Pope Pastures

Our sow farrowed last night and we woke up to ten little piggies!  Here are some pictures...

One was stepped on and needed a few stitches, here he is...

We will be reopening soon with a new processing date!  We will keep you posted!  Thank you for your patience!

Love,

The Pope Family (now the Pope Pastures Six! (-:)

One of our seasoned NDG does, Abby had doeling quadruplets on Friday night/Saturday morning! They all seem healthy - umbilical cord dried up nicely on their own, they are dry and clean, the dam is up, eating, drinking, and peeing, and the doelings are nursing.

There is a clear hierarchy among the kids - the two largest (and darkest) ones nurse first, then the one that I thought was the runt and was concerned about eats, and then the one that really is the runt goes last. The dam seems to be doing very well with all four, but Kevin and I are keeping an eye on that littlest one.

I went and got milk replacer and a nipple (for a coke bottle) today, plus some probiotics for the milk replacer. We will decide in the next day or two if it is necessary to pull one (or two) of the kids. For right now, everyone seems good. 

It is amazing to witness the dynamic of the herd when I just sit in there quietly and observe. They are so cool! I have always been a lover of our herd, but the intimacy of this situation has given me the opportunity to really witness how they interact and deal with each other. That is a post for another time, but I just wanted to share how blessed I feel!

Well, we have another doe that I think may be in labor or is pretty close. She will probably kid within the next three days. Oh boy! Lots of babies! Kevin and I so thrilled with our little buck! He has given us a ton of girls and throws some beautiful color!

Here are some pictures of the little girls...

We will keep you posted!

Pope Pastures Farm will be closed December 2006 through March 2007.

As we walked back from the mailbox today, it dawned on me that it had not even occurred to us to send out Christmas cards or update letters this year. Perhaps because so much has been going on! Well, we decided that we needed to get our rears in gear and take care of some holiday cheer business. So, Merry Christmas y’all!

Things have been going well. We are still settling into our home in Texas. It is interesting how you can think that you are organized until you start getting out Christmas decorations and you are missing stuff, there is a mess, etc. Moving stinks! LOL As far as our first “year” of in the farming biz, we have had a blast. We have had some setbacks, including some huge chicken losses and even had to cancel some of our orders. We ordered from a different hatchery (which we will not do again) and then dealt with some serious rain (about 4” in one night) and freezing temperatures. That was tough. On the bright side, we sold out on our first and second batch.

Kevin’s parents, Mike and Bev have officially become Texans. They bought a house about a hour away in Princeton - about halfway between us and Mike’s new job in Plano. They stayed with us for a little over a month and just moved into their new house this week. It is so nice to have them close.

We have our farm animal family pretty much set for now. We have about 100 free roaming chickens and are getting a dozen eggs a day now (egg production decreases quite a bit in winter), we have seven Nigerian Dwarf dairy goats and two (or three) are due to have babies in January and February. We have five pigs that are huge and not yet full grown, and we had 9 cows grazing our land for about 8 weeks. We have so much fun with them here but they are gone now that our grass is mowed and fertilized! Our next big purchase will be two meat cows. Kevin and Mike have decided to go into the cattle business together! They will start small with 2 adolescent females, breed them, and watch the herd (and hopefully their wallets) grow. Then of course we have the 2 dogs, cat, Cleo the cockatoo, 3 kids, pregnant lady of the house, and the too pooped to pop man of the house – which makes up quite a zoo here at Pope Pastures Farm! The animals and farm bring us all so much joy and it is so wonderful doing farm chores in the cool and even cold weather. I mentioned freezing temperatures...we had snow and sleet one day and a week with our highs hovering around 20°. Nonetheless, we processed about 60 birds and 3 turkeys a couple of weeks ago. We had lots of help too! Bev stayed with the kids inside. Mike helped and having helped us before, has become a real pro! Our midwife, Pam and her son Andrew also came and spent the day with us to learn the ropes, offer a hand, and have their turkeys processed. Regardless of the cold, cold temperature, we all had a lot of fun and Pam and Andrew were a huge help!

Nicole is about 31 weeks pregnant now – the baby is due in mid-February. In the sonogram, it looked like a girl – with the absence of a certain organ. Although, we take it for a grain of salt and would love another daughter or another son! With the anticipation of having a girl, we have had to start over with clothes. Our local homeschooling group gave Nicole a lovely gift basket full of beautiful pink baby clothes and toys! Nicole is very active in our homeschooling group and really enjoys the other mothers and children. She and another homeschooling mom organized the Christmas Fellowship party. There was a great turnout – about 130 people from our small town homeschooling group! She also put together and directed a 10 minute skit performed by the teens. The entire party was a great success! The homeschooling group also has a wonderful learning cooperative and Nicole will be the assistant lead teacher for the nursery (since she will have the baby with her) for the winter session. Aside from all of these activities, Nicole has had a rather challenging pregnancy this time around. We have dealt with all day sickness, severe varicose veins, back and hip problems, a fall that injured her knee, acid reflux, fatigue, two nasty head colds, and an episode of preterm contractions. Pregnancy is not for the faint of heart, that is for sure! Through all the pain and discomfort (and complaining), she has kept her head up with an upbeat attitude. She wears many hats around here – wife, mother, teacher, housekeeper, referee, friend, farmer, and chicken whisperer  - all which bring her so much joy!

Kevin is doing well and working super hard. Between working 8 to 12 hour days and then coming home to work outside – he is super busy and loves it! The chickens and goats are Nicole’s job and the pigs are Kevin’s job. Although lately, that line has blurred and Kevin is doing a whole lot of everything around here! The pigs eat about 150 pounds of food every three days. So, that means that Kevin is lugging the feed from the feed room to the pig pasture – either with pure back strength or with back and tractor strength. He has one pig that has a “crush” on him and wants his attention whenever he goes into their pasture. She will roll over for him to rub her belly and pretty much be hypnotized until either Kevin stops or the boar gets jealous and rouses her awake! Kevin worked harder than all of us to process the chickens and he dealt with those cold temperatures like a seasoned professional! He never ceases to impress all of us!

All in all, this has been an exciting year for us – a big move, new town to call home, a new house, a new farm, a new family business, a new job for Kevin, new friends, and a new baby on the way! We have been and continue to be abundantly blessed and look forward to the blessings of 2007! We have full hearts and a full home...what more could we ask for? We hope this holiday season and New Year will find you and your family with full hearts! We wish you a very Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! And a blessed New Year!

The Pope Family

We are looking forward to being more active with our website and blog in the new year! 

Stay Tuned...

We are sad to share with you that we lost our beloved black Bantam Silkie hen, Cocoa today.  She was killed by a hawk while roaming the farm.  The kids, Kevin, and I are incredibly sad, as Cocoa was our only pet chicken.  We all understand that the rest are farm animals.  We bought Cocoa (and her mate rooster Nilla) as new chicks several years ago to be pets for the kids when we started growing our meat birds.  We have coddled her and handled her like a pet.  Although, she was smaller than all the rest of the chickens and easy prey for a hawk. 

We have discussed our options to keep our other chickens safe from avian predators, but the only option would be to compromise their quality of life by keeping them in a covered pen.  It would not be fair to the chickens and we could no longer call ourselves "The Home of the Happy Chickens".  Loss is part of the gamble we take to allow our chickens to be happy, free, and healthy. 

Cocoa will live on in her two pure Bantam Silkie chicks that she blessed us with.  They are just a few weeks old now and we will take special care of them!  Cocoa was a great chicken and a friend to all - human and animal alike.  She will be deeply missed. 

Hello Everyone!  I am so sorry that it has been so long since I have updated the blog.  Life has become so crazy and busy, but in a good way.  We have become very involved in our local homeschooling group and loving it!  We think that we finally found a home church and are very relieved!  My huge belly is making me feel a little like a beached whale!  We are making great friends and having a blast!

So, between our homeschooling cooperative, dance classes, gymnastic classes, Community Bible Study, play dates, actual homeschooling, farm chores, etc., etc. we have been super busy!  The farm is flourishing and all our critters are well.  We lost several chickens do to a predator but we believe that we have remedied the problem.  Our adolescent flock of chickens have a new home (pics coming soon) and we caught the birdy killer in a live trap.  It was a nasty, feral cat that we relocated. 

So, I promise to post some new pictures soon and give a more detailed update on Pope Pastures Farm soon!

When we place our hatchery order for the meat birds, I can never resist getting a bunch of others.  This time, I got our meat birds, our heritage breed birds, and a bunch of other varieties for breeding and enjoying...

For some women it is clothes or shoes, for me it is chickens...

This is how they arrive from the hatchery

 Top Box (there can only be 25 per corner and 100 per box, anything over 100 goes into another box)

 Bottom Box

 This is our set-up...for now, they are in our office.  We are working on having a designated chicken nursery...

There are four boxes and the incubator (bottom right- white closed box)

 Here are some of the babies.  We will know what breed is what in a couple of days.  Right now, these are either Cornish (one of our heritage breeds) or guineas (maybe one of each).

 These are bantam Sebrights or maybe a guinea!  The Sebrights (we got 2) will turn into beautiful small birds.

 I believe that these are a breed of Cornish...

 Again, another group with ambiguous coloring...

So, there you are...we will be having another 20+ hatching in a few days and another box coming from the other hatchery...we'll keep you posted!

Thanks for your support of our family farm!

I know that this is not particularly Pope Pastures farm related but I think that it is too neat not to share!  The kids and I took a field trip to the Priefert Horse Stables to meet Priefert's Texas Thunder Draft Team.  It was awesome!  Check out the size of that horse!  He makes my 5'4" height look miniature!  This black Percheron Draft horse is OVER 19 hands high (about 6'5" at the withers), he weighs over 2200 pounds, eats 18 lbs. of grain, 40 lbs. of hay, and drinks 20 gallons of water each day!  This is Captain and he is the third largest!!!!  Imagine how big the largest horse, Goliath is!