The Ranch Catchup
Well things have been going relatively well lately, not many huge hiccups or anything absurd which is a miracle in and of itself honestly. All the farm animals have settled into their respective homes and the chore schedule has maintained some regularity thankfully. We however add some new pigs to the family. Three registered Kunekune pigs. Our previous pigs (RIP) were kunekune as well but only the boar was registered so any offspring would have been of unknown lineage. Which isn’t super important unless you are hoping to breed and sell the babies. Something we are hoping to do with this new batch. We found two sows and a boar, all of whom have successfully bred a few litters already and have proven to be good parents. They are four years old and previously were raised on 100% pasture. We are excited to have them join the Rowan Ranch family and can’t wait to meet their cute little babies in the future.
Elsewhere on the ranch, our peas that we planted a little earlier this year have started growing! We’ve got four little rows popping up of purple hulls, zipper creams, elite creams, and some bush beans. They are growing slowly but the weather has not been our friend. It has certainly helped with the watering but the temperature just cannot figure out how to get its act together. Hopefully soon it will start to reach a nice constant warm for the peas to really flourish.
We also decided to rotate the sheep to the back of the hay field and got some more netting which greatly increased their grazing space per rotation. Hopefully this will help us rotate less often and be able to seed and fertilize in a good cadence. This was a bigger move than our usual rotation as we had to really go a farther distance with their house. It got a little wild for a second too when the edge of the house came up and one of the ewes darted out and got stuck outside the pen. Luckily she was chill and just followed us all the way to the new pasture. Thank goodness for the herd mentality.
Once we got them into the new pasture we went ahead and gave them some supplemental hay to prolong their time in the pasture even more. This little ewe decided she would keep the whole bale to herself though and not share. She’s looking pretty plump too so not sure how much she thinks she really needs.
Moving on to more fowl topics, the ladies of Chick Inn have started to lay so much more now that everyone has reached laying age. We are getting between six to twelve eggs a day from our little flock of twelve laying hens. Unfortunately the two roosters are having a bit of an issue and have chose favorites among the hens. Four of our ladies have started having bare spots on their backs where the roosters get a little too friendly so in order to help protect them we got some of these cute “hen aprons” to protect them. We will see how long they last…
Things have really been pretty peaceful lately and we are grateful to have reached somewhat of a balance between everything. As we get more settled in it gets easier and more comfortable for us and Hope gets more and more at home with her country life. Jaken even tried to teach her how to chew hay, she may turn into a shepherdess after all.
Finally we celebrated my birthday with a relaxing weekend on the ranch. Kristen and crew came over and surprised me with a bundt cake and cute gift as well as a good visit. The kids all played together and we ate some seriously good steaks, asparagus, and cheesy ranch potatoes. It was a much needed break and time to just hang out and spend time together as a family. Next big project, start building a house!
