2011 in Review

Happy New Year!
I can't believe it is 2012 and that we celebrated our 1 year anniversary on the farm last month! Time really does fly by when you are having fun. We experienced many highs and lows throughout the year:

• We got our first group of chickens right after Christmas of 2010, and with The General and his small flock of 5 hens our dream of hobby farming began! 
• It wasn't long after 2011 began that we started exploring goat options, and after researching the different breeds, we decided to start with Nigerian Dwarf Goats.  We found 2 wethers at a farm over in Minnesota and it didn't take us long to fall in love with Black Jack and Sundance and their funny personalities. 
• With Spring came chicks! There was a couple months that our dining room was full of the sound of peeping fluff balls and we loved holding the chicks and watching them grow.
• Right as summer break started we added 2 baby Fainting Goats to the mix. We enjoyed bottle feeding them and lost our hearts to their sweet dispositions.
• That same week at a nearby farm "Sassy" gave birth to her first foal. We were thrilled as Tornado would be coming to live at the farm as soon as he was old enough to be weaned. 
• During the summer, the puppy we had rescued, Scurv, decided he like the taste of blood. He killed our 2 baby goats and several chickens before we found him another home. We were devastated and lost some of our most favorite pets. It was our first experience of loss on the farm and it was a hard lesson for the whole family.
• With July the barn cats had litters and we ended up with 17 kittens on the farm!! 
• In August we found out we were expecting our 5th child in March of 2012! It was unexpected news, but soooooo exciting for us! 
• As fall came we were thrilled that all of our spring chicks started laying eggs! We get an eclectic assortment every day- different sizes and colors! It is like an Easter Egg hunt collecting them- white, light brown, dark brown, speckled, green, olive, blue... so many varieties!! 

• We had a pretty good garden harvest for our first attempt! LOTS of zuccini & summer squash and it was delicious! Unfortunately our corn never ripened enough to eat, but we will try again next year.
• We fell in love with one of the barn kittens and Muggles became a house cat!
• During the fall we lost 2 guineas and 2 of our barn cats Fluffy & Poe to predators (we think coyotes) all in the same week. It was a sad time for all of us.
• We had a Halloween party and bonfire out on the farm and bobbed for apples and busted open a Pinata. It was fun because Memama (Zoa's mom) was visiting from Florida and got to experience fall on the farm!
• With winter, came only a light dusting of snow and milder temperatures than usual. Christmas Day was NOT white for the first time in the 5 winters we have lived in North Dakota! 

I have been slacking in the blog department the last few months, but one of my New Year's resolutions is to try and update here more often. It is such a great journal for me to reflect back on and remember the milestones of hobby farming!!  We are excited to see what changes 2012 will bring to the farm!