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Kidding 2024

We finished up kidding for 2024 this week. The final count is 2 doelings and 4 bucks. The does will be kept in the herd as they are all purebred Lamanca’s that we will register. Here is a recap of the babies born this year.

Hope was first with a big buck kid. Since he was so big, she had to have a little help and I ended up pulling him. It took both of them a little while to get up and going afterwards but both are doing well now. Her baby is black and white but looks more like salt and pepper mixed. It was a surprise when Hope kidded first because I was betting Holly would be the first one!

Next was Faith with another buck. Again, not who we expected to be one of the first ones! She delivered her baby without any help and he was up and nursing quickly. Her baby is also black and white. Our buck is black/white and he has marked almost every one of his kids with similar markings.

Finally, on Easter Sunday, Holly kidded with a set of twins. We all thought that she would be one of the first ones to kid but we were wrong! She had a very pretty little grey/white doe that Colton named Easter. Her twin is a black/white buck. Both babies were up and nursing in no time. Holly is a great mom. I’ve written about her before as she is special to Colton. You can read it here if you missed it before https://14handsranchks.com/february-featured-animal/

Cocoa finished it up on Wednesday with another set of black and white girl/boy twins. The girl is dainty, petite, and half the size of her brother. Colton decided that his goat herd was large enough so he gifted the little doeling to Kinzie for her to start her herd. She won’t be able to show livestock in 4-H until next year but she is so excited that she will now have her own goat to show. Kinzie got to name it since it was now hers and she decided to name her Moana.

Almost every year we learn something new or have something happen that we’ve never experienced before. Last fall we bred 7 dairy goats to kid this month. Unfortunately, only 4 of the does kidded when they were supposed to. After the really cold snap we had in January, three of the does aborted their babies within a week. We’ve never had that happen before and still aren’t sure what caused it. Those does have been receiving extra care to make sure that they are healthy for breeding in the fall.

Overall, we are happy with how it went. In a couple of weeks, we will start separating the babies from their moms at night. This allows us to have enough milk for us to milk in the morning. The babies then are with their mom all day long and have as much milk as they want during the day. The goat milk is used for our soaps and lotions but also for the bottle lambs that we have. Goat milk is very similar to sheep milk and easy for the lambs to digest. Whenever we have raised bottle lambs on goat milk they have always been healthy and strong.

Be sure to follow our social media channels for photos and videos of all the babies this spring and summer!

Here are some goat kid photos!

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Life

“It is hard to know where God will lead us to next. But always have an open heart to let Him guide your steps in His ways.” Wise words texted to me a couple of weeks ago from a dear friend who always says what we need to hear.

The last two weeks have been really hard. We have had several things happen that have caused a lot of anxiety and stress. It took a few days to be able to step back from it all and begin to think about the next steps.

Sometimes life is just hard. Plans don’t work out, people suck, people don’t mind their own business, sheep won’t stay where they belong, family gets sick, etc. Just when we start to think we are in control and know what we are doing something happens to remind us that we are not the one in control.

Over the years, I have discovered a few things that help me to cope with situations. The first is my husband. We are a team and when life is hard, we need to be on the same page, even if it is just venting to each other at first. Taking time to talk, pray, and work through it together always helps.

Second, find some humor. Our family uses a lot of sarcasm and humor to deal with pretty much everything. It helps to break the tension and it is how we connect with each other. However, you do have to know when it is appropriate to use and when it’s not.

And third, pray, pray, and pray some more. It is hard to give up our perceived control over situations and our family, even though that is what we are called to do. God promises to take care of us. He does not promise to make our lives easy. I struggle a lot with giving up control and fulling trusting God and His plan.

I have been pondering the words above from our friend since he sent them as I try to remember to keep an open heart so I can let Him guide my steps.

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Creative

We often create our own definitions of words not realizing how limiting that can be. I would never have called myself creative or an artist for most of my life. However, I have been rethinking this for the last year because someone called me creative.

In my mind, the word creative meant someone that could draw or paint. I can’t do either of those things very well and quite honestly don’t enjoy doing them either. As I’ve thought about this, I realized that I had a very limited view of the word.

My new view of the word creative means anyone who creates something. Which could be making a new soap or lotion, knitting a new pattern, or writing a book. Planning your vegetable or flower garden so that you find joy every time you look at it. Putting new colors together in a bat of fiber or taking that roving and making a scene with it while needle felting. Coming up with a new recipe for dinner is also a way to be creative! There is no limit to the ways that God has given us to be creative. The only limitations are the ones we place on ourselves.

This led me to think about other ways we limit ourselves by having such a narrow definition of a word or subject. There are so many lies that we tell ourselves, things that we have just made up in our heads. Maybe someone said something in passing that we took to heart. Or we’ve just developed these false beliefs about ourselves because we failed at something one time. Maybe it’s not about creativity but it’s “I can’t cook” or “I’m a bad student.” What if instead we changed these to “I need to practice more” or “I just haven’t found a subject I’m passionate about yet.”

If what’s holding you back is you can’t find someone to teach you or help you, youtube is an amazing source of information. Life is too short to wait for the perfect moment. Learn something new, write the book, take the trip, and create beauty for the world.

She braided her Palm a “new way.”
Finnsheep Roving in dye
Categories
Agriculture Fall Finnsheep Goats Hair sheep Livestock Projects Sheep Uncategorized Winter

Fall/Early Winter Update

I have sat down several times to update everyone about what we have been up to this past fall but wasn’t ever able to get this post finished. Well, here we are in the middle of January and I finally have an update for you! This update will be told in photos because that’s the only way I can remember what we have all done!

I plan to do more regular updates this year to help everyone follow along with what we do. This will also allow us to better share our story with you.

*Lotion will be restocked on Friday! There will also be new lotion scents and lip balm added soon!

We are so grateful to all of our customers who supported us this past holiday season and we look forward to serving you in 2021!

Post does contain affiliate links. As an Amazon associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

The pond in September. It has been dry this fall and the pond was already getting low. It is a couple of feet lower now.

We’ve had two litters of piglets this fall.

It was warm enough in September and October that Colton had to keep the pigs mud hole filled with water. They love to lay in it when it’s hot outside.

The sheep & goats do an excellent job of cleaning up poison ivy and other unwanted plants under the trees along our dam.

The goats always prefer to eat the weeds, trees, or poison ivy before the grass.

It doesn’t seem to matter if its human or animal mama’s – they just can’t eat or drink in peace!

Some of the fungus we found in an old tree stump during one of our nature studies.

I dried some marigolds and pokeberries for dying yarn later. If anyone has recommendations on books to read about naturally dying wool please share them with me! The only book I have right now is Harvesting Color: How to Find Plants and Make Natural Dyes

We also made a marigold garland. It was pretty above the kitchen sink.

Goat Milk Lotion was added to the store in November! It will be restocked on Friday (1/15/21).

Hailey ran at State Cross Country. Hailey and Cody both had a great season in high school cross country. In addition to helping with the farm and being a full-time independent insurance agent, Lance is the head cross country coach for our local high school. He is also an assistant track coach in the spring. Yes – we are busy!

We started bale grazing November 1st. I will be sharing a post about bale grazing and what we are learning about regenerative agriculture in a later post.

Lane does an excellent job of caring for his chickens and ducks.

This girl is so sweet. She always wants a chin scratch. Finnsheep were definitely the right choice for our family.

I can’t wait to shear the sheep this coming spring and see what we can have done with all of the fiber! I’m hoping to have combed top as well as yarn made this year.

I will never tire of watch a Kansas Sunset. The top of our hill is the perfect spot to watch it.

Due to a freak accident, we had to buy a new Finnsheep ram. Lance and I traveled to Iowa to purchase one the day after Thanksgiving. He is gorgeous, both in confirmation and fleece. It will be fun to see what kind of lambs we get in the spring.

Isn’t he lovely?!?

The second litter of piglets – they are now weaned and available for purchase as feeder pigs. Just contact us if you are interested in purchasing one!

Lane’s chickens and ducks have started laying eggs. I have yet to capture a good photo of the blueish/green eggs.

I made Hailey pose for a picture after we finished putting straw out in the barns in November.

The Chicken Palace received a new sign and barn light! When it warms up the doors will also be painted.

We were blessed to be able to attend a couple of different vendor days locally. Our new lip balm will be added to the store within the next couple of weeks.

Very grateful that Lance can usually take my ideas and make it a reality when it comes to building things. I showed him a picture of a display shelf and tried to explain how I wanted to change it a little. Somehow he was able to figure out what I wanted and made these great little shelves!

At least one Saturday a month (more if cold weather is on the way) is spent replenishing straw in all of the barns. Even Kinzie helps put new straw out.

The rams were pulled out of the ewe flocks this past weekend. They didn’t want to get along at first (hormones….) so they got to spend a couple of days in a very tiny space. This allows them time to get acquainted but without the fighting. If we didn’t put them in this small pen, they would have just spent hours or days backing up to get a running start and head butting each other. We use the small pen to keep them from hurting each other.

I’ve also been crocheting in the evenings! This is a wool/acrylic blend yarn (Lion Brand Wool Ease Thick and Quick Yarn(3-Pack) Hudson Bay 640-610). I love the variegated colors and this simple, single stitch I’m using on this afghan really shows the color pattern nicely. I spent most of November and December crocheting a shawl to give as a Christmas gift to someone.

We hope you all have a wonderful and blessed 2021! Thank you for being a part of 14 Hands Ranch.

~Jada

Post does contain affiliate links. As an Amazon associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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Faith Family Livestock Projects Uncategorized

Who’s Well Done Are You Looking For?

“Who’s well done are you looking for? The world’s or God’s?” I have been mulling this phrase over in my head for weeks now. I first heard it on a podcast that I was listening to about parenting/homeschooling and then a visiting priest said almost the same thing during Mass last Sunday. Several weeks ago, I wrote it on our quote board and keep thinking about it as we make decisions about what our fall will look like.

If Covid-19 has done anything, it has given us time to evaluate what is really necessary and important to our families. When everything was shut down we had a lot of time on our hands. We had been running to activities and meetings at least 4-5 days/evenings a week, sometimes in two or three places at once. It was crazy and exhausting!

When all of that came to a halt overnight it was a big change. Like many people, we used all of the extra time to get a lot of projects done around the house and farm. As summer approached, a few things started up again such as baseball. We decided not to sign any of our kids up so that we could have a summer of “nothing” and just spend it together as a family. Since this will probably be the last summer we ever have with all of the kids home and nothing on the calendar we took advantage of it!

With summer coming to an end and school starting, Lance and I have had several conversations about kids activities and school this fall. I have thought of this phrase every time we have this conversation. I think it’s important to think about why we are committing to certain activities. Are we doing it because it fulfills us or our family enjoys it? Or are we doing it because it looks good to others or on a resume? Are we trying to “keep up with the Jones’?” Or are we doing it because we feel called to do it and it is the best thing for our family right now?

I think that most of us, at one time or another, do something because everyone else around us is doing it. It’s hard to be different. As we have made some decisions about what things will look like for our family this fall, it has helped to keep in mind that we aren’t trying to please the world. The only one that we need to hear “well done” from is God.

Categories
4-H Agriculture Goals Livestock Projects Recycle Uncategorized

Projects

Early this past winter, Lance and I made a list of projects we wanted to get done this spring and summer. I’m pretty sure that neither one of us ever expected to get very many of them completed, at least not well or timely. We have five kids and four of the five are involved in some kind of activities. Spring, especially April and May, are typically crazy for us. We should have been at track meets at least two days a week, soccer practice and games, church, 4-H meetings, Horse practice, and piano lessons. However, we all know that everything was brought to a halt in March because of Covid19. A silver lining in all of this though has been the gift of uninterrupted family time. It has also allowed us to get several of the projects on our lists completed!

The first project tackled was building three new shelters for all of the 4-H sheep and goats, preferably before we brought all of the animals home. First, all of the pens we had put up a couple of years ago were taken down so that we could reconfigure them and reuse the fencing. We wanted each shelter to have two pens off of it and have a hay/grain feeder in the middle of the shelter to divide it. I wanted a walk through gate in each shelter as well. Each shelter is held down by posts that are 2-3 feet deep in the ground so that they don’t blow away. It is important to mention that we live on a bed of limestone rock and that we do not own any kind of machinery, such as a skid steer, that could dig the holes for us. In most places, there are only a few inches of topsoil before you start to hit rock. This has made digging post holes by hand even harder work than it would be normally. Hailey and Cody have dug most of the holes by hand. They have definitely got their workouts in during school at home!

The shelters are made out of completely recycled materials (except the screws – those are new). An old hay barn had fallen down at Lance’s grandma’s house during a storm last summer. Lance and the kids took it down, went through all of it, and were able to salvage almost all of it. The tin on the shelters have a beautiful burnt sienna color (rust) on them in several places. I really do love the character it gives them! Lance also made gates that swing and latch easily. If you have ever had all of your gates held shut by wire, baling twine, or chained you will understand how big of deal this is!

After the small shelters were completed, Lance started on what we are calling the Chicken Palace. Kinzie wanted chickens for her birthday so this required building a chicken coop. We are calling it the Chicken Palace because it is a little bigger than the typical chicken coop. When Lance builds something he usually goes all out. Our Chicken Palace will have two sections in it with a hallway in the middle. From the hallway you will be able to collect the eggs from the nesting boxes by pulling open a drop down door. Kinzie and I want to put twinkle lights on it as well because every Chicken Palace needs some twinkle lights! We ordered chicks for Kinzie and ducklings for Lane a couple of weeks ago. The ducklings will be here in June and the chicks in July so we have plenty of time to get the Chicken Palace done. The best thing is that the Chicken Palace is also being built with all recycled materials!

Another major project on our list was cutting down as many cedar trees as we can. Cedar trees will take over a pasture quickly if left on their own. They also draw a lot of the moisture out of the ground and we want to keep as much water in the ground as can. We have several rows of them along the creek or that have grown up in the tree lines. While Lance has cut many of the cedar trees down there are still hundreds to go, or it at least seems like hundreds. Over the past week he has cut down a big portion of the cedar trees that lined the dam of our pond. It completely changes the view and has exposed an old rock wall that is there. Many of the trees will be burned but several have been repurposed into raised beds for my garden. We have a few other things we would like to make out of some of the cedar trees as well. I love the beautiful red color that is inside of a cedar tree. Plus, they smell wonderful!

There are still several more projects on our list but most of them require quite a bit of money. So far we haven’t spent any money and our budget is pretty small. It’s fun to dream and make plans though so we will see how many more projects we get crossed off of our list this summer. Right now, it looks like we will be home more this summer than we have been the last several years so we might get a lot accomplished!

Hailey screwing down a roof.
Hay/Grain feeder that separates the two sides of the shed.
Another piece has been added to the feeder to add a small section for mineral.
Obviously the goats have approved of it!
I love the gates!
The beginnings of the Chicken Palace.
You can kind of see in the background where cedar trees have been cut down.
The rock wall that has been exposed.
View from the dam of the pond.

Categories
Agriculture Goals Kansas Uncategorized

Goals

“You are never to old to set another goal or to dream a new dream” – C. S. Lewis

I am a goal setter and planner. I am a slow decision maker though so once I finally make up my mind I am ready to go and want everything to be done yesterday. When we decided that making our farm into a sustainable business was what we wanted to do, I immediately wrote several goals. Those goals have already changed and evolved as I have thought about the direction I want to take 14 Hands Ranch.

Our idea to actually make our farm into a sustainable business and not just a hobby farm, started last summer. I have stayed home with our kids the last three years. Previously, I worked as a speech-language pathologist in the local school district. I loved working with the students but it just wasn’t right for our family anymore. Lance works full time as an independent insurance agent. A large portion of his clients are people and businesses involved in some area of agriculture. Over the last year, we would occasionally discuss what I would do when Kinzie starts school in a couple of years. I know, starting to worry about this two years in advance is kind of crazy but like I said, I’m a slow decision maker! As I seriously thought about it, I realized that going back to work as a SLP wasn’t what I wanted to do. I wanted to do something in the ag community and for us it made the most sense to start here at home.

So all of this to say that I finally chose what I want to do next. I love the sheep and goats. I love being outside in the spring, summer, and fall. Winter is questionable, I hate being cold. This past fall I started making goat milk soap from the stash of milk I had in our deep freeze. Our family liked it and I had made more than we needed so I decided to sell some before Christmas. It went over well and it was kind of fun. That’s when I decided that I could do this.

So what is “this?” It’s working to make our farm sustainable while at the same time using livestock to regenerate our land. I’m not going to share all of my goals here but I did want to share a couple. The goal closest to being achieved is opening an online farm store. At this time, I plan to sell my goat milk soap and beeswax candles. More products will be added in the future. I am getting so close to opening it and I can’t wait to share with you all when it officially opens.

I also plan to add a flock of wool sheep and honey bees. These sheep and bees, combined with the sheep and goats we already have, will be a huge help in improving our soil health naturally. By improving our soil health, we will be able to increase the number of animals our land can support. I have lots of goals and dreams for our little 14 Hands Ranch and a lot of time is being spent dreaming, planning, and researching right now. It’s fun to think about the possibilities.

When we decided this was what I was going to do, I stumbled upon the quote at the top of this post. It is now on a sticky note above my desk. Sometimes we need a little nudge to follow our dreams.

I will never get tired of Kansas sunrises and sunsets.

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Welcome!

We are excited to share our ranching adventure with you! Our goal with this website is to share about our ranch and the products we make here in the wonderful state of Kansas. We will strive to share the “why” behind how we raise our animals while also sharing our story through photographs. Our family loves the agriculture industry and want to help you understand and appreciate it as well. It is also our hope that you will get to see just a little bit of the beauty that can be found here in Kansas as well.