It’s hard to believe another two weeks have already flown by. I found myself once again scrolling back through my camera roll, trying to remember everything that’s happened around here, because apparently, spring on the FunnyFarm means life moves at about double speed.
Let’s be real, we are always busy, but somehow spring manages to turn everything up another notch. Between animals, garden prep, projects, and trying to stay on top of the regular day-to-day things – like my full-time job, it feels like there’s always something happening. One minute we’re bundled up in sweaters, and the forest is quiet, and the next thing you know, two weeks are gone. Suddenly, the trees all have leaves, and the night is alive with frog song!
The weather has definitely been steadily warming up since the last blog, and it finally feels like spring has settled in for real. Of course, warmer weather comes with its trade-offs. The bugs have officially woken up, too. We’ve traded our hoodies and winter hats for our wide-brimmed bug hats with the built-in mesh screens and little tie under the chin. Those hats are probably one of the best things I’ve ever bought from Amazon because spring bugs around here seem determined to kamikaze directly into your eyes, ears, nose, or whatever exposed surface they can find. I still don’t understand why they do that.
Even with the mosquitoes and blackflies returning, though, it feels worth it. The flowers are blooming, the grass is growing, and we’re finally wearing T-shirts more often than sweaters — just paired with bug spray and bug hats. We’ve also had some pretty big changes when it comes to the goats and our breeding plans.
After a lot of thinking about where we want to go with the herd, we ended up rehoming both Draco and Cosmo. Cosmo being rehomed was bittersweet. Being a wether, he was never part of the breeding program, but he was born here during our very first kidding season, so there’s a lot of history there. It felt like the right time, though. He seemed ready in his own goat way to go find new fields and whatever adventures his new family has planned for him.
Draco leaving was more of a breeding decision. As he grew up, he just didn’t quite have the confirmation I was hoping for long term. He stayed very small, and while tiny goats work for some people, my goal isn’t teeny tiny minis. Smaller goats often mean smaller teats, which makes milking harder, and I’d rather have medium-sized minis that are practical dairy goats. That said, Draco gave us beautiful babies, so his genetics aren’t completely leaving the farm. We’re planning to raise one of his daughters and see how she freshens next spring.
Of course, saying goodbye to two goats meant room for one more!
We found a little Nigerian Dwarf buckling for our fall breeding plans, and he has quickly won us over. He is only two and a half months old, but we can already see his potential. He’s a tricolour little guy with black, brown, and white markings, bright blue eyes, and the sweetest personality.
One of the reasons we’re especially excited about him is that his confirmation is much better. He has a flatter topline, straighter legs, and overall just looks like a better-quality buck for what we’re hoping to build in the herd. Genetics play a role too — his sire is a registered Nigerian Dwarf from Ontario bloodlines, while his dam was unregistered. Even having one registered parent feels like a positive step forward.
We decided to name him Ranger, which is a little nod to The Lord of the Rings — and if you know, you know.
Since Ranger is still just a kid himself, we introduced him into the doe herd with all the babies, and thankfully, things went pretty smoothly. Ally wasn’t thrilled at first and made it very clear that this random little goat was not invited into her social circle, but everybody has settled in nicely now. They may not be best friends, but they’re getting along, sharing space, and figuring out herd life together.
If you follow my TikTok (and if you don’t.. GASP. please do! www.tiktok.com/@funnyfarmblog), you’ve probably already seen that Ranger has also been spending some supervised time outside the goat run just hanging out with us. He mostly sticks close, snacks on dandelions, and quietly follows us around the yard. We’ve really been enjoying him.
The other big goat update is that milking season has officially begun.
Last weekend, we started separating the kids from their mamas overnight, which meant another project for Addy. He built a divider gate inside the goat shed so we could split the space into separate areas. We also discovered that Missy’s twins, Stewie and Whinnie, have reached that age where they think they run the place and have started picking on the younger kids. Since they’re bigger and a little bossier now, we separated them into a crate setup with Missy so they could stay with their mom but leave the younger babies alone.
The point of separating the kids overnight, of course, is so we can milk in the mornings. Letting our does fill up for 12 hours – give or take. We’re doing a kid-share system where the babies stay separated overnight and then get reunited after morning milking. Every morning, we head out with the grain bucket, the milking machine, my Bluetti battery, and a healthy amount of patience. So far, it’s been going really well. Well… mostly. Missy and Tessy both know the drill. They are learning our new setup, and are fabulous milkers.
Ally continues to challenge us. She still bucks around, doesn’t stand properly, and generally likes to make milking more dramatic than necessary. That said, she’s giving us nearly two litres of milk every morning, which is incredible. We’ve figured out a tethering system for the new stanchion, and with Addy’s help, I think we’ll eventually get her trained. For now, grain is the secret weapon. Meg, our first freshener, is doing amazing. Minimal fussing; is figuring out how to get on the new milking stanchion faster than our other girls.
We officially started milking on May 18th, and already we’re getting over two and a half litres of milk every single morning from four girls. I’m fairly confident Gwen isn’t pregnant, which is disappointing because we were hoping for five girls in milk this year, but even with four, we are absolutely swimming in milk. Which naturally leads to the question: what do you do with that much milk? The answer around here is mostly cheese. I make a really simple fresh cheese most often, and mozzarella is actually pretty straightforward, too. Yogurt is another option, and I’ve always wanted to try kefir, though I still don’t fully understand the whole kefir-grain situation yet. Maybe that’ll be a future project.
Of course, we also drink the milk. My favourite thing to make to drink with fresh goat milk is a vanilla latte, and it is delicious. And yes, there will be lots and lots of cheese.
Now comes the bittersweet part of kidding season — deciding who stays and who goes. We definitely can’t keep everybody, although, wouldn’t that be nice?! But no…
As of right now, we’ve decided we’ll be selling four of this year’s kids, including Missy’s twins, Stewie and Winnie, who were our first babies born this year. Since we kept Missy’s daughter, Meg, last year, I’d rather move forward genetically and keep her granddaughter instead.
We’re also keeping Hela, who is out of Meg and Draco. We’re also keeping Hazel, Ally’s daughter, because I’ve wanted to keep one of Ally’s daughters for a while. Opportunity to have a high-capacity milker, with lots of training to be better behaved than her mama. And finally, we’re keeping Heidi, Tessy’s daughter, because Tessy is just such an excellent dairy goat. Great milk production, lovely udder, easy to milk — overall just an excellent goat. So for now, we’re keeping three doelings: Hela, Hazel, and Heidi. Huh, all “H” names, that was totally unplanned! lol
The only one I’m still undecided on is Gwen. I may breed her to Ranger in the fall and potentially sell her with a confirmed pregnancy in the spring. Or maybe we’ll keep her, or if she kids, one of her kids, and sell her in milk. There’s a lot of goat math happening around here right now.
Moving on to poultry updates, we officially have broody turkeys. This is very exciting because we’ve never had broody turkeys before. Our turkey hens built a nest of sorts under some trees near a big rock in the chicken run, and when I checked, there were at least thirty eggs in there. Two of the girls are fully committed and seem to be taking turns sitting or even sitting together. We’re just letting nature do its thing and hoping for turkey babies without needing the incubator this year. Although Addy thinks there might be a few chicken eggs mixed into the nest, too, so who knows what might hatch.
We’ve also officially rehomed our entire bantam flock. My friend Constance took home three of our Silkies, including one of my favourite Silkie mixes, Latte, and the rest went to a lovely family north of us. I’ll admit, though, I do miss the tiny rooster crow. Our big guy hardly crows anymore.
Things are noticeably quieter in the mornings, and every once in a while, I catch myself noticing something feels different. But at the same time, we know we need to pivot. Tiny chickens were mostly kept as pets, but they just aren’t where we want to focus our energy and feed costs on right now. We’re trying to focus more on animals that support our bigger goals around dairy, meat, and self-sufficiency.
Speaking of self-sufficiency, the gardening season has officially kicked off. Now, I never actually got around to making the big, organized garden plan I imagined. The original idea was to have Addy send his drone up and get a bird’s-eye photo of the whole garden area so we could map everything out properly.
That never happened.
Instead, Addy started bringing home extra seedlings from the organic farm he works at. Since they plant thousands of seedlings and always account for losses and extras, we’ve been lucky enough to benefit from that.
So far, we’ve planted broccoli, Swiss chard, dill, fennel, and a whole bunch of celery. Just recently, we planted the bell peppers out. They were all suffering in our grow room, so it’s do or die in the garden. We hope a few make it!
I also started seedlings for cucumbers, zucchini, sunflowers, and echinacea. Our tomato seedlings are still downstairs in the grow room, and according to Addy, my beloved San Marzanos have successfully propagated. I definitely started them later than I probably should have — classic procrastination — but hopefully they’ll be big enough to plant outside by mid-June. If not, I’ll just grab some seedlings.
We also bought bare-root strawberries, and Addy is building a nice raised strawberry bed out of reclaimed wood. We’re layering it with goat manure, straw, and topsoil, so hopefully they really take off this year because I love strawberries — fresh or dehydrated.
Mostly, though, we’ve been weeding, cleaning up last year’s mess, and slowly prepping and adding beds. This year, we are trying to be smarter about what we grow. Instead of getting distracted by every neat-looking plant at the greenhouse, my idea is to reverse engineer the garden by asking: What do we actually eat? What recipes do we make all the time? What ingredients do we constantly buy? And then grow more of that. Seems straightforward, right? Makes sense. At least… that’s the plan.
We’ll see how distracted I get at the greenhouse.
We’ve also have some building projects on the go. The milk room is coming along really nicely. Addy has finished the framing and started the siding, and we’re planning Dutch doors so we can more easily sort goats for milking instead of chasing chaos out of the shed every morning. We’ve also started converting our old ShelterLogic frame into a high tunnel. We bought greenhouse plastic, wiggle wire, and channel the same year we first moved to NB. Now finally, we’ve made time, and Addy has started framing things out and building the sides so they can roll up for airflow. The doorway, however, has quickly become a bit of an engineering problem because the opening appears to be somewhere between a trapezoid and a parallelogram. Did we level the shelter before building on a hill?
No. Why would we do that? So that should be interesting.
And finally… the rabbit update.
Deep breath.
The rabbitry continues to be the most frustrating thing on this homestead right now. Our does were supposed to kindle around May 15th after breeding with our replacement buck. Their gestation is only about 31 days, and for a little while, things looked promising. Both girls started pulling fur, which felt hopeful. Except, instead of putting it in the nest boxes, they mostly spread it dramatically around their cages. And now it’s May 20th.
Still no baby bunnies.
Nothing.
At this point, the phrase “breed like rabbits” means absolutely nothing to me. These rabbits are not multiplying and clearly cannot math. We’re still troubleshooting. We bought a large enclosed run and are considering trying more of a rabbit colony setup to see if that helps. I’ll also be checking out the you-sale at the local farm store this weekend to potentially add a couple more does to the operation. At this point, I don’t even know. If the rabbits keep refusing to rabbit, I may just cave and buy meat chickens again.
That’s pretty much the highlight reel from the last couple of weeks here on the Funny Farm. Somehow, in just fourteen days, we’ve gone from chilly mornings to bug hats, welcomed a sweet little buckling, started milking season, started to plant the garden, worked on a few of our building projects, rehomed animals, and continued learning that homesteading is basically equal parts hard work, problem-solving, and hoping for the best.
As always, thank you so much for making it all the way to the bottom and following along with our little corner of chaos. I genuinely love sharing these updates with you and hearing from people who understand the excitement, the setbacks, and all the messy middle parts that come with homestead life.
Before you go, I’d love to know — what’s your favourite thing to plant in the garden this time of year? Are you a tomato person? Flowers? Potatoes? Something weird and wonderful I absolutely need to try?
Until next time! 🌱🐐🐇
