Well, the chicks are getting large (I’ll updated this weekend with 3 week and 1 week pics) and they will need to leave the laundry room fairly quickly.  Spring break started today so I’m hoping that I can get the coop finished this week.  I have decided to use part of the shop as the coop.  There is a side small room on the back of the shop that should work out good as the coop.  There are windows so the ventilation should be good, there is a door there to help with the cleaning of the coop, and it is connected to the covered grass area behind the shop near the pastures where a run would be PERFECT!!  The chickens will have the ability to have run of the pastures when they get older, and if we wanted, we’ll be able to let them in the back yard or take them over to the garden when we want them there as well.

Here is what I have to start with:

This is looking from the main part of the shop over to the back room.  Through this opening, we’ll be using the area to the left for the coop. This is what we have in there right now, a couple of bikes and lots of dirt.  There are lights in there and lots of plugs, so running lights and getting heat lamps in there won’t be a problem.  There is water right out the front door of the shop, so I should be able to run a hose right to where I want it if I need to.

So I’m going to build a wall of chicken wire where you see the axes.  I will put a large door there to help with cleaning.  I’m also going to put the nest boxes there in the wall so we can get the eggs without going in the coop.  I’ll put the roosts against the wall on the right, and a hole in the wall under the window so the chickens can get out to the run.

This picture is right near the coop, and it looks like it has been used in the past to raise baby sheep or maybe pigs.

I’m going to cover the sides to stop drafts, and I’ll use this as a brooder to start.  Once again there is electricity right there so I’ll be able to get the heat lamp right there.  It is about 3 times the size of the brooder the chicks are in right now.  They will like this!

I hope to get some of this work done tomorrow, but we’ll have to see.  Georgia and Lilian are going to the Portland Temple tomorrow with our ward’s youth.  I have to go in the morning to to a couple of temple interviews, so I won’t be able to get start on this until later.  Watch for updates this week! 

Just a quick photo update of the chicks and how they are doing at one week.  They are getting big.  Both Julia and I think they have almost doubled in size in the last week.  They are still very cute!!  Here are the pictures!

The first column has pictures from last week and the second column is from today.

The Barred Rocks:

The Speckled Sussex:

The Rhode Island Reds:

All in all we are very happy with our new chickens!! Looking forward to watching them grow!!

Just thought I would give a quick update on how the chicks are doing (I’ll add new pictures tomorrow when they will be a week old so you can see the growth).  They seem to be doing great.  The chicks are growing quickly, it is almost like I can tell they are larger from when I leave for work in the morning to when I get home in the evening.

They have been having some “pasty butt” issues (this is where there feces stick to their backsides, and if it builds up, it could cause it so they couldn’t go to the bathroom normally.  If not taken care of, they could die).  I’ve been cleaning them up as often as needed.  I have done some quick research on what might help, and I heard that adding a little Apple Cider Vinegar to their water might help a little.  So yesterday when I was cleaning out their water, I added just a little.  Well, I don’t know if it is helping, but they sure liked the change!!  They drank more water overnight than any of the previous nights.  That is a good thing!

Also, I gave them their first treat yesterday, egg yolk.  I hard boiled a couple of eggs and mashed up the yolk for them.  They LOVED it!!  This will give them some good nutrients and might help their pasty butt as well.

In the next couple of weeks I’m going to try giving them some worms and see how they like them.  Looking forward to getting them out in the pasture to work on cleaning up some areas!

Like I said, I’ll take some more pictures tomorrow and add them so you can see the growth.

As I talked about in a previous post, we have traded the cows for 5 alpacas. They are all here on property now, and are doing great. They are very sweet alpacas.

First (even though they were delivered 2nd), we have the 2 boys. There is Jet and Frank. Jet is jet black. He is a sweet boy. He was pushed around by a cow and Frank where he was at, so he is a little thin, but he is enjoying all the grass, the constant hay, and the daily alpaca feed. He is a sweet kind alpaca. He does well on lead, and loves to be scratched on the neck.

Frank is also a sweet alpaca. He REALLY likes the alpaca feed!!

The girls & baby (who we brought down last weekend) are also great alpacas.

First there is Marin, a beautiful white alpaca. She loves to eat. She will come running when I come close to see if I have hay or alpaca feed.

It was hard to get a picture of her not eating!

Then here is Nola. She is a beautiful light brown alpaca. She looks a lot like Milkyway.

Nola is the mother to the baby boy, and we are currently calling him Atom (he is the center of this little family). He is also a beautiful white!!

I think he and Brownie are falling in love.

We are very happy with the new alpacas. They are not perfect, but they are beautiful!! We look forward to seeing them grow and seeing what we can do with them.

It turned out to be a good weekend, but a very busy weekend.  After all was said and done, we didn’t get one picture of everything we did this weekend. 

Friday, January 30, 2009
Lilian turned 12!!!  What a great day!  It is hard to believe that 12 years ago our 2nd daughter was born.  I remember when Julia called me at work to tell me she was heading to the hospital to have the baby.  I was just about to start my shift (I was working at the Disney Store at the time).  I looked at my boss and told her I had to go, she agreed!!  12 is a big birthday for us, not sure if it is for other people.  In our church, when you turn 12, you move from the Primary (classes for kids from 1.5 – 11) to the Young Women (classes for youth from 12-18).  So this is a big move for Lilian.  She has been looking forward to this for a long time.  She enjoyed Primary, but she LOVES going to Young Women!

Friday night Lilian had invited a few friends over for a party and sleepover.  The girls had a great time laughing, screaming (why do girls scream so much?) giggling, talking and EATING!!  They made their own pizzas, we had a chocolate fountain, they decorated cupcakes, chips, dips, you name it it was there.  They were up until about 11:30 when we finally had to shut the party down (well Julia, I had fallen asleep on the couch).

Saturday, January 31, 2009
The girls were up kind of early, and Julia made them belgian waffles.  More laughing, giggling, screaming, etc.  They ended up watching The Princess Bride this morning.  All girls were picked up between 10:30 and 11:00.  That morning I had taken care of all the animals (hay, water, pellets, clean a little, etc.)  I also had to run in to Cascade Home Supply for some more tposts for a corral we were going to build later in the day.  Julia and Georgia had moved all the cattle panels over to the fence line and Julia and I lifted them over the fence to our neighbors driveway near where we have had the cows the last 3 weeks.

Also that morning a good friends of ours and owner of Brownie, Kim & Tim came over to see Brownie and they picked a great day for a drive (it was beautiful).  We talked with them for a while.  We really enjoy spending time with Kim & Tim, so it was a very welcome break!!

After Kim & Tim and all the girls left, Julia and I headed down to build a small catch pen so we could round up the cows on Sunday.  Yes, we are getting rid of the cows.  We really do enjoy them, but we have become acquiainted with a couple out in Elmira that has some alpacas they are needing to sell or trade, and they already have cows, so we are going to trade the cows for the alpacas.  They are very happy, and I think over the last 3 weeks we have learned that we are not cow people .  Well, we made a catch pen from 5 cattle panels and we hope we are ready for Sunday (I’ll tell you later on down if we were!!).

We finished with the cows around 3, and then headed over to Elmira to pick-up 3 of the alpacas from the family we are trading with.  We picked up Nola, Marin & Nola’s male cria who we think we are going to call Atom (we’re still not sure, but he sure is a cuite!!).  We loaded up the 3 alpacas in to the back of the mini-van, and headed back south.  Alpacas travel very well by van.  They sit down and just enjoy the ride.  We made it home around 5:30, and the 3 aplacas seemed to settle in very well in the front small pasture.  They are enjoying looking around and munching on grass.  (They will be in the front pasture until Friday, and then we’ll move them in with the girls.  We are going to bring the 2 additional aplacas on Friday, and they’ll spend a few days up there as well).

Once we got everybody fed (animals) we took the kids out to The Pink House here in Cottage Grove since we were all tired from the day.

Sunday, February 1, 2009
Another busy day.  I am in the Bishopric in our church, so I have to be to the church at 6:00 a.m. every Sunday for meetings.  5:00 a.m. comes too early!!!  After church (I usually don’t leave until around 1:00 p.m.) we had a quick lunch, and then headed out to start getting the cows ready to be moved today.  Our hope (dreams, wish, pleading, etc.) was that we could just put hay in the catch pen and the cows would go in there to eat since we hadn’t fed them since the night before.  Well, it sort of worked, but we could only get 3 to go in at a time.  Julia called Becca & Andrew, and they called their friend Brian.  Once Brian got there, he saw our problem (mainly that we’re stupid city folks who didn’t know what we were doing), but he was kind and helped up re-arrange our pen by moving where the opening was.  Once Becca and Drew got there it took us about 10 minutes to get the cows in to the pen and locked in.  Julie who was transporting them for us got there about 10 minutes later and it took about 10 minutes to get them in the trailer.

We are SOOOOO grateful for Brian, Bec & Andrew and all their help!  There is NO WAY Julia and I could have done that without them!  After Julie left with the cows, we took a while to start cleaning up our neighbors pasture.  We had only planned to have the cows there for about a week, but due to some health issues, it ended up being 3 weeks.  We are going to do all we can to make sure our neighbors pasture is back to as good as condition as we can get it.  We spent a little while raking the hay out, taking down the fences (I’ll have to rent a post puller to get the posts out) and cleaning up the road.  I’ll get the posts out on Monday, and then we’ll continue getting the pasture back in to great condition.  We are also very grateful to Howard and Judy for all they have done for us!

Once it started getting dark, we went back up to the house and got some pizzas for the kids (ours and Bec’s) and made grilled chicken salads for the adults.  We had a great time visiting and just laughing about everything.  It was a great afternoon.  Around 8:30, I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore, so I stopped fighting it, and we had family prayer and I went to bed!  I’ve learned as I get older, if you’re tired, sleep!

It was a busy weekend, but we got a lot done, and we are happy with how everything turned out.  Hopefully this next weekend isn’t as busy (I know it will be, but I can hope can’t I?)

Our Dexter Cows were finally dilivered today.  It has taken a long time for this to heppen, but it finally has.  First there was all the snow in Portland and not being able to get anybody up there.  Next there was the holidays, the people we wanted to use were on vacation on not around.  Well, one of the people out at the horse barn, Julie, she was able to run up today and pick up the 5 Dexters for us.  She got there around 12 or so, and it took about an hour and a half to get the cattle loaded (stubbern cows!!) and then an uneventful ride down to the property.

Julie gave us a call when she was getting in to Cottage Grove, and we were out waiting for her.

We were putting the cows on our neighbors front pasture for the first little while, and then we’ll move them to our back pasture.

Julie backed the trailer up to the gate and we got ready and let the cows out.

We had to get another cattle panel just to help close off the gate.

The cows were excited to get out of the trailer and explore their new grass!!

They ran all over the pasture checking out all the new grass!!

Lilian came over to meet the girls!

They’re a little dirty, but they are enjoying the grass!!

As we were walking back, we just had to turn around for one more look.

They are doing good. Running all over and exploring. Eating the hay we threw in to welcome them. I’ll go out and check them in the morning. More pictures to come.

The United Nations has announced that 2009 will be the International Year of Natural Fibers.  I haven’t read much about what this means, but it is cool to see that our main product here on the farm has it’s own year.  Here are the objectives from the UN

raise awareness and stimulate demand for natural fibres;

promote the efficiency and sustainability of the natural fibres industries;

encourage appropriate policy responses from governments to the problems faced by natural fibre industries;

foster an effective and enduring international partnership among the various natural fibres industries.

Just thought I would share! 

Oh, and the rain is going away for a few days.  It has pretty much rained or snowed everyday for the past month.  It will be nice to have some days with no rain.  The back pasture is getting pretty soggy.  We have been lucky to not get any flooding, but a lot of ponding in the back pasture.  Jackies barn is very muddy!!

Bring on the SUN!!!

We had church early today, so we were able to take a nice walk on the farm today. It was a beautiful day, sun was shinning, it was probably around 70 degrees.

We spent some time with the alpacas. Then a few minutes sharing apples with Jackie, and then we found a path down to the creek and to what we are now calling Silk Creek Island!!

Silk Creek runs along the back of our property, and a good chunk of it is through our property. There is a bend in the river, and how the river has flowed, it has caused an area that at times of the year will be an island, and that is part of our property. SO. . .

WE OWN AN ISLAND!!!

Here are some pictures from today:

Brownie & Helena enjoying the sun and the pasture!

Brownie getting curious about what we were doing

Really Curious!!

Curious, but cautious!

I LOVE 606’s!! (when I was growing up, we would go to Smith’s Food & Drug, and they had bulk food. My ALL time favorite cookie is frosted animal cookies. The bin number was 606. So, when mom would ask what I wanted from the store, I would just say, “Get me some 606’s.” Now my family calls them 606’s and not frosted animal cookies. When we bought Feline, I didn’t notice that her ear tag was 606. Just thrilled with my 606!!)

All the girls enjoying the sun

Jackie looking for more apples

Julia standing on Silk Creek Island. Taken from up above.

Taken from Silk Creek Island looking East

Julia on top of Silk Creek Island

Once we returned to the barn, we decided to take a look at the babies and their fleece. We were very happy with what we found. JoJo also decided that she wanted to come in and have her fleece looked at again. Here are some of the pictures we took.

Helena

Sunshine

Brownie

JoJo

Their fiber is looking good. It is getting longer, some good crimp, and nice luster. I also LOVE the colors!! Can’t wait to find out the micron size next summer!

Here are some pictures of the horse shelter we started to build on Monday. We should finish it this Saturday. We have the roof and wood to finish it now.

It is really sturdy. We are going to put a 4″x12″ header over the door. We’ll put a 2″x4″ header on the back, and then put 2×4 rafters in every 18″. We also have corrugated metal roofing to go on. It should have a pretty good tilt to it so water will run off. More pictures this weekend.

Bil

11 hours until National Alpaca Farm Day!!

We have spent the last month getting ready, and I think we are there!

We are excited to have friends and family coming down to visit our farm.  We are also excited to see who from the community will be stopping by.  We had a short story done in the local paper, and we have been on the community calendar on a local radio station.  We have no idea how many people will come by, but we’re ready.  We popped around 70 medium bags of kettle corn tonight, have around 200 bottles of water, a lot of ice, chocolate, and help from Rusty, Terry & Pattie.

Pictures later this weekend!!