In the baby front, back at the farm

Mama and Victoria made it safely to Brittany’s. Today or tomorrow they plan to celebrate Brittany’s birthday – which is coming up very soon. On the baby front, Brittany’s doctor told her that they would probably take the twins in four weeks. That will put her somewhere around the 32-week mark. For some reason, the delivery gets more complicated if it is delayed further. I will defer to the doctors on the one but that puts us going to meet the newborns sometime the week of the 17^th of July. That will be a new experience for me and Mama. We had three babies born to our children a couple years ago – but they came one at a time. This will be the first twin birth in our family; although we have been dealing with twins (other parents children) since our children were small. Pray for Brittany but especially pray for Andrew. This may be somewhat “old-hat” for Brittany, but it is a completely new frontier for him. It will take him months to adjust.

Meanwhile, back at the farm. I had to get up at 5:30 this morning and do the morning feeding of the menagerie. It is not much earlier than I normally rise but it was a totally different arrangement to the morning. It took me about thirty minutes to get everything done – at least hurriedly - which took away the time I usually spend in Bible reading. I will do that this evening.  Last night I took some extra time to make sure waterers were full. Mama and I have started putting away the feed in the coop every night to try and discourage the rats from taking up occupancy. I am not sure that is working but it is something we can do to make things more difficult for them. So, I put out all the feeder this morning, opened up the coop doors to the yard and made sure there was still plenty of water available. I put out fresh feed for the pigs, goat and rabbits. Then I had to take care of the inside animals. Dressing for work, making my coffee and packing a snack for lunch were squeezed into the remaining few minutes this morning.

Mama is down to three Bantys now. Last night I found one dead in the nesting box of the little coop where they normally roost. We have been wondering why the three remaining birds have not wanted to roost in their normal spot. She seems to have died of natural causes. Mama assumes she was egg bound. It would have been preventable if we had caught it sooner. Alas, we did not. I see some purchases of young Bantam hens in our future. We really like the eggs. Bantams lay a smaller egg but the yolk is about the same size as a normal egg. Since the yolk is where the flavor, that makes them especially flavorful. I will start on a new Banty house very soon and we will use the little house we now have them in for some bunnies.

The piglets are growing quickly. Three of them already belong to Brittany Wycoff. They are not going to be pets. If we end up with any grown pigs from the lot, they will not be pets either. They will be sausage. But for now, they are quite safe. Molly, our older pot belly pig is adapting to her new home in the pig sty but she is not thrilled about it. I am not sure what we are going to do longer term but I plan on taking down the sty and replacing it with something more permanent. The pallets were good in a pinch but they have a short life expectancy – especially against a rooting, full grown, full size pig.

We will still have a pig sty but I will construct something a little less biodegradable.