A Great Week

Last Saturday we made a little jaunt up the road to North Carolina to retrieve these two Cotswold ewes as well as a Cotswold X Wensleydale yearling ram. One of the ewes, June Bug, is bred and due at the end of the month.  Miriam, the other ewe, is a yearling. Both were shorn this past November but are already growing out the most gorgeous fleece.

As the hours of daylight are growing longer, the chickens are coming out of their molting season and the egg laying has really picked up. Our 300+ birds are totally free range. Fortunately, they are good about coming to the laying boxes we have in buildings around the farm. And I love my numerous meanderings that I make around the farm each day to gather those eggs.  Our six Livestock Guardian Dogs also appreciate the fact that some chickens just randomly lay their eggs in the pastures.  Nothing like a tasty little snack for a hard working dog.

We have the most amazing arrangement with our local Hyatt. They buy our eggs and also save all of their kitchen prep scraps for us. They actually refrigerate the scraps and my husband picks them up to feed out to the creatures here. Even in the dead of winter everyone is sharing lots of fresh goodies.  Here is a peek at yesterday's goodies. I also know that our Livestock Guardian Dogs appreciate the eggs that aren't laid in a safe spot.

I stood at the fence for a bit feeding those apple scraps to the donkeys. I always laugh when there are melon rinds as the cows eat them in big mouthfuls but the chickens carefully peck away at them until there is nothing but a very thin skin of rind left. If that rind lays in the sun for a few days it turns very leatherlike. I know there should be something "crafty" that could be done with it but I don't imagine tackling that any time soon.

The oxen go crazy over the cabbage leaves. But not everyone is keen on the celery. Just a few weeks ago I came across this unwanted base of celery regrowing in the donkey yard. That is one persistent kitchen scrap!