Sangha Farm: Grown the Way Nature Intended

Here are our guinnea fowl. Aren't they cute????

Guinnea Fowl are from Africa where it is very warm. Yaks are from the Himalaya's, not somewhere you would consider warm. Well on Sangha Farm (which is pretty far from both places) the guinea's & yaks are great friends. Today was a beautiful winter day. Two days ago it snowed another 8 inches of fluffy powder, today the sun was shining, it was warm enough to wear fleece & overalls. I looked over & there on top of Praja sat one of our guinnea's. I just had to snap a few photos. The guinnea's were up to a lot today we also had to chase them off of our road, twice. They actually played 'chicken' with a car & wouldnt' let it pass. When we chased them back into our yard, they flew up in one of the old maple trees & squaked up a storm

Since today was so beautiful I decided to take some pictures of the barn. As you can see the outside it done & quite spectacular. The kay-lite is in place on the walls & ceiling of the cheese room & milk parlor. Bennie is huge & we expect her to kid anytime. We seperated her into the kidding pen, Shanti is with her just for company & warmth. While I"m not that computer savy, & consider myself pretty illiterate when it comes to all the new technology. As I begin my search for the equipement for the cheese room I"m very thankful that much of that searching can be done right from my very own home.

The front & back of the barn, those are the solar panels on the front roof

The side view shows the bathroon, cheese room & milking parlor windows

Here are some pictures of the inside of the barn. Thats Bennie peaking up over the top of her stall.

Aries is our 'big daddy' ram. He's almost 3 & still pretty sweet for a ram, though we don't turn our back on him anymore. But he still loves a scratch on his neck

The upstairs still needs the finishing touches.

A funny story!!!!!

This year, since a new greenhouse was purchased we had hoped to grow greens through the winter. Derek started building it the end of Sept. probably a little late to start, but it was worth a try. We had a pretty warm fall & were picking out in the field still & time just got away from us. By the time we could focus on the greenhouse again snow had settled on the land, then the holidays came & we all know how hectic a time that is, then more snow settled on the land. Finally mid Jan we started again on finishing the greenhouse. It took a few weeks before Derek could drive the tractor back there to snowblow, it was a great feeling to finally blow those feet of snow out of the greenhouse. Plans were made to build the end walls.........& then more snow arrived stalling the building. Then other things came up, then more snowblowing of snow from the previous few storms, then more plans to build, then more snow yet again delaying the building. Finally Al offered (ha, ha) to help Derek build, so off Derek went to once again snowblow out the greenhouse, along came another storm, but no matter what it was going to get done on Monday......well Monday came with below zero wind chill, tuesday so not much warmer & wed it snowed again.

Well this past week plans were once again made. This time Al & our friend Erik & Lauren were going to come. Monday we had freezing rain & sleet. Tuesday Derek was determined to chisel out the ice. The kids had some friends over, as we were discussing if everyone was going to go out & Derek was putting on his overalls we looked out to see snow falling once again, at times coming down in blizzard like force. He shook his head, the kids decided to stay in & off he went to shovel or chisel.

Wednesday came along with Al & Erik, inspite of the cold.....(Will set up the propane heater out there so everyone could warm their hands) building began. At the end of the day Al promised to come back Thursday to finish. Around 3 p.m. my sister called to ask if Derek & the guys were working like hell to finish before the storm? I asked what storm, she informed me we were getting another 6-10 beginning Friday ending early Sat morning. Now I had to just laugh, what else could I do????

So I suited up, went out to tell the guys that yet another storm was coming......an extra 6 inches at Al's just because he loves the snow so. Talk about Murphy's law

Tomorrow at 8 a.m. Derek will once again work on building those end walls. We are hoping (praying) that we can put the plastic up on Tuesday........I wonder if heavy winds are predicted for Tuesday????

It will be a big deal when the greenhouse is finished