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End of an Era

As of yesterday, Solace Farm has entered a new era - not to be overly dramatic, but we took Fergus the bull to the butcher.  He was one of the set of 3 Scottish Highlands we initially bought when we moved here over 6 years ago, he's the only bull we've ever had, and has done a fantastic job.  We've only ever had one cow stay open for a breeding (and we blame that on her), he was gentle and calm, never a threat - just a nice guy all around!  We've gotten a lot of wonderful babies out of him over the years, and are sad to see him go.

Animal Update

A few months ago, Caleb's work schedule changed - he now works 8 am to 7 pm Monday through Thursday, and gets Friday off.  This seems like a nice bonus weekend (or for us, work) day, and it often is, but more often it somehow gets eaten up by just one or two seemingly small jobs.  This weekend was a great example.  

Animal Wrap-up (I Hope!)

Well, there are only 5 days left in the year - Merry Christmas, by the way! :)  I really hope we are done with the medical drama of this summer and fall, so I wanted to give a year-end update.  

Real Farm Life

When I started this blog, I wanted it to be an unbiased, accurate look at a small farm, a peering-through-the-window into the realities and nitty-gritty of homesteading life.  I wanted to talk about everything - the ups and downs, the whys and why-nots - rather than just the highlights, or quickly glossing over the more unpleasant subjects.  In that vein...

I unfortunately have to report more losses on the farm.  We no longer have Barra or even more sadly, little Willie, with us.  

Latest Arrivals

We have a couple new Solace Farm residents - each of the last two weekends we have acquired one new animal!  Last Friday we bought another sheep from my midwife's sister, this one an actual milking sheep, the East Friesian breed. She's just 7 months old, born at the same time as our goat doelings this year, so that'll be easy to remember.

The Final Calf

Yarn, Yarn, Yarn!

I've finally had a chance to do some spinning, and it's been wonderful.  It's such a relaxing pastime, so contemplative, almost meditative, soothing...  Wait, I'm thinking of someone else - this is how I spin:

It's not like this all the time, of course - he originally was bawling facedown on my lap, but then his hair accidentally gets spun in the yarn :)

Solace Farm, the Tourist Destination?

As some of you know, we have a mini-horse named Fiona that we got several years ago for Liam to ride.  It turns out, after a winter of riding lessons, that Liam does not appear to be a horse person.  He has no desire to really do anything with Fiona, and she's just hanging out with goats, getting fat and lazy again.  We had a long talk about her usefulness here, and decided that, since Malachi is absolutely enthralled with her, we should keep her, and try to work her at least once a week (twice in theory!) to keep her trained until Malachi is older.  

Catch-Up Time

I periodically realize I have a number of little things that have happened around here to talk about, but not anything big enough for a whole post to itself.  So, to catch up on those little developments, here's a week (or two)-in-review.

Farm Odds and Ends

I don't have any one thing to report today, but there's a number of littler things to chat about.