Monday, August 19, 2013

First Day of Kindergarten

The wee one is not so wee anymore...

Today was her first day of school career, 
one day down, 13yrs to go.



We have opted to place her in the local charter school, with smaller classes and philosophy to allow children to learn at the level they are capable of, instead of holding them back and forcing the accelerated kids to "wait" for the others to catch up.

School uniforms, which having been raised in a system that required them for 12yrs, I am a huge believer in uniforms for school children and do not buy into the BS about uniforms stifling creativity blah blah blah.

The next few weeks are going to be an adjustment I am sure, with trying to juggle bedtime and evening chores etc...But we will work it out...because we don't have much choice now do we lol.

Blessings Kelsie

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Out with the big goats, In with the Sheep.

Once again it has been a big gap between updates...So I will try and do a quick catch you up about here, before I have to rush out the door again.

The 2 big boy goats did not stay long, they were super sweet and friendly, but alas they brought with them a really bad habit of jumping over fenced or should I say, breaking fences...Our 4 foot fences are a great barrier for our little Nigerian Dwarf goats but not a match for the big Nubian whethers.
Since neither had a function on the farm other than to help eat down the grass, spending money to electrify the fence to contain them was just not an option...So I sold them to a hobby farm that has other large goats for them to live with.

Ewe's grazing in the top north pasture.

Finally we got our sheep...14 in total...well actually it was 15 but we lost a little ewe lamb in the first week since we did not realise she was sick (or even on property) for the first few days...By the time we did realize she was just to far gone for our inexperience shepherding skillz to help her...But we did learn alot from her in the short time she was with us and have already put it to use with the rest of the flock.


These are the ram lambs when they first arrived...They had not finished shedding their winter coats yet.

We have a 4 ram lambs...3 are being fattened for the butcher...They are  Kadahdin sheep/St Aug cross.


This is Rocky, he will be staying a little longer as our Stud ram...I can't believe how much he has grown in the 5 weeks he has been on property....He gets so vocal when he sees the ewes coming in or going out from the pasture...Think he is going to be a good worker *wink*

Other news and part of the reason I have to rush thru this post...We finally found a Dr that was willing to listen to us about Sara's behavior and reactions to things..This new Dr put us on the road to have Sara tested for ADHD and Sensory Processing Disorder...We are currently under going Occupational Therapy and Evaluation twice a week...but it does require driving to another town for these sessions...As you can imagine this eats up alot of "spare time"...But needless to say, finally getting some answers and confirmation to our fears that our child is in fact on the Autism Spectrum has been pretty intense and we are doing what we can to learn and help and deal with all of this.

The Photography also continues to keep me busy and buried under work...What a blessing to have so many wonderful clients that trust me to capture their precious moments for them...And to be able to continue to work from home and help support the family financially doing something I love.

Back to things farm related..>This morning me and hubby built a Squeeze pen/runway for the ewes, so tonight after it cools down we can catch them and drench them...We did the rams last week and the visual improvement in them is amazing...Our hope is to get them to good health quickly and then continue to maintain them as chemical free as possible...Pasture rotation has already begun also.

But more about all that later...I really have to share pictures of our makeshift wooden fenced run with yall...they are ummm, creative to say the least lol.

Blessings Kelsie