Spring has definitely arrived

The past couple weeks have been a little bit crazy around the farm.  We practically doubled our animal population over the course of a week (well if you count the bees we increased it by a factor of 1000 or so).  We got the 2 lambs I mentioned in my last post, 2 bee colonies, 100 chicks, 30 ducklings and 4 piglets.  In addition to all this we were working in the vegetable field every day planting bok choy, daikon radish, turnips, snow peas, mizuna, komatsuna, shungiku, turnip greens, mitsuba and transplanting our chinese cabbages.  I didn't even have time to do any needle felting for a whole week!

Number 1

Number 2

Freedom Ranger chicks are bred to do very well on pasture

These Khaki Campbell ducklings are going to lay lots of eggs for us when they grow up

Red Wattle cross piglets from our certified organic neighbors at South Pork Ranch

Lambs!

Last night we added two new members to our farm family.  Gretel gave birth to two beautiful, healthy lambs.  That makes these little guys the very first animals born on our farm!

The new happy family

American Kestrel

This is a life-size sculpture of an adult male American Kestrel.  They are beautiful, tiny little falcons that are fairly common in our part of Illinois.  We actually have a mated pair living very close to our farm.  When they hunt they use the wind to keep them almost completely stationary in a spot above an open field, then as soon as they spot a mouse or other small rodent they dive in for the kill.  I got to watch this the other day right in one of our fields.
This little guy is now up for sale in my Etsy shop

Yes, their feathers are actually these colors

Beautiful photos by Kelty Luber of The Weaver House