In the Middle of the Night

Ah, the work of a farmer is never, ever done.
At 3am or thereabouts, a thunderstorm rolled in last night.
Of course, despite all the fence the carnivore husband has done
time and money have not allowed a 3 sided shelter to be built in the 3 acre
field where the cow, llama and stallion are.

The rain was coming down so hard, I sent the husband out to take up the stallion, which was simple enough. JC Signature has the good sense to know John is out to rescue him from the storm, and he was eager to come in!
The cow, Stella, also run right out and up with him to be put in her dry stall, but Keisha, the llama, is another story.
So here I am - standing on the porch in the middle of the night and can barely see 10 feet in front of me with the sheets of rain coming down, and there is John wrestling the llama all over the field. I can barely make the goings on out from the porch, and then he manages, after a fair amount of time has passed, to drag her toward the hill to make their way to the barn, and she stops mid way there, refuses to budge and it took everything in him to get her on up to the barn.
He never liked the llama, anyway. Since I am not the one that came in chilled and soaked through to the bone, I still like her quite well ;)

Of course

Of course, when you put a new fence up and have the horses out in it less than 48 hours a tree will fall on it, knock it down once it is dark and the horses will find their way out and down into the front yard. . .
This is to be expect.

Horses = No Sense

So, my husband kills himself fencing our 15 acres of hill that has an 8 acre flat for our mares.
What then do these mares do when turned out?
Well, they stand by the gate, of course. Do they go running free through the hills?
Of course not!

Shew!

Fence - 2/3 done!

We now have only to hook up our 50 mile fence electric charger to have the total top

1/2 of the property fenced and ready to be in use!

Oh, when the burden of hay taxes one's spirits as low as they have mine at present, this is a joyous occasion, to be sure! One can never waste grass, such a precious commodity here on our farm is it.

Keep us in mind if you spot "cheap" dry kept hay or know anyone cutting hay are
a super reasonable rate!

We now only have to fence the sides to connect the front half and the hill with the yard area to be finished with all fence. Sure, doing this will put us with a yard cow, but there is grass to be eaten all over the yard, and by George, Stella is going to get it! You just can't go a-buyin' hay when you have perfectly fine grass on your land. No, sir!

Meggie's Leg

Never, and I repeat, Never under-estimate the power of a Miniature

Dachshund  who weighs 8lbs, max.

Mariah, our Mini Doxie, attacked our doeling, Meggie
(named thus after the book and movie "The Thorn Birds," and left some puncture wounds.

Not expecting such a small dog to do much damage, we cleaned them on the surface and
began injections of Pen G. I realized that was not doing the trick, so I contact our fantastic vet, Chad Brown, and we got Excenel, but that also failed to help.
We moved onto Gentocin, the strongest antibiotic she can have, and it still failed
to really help.

Today, we took Meggie in for surgery to remove the necrotic tissue and clean the wound
while she was under anesthesia. It looks a great deal better, and we have a good prognosis.

Unfortunately, we did not feel comfortable with the risk of Mariah, our beloved little dog, getting out and doing such harm again, so we placed her with Almost Home Dachshund rescue. She is up for adoption through the rescue now. It was very sad, but I suppose we had little choice.

Vegetarian Homesteader?

Vegetarian and Homesteader. . . interesting juxtaposition there, isn't it?

I decided long, long ago (feels like eons) to give up eating meat and

animal products that are derived from animal slaughter. 14 years ago,

to be precise. No meat, fish, chicken, broth, gelatin or whatever else.

I even gave Veganism a go, and I found it was not for me!

Now, be that as it may, I have respect for those who raise their

sources of meat naturally and slaughter humanely. People are

so far removed from where their food comes from that is really

is quite frightening. I appreciate the recognition some families have

and the movement for local, humanely raised and slaughtered food.

At any rate, consigning the raising of animals that are often

used a sources for food with vegetarianism is a rough road

to hoe, if you will.

Take the cow: the cow, if she is going to produce

milk, must be bred, but what if she has a bull calf? I am not

so idealistic as to imagine we can keep dairy bulls safely here

with children or steer after steer, year after year, as pets.

Imagine my joy when I learned of sexed bull semen that gives

90% heifer calves? Well, it does have a significant higher cost and less

success rate with conception, but one must do what one must to prevent bull calves. Never mind the 10% failure rate that results in bull calves. We will

cross that bridge if it comes. Ekk!

On to dairy goats. . . in the world of dairy animals, male animals usually

have little worth. Often the little bucklings (male goat kids) are drowned

at birth.
If they are not, they are often wethered (castrated) and raised to

fattening and then butchered. Now, this is something I just cannot do or support

with my own animals. Goats make amazing pets, they really do!
As the Lord  would have it, we live in an area where few people raise goats, so we have, so far, found a market for our bucklings as breeders and pets.

I admit, I pray the Lord helps us continue to sell them to breeding and pet homes for good because we can only keep so many of the intact, blubbering things (bucks in rut.)

Let us move on to chickens.

Oh my.
The guilt over buying selective pullets from a hatchery still creeps over me from time to time.
The hatcheries have little demand for cockerels (male chicks) of the laying breeds, and so I shudder to think what happens to the little fellows when they are hatched. However, I did not want roosters here producing endless chicks and such, so I bought 11pullets. Well, low and behold, if there were not two mis-sexed (it appears) chicks in the batch! That serves me right for avoiding any little Roos at all!

Thankfully, in the horse business, the colts and the fillies are basically of

equal value!
I am glad to endeavor into an animal area where I am able to

breath a sign of relief concerning the sex of the animal and what may

happen to it if I am unable to keep it.

Now, my husband is a full fledged meat-eater.

He would prefer traditional homesteading where there are beef cattle raised for meat, chickens for broilers and so forth,
but then here I am: The Vegetarian Homesteader!

Here, I insist we can raise Cows and Goats for milk, butter, cheese and yogurt!

We can have hens who lays without roosters for eggs! We have then have a

garden of vegetables and fruit fertilized from composted manure!
Surely, we can do it in a more cruelty free way, and still, I respect those who do not have my convictions that recognize the unhealthy, commercially raised offerings at

public grocery stores is neither just to the animals or good for their families

and are raising their own food!

Fence in progress

We, or I should say, the Husband is nearly finished with stage TWO of our fence.

This is exciting as it means less hay to feed in warmer months and less work for the Husband, which he will appreciate. It means better condition on the horses, which is very important. Our photos of the Arabs will be much better when they have overall improved muscle and tone! Can't wait to update with some amazing photos of JC Signature, KD Lady Ann and Champagne Reminiscing.

Everyone has a Blog

When I realize that everyone out there doing the farming, homesteading & livestock life also has a blog, I think I must be very behind with the times and missing out on the following of 'readers that can come with an active, funny and interesting blog.

I already have a website, Lucas Farm, that gets a great deal of traffic, but it does not really tell our story, and I so enjoy visiting the other homesteading blogs, I think I need to give this a try. Besides, I lends a different spin on homesteading - I am a vegetarian, and that can set our experience apart in a real but humorous way.