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The Ebb and Flow of Life

So many aspects of farm life are all about new beginnings, and creation - yet death and endings are an inseparable part of that.  I've had several conversations with Liam about the yin and yang of life (usually centered around the fact that you can't just read all day, there's work to be done so that we all have food, clean clothes, and a happy family!).  

...And Yet More

Yes, we have more babies!  Fern had a calf on Wednesday morning, a little blond boy.  We haven't named him yet, and we're open to suggestions.  He looks to be healthy and happy, Caleb has seen him nursing, and actually swooped in pretty quickly and got a weight with our new scale and sling - ~40 pounds, a nice size for a Scottish calf.  We probably won't catch him again, Fern is pretty nervous, but it's still helpful to have a base weight for any other calves, since we've never weighed one before.

Surprise Babies!

This is a quick posting, just to say that we have even more babies than we knew.  Liam and I headed out to the milk pen the other day, he to feed the bottle babies and I to milk, and he called to me that we had baby ducks.  Sure enough, one of the duck hens was in the next pasture with about 8 little ducklings!  I ccouldn't believe it, since in 8 years of having ducks we've never had one hatch anything.

Duck Eggs

This is the time of year that the farmers markets really take off.  I participate in 2 year-round markets that are online, and they have many items all year (soap, baked goods, eggs, some greenhouse produce, etc) but the customer numbers still fluctuate dramatically from winter to summer.  Even though my and other growers' non-produce items are available all year, the customer base is so much smaller in the off season, and it only returns when vegetables traditionally do.

Duck Tragedy

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So far this spring, the news here at Solace Farm has been pretty upbeat.  Sadly, today is a look at the darker side of farming.  We lost the little ducklings that we hatched in our hands on Thursday :( The baby ducks spent Thursday, Friday and Friday night in a box in the house, snuggled up to a hot water bottle.  Saturday morning they were quite lively - trotting and skittering around the living room and trying to swim in their  3" water dish - so I moved them out to the broody hutch with the mama game hen and her babies, and they seemed to be perfectly happy.

Babies Everywhere!

Yesterday, I was already thinking Kaitlyn and I should have a slower day - we've been working really hard, and maybe we could just make soap or have a knitting lesson or something. Well, we did make soap - and hatched baby ducks in our hands!