Quick update

Okay, quick update:
We have 4 cows, 2 bee hives and a ridiculous amount of chickens.

Brauna lost her calf.

We went with Dexter Cattle.  They are a small Irish breed.   We wanted to choose a breed from the Livestock Conservancy list.  These are a recovering breed, coming back from being endangered..  They are about half the size of a regular cow.  We chose a smaller cow so that the heifers can calf on their own without human assistance.  Basically, we didn't want to have to "go in" and put a chain around the calf and pull it out.  When we originally signed the contract for these cows both heifers were pregnant.  One of them delivered her calf before they came to our property.  There was an accident and the calf was killed right before they were brought here.  The poor mama mooed and mooed for her baby for days after they arrived here.  She's doing okay now.  They're all sort of skinny, so we're trying to fatten them up a bit, especially the one who is still pregnant. She will deliver in the fall.

Junie is pregnant.  She loves to be brushed and scratched under her chin. 

Smokey the bull.  He's a Dexter cross.

Norman is our young bull.  He's so sweet.

The chickens are all growing quickly!  I was able to hatch seven of them from eggs.  That was so exciting for this homeschool family!  Well, mostly for me, but I did a unit with the kids about incubating and hatching eggs.  It is so amazing to me that God created the egg to provide everything the chick needs for development completely separate from it's mother.  And, I always thought the yolk was what became the chick, but the yolk is actually what nourishes the chick while it's in the egg.

The bees seem to be doing well.  We're so nervous about them.  I'm nervous because of all the bear sightings and people saying they quit beekeeping because they were tired of fighting the bears.  Jeff is just nervous that he'll do something wrong or miss something and we'll lose the hives.

I'm so excited for Jeff!  He's been wanting to do this for years and here we are doing it!  God is good!


So, that's our update.  We love it down here!  Come visit anytime!!!