Building a Raft

The kids decided that it would be fun to build a raft for our pond. I, of course, encouraged them. We have lots of wood scraps around the property and even some old pallets. The kids tried using one of the pallets as is. Lacey was the brave one who took the first voyage. It did not go well. She sunk. In pond water covered in algae. They have the best childhood!

They did try to improve the raft. Lacey Googled how to build a raft and went back out with a plastic garbage bag filled with empty water bottles, duck tape and twine. I didn't get to see the final product, but apparently the bag got holes and the raft still did not work. Hopefully they will go back out this weekend and try again.

Why You Should Never Get a Long Haired Dog If You Live on a Farm

This face often greets us at the door, and we were never really sure exactly what she was up to, though it is obvious a lot of dirt was involved. Now we have photographic evidence of how she gets so dirty:

She is going to get herself stuck one of these days!

Carnitas and Maya

When we picked up our little piglet, Carnitas, we were considering getting two (or borrowing one until they found a home for the second one) because we were kind of worried about the pig being lonely. But the family we got the pig from mentioned that the pig would be more likely to bond with Aaron if there was only one pig, so we opted for the single pig. Of course we got it right before a cold spell and then massive rain, but we visited Carnitas each day to make sure she was OK.

The first day we got her home, she actually managed to get through the holes in the hog panels that we had used to build her pen (actually we used multi-purpose panels because they are taller and we will eventually use the pen for goats - didn't think that the pig could fit through the bigger holes!). We fixed that by putting up some scraps of corrugated metal we had along the bottom of the panels. While we were able to stop her from escaping, we learned that Carnitas could be very hard to catch, and so we didn't let her out of the pen the first few days. But after a few days, she got used to us and would actually come to us when we visited her, so we decided to let her out and to let Maya get comfortable around her. I remembered that at one of the 4H meetings I had asked how the pig would get along with out dog and one of the kids said that the pig would probably start thinking she was a dog. That has turned out to be true for Carnitas!

Carnitas actually tried to nurse from Maya. We were surprised that she would still have that instinct, and I am not sure that I would have recognized the behavior had I not just witnessed the baby goast with their mom. Maya just kind of stood there unsure what to do.

We had to make sure that Maya didn't get to rough, she thought Carnitas was another dog and treated her like she would a dog with all the jumping that entails. Maya is pretty easy to train, so we weren't really worried. Carnitas didn't seem to mind much and after a couple of minutes was following her around like, well, like a puppy. Now we can let Carnitas out any time and all we have to do to get her back in the pen is to call Maya to the pen. I wonder what the relationship will be like when Carnitas is bigger than Maya...

Rising Water In the Dam

This is our first time seeing the dam out back fill up. We have no idea how much water it can actually hold and how much of our land will end up being flooded when it is full. The water looks pretty muddy now, but we think that it will all settle after a while. It would be fun to put some fish in, but since we have no idea how fast it will dry up, we won't try that...yet.

The previous owners and the neighbors have told us that when there is water there are also a lot of frogs - to the point where the noise gets pretty loud. Let's see how long that takes!

New Year and New Life on the Farm

So many new animals on the farm. The girls got their cavies (guinea pigs) right before Thanksgiving. Two Americans, one is brown and the other a golden agouti. On December 27th, we got our pig, a female Berkshire/red wattle mix. She will be sold at the San Diego East County Junior Fair in Lakeside in April or May.

We had a group of friends over on New Year's Day, and we all got to watch our neighbors' goat gave birth. We knew that she was going to give birth any day and I had asked them to call us when it happened so we could watch. On New Year's Eve, they though the baby was coming and we rushed over, but it was a false alarm.

We weren't really thinking about the goats on New Year's Day, we were busy getting ready for a little get together with some friends. Just as we were just finishing preparing the food and our first guest were pulling up to the driveway, the neighbor called saying that the baby was crowning and it was coming any minute. The guests were welcomed at the door with, "glad you're here. Want to go watch a goat being born?" Luckily, they were as excited as I was, so we headed over. We were too late to see the first one born, but we got to watch it learn to stand and figure out how to nurse. It is pretty amazing that within 20 minutes the baby is able to stand and nurse.

It's pretty typical for goats to have two babies, but we weren't sure if this one would because she only had one last year. But as we were watching the first baby nurse, we saw the second baby start to crown. Poor mom had one baby nursing and one trying to come out. At first, we would just see a little of the second baby's head, but eventually, the whole head came out. It looked rather alien because it was still enclosed in the sac. Poor mom had one baby nursing and another starting to deliver.

The mom kept trying to lie down, but she wouldn't stay down for long. She was very focused on the fist baby. The first baby just wanted to nurse, so the neighbor would hold him for a while trying to let mom focus on delivering the second baby, but soon mama goat would hear her baby bleating and would stand to comfort the baby. 

Finally she laid down long enough to start pushing. We were sure that she was going to finally deliver, but again, she stood up to take care of baby #1 and ended up delivering baby #2 standing up. The neighbor had to catch it!

It was all amazing and a wonderful way to welcome a new year. I am so grateful to our neighbors for letting a large group of strangers come and watch. None of us had ever seen an animal give birth, so it was special to us all.