes of being layed. There is no way of going back to store bought eggs once you've had a "fresh from the farm" egg.

Fresh milk, all 6 half gallons worth...

I am in the process of learning all there is to know about using raw milk & turning it into, cream cheese, cottage cheese, sour cream, & more. Using the cream for butter & separating the whey to be used in other homemade recipes. This really is a dream come true... to learn all there is to know about family homesteading.