Miscellaneous Updates

Brad, Elise, Weston and Rose came for a short visit to pick up the girls. We went for a little tour, this is the first cutting of our new four acre field that we worked hard to irrigate.

Bailed and stacked.

Great Grandma Joan worked hard on a quilt made from Grandpa Dan's old work pants.

The headboard was made for Grandma Janna many years ago back in Gig Harbor, Wa.

The work on the kitchen stopped when the exterior farm work began this spring.  The lower cabinets will get doors and drawers, probably this winter.  But it is fully functional and is working quite well.

More of Grandma's cloud pictures.

It has been a lot of work so far.  We will update you later on Grandpa's new friend and helper.

Summer Visitors And The Reason For Having A Farm

 

Grace and Claire came from New Mexico to visit Grandma and Grandpa for a month.  They arrived just in time to help bring the goats to the R-N-R from St. George.

The next project was to mow the new grass that would be used for picnics, morning school and camping.

After school with Grandma, Grace and Claire headed to the creek for adventure.

The local wildlife was studied as much as possible. 

If not at school or adventuring, there was plenty of work to be done.  Grace is counting her pile of weeds she removed from the lawn.  She and Claire earned 1 penny for each weed.

After hard work we visited the local hot springs.

Lorraine and her girls came for a visit also, so we took them to the hot springs too.

But if you play you must work.  Everybody picked up rocks from the future lawn area.  As with the weeds 1 penny per rock was earned.

After the money was earned the four girls Grace, Claire, Cora and Cate jumped on their bikes and headed to the Mercantile for treats.

Ellie got out of all the work.

Summer Projects

 The biggest project for the early summer was to get the goats moved up to Kanosh from St. George.  The existing fencing on the farm is approx. 100 year old barbed wire.  It might hold a tame cow but not goats.  So, a pen needed to be built.  I decided on an approx. 2 acre pen in the North East corner of the front 8 acres. 

Getting the corners set, the back corner is visible 450 feet away.

On the property line I built the new fence up against the old existing fence.  This is the new corner, existing fence and fence building obstacles.

Trimming up some posts to use at my feeder fence area.

Getting started with the feeder fence posts. The hay stack backstop is in.

The 2 acre pen was taking too long for me to build by myself, but I could not wait any longer to move the goats to the farm.  I borrowed some fence panels from one of my Kanosh neighbors to make a small temporary pen. Then I built a wire lid for my dump trailer and we loaded up the goats.

 I finally got the larger pen complete, I just don't have a good picture of it.  You can see it in the back ground of this picture Janna took of the pretty clouds.

Spring Cleaning

Colin, Ember and Kevin came to Kanosh for some needed R-N-R at the Rockin-N-Ranch.


Colin is checking out the grandchild sleeping loft. Kevin and Megan looking on.

We decided that what Kevin really needed to relieve his stress from finishing up a hard semester of school, was a good work day.  So we (Dan, Janna and Megan) met up with them during there stay, for some good ole farm work.

Our new four acre pasture has been sorely neglected for years.  The first thing that needed to be done was to clean out the irrigation ditch. 

We removed two large trailer loads of brush just to get to the ditch.

Almost done here, but first we used the backhoe to remove most of the dirt in the ditch and then we hand shoveled the rest. A full days work.

A few days later it was our turn for water on the Kanosh irrigation system.

With a little last minute debris removal, we had water to the pasture.

A fun day, the goats will enjoy this during the summer.

The next project was mowing all of the nice green weeds on the front lot and orchard area.  Some day maybe this will be some nice grass.

The tilled area in the background is our 1/2 acre(approx.) experimental water melon patch. Kevin helped me plant it during his visit.  We will keep you posted on it's progress.

We also got started on the vegetable garden, with potatoes, green beans, corn and tomatoes.  Not all are pictured here.  We also got four more fruit trees planted in the orchard area.

Last but not least, I gave our little lawn area it's first mowing.

More Spring Happenings

 Last fall we received a few hundred lavender starts from our good friends the Baker's and their Southern California ten acre lavender plantation.  We have been keeping them in the warmer winter climate of St. George, for spring planting in Kanosh.

Our master plan included a round about for easy maneuvering when pulling trailers and the such.  So it seemed like the perfect home for our little Baker lavender plants to start their new lives.
Side note: Since their planting, the first week of April, Kanosh has had two late spring snow storms and some 20 degree nights.  We are hoping, no praying, for their survival.

We also planted a small patch of grass in front of the Cabarn which is struggling from the cold.  Plus we are preparing for a larger patch of grass to the north.











Inside progress pictures as of 4/13/13

East end, of our one room cabin, front door and door to the barn area.

West end, kitchen area, closet, loft and behind the closet is the bathroom.  Does that make it a two room cabin?

April 17, I added a solar panel.  So now I can just leave my two 12 volt batteries to be charged by sun power instead of bringing them home to St. George to charge them.  Plus now I can stay longer than just a couple of days and not have to worry about the batteries.






I also began working on the kitchen cabinets

and finished up the corrugated metal heat shield at the wood stove area.

Busy Week

It all started Easter Sunday, March 31st, on a quiet afternoon.

It was a lot of hard work, checking on the expectant mommies or the "heavies" every two hours and helping as needed.  We all got very tired.

Twenty Five total, from 12 mommies.  Twenty Four of which came in one weeks time. Twice we had 3 mommies deliver on the same day with a total of 5 babies.  The record came on Sat. April 6th with 6 babies in a day, done by two mommies having triplets.  Number twenty five came a few days later on Tuesday April 9th.

This is AB (Abe) named for the fact that he came out tail first. A few of the does needed some gentle encouragement, but AB had be be extracted.

Nike says, "Hello!"