Category Archives: Frazer Family Mini-Farm

A New Arrival

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Our cow, Hershey, was due to calve yesterday, and I had an inkling that it would be fairly soon, because she gone off her hay the previous evening. But when yesterday morning, she began to eat again, I figured I would just keep checking throughout the day. I went out after lunch with D&E’s girls to check for a calf, but to our disappointment there was none to be seen. Immediately after supper, I went to check on Hershey again, and lo and behold: there was a little calf standing there trying to get a snack!

Hello Mommy!

I was too busy to weigh the little guy last night, but I picked him up in my arms to get an estimate. I guessed him to be about 50 lbs or so. But when I weighed him this morning, much to my surprise, he was 67 lbs!

Is this where the milk is kept?

Mr. Big is very smart and is drinking very well. I am trying to train him to drink both from his mother and from a bottle.

Yum, yum!
I’m tired!

A Blitz Update

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The past few months have been incredibly busy ones. But despite that, our family still managed to make a family trip to a train museum in June.

a still functional tramway
lots of railroad ties

At home, there is always plenty to do. One project was to take down the dead weeping willow in our front yard.

After that, there was a lot of brush to burn.

Our mini-farm has also kept us busy: just normal chores…

giving away the orphaned kittens…

selling our three ewe lambs…

and selling Bounty which took teaching her to load into a very small trailer!

And the garden is producing and giving us plenty of work!

Into the freezer for eating later on!
lots of pickle-making and applesauce canning

Evelyn found a more efficient method of doing applesauce than what we have done in the past.

toss the apples into the pot just cut in half
Then send it through a sieve to remove the cores.
It made delicious applesauce with very little waste!

The berries were abundant this year, too.

And a few honeybees have been frequenting our lawn off and on throughout the summer.

Honeybees… that reminds me… a beekeeper has been very prominent in the recent busyness!

Wedding decorations!

Michael and I will be married this Saturday! Praise the Lord for His goodness!

Kittens

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While stacking hay at work one day, Stephen came across four “orphaned” kittens. The mother was probably still alive somewhere, but the hay wagon he was unloading came from a different farm. So it seemed the best option to bring them home and feed them. Sarah and Evelyn (and sometimes others if they are available) have been doing this very faithfully many times a day.

So far they all seem to be doing fine and are growing quickly. And there are more kittens coming! Frosting is pregnant and expecting for sometime this week.

How many do you think she’ll have?

I thought pictures were supposed to be taken on my terms.

Honeycomb’s lambs

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Honeycomb lambed today – a very quick delivery! Evelyn had just checked on her at 2 p.m. and when I went out at 4 p.m., there were two little lambs standing under her drinking! Apparently they didn’t need any help!

Then Apple and her lambs got up from their afternoon snooze.

For a moment it looked as though Apple had quadruplets.

But they sorted themselves out in not too long.

Honeycomb is a little too friendly for photographing.

Cleaning her daughter up… The little ram lamb has ears like his Daddy! Congratulations, Marie-Pier, on your correct guess!

And one of Honeycrisp, just because she was looking so cute!

Surprise, surprise!

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Apple surprised us yesterday evening by lambing! We thought she was due in three weeks, but I guess we were wrong.

We needed to help the first lamb since it was coming out nose first instead of feet first, but the second arrived pretty smoothly and we just gave it a little helpful pull.

Honeycrisp is a pound smaller than Gala, but both sisters seem to be doing fine so far.Black Currant looks huge now! Will they make good playmates?

And the cat actually didn’t get into the pictures this time… because the sheep usually chase her out of their stall!

A Second Lamb Guess!

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Our purebred Finnsheep, Honeycomb, is due to lamb in about a week or so! We wanted to get some pictures of her, so Evelyn and I headed out to the barn.

Blackberry and Currant were easy to lead out.

Aren’t I cute?

The warm, sunny day made for a frisky lamb!

And of course, the cat had to come inspect.

Timid little Apple didn’t want to leave the barn even to get some corn.

But our subject for today was Honeycomb. With a little coaxing, she followed Evelyn out of the barn and was rewarded with some corn.

After a while, Honeycomb got curious and ventured farther.

She certainly looks pregnant! How many lambs do you think she’ll have? And will they be ewe lambs or ram lambs? (Just a hint, Finnsheep normally have more than one lamb at a time, though not always.)

Hey, what about me!?

Lamb Update

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Black Currant is growing quickly! Today we had to put in her ear tags (Quebec law for all livestock), but we thought we’d take some pictures of her first. Blackberry and Currant are so friendly they had no hesitation about following us out of the barn.

And of course the cat was around too… Snow is a new taste for Currant and the freezing rain yesterday made the driveway a field of broken ice. How does the cat always manage to get in the picture!

Since Currant is 4 weeks old today, we also wanted to weigh her. So we brought her and Blackberry up to the house.

This is a nice-looking house… Anybody home? And then it was time to return to the barn.

The cat decided to join in the race! And the winner is……but that wasn’t fair – Blackberry slid on the ice.

‘Till next time!

Lamb guess answer!

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As it turns out, no one guessed right! Blackberry just lambed this morning with one black ewe lamb. And is she ever cute!

After observing for 1/2 an hour with nothing more progressing than seeing two little hooves, we stepped in to help. But all the help Blackberry needed was having the lamb’s legs straightened out and she managed the rest just fine. Mother and daughter seem to have bonded well.Now what should we call her?