Hey everyone!!! As of Friday evening, all the 2018 crops are in the ground. Jeff finished planting the last of the soybeans Friday, and now, he and Kayla plan to start haying this upcoming week.

Turbo and Dancer were let out to pasture this week as well! So, the view driving up the driveway and looking out the windows of our house make everyone smile. Marie enjoys drinking coffee while gazing out the window in the morning. I lounge on the chair and await word that we are going to work!

Friday, we weaned the lambs and they adapted quickly. Everyone seems pretty content!

All in all, it was a wonderfully busy week at the farm. We were back at normal weekly tasks including training the beef for the upcoming fair that will be quickly upon us in Chippewa Falls during mid-July.

See you again next Friday!

Yours Truly, Wally the Trusted Border Collie

First of all y’all, I’m sorry this is coming so late! Last week was spent getting ready for the wedding of Brady and Tonya, Jeff and Marie’s son and daughter in law. They were married on Saturday, May 26th! We wish them a lifetime of love and happiness! The day was beautiful!

Last weekend, we had our Sandy Acres Meats Open House! We had about 100-150 people attend and everyone seemed to love the petting zoo, farm tour and meat samples. We want to thank everyone that came out to support the event!

This week, we are back to a semi-normal routine!

Today, Memorial Day, I want to thank the men and woman who have served to protect our freedom. Their service and sacrifice is never forgotten. I hope everyone is having a memorable Memorial Day Weekend.

See you again Friday!

Sincerely, Wally the trusted Border Collie

Hey y’all! It was definitely another busy week at the farm.

Jeff and Kayla worked hard trying to get all the crops in. Corn is all planted and other fields are being prepared for the planting of soybeans.

Marie, Erika, and us dogs worked all week on cleaning and started landscaping around the farm as well as completing normal daily tasks during this week. We are all looking forward to the Open House on Saturday, May 19th! Today, we had a little extra help that we are truly thankful for!

Our greatest excitement of the week actually came last Saturday! Janey had her foal! The foal is a jenny (girl) and our friend, Deanne, named her “Fergie”. Deanne is Fergie’s mom! So, a special congratulations to her on the addition to her herd. First though, Janey will raise Fergie for the next four months! We are all so in love. Fergie is so sweet and adorable! 

Time to get some sleep so I’m ready to help finish getting the farm ready for the open house tomorrow. If you are in the area, feel free to stop by from 1:00 in the afternoon until 4:00. For more details, check out this post: “Open House this Saturday”

Until next Friday! Yours truly, Wally the trusted Border Collie

Happy Friday night y’all!

Field work is now in full swing with over 170 acres of corn planted, and Jeff is working diligently to get crops in along with Kayla helping some with tillage.

Over the past two weeks, Marie has also welcomed two school tours at the farm to teach children about animal husbandry. This is something she really enjoys! Us dogs all joined the tour today. We enjoy meeting new friends and telling our version of the farm tales to the students!

Additionally, I helped Marie and Erika continue the preparation of the farm for the Sandy Acres Meats Open House next Saturday.

So, for the fun news!!! Destiny, who was our first Miniature Hereford born to our herd at Sandy Acres in 2014, had her second calf yesterday afternoon. Truth be told she made her way to the world and farm before I made my entrance…I arrived early 2016 (I was born Christmas Day 2015)!

Her newborn bull calf brought us all the opportunity to reminisce about how exciting Destiny’s birth was. It was the spring after Jeff and Marie’s focus at the farm changed over to livestock and crops. It was an exciting time, the beginning of the new “Destiny”. Her heifer from last year named Matilda is one of the four we are showing this year as well!

Have an amazing Mother’s Day weekend! I plan to give Mom extra kisses, snuggle time, and do an extra good job moving sheep wherever she needs them as a way of showing her how much I love and appreciate my human mom!

DON’T FORGET!!! Next Saturday, May 19th is our open house. It’s from 1:00 in the afternoon until 4:00. We will have meat samples, petting exhibit, drawing for a gift basket, an open house meat special, and also a farm tour at 2:30 for anyone interested.

Until next Friday! Take care!

Sincerely, Wally the trusted Border Collie

Happy Friday Evening! May has begun! That included amazing help with getting started painting fence at the farm. We are grateful for extra help this season with the late arrival of spring and the quickly approaching dates of activities this month including: our Sandy Acres Meats Open House on May 19th and, most excitingly, Brady, Jeff and Marie’s son, and his fiancé’s wedding the following weekend!

Our busy week wasn’t without reasons to laugh. “Keeper”, a cat who has spent his life playing with lambs, spent his afternoon Friday wandering around the sheep pen allowing the lambs to nuzzle him.

Additionally, while we spent time vaccinating the lambs this afternoon we witnessed a lamb on the automatic milk feeder relaxing while she drank her milk. She’s in wonderful health, but I think she realized she could lay on her fresh bed and enjoy a delicious meal. As a matter of fact, I enjoy doing that myself when I’m in the house enjoying food in my dog dish. I might have told her a tip or two.

Jeff and Kayla started field work as well. Jeff is planting oats as I finish this blog entry this week. Kayla took her dogs out in the tractor while she was doing tillage work, so the picture provided is of Jax and Moose playing outside the tractor while on a short break. They absolutely love that time in the tractor.

I sometimes hop in when Kayla moves the tractor from the back of the farm to the front just because I enjoy the quick ride. However, my love is the livestock, so that short ride is enough for me. I leave the hours of watching the tires rotate and the soil turn to Jax and Moose then help wear them out after they arrive back to the farm. Exercise always helps us dogs sleep better!

I wish everyone an awesome weekend! See you again next Friday!

Most Sincerely , Wally the trusted Border Collie

Hey y’all! This week is all about kidding around! We’ve had the two Nigerian Dwarf goats for several years…Ginger Snap and Oreo, that are pets for us, but are actually miniature milking goats.

More recently we also added Boer goats, a meat breed, to the mix around here. I suppose we’ve had them for a couple years now with babies in 2017 and 2018!

This past Tuesday, April 24th, we concluded kidding for the spring. Which I might add is about the same time that spring actually has decided to fully arrive!

So let me give you the kidding of 2018 rundown! Cocoa and Marshmellow were born on January 28th. They are now both wethers and will join the ranks with Ginger Snap and Oreo as pets and be a part of tours. They already enjoy their role as “mascots” on the farm, running around making everyone laugh.

Next was a little doe (a single) was born on March 4th. Her mom was actually having a bit of a rough time around the time of the birth, but my mom, Marie, was taking good care of her. However, that little girl takes real good care of her mom and they bonded very well. Both are enjoying the spring weather now that they get to go outside during the day.

We then had a bit of a break until last Tuesday, April 17th. Ginger gave birth to twins that day.

Next, triplets were born! Two doelings and a little buck! They were all born Saturday, April 21st.

Last bit certainly not least, Lucy had twins on Tuesday!

I’m telling you… I’m not kidding around! There’s a whole bunch of kids around!!!!!!

In other news, yesterday, we hosted a tour for people from Dove Healthcare’s Chippewa Falls’ residency. This gave residents an opportunity to see and pet the animals.

It was a wonderful experience for everyone! This is one of my family’s favorite tours each year.

Just a reminder, our open house is on May 19th from one o’clock until four o’clock in the afternoon. If you’re local, come join us!

Until next week, I’ll be running around!

Lots of love, Wally

Hey y’all! First and foremost, I, Wally, want to thank my fans for waiting until Friday for my weekly blog. As I was running around the farm, I decided it made sense to allow most of the week to pass before I posted. Then it’ll be like a week in review!!! So much fun.

Although it was a little chilly this morning, it still feels like spring will finally come! The great big snowstorm that we had last weekend is quickly melting away this week. As I said last week, the humans around here are impatiently waiting for the snow to leave and the ground to be ready for landscaping, field tillage, and crop planting. The animals are also awaiting pasture’s arrival!

This week, things started getting back to normal around here at the farm. Now that spring lambing season is behind us and we have the automatic feeder to help care for the “bottle lambs”, we started working on other projects including working with our show beef again! We have four heifers we are planning to show this year. I help with training as often as I can.

We have only two more does left to kid this spring after having Ginger kid on Tuesday. The two remaining does (also known as nannies) are very pregnant and ready to kid at any time. If anyone is interested in purchasing Boer goats, let us know. As far as babies, we now have two doelings and one buckling that will be available later this summer after weaning.

Also arriving by mid-may will be our first baby donkey ever born on our farm! Janey will be foaling this year, and we are planning to have two foals next year if everything works out according to plans.

Just a couple reminders to close out this week’s “Wally’s Farm Adventures”. We are available for meat purchases seven days per week by appointment (we sell lamb and beef from licensed freezers at the farm). Please call Marie 715-579-2917 to set up an appointment. Additionally, Saturday, May 19th, 2018 is Sandy Acres Meats’ Open House from 1PM until 4PM. There will be a petting exhibit throughout that time, a 2:30 PM tour for those interested, and also we will be selling meat throughout the entire open house. Please come join us if you are in our local area! If you have any questions, please contact our family via phone call, messenger, or comment on this blog post (I can help too. After all, I am a working dog!).

Have a great weekend! See you next FRIDAY!

Warm Regards, Wally the trusted Border Collie

Good afternoon y’all! Big announcements today! First of all, we finalized the plans this morning for our Spring OPEN HOUSE!!!! The Open House will be on Saturday, May 19, 2018 from one o’clock until four in the afternoon with a farm tour at two thirty. Please come join us for this exciting event. We will be having meat samples and offering a special on meat purchases that day.

Another big thing happened this week. After evaluating the time that feeding the individual lambs was taking throughout the day, we all decided that investing into an automatic milk feeder would be a smart decision for the farm, the humans, and for the lambs’ health. The machine warms water, deposits power, and mixes small batches of milk while the lambs are sucking on the nipples. This allows them to eat whenever they are hungry throughout the day and night. There are six nipples on the feeder and we divided the lambs in two groups, older lambs and younger lambs.

We still spend time with the lambs including looking them over to make sure we stay on top of their health, meal consumption, and growth. Plus, everyone enjoys giving these lambs a little love…and the lambs love the humans, especially mom! However, I’m personally excited because that means my mom, Marie, has a little extra time for me and to do other farm work with me! We even started doing yoga this week together, NO JOKE!

Now that we got this “assistant” up and running, we are all impatiently waiting for spring. Brady, Jeff and Marie’s son, is getting married at the end of May to his bride, Tonya. The wedding ceremony will be on the farm. So, Jeff and Kayla are ready to get into the fields as soon as possible so field work can get done. Plus Marie, Erika, Kayla, and us dogs are planning to do lots of landscaping and fence painting. So, we are hoping for spring…very impatiently.

I can’t wait to see how the next week goes so I can update you again! Have an amazing week!

Warm wishes, Wally

Hey y’all! As we had our “spring” snowfall yesterday, resulting in several inches of snow on the ground, my friends and I got to have a snow day and play outside. The snow was beautiful and fun! All the humans kept saying they were looking forward to real spring and being able to get the farm, yard and fences ready for this year’s events including: two weddings, an open house, and a couple family reunions. However, my dog friends and I huddled and said, “LET IT SNOW!” since we found the snow exceptionally awesome to play in! Spring will come soon anyways, I’m sure!

Spring lambing has finished! Our final tally included: 63 ewes lambed with a total of 139 lambs, 59 girls (ewe lambs) and 80 boys (ram lambs). We are helping the ewes raise some of the lambs due to some having more lambs than they can adequately support, so we have 27 bottle lambs. This week, my mom made an executive decision and we are adding an automatic feeder to help feed these lambs milk. We will still be spending quality time with the lambs, but they can eat even more often (we feed up to five times a day already depending on lambs’ ages), get milk when they want, and we can concentrate our time with them to monitoring their overall health and giving them a little extra love. Actually, the feeder should be here today or tomorrow! We are excited.

Throughout lambing, I haven’t been keeping you updated on all the calves being born. So just this week, we’ve had eight new Miniature Hereford calves born, six bulls (boys) and two heifers (girls). More coming soon!

With all the babies being born and the work that needs to be done, we might be ready for spring, but it’s hard not to enjoy the beauty that the snow fall brings while looking at the landscape around the farm. I included a couple scenes from today looking out to pasture and out the driveway. Ahhh!

As I alluded to earlier, we will be having an open house in May, I will bring you further details soon! We will be featuring samples of our meats, specials, and a farm tour. So if you are in the area local to our farm, we invite you to join us then!

Until next week! (I’ll be throwing snowballs and building tunnels… actually, I will be helping at the farm.)

Warm Wishes and LOTS OF LOVE, Wally the trusted border collie!