New life at the farm!

It was sort of a suprise Monday morning when I was out doing chores, to see that one of my does seemed to be in early labor, I really did not think she was due till June. But I was wrong. Monday was a day we had to be away from the house, we had a funeral to attend. Launa had a hard time with her last delivery last year, and I did not trust for her to do this herself, just in case. My great friend Nicole was able to come and check on her and assist if needed. Well nothing ever happened that day or the next, and then finally Wednesday I put her back in with the other goats so she could get some fresh air, and got my children loaded in the car and was about to head to town for some errands, I asked Mikayla to go check on her just in case, but I was just out there 30mins ago and she was just as she has been for last few days. Well Mikayla came running back to the car,"she's progressed and I think I see the bubble". So I ran to go check, sure enough, it was time! I managed to get Launa back into the birthing room, and  shortly later she gave birth to two doelings! Again she had complications, just not as bad as last time. The kids both were in the wrong positon, I had to rearrange them, but this time it was easy to do! Praise the Lord! They are both healthy and mom is too!

 

 

 This is the first born! Love her spots! too cute!

 

 

 and the second born, she has this cute stick out ear, I'm sure it will go down over time! ;)

Tuesday Brandy begain showing signs of labor to come soon, and sure enough on Thursday she delivered one buckling and one doeling! Her labor went just fine! again more healthy babies!

 

This is her first born the boy, he has more of a boer look, with cute colore socks on front legs!

 

 This is her second, I just love how she looks, hard to see in pics but she is a lovely light tan color,

some white on her face and patch on her stomach, love how long and floppy her ears are!

 

I just love this time of year, new goat babies, the funest thing to watch and help deliver a little goat, and then how cute and funny these little ones are! So fun! Seeing all the different varities in colors and looks, it's just amazing how God created all this!! and allows us to enjoy it!!

Cloth diapering!

So I never thought that I would EVER cloth diaper! Yuck! Well here I am cloth diapering! hehehe! It really is not yuck. It's just practical, cheaper, safer, and softer! Sawyer seems to love his new diapers! Sullivan does not have any, still unsure if I will buy some for him, seeing as he should be getting out of them soon!! I hope! 
 So far I just have a small stash, 8diapers. I started out with the charlie banana's, they have great reviews, are sooo sooo soft, and I could get them right at my local Target! No waiting for mail to come! Next I think I will be going with the "go green" diapers, they have a lot of features that I like the sounds of. Then I may get a few random ones here and there to try. I am sooo excited and thankful to be able to start saving money by not buying anymore diapers, it will not take long for these cloth diapers to pay for themself.

 He is sooo happy about his soft diaper

Sullivan

I just wanted to brag on Sullivan a little bit, who most of you know recently turned two(at the end of December). He amazes me with his memory, learning abilities, speech, and tender heart. He has been talking full sentences for a while now I really dont remember when but defiantly when he was one and a half. He learned his first verse around then too. He loves to sing hymns and quote verses.
Sullivan now knows at least a hand full of verses, and is working on more.
he can say(and he learned in this order):
Psalm104:33
I will sing unto the Lord
Genisis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the eeeaaartthhh ( he drags the last word out everytime) :)
Psalm23:1
the Lord is my shepard
Ephesians 6:1
Children obey your parents in the Lord for this is right
Philippians 4:4
Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice
Ephesians 4:32
Be ye kind one to another
I have been trying to get him to say is verses on video, hopefully soon I will have one I can post! it's soo sweet to see him quote the bible!

He also just recently learned to write the letter T and knows the sound it makes as well!

He LOVES to carry around his bible most of the day. And randomly sing "wave the answer back to heaven, by God's grace we will"

He always will pray for his food! Usually multiple times. He just recently on his own started praying for "daddy, mommy, sissy and sawyer".
Once we were at my moms house for dinner with the family, Sullivan and his cousin Sophie were sitting at a table by themselves and Sullivan reaches for Sophie's hand and say's "lets pray". What a blessing to see this at such a young age!

Anyways, that's a little bit of Sullivan!
God has truely blessed us with such a fun, smart, loving, and sometimes noughty little boy!

The Boys......

I got  to take pictures of the boys last month, Sullivan did such a good job! Sawyer too! I love the the picture below of Sullivan, this is just soo him! When ever he sits on the couch he always has to cross his arms like this and this legs! it's too cute!

Here is another funny one of Sullivan, he loves making this face at us trying to be funny!

Sawyers Big eyes, he looks so much older here! He is really starting to fill out and now becoming even just a little chunky. 

Sawyer loves to hold his feet all the time now, but..... not for the camera! ;)

another one of Sullivan's funny faces, he just loves to be goofy!



 Sawyer just might take after his big brother?!

 

 

I finally got around to ordering some kefir grains, I can not wait till they come in the mail! I will be trying Sawyer on a goat milk kefir formula that I will make. Really hoping it will make a huge difference in the constipation that he has now, which is controllable with the addition of blackstrap molasses, but if I dont have to add that, that would be a bonus.

Mikayla's birthday is coming up in March, we will be having her party this weekend. We have been busy planning the decorations and food, of course being a girl she is all in to this! I told her I was making the cake, and she was dissapointed, she really wants to make it, so who knows maybe I will let her.



New Goat.........

Here we are with another new goat! hehehe! Well, the goats that I had in milk we drying up, they were very late in their lactation and hopefully pregnant! So normally this would be okay, but as you know Saywer is now drinking goats milk full time, so we NEED to have a milk supply. So I had been looking around for a new goat, I wanted a nubian, but this time of year most goats are not lactating, so not very many goat for sale at all in milk. I was willing to take any breed goat that was producing milk. Well one day a purebred nubian that just had a baby and producing lots of milk, was for sale on craigslist, they were asking $300, I really didn't have that much to spend on a new goat. So I decided I would part with one of my goats, Fawn, she is such a bully and harder to handle than my other girls, she is just bull headed. Always makes chore time more difficult. So anyways, I put her on Craigslist and though well if she sells and this Nubian in Milk is still for sale than I can get her. Well about a half hour after I posted my goat for sale, I got a phone call, I said to Mikayla " it's gonna be someone who wants to buy Fawn". Well sure enough it was someone calling about her. So it turns out that it was the very same person who was selling the nubian I was wanting to buy! hahaha! They were wanting a Saanen(the breed of Fawn), so needless to say we traded!! Praise God, Always supplying what we need!!

I do miss Fawn, and kinda was like what did I do! But there is such better harmony in the goat herd now! What a difference! She was always causing trouble and being mean to the other goats. Now all the goats get along well!

 

Soooo here is Diamond! She is a two year old Nubian, She is very shy and timid, but is coming around, she wants to like you, she's just nervous! Unfortunately he feet were VERY unkept and now he legs are a bit deformed, through proper trimming it should all correct, just will take time. Hopefully they will see the trimming on Fawns feet, and learn how to take care of them properly. Diamonds old owners asked if we trimmed their feet, so seemed like they would too?? Below is a before picture, I have sense trimmed them they look better, but not alot. It will take some time. She defiantly has an easier time walking now, I can see that. But her back feet she's still not landing right.

Goats hooves should be very upright, almost square shaped, and she has what's called "elf shoes".

Poor girl, not very comfortable! this makes them use their legs completely different. It's like if you were wearing shoes that were built up realllly high in the toe area, and had to walk that way alll the time. Your whole body would feel out of wack!

Sam say's Hi! It's cute, every time we come home from being somewhere, he always comes to the fence and gives us a whinny! too cute!

Here's the horse crew! Happy campers! Keep them fed and they are happy! :)

This is Breeze! Such a pretty girl, who looooves to be dirty! She seeks mud and pursues it! and of course there is Maddie in the background. She says Hi to Brynn! ;)

Kitty Cat Cassidy, enjoying the sun we had yesterday!

and some chickens! they wanted their pictures taken too!

Here is the New table my husband built!! Farm style! I LOVE LOVE how it came out! It's soo big, wide and long! I got to do some distressing to the wood, it was fun!

Sullivan wanted in on the pic too! :)

New adventure!

 

Why the picture of the honeybee you may ask? Well..... While on a walk in the wood behind our house, my husband discovered a beekeeping hive. He looked in and it was active(praise the Lord it's winter and they were pretty sleepy)! Honey came dripping down from the shelf thing!

So we asked the people we rent from about it, it was theirs, and they gave us a okay on using it!

Soo looks like we will be learning bee keeping! I will be wearing two suits like above! lol

I can't wait for fresh raw honey! What a blessing!

Goats Milk Formula

 

I thought I would share with everyone, the recipe I use to make goats milk formula.

With my last two babies, I really wanted to nurse them, and both of them ended up being tongue tide, they were not efficient at nursing. I tried hard to pump, but had not luck as my milk supply was already low. I tried about every thing heard of to boost my supply, but sadly nothing worked.

So in a attempt not to use commercial formula, it just sounds yucky! So processed, and things added that are not needed or that great for babies! And not to mention years ago, there was a recall on some commercial formula because it had traces of JET FUEL in it!!!! How does that even happen!

So when I had Sullivan, we ventured into goats milk formula, soon we ended up buying goats to have fresh raw milk on hand! There are a few different recipes for goats milk formula that I have found online and one that I got from my naturalpathy doctor. What I am using now is a mix of both.

 

For an 8oz bottle

 

4oz of Water(boiled or distilled)

4oz raw goats milk

1/4 tsp infant probiotics

1/4 tsp of Sunflower oil(Vitamin E)

1/4 tsp extra virgin olive oil(for monosaturated fats)
1/4 tsp of Cod liver oil(contains DHA,EPA & Omega-3)

1/2 tsp virgin coconut oil(this is important, as it contains lauric acid which is a medium-chain fatty acid. It's an important antiviral, antifungal that's found in breast milk)

1/2 tsp blackstrap molassses(this is different for each baby, more or less

depending on there stools, it helps with constipation, start with less, add more if needed. This provides B-vitamins, iron, trace minerals)

1/4 tsp of agave nector or maple syrup(adds carbs, necessary for brain growth)

mix all together and let them enjoy!

 

I have just lately been reading on Kefir and the benefits of that. I found another recipe that

uses kefir, and I think I will be trying that soon and see how it works. I will update how it works for Sawyer.