How do you homeschool/UNschool? - We play games!

Today we played Candyland, because its one of Mini Wilds favorites! (I think he likes all the brightly colored candy lol). We also played Learning Resources $Money Bags (coin value game). And the big one, LearningHerbs.com Wildcraft!

The website describes the game as "A cooperative board game that teaches edible and medicinal plants"

It is a great visual learning tool! There is a story that goes along with it is about Grandma letting the kids go up her mountain alone this time to collect huckleberries. Along the way, the kids remember Grandmas information about the different areas and herbs/plants along the path.

At first he wasn't to sure, he said it might be to hard, but when he saw the plant cards he got excited and then when he saw the trouble cards (wasp stings, fever, etc) he really got excited! He said HEY!! We have these plants (dandelions, which are on the back of the plant cards) growing all OVER!!! Each time we've had to cover a sun spot (meaning the sun is moving across the sky) he says "Uh oh, we better hurry up!" =o) The game comes with an herbal chart (the only thing I wish they'd done more with was to include each herb that is on the plant cards, maybe as a folding chart) that goes with some of the plant cards & gives brief information about what it can be used for. Each time Mini Wild had a card that was covered on the chart, we'd read it and talk about them (insomnia, gas, stress, etc).

He enjoyed using the cooperative cards to help me as I was the one with the most troubles lol! He'd scan the circles at the bottom of the trouble card and then scan his herbal pile to find the match. He started to remember the plant icons and got fast at finding the right herb!

I highly recommend this game (I earned my Masters in Herbology in 2003 and I really enjoyed this game!), especially if you want to learn about or teach your kids about edible plants and using them as medicines! I am not affiliated with this company nor am I receiving any compensation for this post, I am sharing my opinion. My son is a very visual learner and this game held his interest, even with the reading portions (the story & the herb chart).

Oh, and he won ;o)

Why didn't he know? Label GMOs on EVERYTHING!!!

We had to pick up hog feed this morning, so we headed out early this morning on our 3 hour round trip to the feed mill.

On the way there we talked about the questions we wanted to ask about the goats grain as well as the horses. Our goats grain has Ammonium Chloride mixed in it, which is something that is beneficial for bucks to help prevent Urinary Calculi aka Urinary Stones. Since we don't have any bucks we wanted to know if we could get the feed without it.

Mr. Wild wanted to know if we could feed the horses and the cattle the same grain mix, with the exception being our Jerseys (but they don't run in the same field as the rest of the cattle & horses, so they are fed separately).

The manager was there so we started asking questions. He said we could have our own goat grain mixed, but they only mix it by a ton & a half. If mixed at a smaller ratio they said it wouldn't get mixed in properly and that it would cost us MORE per bag if we bought in a smaller amount. We buy 300 lbs at a time and currently don't have a dry location to store a ton of feed that isn't for ALL the animals. We decided to call around to the other feed mills before buying. Kinda disappointed, but we understand they are a big mill and we are a small farm (for now).

Next we asked about the horse & cattle. He said they do carry a very basic mix of SOYbean meal, corn gluten and shelled corn. As soon as he said SOY I started shaking my head NO. I let him finish and then I said NO, I will NOT feed ANY of our animals anything with SOY in it. The manager asked why and I told him that 95% (its more like 98%) of soy that is grown in the U.S. is genetically modified. He looked at me like I had suddenly grown a fish face and said he wasn't aware of that. I asked him if he knew if their corn was GMO and he said he didn't know, that he wasn't aware of that EITHER!!

This man, whose family not only owns the feed mill but the hundreds of acres surrounding it where they GROW many of the ingredients in their feed DOESN'T KNOW IF THEY ARE GROWING GMO!

Now we needed 500 lbs of hog feed, 300 lbs of goat feed, 500 lbs of cattle feed & 250 lbs of horse feed. We didn't buy any of it. I told Mr. Wild that I was not going to feed our animals THAT WE ARE RAISING FOR FOOD modified anything! And that I am sick to my stomach that we didn't ask these questions sooner, because we've been doing just that for months. The manager of the feed mill isn't the only one who showed his ignorance today =o(

Cleaning out the barn

As the old paneling burns

Our farm was built before the Great Depression and kept in the same family until we bought it. During our cleaning we've found some really neat, useful things (think 5 gal buckets galore of different types of nails) and lots of old rotten wood. This has been our 4th burn, this pile was about 4 ft tall and just as wide. This picture is about 8-9 hours after we started burning, still about 2 ft tall.

Readers suggested reading

The Backyard Homestead: Produce all the food you need on just a quarter acre! by Carleen Madigan

Foxfire Series One of the pages we follow on FB posted about finding the first six books available in PDF for FREE! All you need to do is change the number of the book to access each one! Foxfire Vol 1

Self Sufficiency for the 21st Century" by Dick & James Strawbridge

The Encyclopedia of Country Living by Carla Emery

Storey's Basic Country Skills: A guide to self-reliance

The Good Life: Helen and Scott Nearing's Sixty Years of Self-Sufficient Living" by Scott Nearing and Helen Nearing

Seed to Seed by Suzanne Ashworth

From our farm to yours ...

Countdown to Popeyes calving - Due Feb. 8th

9/26/11

10/29/11

12/20/11
Our Jersey cow, Popeye is getting so close to her due date. This will be her 3rd calf. She was bred to a beautiful, huge registered Jersey bull. We're hoping she has a little heifer, but definitely a healthy calf!

I'm going to document these next couple of weeks with (hopefully) lots of pictures. Some of the are going to be graphic. But knowledge is good right! I'll warn ya in the title, so it won't be a surprise for those of you that don't want to see.

Hard decisions

Belle (black/white pygmy) & Cloudy (white ND) in Vegas.

When we moved to KY from NV, we brought 2 of our goats with us. I couldn't handle leaving them behind, they were my bottle babies, one of which I got when she (Heinz) was 4 hours old, the other when he (Stripies) was 8 days old. Both had lost their mamas, Stripies mom died when he was 3 days old & he was the only survivor out of the 4 kids. Heinz was also 1 of 4 and her mom rejected her. Stripies came from a friends ranch, she begged me to take him as she was already bottle raising 2 lambs and was so sad after losing the goats (she lost many kids that winter). Heinz came from a local goat farmer (in Vegas!) and she cried as she put Heinz in my arms. She gave me her email address and asked that I send her pictures and updates. We still keep in touch =o)

Heinz (black Alpine) & Stripies (white ND wether) in Vegas.

Before we left Vegas, we had 4 goats, Belle, Cloudy, Stripies & Heinz. Belle was pregnant and I didn't want to risk her losing them. We contacted a farm outside of Vegas, they came and bought her and Cloudy (they were BFF's).

Cloudy (left) & Belle (pregnant, right) in Vegas.

After we got to KY, we started looking for goats. They are such intelligent, charming, mischievious animals =o) They are beautiful, gentle and sweet. They are naughty, rambunctious and curious. They are nosy, pushy and lazy. They are foragers, tree climbers and natural fertilizers. We found many goats and we started building our herd.

In Kentucky, after bush-hogging.

Vegas was very dry and very rocky. We trimmed the goats hooves twice a year because they had rocks to play on that kept them worn down. Eastern KY is very wet and very green. We've had to trim the goats hooves every other month. We've also had to fight foot rot because of all the wet mud that is a big part of the farm, especially when the grasses have been eaten and trampled. In Vegas we didn't have coughs or wheezing or pink eye. In KY, we've had it all and then some. We've had to use medicines that we swore we'd never put into our animals. We've had to hold them down and we've had to put 1 down.

One of the mama does, in Kentucky.

Mr. Wild and I have been discussing whats in everybodys best interest. We can't continue this way, not when animals are in pain. We had the vet come out, we've had old-timers come over and they've all said the same thing. The mud is a huge problem. We need to put down rock. The amount of rock we need is expensive, almost $4000 expensive. We've got a LOT of animals that we need to feed through winter. Our goats are not raised for food. Not for us anyways, I don't like the taste of the meat, never have. We were told that we could have them processed into pepperoni. We don't eat that much pepperoni and its illegal for us to sell any of our meat as we aren't set up for that.

Oreo (American Alpine buck) hanging with the chickens (In KY).

So we decided we needed to sell most of the herd. We contacted the man we bought our 1st cow from as he use to be a Boer goat breeder. We told him our situation and asked him if he could help us find new homes, good homes, for our goats. Last night we took 11 of the 15 goats to his ranch and sold them. I tried really hard to not cry as we were loading & unloading them. Mr. Wild & I didn't talk much in the truck on the way there. They all have names, they come when called, they know the routine at our farm, they are talked to, petted, loved. The cow man assured us that the people we sold to are good farmers, kind farmers that will take great care of our herd. And their farms aren't big mud pits because farmer Paul talked Mr. Wild into bush-hogging too much. Yeah, I'm a little mad about that!