Getting Ready for Jacob's Friends

Meet the Semyck's

On the bench is "mom" Wendy holding then almost three year old Jacob whose first haircut was forthcoming, next to them is Miranda, while standing behind is Robert and kneeling is "dad" Bob. Photo is from fall 2006

We live on a farmette situated on top of a mountain in the Ozarks. Here we grow mushrooms (portabella, white button, oyster, and shitake) as well as garden produce with various heirloom varieties. We grow everything without the use of chemicals. We sell our goods at local farmers markets and shows in the area. Our farm is known as "Willow Mountain Mushrooms".

Bob worked for large commercial mushroom farms for 23 years before we finally took the steps to go out on our own. It has not been the easiest, but we feel it was the best decision for our family. This way we can live cleanly and offer the community products that are clean and taste just wonderful... our tomatoes do not taste like cardboard and the shrooms have lots of flavor.

Here are Miranda, Jacob, and Robert this spring.









Here is one of our eight outside kitties ~ I should say this is Miranda's cat ~ Clover

Jacob's cat is a short hair named George and Robert's is a long haired named Beguerra.

The five others are all short haired black with varied degrees of white on paws and chest named: Curley, Ivy, Charlie, Sarah, and Iris.

This is Clover Princess a black long haired cat with a small white spot on her chest and little bits sticking out of her ears playing "Puss in Boot".

We have one inside cat named Princess. She is mainly white with Siamese markings and a "Lemar" like striped tail.
All the cats are spayed and neutered.
Whew!




Here Bob is holding Jacob on Easter this year. Just look at Jacob's big smile!

We make a big deal out of his smiles because they are so rare.










Here are a couple of pictures of our current "babies".
We have 11 rare breed bantams.
Four white Sultans,
four black Sumatras (one is a frizzle!),
three Turkens, and
four very large unknowns as well as
six Buff Orpingtons.

Who is watching who?

This is "Red II". We purchased eleven roos a couple of years ago with the intent to butcher them.... instead we named them all. Red is the sole survivor. And what a survivor!

The last weekend of May he was attacked by an opossum at 3 am - he lost an eye in the deal, but our efforts to get the opossum away from him were effective and Red ran as fast as a race horse! Never knew a chicken could run so fast! We thought he was being carried away he was going so fast. I figure I should make more efforts to get him a girl friend and so I think I will be trading one of our rare breed chicks for a Delaware Hen just for him.

What can I say? We have talked about building a Straw Bale house so much that our Robert and Miranda insist on building one every time we get a load of straw. This is probably the largest and sturdiest Robert has done yet! He even had little seats inside and had it all set up for the cats and Red to play and "live" in for a couple of days. (That straw is now growing mushrooms: )

He is going to do great things in architecture some day.

Miranda enjoys playing therapist with Jacob.

This day she kept on insisting that he should learn to stand at the push toy. Before an hour had gone by she had taught him to do so!

It was only a couple of days after he had learned to stand on his own using furniture.

When he starts doing stuff he really gets a move on it!

Here is Miranda with our new dog, Molly. Molly is half Australian Shepherd and half Border Collie. She looks like she is going to have the - thicker coat of the Border Collie.

The children and I picked her to help out with the sheep that are coming this month. When they arrive she will be heading to the barn and pasture with them. For right now she is hanging out with the children, learning basic commands, and trying to make friends with our black and white Shih Tzu ~ Nemo. Seems like we have a lot of black and white critters around here.



This picture was taken June 25th '08. Jacob learned something new that day ~ he is crawling!!!

He kept on going a few small "steps" forward, picking up this little white bear that Mrs. Jerri gave him for Christmas this year, looking at it, then throwing it forward and chasing after it. He enjoyed this game for quite some time. And we certainly had fun watching. I tried to take video of it, but when ever I got the camera going he would stop crawling and go to his belly again ~ what a stinker.

Preparing for "Jacob's Friends"

What / who would we be preparing for?

Why, three sheep for one thing (of course... those who know me, know that I have been talking about sheep for years now) ~

A two and a half year old white ewe named Lucy who is 1/2 Shetland and 1/2 Merino/Dorset (she carries the black spotting gene and 2 of her 3 lambs have been white with black spots.), her daughter (also white) who is one and a half - Clare - she is 3/4 Shetland, with the other 1/4 being Merino and Dorset, and a Shetland ram lamb who is brown in color. I have named him Thomas. Sticking with Saints names for the sheep and thinking the same for the UK Shetland Ponies from Personal Ponies. We are getting the sheep for milking (really good for Jacob) and fleece. However, I think Bob will like to use the bedding from the barn for his mushroom compost as well.

And~

We are so excited to be preparing for the arrival of a pair of ponies for Jacob.

(Robert and Miranda too!)

We feel so fortunate to have found Personal Ponies.org

You really should check out their site at http://www.personalponies.org/

It is amazing!

Barn and Pasture

The following pictures are of the barn and pasture that "Jacob's Friends" will be living in/on. We are planning to build up to 4 separate paddocks on our small property. I figure we will need them in the future as we will be having to separate out breeding stock from others for the sheep and rotate the chickens through as well.

The Barn

This is the northeast portion of the barn that we are going finish closing in. It is about a 20 x 24 section that we are going to put a loft above for storing feed for the critters that are to come. We figure the cats will enjoy that space as well. The barn will have two stalls for the UK Shetland Ponies from Personal Ponies, a grooming/shearing area, two enclosures for the sheep, and a milking area. The stalls will have an elevated wooden floor on top of gravel and the center of the barn is going to stay as gravel for now - maybe put wood chips from Luna sawmill down the isle over the gravel?

The barn is about 70 x 35 and has a closed in concrete floor shed space in the northwest corner. The Rabbit "house" is going to be next to the shed area of the barn. We have two Holland lops and a Netherland Dwarf right now and are looking at getting a pair of angora and then a breeding set of meat rabbits. Rabbit droppings are also good for mushroom compost.
As you can see in this picture - the north opening of the barn - there is a little hillside that goes down to the barn. Because of this we get water flowing through the barn during rain storms. To keep this away from the sheep and ponies we are going to put in a wood floor in the stalls with gravel down the center ailse-way for the water to go down the center as usual. Why fight nature?

Obviously the manure spreader and the growing trays for the mushrooms are going to have to move to the south side of the barn. The barn is set up with electricity and water isn't too far away to get a line run underground. We already have the pipe - it is leaning on the barn in the picture above.

This is from the north opening in the barn out to the main paddock. A 4' woven wire fence will run along the grassed over roadway all the way to the forest in the background. Then another fence will run close to the older oak trees about 15 - 20 feet away. This space will afford the ponies and sheep a shady spot to get out of the sun and will be the main feed and water area for them. The fence will then run along the back of the larger oak trees you see here.

This is a shot of the north-east pasture from the farthest northeast corner toward the back of the farm/house. Note the swimming pool? It has to go. The cats are having too much fun in it and have torn up the liner til it is no longer going to hold water. To the right side of the picture you can see our older garden all overgrown - we will get rid of the weeds there and plant something that the ponies and sheep will like. The shorter things you see with the white tarp laying on the ground in the near distance is our melon patch. The paddock is going to go up to that garden and circle around the north edge of it to allow entrance to the next paddock This paddock should be about 80 x 70. Maybe more... I just used my small feet to measure it.

This shows the pasture from the woods toward the barn. The area on the left side of the picture under the trees will be available for the ponies for shade.











This picture shows the farm as you round the bend in the road from the southwest corner. The concrete block and metal building behind it are our mushroom growing rooms. The tall section in the center is where Bob does a lot of his "dirty" inside work after the compost has been pasteurized. The taller section you see next to the willow trees (had to have them to be called "Willow Mountain Mushrooms") is where the composting is done. Our "house" is located between the two taller sections of the large building shown. The barn is hiding to the east of the building you see here.

To the west of the main building is a pasture area. There are some tall grasses to the back here that we are going to bush hog or hay before placing any critters in that area.
It is going to be broken into two separate paddocks with a small lean too in the middle for the sheep and ponies to get out of the weather in during the day. This will also be the way to get from one paddock to the other with cattle panels stopping immediate access from one to the other. There is a space in there that has the potential to be a pond as well. The last paddock would be directly behind the mushroom growing rooms and up to the edge of the melon garden area. That pasture will be connected to the main area by a 15 - 20 foot wide fenced "walkway" between the north side of the garden and the woods. We have some trees that we haven't decided where to plant them as yet, to place in the pasture area for future shade. They will have to be protected by fencing so "Jacob's Friends" don't eat them or the bark in the winter.

The Chickens are not going to be free range. They are going to be pastured/tractored in breeding flocks so we can hatch out eggs every now and then. We found a plan for a tractor at the following site that we really like. http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/PPGraphics/PortableCoop.html This way they will rotate following the sheep through the different paddocks and around the gardens.

To see pictures of Lucy and Clare during Clare's birth you can visit this site: http://thethreeringranch.com/allena/?p=265 I pray she does as good here as she has done at Allena and Beau's farm "The Three Ring Ranch" (like the Three Ring Circus)

Future Plans for Jacob's Friends

In the future I hope to set up Jacob's Friends as a non-profit and open it up to other differently~abled children in our community for equine and general "pet" therapy. I see this as a perfect opportunity to help other little ones like Jacob and their parents realize a dream come true as they see their child blossom with their arms around a little pony or lambkin/sheep or even playing with a Holland Lop bunnie.

Our Furry Friends

The rabbits

Our Beatrix Potter Bunnie ~ "Annie" is a Netherland Dwarf

Jasmine or Jazz, as we call her, is our Holland Lop "Princess" in squirrel colored coat.

Here is Andy ~ our Chestnut colored Holland Lop that never quite "lopped". That doesn't matter to us though as he has such a great personality. All of our Rabbits are friendly, but Andy is especially so. Jazz is a hospitable character as well, and Annie, well ~ lets just say we leave her in her cage more than the others as the rabbitry we got them all from said that she had been known to bite, but we haven't had any problem with her.

Robert and Miranda holding their "babies". They seemed to enjoy being held this way which is a surprise to a lot of people. Guess they are just very trusting bunnies.

The Sheep

"Baaaaaah"

Just got these pictures tonight of the trio from Beau. Introducing ~ Thomas, Clare, and Lucy.

Thomas

Thomas, Shetland, is in the center of this picture. He is all brown (moorit). He was born this spring. What a handsome strong looking fellow!

Clare

This is Clare (3/4 Shetland 1/4 Morino/Dorset). She was born last spring to Lucy. She is still in "full fleece" and will be clipped soon to help her with the heat. Her shepherd has been pregnant and just didn't quite get to her yet.

(Congratulations to Beau and Allena on their new little girl! )

Lucy

This is Lucy (1/2 Shetland - 1/2 Morino/Dorset) I don't think this picture does her justice. You really need to go to the link above and check out the beautiful pictures of Lucy with her "new" lambkin Francis. The most adorable picture!

Well, here ~ I went and copied it ~ But go to "The Three Ring Ranch" site anyway. It is amazing!