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

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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.