The Calm Before Kidding Season

This time of year, it’s probably a good thing that we update you every two weeks instead of every week. With the garden still frozen and winter hanging on, things are naturally moving a little slower. I’m not sure we’d have enough exciting news for a weekly update unless you wanted a play-by-play of us waiting for the weather to warm up — and that might get boring pretty quickly.

That’s not to say we’re just sitting around, though. This is still very much our do-stuff-inside season. While the ground outside is frozen solid, we shift our focus indoors — organizing projects, tackling clutter, and getting things ready for the much busier months that we know are just around the corner.

It’s also that roller-coaster time of year for weather. One morning, it’s minus 18, and we’re outside hammering ice out of the water buckets. The very next day we wake up, and it’s plus 8, and all we have to do is top everyone’s water off and give the buckets a good clean. You really never know what you’re going to get this time of year.

Recently, we also sprang ahead for daylight saving time. For a little while, we had been waking up around 6:30 a.m. with the sun just starting to rise, which felt pretty nice. But once the clocks changed, suddenly we were waking up in the dark again.

On the days Addy has to head out early for his delivery job, that means we’re back outside doing morning chores with our headlamps on. Thankfully, it doesn’t last too long — by the time we’ve sorted out the water and fed everyone their grain, the sun is usually just starting to come up.

Of course, the flip side of that is the evenings. When I finish work around 5 p.m., it’s still pretty bright outside — well, when the sun decides to show up. That means I can go out and feed the goats their hay a little later, check for eggs, and do the evening chores while the birds are singing and the sky is still light. That’s been really nice.

And honestly, there’s another small bonus. When my alarm goes off at 6:30 a.m., if I happen to hit snooze — which I assume other people do occasionally too, not just me — at least it’s still dark outside. I can roll over for another few minutes without feeling guilty that the sun is already shining and I should be up doing something productive. So you know… there’s always a silver lining.

This past week, we had another little first for the season. When I went out to feed the quails and change their water, I peeked into their little house and found three quail eggs waiting for me. That was a pretty exciting moment. It’s always nice when the quails start becoming productive again after the slower winter months.

My plan this year is to collect some of those eggs for incubation. Not quite yet, though — I’ll probably wait another month or maybe a month and a half so there’s no chance of the eggs freezing overnight if I don’t collect them quickly enough. Once the weather is a little more stable, I’d love to incubate some quail eggs and grow our little flock.

The girls we have right now are just about two and a half years old, which means they’re getting close to aging out in quail terms. So bringing in some younger hens is probably a good idea, especially since we really enjoy the quail eggs.

Another livestock update for you — we finally did it. Addy finally put Mara and Jade on a date with our buck bunny, Luke Skyhopper.

We’ve been doing a bit of research — which in homesteading terms mostly means watching a lot of YouTube videos — and since I’m pretty allergic to the rabbits when they’re alive, Addy has been the one handling most of the bunny management.

On one of those nicer days during our see-saw weather, he picked up one of the does and introduced her to Luke. And Luke… well… he performed well at his job. So that’s one rabbit considered bred.

Rabbit gestation is about 31 days, which means their due date — or in rabbit terms, their kindle date — works out to April 5th. Completely by accident, that’s Easter Sunday. So we could potentially have baby rabbits arriving on Easter morning, which feels pretty fitting.

The next day, the other doe went in with Luke, and he also did his job successfully. So if all goes well, we could have back-to-back litters of baby bunnies in early April.

We are raising these rabbits for meat, which is a new experience for us. Even though we’ve had the rabbits for almost two years now, we always felt like we weren’t quite ready. But at some point, Addy said, “If we wait until we’re ready, we’ll never do it.” And he’s right. This was the whole point of getting rabbits in the first place.

Toward the end of March, we’ll give them their nest boxes and see if they start preparing them. If everything goes well, rabbit moms do most of the work themselves. From what we’ve learned, you rarely even see them feeding the babies — they usually nurse once or twice a day very quickly. So this will definitely be a learning curve for us, but hopefully in a few weeks we’ll have a little pile of tiny baby bunnies to show for it.

Speaking of gestation, here’s the goat update. There’s no huge dramatic news yet — the goats are still fluffy and getting rounder by the day. But the girls who are due earlier are definitely starting to look very pregnant.

Tessie and Missy are our first two expected moms, due at the beginning of April. Allie is likely somewhere in the middle to the end of April. The juniors — Gwen and Meg — are probably due mid-to-late May, possibly even early June.

These dates are more of an educated guess this year because we had the bucks separated and rotated the girls in with them for about six weeks until they stopped cycling. And honestly, that’s fine. Last year, we had precise dates, and the goats still did whatever they wanted.

One exception is Tessie. She actually took a little field trip over to the bucks’ pen and had a very obvious date with one of the boys, so we’re fairly confident about her timeline. Her due date should be around April 4th.

She’s already starting to put a little milk into her udder, which usually happens about four weeks before kidding. Overall, the goats are doing great. They’re active, bouncing around, and enjoying their hay as usual.

Because of the constant freeze-thaw cycle lately, the goat shed has been a bit high-maintenance. We’ve been adding bedding more often — straw and wood shavings — just to keep things dry. Hopefully, we’ll get a good stretch of above-zero weather soon so things can thaw properly and we can dig out the deep winter bedding and start preparing for kidding. Because somehow… It’s less than a month away.

Outside of chores and animal updates, we’ve also managed to fit in a bit of social time with friends and family over the past couple of weeks.

My sister came by for a visit recently. She had a very early start to her day because of a doctor’s appointment, so she stopped in for a much-needed nap. After she rested up, she was kind enough to give me a haircut, which was very overdue. If I’m being honest, I probably get my hair cut about once a year, so it definitely needed it. We had dinner together and caught up for a bit before she headed home.

We also celebrated our friend Constance’s birthday with a small group. There were snacks, drinks, and some crafting, which was actually really fun. We made flowers using paper towels, paint, and alcohol ink markers. They turned out surprisingly beautiful, and Constance was able to turn them into a bouquet.

More recently, we also had a dinner out on a Monday night with some people from my work. My regional director and one of the regional managers I work closely with happened to be in Fredericton doing some visits, so they made time to meet us downtown for dinner at a restaurant called Mo Co. It’s a beautiful Italian restaurant, and the food was absolutely delicious.

We spent the evening catching up, talking shop, and doing a bit of team building. Addy has joined me for a few of these work dinners now, so he’s gotten pretty good at following along with all the work talk. It was a really nice evening and, honestly, a great way to start the week.

While we’re on the topic of restaurants, we also crossed another place off my “need to try” list recently. It’s a Japanese restaurant called Kyoto Hana Izakaya, right downtown in Fredericton.

I actually first noticed it during the Harvest Festival when we were walking around downtown and caught the most incredible smell coming from the restaurant. Ever since then, it’s been on my mental list of places to try.

Well, we finally did — and it definitely didn’t disappoint.

The menu focuses on fire-grilled skewers, and honestly, everything we tried was delicious. Our favourite was the pork belly skewers. They were perfectly grilled and incredibly flavourful.

We also had a teriyaki-flavoured udon vegetable dish and tried something called Monkey Brain, which is actually a battered avocado dish. It sounded a little adventurous, but it turned out to be really good. (No monkeys are hurt in its making.)

It’s always fun discovering a new restaurant in Fredericton, and this one is definitely a place we’d go back to.

When we’re not eating out — which honestly isn’t that often, maybe once on the weekend — we’re usually cooking at home. One of my favourite things to make lately has been coconut red curry. It’s Thai-inspired, incredibly easy, and feels just a little fancy even though it comes together quickly.

Addy’s mom actually taught me how to make it years ago — her slightly toned-down version, so it isn’t too spicy. We’ve made it twice in the last couple of weeks, and since I took some photos while making it, I thought I’d share the recipe.

Easy Coconut Red Curry

Ingredients

• 2 cans of coconut milk
• 2–3 tablespoons Roy D red curry paste
• 2 chicken breasts, cubed
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce
• 1 teaspoon white sugar
• 1 bunch broccolini (or vegetables you like), roughly chopped
• Cooked rice for serving

Instructions

1. Pour the coconut milk into a pan over medium heat and let it simmer for about five minutes.
2. Stir in the red curry paste and mix thoroughly. Let the sauce simmer another five to eight minutes.
3. Add the cubed chicken and cook until fully done.
4. Stir in the fish sauce and sugar.
5. Add the chopped broccolini and cook until it reaches your preferred tenderness.
6. Serve over rice.

The whole meal takes about thirty minutes, and honestly, it reminds us of Addy’s mom’s cooking. So delicious!!

Another indoor project we’ve been tackling lately is clutter. Anyone who knows us knows we are collectors. We are definitely not minimalists — if anything, we’re maximalists. The only problem is our house isn’t very big.

So we’ve been going through our belongings and trying to get things more organized. Craft supplies are getting sorted and stored vertically. Everything else has been forming a very respectable donation pile.

We’re working through the kitchen, our clothes, and other corners of the house. I’m not trying to become a minimalist — I just want everything to have a place.

If that means building shelves everywhere and using every inch of wall space, then so be it. At this point, I’ve accepted that if someone walks into our house, it might feel like stepping into a wizard’s home — shelves full of curiosities, little treasures, souvenirs from different adventures, and plenty of supplies to craft and make things.

Definitely not minimalist.

But at least it will be organized… eventually.

Inside the house, we also have our fair share of animals. One in particular has had an update lately — our cat, Lola.

Lola and Garfield are from the same litter. Garfield is an absolute tank of a cat, probably around fourteen pounds. Lola, on the other hand, weighs 4.75 pounds.

Yes, I know that very specifically because Addy recently took her to the vet for a check-up. We’ve decided she probably isn’t getting any bigger, and it’s time to have her spayed. The vet confirmed she’s perfectly healthy — just a very tiny runt of the litter.

Her surgery is scheduled for the end of March.

Instead of the traditional cone of shame afterward, we bought her a little post-surgery recovery onesie to protect her incision. She does not love it, but it will keep both her and her brothers from bothering the stitches.

Well, it’s been — as usual — a busy couple of weeks. Not wildly busy, but busy enough to keep things interesting. We’ve managed to fit in time with friends, keep up with the changing weather, and stay on top of the daily rhythms of the Funny Farm.

The animals are definitely noticing the change in season — longer days, warmer afternoons, and lots of eggs showing up again.

All signs that spring is slowly making its way here.

We’re especially looking forward to the arrivals coming up this spring — baby rabbits in early April and baby goats around the same time. It’s going to be a learning experience, especially with rabbit breeding, but we’re excited to see how it all unfolds.

And of course, our minds are already turning toward the garden. There are big plans forming for this year, so next time we’ll share a proper garden update.

Until next time!