Welcome. New babies arrive on the farm.

Welcome to Alligator Valley Farm.  This is a page about daily living on a small but growing hobby farm. 
I wish I had started this little farm many moons ago.  I'm working on 49 years old.  Things seem to be getting heavier and harder to do.  :-)  Water buckets are heavier, hay bales are heavier and those bags of grain! 
Of course we had lots of different animals when the kids were younger.  We had the horses, dogs, chickens, rabbits, cats, hamsters, mice and fish.  But I was never trying to make any type of income way back then. 
Flash 25+ years later. Four grandchildren later. A few gray hairs later and now I'm trying to make a little income with the farm. 
What do we have on the farm now?  Three noisy dogs, 10 ducks, 3 turkeys (we ate one, 38 pounds for thanksgiving) chickens, 4 guinea hens, 2 horses and 9 goats!  Two of these goats are NEW yesterday.  We had twins born unexpectedly yesterday.  A little buckling and a doeling. 

They are now nice and warm in our basement.  It's 16* outside right now. Fortunately, they were born in the morning on a warmer, than it has been, day at 25*. 
My granddaughter and I went down to feed the animals and momma, LouLou, did not come out for her breakfast.  She was in her stall and she was crying.  She ran around outside for a few minutes and then darted back into her stall.  I had my granddaughter, 6, sit in front of the little door so the other goats would stay out.  I was working on getting the other goats locked up and out of the way.  My granddaughter said "Grammy, she's pushing".  I said "no, she can't be".  Then I hear "Grammy! there's a baby"!  I was quite surprised to say the least.  I heard my husband plowing the driveway, of course a snow storm, so I called him and he came straight down to help.  In the mean time I'm looking around for something warm to wrap the babies in.  Nothing there.  Oh, there was one thing I could use...my jacket!  It was nice and warm, since it was keeping me warm.  Off came the jacket to keep them warm. 
My husband and I were trying to figure out where we were going to put them in the house.  Finally, we decided on the wood room in the basement.  Warmest room in the house, about 20 feet away from the wood stove.
I have to give BIG kudos to my husband.  He is so supportive and helpful with my crazy shenanigans.  He stopped what he was doing and built a spur of the moment nursing pad for the kids. 
I believe the buckling (brown one) is spoken for.  I will probably sell the doeling also.  I have not decided yet.  My bucks are all registered Nigerian Dwarfs.  I have two does and they are Pygmy ND crosses.  I am thinking I will purchase two registered ND does and sell these two does.  My plan is to raise and sell the goats at a cheaper price than most people.  I find the prices around this area in NH are crazy. 
Other avenues I am working will be my egg sales.  The numbers are down quite low this winter.  My husband and I are going to go look at an incubator, an older large wooden one, that a customer of his would like to sell/barter.  I believe it holds around 200 eggs!  I can have a LOT of fun with that!  :-) 
I would like to sell chicks, guinea keets, ducklings and eggs.  Eventually, turkeys.
Then my newest adventure is a 14 x 40 foot greenhouse that we purchased this fall.  I'm hoping to grow enough that I can sell veggies and maybe eventually flowers.
I have just started getting serious about canning for my family also.  I so wish I had started canning long ago!  Better late then never I guess.
So there are a few areas I'll be exploring this year. 
I'm glad you have stopped by and hope you'll come back again and see what crazy things are happening here on the farm.

My bucks, Duke, Scooby and Shaggy.  Summer, our old lady horse at about 35 years old.  She was my daughter's first horse we bought her when my daughter was 10.  My daughter is now 26.