New Life on the Homestead

Life is springing up on the farm.  The girls just bought 17 Khaki Campbell duckings from a neighbor down the lane.  We brought a little cardboard box and the girls lovingly placed their little ducklings into it.  The entire way home you could hear their tiny webbed feet prancing around.  It was such a cute sound.  Megan just loved the little brown webbing while Molly was enjoying their little waddle as they walked.  Molly says their eyes are so cute.  She likes their long necks and cute little beaks.  They are so excited to raise them for laying eggs.  We have no idea which ones are male or female.  They think it would be so fun to have some of them pair off and have more duckings someday.

Duck eggs are so delicious to eat.  They make baked goods so much richer and fluffier.  They can lay up to 2 eggs a day!!!  This breed of duck is easy to keep and raise on a small area of land.  When they get older, you can put a baby pool in their pen.  The water can be used to fertilize orchard trees.  This our first time raising ducks on the homestead, so we look forward to what they will add to our experience.

Over yonder in the chicken coop, 2 mother hens set on their eggs.  Some baby chicks hatched out.  Now we have four more chickens on the farm, curtesy of the good brooding hens we have.  Buff Orpingtons are great setters and brooders as well as good laying stock.  I just love them for the fluffy golden look.
One of the Dexter cows freshened.  She was a little sick so to save her own life she abandoned this precious little black calf.  It was so tiny.  My husband carried it up to the house in his arms and I melted with love.  That is one thing I love about my husband.  He has such a heart for farming and animals.  Grandma Evie was enjoying petting the little guy.  He was a bit weak because he was sitting in the field all day without a mamma to feed him.  Good thing we kept an eye on him.  If he would have been with her, we would have left him with the mamma because that would have been best for him.
Mark bottled up some of our cow milk to feed little “Rueben”.  That is what my husband wanted to name him.   We will have a couple more months of hand feeding him until he is strong enough to survive on grass alone.  I am sure he will be quite tame.
The children love “Rueben”.  His black fur is so silky soft and he is so sweet.
We are starting to see new life in the garden.  Tomatoes are turning red and ripening nicely.  I can not wait to can with my children.  We usually can about 100 quarts of tomatoes each summer.  That is a grand feeling to see all my jars lined up on the shelf.
The green beans are coming.  We have been enjoying fresh beans at the dinner table lately.  The kids and I sit around and snap them together.  What a blessing to have such willing hands who enjoy the fellowship gardening and homesteading brings.

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3 thoughts on “New Life on the Homestead”

  1. The sweetness of this post makes me remember my childhood days on the farm and how much I loved it. My uncle was a veterinarian and I would also go on calls with him so I got to see many baby animals be delivered etc.. I needed this sweet, light hearted post tonight. Sometimes I long to be back on a farm raising my own family but that is just not an option for us at least at this time. Thank you for letting me see a glimpse of it in your blog. 🙂 Many, many blessings over you and your family in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ, Klara

  2. I’m sure you know this as you have probably researched everything, but I thought I’d just share one of our experiences as we have ducks 🙂
    Drakes can be very very aggressive to the females when it comes to mating. You either need to keep the drakes seperate from the ducks or only allow one drake to 4 ducks. Even with this arrangement, our drake was just too much (not only toward the ducks but he also wouldn’t leave the hens alone!) so we had to process him. And yes, females usually have yellow bills and males blue or green bills. Also drakes don’t quack, only the females do.
    Have fun with your ducks, I love mine! 🙂

  3. From memory you can tell if it’s a ‘Donald’ or ‘daisy’ duck depending on the colouring of their beaks. I could be wrong though. 😉

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