Nubian Goat Kids 2015 Abigail's Penelope

Our doe Abigail gave us one of the most beautiful goat kids we're ever had last year. This is a video of Penelope.

Penelope is getting to be a big girl herself, and we have plans to breed her this fall.

Nubian Goat Kids 2015 Gretta's Anna, Abrahm and Hamish Video

If you've been following the blog for a while you may have noticed that I've been posting a video every Tuesday. Many of these videos are from past years because our old computer wouldn't let me edit videos from my Nikon camera. The files were too large. But now that we have the new computer, I am able to edit those videos and share them here. This video is from last spring introducing Gretta's Anna, Abrahm and Hamish. These three went to a wonderful family close by and I'm so glad that I have these videos to look back and remember all the kids we've had over the years.

Pilgrim and Toulouse Goslings Video

This is a video I took of our goslings last year. They're all grown up now and laying beautiful large eggs. Enjoy the video!

Manna Pro Facebook Giveaway!

Manna Pro is celebrating their new Apple Goat Treats by giving away a bag to one lucky Iron Oak Farm reader!

To enter, visit the Iron Oak Farm Facebook Page, like our page and share the Manna Pro Giveaway Post. That's it! You're entered! I will choose the winner on March 28th so check back for the announcement.

Manna Pro was nice enough to send me a bag of their treats for our goats to taste test. See their reactions in the video below!

Also don't forget to enter the Manna Pro Baby Your Babies Photo Contest where they're giving away $2500 in prizes! 

Waltzing Turkeys Video

 I was in the garden last year when I spotted our Black Spanish turkey pair participating in an interesting "dance". 

Click below to see the "waltz"

Color the Farm Coloring Book Video Preview

The Iron Oak Farm Color the Farm Coloring Book would make a great Easter present. It's filled with garden and springtime images. Now you can see every image in the book in the video below so you know exactly what you're purchasing!

To order a copy click HERE!

Growing Oyster Mushrooms at Home

In this week's video, I show how we grew Oyster Mushrooms in 10 days with the Back to the Roots Organic Oyster Mushroom Growing Kit.

Click the box below to watch. Be sure to like, share and subscribe to our You Tube Channel if you enjoyed this video!

Storing and Organizing Seeds Video

I thought I would share our system for storing seeds from year to year, and how we keep our inventory organized. It makes things easier when it comes time to purchase seeds and seedlings. Also, how to make a little sachet to keep your seeds dry while in storage.  Click Below to watch!

Seed Haul 2016 Video

Zach and I visited our local Bordine's Nursery over the weekend to take advantage of their 50% off seed sale. Here's a video on what we picked up. I also wanted to let you all know that we now have a new You Tube Channel. I was posting the videos on my personal channel, but I thought it was time to give Iron Oak Farm its own space. Be sure to Subscribe and share with your farm loving friends!

New Iron Oak Farm You Tube Channel!

 

Tidbitting Rooster Video

Chickens display a great range of language and decipherable behavior. This video of our Buff Orpington Rooster shows a classic example of Tidbitting; when a rooster gets the attention of his hens by finding and moving tidbits of food around with his beak.

Farm Vlog

A lot of you have been requesting a video like this so I put this together on Tuesday. This is my first Vlog... it was more difficult to film than I expected. I kept forgetting to grab the camera when I did stuff. I sort of felt overwhelmed by the end of the day and I felt like the videos were getting really long, so the evening part of our day was cut short. But here it is. Let me know what you think, if you'd like to see more of these kind of videos.

Incubating Turkey Eggs Video

Our Heritage, Black Spanish turkey hens have been laying for the past couple weeks. Last year the hens and the Tom took turns sitting on a clutch, but the eggs never hatched. This year, I thought I would try for a backup plan with the incubators. Here's a video showing how we set up our incubators to hatch turkey eggs. I'm excited to candle in a few days to see if they are fertile. I'll keep you posted!

Checking the Bees After the Winter: Video

It was 52 degrees on Monday and enough of the snow had melted to where we could walk out to the back property and check the bees! Here's a video about what we found.

Tapping Maple Trees: Video

Maple syrup season has begun at Iron Oak Farm! I just uploaded a video of how we tap our trees. I hope to take you along this spring through each step; collecting the sap, boiling it down, and canning the finished syrup for storage.

Dyeing Fiber with Black Walnuts (Video!)

So we started the de-shelling process of the Black Walnuts. Most of the green husks were soft enough to just smush off with our fingers, but a few stubborn ones needed a blade to help.

They remind me of a small pine scented coconut.

The unveiling...

Once the green was removed it was time to wash them.

We swished them around in a clean bucket. The rough nut shells help clean each other. We dumped the water when it got cloudy and rinsed several times.

They will cure in this airy basket for two weeks then we'll crack them. (I'll keep you posted.)

The husks we saved in another bucket for dying.

Then we filled the bucket with water and let it soak over night to extract all the dye.

Then we strained the walnut water through an old towel so the bits of walnut wouldn't tangle in the fiber.

Walnut sludge.

Once we had a nice clean dye bath I soaked our mohair overnight.Black walnut dye is so absolute, that you shouldn't need a mordant.

Here is the final product! A very natural brown almost as if it has come from a brown fleece rather than a dye.

Learning To Knit 3 (Purling Video)

This video has been a long time coming. I started this knitting series over 2 years ago and for some reason never got back to the series. But after a LOT of requests from our You Tube subscribers, I finally made the purling video. For those of you that are interested in learning to knit, I hope you find this helpful!

Check out our You Tube Page for other farm and garden videos. 

Haying Part 3: Using the Baler

And finally the 3rd step in the haying process. Using the baler.

This video shows us baling the hay. the baler is an amazing piece of equipment. Part wood chipper, part sewing machine. The baler gathers the dried hay, packs it into a rectangle shape, wraps the bale in two strands of tine, ties it, and cuts it, releasing a completed bale. After the bales are dropped around the field we took the hay wagon and collected them. Someone would drive and 1 or 2 of us would bring the bales to the wagon. After the wagon was full we brought it to the barn and stacked it.

Haying Part 2: Using the Hay Rake

Continuing on our haying journey (in February no less, ha!) Here is the second step in the process.

The hay has dried for two days in the sun. You really have to watch the weather when making hay. The dry grass can now be raked into windrows or lines of mounded hay. The rake moves the hay down the length of tines and leaves a neat and tidy row for the baler to run over and turn into bales.

Haying Part 1, Using the Sickle Bar

I know it's not haying season, but I was deleting videos off of our movie camera to make room for the footage of the baby goats (if they ever come) and I came across some footage of us haying this past summer.

This is the first step in the haying process. We're using a sickle bar mower to cut our field. After the field is cut we let the hay dry in the sun. Then flip it into furrows with the hay rake and let it dry again. This was one of the hottest weeks of our Michigan summer 104 degrees and a country wide drought. We only got in one cutting but the hay we got from our field fed our 10 goats almost through the whole winter.

Videos

So I'm trying to get all "hi tech" these days. I just installed the new video bar. Now that I have my new Flip Video Camera, thanks to Purina and Community Chickens, I hope to be uploading LOTS of video blogs! I only have the one up so far, but I'm trying to add the knitting videos and others that have been waiting for me to edit. Hope you enjoy the new feature, I'm having fun with it! Let me know if any of you are doing the Purina 60 Day Challenge, I'm preparing a Community Chickens Blog, and I'd LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to include some reader's comments!!! It's a great deal, you get great coupons and I'll be giving away a Flip Video Camera to one lucky winner.