A Quiet Little Woman

attack of the dog

On Saturday afternoon we were peacefully finishing up the last session of our church's General Conference and the phone rang... we weren't going to answer it because we were watching conference, but then the answering machine came on.  Our next door neighbor said that he was walking past his window and happened to look out and saw a dog in our chicken coop!!!!!! 

We all jumped up and looked out the window, there were chickens lying all around the pasture, and feathers everywhere.  We all (well, the girls at least) started sobbing, and my brother ran downstairs to get the gun.  My mom, dad and brother all ran outside and were going to try and catch the dog, but he ran away.  Lukily the animal control officer lives just around the corner, so my dad ran around the corner and beat on the man's door.  Then followed a mad chase to catch the dog.  My dad, the animal control officer and a police man that joined them all started following him.  Then ended up catching him, and he was actually a very calm dog, he didn't even growl.  My uncle came over to help put some of the chickens out of thier misery, but ended up not doing it.  The dog had killed 3 and mauled 5 others.  They were trying to find the last of the missing birds, but couldn't find it.  And eventually she came out of the neighbors yard unharmed!  Yesterday 1 more died and today 2 more died. 

We are all just so sad!!  We were just starting to get about 42 eggs a week!  We have been blessed with 8 baby chicks, but it will be months till they start laying.  I don't know why any of this had to happen, but am trying to LEAN on God for all my support and for the comfort of my soul!!  There were so many talks in General Conference that just spoke to my soul, and I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to watch 8 hours of conference before this happened!  There were quite a few talks about how everything is for our good and to give us experience, and how life is a test.  How did I do on the test that Heavenly Father gave to me?  I'm trying to DELIGHT in the Lord and everything that he has given me... even the hard times! 

Life can be truly delightful when the Lord is your support!! 

Angora Rabbits, Part II

I forgot to mention one very important thing about angoras!  Someone asked how you get the wool off... (whoops! sorry about that!)  There are 2 ways, you can either pluck or shear them.

1) Plucking... don't panic, this doesn't hurt!  They naturally start shedding/molting every 3-5 months, and when there is wool on the floor of the cages, it's time to pluck!  I'm not sure that I'm up to this method yet... but plucked wool actually sells for more money. 

2) Shearing... I found a great movie that shows how this is done, I think that I'll start with this method!  You don't even have to strap them down, they will just sit on your lap... sometimes they can be a little fidgety, but I've read that they are usually really good!  Here is the link for the shearing MOVIE that I found, this is actually part of a series that details making a baby hat, beginning with shearing the rabbit, to raw angora wool, spinning, knitting, and then giving it away! 

Angoras are actually quite inexpensive to keep!  I bought a 50 lb bag of Mana-Pro rabbit feed for $18 and it will last my 3 rabbits a little more than a month!  The only other thing that you have to buy for them is papaya tablets, it keeps them from getting wool block (where their intestines get full of wool that they've eaten, and their digestion stops working).  I think I paid $7 for a 500 count bottle.  

Hope you all don't get bored of hearing about angoras!  I probably be posting a lot more in the future as I start shearing, spinning and breeding!  Farm living is a lot of work, but also a lot of fun!! 

Have a great rest of this beautiful spring day! Alex ;)

Angora Rabbits

Here are some facts about angora rabbits:

~ angora wool is 7 times warmer than sheep wool and artic adventurers use angora thermal underwear when they go adventuring!

~ from one rabbit you can get enough wool in one year to make a sweater! 

~ angora wool doesn’t itch like sheep wool, so you can forget about wool allergies!

~ plus in addition to having a great, adorable pet, you can spin the fiber and make home “grown”, home spun, home knit creations!!

I’ve wanted angoras for quite awhile, and just about 2 weeks ago I called a lady that lives about 3 hours away to ask if she would have any babies to sell in a little while.  WELL… she was selling her adults and even coming down my way that very day!  So I got 3 English angora rabbits!  They were a little pricey, about $75 a piece, but they came with the cages, water bottles and feeders too!  I was worried that they wouldn’t adjust well, but they are doing marvelously.  I was able to buy 2 does and a buck so I could breed them, and I plan on having babies in May sometime.  And guess what!  Angora wool sells for $7 an ONCE!!  Quite pricey, but OH SO SOFT!!  I named my rabbits Zipporah (named after Moses’ wife, a Hebrew name meaning “little bird”), Knightly (named after my very favorite Jane Austen male character from Emma!), and Azalie (which is another Hebrew named meaning God has protected). 

I am so grateful to Heavenly Father for providing me with these rabbits!  I know that if we just WAIT (something that is very hard for me!) and patiently TRUST in HIM, HE will provide!! 

Alex 

chickens on the brain!!

Whew, I really HAVE had chicken's on the brain lately!  We just got chickens on Tuesday... 10 of them!  So far we've just had 2 eggs, but I always give them a positive pep talk when I go and check on them! ;)  We have 9 Plymouth Rock (white - 1 yr), and a Black Sex Link (4-5 months).  They are so much fun!  So far we've named 5 of them: Henrietta (henny, my personal FAVORITE!  She is so BIG and fluffy, she is just so cute!!!), Becky (she pecks a lot), Betsy (the only black one), Minnie (the smallest) and Molly (the tallest).  The rest are kind of hard to keep track of!!  Here is a picture that my sister took of them underneath their roost...

aren't they BEAUTIFUL!!  Be sure to stop by my little sister's blog and check out the pictures of us getting our neighbors playhouse as our chicken coop and the pictures of the nesting boxes and our first egg!! (Cowgirl Without A Horse)

Here's the other reason I've had chickens on my brain... at a girl's group that I help with we just learned how to do Chicken Scratch.  (it has many other names, like amish lace, needle weaving, etc.)  There isn't much online about it but I just found this wonderful picture and today I just finished making the pattern for it!  I'll be sure to post some pictures when I'm finished!!

Chicken Scratch is SO much fun!! 

So is being a JUBILENT owner of chickens!! 

God Works in Mysterious Ways

I've been meaning to post this for awhile but I've been so busy!  This past Saturday we pressed apples from our orchard all day long.  And the amazing thing is that we pressed about 70 bushels of our own apples and then we miraculously got three more appointments!  One man even just showed up and asked us if we would press his apples!  We've almost paid for 1/5 of our press with the pressings we did on Saturday!  Some simply AMAZING things have happened this past week and every time my mom and I just have to say that "God works in mysterious ways"!!  His ways do not make sense to us, but he shows how much he loves us by the ways that he blesses us!! 

One of the most amazing things that happened this week is that we are in the process of buying more land!!  We have (not even) 1/3 acre, but there are about 2-3 acres behind us.  There are 2 pastures that belong to different neighbors and they let us do pretty much whatever we want with them. Earlier this year our next door neighbor got cancer and so we have been taking care of his yard and pasture, and his wife just said that they are ready to sell the pasture to us.  I have some fairly wealthy grandparents and they were going to buy some land for us, but we just couldn't find anything that we felt good about.  So now they are willing to buy THIS beautiful land for us!  And then we are praying that our other neighbor will sell his pasture to us!  The pasture we are buying is 0.42 acres (yes we DO count acres in points here!! ;) so we will have almost an ACRE!!!  ALL I can say is that God really truly does work in mysterious ways!  A year ago I would have NEVER been happy with 0.42 acres!!  I had written a list that said that I wanted 100 acres... and now I am rejoicing in the fact that we almost have one!!! 

God truly does work in mysterious ways!!!!

Alex

p.s. these are pictures of our soon to be pasture, we are planning on putting it ALL in garden!!  The pasture goes to the fence... if you can see it!!