Just call us the Doolittles

That's right, we have yet ANOTHER new member of the family! This is Suzy Puff. She came to us yesterday from a friend who rescued her a week ago. The poor little girl was laying out in the road with her mother who had been hit and killed by a car. So sad! But she is a sweetie and we're glad that we could adopt her. So let's see...that makes our menagerie: 6 goats, 11 chickens, 2 dogs, 1 cat, and 1 rabbit (and don't forget the 5 people, of course).

We also brought home 4 goldfish from the Fall Fest last weekend but "sadly" by Tuesday they were all swimming in the big fishbowl in the sky. Ah, the circle of life as reflected in the circling water of the toilet bowl...what are you gonna do?

Paging Dr. Doolittle.....

Surprise!!

This is 'Surprise'. He was born yesterday. I went out to water the animals and found him in the pasture. We didn't even know his momma was pregnant. Evie and Kallie feel very pleased that they can share their birthday with him.

We had a family meeting last night and voted that his name should be 'Surprise'. That name barely won out over 'Boba Fett'. Ah, such is life...

The 'Mean Bone' - Every Girl Has One

This is our hateful cat, Marble. She is terribly cute and slightly cross-eyed. We brought her to Vaughn Farm a few months ago with the intention of her eventually becoming an "outside" pet (as I believe ALL pets should be). K had visions of teaching her to be a mouser and her living in the barn, on the porch, all around and keeping mice, snakes, etc. away.

Of course, when we got her she was new and fuzzy and small and baby kitten-ish. She was just away from her mother and we loved on her, petted her and generally let her do as she wished IN THE HOUSE. The plan was to let her get a little bigger, get used to our place and then get her fixed and then...out you go.

However, she has YET to be fixed. She terrorizes us (me in particular) and is generally a whiny, meowy pain in the tookus! The other day while I was laying on my exercise mat panting and sweating to near dehydration, trying to make it through my 5am workout Marble decided to stretch and sharpen her claws IN MY HAIR. I'd already almost tripped over her 50,000 times that morning. Exasperated, I picked her up, threw her in my bedroom and closed the door. K was out of town on business so I knew she couldn't bother anyone. 50 minutes later as I drug my exhausted body shakily toward the shower, I opened my door and was hit in the face by a foul, poopish odor. Immediately I screamed out, "CAT!!! Where did you do it?" and began searching for the mess. I found it, hot and steamy right on top of the (thankfully) dirty laundry. I don't know about you, but scrubbing poop is not a few of my favorite things. Scrubbing poop at 6am isn't either and scrubbing cat poop at 6am is enough to send me into a flaming fit!

So, my day started well. Later as I was driving the kids to Mom and Dad's for the day (oh yes, I still had to go to work after that great start) I was ranting about the cat and how she needed to be an outdoor cat except "Your Daddy still hasn't gotten her fixed like he promised he would." I know, great example to my little angels.

Anyway, Kallie says, "What's fixed?" I hesitated because I wasn't really sure how to say that "fixed" means neutered so she can't have any cute, sweet kittens. I mean, how do you say that to a bunch of big-eyed, golden-haired, sweeties staring expectantly at you so that you can almost see their halos gleaming? Thankfully, I didn't have to reply because Holdyn, wise big brother that he is, says to Kallie, "You know, fixed, she has to get her Mean Bone taken out." Kallie says, "Oh yeah, her Mean Bone."

I reply, "Yes, exactly, she has to get her Mean Bone taken out."

Get ready Marble...

Big Fat Flop

So, as you know if you've ever read this blog before, our lives here at Vaughn Farms are all about experimentation. We just jump in to new things feet first and sort out a lot of details later. Whatever, it makes life interesting and we try never to be wasteful of money, resources, etc. Most times we're successful and things turn out okay. Sometimes, like today, things turn out to be a BIG FAT FLOP. And I mean like a fat man belly first off the high-dive flop.

As you also may remember we're experimenting with goat meat. Until today its been fine. I've mixed the ground meat with ground beef and no biggie. Well, I found this Martha Stewart recipe for "smoky beef tacos" and thought I'd try it with the shoulder roast I got from the goat.

I put the meat, spices, ancho chiles in chipotle sauce, and some other things in the crockpot to simmer all day. The meat cooked perfectly and it all smelled divine. Time for the taste test...

I pulled out the few bones in the roast. So far so good. Next I shredded the meat, looks yummy. I speared a bit of the tender meat with a fork for a taste...hmm, very faint, slight whangy flavor. I think I can handle that. It tastes mostly like beef roast. Then it hit me...like a flamethrower to the throat...too much ancho chili...way too much...way, way too much.

MY MOUTH IS ON FIRE!!!!!

And I can feel the chili burning my guts. We cannot eat this for dinner. Thankfully, K is at Wal-Mart picking up a few things on his way home. Doubly thankful, he's a good sport and just laughs off my escapades like Ricky laughs at Lucy.

So, frozen pizza it is. Oh well, if things never failed I'd probably get bored. Right? Right? Riiiiight, I'll just keep telling myself that. ;)

PS Marshal is enjoying the "smoky tacos" as we speak. See? No waste.

Goat Wranglers

This is Peter. He has been a very bad goat. He's broken fences, chased his sons and daughters away from their food, and even bucked me once (big mistake, Peter).

This is K. He has some past wrangling experience. Cows, not goats. See, he even has his own lasso. He is after Peter who has once again broken the fence. Boo, Peter!
After much chasing - that involved the entire family running through the yard (3 acres), screaming and cursing Peter's existence - Peter was cornered and caught. Of course, our friend from church pulled into the yard just as this began and was treated to the entire show. You're welcome Cecelia, most circuses charge for their clown show!

K and his trusty assistant little k dragged a now successfully wrangled Peter to the barn where he will be separated from his wives and progeny until I can decide what to do with him.

I decided. After unsuccessful attempts to sell or give him away, Peter now exists on another plane of existence. That plane is called my deep freezer. Gyro, anyone?

First dozen sold!

Now that most of the hens are laying daily we're getting about 5 eggs a day. That's leaving us with a little surplus of farm fresh, naturally grown eggs. On Sunday I was mentioning this to a friend at church. She asked if we'd sell her a dozen and how much would we charge! I said $2 for a mixed dozen (a great price) and she agreed. That's a great price for her and us - way cheaper than the grocery store price for organic eggs and it only costs us about 50-60 cents/dozen to raise the eggs!

Monday I dropped off her eggs and took her empty egg carton home with me. Kind of like the milkman. When she needs more I bring her eggs and take the empty carton (recycling). So, the first dozen has been sold.

Since Holdyn feeds and cares for the lovely ladies and gent daily that the money will go in his savings account (along with his can recycling funds).

Now, we've got three male goats for sale. Two babies and an adult. Anybody need eggs or a goat?

We're farming now,huh? Coming soon to Vaughn Farms - turkeys!

The new twins

It's taken me a few days but I finally got out to the barn with the camera today. We haven't named them yet because their mama is not really ours; she just lives with us. Without further ado here are the new twins, two males, born Friday to Tink.

Notice the one at the bottom of the photo has a floppy ear. So, cute!

As you can see they aren't true white. Their white coats look like they've been tipped with caramel. Kind of butterscotch colored.

The twins with the twins.

Two more new little goaties!

I'll put up pics tomorrow but just wanted to let you know we've got a regular goat nursery in the barn now! Yesterday our other preggers female Tink had twin babies. Of course, they are super cute, too! Stop by tomorrow for a peek...

A new arrival

Vaughn Farms welcomes our newest arrival....

This is Cottonball, called Cotton for short. Isn't she soooo cute? We came home from school today and there she was. I knew her Mommy, Anna was pregnant but I thought it would be a while because she was not very large. Our other female, Tink, is pregnant and so huge she can barely walk around. She must be having twins or triplets. Hopefully they will come soon, too. We'll have goat babies everywhere!
So far Mama and baby are doing well. I'm staying home tomorrow to watch after them. I'll keep you posted. For now here are a couple more photos of our new baby, enjoy!

Freezin'

I know we live in Alabama and enjoy moderate weather year-round. It's fabulous, even when its so hot outside you can barely breathe. I love it! I really am a Southern girl. That being said I absolutely despise cold weather. And buddy, right now it is cold! Thursday, Friday, and Saturday the temperature barely eeked above freezing. Today it was warmer but not by much. Hopefully it will warm up some this week. I hate being cold and the kids get crazy being stuck inside for so long. I hope tomorrow is warmer. There's no school for MLK day and there's a lot of animal type chores to get done around here.

Come on sunshine, we're ready for ya!

EGGS!!

That's right, it's official. We've got eggs (two to be exact). Yeah! Holdyn went out to feed the ladies and gent this morning and found these two sweeties in the new house we built over the weekend.


Maybe that means we are officially a farm because now we're producing and growing something besides little heathen monsters! ;)

Pioneer Spirit

There's an old saying most of us have heard before. It goes something like this, "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without!" It's a great motto to live by always but especially in these more difficult times. As I've said before, we're striving for a simpler life here on Vaughn Farm. That means lots of repurposing - especially where animals are involved. Here's what I mean...

This is our scrap wood bin. K made it last year after we were nearly all killed by a scrap wood avalanche when we opened the barn doors. We've been living here for 4 years and remodeling just as long. Needless to say, we've collected a lot of wood. We try to use it as much as possible. For example...
Casa de la Goaties was built by K for the 3 Billy Goats Vaughn to live in. Although, they don't really sleep in it (they're somewhat intelligence challenged). All this leads up to yesterday. It's cold here in AL (by our standards at least); it was 33 degrees last night. We were worried that the chickens might get too cold over night so we worked for about 3 hours and built this...
Well, it ended up looking like this...

A cozy home for our 8 girls and 1 guy. We added a light and the place was perfect. Except, the ding-a-lings did not use it! Well, I guess they DID use it. They spent all night on the roof! All that work to keep them toasty and they sleep OUTSIDE anyway. The more I deal with chickens the more I understand the term "Bird Brained"!

Watermelon, watermelon, watermelon vine

One,

Two,

THREE!

That's right, folks! My inadvertent watermelon vine has not one, not two, but three little watermelons growing on it. How amazing is that? Seeds thrown out in the yard have actually grown into a vine that is producing fruit. Just another one of Heavenly Father's miracles evidenced in everyday life. Cool, huh?

The Inadvertent Gardner

We didn't plant a garden this year. I really wanted to and had great plans for all of the fruits and veggies we'd plant. But things happened, or should I say, didn't happen--like me getting my butt outside and planting--so now we don't have a garden. But hark, there is hope!
Behold, my watermelon vine!!!!

This watermelon vine is growing in the middle of our backyard. Earlier in the summer I bought a watermelon and we ate most of it. The last bit spoiled so I tried to feed it to Marshall, the four-legged garbage disposal. He wouldn't eat it so I dumped it out of his bowl onto the grass and left it. A few months later, VIOLA! A lone vine. I'm not sure if it will yield any fruit but it does have blooms, see...Maybe my inadvertent gardening will be fruitful, literally!