Category: food (Page 16 of 35)

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: 2015 Goat Kids, Rounds 2 & 3

August 21, 2015 / David & Susan Sifford / 0 Comments

We had some late arrivals with our goat kids this year, but we are thankful for the two more kiddings the Lord graciously granted! Below is the departure of the main herd of kids, and also some of the goat goings-on around the farm, for your entertainment. 🙂

The Kids

Winnie gave birth to a little buckling! She had been having quite a bit of rumen problems last year, and we think that’s why she was delayed in giving birth, but thanks to the Lord she did so in health and with a healthy kid. In honor of her name, we called him Wilfred:

And here’s their video:

Then, it was time to ship them off with their new owner!

Here we are setting up:

And here’s a video of the process and saying goodbye:

We are grateful to God for providing a buyer who likes to come every year and collect our kids.

And then, thankfully after what we think was originally an aborted pregnancy, Lucy gave birth to twins about a month ago! They have their sire’s oolors, with the blotches, and they reminded us of ice cream — the light colored buckling like chocolate chip cookie dough, so we called him “Chip”; and for the doeling, we couldn’t think of a good ice cream name, so we went with Jane Dough, or what we call her, “Janie.”

Sleepy…

And here’s their video, with an intro about their mommy before she gave birth:

Around the Yard

Goats are interesting, fun, smart and troublesome quite often. So, we thought we’d share a few of those moments…

Um, yeah…

Here they are lounging around in the sun one day:

And then all around the camper, which they do often. There’s a nice little breezeway under the camper they can usually count on to provide some refreshment and relief from the heat:

And Hannah sometimes gets some extra lettuce or kale, and then comes around looking for more. She’s an expert at convincing you she is an innocent victim and has fooled us many times…. but she’s probably the most wily of them all 🙂

We are grateful to the Lord once again for the kids He granted us this year! We had to give several of our goats de-wormer this year as some of them got pretty anemic, but God granted they get better; and we thank Him for the continued safety and health for and milk from our goats; and we’re thankful for the adventure they bring to our lives here! 🙂

— David

Garden – Spring 2015 – Update II

August 14, 2015 / David & Susan Sifford / 2 Comments

The Lord has graciously granted our 2015 Spring garden to continue. The mulch bed gardening allows us to set hoses from the cistern and only have to move them every 10 minutes, which keeps from having to constantly monitor the watering for 2 or more hours.

Here is how everything looked a couple of weeks ago, end of July…

Okra:

Beans, butternut squash and zucchini:

Here are carrots growing out of the hugelkultur bed. If you look closely, you can see the remnants of one of the bed’s “tenants”:

More okra:

And our one pumpkin plant, and the okra again:

The pumpkin plant really took off, up the fence, which actually had a pumpkin hanging on it:

And up the tree:

And here are the tomato plants:

As for the produce, turnips planted a couple of years ago continue to show up!

And here is butternut squash down in the root cellar we’ve been granted:

And a couple of good-sized pumpkins!

Here are the few carrots we got from the hugelkultur bed, along with some okra and zucchini. The carrots were something of an experiment as I did nothing to improve the bed ahead of time, and it was just nice to see a few come out. The Lord has also granted several, but not a lot, of zucchini, and the okra keep coming in almost daily. We’ve been able to tuck quite a bit away by lacto-fermenting the vegetables in jars:

And here are some tomatoes. We have pretty much just been eating these as we go:

And here is where things are now, after about 5-6 weeks of straight upper-90 to 100-degree weather with no rains.

This is Garden 2. The okra is still going, nearly 6 foot tall; some of the green beans are still there; the butternut squash are still producing; and only 1 zucchini plant remains:

And this is Garden 1. The okra here is even taller, and the pumpkin plant is basically done. Sadly, a couple of the pumpkins didn’t make it:

And the tomatoes. I had to dust them with an insect dust because it appeared blister beetles were making their way over there, and they do damage very quickly:

Finally, because it appears that only soil that’s covered will work well without requiring hoards of water, I decided to start mulching the rest of Garden 1, over the raised bed area, hopefully in time to plant a Winter garden!

This week is about the last week we can do full watering because the cistern is getting to a point we want to make sure we have enough for ourselves and the animals; so if it doesn’t rain, watering is going to have to be reduced.

We do have rain percentages this weekend though. But God knows best, and we are very grateful for the provisions He has granted from the garden this year thus far!

— David

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: 2015 Chick Hatchings the Seventh & Eighth

July 26, 2015 / David & Susan Sifford / 0 Comments

God has graciously granted yet another two sets of chicks to be hatched out in the 2015!

Here is the seventh group in the mini-chicken tractor:

She hatched out five chicks, but one was something of a runt and took much more time to grow, and usually they don’t make it. You can see the little one in this video. It actually went along several weeks, seemingly getting stronger. However, one day, for some reason its little head started to twist and want to stay that way, and it just could not keep it upright anymore; and so, I made the personally tough decision to euthanize it, figuring it was now in a bad way and just wasn’t going to be able to sustain itself. 🙁

And here they are before that time. The other four are still healthy and doing well!

And this is group eight! I believe she hatched out at least eight, maybe nine, and there are seven still going strong; and thankfully they haven’t had the little sickness that has run through some of the other groups:

And here’s their video:

We are very grateful to the Lord for the continued health and safety of the hatchlings, and His continued provisions in this way!

— David

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: The Fifth & Sixth of 2015 Chick Hatchings

July 5, 2015 / David & Susan Sifford / 0 Comments

God has continued to grant us chicken hatchings, this time they are the fifth and sixth groups!

This mommy Sue found broody up in a goat shed, and so we brought her into the summer kitchen, put some eggs under her, and she hatched out 10 I believe! I believe one ended up not making it, and we also had the same sickness problem run through several of them like with the fourth group, but we kept giving them Angstrom ionic silver, and by God’s graces all nine are still going today!

Here is their video:

This next batch was a surprise group — one day, the mommy just showed up in the middle of the barn with some chicks in tow! Wow, thankfully a cat or otherwise didn’t get them! So, we hustled them into the summer kitchen as well, and here they are, all five still alive!

And here is their video too:

As always, we are very thankful to the Lord for granting these provisions of the new chicks, and for the continued health and safety of those to which He sovereignly chooses to grant those!

— David

Garden – Spring 2015 – Update I

June 29, 2015 / David & Susan Sifford / 2 Comments

In our first garden post of the year, we showed the weeding, planting and beginnings of 2015’s Spring garden. Well, it’s early Summer now, and here is how things are progressing, by God’s graces…

First, here are some green beans and zucchini from about a month ago:

And here is where things are as of the end of June…

This is Garden II, with the green beans on the right, and butternut squash and zucchini on the left:

This is a closer view of the butternut squash, some of which you can see:

And here are three okra plants, two on the left, and one behind on the right:

And here are some random turnips growing from seeds planted in previous years!

Over in Garden I, that zucchini planted last year, which sprouted this year, has done just fine!

And here are the tomatoes:

With some growing!

Several more okra plants:

A few carrots in the hugelkultur bed:

And this monster growing is one pumpkin plant, we believe:

With a little pumpkin!

We are grateful to the Lord for His providence in the food and the rains to keep things growing!

— David

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: New Calf “Casilita”

June 24, 2015 / David & Susan Sifford / 2 Comments

The Lord graciously granted our fifth and final calf to be born in 2015! This time, a little heifer calf, born to our cow Casi Blanca!

And here she is:

When I went to video her, all of the cattle were there…except for Casi. Strange, and worrisome. So, Robert and I headed on out to look for her. We drove down one road, and suddenly two of what looked like owls flew away from the trees above, and then we saw turkey vultures flying above, and then one over to the left….and that’s when we saw Casi. We got out of the vehicle and walked up to her, and she was quite dead, on her side, very bloated. Sigh. She didn’t appear to be stuck in the fence, nor did I see any trauma to her:

But, these are God’s decisions, and His cattle, quite frankly.

From A.W. Pink, “Our Attitude Toward God’s Sovereignty”:

A true recognition of God’s Sovereignty will exclude all murmuring. This is self-evident, yet the thought deserves to be dwelt upon.

It is natural to murmur against afflictions and losses. It is natural to complain when we are deprived of those things upon which we had set our hearts.

We are apt to regard our possessions as ours unconditionally. We feel that when we have prosecuted our plans with prudence and diligence that we are entitled to success; that when by dint of hard work we have accumulated a ‘competence,’ we deserve to keep and enjoy it; that when we are surrounded by a happy family, no power may lawfully enter the charmed circle and strike down a loved one; and if in any of these cases disappointment, bankruptcy, death, actually comes, the perverted instinct of the human heart is to cry out against God.

But in the one who, by grace, has recognized God’s sovereignty, such murmuring is silenced, and instead, there is a bowing to the Divine will, and an acknowledgment that He has not afflicted us as sorely as we deserve.”

We are thankful for the provisions He has granted from Casi; and we decided to call her calf Casilita, in memory of her mother.

The little one appears to continue to be doing well, and it’s been told to us that her granddam Amistosa is letting her suckle off of her. That’s a gracious gift from God if so!

Here is Casilita’s video, and just to warn you, I did include the video of when we found Casi:

We are once again very grateful to the Lord for granting this new little provision of cattle!

— David

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: 2015 Third & Fourth Chick Hatchings

June 14, 2015 / David & Susan Sifford / 0 Comments

The Lord has graciously kept a-coming the little chicks to be hatched out! In this post, I’m including both groups 3 and 4.

Here is group 3, in the barn stall. I don’t remember well, but I think she hatched out six, and they’re all still going today!

Another of the Third Batch of Chicks Hatched in 2015

And here’s their video:

Group 4 ended up, and still is, quite interesting. We had this mama in our summer kitchen pantry, with 12 eggs under her, and I think for the first time, we got 100% hatched out! Neat! Thanks to God!

One day though a few weeks into it, I noticed some of the chicks started getting that sick chicken look, where their head starts to rest back on their neck, and they start standing around not doing “chicken things,” and with their wings partially pointed down. With that, we usually start an ionic 600 ppm silver regimen of about 1/4 CC 3-4 times a day; and if they’re not eating, I mix in 1 1/4 CC egg yoke and 1 1/2 CC goat milk. Well, before I could really get things going, two died within a day, and probably half or more of the ones left were showing signs of sickness. Uh oh. We’ve never had a disease sweep through a hatching of chicks before like this, that I can recall.

I figured something in their environment was causing the issue, so we moved group 2 out of the barn into our pen area with group 1 that we had already moved, and moved this group 4 into the barn, and started the silver (and yoke/milk regimen where needed) on all of the sickies, plus silver even for the healthy ones morning and night.

Thankfully, by God’s graces, after over a week now, it appears the “bleeding” has stopped. We’ve lost no more, and most appear to have turned the corner. The “worst” chicken baton has been passed around a few times to different chicks, and there is one holding it now, but thankfully it’s only one, and Lord willing, this one will pull out of it too. As of today, I’m trying to back off the regimen to giving silver for all of them in the evening, and morning and afternoon for only the sick looking ones. Thankfully too, the mommy chicken doesn’t seem to be affected with sickness.

I plan to clean out the pantry of the summer kitchen really well and probably spray down the concrete with white vinegar or something before putting any more chickens in their for brooding.

Never a dull moment around here! But the Lord was merciful in allowing us to keep the ten currently alive! And here they are about a month ago when all were still going:

Another of the Fourth Batch of Chicks Hatched in 2015

And their video too:

As always, we are grateful to God for His continued provisions, and Him granting the healing He has on most of the ailing chicks!

— David

Category: food (Page 16 of 35)

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: 2015 Goat Kids, Rounds 2 & 3

Garden – Spring 2015 – Update II

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: 2015 Chick Hatchings the Seventh & Eighth

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: The Fifth & Sixth of 2015 Chick Hatchings

Garden – Spring 2015 – Update I

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: New Calf “Casilita”

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: 2015 Third & Fourth Chick Hatchings

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