The other day we decided that Abby, Bunnyy’s sister was also pregnant. We are not sure how far along she is because of the move from FL to AZ, so we have put her at kidding anytime between Feb 9th and March 26th. We have been taking photos of her to compare but not much has changed. She is breathing hard today and shuttering every once in a while so hopefully she will kid soon.
An update on Frank. He is doing great! He is now 12 days old. He is taking 8 oz of milk 4 times a day.
On Feb 21st I started giving Frank 7oz of whole cow milk with a teaspoon of powdered colostrum just to make it a bit thicker for him. He has been doing really good and now has the nick name Sir Pees A lot since when we feed him we have to put him right down on his pad because he will start peeing within a minute of finishing his bottle.
We have been taking him outside, letting him get sun and fresh air but also so he can run and climb on the rocks outside to strengthen his legs. We let his mom Bunnyy sniff him but she just try’s to butt him. It is sad she will not have anything to do with him.
I have been reading a lot on the forum at The Goat Spot but so far have not been able to find when people see their baby goats eating grain and hay. I am wondering at what age should I show it to him. So today I put a hand full of grain and hay in his home. He sniffed at it and messed a bit with his mouth but that was it. I guess we will see how it goes. As of today he is taking 7oz at 8am, noon, 4pm, and 9pm. He sleeps all night long.
On Feb 13th I got up and went to open my blinds for the sliding glass doors. When I looked out at the goats there was this baby laying on the ground. No other goats around it. I yelled at my husband that we had a baby. We did not even know Bunnyy was pregnant. We got him cleaned up and off to the vet since he would not stand up or really move.
At the vet they warmed him up with a heating blanket and bags filled with water. His temp was 90 when it should have been 101. They said we would have to tube feed him until he could take a bottle and if he made it the next 3 days he would be okay.
The other day we received 5 goats from a wonderful man name Cory. He gave us his pigmy goats and their house that he built my hand. They have now had their hooves cleaned and cut and we have given them their shots and dewormer. Now it is time to put them with the out other goats and see how that works out. Here are a few photos. Enjoy!
So happy! Do the happy dance with me lol. So today I got in the mail the first few seed and plant catalogs. It is still cold here but I love getting these books. I love sitting down and starting to plan what I will order. I have already started some lettuce and herb seeds on my kitchen counter but I do not think they are getting enough light. My hubby is going to hang up my growing lights in the next few days and we will put them under it and see if that helps their little stick legs get thicker lol. Since the ground is so hard here we have decided to do more container gardening and see how it works out. We have been getting pots ready and marking out in the yard where we will put everything. Will post when we start planting.
There is a great article on growing tomatoes in pots. I wanted to share with my visitors so going to post it here but also go to the website, click here, to see other wonderful post on Self Sufficiency.
If you don’t have a large back yard or you live in a flat, you know every inch matters. You’re in love with gardening and to becoming self-sufficient but you just don’t have the space to do it well.
In this case, every bit of space has to be used to the max. I’m going to teach you how you can grow fantastic tomatoes in containers and pots.
Why?
Because these plants grow very well in containers. And since tomatoes are a very common veggie (and full of vitamins too!), they’re your number one choice for your container garden.
What containers to choose?
Tomatoes aren’t pretentious when it comes to container size. Depending on how many you want to grow in one, you just need to match the size of the plant to that of the container.
As far as the type of container to use… use your imagination! Flower pots, wooden boxes, plastic bags, even buckets. If the tomato variety you chose to grow is small, you can even use hanging pots.
If you’re going for larger varieties, keep in mind their roots can go pretty deep. In this case, you need an adequate container. Space is vital when it comes to growing tomatoes or any kind of vegetable.
The number one secret to growing delicious tomatoes is…
Water!
Tomatoes love water and you should never let them dry out. Make sure you water them at least once a week for optimal crops. There is a point where you can go overboard and water them too much, but that’s not the end of the world. Tomatoes will still taste great, just a little… watery.
Speaking of water, make sure your pots have drainage holes. In the case of tomatoes, you may not need that many holes but they should be there in case of excess watering.
Fertilizers
Tomatoes love them and you’ll definitely get better crops. My number one recommendation is to use compost tea. I’ll talk about how to make compost tea in the near future so stay tuned.
On Nov 25th we decided that we wanted to go hiking. We use to love going hiking and geocaching in Florida and wanted to start that again here.
If you were to stand in our yard and turn around completely, you would see mountains every where you look. As we driving to and from town we see hiking trails and talk about going to them one day. About a week ago, we did stop at one called the Cerbat Foothills on the way to Kingman. We did not go “hiking” but mainly just parked and walked over to a door in the mountain.
This time we took a look at a site called Hike Arizona and after looking over the site and signing up. We came to a place called Badger Trail. The review on it was nice and it was close to home, only about 10-15 minutes away. So after getting the kids ready and getting water and a snack we loaded up into the truck and headed that way. From our house we can see this mountain and the closer you get to it you can even see a part of the walking trail. We had decided that because it has been a while since we went hiking that we would not do the whole thing. It can be up to 5 miles. We only wanted to spend a couple of hours hiking up and then back down. We signed the guest book at 3:07 and started walking.
We read that on this hike you would see lots of quartz. We would have been happy to see a few, but what we saw was wow. At one point you go pass the 0.5 mile marker and come up to this huge cut in the rock on your left side. If you look between this cut you see all these quartz’s. It was almost like a waterfall of them.
They were everywhere. While you are walking you also see where people have placed pieces of quartz on top of and inside cracks of other rocks.
It is beautiful.
The view is also great. You can look to your right and see the valley we live in or look to the left and see the road leading into Kingman.We kept on going stopping every once in a while to take photos, take in the view, and look at the different rocks and plant life. On this trip we saw a neat plant, took a photo of it, and later at home found out it is called a Desert Trumpet. 
It is said that the Indians would cut it open and use it to make a make shift pipe.
After we traveled a little over 1 mile we came to the top of one mountain where someone had made a bench. So we sat, rested, took more photos, had our water and snack bar and decided to head back down.
All in all this was a wonderful hike and we will be back to go the rest of the way.
On this trip it was me, my hubby, and our 2 girls (14 and 8).
If you live around Kingman I would suggest this hike to you. You can see our review and more photos at Hike Arizona under our name dlhatt214.
Enjoy!
We are starting to settled down around the house. So last week I looked a program from Mother Earth News called The Vegetable Garden Planner. MEN gives you a free 30 day trial of the program and then after that it is $25 a year. I had been reviewing different programs and this is the first one that I have come across that I like the design and set up and the price is not to bad either. I am not set on it just yet, but will continue to mess with it until my 30 days is up and then I will decide. What I like about the price is that it is $25 a year, where as other sites charge you by the month and the only one that was the lowest price that I came across was $5 a month.
So I watched the videos and read some blogs and started designing our garden. I set up 3 pages: One page has the back yard closest to the house, the other has the front garden, and the third has the layout of all of our land except the very very back. For right now that land is just there sitting waiting well waiting until we decided what we want to do with it lol. As you can not see my garden without a membership to MEN I have taken 3 screen shots to show you what we have set up so far. As we change things and add things (as in when we start planting) I will post new photos on here. If you would like to keep up to date on the changes in our garden you can join the MEN website and look for our garden under Golden in the Valley.
It has been a while since I got a chance to write on here. The main reason has been because I moved my blog over here from blogger. It took me a while to make the decision and then when I did I had a few problems getting things set up. With the wonderful help of Anna, we are now on here live.
The other reasons are because we got out here to Arizona and started getting the kids back use to being with us, spending time with them, getting my main job back on track, and fixing the house.
We have been out here since Oct 24th and am just down starting to get into a routine.
We have started tearing the kitchen apart to put in a new floor, cabinets, and counter top.
We have been picking out colors, and styles. Deciding how we are going to tackle the house. We love this house, but we want to make it our own. We have decided to start with the kitchen, then the oldest bedroom, then the youngest bedroom, then the living room and dining room, our bathroom, the girls bathroom, and then our bedroom.
As for outside, I have already been using a program from Mother Earth News to plan for the garden out front and in the back. We have over 2 acres of land right now, with the hopes of buying the land behind and the land to the left of us. We drew out the layout of the house and land, with the goats pens set up and the fence that is already around part of our property. We have a semi that we bought to move from Fl to here so we had that moved in the spot that we think we will probably keep it in, until we decide if we want to sell it. We know we would like to put the fruit trees on the right side of the house and we have a garden already laid out with rocks in the front of the house, then we want to have 4-6 raised beds on the left side of the house and then in the back yard closest to the house we will have 2 raised beds, a grill, fire pit, and clay oven.
So do you think we have our work cut out for us? I do but we will get it done and have fun doing it.