Blog | White Oak Farm & Education Center

Hitting the bottle

Posted on March 16, 2011 by White Oak Farm

Our beloved little ewe has just not taken to nursing like her two brothers, and we’re dancing on a thin line as we try to coax her to nurse but know that we have to supplement her diet so that she will thrive. It started out with a few shots of colostrum (from our goats, frozen from previous seasons) and some strong suggestions on our part (holding her head straight to Gabby’s teat, placing it in her mouth). Unfortunately, Gabby isn’t thrilled about our meddling and doesn’t like to nurse under pressure, and the lamb is not at all enthusiastic about being forced. She loves the colostrum, and now associates people with food. We have tried for a week now in our nursing campaign, to very little avail.

We bought goat milk today, and are still attempting to get the lamb to nurse by feeding her with a syringe instead of a bottle. If she doesn’t become serious about nursing within a day or so we are going to have to switch to bottle feeding the lamb, a necessity that we would all rather avoid…

Posted in Agriculture, Daily Happenings, Sheep | Tagged ewe, lamb, organic, sheep | Comments Off

Baa baa black sheep

Posted on March 13, 2011 by White Oak Farm

The lambs are already growing so quickly!

There was a little scare with one of the boys, who was born with inverted eyelids (entropion) – the fear is that if they continued to develop incorrectly he could have caught an infection leading to blindness. Luckily for us those miniature binder clips are a beautiful solution to just this kind of problem, and after 24 hours with his lower eyelids clipped open his eyes have straightened out their act. Also, the little girl isn’t nursing as enthusiastically as we’d like, but we don’t want her to become accustomed to being bottle-fed so we’re checking up on her regularly to make sure she’s nursing.

This morning Gabby was going stir-crazy from being shut in with her lambs since their birth, so we opened the door and now the four of them have the run to themselves.

You’ll notice from the photos the lambs are covered in black wool. Gabby’s lambs are always born black, but they develop fluffy white coats as they mature, and keep their black faces and legs.

Posted in Agriculture, Critters, Daily Happenings, Photography, Sheep | Comments Off

New Arrivals

Posted on March 10, 2011 by White Oak Farm

After a couple of anxious days waiting for Gabby to go into labor, she delivered three healthy lambs this morning. She was obviously uncomfortable around 8 AM, but once she went into labor the entire process took around 45 minutes. Two boys and a darling little girl. We’re all excited to have a girl, because Gabby is an excellent mama sheep and in her time at the farm she has only given birth to boys.

All are nursed and alert, and are already practicing how to jump.

Posted in Critters, Daily Happenings, Sheep | Tagged birth, delivery, farm, free range, labor, lamb, lambing, sheep | Comments Off

Volunteer with White Oak Farm in 2011

Posted on March 7, 2011 by White Oak Farm

Posted in Agriculture, Farm Programs | Comments Off

Fixer-uppers

Posted on March 6, 2011 by White Oak Farm

In our winter lull, we’ve been tackling a lot of projects at White Oak’s home base, the common house. Our new pantry and reupholstered cushions are just the beginning – this week we decided to take on the office. There are some cracks in cob and plaster that have developed over the years, and we’re particularly obsessed with thwarting the mice that have bored holes in some places. On Tuesday we mixed up a simple batch of cob, three parts clay to one part sand, and added a little chopped straw and water as we saw fit. The beauty of earthen construction really comes out for simple repairs like this, the materials are incredibly easy to come by and are just as easy to apply. We stuffed the cracks and holes with a drier mixture of cob, and used a brush to apply a wet mixture to fill hairline cracks and even out transitions between cob and existing plaster.

Up next: finishing the office paint job. Stay tuned!

Sarah Shea applying a wet mix of cob with a brush.

Posted in Daily Happenings, Farm Crew, Photography | Comments Off

By the dozen

Posted on March 3, 2011 by White Oak Farm

Did you ever see anything more beautiful in your life? A dozen fresh, glorious eggs after a winter of the brittle shells and lackluster yolks of the store-bought variety. On Monday Sarah Shea made eggs for lunch. As the eggs were cooking away in the pan I caught a glimpse of them and was amazed at their color. It literally looked as though she had added orange dye to achieve such a brilliant hue.

The flock can be counted on to lay between 3 and 8 eggs these days, and more often than not we bring in 6 every evening. As you can see in the photo, even our lone Auracana has ramped up production (she’s responsible for the white egg). Even though spring isn’t quite here yet, the hens have signaled a change in the seasons that has us all excited.

Spring means so many things on a farm – this week we’re tackling the very cliche “spring cleaning” in the common house. The office is getting a total makeover, with cob patches in cracked areas and mouse holes, a fresh coat of paint to brighten things up, and a brand new storage closet. It feels like a calm time right about now, but under the surface we’re quietly preparing for multiple births, the arrival of chicks, and the much-anticipated turkey nesting. Stay tuned!

Posted in Agriculture, Chickens, Critters, Daily Happenings, Food, Photography | Tagged eggs, farm, free range, grass-fed, non-profit, pasture-raised | Comments Off

Tumultuous Turkeys

Posted on March 1, 2011 by White Oak Farm

There was some excitement this morning when a small flock of wild turkeys came to visit TomÃ¡s and the Girls. The four noisy gents hung around for about an hour, loitering outside the deer fence, ogling our three hens, and engaging in a gobbling battle with TomÃ¡s.

The hens didn’t seem too excited about the appearance of the rugged strangers, a little bit curious, perhaps. The interface between the wild things and the domestic critters is really fascinating sometimes. I’ve mentioned before that the turkeys have been known to chase wild geese away. Lately though, the wild goose pair has been an asset – noisily ridding the farm of any rival goose pairs. Our farm cat, Dillybean, freely associates with foxes and is likely to have a host of other woodland friends as well. Even the domestic animals have interesting relationships; the turkeys are fascinated by Dillybean, and she is terrified of them.

Posted in Agriculture, Critters, Photography, Turkeys, Wildlife | Tagged breed, farm, free range, grass-fed, heritage, pasture-raised, turkey | Comments Off

Solemn Goose

Posted on February 25, 2011 by White Oak Farm

We got a few inches of snow here yesterday. The farm is situated at just the right elevation so that it can be snowing here, raining at the bottom of the driveway, and clear a mile down the road. It makes for some beautiful mornings, and yesterday there were flakes coming down for most of the day.

The pair of Canada geese that have made a nest at the edge of the pond alternate sentinel duty, and the male had clearly been floating in the pond for a little while to accumulate some snow on his back. The whole scene was so peaceful and solemn, and the gently falling snow made the quiet all the more intense.

Posted in Daily Happenings, Photography, Wildlife | Comments Off

Past Natural Building Workshop Photos

Posted on February 23, 2011 by White Oak Farm

I mentioned that we’ve put up some old photos on flickr from natural building workshops that were held here at the farm (in the past 2-3 years), but it seems like they deserve their own post. Over the next few days I’m going to be putting up more shots of structures from around the farm, so check back here or over on our flickr page to have a look!