5 Porch Farm

12/14/2025

Fern and frost flowers. Our new pup, Fern Therese, is doing just fine on this very cold day. We are again a 5 pup farm. We lost Danny’s girl, Baby, in May and I have wanted to get another great pyr in her place, especially now that I have cattle. Fern is a 9 month old, predominantly great pyr pup. She grew up around hogs, sheep and chickens and is getting used to the cows and horses. Fern is very sweet and the other dogs have generally accepted her.

I saw frost flowers for the first time today! So beautiful. The pups and I took a walk in the back field, and there they were. I took my gloves off for just enough time to take a photo. Cold should break tmw.

12/10/2025

The sunset tonight was unreal. Stella and Scout are now integrated in the herd. They came running for the best alfalfa from our neighbor Oak Hill Farm

12/09/2025

Stella and her heifer calf Scout arrived late last night. I bought them from J West Cattle Co, a ranch in south east TX that has been breeding British Whites for a while. Stella is about 4 months bred, so we can expect a spring calf. I’m keeping them separate from the rest of the herd for a few days, but they can smell and see each other through the fence. First intro seemed to go fine. I wonder what they’re talking about???

12/03/2025

Puppy update: we did some holiday pics today… just lol. Couldn’t get everyone to focus and in same pic, but here are some highlights. If you would like to be on the farm mailing list (snail mail!!) let me know your mailing address so we can get you a holiday card.

Mom and babies are doing good. These pups are FAT!! They are starting to baby growl at me and it is so cute. They’ll be 3 weeks on 12/5. I committed to keeping them as fosters for 1 more week. We lost the sweet female runt last Friday, so mom is managing a litter of 9 now. I buried her next to Baby, who was Danny’s dog that we lost in May. It is laundry life for me these days lol.

12/02/2025

Happy cows!!! 2 more will join the herd next week. I bought a bred back (pregnant) mom with a heifer (girl) calf at her side from a British White ranch in south east TX. I’ll post their pics when they arrive.

12/01/2025

Jake Troubadour, the OG, enjoying our new wood stove. Temp will down to the mid 20s tonight on the last night of November.

11/29/2025

11/26/2025

Puppy update: these little guys will be 2 weeks old on Friday, 11/28. All of them are thriving but one little girl is lagging a bit. Must be hard to compete with 9 siblings for a snack. We’ve had some success taking out this lil one for individual feeding time, and hopefully she can catch up. Mom is a very good mom. She is also going to be a great dog for someone. She is very smart and eager to please. She is housetrained and understands tone, body language and “no!”. She is also a very manageable size- about 35/40 pounds. She even helped me put in a garden for the ducks.

However!! She is not so great with chickens, ducks or cats!!!! It’s been an adventure. I’ll keep her about another week and she’ll go off to the nonprofit that is handling her. It will be too much to manage 10 puppies as they gain independence with my other animals. I took her in as an emergency situation and she is doing very good!!

11/20/2025

Puppies are 5 days old. 7 boys and 3 girls. Puppies dreaming and a tired momma.

11/16/2025

Bread and bred. The English language must be so hard to learn.

BREAD: First workshop at the farm yesterday, taught by Sarah of The Bread Basket at McKibbon Hollow She led us through the process of how to make a sourdough boule. Great turn out, teaching and the food!! So, so good. Perfect first class. More to come

BRED. Jenny and Angela are hopefully now bred. Yesterday was last day of the artificial insemination process (step 3 of 3). I’ll know in about 35 days if they are pregnant. Cow gestation is about same as humans, so if bred, July calves. And, pending a pregnancy test next week (of a cow, not me!!!) I’ll be getting a momma and calf to join the herd out of south east Texas. While we’re on the subject of babies, momma dog and babies are doing good even though they did interrupt the sourdough class with some puppy whimpers.

11/15/2025

2025 has been such a learning year already: how to manage a greenhouse, raise ducks, raise cattle… why not learn to foster a mom pup with newborns??? This momma was an owner surrender from a family that had way too many dogs. She was SO pregnant. A kind woman stepped up to take her from the Giles co shelter on Thursday. This mom had 11 puppies yesterday at the woman’s house! I picked her up last night and she is now at the farm. Momma is sweet and good. We lost 1 puppy yesterday, but the other 10 seem to be doing very good.