1 month old

Samuel's 1-month old pictures:

Cows

Our "neighbor" has about 30+ head of cattle and about 100 acres.  Since we don't have sheep yet, he runs his cattle on our property to help keep the grass down.  Our pasture comes pretty close up to the house... here are his cattle from our back window.

Time with Daddy

All clean and swaddled after bath time.

Feeding time.

Waiting for Samuel to settle down.

Baby Samuel

Sorry for the lack of posts the past few weeks.  Baby Samuel arrived on 9-10-10 and has been the center of attention lately.  Now that things have 'somewhat' settled down, I'm hoping I can get back to regular posts.  I plan on wandering around our property this week to snap some photos to show you the new farm.  In the meantime, here is Samuel Richard shortly after he was born...

Mr. Cow

Samuel loves his toy that our friend Lisa gave us.  We've named him Mr. Cow.  He's also wearing a cute outfit given to us by our friend Dawn.  Daddy gave Samuel some help grabbing hold of Mr. Cow.

Just hangin' out

Samuel is taking a rest on Mommy & Daddy's bed, sporting an outfit sent to him by our friend Jeane.

Happy baby

If this isn't a happy baby, I don't know what is!

I love the grin and giant booties!

First swing ride

First bath!

Samuel's first bath was received with mixed emotions.  For him... not me.

Children's hospital

We were instructed to return to the hospital the day after being released so Samuel could have blood work done to see how his bilirubin count was (jaundice).  We were on our way home when Samuel's pediatrician called to say his levels were dangerously high and we needed to go to St. Louis Children's Hospital soon so Samuel could be admitted.  We did a u-turn and headed right there.  We spent 2 1/2 days at Children's where they took fantastic care of Samuel and me.  Two things likely caused his bilirubin levels to get so high: 1) he was dehydrated... probably not getting enough breast milk yet, so we supplemented with formula and an IV and 2) my blood type is O and his is B, which can cause a conflict in babies early on.  The doctors tried taking Samuel off his light therapy on Tuesday, but his bilirubin levels went back up.  Finally Wednesday afternoon, his levels held steady after being off light therapy for 6 hours, so we got to go home.

Samuel's bili-bed.  Or the baby tanning bed as we called it.

Bili bed

Early on day three, the nurses noticed Samuel was yellowing from jaundice.  While at the hospital, he spent most of day three in a bili bed in the nursery.  We were sent home with a portable bed to help get rid of the jaundice.  He actually loved being in there.  I guess the warmth and hum from the bed reminded him of being in the womb.

Day 3

Today we got to go home from the hospital.  Yay!

Samuel clasped his hands together all on his own!

Contemplating something?

Zonked out!

Still snoozing...

I love his little smile while he's sleeping.

 

Flowers from my sister, Cathy.

Day 2

Samuel and Mommy on day 2 at the hospital.

Samuel Richard Thayer

Samuel was born 9/10/10 at 2:22pm in St. Louis, MO.  He weighed 9lbs 4oz and was 22 1/4 inches long.  I went into the hospital at 8pm on the 9th to be induced.  The first stage of labor started around 2:30am on the 10th and my water broke shortly afterward around 3am.  By noon my nursing staff had me pushing trying to deliver.  However, Samuel decided he wasn't quite ready and I was worn out.  My doctor came in around 2pm, did an exam and said that with the help of a vacuum he was pretty confident he could get Samuel out and hopefully avoid a Cesarean.  A few short minutes later, Samuel joined the Thayer Family!

So without further adieu, here is Samuel Richard Thayer:

Minutes after he was born being cleaned up and getting his first Apgar exam...

About 40 minutes after Samuel arrived.

Close-up of picture above.  What a sweety!

After his trip to the nursery to get a bath.

Close-up of above picture.

FINALLY... broody-less chickens

For months we've had a broody chicken, Blackie.  You've seen her before on our blog.  This is the second time she's gone broody.  The first time was for several weeks, then one day she just hopped out of the coop as if nothing happened.  She stayed out a few weeks, then went broody again and has been ever since.  It's been at least a month or two.  We actually started discussing butchering her.  After all, the purpose of a hen is to provide eggs and well, she's not.  To make matters worse, she seems to have taught two other hens how to be broody... one of our Buff Orphingtons and an Ameracauna went broody also.  Fantastic! 

So last weekend we started disucssing butchering again.  Then out of the blue, Blackie started coming out of the coop a little bit.  So we watched and held off butchering.  Then she started coming out each day just like the other girls.  And it seemed that if Blackie was going to come out, the Buff and the Ameracauna didn't have any interest in staying in the coop either, so they've been coming out every day too!  FINALLY! 

That's not to say she/they won't go broody again, but 1) we can hope and 2) at least our egg production will be up in the meantime.

Farm takes backstage

Today I'm 39-weeks pregnant (9-months for you non week-to-month converting folks) and had my weekly prenatal checkup.  I've been having some pretty miserable pregnancy related side-effects and just last week was told Samuel is a tad big and they want to keep an eye on his size.  Today I told my doctor all of my woes and how one in particular - severe itching all over - is unbearable.  I expected him to say something like 'it will all be over soon', but instead he said 'I think we need to deliver this baby'.  WHOA, say what? After a few minutes of discussion, I agreed.  So, tomorrow night at 8pm (yes, PM!) we go to the hospital to start the inducement process.

My point in telling you all of this is because there will be less going on here at the farmstead than normal.  Well, let me clarify... Dan will be doing a lot over the next week since we still have to get coops and pig-pens setup at the farm and ultimately need to move 5 pigs, 23 hens and 10 roosters, oh and the rest of our furniture.  However, since I'm the designated blog updater and will be busy the next few days giving birth, then afterward learning how to care for a newborn... all the while trying to ensure I don't get peed on while changing diapers... it's safe to say blog updates may be sporadic.

Dan and I are so blessed to work for a great company that gives 3-months fully paid maternity/paternity leave to Mom's and Dad's.  This is of course supposed to be time to bond with your baby, which it will be.  But it will also give us time to bond with our new farm.  =)

This past weekend

This past weekend Dan and Brian processed 29 broilers.  I stood by for moral support, fetched supplies and packaged the birds after they cooled and rested a bit.  This batch of broilers were Red Broilers, which aren't as genetically modified as the Cornish X's we raised last time.  Although this makes us feel better, they sure were small birds.  We discussed trying Cornish X's again from a different supplier and butchering them a little earlier then we did last time, so they don't get to the point of having leg/joint issues.  We'll see.  We're still trying to decide if this will be the last batch of the year or if we want to squeeze one more in for a late fall processing.  It will probably all depend on whether we can get the brooder and chicken tractor moved to the new farm in time. 

Stay tuned....

The new and improved Thayer Family Farm!!!

One week ago we closed on the new and improved Thayer Family Farm. We are so excited to finally have found a property that we both love.  I love the house, which is where I spend a good portion of my time.  Dan loves the 60 acres of land.

Moving has presented a bit of a challenge since I'm 8 1/2 months pregnant and Dan has to do most of the moving by himself.  Our goal is to get as much as we can to the farm before Samuel gets here, then we can move the rest later.  However, we need to get the current house on the market as soon as we can, so we can't dilly-dally either.  We'll be sure to get pics of the farm up as we get coops, pig-pens, etc set up.  Here are a few general pics that we have though.

Front of the house...

Barn, where some of the animals will be housed near...

One of the many pastures....

2-weeks ago....

Two weeks ago Dan and Brian butchered rabbits.  A total of 11... 3 adult (stewing) and 8 young rabbits.  Processing rabbit is quite a bit different then poultry and goes pretty quickly.  They had all 11 done in about an hour.  I'm looking forward to having our first rabbit dinner... we haven't decided what we're making yet though.

Oh, and remember our turkey that flew the coop trying to avoid being butchered?  She didn't escape this time.  Now we have 9 turkeys in the freezer.  It's going to be fantastic having antibiotic free turkey we raised for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner this year!

3-weeks ago....

Sorry there hasn't been a post in quite a while.  To say we have a lot going on is an understatement.  Let me try to get caught up with some of the recent goings-on.

3 weeks ago Dan butchered turkeys.  Except for one that seemed to figure out what was going on and flew the coop.  Literally.  We have a 6-foot high barb-wired fence that separates us from a Girl Scout Equestrian Camp.  The turkey flew over the fence while Dan was trying to catch her.  Later, she realized where her food and water was and wanted back over, but couldn't figure out how.  Finally the next day she figured it out and flew back over.  Since all her turkey buddies were gone, she started hanging out with chickens during the day.  A pretty funny sight.

As far as the butchering, Dan's decided he really likes turkeys better than chickens.  Everything is larger, therefore, easier to eviscerate.  However, he doesn't like that 1) turkeys really aren't very smart and 2) if his truck is left outside, they use the hood as a roost.  One nice thing about the new farm is that the pasture and yard will be two distinct areas, so we won't have to worry about hood-roosting.

Flour Making Time

Last fall I planted a small patch of wheat, and this summer Danny helped me harvest it and Brian helped me thresh and winnow our first batch of it. This fall I plan to plant more wheat, as well as oats, barley, and rye. All three will be ready for harvest early next summer.
In the meantime, we have our wheat, and in order to turn it into whole wheat flour we invested in this here GrainMaker grain mill. It comes with a handle that attaches to the big flywheel on the back. You dump the grain in the top, start cranking, and flour comes out the front. The big shiny knob on the front allows us to adjust the fineness of the flour.
Our initial attempts at grinding were not good. It's a true test of stamina to turn the crank long enough to produce a usable amount of flour. After Brian and I took turns cranking this beast for an hour we were both worn out and had only made about 3 cups of flour; a combination of whole wheat, brown rice, and oats, to be exact. I decided right then and there that this thing would be motorized.After a brief search on eBay I scored a new 1/2 hp electric motor. A trip to the local farm store provided a 1.5" pulley and a v-belt. After a few weekends in the shop I had a stand for the mill with the motor mounted in the lower part of the stand. Now for the test!
I loaded up the hopper with more of our home-grown wheat, and flipped the switch. What a difference! Flour was now flying out the front, and I had a cup of flour in under a minute. Here's an action photo:Next I tried some brown rice, and then some steel-cut oats, with the same result: 1 cup of flour in about 1 minute. Remember, the same amount of flour by hand took a grueling one hour! Hooray, electricity!
The beauty of the grain mill is that we can make just as much flour as we need when we need it, which means it will always taste fresher. Whole grains stored in the freezer will stay good almost indefinitely. Also, it allows us to make whatever types of flour we want. Even if we buy the grain, it's far less expensive than buying flour. For example, at Costco we buy organic brown rice for $1/lb, which means we can have organic brown rice flour for $1/lb, which is far cheaper than any source I've seen online. Our whole wheat flour (organic, of course!) is basically free, since the wheat seed I planted was leftover from a 50lb sack I bought for chicken feed. Some of this year's wheat harvest will be planted for next year's crop, at a cost of $0 (okay, maybe a buck for gas for the roto-tiller). This year I let some of our sweet corn stay in the garden to mature, and once it's dry I'll try grinding it for corn meal. Normally, sweet corn isn't used for flour, but I read that it works well as long as you make sure it's completely dry before grinding it.
Here's a picture of our breakfast; wheat, oat, and rice pancakes. Yummy!

Fresh, ripe tomatoes

This year we planted all heirloom tomatoes so we weren't sure how our turn out was going to be this year.  We were starting to get concerned because we had tons of green tomatoes that were either staying green for a long time or were being eaten by something.  Low and behold though, our green tomatoes started turning orange then red as if over night.  We're now to the point that we can't eat them fast enough. I'm making tomato/cucumber salad every few days, sending some to work with Dan, etc.  Here is a snapshot of our 'overflow'...

Forager's Harvest

Dan has been reading a book called The Forager's Harvest, which is all about edible wild plants.  Interestingly, it's written by a fella named Samuel Thayer.  Providence perhaps?  Anyway, one particular evening Dan had a hard time reading his book because a certain orange cat felt he needed more attention than the book.

Indoor animals

Most of this blog gives attention to our outdoor animals, but since I had this cute picture, I thought I'd show you Buddy and Ivy too.  Ivy is on the chair in her 'froggy' pose, as we call it.  Buddy is being Buddy.  A second after I snapped this picture, he was jumping at the back of the chair trying to scare Ivy.  That is how their day goes.

Corn on the cob

Last year was our first year growing corn.  It was growing beautifully, but when it was just about time to start picking it, each morning we were devastated to find cobs half eaten.  This year, we planted more corn and put up a fence around it.  It seems to have worked.  We started seeing some damage, but instead of just a single meals worth of corn, we picked corn for lunch and dinner for about a week straight.  Next year, we'll stagger our planting so we have a longer harvest season. 

Here is our corn garden this year...

And here is a close-up of a nice, big cob...

And here is Dan in the corn patch...

Egg count

This week has been a sad, sad week for egg laying.  Each week for the past 3 weeks has been getting progressively worse.  One of our ladies died this week of unknown causes.  The only thing we can think of is heat stroke.  That is also the only reason we can think of for the decrease in eggs.  I just hope this 110 degree heat index weather passes very soon.  For the animals sake and mine!

large: 15, small 75 = 90 eggs.

Weaning bunnies

Today we started weaning baby bunnies from momma D1.  Late in the afternoon, I took 2 of the 8 bunnies from momma and put them in their own cage.  I don't think they've been nursing much, although I'm not there at night to see what they're doing.  Momma didn't seem to care that I was taking them out... maybe she's thinking "it's about time!".  The two bunnies were curious about their new home, even though it looks exactly like their old home and is right by momma.  I plan to wean 2 bunnies per day for the next 4 days to help momma's milk dry up gradually.  After this, it will be just a few weeks until time to butcher the bunnies. 

Hornworms, again!

We have blasted horn worms on our tomato plants again this year. They appear magically, damage the plant, eat the tomatoes, then move on. Annoying little buggers! The two little grenades in this pic are horn worm poo. Eww!!! The great news is that the turkeys LOVE to eat hornworms, so we've been tossing every one we find to the turkeys. You just haven't lived until you've seen a turkey with a 4-inch hornworm dangling from it's beak being chased by 8 other turkeys who want a piece of that worm!

Sunday Brunch

Ham from our own pigs smoked on the charcoal grill:

Homemade potato salad:

Corn picked from our garden just a few minutes prior to eating:

Angel food cake and a Thayer original... homemade gingerbread gelato (YUM!):

Stretchhhh.........

There's nothing like a good stretch!!!

A little behind...

Sorry all, I've gotten a little behind in my blogging the past two weeks.  I posted several pics today, backdating them to when I took the pictures, so be sure to look back a week or two to get caught up.  I'll try to do better staying on top of the pics.  :)

Egg count / MTD-YTD egg count

This week: Large 18, small 98 = 116.  Down quite a bit from the past two weeks.  Not sure if some of the ladies have stopped laying or if they're just laying somewhere other than the coop.  We'll have to investigate.

MTD = 538 eggs

YTD = 1430

Front walkway...

It's been so hot lately that Dan has had very little time to work on the front walkway when it's not blazing hot out.  Not to mention he discovered the front yard is nearly all rock - in fact, we're not sure how grass even grows there.  It's been back-breaking work, so today he had the tractor out to assist with the digging...

Turkeys

The turkeys are getting big.  They're about 14-weeks old now, so they only have about 2 weeks to go until time to butcher.  Here they are foraging around the yard...

Tractor or me?

Every few weeks Dan takes a picture of my progressing big belly.  Today I asked him to take a new picture of me and he says "Only if I can take it in front of the tractor".  What?  What does the tractor have to do with pregnancy pictures?  Oh, well, I gave in.  So here is a pic of me at 32-weeks standing in front of the tractor.  I'm not exactly sure which you're supposed to be looking at though.  :)

Egg count

17 large eggs, 107 small eggs = 124

Egg count

This week: large: 27, small: 106 = 133 eggs this week!  Now if we can only get the new girls to double the size of their eggs, we'd be set!

Pigs 'n eggs

Just so you know... piggies LOVE eggs!  And I do mean LOVE!

Founds eggs

Today while getting into the bunnies food bin, something caught my eye.  A secret nest.  One of our Ameraucana's has found a private hidey hole and has been laying her eggs there.  Eight perfect little blue eggs.  So they don't go to waste, I'm going to cook them up and feed them to the pigs.  Our new piggies haven't had eggs before, so I'm looking forward to see how they react.

Negative 1

Holy cow!  Just when I thought our crazy bunny weekend was over, it just keeps getting worse.  Tonight after we got home from running errands and found our last baby bunny dead, I thought all was over.  Then, Dan went to check on all the rabbits and D4 had ANOTHER baby... 4 days after she birthed the others.  This time though, she wanted to make it abundantly clear that she doesn't want babies because this poor little thing was half cannibalized.  Dan, bless his soul, only told me about it after he disposed of the baby and didn't show me.  I don't think I could take any more bunny madness tonight. 

We've decided to stop breeding bunnies, at least for the time being.  For starters, they are a lot more work then raising chickens, turkeys and pigs.  We're also not sure how we feel about raising animals in cages without access to unlimited fresh grass.  The rest of our animals seem so happy.  The rabbits however seem, well, unhappy.  Until we can find a way to raise them in an unconfined way, we'll hold off.  If we can't do it according to our values, we won't do it at all.

Down to zero

This morning I got up to feed my remaining baby bunny and now he wasn't eating well.  Acting very similar to the listless bunny yesterday, he managed to get a little milk down, but definitely not enough to sustain him.  Doing the best I could I put him back in his makeshift home.  We had errands to run all day today, but as soon as got home, Dan checked on him to find him dead.  Poor little thing!  I'm so sad to have lost all of D4's bunnies - especially the two I tried to save, but at least I can say I tried, right?  I supposed this is something I'll have to get used to with breeding and raising animals.  At the moment though, I don't have to like it.

Down to 1

This morning one of the baby bunnies at well, but the other didn't and seemed listless.  I tried feeding her again around 1pm, but didn't have much luck.  I went back in the evening to feed them both again, to find my listless bunny dead.  Sigh. 

It wasn't a surprise, but dang, that didn't take very long.  At least I feel a little better knowing she had a more peaceful death than if she had remained with D4.

Egg count

Eggs this week... large: 30, small 88 = 118

More bunny drama

This morning we woke up to only 2 bunnies.  Sometime during the night another disappeared.  By this point, we can only assume that D4 is rejecting some or all of the bunnies and taking them out of the nest box.  Baby bunnies by nature crawl aimlessly (not a surprise since they're born blind and deaf), so we can only assume it crawled out of momma's cage and fell onto the ground.  From there it's only a matter of time until a critter carries it off for dinner.  So anyway, we're down to 2.  Later I go back out and find a baby not only out of the box again, dangling 3/4 of the way out of the cage.  It's only saving grace was that it was wedged between the hutch fan and the wall.  I freed it and tried putting it back with momma.  At this, she immediately started clawing at the two bunnies.  I figured they had no chance with her, so I quickly yanked them out, made a home for them in a tub and went inside to do some quick research on how to care for orphaned baby bunnies.

After doing some research, I fed the babies some milk with a dropper.  Everything I read said the babies had little to no chance of survival, but at least they won't be clawed to death or eaten by a wild animal.

Again, we shall see.....

D4 - Not a good momma

This morning bunny doe D4 had a baby in her nest box.  Just one though; quite strange for a rabbit.  I went back out a few hours later and there was another.  A few hours later, another.  And again, a few hours later another.  This time though one of the babies was out of the nest box.  There is no earthly way the baby could have gotten out on it's own, so momma had to have taken it out.  I put the baby back in and headed back inside.  A few hours later I came back out, but there was only 3 bunnies!  What in the world happened to the fourth?  I searched the ground, but found nothing.  A little while later, I found a baby outside the nest box again.  Still confused, we went to bed with only 3 bunnies accounted for.

We will wait and see...

Egg count

Egg count for the first 3 days of July... large: 10, small: 37 = 47

Busy day for birds

We received our latest batch of broilers today.  I'm amazed each time we get baby chicks in as to how small they start out and how quickly they grow.  We'll have another butchering day about 8 weeks from now.

The chicks arrival also means it's time for the turkeys to come out of the brooder.  We clipped their wings so they can't fly as high - hopefully this will keep them on our property.  We opened the brooder and figured we would let them discover how to to get out on their own.  Several hours later, only a few figured it out.  If by tomorrow morning, they all aren't out, we'll give them a helping hand so we can clean up and move the chicks and the hover in.  Should make for a busy day.

MTD/YTD Egg Count

MTD egg count is 273.  YTD, that puts us at 892 eggs!

Re-breeding D2

D2 is our rabbit doe #2.  We bred her a month ago and patiently awaited bunnies, but none came.  So, we re-bred her in hopes that she'll take this time and isn't sterile.  Now we wait 30 days to see.

Egg count

The girls production is really starting to pick up!  23 large eggs and 61 smaller eggs = 84 this week! 

Bunnies - 1 week old

Here are the bunnies at one week old.  All 8 survived and seem to be growing nicely.  They like to sleep a lot and their eyes should start opening in a few days..

Here is a close up of one bunny sleeping.  As soon as I picked him up, Momma came over to inspect the others to see what I was doing!...

The ole swimmin' hole

Yesterday was blazing hot.  I checked on the pigs a few times and noticed they were intentionally splashing water out of their waterer and laying in it.  I suggested to Dan that we dig a hole and fill it with water for them to splash around in.  Last night he did just that and they seemed to enjoy themselves. 

Today the swimming hole was dry so I filled it up with water again.  The piglets came running when they saw what I was doing.  I lightened up the stream from the hose so it was more of a mist and the piggies loved it!  Picture kids running through a sprinkler in the summer.  All 5 pigs ran through the mist and once they were all to the other side, they ran back though again.  Over and over and over.  It was pretty darn cute!  Then they decided to check out the recently filled swimming hole and got themselves covered in mud!  The Chester White pigs, which started out mostly white, were two-toned white and brown by the end.  But they're happy and enjoyed their day and that's what matters.