So, Mack has lived with us for about a month now. He came from a home with 2 working parents and a kid that didn’t do much with him. Now, he spends time outside running until he is ready to sleep, sleeps until he is ready to run again. When necessary, we put him on the dog run, but he is pretty good about staying with us around the farm. He loves to chase the goats, but eventually, they get tired of him, and turn to butt heads. That causes him to run away. He tries to herd chickens, and so far, hasn’t eaten any.
Overall, he is a good farm dog. He is very rough on toys and destroys tennis balls in no time. Alex and Vicki found a substitute item for playing fetch – tomatoes! Alex and Mack actually played fetch with a tomato for almost 10 minutes and he never bit through the skin. He has a very gentle mouth.
Have you looked around at the trees lately? Leaves are turning yellow. Leaves are already falling to the ground. It isn’t even September and the leaves have started falling. I think an early fall and a harsh winter are on the horizon. Get the wood split and stacked. Fill the barn with hay. It’s going to be cold!
The turkeys are now about 2.5 months old and have been moved onto pasture. We are planning to keep them on grass with and grain until ready for harvest just before Thanksgiving. Based on advice from others, we kept them on wire until now. Initially, we had 2 of the 14 die within the first 2 weeks. Since then, they have all survived.
Now we have to hope they don’t fly out of the electric net fence.
My interests and hobbies are quite diverse, but I am somewhat a Jack of all, master of none. With our adventure in farming, I have lost the ability to dabble in a little here and there and feel like I was honestly making some progress in each area. Therefore, I have been taking a hard look at each individual activity and asking, how much have I done that in the last 2 years, how much do I want to do it to feel satisfied, is that possible. While it seems a little extreme to completely stop doing things, that is where I am at emotionally to dedicate more time to what we currently have defined as important in life. The current example is fine wood working. I made the hard choice to sell most of my wood shop that is related to fine wood working (furniture, picture frames, etc). I am keeping all my basic tools for construction type projects on the farm, but I don’t have time to build furniture with everything else going on. Therefore, the shop space and money can be better spent elsewhere. What else will go be the wayside?
This morning, Alex, Vicki, and Amanda went with me to the Submarine Force Museum (my office) with Alex’s cub scout pack. The kids had a great time checking out the boat and participating in the summer activity learning about damage control.
Anna and I sat down and figured out our breeding plan for the goats. We decided to breed all the does to the 2 bucks we bought. It wasn’t too hard to decide. However, we did also have some discussions about which baby goats we might keep, which does might get sold next year, and our herd goals. If interested, view the 2013 breeding schedule and price list.
Alex and Precious practicing an Intro dressage test.
This past week Alex and Vicki spent five days at Ayer Mountain Farm participating in Shetucket Valley Pony Club’s annual camp. They are part of Mystic Pony Club, but our club had been invited to join them at camp. The ponies stayed at camp all week, but Alex and Vicki came in the morning and went home at night. They had two riding lessons per day and chores and crafts in between. I (Anna) was there every day with Amanda helping out and watching over the kids. It has been an exhausting week, but it was a very rewarding time spent with the kids.
Alex and Vicki warming up for games.
The kids got to experience several different things during the week. Besides regular instruction twice a day they also tried fox hunting with hounds (in the walk-trot group), Alex got to jump cross-rails for the first time ever, Vicki cantered over ground poles, they both did pony club mounted games and they crossed the water on the cross country course. Alex even got to have a lesson with two other boys his age. Amanda was quite the little trooper, hangin out all week and she got lots of attention from older and younger girls.
Amanda in the back of the Gator.
So what are my thoughts after spending a week at pony club camp?
Well, I believe Pony Club is good for the kids. It exposes them to other kids who also ride and gives them opportunities to do things with the horses they would not get to do otherwise. Horse kids are generally good-natured, hard-working kids. I wish there were more boys involved, but such is life with horses…in a few years Alex may come to appreciate being a boy among lots of girls.
As in any organization, volunteers make a difference. There are individuals out there that sacrifice their time for YOUR children. I wish more parents appreciated this fact, not just in Pony Club, but across the board in kids’ sports and recreational activities. Salute those energizer bunnies that make things happen.
I ‘ve decided I want to ride my horse more. I need to have some sort of goal with my riding. King is 18, but to be honest he isn’t really showing any signs of slowing down. Watching other people ride all week makes me want to ride too.
Being at camp all day made me exhausted and I want to get in better shape. Who wants to be walking around in breeches and a tucked in polo shirt and not be in shape? Besides it will make me a better rider (theoretically).
All in all, we had a great week at camp. The weather was good, the kids behaved, the ponies behaved, and nobody left in an ambulance (though one girl broke her arm and another fractured a rib). Below are some more pictures.
Alex playing gamesAlex and Vicki exchanging the baton while playing games
We have ordered our final batch of meat chickens for this year, and they will arrive the first week of Sept. We are going to raise a group of Cornish Cross to see how they perform, mostly because of the rapid growth rate. I anticipate they will be ready for harvest around the first weekend of Nov.
Anyone who is interested in an advanced order, and therefore a 20% price reduction, contact me with the number of birds you would like to reserve.
This year on the farm has been marked with a significant amount of growth in our endeavors, and we are not done yet. We are thrilled to announce our participation in CT Farm Fresh Express! Last year, we went to a showing of the documentary American Meat in Stonington. While there, we got to hear about a lot of other farms, bigger and smaller than us, with similar goals in mind. Deb Marsden, the founder of CT Farm Fresh was also there to talk about a service she provides. Participating farms let CTFFE know what products they have available on a weekly basis. She then lists them on her store and from Thursday to Tuesday, people can shop from local farms while sitting at home. For many families, this is a fabulous way to support local farms and have faith in the food being served to their family. Then on Tuesday, the orders close, the farms get notified of their orders, and she sends out the pickup crew to collect, assemble, and distribute the orders!
For our farm, it is a fabulous opportunity to slowly expand our passion. We will still offer our products for sale directly off the farm, and we will continue to have our advance purchase options. Email us if you want to be included on future notifications about these opportunities. But, if there are some other farm fresh items you would like to try, but don’t have time to search the farmer’s markets yourself, check out CT Farm Fresh Express!
This weekend was supposed to be filled with trail riding and overnight camping with the horses. However, the threat of severe weather yesterday caused us to cancel some plans.
The clouds were still looming, but we went out this morning anyway. We met a group from Mystic Pony Club at Stepping Stones Ranch next to Arcadia in RI. We had an extended warm up period as everyone tacked up, and then headed out for the ride.
We had 15 riders total in the group. It was the first time we had taken Calli out for a ride somewhere else. While she was a little nervous at first, I moved her to the back of the group and she calmed nicely. Amanda rode in the Buddy Saddle behind Anna on King. Alex got to try out a new pommel pack as an incentive to do more long distance riding.
We were in the saddle for 2 hrs- by far Amanda’s longest ride yet (she’s not quite 27 months old).
After we got back, we ate our picnic lunch and headed home. Now we are watching some Pentathlon and then it is back outside. We still have to get everything ready to go again because the kids have pony club riding camp all week! Maybe the weather wi cooperate with horse camping next weekend.
