Goodbye Winter! Hello Spring!

Loving the beautiful weather here on the farm! Everything is blooming and the grass is so green! Although the thought of mowing season is a little LESS than appealing! I love the first few times, getting everything all clipped and neat. Then, as summer progresses, the bloom leaves the rose so to speak and mowing becomes a chore and trimming a real pain!!
But for now, YAY GRASS!! It is so much better than the snow, ice and mud! I really think that Spring is my favorite season. Well, minus the storms and tornadoes! Boo tornadoes!
Speaking of Spring, these are some of the blooms here on the farm, some smell so yummy! Some, while beautiful, actually smell kinda icky..Tricky little boogers, draw you in with their beauty, and them BAM! Stinkiness!

Pear blooms! They actually kinda stink..

Apple blossoms! Smell divine!

Texas Roses, so so I have been told. So pretty!

Narcissus? Not really sure, but so pretty, and smell so good!

Tiny little hyacinth, so purply!

Animals here are also enjoying the green grass and warmer temps. As usual spring brings all sorts of energy and friskiness. The calves are running around, the cows are hopefully all expecting new little bundles of joy this summer/fall. Taz, having done his job, is just hanging out waiting for his next assignment!

Ellie come lately saying "LET ME IN!!"

Flossie having breakfast!

T-Bone!

Cow kisses!

Busy Busy Busy, These little guys are really bringing in the pollen!

BUZZ!

Busy as well...Bees!

Sadly out of the three hives we started with last spring. only one made it through the winter. I am so bummed! I love the bees, even when they are stinkers and sting me! Losing two hives was not only sad, but very frustrating! I thought all was well, but it seems one starved during the winter, and the other is sort of a mystery. They had more than enough honey, but they were very weak and we found them in a small cluster in the center of the hive..dead or barely alive. There was only a handful of bees where a few weeks before was a busy hive. Robber bees had also moved in and decimated what was left. I did manage to thwart their efforts at taking all the honey, but still it was so upsetting. I have ordered two nucs to install this summer from a local Apiary, so wish me luck! I am determined not to give up!

Come on in little bees!

With Spring comes a overabundance of eggs! Lots and lots of eggs! I made a pound cake and an angel food cake to use up some of the excess. The family was divided on their opinions of the cakes. They either really liked it, or disliked it and used it as an opportunity to tease me unmercifully about how much they disliked the cakes, lol Darn family...But again! I will not be swayed, I WILL make more of these cakes! Naysayers beware, this farm will  again be graced with a the fluffy goodness of angel food, and the oh so heaviness of a well flavored pound cake! I will say though, the pound cakes should be many pound cakes, those things are massive!

Pound cake and cooling Angel Food cake!

TaDa!! The angel food cake freshly unpanned!

Now see, they do not look so bad, and they were pretty tasty! And no Pud'nin..you may not wash the car with the angel food cake..or use the pound cake as a jack stand..
Well. as uninformative as it is, I hope you enjoyed this post. Maybe with the end of winter there will be cool stuff to write about other than busting my booty on ice and snow! New cow babies on the way and gardens to plant! Leave a comment to let me know you were here and if you enjoyed the post!
Have a blessed day! Thanks for stopping by!

Little Fall Update!

Lots of things going on here at the Backwards Homestead! I am so ashamed that I have not posted in SO long! Boo me! Summer is always pretty busy, and this one was no different. I thought I would post. even if it is not anything specifically cool! So, here is a montage of a few of the animals enjoying the morning!

Heavenly little cabin!

But first! A picture of the cabin where Roger and I took out little mini VACATION! It was the most amazing time. Only two days, and it was cold, but I swear it was heaven. I absolutely adore this cabin and I wish we had one of our very own. I really had to have been born in the wrong era..Can we say pioneer life with internet?

Little piggies! Ok...Not so little piggies! LOL!

 These are two of the "little" piggies that were born during the ice storm last winter. They are some fat little sausages!!

Flossie!

Flossie and Elmer..Yep..he is nursing..Has he no shame! Then Ellie getting lovies. Yea, we hug our cows! :)

Ellie getting Trina hugs!

Morning kisses!

 Here are Renee and Sweet Pea. two of the new girls here on the farm. They are just adorable! Renee, the brown girl, is due to calve any day now and we are so excited!

Now THAT is a fine bull!

Here is Taz strolling on by to go out to pasture. Is he handsome or what?! We are also happy to announce that he is now a part of the Backwards Homestead clan. Yay! Thanks Sara and Earl for giving us the opportunity to try before we buy so to speak while he was visiting the girls. We promise he will have a great home here as we already love him!

HAY!!

Elmer, Porter and ClaraBelle  checking out the leftover hay after we moved the ring to add a new roll! Of course they had to flick it around a bit. Aerating I imagine...LOL!

Baelfire and his morning drink, lol

 Bae getting a cool drink after breakfast. He sure has grown into a beautiful young man!

Get to work Pud'nin!

Pud'nin moving one of the troughs over to the other side of the pen. They eat over here so we figured might as well set their table over there!

Charlotte pigging out!

Charlotte eating her corn. Beside the giant wallow they made with their water! Pigs...

"What are you looking at"

 Wilbur laying by the remains of his hut that he destroyed...What a silly piggy! Does he think winter is never going to come?!

We wanna eat HERE!

 The reason we moved the trough! These guys are determined to eat right here..So, we moved the trough so they are not eating off the ground.

Boo and her babies!

 See those little peeps peeking out? They are so adorable. Boo is a good Mama, but sadly she is slowly losing these guys to a hawk. She started out with 16 and is down to only 9... :(  Makes me sad! Hopefully he will move on and she can raise these babies without worry!

Squirt!

 Here is Squirt having her breakfast. She comes in every morning and every night to eat here in this stall. She is so smart and is now able to go out in the big pasture with everyone else during the day. Sweet Pea is her Mama, so it is cool to see them together. Although, she spends most of her time with Renee or Taz. She is just beautiful and such a sweetheart!

Here is Elmer and Squirt! He is a hoss! Hard to believe that he is just a month and a half older than Squirt! But, girls are supposed to be dainty! I guess we can say Flossie has power milk as we have shamefully never managed to get him weaned..Yea, as proven by the earlier picture, he is STILL on the teat!

Got hay?

 Pud'nins trusty tractor waiting to get to to work put out a roll of hay! Such a good tractor, I think it is Pud'nins favorite.

More fatty pigs!

Well, there you go! Not much of a post, but I hope you enjoyed the small update. Leave a comment if you have a minute, it makes me smile, lol  I will go with a picture of a flock of geese that I snapped a picture of as they were coming over the barn. I am not ready for winter, but fall is just dandy!

What A Winter!

Hey! I haven't forgotten the blog! I know I have been slacking, and part of my 101 list is to blog consistently, and I am already failing! Boo! But, in my defense, things have been so crazy around here and with our oldest son Joshua moving to Virginia, 12 hours away, with two of the grandbabies I am having a hard time finding my emotional center. We do wish them well, but here on the Backwards Homestead we are feeling the loss to the core.
Also, I am afraid that there may be huge changes here on the backwards Homestead this summer.  Hard decisions are never fun, but things are getting to be more than we can handle. As much as I love all that this farm has to offer, letting go of some of the animals may be in the cards. I cannot keep on letting my passion make things harder on those who are in this with me. This last winter was exhausting both emotionally and financially. We are in this to live simpler and it has become a much different venture than our original plans. Do not get me wrong, I love every part of this farm. Every animal is loved and it will break my heart if it comes to that at some point. But numbers do not lie, and no matter what, it has to be fulfilling for everyone for this lifestyle to work!
On a positive note, we have had some awesome things happen in spite of a brutal winter. Flossie had her calf, and Charlotte also blessed us with six little oinkers! Although, getting to this point was rough, the weather was not kind, and milk fever reared its ugly head here on the homestead for the very first time. Many days we were unsure if we were going to make it to the end of winter with all the animal residents still here and healthy.
First off I will give a short update here, and later I will go more in detail later in separate posts.  Here we go!
Flossie had a little bull on February 3, 2015. He is quite the fireball! We named him Elmer, Awwww!

Such a good Mama!

Slurp Slurp!

Missed a spot!

Elmer now!

Here he is now, at a mere 7 weeks old. Yea, he's got a little something dangling for the nose area...darn straw!
Flossie had a very hard time after the birth. She had milk fever, (low calcium) and we thought we might lose her. We had to raise her up with a hip lift several times a day as she was just DONE. Even though she SHOULD get up, she was tired, felt bad, and was just a bit depressed. That lift, was awful. But she would have died if we had not forced her to stand. Sometimes we do what we have to do here on the farm, but Lord knows I cried many tears here in the barn over this cow. We prayed so hard, and thankfully the prayers were answered and Flossie did stand, and she is doing much better. yay!

Poor Mama!

Shout out to Mineral Wells Animal Clinic AGAIN for being the best as usual. Dr. Chad and Cody were awesome and went above and beyond. I am not sure what we would do if we did not have such a close relationship with everyone in the practice. They are always willing to answer questions, and do what it takes to make sure our animals get the best care possible.More on the exciting birth and Flossies struggle in another post. Stay tuned!
Ok, Charlotte. Where do I start?! She decided to have her babies the night of the worst snowstorm with subzero temps that we have had in years. Her pen is too far from the barn to even have a light for warmth. With a lot of hard work, and Gods grace, we managed to get her hut covered with anything and everything we could find to hold heat. We filled it with straw, and prayed for the best. She initially had 10 babies, then we counted 8, then 6...Then For days, we had no clue as the temps were still bitterly cold. THEN we had yet another snow storm. Finally, we get a peek and we still have SIX little wiggly piglets. Whew!!

Cuteness!

Charlottes little fortress, lol

Peeking out for some supper!

Aren't they tiny! I tell you, Charlotte is an amazing Mommy! Stuck in her hut, with her babies, and she was still so very careful not to squish them even in total darkness. Go Charlotte!

Out and about!

Charlotte!

So Cute!

Here is one of the last litter! WOW! So big!

Last but not least. Thanks and much love to my Pud'nin. He has never failed to be by my side through all our animal/personal drama. Letting me cry, kick, flail and flap like the emotional mess that I am. Without all his support, I would surely be wearing a straight jacket by now singing Ladybug Picnic at the top of my lungs...I love you Pud'nin! You are indeed a strong man..
 Well, that is a quick peek, a sort of overview. More later, I promise. I just need to get myself together and focus, focus focus! Feel free to leave a comment to let me know you stopped by! I love reading comments! Ok, Till next time, may you be blessed in all that you do. :)

Busy Day In The Barn!

Today was quite the busy day! We have had our barn for quite a while and only managed to get one stall wall partially finished. Boo! We were going with concrete, but have decided to keep Flossies milk stall concrete, but the rest of the barn stalls will be wood.
We started as soon as we got done feeding this morning. Let me tell you,  Pud'nin was a  force to be reckoned with today! He was a man on a mission! Did I mention that it was like 20 degrees today?
First we started by taking down the old panels. That was kind of bittersweet as we had put them up when Ciskgo was sick and needed to be inside. We are so blessed that he has healed and is now such a peppy pants! But now the panels had to go to make way for nice sturdy stalls!

Pud'nin working hard! Yea, that IS his happy face! :)

Panels down, now ready for some real stalls!

Then we had to dig some holes. Sounds easy, right? In theory, it would be a breeze, but in reality it was terrible! The ground in the barn is harder than heck! I mean the posthole auger just sit there smoking. Literally! Spinning, spinning, going nowhere. Pud'nin was determined, so he gave the tractor more gas! It was screaming!!Still nothing...
We finally had to resort to an unsafe practice that I will not document and finally had two lovely round holes!

Gorgeous I tell you!

The cool thing about this is I actually got to operate the tractor! Yea, the lift, the gas, and the PTO! I was pretty nervous, but I managed to get it done with Pud'nin patiently explaining the steps. He was probably so sweet and patient because he knew he would shortly be behind that tractor, with me in the seat!
Then it was time to set the posts. We had two awesome helpers today and they were perfect! Not only were they big helpers, they also found a whole nest of eggs that some hen had hidden in the hay!

Pretty Little Farm Girl!

Steady! Of course, Payton and his silly face!

WooHoo!

Then add in some boards, and you have a stall! All we have left is the gate. I am so excited! Now we only have four more to go! This is actually on my 101 list so look at me go! We are going have that list knocked out in record time.

TaDa!!

Joshua giving it the once over!

Since Flossie is possibly due to calve in a few weeks, we could not have waited another minute. She is getting rounder and rounder by the day. She has not bagged up yet, but that can happen in a flash. I do feel so much better knowing that she will have a warm safe place to bring her little one into this world.

Look at that belly!

I really like the look of wooden barn stalls. They remind me of my grandfathers barn where he used to let us use the hand corn sheller. I loved watching all the yellow kernels falling down into the wooden box and then he would let us take a scoop to Midnight the pony. Those were some of the best times of my childhood. Helping on the farm and learning how to properly care for the animals has stuck with me. I really think that early exposure to the simple lifestyle is the reason that I love it so much now!
Well, there you have it, our day in a nutshell. Let me know what you think!