The village Post Office called early this morning, my poultry had arrived.
Herbie fed all the beasties again this morning, including giving the bottle to the lambs. Wish I'd seen that :). Went to pick up hay from Mike, then stopped and picked up the chicks. I have this thing that I can't just run one errand at a time.
Back home I got the 2 baby pools out, one for the 8 ducklings, the other for 89 (yes, I counted them) Buff Brahams, 10 Aracunas (blue egg layers) and the 10 guineas. Settled them with food and water. I forgot how noisy they are, all cheeping at the top of their squeaky voices :). Problem, the lambs climb into the pools - 1 squashed chick, so far. I didn't see it happen, but it wasn't under the heat lamp, so it wasn't smothered by the others. I've booted them out a couple of times, and if they insist on doing it, they'll go back with the other sheep, but I'll need to build them a creep so they can escape when necessary.
Had to go get more chick feed as Mike doesn't have a screen fine enough for chick feed, so put fuel in the truck ($4.19 per gallon of diesel, wow), stopped at WalMart for short extension cords and a few other items. It sprinkled a little, just enough to dirty the truck that Herbie washed and polished yesterday. Always happens, doesn't it ?
Well, the young guy I was talking to about taking the farm over will not be doing it. It's too expensive, too large and too much work. I always forget that it's so involved - my personality thrives on too many irons in the fire and that's a little overwhelming to others.
So far I have 4 jars of finished maple syrup, plus another qt. Didn't bring more sap in today, will start again tomorrow.
A new potential herd-share owner came for a farm visit today, Kelly Taylor. She couldn't believe that maple syrup was that sweet either ! She fed the lambs, visited the cows, inspected the milk parlour, which I hadn't cleaned yet after taking Strawberry back to the sheep enclosure and her twins to the garage. Oops, need to do that tomorrow too.
Herbie raked the back yard with the tractor and rake yesterday. Amazing job of getting the truck, tractor and buggy ruts out ! Wish we had a large roller, a 6 ft one should work well. Can't put new grass seed down as the chickens will devour it all. Trying to figure out a way of growing more grass out there.
Then we went to a funeral home in Lowell. My friend, Jackies' brother was killed in a car accident in Georgia on Friday night. So sad, gone too soon.
See the pastures turning to green. Please God, may this year have great weather, enough rain and sunshine. May we harvest hay, enough for our animals for Winter. May we make enough money on the farm to support the farm. May we decide wisely about moving to New Mexico. May we accept, happily.