Hello everyone. Sorry I havent written in so long but life here has been so busy I just havent had time to write. So much has changed since I last wrote it is hard to know where to begin.
At the time of my last story, we were in the middle of a long and very wet rainy season. It rained hard almost everyday and we didnt see the sun for over a month. This type of weather is pretty hard on the cows, especailly since we were short on roofs and long on mud.
Thankfully the weather has finally dried up a bit and we were able to get some construction done. I updated the farm map to show some of the changes. We got a great big road grader to improve our little bitty road for us. We built a outdoor kitchen, put in a small lawn and are starting a vegetable garden. We planted lots of coconut trees, eleven citrus fruit trees (sweet orange, mandrine, grapefruit), several grapefruit trees, and a few other things I dont know the name of. The kitchen is still missing a few luxuries like a table, refridgerator, sink and some cabinets, but we will get to that. The cooking is all done with firewood which we seem to have an unending supply of.
Felicita is doing most of the farm management now because I have work in the shop full time now. She must be doing something right because milk production has been getting better everday. We put up a bunch more shed roofs over the corral to keep the animals out of the sun and rain. We add truck loads of rice hulls to the corral to make great bedding and compost. Most of our grass comes off our own field so we are getting better quality food with less work too.
Bonehead the mule is settling down a bit but still expresses her heritage. She spends her days carrying grass or looking for a chance to escape and run up to the other field where the Mr. Ed the horse is enjoying the good life.
We sold off six beautiful male calfs today. I may sound like a proud father but I think we have some of the nicest looking calfs around. Unfortunately, even good looking male offspring are never really welcome to a dairy farmer. In the first three months of life they drink more money in milk than they are worth at birth so most farmers try to sell them off as soon as possible. Below is a picture of Felix trying to get 100 lb of legs loaded into a cattle truck. We have 5 more young females we are raising as replacements in our nearly completed calf shed.
We have chickens everywhere. We had three including the rooster, and then bought 10 more that were almost ready to lay. Then Jeff dropped one off at the farm. Then we bought 10 more young hens (shown below). Then one hen hatched 3 chicks and is sitting on a nest of 11 or 12 now. Then another hen hatched 11 chicks. And this doesnt include the duck sitting on 13 eggs and the turkey with a nest of 3 at last count. All this doesnt include the other duck, the drake, a pair of guinea hens (still looking for a male) and the other 5 turkeys. They are all free range and they eat mostly spilled cattle feed (plenty of that) and bugs.
Tiny is growing into a massive muscular dog with lots of shiny sharp teeth. In the picture you can see the heavy duty chain we had to use after he broke the regular dog chain twice. He is an excellent guard dog and seems to know who belongs on the field and who doesn't. While he loves me with all his heart, sometimes I wish he would do it with less energy as his favorite sport seems to be "Bowling for Stephen".
