I have one chicken that gets out of the pen every day. She actually jumps/flies the coop daily several times a day. I think she must not like the other chickens since she doesn't seem to want to be around them much. She prefers to spend her time in the goat pen. I knew she had to be laying her eggs somewhere and decided to start looking. Found a nest of 11 under the goat bench in their stall in the barn. I have to literally get on my hands and knees to be able to reach the nesting area.
I think I'll name the chicken Freedom. I can just picture her yelling that as she hops the fence every day. FREEDOM!!

I've been doing a lot of thinking. I am at a point in my soap hobby to decide which way I want to go. I have a few loyal customers that enjoy my products. I have a few wholesale customers as well. I am trying to decide whether to go full steam ahead with all of my plans for the year 2016, or to keep things as a hobby.
For several years, I have made our own soap. I started with several different recipes that I found on the web and in soap-making books. I tweaked them over the years to make them mine. I really enjoy making soap. I guess it's a creative outlet. I can switch out an oil and use something different to see what I create. I also make our own laundry cream, lotions, salves, powder, body spray, lip flavor, and I have made toothpaste and deodorant. I have had a lot of people wanting deodorant actually. I still haven't found a good recipe on that yet. I will not sell anything that I wouldn't use myself or want my name on. I haven't really committed much time to it either. Maybe I should think about that for the future.

I hope everyone had an amazing Thanksgiving!

We had a really nice weekend spent in the cabin. We cooked over the fire, made up some dyes, visited with our oldest son and our grandbabies, visited with Dewayne's mom, spent the night in the cabin and cooked breakfast outside. We are still settling in and still need to figure out where everything goes. We also still need to get all of our craft projects together. Lots more to look forward to with the cabin.

It's a very exciting day here at the farm today.
Our cabin will be delivered this evening.

Our cabin will be our "central hub" of many great things to come here at the farm. This is where we will spend a lot of time making the things that we make.
Fabric dyeing with natural plants, making rope, finger weaving, making leather shooting bags and ball bags, making braided rugs, hand dipping candles, making beeswax pillar candles, and oodles of other primitive type crafts. 
In the near future, hopefully, we will also be building on a lean-to for Dewayne's forge and for him to do his woodworking.
We've been doing all this stuff for years......now is the time to have everything put under one roof so we can start sharing our crafts and skills with others.

Would the lady that talked to us at Elmwood Cemetery Walk about the rabbit for her daughter's 4-H, please contact us via email at angie.jockisch1987@gmail.com or phone at 309-784-2162. Thank you!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6iOCBOVAmM

I think I need new chore boots:)

We didn't work too hard this weekend. We worked on the new brooder and Dewayne made a candler. Other than that, we just enjoyed having our grandbaby with us. He is so smart and funny, truly amazing....of course!

I made some goat/barn wipes this morning. We've been out of them for a couple of months and I never took the time to make more. I use these wipes on Zazu's udder when I milk her and we use them any time we're outside and need to wash our hands.  I should make some for the rabbitry too.

We're building a brooder. Dewayne has a really neat design. (It sounds neat anyway...haven't seen it yet, it's still in his head, lol)
That's one of this weekend's projects. We started on it the other night but got rained out and it was getting late. The floor and one side is done.
We have some chicks ordered and will go pick them up next week. We ordered 2 Black Laced Golden Wyandotte cockerels,  10 pullets and 2 roosters of the Columbian Wyandottes, 10 pullets and 2 cockerels of the Dominiques. We may get more of the Black Laced Golden Wyandotte pullets when we get there, depending on money.
Hopefully the brooder will be finished and ready for the young ones to grow up in. It will be so much easier to keep them clean and they will have plenty of room to grow.
All  of these birds, added to what we already have, will be our breeding flock.

I had to take our incubator back to the store yesterday. We plugged it in the other night and the little red light never did light up. It never did heat up either. I followed the directions and did it step by step to make sure everything was right, but it just didn't work. The fan was on, cause I could hear it running but no light. Soooo, brought the replacement home and went right in and plugged it in. Behold....the red light!
Good thing we tried it now instead of waiting until we had something to put in it.

Sometimes I have a hard time making a decision. Right now, it's the ducks. Do we keep them or sell them?

We raised Lucy and Daffy from ducklings. We got them when they were only a few days old. I'm kind of attached to them. Lucy and Daffy used to fly out of their pen every day and follow me around while I was doing chores. I know they thought I should have fed them first, that's why they followed me around. Still, it was nice to have company and someone to talk to.

Now comes the hard part. Ducks are extremely messy. They smell, they poop everywhere (I thought we were gonna have to change our farm name to "Duck Poop Acres"), they always have dirty water as well as all of the other animals since everything that holds water is their own little swimming pool. All this being said, it adds to my work load.

I have come to the final decision that my buddies have to go to a new home. They stay in their pen now, since we trimmed Lucy's wing and Daffy got too big to fly, but I know what good foragers they are. I don't feel it's right to pen them up just because I don't want them pooping all over the property. Only two ducks don't make that much of a mess, but Lucy was teaching all 21 ducklings how to hunt too. That's a LOT of duck poop!!

So again, final decision has been made........hasn't it?? I guess I'll see what I think tomorrow.

Supper tonight will be:
chicken, fried slightly then baked to finish.
mashed potatoes
green beans
cucumbers
tomatoes
zucchini bars

All homegrown including the chicken. It's meals like this that make everything worth it!!

Living the kind of life that we live can be so hard. Some days, like today, I feel sooooo overwhelmed. The garden has been completely taken over by weeds and it's so hard to get to the plants to harvest. We've already wasted (not really wasted, it goes to the critters) so much because I haven't taken the time to get to the garden. There always seems to be something that's more pressing. I need help! I need to hire me a "Weed Warrior" next year. Their sole purpose of being here will be to help weed the garden every week. Problem is, I need someone to work for free or trade for meat or garden produce, since I can't afford to pay someone.

There are so many things to keep up with here.

 I would really like to get some worms and meal worms going again (they died because I forgot about them, oops)  Both would be nice to raise for the chickens. I just don't know if it's worth it to add something else to my already to long of a list.
As it is, we recently bought a new incubator for when our roosters start doing their job and we are building a large brooder for the chicks we ordered that we will be getting next week. I am also trying to get all of our rabbits bred again. There are 13 total and they all need bred. Problem is, they don't want to! So that's very frustrating as well and I am feeling like I'm behind in EVERYTHING!!!!

I guess I need to go fix some coffee and think about the few things that ARE done instead of feeling sorry for myself and get my butt to work. Until next time......happy farming:)

I've been trying to breed the Californians again. They should have already been on their next litters, but they don't seem to be too interested. Processing will be this weekend of the last litters. Maybe the does need to be put on diets. Honestly I think we feed them too much. Even though we've been raising rabbits for years, there's always improvements and learning. For us, the management part is trying and a challenge. How much to feed so they don't get too fat and still do there job, without them losing condition when they eat with their young. I would love to go to a rabbit producer and see in person how they do there management: feed rationing, etc

I have been researching Muscovy ducks. Apparently, our Lucy is amazing. One person said that 15 is a good size for a nest. Our Lucy has raised 21. She had a nest of 23 and hatched 22. One duckling died the nest day, probably getting stepped on by the chickens.
We thought we would sell the ducks since they are so messy and we wanted to expand on our chickens. I listed the ducks on every facebook group we belong to as well as Craig's list with no interest at all. We figured there had to be a reason we are supposed to keep them. The ducklings will be processed next weekend. We will try the meat and decide if we like it enough to raise more. If so, we will build them a wonderful pen area where they can keep producing. If we don't like the meat, we will sell Lucy and Daffy and move on.

More changes to come for us here at the farm. Since we now have our grandson's little billy goat, a polled Sanaan, we will be using him for breeding our girls this fall. Now, we will have Ajax for sale.

Ajax is an Alpine buckling that we bought a few months ago. He does have horns and he is a longer haired goat than what we thought he would be. He's warming up to me, but not overly friendly, which I didn't mind too much since he's a buck. I will list him for $75.00 since that's what I paid for him. He is not papered.

Dewayne and I were out working in the garden on Saturday afternoon and Knox was running around the yard. He is not allowed in the garden since he thinks the plants are attacking him and he tries to sit on or eat everything. All of a sudden we heard him yelp and when we looked, we saw that Lucy and the ducklings were also in the yard. Apparently, Knox got too close to the ducklings and momma wasn't happy. She had her wings going and mouth was open . You could just tell she was yelling at him.
All in all, Knox learned a valuable lesson about getting too close. We've yelled at him before and he stops, but I think Lucy taught him better than we could have.

So far the duckling count is still at 21, which surprises me the way they run all over the farm. They're hardly ever in the fence where they would be safe from neighborhood dogs and cats. They even go out close to the road most days. The way it keeps raining, they love all the puddles and I'm sure there are plenty of worms and bugs to hunt. Lucy is teaching them well.

One of our Dominique chickens decided to go broody on us. She just start laying this year so it's kind of irritating. Wouldn't be that big of a deal if our roosters were old enough to have bred the girls.  To make the best out of a not-great situation, we are going to buy some fertilized Dominique eggs to let her hatch them and expand the Dominique flock.I guess we'll see what happens

I did really well yesterday at the local Farmers Market. Next week it will be a soap making frenzy to try to catch up. The goat milk soap is doing really well. I will be ordering bottles soon for the goat milk lotions. I'm excited about the new packaging I'll be using.

Knox, our Blue Heeler puppy is doing really nice. The other day I was trying to get the goats locked up for the night and Ajax didn't want to cooperate. I was trying to get him and Knox decided he was going to help out. He got behind Ajax and made him go. When Ajax was in, Knox strutted around like a proud peacock. He was so funny. Doing really nice for just a three month old puppy.

Love , love,  love the baby ducks. They are sooo stinking adorable! They hatched yesterday and their momma, Lucy, had them out in the chicken yard today.

I went back through our records from May of last year to see what our baby total was. It was 58 for the one weeks kindling.

This years total for May 7-May 16.....88! We've only lost 8 total out of all litters. Add the live ones to the babies kindled last month, our total baby count is at 96!!! Only 2 does missed out of all 17 does that we have. That is amazing and makes us VERY happy!!

I am currently working on a website for the Handmade soap and body products. Website will be www.changingwindsfarm.com.

It's been a busy week in the rabbitry.  Total baby count coming soon.

We got the garden in the other day, just to have 3-1/2 inches of rain in two hours, and about 15-20 minutes of hail. Now, the garden that looked awesome, now, not so much! We will need to replace a few plants if we want to grow anything at all. It's very irritating after all the work of growing the plants ourselves, only to have to turn around and buy some anyway.

The garden plants are in. Butternut Squash, Spaghetti Squash, cucumbers, zucchini, tomatoes, peppers, and borage add to the stuff we already had in.

As I plan to be a vendor at the local Farmers Market this year, I am trying to decide what products I want to take. I made some more soap today, Cucumber Melon, as well as Blackberry Sage the other day. Even though there will be at least one other soap vendor there, I am looking forward to it. Everyone does their stuff different, but competition doesn't hurt either.

The new milk goat, Zazu, and I have our routine down now. Tomorrow will be the first day to keep the milk for us.

We got the new milk goat home yesterday. I milked her this morning with the expected outcome. The foot on the side of the bucket trick, I must have pulled a hair, lol. SOOOO, there will be some trimming done before the next milking. Oh well, I knew there would be an adjustment period and I hadn't planned on keeping the milk yet anyway, just in case. The birds thoroughly enjoyed their breakfast though.

It was a disappointing week in the rabbitry. Out of 13 does, only 2 had babies. Most of them are rebred, so we'll try it again. I really need to start palpating them to check for pregnancy instead of waiting for the full month.

We went to the Californian Nationals in Bloomington yesterday. It was neat to see, and say that we got to go to a National show, but we didn't stay long. We walked around a little and bought a few small items at the equipment vendor then headed out. We stopped at the Farm store in Havana and got a few things for the critters before coming home.

We got the lettuce, kale, spinach, radishes and peas planted tonight.

GOATS:  We have found a boyfriend for our does for this fall. We will be getting him this Saturday. He is Alpine like them, but not registered, which is fine. It will be nice to breed them when they need bred instead of finding someplace to take them.

RABBITS:  This Friday starts the whirlwind of nest boxes and babies. We have about 15 does bred and needing boxes between the 5th and the 8th. Wow! That's gonna be a lot of babies if everyone does what they are supposed to do.

Breeding pair of Narragansett turkeys. 2 years old. $100. Must go as pair.

I was late this morning getting out to do the chores, so I got an escort. I guess the ducks had run out of patience and came to the front door to make sure I hurried up. They are so funny they way they waddle around.

We have decided to not add to our Rex herd. Not that we had any plans for the near future to do so. We bought two new bucks last year and they are not what we were looking for. We were wanting to add size to the herd, but they are smaller than our juniors of our own breeding. It's very hard to get big Rex here in Illinois, as there are not a lot of breeders here. We currently have 2 black otter does and 1 buck, 1 each broken castor doe and buck, and 1 castor doe. The otters will probably not stay much longer. The Castors will all stay. We also have 4 junior Castor we will decide on soon. We will not sell any of these Rex, since they are too small and do not benefit the breed and don 't meet the breed standards.

I heard a loud chirping earlier from the back porch. I knew that it was louder than normal. Hurried downstairs to find one of the Cornish Cross chicks had flown the coop. It was chirping really loud and looking around for the others. I thought I'd have trouble catching it, but walked right up to it and picked it up and put it back. Now there is a wire top on the tank they are in. They look like they have doubled in size since we brought them home on Sunday.

One of the Californian babies were out exploring today. They are getting so big, so fast. We're really excited about this litter since it's the first one for the year. Of course we're excited about all the litters that are coming up as well. All of the Cal does are bred. I still have 2 Rex does to breed yet.Hopefully the weather stays somewhat decent.

Finally got some seeds started for the garden. We're getting off to a later start this year but it couldn't be helped.

We have a milk goat lined up. She is the mother to our Jess that we got last year. We've been very happy with Jess. Her temperment and her handling is wonderful. She milks like a dream. We thought the best place to get one like her is from the same people we got Jess from, duh. I need to get all the milking equipment ready to go again. Unfortunately, we didn't get Jess bred last fall since we didn't know of anyone that had a buck. Hopefully, this fall we can find one to borrow to romance our girls.

Our Narragansett turkey should start laying some time soon hopefully. We did some research and age figuring on the Muscovys and they probably won't start laying until May. Looking forward to the cute ducklings. Baby turkeys are ugly if you ask me, but looking forward to them too.

We got some chicks from the local farm stores last week. We know have 8 Buff Orpingtons, 4 Black Laced Golden Wyandottes and 10 Cornish Cross. All are getting along nicely and getting big. This weekend we will be moving them to bigger facilities.

We are on a search for a new breed to add to the rabbitry.....HAVANAS!

I'm excited about the research that we've done on this breed. We are looking for the Chocolate and broken Chocolate varieties. We'll see what we can find.

We were looking forward to the Pekin show this weekend, but decided to stay home instead.

Dewayne's dad has been in the hospital since last week and we don't know for sure when he will be getting home. Also, our youngest son David was gone for his AT and just got back, so obviously looking forward to seeing him.

Oh well, next month is sanctioned for Rex in Bloomington, so we will be gearing up for that one.
Hope to see a lot of them there.

SOOOOOOOOOOOO tired of this cold!! The wind is completely horrid today.

Wit the recent extreme temps, I haven't been doing much outside. Feed, water and check everyone out and back inside for me! Got some cleaning done yesterday though, finally.

The show barn isn't working out like we had hoped, so a new addition to the meat barn is planned for this year. Everyone will be in one barn again with the current show barn turned into storage.