A diary of the projects, hurdles, rewards and family life at we recorded at Wise Acres, our former homestead in Horsefly, BC. (Careers and teenagers have forced us back into the city, at least for a little while.)

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Maybe it won't look like the turkey coop...

Every time I think I'm about ready to finalize the design on our guest cabin/office, something catches my eye and forces me to rethink it all...



Tiny House Design , Archive » Tiny House Strawbale Workshop


Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Busy, busy, busy!

Wow, it has just been go, go, go around here!  In the past few weeks, we went from 4 sheep and some laying hens to 13 sheep, 2 pigs and tomorrow 10 turkeys arrive.  My chickens are coming mid-May...I'm going to do another 150 this year.  And this is all before gardening season starts!

We finished lambing with the Icelandics, last Thursday and ended up with 3 ram lambs and 2 ewe lambs.  Four of them are white with a brown spot here and there and one is jet black.  Here they are lounging around while their mothers are fighting over the best bits of hay...

In the middle of lambing, we had our Suffolk ewes arrive.  We started out looking for one little ewe lamb for Gwenna's 4-H project and ended up purchasing two lambs with their mothers, which brings the tally of sheep up to 13.  Uncle David and Auntie Susan were kind enough to pick them up for us using their stock trailer...
They have settled in quite nicely and we are attempting to get them comfortable with us, so that we can handle them a bit.  This is Zara, Gwenna's 4-H lamb.
As you can see, they are much bigger than the Icelandics.  I have also noticed they are much pickier eaters, they won't touch the brush or other bits of greenery coming out but prefer grass and hay.

On Sunday we got the call that our weaner pigs were ready to be picked up.  Of course we weren't exactly ready, so we scrambled to move the sheep over to the other pen and put up electric fencing around our old sheep pen and we were ready to go.  I'm amazed at how quickly they have got down to the business of rooting the place up.  I'm hoping they can do the whole pen and then I will seed it in the Fall, for the sheep in the Spring.


 They are pretty cute...Viv named them Porkers and Oinkers.  I do keep reminding the girls that even though they have names, we will be eating them.




Next comes the poultry!

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

'Burst's Second Day

Well little 'Burst' (named by Gwenna because it rhymes with first and because he jumps around in little bursts of energy) went out into the big pen today and met his Aunties.  They seem to be taking to him okay and Mom is very protective, calling him if he gets too far away.  Here are some more pics...
 Now that he is all cleaned up and fluffy, we can see that he has a brown spot on his back hip and another one on the back of his neck.

Monday, April 5, 2010

Our first lamb!!

Our first lamb arrived this morning, some time around 7am. Erich looked out the window and saw Snow White standing beside what he thought was a cat. Momma and baby seem to be doing well. Here are some pics...
 My friend Bobbi-Jo stopped by and confirmed that he is a little ram lamb. Such fun!