Our journal of what we pray is our sojourn of life along the narrow way, even the old paths, submitting to the Bible as a light unto both.
The Lord graciously granted again two more hatchings of chicks this 2016!
I believe this is #4:
And then this would be #5:
And here is both groups’ video:
As always, we are very grateful to God for these provisions, and their continued health and safety!
— David
Apparently the memo went out as several of our hens started getting broody this 2016! Sadly, the first mama stopped after 19 days (out of 21) and nothing hatched out. But the next two hens went to completion, and God graciously granted they each hatch out a set of quite a few chicks!
Here’s group 1. Sadly, yesterday I decided best to give a coup de grâce to one little one barely alive, but all of the rest are doing well it appears!
And group 2, all present and accounted for!
Then, one evening, one hen showed up walking around the open area in front of our barn with four chicks in tow! Surprise! So, we gathered them up and put them in the mini chicken tractor:
And here’s a video of all three groups:
We are always very grateful to God for the perpetuation of the flock, and the egg and meat provisions He grants from them! Here are some from the other day ready to be made into some chicken tortilla soup:
Again, we thank the Lord!
— David
That time of year rolled around to where any pecans that were growing were starting to break forth from the green shells in which they grow on the trees. One of our trees has some, but something appeared to get to them as the pecans were eaten out. But the other tree that had pecans was okay, and so it was time to gather them in!
Here are some of them on the tree:
And then the 2015 haul!
We are always very grateful to the Lord for the least grain of food He provides, as each one is a miracle of providence from Him!
— David
One afternoon, I was looking east out toward our chicken pen area and saw a hen with some little birds around her. My first thought was that some small wild birds were just hanging around her, but then thought, “Wait a minute….I wonder….” And sure enough, it was a mama hen with three little chicks in tow!
It always amazes me how a hen makes it out in the woods for three weeks sitting on eggs with hazardous critters running around to end up hatching some out. God knows though. 🙂
And so, we rounded them up and put them in the piano room, and they’re all three still healthy today!
Here they are:
And their video:
We are grateful to the Lord for granting this bonus hatching, His watchful eye on them the three weeks in the wild, and His continued granting of their health and safety!
— David
The Lord has continued to grant some more chick hatchings this year, our tenth and eleventh! Both have an interesting story…
For these ones, the mommy sat for two rounds (6 weeks) before some chicks hatched out. We had her in the mini-chicken tractor, but I wondered if it was maybe too hot in there during the summer, so we moved her into the summer kitchen, and thankfully (I was hoping for at least just one so she wouldn’t try to sit another round) she did hatch out some — five in total! And thankfully all five are still going today!
And here is their video:
For this eleventh group, she hatched out five in the piano room originally, but then one day there were only three left, no bodies. Hm…with this one I thought maybe there was a snake about as we’ve had problems with them in the barn this year with sitting mamas. So, I moved these ones into the mini-tractor, and when I went back into the piano room, sure enough, I found a snake in the corner. Arg.
But, God’s will was we have the three, and all three are also doing well today!
And this is their video:
As always, we are very grateful to God for His continued gracious granting of these farm and food provisions!
— David
Another hen went broody this year, and so we put her in one of the little fence pens we have in the barn stall. At one point it looked like she had fewer eggs under her than I originally thought I had put under her, and then one day, the hay on the ground around her was scattered about, and so were some eggs. We had had a couple of young chickens die in a barn stall chicken pen before, where their heads were slicked back, and figured that a snake had tried to swallow them but found them too big. Well, I figured our barn snake was the culprit here, so I moved her into the summer kitchen with her eggs, and she hatched out three!
And here they all are, a bit grown up as you can see, still doing well, with thanks to God!
And their video:
As always, we are very thankful to the Lord for granting these new provisions of chickens!
— David
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
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