Dealing with loss

We didn't get them all

A few weeks ago we had captured our egg thief and released him in the woods far, far away. I should have known better but for what ever reason I did not set the trap again. Two days later I woke to the horror. Ms. Copper, one of our beloved Silkie chickens, decided that she was not coming in for bedtime, which was not uncommon for her. She loved being out when everyone was inside and would eventually go into the barn to roost. I usually would go out and catch her late at night to put her to bed, but again for whatever reason did not that night, thinking things would be as normal as they had been in the past. In this decision  came the death of Ms. Copper. We had another raccoon that had come in and chased her down and dragged her off. I was destroyed with guilt for not going out there like I had other nights. 

I wanted a dead raccoon! We set the trap and we did catch it but I did not kill it. Nature dictates the behavior of these animals, so really it was doing what it was born to do, so we released the coon where the other one was released. One of the hardest things for me not to kill this animal who hunted down my sweet bird, but it was the right thing to do.

I will miss that little fluffy butt and her oh so big bird attitude.

We also had a loss with our adopted guinea Ms. Red. She hadn't been feeling well and I thought she was egg bound. Brought her in and worked on her kept her separated her just in case from the flock. Ms. Red seemed to be doing better but we found her dead in her cage. This loss was a little easier but still hard. Living on a farm there is life and then there is death. It's hard for me to deal with but our children are very affected by it. They play with these animals and develop friendships with them, so losing them is hard. Ms. Copper was the hardest to deal with because she was not sick, but stolen from us. We will miss both of these birds very much and were glad that they were ours for the time they gave us.

Okay no more yucky bad, let's move to the good things!

Ms. Fudge is out and about now. After being pushed down the stairs by the guineas she has been living in a cage in my laundry room. She was very upset and just not happy. She would lay an egg every day but would look out the screen door at the other chickens and get upset. She still is limping but she is fast!!! I think she may limp for the rest of her life, but she is alive and now very happy. She is unable to perch right, so she goes to bed in a cage in the nursery. She is so much happier about her living arrangements now.

Ms. Sunshine was a little girl who broke her beak as a chick. She is doing great and has become the guardian of the flock. My son Wyatt, will go out sometimes to pick up a chicken and she gets soooo upset and will attack Wyatt until he drops the chicken. Such a funny bird, she has adjusted very well to her crooked beak and has no other problems at all.

Ms Lovey duck after her bath in the spring!

Ms. Curly Butt decided this morning that she would make sure what I was doing. You never know when you might need a nosy chicken.

We have a new scratching post! I moved a sink to the garden area and now the goats are using the hose hanger as a scratching post. I'm waiting to find it on the ground when I come home.

What a life! Ms. Jojo has the best life now and so glad we could give her this home. Pain in the butt and just a great personality. Can't wait to bred her again to get babies and milk!

Behind on the planting, but the weather hasn't been the best for planting. This weekend we are going to work on that and also....

we are getting rid of the cold frame and make it the pumpkin patch.

My horseradish had gotten a life of it's own. It has gotten huge!!!

Been busy in the garage and the sewing room. We have many ...

new items for sale on the Etsy store. 

I thought I was done with new designs for aprons but I had a request for a kitchen apron that was like my garden apron, soooo here it is and this is now available on the store also.

Farmer's Market in Independence and Wytheville have started so I will be there in person. Independence Market is Friday 9 to 2PM and Wytheville is on Saturday's 9 to 1 PM. Go check them out if you get a chance. I will keep everyone updated on where you can see me and our stuff at local shows. The season is upon us and it's going to be busy.

Rainy Days

Where's the boat?

It has just been raining buckets here in Virginia. My girls had gotten to the point of looking for the high ground to stay dry. Every time you walk in the yard or pasture, water runs up to the top of the ground.

We will need the rain, but right now the animals have had enough and I think we have too. My Orchard has not been mowed so it looks like we could cut for hay!  

Jojo got so sick of the water she jumps up here to get out of the wet. We have had breaks in the rain but not many. Today we have been lucky and we see sunshine, but they are talking about rain again for the rest of the week. I will never get my garden tilled at this rate.

Mr. Luther hiding from the girls. Everyone is in heat so poor Luther has been loved on by all the girls. He has truly just had enough of them and spent the day hiding.

Well we had a stranger in the barn. I sent the kids out one night to get the eggs and I knew where they were so I could make sure they were checking for them. Kids came back with 3 less eggs then they should have had in the basket. I sent the kids back out and they came back with no eggs. Ayla proceeded to tell me that she saw the eggs but when she had gone to the hayloft and came back down, they were gone. I thought we have a snake and I was okay with that, but we did not. We had a young raccoon, who thought he was getting a free meal, he was not. We caught him and he was released in a wooded area away from chickens! This was our excitement last week.

With all this rain it has given me time to push out more aprons and also

Some new bird feeders, so when you get a chance check out my Etsy store and see what is new, on my page "Things for sale". 

I am hoping that the rain will stop and I will have more on the garden and the re model of the barn.

Spring is finally here at Cranberry Acre!!

SPRING!!

Like everyone, Cranberry Acre has been waiting for Spring to come. We finally can say that Spring is here. We are so happy, to see green and the signs of warmer weather. This year we actually got to see our daffodils bloom. Last year with all the cold weather surprises, we never got to see them, but were overjoyed to see them this year. These Daffodils came from a garden that is over 70 years old and I was so excited to see them.

I wanted to show everyone that yes, these bird feeders can make it through the snow and ice. This bird feeder spent the whole season outside. People have a hard time believing that they do not break in the cold, granted they could like any other bird feeder in the weather. Yes it is glass, but yes it did survive!

Last years babies are all grown up. It is so sad to see them as adults, I miss the little ones, but we are not getting any new babies, due to the fact that we are going to get some work done on the home that is going to involve us not being here, I have decided that re homing would not be far to new chickens. I have decided to allow Nature to take it's course and when the house work starts, maybe we will not have so many animals to place during the fixes.

Oh yes, Larry and Curly are doing fine without their Moe. they have taken up with a chicken in our flock, Red, so they do not seem so lonely anymore. They have been rascals and have caused some pain in the flock.

Ms. Fudge has a ligament tear from or dear Larry, who decided after 3 days in the hay loft that she would take a chicken out of the hay loft with her.

Pretty much Ms. Fudge was thrown out of the hay loft and she did not land right at all. She is still laying eggs but is limping around and is now living in the Laundry room. She hates the whole thing but, she needs to heal. We have started to let her out in a small run so she is not so lonely, but she is not happy at all. I do hope soon she will be able to be released back to the flock, but for now she is in the house with us at night.

Lovey Duck, has found her place at our farm. She is a little bossy but the chickens do not seem to care. She slept in teh barn with the goats all Winter and was not bothered by them. Many mornings she can be found at the front door of the barn, almost guarding it.

With Spring comes a deep cleaning of the barn. With all the snow this year it was hard to clean the barn as much as we normally do, so a deep clean was in order. With some of the cleaning we could do during the Winter, we just add all that compostable material to our garden spot. 

With doing this we end up with these huge mounds of barn waste in the garden spot. In the Winter I just do not have the gumption to spread it out, it's too cold and just miserable in the Winter to do such a thing.

I just spread it out in the Spring on a warm day, which I did this past weekend. I usually spread this out and then we will do our first till in a week or so.

Our garden space is smaller this year. With me getting sick last year with Lyme disease, I decided to try a smaller garden just so it would be easier for everyone to handle.

The old space is going to be used, but for a different use. We hopefully will get the barn addition on it this year. Which will be 5 stalls for the goats. Right now we just have an open plan with the barn, so the goats all sleep in the same area. It works but, I really wanted stalls, so when we do breed everyone has their own birthing rooms. The barn floor is coming out and we are placing gravel and paving stones on the ground. Our chicken area will be moved in the barn and the stairs are going and being replaced with a ladder and a pulley system. A milking area is going to be put in the main barn area and a grain room. Right behind the new addition is going to be an equipment shed so we can reclaim our woodshed during the warmer seasons and we can fill it all season. A lot of work to be done this year!

Everyone is so happy with the warm weather, because with the warm weather comes green grass and lazy days.

Luther is loving it!

Ms. Pico is soooo loving the warm weather and has made a sleeping nest in the leaves. She will be highly upset with me when I rake thee away from the house.

Our new chicken from last year is fitting in quit well. Ms. Kiwi is loving her new job of sitting on everyone's eggs. She looks around the barn and then finds eggs unattended so she sits on them. She is a great bird and we absolutely love having her here.

My Mother's Day magnolia is blooming, just so pretty! Another sign that Spring is finally here on teh farm.

Pears are in bloom and

our grapes are putting out their leaves. Keeping fingers crossed that a freeze stays away. 

Taking pictures on this sunny day, I was being followed by a very suspicious chicken. Big Momma , kept a very close look st every move I made in the yard. She disapproved of the intrusion. 

Ms. Silver is still with us. She is now somewhere around 6 years of age. Love my old girl, she still rules the roost!

I will leave you with our silly girl Ms. Griffin and her silly smile.

She is still a camera hog and I love her for it. 

Cranberry Acre will be updating the For Sale page soon. We have so many new things that have come out of the sewing room and the garage to share with you all. If you want to see them before I update the page, please feel free to go to the Etsy store.

 https://www.etsy.com/shop/CranberryAcre?ref=hdr_shop_menu

Gotta love the Snow!

Cranberry Acre in the snow!

Cranberry Acre woke this morning to 8 inches of snow and this time it's the fun snow. The past few snows we have had were not fun ones. Either too cold to be outside or it was not packing snow, but still we had fun.

On a few of those snow storms the kids were able to go sled riding. On this day Ms. Lady Hawk got to join in the fun. It was very cute to see this bird hanging out with her kids. Lady Hawk had fun! 

After her sled riding she was invited into the house to enjoy a warm fire and a snack of some scratch, while the kids had cocoa.

On those negative degree days we had our first ordeal with a frozen pipe. Now we have had cold days but nothing like this. I believe on the frozen pipe day it was -13 with the wind chill and our tub drain froze. Now we were lucky that it wasn't a busted pipe and no water but still it was a all day process of boiling hot water in the tub and a plunger, plus a hairdryer. 

Dingo tried his best to help daddy but seemed to have gotten more in the way then truly helping, but he tried.

I have been working on the new Harvest Apron during the snow storms and am starting a new kitchen apron for this years collection. I will say I haven't been in there as much as I would like, but with all the driveway clearing and entertaining kids, there hasn't been as much time as I thought!

This snow storm today was pretty.

Kids and the dog are having a blast. Now everyone else was waiting for me to shovel out paths so they could come out and play.

When the goats finally came out this morning and we went out to feed everyone. We were greeted by a lame goat.

Since we did not get the edition up for the barn I still do not have any stalls, so what we called the nursery for the chickens we rearranged to make it a stall for Luther to keep him confined. This morning before a cup of coffee was able to be finished was moving cages and cleaning stalls. We soaked his foot with Epsom salts and then trimmed the hooves to see if there was a problem with any of them. No punctures but his ankle was a little warm so we shot him in the bum with some penicillin and have him in his own day spa. You would think he would be happy but he is not. The only happiness was the fact he got an extra amount of grain.

His mother JoJo, came out earlier this morning before I got to shovel and seemed to enjoy the peace. I know her feeling, kids have been out of school now for almost 2 weeks, peace is nice.

The Barn Yard Bullies, Bella and Sparkles refused to come out until I shoveled them a path. Can we say spoiled?

Ms. Chocolate came out and she actually didn't mind the snow at all. The rest of the flock has taken refuge in the hayloft.

Ms. Coal, was having a great morning until she decided to take on a snow pile and got herself stuck. She then paraded herself back into the barn and under a heat lamp. I have not seen her come out yet.

Mr. Dingo and his girl, Ayla. I can't tell you how sweet of a friendship they have, but hopefully this picture shows you just a little. This little dog has been a great addition to our family. Even if Mr. Bayne is crossing his toes that we change our minds.

I will leave you with one very upset duck! Ms. Lovey is not happy, her night, night pen now has a goat in it. She hates the snow and proceeded to have an argument with the goat, but he had nothing to say to her, so she went in the hay loft. I am going to set her up with a new comfy spot tonight with the chickens, but I know she will try to argue with me about this also.

Everyone stay warm and stay safe. Spring will be here soon and I will be able to share the new design of the garden as Cranberry Acre is ever changing to make things improved from the lessons we have learned from last year!

Happiness

A Blind Duck in a Tub

I haven't been on here in weeks. The farm is at a slow point of just trying to maintain and survive the cold. I believe everyone is doing that right now. I spend my Winter months catching up on projects in the sewing room and getting new designs ready for the new season. I took a moment today to make a critter on the farm very happy. Ms. Lovey duck the past few days has been not as happy, so I decided to cheer her up a little. Her Spring during the Winter becomes a mud pit and I do not want to disturb the mud, because we have a lot of salamanders Wintering in it. What do you do to make a blind duck happy? Well kill to birds with one stone!

You give a duck a bath and clean your bathroom at the same time!

She had gotten so dirty playing in the mud and looked so pitiful, so I decided a detail cleaning of the bathroom was in order and the duck was going in the tub.

She has turned the bathroom into a mess, but what a happy duck!

She has been swimming now for about a half an hour and is just loving it. The little things in life give us the best rewards. If a duck could smile I think she would.