presenting my first nephew

TOBIAS GRANT BARTON

friday september 26th this handsome little guy was born. my first nephew. first grandson. first great grandson. i got up at 5:15 to make it to 6:00 am bikram yoga. instead i had a slew of missed calls and texts from the family. gathering up my yoga gear and my camera i made my way to the freeway. north for yoga or south for family. i went south. sadly once there, i realized that my camera was completely dead and didn't even have enough juice for one shot! after searching the house high and low for a camera.... i gave up and realized that mom and i had missed toby's grand entrance by a minute or two. abby's water broke at 2:18 am and toby was born at 6:18 am. i'm grateful for the chance i've had to be near for both of abby's babies births. and even though thinking about all the things that are involved with birth - reading, prepping, pregnancy etc... - give me anxiety currently, i look forward to the day i can be blessed with a precious little soul.

annie

i turned 27 this summer. and a week or two before my birthday i realized all i really wanted was another sweet piggy in my life. this time around, mitchel suggested that i find one that i could use as a sow. the stars seemed to align and i found a pure bred berkshire gilt for a good price. better yet, the gal who was selling happened to be a customer of mine from the garden center. when i first went out to pick out my little lady, i instantly fell in love with the runt {apparently i have a soft spot for runts}. ruby had been bottled fed and was tiny compared to her siblings. she acted more like a dog than a pig when i first met her. i wanted her. unfortunately some health problems arose over the next few weeks and i made the decision to pick a different gilt. avocado had health problems from the first month i had her til the end and dona knew that. she wanted to make sure i had a healthy gilt knowing that i plan to breed her. once they were fully weened, i went back to pick out another. i picked up hope from home and had her help me. it was quite the adventure. once i picked out annie and grabbed her, wrangled 40 lbs of pure muscle from the back of the half acre property and than managed to settle her down enough to transport her in the truck.... hope was nervous that she had to manage her in the 'tote' all the way from mapleton to orem, we were pleasantly surprised that the ride back went smoothly. it took me a few days to finally come up with her name, annie, and a perfect name for her. i adore her and she is nothing but full of sass! 

catching bees

a few weeks ago, i was able to spend an afternoon at home working in the yard. as i puttered around in the garden, cezar spent his time catching bees in the raspberry patch. mitch asked me during the evening what happened to cezar's muzzle. apparently it was swollen and tender to the touch. i couldn't help but laugh. a benadryl and a good night's sleep later, cezar was back to catching bees again. 

Farm life: Miss Avocado

Once again I'm amazed at how much I love the farm life. When I have time to hang out back with Avocado, I'll let her out to run around and dig in the dirt. The chickens love when she roots right next to their pen and get the occasional grass flying their way. She especially loves rolling around in the dirt where she roots. The best part is she'll let me walk right up to her and scratch and love on her. As i relay my stories to Mitch, he asks me if I'll be able to send her to the butcher like Einstein. Avocado is definitely friendly than her brother, and as harsh as it may sound to a lot of people, she was bought and raised with that as the end. I'm learning that this is the ideal for all meat animals. And the life my pigs are living are far better than the standard factory farm. Until miss avocado reaches ideal market weight, we are going to have a fabulous time hanging out together at work, as she gets to run around and root in the earth.

On Valentine's day we were able to pick up our meet from Einstein. there was a wonderful sense of accomplishment. He wasn't as large as we thought, his dead weight was 113. Mom and I split a half giving us about 25 lbs each and we let Chase buy the other half. Mitch was impressed by the packaging and has even eaten some {and for anyone who knows my sweet hubby knows what an accomplishment this is. he's a 'city' boy and doesn't want to associate his dinner with a face}. He even mentioned we should do a cow after seeing the packaging..... 

.......I ran with that idea and have a calf on the way now.

Farm life: the next step

friday was the day the first time homesteader dreads. einstein had reached market weight and was bullying avocado away from food. it was time to send him to the butcher. i knew when i got home from vacation and had talked to my mom that i couldn't put it off much longer. originally i had hoped to send them together but when i went back to work it was obvious that it was time. i was amazed that einstein nearly doubled in size in  the ten days i was away. i made arrangements with chase and friday would be the day for transport. 

friday morning i spent the morning tending to items at home and headed into work around 9:30-ish. visiting the pigs and loving on them. unfortunately my day quickly turned into a rough one. i found one of our goats had passed away during the night and than to send off my first pig.... this is the life i want to live. raising and growing my own food. it just happened to be a double whammy for me that day. i had help hauling princess out of her pen, so here daughters didn't have to deal with it until we could take care of it. then it was time to wrangle einstein and make the 'trek' to the trailer. 

i understand that not everyone can process this part of life. for me as i take on homesteading it is a valuable lesson learned. as i loved on him and roped his hock, it was important to me to verbally tell him thank you. he was raised for this purpose and i felt it important to thank him. we managed to load him into he horse trailer far easier than anticipated. then he was on his way. 

for now it's just me and miss avocado. 

farm girl

winter hasn't chilled my desire for farm life at all. i look forward to braving the icy path out to the pigs everyday. they enjoy the occasional veggie treats i bring from home, they are eating the whole corn that we've shelled from our corn maze, pumpkins and squash and they enjoy the extra eggs from the hens. you would think that winter would slow the ladies down laying... granted they are young pullets who just started their laying years. i'm getting on average a dozen a day between the new ladies on my bantams. my little emma bantam has gone broody over the last week and is tending to two eggs. she is sharing broody responsibilities with another little lady and i am itching to let them hatch fertile eggs. perhaps in february i'll see if i can find some day old chicks for them to mother. i'm told it's less expensive than shipping fertile eggs and more reliable, plus you swap the eggs out and give the ladies some babies. my heart just bursts at the thought of baby chicks running around with my little bantams. before christmas i discovered the pigs had some intestinal worms {gross} and ordered some de-wormer.... i finally got around to wrangling them down with chase and giving them their shots last week. next round of pigs, i'm determined to do it when they are younger and easier to handle. not that i 'enjoy' learning how to administer shots for livestock, but i'm proud to learn something new and know i can take care of things. this round was less traumatic for chase.... i'm better with a needle. speaking of shots, it's time to give jake and cezar their vaccines and rabies shots. we discovered it's less traumatic for them at home than dragging them to the vet. plus it is less expensive. i've learned a lot over the last five months. i'm still researching and trying to decide which meat company i will trust with the pigs this spring. hopefully in march they will be ready size wise... einstein will be for sure. little miss avocado is half his size right now. i'm hopeful with the de-wormer that she will start putting more weight on in the next month or two. granted it's male vs female and males reach market size quicker. it will be bittersweet when the time comes, but i will be proud to have taken this full circle and know where my meat comes from. 

this year

this year i want to....

• simplify 
• continue to maintain my soda free streak. 
• strengthen and hopefully heal my wrist {tendinitis with a side of my ulnar nerve pain...}
• write
• improve my health and loose weight
• and hopefully be blessed with a pregnancy