Motivation is a good thing. Being former city folk, we are not used to being SO busy on the weekends. If we were busy it was usually going somewhere to do something fun as a family. On Thursday Michael put together his weekend to-do list. The boys and I sat in rapt attention. What were […]
Hello Again (part two)
Ok, so we left with Michael heading to NY for his annual meeting. One last thing we needed to do before he left was tattoo the two babies. The last time we tattooed baby goats we had our friend Raspberry do it. This time we thought we would do it on our […]
Hello Again (part one)
What a busy couple of weeks it has been. I was hoping for less stuff to do but that always seems to be on the horizon. I thought I would spend a couple posts updating you on what is going on here. Last update we had harvested the apples and made a bunch of cider. […]
Harvest Weekend
It began on Friday. I had avoided the garden for two weeks. Physically, mentally, emotionally and any other “ally” you can think of, I was done with the garden. It was an underlying stress though. In the middle of that time period I had a dream about a zucchini in the garden that was […]
Some Updates with the Barn
My husband is amazing. Really. He is. We have been here a total of 16 months during which he added to his skill set plumbing and electricity. And now he just does them. Like it’s no big deal. His latest project was in the milking stall. Our barn has always had water and electricity. Great. […]
Mowing the Lower Acreage
This summer Michael wanted to have someone cut, or “hay”, the lower acreage. This would do a much cleaner job of cutting and removing the grass clippings from the field than the brush-cutter on our tractor, which leaves the cut grass laying on the ground. He thought he would be able to find someone who […]
Changes are Hard on More Than Humans
Randy and Storm left Friday afternoon and on Saturday we expanded the stall for the does. If you look at where Joshua is standing you will see a post behind him against the wall. A wall was there which made a smaller stall that we put the babies in at night so we could milk […]
Harvest
Last year I had a hard time harvesting the garden on a daily basis. As a result, I wound up with HUGE pickling cucumbers and zucchini. This year I am more successful at getting out there each day. Hopefully first thing after barn chores so I can get it done before the heat of the […]
My Kitchen Adventures
I thought I would take some pictures of a few of the things going on in my kitchen. In the photo above, I wanted to make “Triple Berry Scones” from my latest issue of Cooks Country. I was measuring my ingredients when my boys came in and announced that they too wanted to make their […]
Simple PULSE Professional Home Milking S...
I wanted to tell you about a wonderfully, locally made milking system. Yes, we are no longer milking by hand. The week Michael was in St. Louis it became obvious that doing all the morning chores including milking two goats all before waking up the boys, making them breakfast and then beginning school wasn’t going […]
A Day of Clipping
One more new skill under our belts. Shaving goats. I bet my college professors can’t to that. Goodness, what have I become? Our dear friend Bryn came down for the day to help us shave all of our goats (actually just eight of them, didn’t shave the four “babies”). She brought her aluminum stanchion which […]
Hazardous Pay
On Saturday I decided to try to pull some of the thistle that grows in the girls outdoor pen. It had rained this week ,which made the soil softer, and the thistles were easier to pull out. Our goats don’t eat thistles. You probably already know that goats are great climbers. They love to climb […]