Sick Chicks and busy days

 Ok so here is my tuesday blog and it is friday , must post next tuesday , will even pop it on my calender. When I get myself a calander for this year that is and oh dear it's almost february !

: ( We have a had a week of farm sickness. Tuesday a sheep was looking unhappy so we brought her into the lawn only to discover she probably had mastitis. First time hearding a sheep by the way and the help from Finley , Jean (the goat) and Izzy (the dog) was invaluable (note sarcasm). We phoned her owners and they came and collected her to take her home and give her antibiotics.

Wednesday morning I awoke to a dead chick in the box. That being the first night we had left there night light of I assumed that was the problem. The day before Fin had feed the older chocks some food and the younger chicks had gotten some so Nev assumed that was the problem. That day I also noted the droppings of the remaining chickens were red, a quick type into dr google and we are assuming they have 'Coccidiosis' , which means horrible little bugs in their intestines. They are on chick starter feed which has some medicine in it but clearly not enough. This combined with the fact that they may have been eating the big chickens poop whilst outside and the fact that there inside box isn't big enough for them anymore has made them sick. 
I feel quite horrible that because we are not experienced farmers we have made these mistakes and the little chick has lost her life for no good reason. I am hopeful that we don't lose anymore and Nev will try to pick up some medicine at a feed store or vet today. Oh just another note about chickens I promise I'll stop talking about them soon ! Nev has bought more fertilised eggs hmmmm . So I am back on Egg turning duties sigh, He must of assumed because I complain about getting bored at home I wanted more work to do sigh. 


Billy and Jean are lovely and well. As I mentioned earlier Jean joined us in the main paddock whilst "herding" ( I use the term very loosely) sheep. The only times Jean has left her paddock have been when I am in the main paddock and she wants to come with me so that is nice, but shows that sheep netting isn't really goat proof. I'm happy that she however chooses to stay home normally. I missed the photo opportunity of Jean and Finley walking along the fallen tree together. Very very cute and those two are great mates. I love how confident Fin is with all his animal friends. 


Izzy is in heat at the moment so we are keeping her inside as the neighbours labrodors and jack russell all have their nuts. We would like to breed her with a collie when she is a bit older so the dogs will be wanted dogs and we can make a little pocket money for some projects around the home. I am normally very pro desexing animals and may desex her after breeding her once but am looking foward to giving it a try . Probably next time she comes in season which I guess will be around six months from now ?? We will keep one of her babies for company for her and sell the rest.


 Charlie is also fantastic, still not walking but very proud of himself when he stands up. Nev is a bit stressed with trying to fix his motorbike himself. I am looking foward to the end of school holidays next week, playcentre starting back up and deciding whether we want to do kindy, puhoi playgroup or Ahuroa school three's and fours fridays. I have reason for wanting to do all of the above but obviously cant do it all as there aren't enought days in the week. Will go in to them next week but I feel I have rambled enough to drive anyone batty this week. If you are still reading congratulations here is a cute photo for your efforts :) 

Oh help oh no It's a Gruffalo !!  

Neviles "HOLIDAY"

ok starting next week i am definatley making tuesday my designated blog day because i am quite rubbish at doing these regularly.

Poor Nev. He is on holiday this week . I use the term very very very loosely. He took a weeks holiday because of the new laws that you may be payed out for a weeks holiday as long as you take one. We are not going any where due to dogs, chickens and goats. The excitement of bonus money was great until the next day when his motorbike promptly exploded, and also three days after that when his dentist announced he would like $650 for a root canal. See you later bonus money.

Now the holiday , "HOLIDAY" . There has been more deck building, more garden building, more goat house building, rumpus room tiddying and off course motor bike repairs. All in all very little relaxing. I have to say not at all my idea of a holiday but there you go. I must admit it does feel good to get stuff done around the place.

I also want to do a quick boast about my marvelous boys. Charlie can stand !!! no walking yet but independent standing is very very cute. Charlies second trick is rasberries, yes my one year old blows rasberries and it is absolutley adorable and he thinks he is most hilarious too ! Finleys cute trick for the week is to ask " are you two getting married?" every time Neville and I have a cuddle or rarely  even a kiss.  No he did not create this theory on his on we have wedding photo's in our room and young Finley asked who is this and what are you doing ? I explained it to him and now every cuddle is met with the question "are you two getting married?" ahhhh ridiculous how lovely and sweet children can be.

Chickens and more chicken pox

Not again . It can't be. Yep it is. More chicken pox. So I thought both the boys had the chicken pox over christmas and it was all over and done with. NO wrong ! Finley had chicken pox over christmas, Charlie has chicken pox now. Another week in isolation. Well at least until Charlies pox scab as thats when he is no longer contagious according to dr internet. With beach plans for today and tommorrow definatley cancelled. Birthday party plans for saturday will most probably be cancelled too. The positive is he doesn't have many and doesn't seem to bothered and when they do scab over I can be sure there will be no more chicken pox for us. Thank goodness.  Can't wait to get back into playcentre and join the local playgroup so that i can get to know some more mums closer to home. Giving them all the chicken pox probably wouldn't have been the best first impression . 

  Chicken , I did say i'd write about our chickens too.I am in the process of figuring out who's a he and who's a she. Yes if I were an experienced chicken rearer I should probably have been able to figure this out before, perhaps when they were 1day old. Alas this is my first time so i'm still here trying to figure it out 5 weeks later. Again care of the internet I have learnt boys have bigger stronger taller legs, a bigger comb and they are more aggressive! I think trying to take this photo was a pretty good indicator nice hen hiding on one side of the shot and cocky cock trying to attack my camera on the other side of the shot. In my defence there are 4 differnt sorts of chicks in the same box which makes it a bit trickier to compare them. The next thing I need to do is figure out when we have to start executing the boys so they don't all beat each other up. The chicks now spend days outside in the chicken run which they are absolutley loving. The two older hens outside are not too happy at the moment and have both stopped laying and coming out of there box. I am suspicious it has something to do with a certian Dog. 

Mentioning that certain dog. I have to confess i'm seriously thinking we may have taken on more than we can handle. She loves going to the beach , all beaches in the rodney region are dog free all summer. Oh correction you can take the dog before 7am or after 9pm , don't think so somehow. She still runs at the sheep occasionally. She chases the chickens. She barks when ever the neighbours walk to their trampoline and runs to their proprety to bark at them. I know I know she is a very smart dog and is only misbehaving because she is bored, and she is probably very trainable. Problem is I don't think I have the time to train her . Maybe i'm just being mean but I don't feel that she is very happy living with us and I feel that I spend most of my time hollering at her to come back while she ignores me and runs of to do what ever she wants. A local playcentre mum has mentioned that she will take her if it gets too much for me. If Izzy moves there she will be a working dog to replace the 17yr collie that currently works at that families farm. Emotional me thinks ohh but she's our dog and we love her, sensible me thinks she'd probably be much happier with a job to do and at least we could still visit her....... 

So that's my exciting week, more chicken pox, sexing chicks, thinking about the dog and lastly building a garden !! which I should go and get into now before the day heats up to much and while Charlie is still napping.

Happy New year

Hmm still not quite getting here once a week but i have many an excuse , we shall just call it a christmas break .

We have been a busy house with husband and friend building a deck . dream of dream so nice  to be able to let the boys outside without them returning covered in clay. It's been hard however with husband on deck duties all day and all night. Arghh lone evening shift with kidlets is hard work. Has been worth it Deck was almost finished in time for new years eve gathering . Charlies happy face crawling outside for the first time ever was just priceless.

Both boys have had the chicken pox lucky us. I cant' complain about it's effect on them Charlie had a knee's worth. Fin had slightly more but didn't really seem to bothered and didn't itch at all so that's great. The only negative with chicken pox is that I don't know any one close by who would like their children to have it OK rephrase i probably don't know anyone at all that would like me to knowingly infect their children so there has been a fair bit of staying home going on. Which I may have mentioned is not my strong point.  When we are at home the first day is normally fine but the second or third the kids and I are bored. They misbehave because their bored and my temper is short because I am bored. I wonder if I am the only stay at home mum looking forward to the end of the school holidays ?? I imagine not . It will just be nice to get back into routine. Fin asks where we are going each day and when i ask where do you want to go he will say play centre or the playgroup house.

There Deck, Chicken pox, oh and i was going to talk about one last thing so as not to ramble of on to many subjects GOATS. Billy and Jean came home with us on the 3rd. Original plan was for them to move in on boxing day how ever they had other ideas. Billy and Jean decided the bottle was not for them so ended up staying with a nanny goat for a little bit longer. They are pretty tame and happy to come up when people are near. Jean has escaped once so far and that was to follow Finley, Izzy and myself into the paddock. I 'm sure it won't be the last escape but at the moment it's not really a big problem. If they start eating my garden however we may have to rethink things. Billy will be a curry goat apparently 6months is a good time. Jean will be a nanny goat apparently you need to wait till she is 12monthes to kid her and then start milking. So there we are Goats, admittedly milk is about 10monthes away but hey we are on our way at least. Self sufficiency here we come

Chickens

Another Blog I think it's been about a week ?? That was the original idea. Perhaps I should nominate a day and that might make it easier to keep it regular. Then again wow remember an entire week might be a bit of stretch for my cobweb riddled mind.


I'd like to talk about my ever growing family this week. I think that's a basic part of living on the land. You have space you want to benifit from this somehow. I eventually want  the family to be pretty close to being self sufficent and maybe even dream of dreams start bringing in some income from my productivity. Ahhh I can dream.

Since the move date a young pup Izzy (border collie) yes I know I know, perhaps it would have been wise to listen when people warned me that they are a high energy dog need training and work to do. Ahhh 'working dog' well there you have it. Enough about her we are learning. The theory we are following is a combination of speaking with others that own Collies and a small addiction to ceaser millan (sp?) the dog whisperer.

Two Laying Bantams. This involved the building of a chicken house. Not really that cheap to buy the materials as we discovered after snorting in disguist at the price of readymade ones.
 These Bantams were aquired from a great friend and neighbour in order to hatch some fertilised Eggs. Unfortunatley said Bantams became unbroddy on day 18 of the 21 day gestation period of chicks in Eggs resulting in the loss of all chicks : (  
Hatching own chicks round two. Don't ask me why we started with the Eggs I know the question what came first the chicken or the egg, my husband is a man of science and researched the exact type of chickens he wanted for optimal egg production and eating. Myself I'm more a 'oh you don't want that chicken or oh that chickens $2 I'll have that variety' Enough about why we are trying to hatch Eggs rather than just buying some golly gosh chickens.
Anyway back to the story at hand, Incubator was borrowed for the hatching of chicks. Day 21 yes I believe that's the day that they hatch, power cut ! oh dear some one out there is telling us not to own chickens. Power cut lasted roughly 5hrs one chick was born during cut and was able to be revived by being placed in the steamer over a bowl of boiled water. (thankfully we have a gas cooker so water could still be boiled, water from the jug as none of our taps work during power cuts as you need an electric pump to pump water out of tanks). Power returned that night and chicks continued to hatch into the next day. Two did not hatch and were helped out of shell by worried husband ( this might be a no no but i don't think they were going to come out by themselves we could be wrong) one of these 'helped' chickens was fine. The other unfortunately couldn't move half of it's body so is no longer with us. As I type I have 17 happy little two day old chicks cheeping around in a box under a light next to me. Now lets hope they all survive and there aren't too many boys. The plan is to keep all the girls and one boy and eat the rest of the boys.

We have goats moving in on boxing day a girl and a boy. The girl shall be turned into a nanny goat and the boy might be dinner. Man it's tough to be a boy on a farm! I am currently in the process of trying to purchase a good shelter for these goats to use . I'm thinking a really big dog house or a really small shed ? What ever it is hopefully we won't be building it this time .

That's it that's us. The family so far one one mother, one father, two sons, 1 dog, 2 chickens, 17 chicks and soon to be 2 goats.

I haven't spoken about how the core family are doing so far. Mother me I'm good with all the Christmas merriment just jolly busy with all the added responsibility for my growing brood. The father, he's well,  pretty tired with trying to build a lovely deck at the moment. The big boy Fin is great in love with his dog fairly interested in his chicks also. The little guy Charlie, in love with his dog, couldn't give a monkeys about the chicks. And mums looking forward to him having a deck to crawl around on , hopefully it will be a bit better for him than the current outdoor options of rocks or clay.

Hello to my new blog

First day blogging. My hopes for this blog is that it will be a great place to record my feeling and what not during the daily grind and JOYs of being a young stay at home mum to two young boys . I hope there won't be too much whinging but i can't promise anything. I hope my grammar won't be too painful, but yes it will often be incorrect and rushed. I hope my writing will be slightly interesting but my first and foremost need for a blog is to write because I love writing (doh should have put that as an intrest ) and to just let out some steam. As any stay at home parent knows the toughest part is the time spent at home without other adults for company.

My name is Ruth I have two boys Finley 3yo and Charlie 1yo. I have recently moved from the suburbs to a lifestyle block in the country. I am finding good and bad things about life rurally. It is definatley different in that you need to drive to go anywhere and that the closest anywhere to go to is 20min drive away. I have joined some playgroups as staying at home like I said earlier drives me batty. I think it's better for me and better for the children that we spend time with other familys.

Finley is coming up to 3 and is very much like myself, shy and lacking in confidence. Which is really sad because obviously the only way to help him with these things is to work really hard to overcome them in myself. btw please please please no mean feedback I'm a sensitive soul and trying to boost my confidence and deal with my feelings rather than lower my confidence and keep my feeling inside.  He is a very very loving boy and adores me his father and his baby brother. He is great once he is enjoying things he just takes a bit longer than most kids to feel comftorable in new situations.

Charlie has just turned one today ! Happy birthday my baby :( cliquihe time I can't believe he's one already blah blah blah it's gone so fast ) He is a very happy little man who is quite happy in any new situation and great at entertaining himself. Loves all new people and just generally a real pleasure to mother.

Husband the nicest man in the world willl try not to write too much about him . Our marriage is pretty happy and he does his best to help out where he can and put up with me when i'm having a tough day with our boys. Off course there are times when I feel that he just doesn't understand , and off course he doesn't how could he ? How could I expect him too he doesn't live it everyday.

Me as i said before I can be shy and lacking in confidence which are my least favourite things about myself. I had my babies very early by todays standards I had a daughter at 16yo, although i was a very young 16 and she has been adopted by a loving family that were in a much better position to provide her with a stable life than a 16yo girl. 3yrs later I met my now husband , at 21yrs we were married at 22 I had our first son Fin and at 24 our second son Charlie was born. Our family is now complete although part of me would love love love to try just one more time for another child (maybe a girl?? )  I know I know I shouldn't say that . I absolutley love my boys to death but won't lie and say that I wouldn't enjoy being a mother to a daughter. I'm also thinking its time for me to start to start to think about training (now) and entering the workforce when my youngest starts school. I don't know if I have a passion so it makes it a bit tricky when trying to decide what i want to study towards. I want to have a job I enjoy and that I am proud to tell people about when they asked that question 'so what do you do ?'

Goodness is that about average length or a bit of ramble hoping it wasn't to personal ? Not sure how personal one should be when blogging . I promise not to be too serious all the time but thought i better introduce myself honestly and openly. Very exctied about starting a blog and plan to update once a week. Goodness I hope I can be a bit funnier in the future I love funny blogs.