Homesteading: The Simple Pleasures and Tough Decisions

Fall is upon us.

It was hard leaving the farm today.

But we are on a jet plane to Tokyo, which is an almost fourteen-hour flight. Ooof.

Rumor has it that over 50,000 people will attend the rally in Tokyo. Many are very upset about the licensing in Japan of a new experimental vaccine involving self-replicating RNA. I am going to have to write about this soon. But the truth is that people are waking up everywhere to how corrupted the pharmaceutical industrial complex is.

Last Wednesday through Saturday, I was at the American Assoc. of Physicians and Surgeons speaking on Medical “Misinformation” and PsyWar. The conference was super, and I learned a lot. But it is a lot to travel from Virginia to Texas and back again in a few days and then, within 36 hours, travel again. So, getting it together today was a bit grueling. But organization is everything—and here we are! Off on another adventure.

Despite the travel, the last fortnight was busy at the farm.

Jill made a little video about Gizmo the Emu and Gonzo the Goose yesterday morning. They still are quite the pair.

Goose begging at the door for snacks has become one of the morning rituals on the farm:

The class clowns of the farm.

Peacocks shed their tail feathers at the end of summer each year. So, with four males running around -Jill has collected a significant stash. But the boys look a little denuded around their hind ends.

We have moved the peahens into different enclosures this week. During the laying season, we had set them up in the horse barn for easy egg collection. But now that the season is over, they are taking up valuable horse space in the barn, so back to the outside coops they go. One peahen injured her leg during transport, but she seems to be recovering. She is a big, bronze bird, and we would hate to lose her.

Getting that horse stall converted took a lot of work, as we had tarped the top, and set it up with perches. Plus, the whole thing had to be disinfected, horse buckets had to be re-installed, etc. But now that it is done, having the stall back in circulation for horse use is nice.

In the end, we hatched out about 30 pea eggs. We sold most of them as juveniles and retained only two, so we now have a total of ten birds.

On the horse front, our exceptional three-year-old stallion, Rock CAL, has been at the trainers for the summer getting backed (ridden for the first time). He has turned into a real beauty. With his buckskin/golden coloring and dapples as well as his flashy white face - he turns heads everywhere. As he lived in a barn all summer, his coloring is like a copper penny. The buckskin shading changes with both temperature and being in the sun but he is very dark - Jill’s favorite color. This coloration is pretty rare - he glows in the sun.

Just like his sire, Jade, Rock is very easy to work with and took to being ridden immediately. He has a great mind, and his gaits are expressive with lots of impulsion. Most likely he will be a top performer in dressage one day.

After much debate, we are placing Rock on the market. This was a super hard decision, as he is a superior horse, and he is a homebred. This is one of our babies - that we have nurtured for three years. Selling such a horse is not easy.

Jill rode for a few times early last week with a Portuguese trainer, and then he came to the farm to help us evaluate this year’s foals. It is good to get another pair of eyes on our horses and he basically confirmed our decisions about what to keep and what to sell. Because we have three that we wish to keep, we will need to move out some of our other youngsters that we have been growing up. More hard decisions.

Some of the mares and foals this year.

Some of this year’s progeny:

They seem to grow up so fast!

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