Parker Farmstead, a Family Farm since 1870

We wish you a Happy New Year!

Our winter days outside are filled with keeping the animals fed, watered and cleaned, clearing snow and ice, preparing for lambing and kidding, and the daily repairs and surprises that occur.

While inside, we are usually busy with 2023 planning and reporting projects. This includes tax preparation, budgeting, crop planting plans and seed purchases, organic certification, and updating our livestock and breeding charts.

In late fall we prepared the old milking barn for sheltering our little flock of sheep (and in the future some other small livestock). This involved a lot of cleaning, removing stantions, installing gates, and filling the gutters with cement. They say old barns need residents to live longer, so hopefully we gave it a new lease. We await the first lambs, likely within 2 weeks.

Sadly, we lost a 9 month old lamb to illness. He was a beautiful colored Romeldale/Merino cross. For the first time, I prepared and tanned a sheep hide. I guess the results are satisfactory. Thank you, little Bo sheep, for your soft, warm, wooly blanket.

The milk cows are enjoying a warmer January. They haven’t grown as thick of winter coat, as usual. Most farmers think this is a sign of an overall milder winter.

We had 3 boer goat does kid in December. It has been a more challenging experience than last year. One had 3 beautiful triplets but I’ve had to supplement milk to one. Another had twins. The little girl, Noel, was tiny and had to be bottle fed in the house for 3 weeks. She’s back in the barn with her family now and doing great. I still feed her 4 times a day, along with the one triplet. The 3rd doe miscarried her triplets in late pregnancy. It was a rough night helping her through that! She has recovered well and is back to her spunky self, thankfully. The Angora goats are due to kid in March.

This morning a hoot owl greeted me on my walk to the barn. What a beautiful song. 9 baby calves happily drank their warm milk and our newest crew of weaned beef calves are enjoying their new digs and frolicking in the snow.

A chicken is roasting in the oven and our daughter is making a chocolate cake. We are ready for a quiet Sunday.