Happy One Year Anniversary- Alpaca

Editor's Note: This post was scheduled to be posted on 7/12, however, someone hacked my blog and stopped it.  So far, I cannot find anything else wrong with it.  Isn't that weird?  There is a weird conspiracy against our Alpaca's first anniversary???

July 12, 2012: Today marks the official one year anniversary of owning livestock and specifically our alpaca, Buzz and Phantom.  I will never forget a year ago when Amy flipped out after finding Phantom for sale on Craigslist last June.  She brought the idea up that we should get him and I went along with it (unusual if you know me).

The man we bought them from refused to just sell us one because these are herd animals and require companionship.  Excited for another year and hopefully we can add some females soon so these bachelors get a little culture in their lives!

Where to put the Chickens?

As the summer dwindles and I gear back up for another school year, we can't help but look at our beginning of summer goal sheet and see how we did.  Goats, check.  New car, check.  Roof the garage, happening on Thursday.  Build a coop for the chickens...ugh.  Looks like we have some work to do these last couple of weeks.    

When we bought the property, we knew we had four buildings.  The barn, house and garage speak for themselves but the little cob house which sits behind the house was never put to use.  It has no electricity, no shelves, only one window and two doors.  What better way to utilize this building than use it as a chicken coop?  

So, when Amy and I work up the courage and energy we are going to attach to this building some fencing that will allow our 27 chickens outside space as well as a comfortable roost and nests on the inside.  I will call it Camp Kluck-Kluck.  I am willing to listen to some suggestions on the name. :) 

The Goats and the Jeep

June 7, 2012: We picked up our two new Nubian goats: Peppermint Twist and Gypsy Rose.  These two goats are each one year old, and have each had twins.  We purchased them from a very wonderful breeder in Hickman, NE.  If you look on the map at Lancaster County, you will quickly realize it is a huge county.  Although Hickman is in the same county, it took 45 minutes to get there!

They are both still full of milk and must be milked twice a day.  We have not actually consumed cow's milk since our last gallon ran out shortly after bringing them home.  It has been a wild transition, but goat milk tastes just like cow's milk.  We also have made butter, cheese, and ice cream with the milk.  It is pretty wild to think about how much you use those everyday things and we are creating it right here.  When I am not a summer bum I would frequently have to stop on the way to get either 1% milk for Amy and I or 2% for Ayla.  Now that inconvenience was eliminated.

But how in the heck does this relate to the Jeep?

June 7, 2005: As a graduation from college present my Dad aided me in the purchase of a car.  In 2005 gas was not nearly as expensive as it is now, and I was enamored with owning a Jeep Liberty after having driven in one that year.  So, we purchased a used 2002 Jeep Liberty with 32,000 miles on it.  I owned it, loved it, hated it when gas got out of hand (see: 2008-present).

So, seven years later, the goats got a ride home in the Jeep.  Go back in time and tell that 21 year old fool he would own land, alpacas, donkeys, chickens, have two kids and so on, he would laugh...or cry.  And then, tell him that seven years after getting that shiny "new" car there would be goats in it, he wouldn't have known what to say!

Thus, all that is left to do is share the love affair between the goats and the Jeep.  As a postlude to the story, the Jeep was traded in on June 26, 2012 for a 2009 Ford Expedition (which is pretty HUGE).  I will now drive my wife's 2008 Ford Escape.  We are pretty happy, but it was pretty bittersweet to see her go.

Year 2: "The Garden"

In a post on June 17, 2011 I wrote the following:

"Of course, one of the main reasons we purchased this land was not to garden on a small scale, but was to eventually grow lots of organic produce. Our future plans include at least an acre of the good, organic produce, but this being Year One we are being responsible and staying small. Here are some pictures of our current endeavors."

Last year we built a silly little green fence over a really small area and pretended we were happy with the small gardening space.  One of the more difficult things about moving out here in May was that the reality of developing a garden was super unlikely.  Also, we had 2.9 acres of corn in our backyard--there wasn't any garden area, which is why the small polygon of garden was all we could manage.  As you read above, our goal was to have a large, one acre garden by now.  Well, I suppose we are close:

This isn't even the whole garden, but I'll explain...

 We have converted around .75 to "garden", but considering all the time we spend tending it, we should really call it a field :).  Here is what is going on:

Corn Field, we planted over 1000 seeds of white sweet corn.  So far, we are having a decent amount of seedlings emerge.

Rows and rows of green beans!

4 of the 6 raised beds filled with carrots, beets, potatoes, lettuce, kale, swiss chard, and spinach!

The Pumpkin Patch.  There are 61 mounds of pumpkins.  It took a long time.  And we don't really need that many pumpkins.

Pumpkin seedling!

 The garden is growing, I didn't even get to show you the 20 mounds of cantaloupe, 30+ mounds of squash (we call it the baby food garden for Bram), the raspberries or the second corn plot.  If all goes according to plan, we could be pretty happy in September!