Fairlight helps with housework

Silly Goats

The goats love to sneak into the house any chance they get.   You can see it in their comical expression that they absolutely get a thrill out of coming into the “humans’ home.”   Here Fairlight appears to be helping with the laundry. Goats are such inquisitive creatures, always poking their nose into other folks’ business.

Incubator

Operation “Baby Chick”

Before we order any chicken eggs, we needed to make sure the incubator (thanks for the barter, Shannon) was in working order. Mainly it’s advised that you give the incubator a test run to check if the heating element is in working order and if it maintains the set temperature.    So now was a good time as any to give it a go. We did a test run and the heating element worked fine and maintained the set temperature for the 3 hour test.   We got everything we need – hydrometer, water pan, thermometer and still air fan – we opted not to by an automatic egg turner. We figure if we aren’t capable enough to manually turn the eggs and need a machine to do that for us, well, then where’s the excitement and active participation in that? Now all we need are some fertile eggs.

Getting It On

This morning we gals finally caught Mr Duck doing his thing with the one of our female ducks. Although his “technique” needed a little work — so far so good. Hopefully soon we’ll have some fertile duck eggs. Speaking of Mr Duck, he’s fit in nicely with the lady ducks – always standing altert while his gals sleep. Such a gentlemen – er, duck.

Wacky Weather Continues

It’s only been what, three weeks since the coldest temperatures on record hit the Southland? Now we’ve gone full circle and are experiencing unusually warm temperatures. The last few days have been warm and the next few will be even warmer, temperatures in the valleys are expected to near 89 degrees! The poor peach trees are so confused; we spotted a few soft pink blush blooms. Other plants that were affected by the frost are already sprouting new growth. Just when you thought the weather couldn’t get any wackier. Sadly, because of man’s tampering with the balance of nature, such weather patterns will be the norm now for generations to come. We are going to have to live with the implications.

Busy Day

Have lots of pictures and draft postings that I really should put up, but today is such a lovely and sunny day. The guys are digging up and transplanting many of the plants in the front yard this morning…. busy day!