Well, for starters we did have a few losses on the farm due to animal attacks. Last Wednesday, we are suspecting early morning, we had what could only be a dog attack. We lost 5 rabbits and 2 laying hens. We had two of our does injured but they are doing fine now. Our hen Henny Penny was due to hatch out her clutch today, ok yesterday, and apparently she and her eggs made a delicious meal for a family of raccoons. The only surving rabbits are Alice, Pretty, George, Lisa and Lizzy. Alice is our white New Zealand lady, so we are again in search of a buck for her. Pretty and George our dwarf lops and Lizzy and Lisa are 2 of the 3 remainging Rex girls. Lizzy has lost one toe on her rear foot and Lisa has lost a toe on the front of her foot. We are treating with vet strength iodine.

We can replace our Rex buck Brownie with one of his sons. We will be looking in our local trading news for new laying hens. 2 are just not going to cut it. The rabbits are now safely ensconced in our basement. We do take them outside under careful watch to let them get fresh air, sunlight and exercise. We have put up lights over the cages so that they do have light while down there. It is also helping them deal with this awful heat wave we are having.

As for the good news that has come along. We were interviewed by the local paper Friday and the story will be a feature article in today's edition. The paper went so far as to post Claire's picture with a blurb "Small farm reaches big market. Story tomorrow." She went around the neighborhood and showed everyone. She is standing next to one of her sunflower plants that is twice as tall as she is. We were also interviewed today by homestead.org. It will be posted to their site in about 4-6 weeks, when they do their next update.

Some other good news is that the fall gardens are just about ready for planting. We are hoping, despite the heat, to have them in by the end of the weekend. Our baking orders and clothing orders are starting roll in. I will be moving the website from free hosting to a real domain within the next week or so.

Saturday found Claire going on a date with her "Pa-Pa". They went to the early matinee and saw Pirates of the Caribean, went out to eat Chinese food for lunch and then he did one of his favorite things, clothes shopping. She got a new pair of sneakers and two outfits for school. I am making most of her wardrobe. Luckily this year the school supply list was very short, we have already purchased everything and Claire has set out her clothes for the first day of school and packed her bag. She is set and ready to go. We were going to homeschool but with all of our on going projects and Claire's reluctance we decided not to. We will see how things pan out this year with her going to the local public school instead of our driving her to and from a school in a neighboring district.

It also looks like our dream of having a real homestead is coming true. With my brother in law moving out here later this year and things really turning around for us we are looking to put a 57.5 acre farm under contract. We will continue with our naturally grown gardening, major expansion on our CSA program, we will have a wide variety of animals. The house was built in 1920 and the gentleman that currently owns grew up in the house. He and his wife will be our neighbors but they can no longer care for the land as it should be. We are planning on running a farm store directly off the farm, having educational farm tours, all with the flavor of Mayberry added in. We are hoping to receive grants from both the Golden Leaf Foundation and SARE, to help cover renovation costs. If everything goes as planned we should be able to move by January. There are plenty of old barns and out buildings, fencing and corrals and pastures. We will need to build a proper barn to house the animals. We have been researching the breeds of animals that were raised during the 1920's, so we can help with the preservation of heritage breeds of livestock. We are also collecting heirloom seeds.

Well, that is all for tonight, this morning. Best Wishes to everyone.

Blessed Be!

This is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever. Sigmund Freud (about the Irish)

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Posted by Darcy

I am sorry to hear about the animal attack you had. Captured my attention though and I ended up reading your other posts. If you don't mind I am going to add you to my friends list so I make sure I don't miss any of your updates. We're pretty new to homesteading and are still in the building process but love to hear the experiences of others regarding raising animals.
Darcy
P.S. Love the quote about the Irish. It's my dream to visit Ireland some day!

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