If Ye Are Prepared Ye Need Not Fear

This is a time of fear in the United States. This fear seems to directly relate with the election of Donald J. Trump as President. Many people are fearful of losing access to healthcare, civil rights, environmental protection, further reduction in governmental transparency, and they are even fearful of our dealings with ISIS and Russia. While these fears are not unfounded, here, we believe that fear should not be paralyzing. Instead of being fearful, we plan on being prepared.

Having lost our main income in September, we realize that preparation is not only for cataclysmic events like civil war or Russian invasion. One of the things we realized we would have benefited from was a supply of stored food. General Authorities have been urging people to prepare a store of food and water in case of emergency (natural disaster or loss of income) since the mid 1970's. I guess we just were not listening. 

Our ward was challenged to secure a 3 month supply of food over the next year. We decided to take on that challenge. 

We are going slow. I printed out a list of what 1 person would need for 3 months from Prepared LDS Family and changed the quantities for 8 people. Then I looked to see what was on MAJOR sale. 

The first week my store had 1 lb bags of pasta on sale for $0.49. So I bought all the ones we needed. The next week cans of diced tomatoes were on sale for $0.49. The natural, no sugar peanut butter was $0.99. (Normally it it close to $3!) Corn bread mix was $0.50 so I bought all I needed. 

Now in 2 weeks I purchased:

48 cans of diced tomatoes: $23.52

14 boxes of cornbread mix: $7

16 15 oz jars of peanut butter: $15.84

64 lbs of pasta: $31.36

It is our intention to find one or two things on sale each week and buy a 3 month supply. We don't plan on buying anything in huge cans, and we want to buy only things we currently use. It is also our intention to maintain this supply by using this stored food and buying replacement in every day cooking. 

I guess all this time in the restaurant rotating bulk inventory has given me a life skill. 

Our family chooses to not be afraid. We choose to not fear job losses, economic instability, our government, or natural disaster. We chose to be prepared and not fear. 

Bunnies, bunnies, everywhere!

It has been 10 days since the birth of the American Chinchilla Californian cross rabbits were born. They are doing FABULOUSLY!!! All three are alive and the are beginning to venture out of the nest. Their eyes are just beginning to open and their ears are starting to stand up. 

And only 3 days ago both AC does kindled. Six kits a piece and none stillborn that I saw! (Sometimes mom eats the stillborn ones) They are not nearly as cute at this stage, but I still love them! 

As excited as I was on Sunday, I tempered that excitement. This was the first kindling for both mothers. Sometimes the mothers will not return to the nest to feed the young after giving birth and the kits die of dehydration. Hand feeding this many kits is a lot of work with a very low success rate so we allow nature to take its course. 

I was very pleased on Monday morning when I went out and found both nests well fed and cozy! These mothers are all doing an extraordinary job so far. 

If all continues to go well we will have our first rabbit harvest the first weekend in June. 

It must be Spring!!

One of the things I love about living on a farm is that we become more in tune with the changing of the seasons. When we lived in a the city or the suburbs, we would take superficial notice of changes in the weather. We might mark the nearing of a holiday associated with a season. But here our behavior is directly altered by changes in the seasons.

In the summer we are tending the garden and combating monsoons. We are ensuring pens are not turning into swamps and finding ways to keep the animals cool. In the fall we are harvesting and preserving bountiful harvests...or researching why the crops failed! We are also in constant battle with the wind. Cleaning after storms, repairing roofs and timing trees destroyed by the insufferable wind. In the winter we are calm. We research, plan, repair and prepare. We cease breeding, halt outside projects and recover.

But then comes spring! Spring is a time for hard work because with spring comes BABIES!!! Baby everything. We hatch chicks and the rabbits breed. Some years we have seen goats kid and have also purchased piglets. Baby animals are one of the most rewarding things you can have on a farm.

This year is our first year hatching our own chicks. We took eggs laid by our hens and incubated them. Today we had out best hatch. Five of six eggs hatched to produce healthy chicks. We have hatched eggs we have ordered online. We have also hatch twos and threes of our own chicks, but today's hatch was very promising!

We were also excited to see that our Californian rabbit had babies too! Rabbit babies are always a surprise. Because we raise our rabbits in a colony setting, we allow nature to dictate the breeding. (Here is an article outlining some of the benefits to colony raising.) I have a day or so notice before the birth as the mom starts to build a nest, but because of the colony setting, there is little to no work for me in order for her to kindle.

We set up our colony last fall and have not had a breeding yet. This was to be expected as breeding season for rabbits starts mid February and continues into late summer. I have a Californian buck, an American Chinchilla buck, a Californian doe and two American chinchilla does. It seems that the Californian bred with the Chinchilla as 2 of the babies were while, but four were dark gray!

That is good news because the buck was unproven up to this point. He showed dominant traits, but I was concerned he was not fertile. Those fears can rest now!

New fears have popped up in that 50% of the kits were still born. We have 3 surviving kits that seem strong and healthy. I went in this morning and momma rabbit had just fed them, so I know she is doing her part. I am looking forward to the American chinchillas kindling, however, I am not expecting their first litters to do well. It takes a time or two for rabbits to become successful mothers.

Now that spring is here (work-wise if not by the calendar) I am starting to look around and realize how much work needs to be done. A second batch of meat chicks comes on Thursday, ducklings should be hatching in seven days (our first duckling hatch) and in five weeks we will be getting a third shipment of meat chickens, five turkeys, and five ducklings. Somewhere in the next few weeks we will also be getting a couple baby goats.

It is exciting and overwhelming all at once!

Homemade Coop

We had a desk we got...somewhere... We no longer needed it but it was still serviceable, so I turned it into something we can never have too many of: A COOP!!

I figured it would be a tri-level coop so I cut holes in the ceiling/floor. 

The cable holes in the back of the desk were patched with pieces of a coop that was destroyed in a wind storm. That door was perfectly usable.

Now they have a back window! 

I covered the top portion with chicken wire, but we have had issues with chickens hurting themselves on tips of chicken wire. This was an easy fix with some scrap wood and nails. (Normally, I like to use screws, but I didn't have any short enough and this was to be a project made from existing material on the farm.)

BAM! more secure than staples and safer for the birds! 

Coops need perches. I drilled holes in the sides of the desk and used PVC pipe cut a little longer than the width of the desk. I capped them with PVC caps (all stuff we have lying around the farm). I did not glue the caps on so I can remove the perches for cleaning as needed. 

If we have issues with the perches spinning, I can use silicone between the cap and the desk wall. It would make it permanent, but they can still be wiped down. 

We had to add a lock...one I took from a rabbit hutch we no longer use. 

There! All done!

Parfy gives it her seal of approval. 

After spending the night in it, it became clear that it was too small for a full size chicken, but it will be perfect for chicks that are too big for the brooder but not big enough to survive in the flock. I am pretty darn proud of this project. It took me only a few hours and cost us exactly $0! 

A Real Chicken Project

As we continue to develop and refine what Mediocre Acres is and what we need and want with the current property, one thing continues to come up: Poultry. We have discussed raising pigs and goats again. We have played with the idea of a Dexter cow. We have explored the possibility of expanding the rabbit colony. We have talked about kitchen gardens and market gardens. We have talked improving the structures on the property and everything falls by the wayside except poultry. 

There are a couple reasons for this. Number one is poultry is easy! A close second is it's inexpensive. Meat poultry grows out fast: 10 weeks from hatch to harvest. This year we have a goal to harvest between 50 and 75 meat chickens.

We have learned from past failures that ordering 50 in one run and raising them all at once is a recipe for disaster. We have done that twice and only about a half to two thirds make it to slaughter.

This year we are planning on ordering 15 ever five weeks from now through August. Our last harvest will be the second week in October. That enables us to take the winter off meat chickens as the heating and feeding expense is high in the winter. 

Today we got our first batch of 15 meat birds! 

I always forget how small they are. They grow so fast! 

And they are so stinking cute!

In addition to ordering meat chicks we have been collecting fertilized eggs from our own flock and hatching them in our incubators. We have been having pretty good luck too! 

A wide variety of chicks have hatched. Both our roosters are Rhode Island Reds so the are all red crosses. This one is most likely a RIR/cornish cross. Two others hatched with this one and they and the meat chicks are living quite happily in the shed. 

In about five weeks we hope to move the meat birds into outdoor chicken tractors. We hope to allow them to graze and in return allow them to fertilize the property. 

I am so looking forward to having this chicken project in full swing in about 10-12 weeks! 

Goodbye Mary Jane

Today we lost a very dear member of Mediocre Acres. Mary Jane died after a very short illness. Our best guess was she died of polio as a complication of bloat. I miss her so much.

She was my very first goat and I had her from the time she was 12 weeks old. She was less than 2 when she died. I love how she used to baaa every time I opened the door. It was so regular that we used to joke that that was the sound the door made. Opening the door to silence will take some getting used to. 

She was also a frequent visitor to the kitchen. If the door was not firmly closed she would wander in like she was one of the dogs! 

She spent the last hours before she died snuggling with her daughters. I believe they all knew her time was near. Daphne and Velma nuzzled her and would not leave her side. 

The girls are quite obviously missing their mom. Their appetite has been bad and they spend most of the day just snuggling each other. 

I am grateful for Mary Jane and what a ambassador for her species she has been. I will always have goats, most likely Nubians. Thank you Mary Jane. You have made me the crazy goat lady. You will be missed. 

Juno

On the 10th of October I found a little shepherd mix in my front yard. I thought she had a sticker in her back foot because she was limping. I went to pull the sticker out and noticed that her hip was dislocated. I brought her inside and put her all over Facebook. Very shortly I was contacted by Sierra Vista Animal Control and told that there was an open case from three months ago concerning the dog. She had had her leg broken in 3 places and her hip dislocated. The owners not only failed to get her the proper medical care, they then disappeared with the dog. This little dog had had a broken leg for over 3 months! I contacted a local dog rescue called Little League Rescue. I offered to foster her if they could pay for her medical bills. She settled into our house immediately. The kids named her Juno, after the Roman goddess. 

She had her back leg amputated on the 30th and is recovering amazingly. Two days after she had her surgery, she was able to chase down and pin one of our ducks (the duck was fine). One of the ladies at the feed store said that dogs are born with three legs and a spare. Juno just didn't need her spare anymore! 

We thought she looked like she was dressed up like the leg lamp from Christmas Story. 

The goats were pretty interested in her cone. 

She is the sweetest dog ever. She gets along wonderfully with dogs, cats and she adores our kids. If you know anyone looking to adopt please let me know. Also, the rescue is looking for donations to help offset her medical bills. If you can help, please visit their Facebook donation page or call Cochise Animal Hospital (the hospital that did the surgery) at 520-432-3296.