"Live"stock and loss

When we embarked on getting goats for the first time, Tom told me that livestock was a misnomer, and that animals die.
Of course I knew that, but wasn't prepared for how bad it made me feel!!!

We traveled to the mainland in June and when we returned, Thorn didn't look excellent. Turns out he was suffering from bottle jaw-- something that happens in the course of getting worms, becoming anemic and then being really ill. By the time we realized what he had, it was too late :( I wormed him and gave him minerals and gave him lots of love... but he passed one night.

I know that these things happen, but it's hard not to feel really guilty.

In this process I've learned a lot more about caring for the animals-- including how to look for parasites in their poop. It's not the most fun thing in the world (actually pretty comical, running after them with a plastic bag, trying to collect samples), but hopefully it will lead to healthier goats!

R.I.P. Thorn

Mangosteen

Right now we're mostly in maintenance mode here at the farm. During the summer, the grass (and weeds!) grow tons, and so between that and GB's busy movie schedule, we're keeping things under control rather than creating NEW stuff.

But I did plant this mangosteen one afternoon. It's been really dry, so hopefully it makes it well.


And look how strong I am.... broke this shovel!


(GB told me later it was already broken...... sure)

We also have FUN!

Seems like the majority of posts here are work related. It's good for us because we have records of when we planted and did things around the farm. I've tried different record-keeping methods and so far, this blog has been the best/ consistent- mostly because it's photo driven. I pretty much have a camera on me or nearby most of the time, so as long as I take a photo of what we're doing, we've got a record.

We woke up yesterday to a beautiful day and called some friends to see if they wanted to join us for late afternoon bbq/dinner.
Husky the dog had been here since 7am. I tried all morning to get her to leave, but she would NOT budge. She's been here 6+ times since she first visited, and is very needy. Her owners are ambivalent about her, so we were trying to find her a better, loving home. Jake wanted to meet her, so he showed up at noonish, and since the day was so beautiful, and the kids wanted to swim, we decided to crack open the beers and start early.
GB was industrious and mowed while we waited for others to get here. I think Jake and I had drunk 2 beers each by the time he was even finished with the mowing!



Everyone arrived a little later and we had a lovely time with great food (as usual). Kids played in the pool and watched movies, and the big ones enjoyed their computer time

Jake is often serving drinks
Newly licensed Ra'am was sent out to pick up kids who needed reuniting with their parents

On another note about this blog...
I took the 1st 1.5 years or so and turned it into a book. I am SOOOO thrilled with it. I had it printed thru blurb.com-- they have software that "slurps" the blog and then you can manipulate the layout of each post. It's been amazing and so fun to sit and look thru the book and relive the house planning/ building and all of the plantings and stuff we've done. For the (2? 3?) of you who actually read this blog, I highly recommend it! Our book is like 250+ pages and cost us about $70. Not bad!

Sheep Wrangling

Woe is me. The forgotten blog.
In an effort to remedy this situation, I started going thru my photos to spark my memory of what we've been doing for the past 3 months that haven't been chronicled here.

And I missed such a huge and fun event.... Sheep Wrangling!

Our two sheep, Ke'o and 'Ele

They had eaten their pasture way down. It's been so dry dry dry here, that the grass wasn't growing fast enough to keep up with their needs.
So, move they must.

But these sheep are not human lovers. They tolerate our presence, but we cannot get near them. They regard us with wary expressions when we come to visit them.

Thankfully, our sheep herding friends, Tom and Eve, have lots of experience with scared sheep. They came over with their lassos and lots of knowledge (or fortitude).

Here are Eve and Ra'am- with a huge (and heavy) roll of fencing we planned to use to corral the sheep

Sheep were on the move. They were not thrilled with the arrangements.
I missed the big jumps. Apparently these large creatures can JUMP!

Ra'am, GB, and I held the fencing up while Tom and Eve had their lassos- the plan was for Tom to chase them into the corraling area Eve to lasso them, while we move the big fence and close down the area.

Caught one!
Tom chased him closer to the fence and Eve successfully threw the lasso!

We tied up their legs to transport them in the truck to the upper pasture.

Ele was a little harder to catch, but Eve once again threw a successful lasso! I was very very impressed!

See Luka watching from outside the gate.

Winter wooly coat

!!!

We got them in the back of the truck to drive them up, and I sat there (kind of ON the sheep since he was struggling a bunch) and fed them.
We trimmed their hooves and then set them loose in the new pasture!


On the planting front, here are some mexican sunflowers (?!?) that Buck gave us way before we moved in. I stuck the stalks in the ground, but it was during a drought and so I figured they died. No such thing! Look at all of the flowers!

And we planted a bunch of coronata along the gulch behind the shed.

Ode to a Very Very Dedicated Mother.... on Mother's Day 2010

On an evening walk the other day, GB, Luka and I happened upon a most wonderful sight!

We found baby tilapia in our pond! Our tilapia are only a couple of inches long- they look like wee babes themselves, but apparently they are old enough to breed.

I had worried that the openness of the pond would mean that any babies would be eaten by the larger fish, but I didn't realize that mama tilapia are fiercely protective of their young. If you look closely in the below photo, you can see one white fish and a bunch of small white "dots" to her right. Those are her babies. She doesn't leave them.
When we look at the pond, the fish usually crowd to where we are, hoping to get fed. Since we were checking out the babes, this mama spent all of her time shooing the other fish away from the little ones. She didn't let the fish get near to them.

Every time we check them out, she is right there, keeping the other fish away.

I was very very impressed with her, and felt like we were watching one of the nature programs we like to watch- getting a glimpse into the secret life of fish.


Some other photos from our walk:

papaya

Mango Madness

It's a bumper year for mango. I wish that was a good thing here chez nous, but really all it means is that we'll have months of stinky fruit and lots of fruit flies all over the ground.

Here GB is scraping the driveway of mangoes so he can compost them under the banana trees.
We had a huge branch fall out of one of the trees. GB chainsawed it up and Ra'am is loading it up in the truck for delivery to the bananas

Full Load

Fixin and planting

When we finished the planting boxes around the koi pond, way back when, there were many things we did not anticipate. Firstly we filled the whole boxes with cinder, covering up the outlets and their covers that were in each one. All of the outlets are on one GFCI circuit, so when the lights went out, we had to dig around to figure which outlet had the reset button.
Also, we sunk pots in the cinder and figured we could just stick pots w/o those, so we could easily move plants around.
We didn't realize that the coqui frogs would love that space between the 2 pots so much. When coquis get in that area, their song just echoes so LOUDLY through the house, it's insane.

So slowly, we've been digging out the outlets and planting directly in pots.

Here we took all of the plants we have and laid them out. Unfortunately we found that most of the plants here don't like any sun, and 2 of the boxes get sun.

GB digging cinder. It's HAAARD work!

fini

Caught em!

Saw these little ones on the road 4/16

That one on the right is the runt.

Caught 5 of them in the trap!!

"Friendly" visitors

We've been getting a lot of wildlife visitations.

Some are friendly, some are not

Not friendly
this medium sized feral pig has been feasting on fallen mangoes
He seems to be unafraid of us. I guess the food is that good!

Here's the trap we set, hoping to catch him (and his friends)

Papa pheasant. There are several pair right now on our property. We see them each morning and evening.

Red-headed cardinal. This guy (as well as many other birds) have been feasting on these ripe waiwi right outside our kitchen window.

These dogs (3) are unwelcome skinny neighborhood dogs. One was caught in the above pig trap.
In non-animal news, we have our first pineapple!

And this is what GB and I look like after a long day's work

How things grow

So Pippi's roost is made out of bamboo that GB harvested from our plants. He both primed and painted it... but a mere 3 weeks later and the bamboo has sprouted thru the paint. sigh...

Some birds are molting. They look pretty ugly w/o neck feathers

Garden Grows!

Corn!

Pippi shares her roost with wild chicken