Noah Andrew Derby has arrived!

We have been blessed with another boy! He was three days early too! His labor was very easy with only a few contractions! God spoiled me this time! We are excited to get to know this little guy. Noah means "Child of Peace" as he was a very peaceful baby in the womb. Andrew is John's middle name and means "Strong One." Here are some pictures of our newest addition!

NOAH ANDREW DERBY 11-17-2013  9LB 6OZ  20.5 IN

Noah at 5 days

Hope loves her brother.

The girls love holding him.

Paul has done very well with being gentle with Noah.

Proud daddy.
 

Well our lives are FINALLY slowing down with the arrival of little Noah. All of our meat chickens have been butchered and are in the freezer. Our goats are penned up for the winter! This is huge as they don't get out everyday anymore! Our laying hens have been moved into the barn and aren't laying well (this is normal for the winter).  We have three calves and they are weaned off milk and just wander out to pasture and eat. We have 5 turkeys but they are on the chopping block for Thursday. I must say, even though it is cold, I am really enjoying the down time! God has blessed us with lots of family lately, so it has been fun. Enjoy the holiday season!

John, Kristin, Hope, Grace, Paul and Noah

ROLL CALL!

Well we have been busy (sorry for the lack of posts!)!  We have been adding to our farm and we are surely growing! Of course with the onset of Spring/Summer comes farm babies (which I am surrounded by!) Being a mother to so many is challenging, especially when I have my own kids! I am managing for now :) Here is a roll call of our latest members.

Zoe and her two kids Annabelle and Felix joined us at the end of May. John milks her every morning but we are still preparing everything to be able to utilize the milk.

These are our laying hens that survived the winter. We currently have 20 hens and 1 rooster (he is the white one). We usually average about a dozen eggs a day from them.  I have been fighting an infestation of chicken mites which made the chickens stop laying eggs but I think I have finally rid the birds of them and our egg count is back up. 

Max came to us on Grace's 3rd birthday. He is a redbone coonhound/Austrailian shepherd mix. He is fairly wild and likes to jump (this also may be the puppy in him) He is 5 months old and I have been learning from Cesar Milan on how to manage this pup. He's been much better so I guess he can stay :)

Clifford is a 3 month old purebred Australian Shepherd. He is a very sweet dog and has been a good sidekick to Max. He came to us about the end of May.

These are our meat chicks and turkeys.  We have 7 turkeys that we are raising as well that will be ready for butcher around Thanksgiving. We started with 62 meat birds, half of which were from a local grower.

This is our second batch of chicks about 2 weeks behind the other chicks. We will be butchering the end of July and the beginning of August-the coolest times of the year...not really!  Hopefully it won't be too hot! We do have some birds still available if anyone wants one call or email me! They will be about $8-$10 per bird.  Once I get a good idea of how much cost has gone into each, we will set an exact price. They are being fed all organic grain grown right in Rosebush!  I must say that they are significantly more tasty than conventional birds. I really only noticed when I tried to eat conventional chicken and could taste the chemicals in it (I've never been able to do that before!) We are working on becoming MDA(Mich Dept of Ag) approved for our butchering and once that happens, we will be able to sell birds more freely.  Being MDA approved doesn't mean our birds are any more clean but that we meet all of the butchering guidelines with walls, ceilings, water going to the "right" places, etc. Gotta love government regulations! Always so practical.

Our first fruits of our hay field! We are currently farming about 12 acres and are in the process of having our first cutting taken off. It should be a pretty good harvest as long as the rain can hold off a little!

 So now you are caught up on our farm happenings. We are working towards getting cattle on the property and so we are almost there.  We need more fencing which we are on the lookout for at auctions and such.  We are hoping by next spring to get some cattle to start building our herd for clean, grass-fed beef.  It will probably be at least 2 years until we can offer it ourselves but we know that it is better to build slow and grow into your farm.  Each step or animal is fairly stressful at first as we are trying to learn the best way to care for it or them and deal with the bad traits. Once we get the hang of it, it gets much easier and we are ready for another new thing. It certainly hasn't been an easy road we have walked.  It has required a LOT of patience, especially from me, but God is teaching me to relax and enjoy it and to not get caught up in the negatives. We are enjoying our summer season and we hope that you are too!

John & Kristin, Hope, Grace, Paul and baby

New Additions!

Well we took the plunge and got a puppy for Grace for her birthday. She named him Max. He is a Red-bone coonhound/Australian Shepherd mix so we are hoping he will be a good farm dog. So far he is just acting like a puppy and is a bit nippy and jumpy. We are looking into some obedience training soon, so hopefully that will help us be able to handle him a little better. 

 As if that weren't an addition enough, we are also going to add a 4th Derby child this coming November!  We are very excited as our family and farm keep growing!