More, and more, and more calves!

This little guy belongs to Maybell.  She had him around midnight on Wed. October 5th.  He is not named yet--any suggestions?

This is Bandit, born to Bossy on Wednesday morning.

Perseverance, born today, October 7th around 2:30 PM.  His mother is Weighty and he is so named because he has a rather large nose and it took a lot of perseverance on his mom's part, the poor thing.  We were a little worried we would have to intervene, but she was able to have him all by herself--thank goodness!

Rocky aka Curly with her little calf.  It was born last night, October 6th around 11 pm.  He, too, needs a name if you have any ideas?

I have had the opportunity to watch the birth of three of our eight calves and it is a pretty amazing thing.  There are so many things that I see when I walk around the farm that testify that there is a God and he is good.  I do not know how anyone would really believe that all of this just "happened" or "evolved".  I know that there is a God and that he is aware of even the smallest of his creations.
I have been taking classes to become a Master Gardener and I have loved it.  Not just because I do like to garden, but because I have realized that I really love to learn.  I get so excited and amazed by the things I am learning.  This week was all about the Pathology of Plants.  Who would think that learning about bacteria, virus', and fungi that affect plants could be so interesting.
I am so grateful for the many opportunities for learning I have had since moving to "the farm."

Pizza oven is starting to look like one.

It is fall break and our family is not out on vacation--we have been working up a storm.  Yesterday we built three A Frame huts, two for the goats and one for the pigs.  Then we collected a bunch of rocks and did some landscaping.  It looks pretty good--we still need a few more rocks--I'll post a picture when we are finished.
Today we worked on the clay pizza oven--it is finally starting to look like and oven rather than an alter in the front yard.

The kids stomping and mixing
the clay

The sand form covered with wet newspaper--waiting for its
covering of clay.

The kids getting their hands dirty as we build the clay walls.

Cedar and Rose busy at work.

Faith and Ethan busy building the wall.

Ethan and I making finishing touches.

Cedar showing off her cleanliness.

Just a layer of insulative clay and a final coat and we should be ready for a pizza night.  It will take a few more days--at least.

New Pictures of a New Calf--found the camera!!!!!

Last Monday Brett found the camera out sitting on the edge of the driveway--Yay!!!!   After a week out in the rain and dew I wondered if it would work.  After three days in a bowl of rice. . . this is a picture of me when we found out the camera worked.  I guess there is something to be learned from watching crime investigating tv shows.  I would have never know the rice trick.

Yesterday we were out working on some fence between the garden and the goat pen.  It took us a couple of hours and during that time I noticed one of the cows was not up with the rest of them.  So when we got done, Brett and I went on a walk around the trees.  At the last place we looked we found her--number 7, affectionately known as Pig Pen--was laying at the edge of the trees just at the beginning stages of calving.  We sat down and watched.  A little while after we sat down all the cows came running by on their way to water.  This startled the mamma, so she got up and walked further into the woods.  We snuck around from the backside and watched for another 30 minutes while she had a little calf.  It was very awe-inspiring.   It was a boy--we named him Long John after his pirate patch.

He is a good-looking and strong calf.  We went out this morning to tag and band him and I could hardly hold him down while Brett did the dirty work.
All in all this first week of fall has been a good one.