Piglets

So Annabelle's four little babies that I worked my booty off to make sure they made it are growing like crazy. We have three little boys that will be heading into the freezer when they get big enough but the last one.... She is a cute furry little bundle of fire she has been named baby Annabelle after her momma. We are keeping her. They are spoiled rotten. All the work that was put into keeping them alive was worth every last sleepless night up worrying, promising my husband and children I would keep them alive. I did it and I'm proud of all the hard work that has sense gone into them. The boys and lady bug work hard taking care of the animals on the homestead. On another note we will have some new faces on the homestead in a few weeks so keep your eyes peeled for a new note.

Blessings from Dusty Rose Homestead.

The life of a pig

Yesterday was a day. You know those ones that wish you could have never had happened day?
Annabelle, our big and loved pig gave up on us yesterday three days after she had her babies. Our amazing vet was on his way out to see what else he could do for her that we already hadnt done while on the phone with me she died. She did leave us some little miracles that I am doing everything I can to save. Four little piglets, two girls and two boys. Annabelle gave her all to make sure they got the best chance at living and I will not let that go in vain. I will fight for them to survive.

She was a fantastic mother. She loved her babies so much. She had built them their own "playpen" so she wouldn't squish them. It was truly something that tugs at the heart strings to see this enormous pig lovingly taking care of babies the size of cats.

She will be much missed and was very much loved.

Disappointment and pride

Today one of the does here at the homestead kidded to early. She wasn't due until Friday, I had to take a trip into town to take the van into the shop sense someone backed into me in the parking lot of the local Coastal while I was picking up some goslings that my sister in law had gotten me.

When I had gotten back her beautiful baby boy and girl were dead. This was my first time expecting baby goats. I was so excited about it.

Luckily for me I have another doe that is close to her due date. So I will still get to experience that feeling.

We did get our doe up on the stand and started milking her. My honey made me a milker out of a canning jar. Just Google canning jar goat milker and you will get tons of directions if your interested in trying it yourself, or just contact me on Facebook and order one from us.

Just Natural is back....

Just Natural is officially back up and running. Sense I have decided that my time is better spent at home then working I have decided to start just natural back up. I make candles and other goodies for your mind and body to unwind. I have lots of new ideas to try out and as always need some test subjects. If your interested Facebook me on the Dusty Rose Homestead page.

Guinea hens

Does anyone know how bossy these bird's are?
I mean they LOVE picking on my chickens.
Chasing them around pecking at them. Even my rooster is a little leary around them.

The ducks just stay our of their way. My geese? Haha! the guineas stay away from them.

It's official

It's official we are registered with ADGA as Dusty Rose Homestead. It's a happy day here in the homestead. Celebratory drinks and all that jazz. There has been a lot of ups and even more downs, things are starting to look up and I couldn't be happier. We went to the neighborhood feed store and picked up four ducklings today. They are so adorable and I'm excited to be replenishing the stock that we have lost. It will take a little while for these guys to grow and it was a mix collection so I have no idea what we have, but that's all the fun of it. The little chicks are growing so fast. We have 13 of them in the brooder and most of them have their feathers forming already. It's so hard naming them all. I'll be starting seeds this weekend I'm a little behind the ball on that one. I'm really looking forward to that. We also will be finishing up the rabbits outside cage and the breeding pen for the pigs. I have someone who told me that I could get a bottle baby calf pretty soon, so if I end up with one of those it will stay in the breeding pen until we can get the cattle area finished. So much going on! Now that it's stopped raining we have been going non-stop to get as much done as possible before the babies start hitting the ground around here. Good thing the chicken coop is done!

Sometimes...

When my family decided to live better, I never thought that we would go through so much joy and pain in just the short amount of time we have been doing this.

When we first started down this path I had found some ducks that I just HAD to have. We then were given some roosters and that started us down the path. We ended up with a female pig then got some chickens. We got ANOTHER female pig and then a couple of geese. We started a pen for quail.

Then tragedy struck our dog got out and killed a couple of ducks. It was ok though I still had another set. I was starting to get so excited our chickens were getting ready to start laying again and the female duck would be big enough to start laying.

Once again we couldn't catch a break some dogs came in and took out all of my birds except one goose. Poor Snow lost all of her friends and her mate. I was heart broken.

Snow somehow survived the massacre and is doing well now. We have had a lot of amazing people helping us to resupply our birds and my amazing husband keeps bringing me home baby chickens to try and make my heart heal.

We have started on an outdoor rabbit pen sense we keep getting more and more rabbits. We ended up with one we did not even know was pregnant and she ended up having a very hard labour and delivery. Neither her or her babies made it. My son was so heart broken. Once again we couldn't catch a break. A family friend brought him over a new rabbit and he has fallen in love all over again.

We have started on a goat pen. We have some Nigerian dwarf goats on order and are just about ready. I have one that is pregnant already and I am so excited about this. The only bad thing to go with this good is the buck is having to be put down because he has very bad arthritis.

Every time we get a pen done we find another that needs to be built to make our lives easier. I haven't even started on my seeds yet....

Baby chickens!!!

We have baby chicks.
They are absolutely adorable. I'm so happy and excited. We ended up loosing a bunch of our birds and had to refab our chicken coop. Its locked down like Fort Knox right now. I think it looks fantastic and my honey did such a great job with the building or it. He has also been bringing home the baby chicks every other day just to make me feel better about loosing so many of my birds. I love him so much for it.

Order fulfilled

Well its not all of them but we have got a nice colllection of seeds coming in. They of course are in their scientific names so a little googling and TA-DA common names are found.
Of course they are all seeds. So the Apple tree seeds will take awhile to grow, but the time and effort that goes into them will make it worth it when my families future generations can pick an apple from a tree that their great great great grandmother planted.

Geese

We added some geese to our growing homestead.
A male named Dusty and a female name Snowball. They are about a year old and the lady we got them from said we should be getting some eggs this year. I'm looking forward to having some little goselings waddle around.