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About Us
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We are a large family with a small farm...
UPDATE: No goats or chickens left, at this point. Diego loves his animals but is very adaptable and content to just have children to guard and herd. We are taking a break and focusing on our music. We have recently relocated to a nice cottage on North River. The kids are having a blast playing in the river, fishing, catching frogs and turtles and hanging out with the dogs.
We learned a lot since beginning to raise goats. Daddy helped the kids build the milking stand. We learned about all aspects of caring for the goats from trimming hooves and giving shots to breeding and kidding. We learned to milk the goats and Dad and Mom enjoyed many iced coffees in the evenings last summer with Boca Java gourmet coffee and our own wonderful, rich goat's milk. I'll have to share our recipe sometime. It beats paying $4.00 a piece and tastes better to boot! We also learned how to make goat cheese. We had enough goat's milk to meet our milk needs.
Last year, we also raised a large flock of nearly fifty Buff Orpington Chickens. We raised them up from peeps to crowing and laying age. Our chickens supplied all of the eggs for our family and then some. The last adventure that we enjoyed before selling the chickens was watching one of our hens that we raised from a peep hatching out her own peeps. One reason that I (Mom) chose Buff Orpingtons is because they are a heritage breed, dual-purpose chicken. That is also the same reason that we sold them. The children were not especially fond of eating their own chickens, as they viewed them as pets. Which takes me to the part of the operation that only Frank would take a part in...butchering. However, all of the kids did try Dad's fried chicken made with our very own rooster. They admitted that it tasted much better than the chicken from the grocery store. (I guess so!)
We have been spending a lot more time doing something hubby and kids really like to do...music. We are in the process of setting up a home recording studio. Carolina has very mature vocals for her age, a great ear and great pitch. She has also begun to play the fiddle and we are hearing words such as "prodigy". We will update on this later as it progresses. Frank loves bluegrass music and is very good on the mandolin and harmonica. He is also the drummer for the family band. Jessica plays bass. Melissa plays rhythm guitar. Dad plays guitar (or whatever he feels like at the moment...he's multi-talented.) I (Mom) sing and play the autoharp. Some of the younger children add their talents, as well. As you can imagine, our taste in music is quite eclectic...from Bluegrass and Southern Gospel to Roots and Americana. We hope to make a CD soon with all original songs.
Now, to the farmcollies....they are just a part of the family. We really bought the goats for Diego, as much as we did for us. The reason we decided to breed Diego is because we can't imagine being without him...and so we wanted to preserve his offspring for our own family for years to come. I (Mom) became interested in the Old Scotch Collie lines by default, being of Scottish descent myself and observing the intelligence and sensitivity of these dogs first hand at the Niedrauer's farm in Texas (we lived in Texas for five years). So, after a careful search, we found Duchess and even though the puppies came a little sooner than we had planned...we were happy to see them nonetheless. Duchess and puppies all did wonderful and we were just thrilled. The children have had great fun with them and they have enriched all of the folks who have been blessed enough to add one to their family. We are also hearing glowing reports of their instinctual farmcollie behavior...from catching squirrels (and eating them) to herding and guarding.
For those of you who are not familiar with the old Scotch Collie lines. The AKC Rough Collie, the Australian Shepherd, the English Shepherd and the Border Collie are all descended from the Scotch Collie. We want to do our part to preserve these invaluable Old Scotch Collie lines.
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