Broccoli and Peas Should Be Ready Beginning of June

Young Appretices 4/3-4/6

1st Bottle Baby

Finishing School Strong

12 Piglets Born 4/11

Dairy Heifer Arrives 4/12

This is the time of year to be on the farm. There is so much excitement and so many new babies to see. Here’s our highlights from this month so far:

• April started strong with sap flowing full swing. We’re still collecting and will likely continue until Wednesday with our final boil down Thursday and Friday.
• We had two amazing visitors. Jaeden has been here three times now and this time brought along her friend Olive. We met Jaeden during  J(une)-Term 2015 through AFSA high school. She and eight others came for a whole week of farm experiences. Her second visit was this last fall when she helped us harvest honey, harvest garden veggies and make jelly. April 3-6, her and Olive enjoyed lots of newborn baby goats, feeding our lone bottle baby, collecting sap, planting onions in the high tunnel, and playing games with our boys. We enjoyed our time with them and hope we didn’t work them too hard.
• Our first new experience this April is our little bottle baby, Prancer. The boys run, jump, and frolic in the yard with him each day and he stays close to our farm dog Ruby at nights. We’re hoping to bring him out to pasture once he’s on two feedings a day. Right now he is 15 days old.
• Peter turned 10 years old this month, yes double digits. He’s an amazing boy and becoming quite the farmer himself.
• Home school continues. My boys are motivated to get our studies done before summer arrives.
• Our second batch of piglets were born yesterday! Mat counted twelve that seem to be thriving. One didn’t survive and one is half the size of the others. Peter can’t wait until they get big enough to ride.
• Our second new adventure arrived on the farm today. She is a Dexter-Jersey heifer calf. Even though she isn’t a year old, she’s likely over 400 pounds. We’re hoping to breed her and have a calf and fresh cow milk next summer. Silas cannot wait. It will be fun to get to know this new addition over the next months. Please comment with any name ideas, for she doesn’t have one yet.

Not even half done and we’ve had lots of excitement. We’re excited for more goats babies, more visitors, more planting, and lots of action as the month continues.