PhoenixDown Farm

Um, I'm not sure what to say to that.

2012-01-21T17:45:00.000-05:00

Private Message exchange: (names have been changed to protect the, um, innocent?)

Ms. Dur: hey, I saw on a forum that you make goat milk soaps. I was thinking of trying to make some myself but I wanted to use a vegan recipe for goat milk soap, do you have any?

Me: Do you mean vegan soap recipes or vegetarian goat milk soap recipes (that use milk but not lard)?

Ms. Dur: No, I mean vegan goat milk soap recipes.

Me: .... It's not possible to make goat milk soap "vegan". I have some that don't use lard, so they are vegetarian, and some that don't use goat milk or lard so they are vegan, but then they wouldn't be goat milk soap.

Ms. Dur: That doesn't make sense. Why can't you make goat milk soap vegan?

Me: Because using milk automatically makes it not vegan.

Ms. Dur: That doesn't make sense. Do you know anyone else who might have some vegan goat milk soap recipes?

Me: I'm not trying to be snarky, but do you know what vegan means? I can promise you that NO ONE can give you a recipe for vegan goat milk soap.I'd be more than happy to give you some vegan soap recipes if you would like but they will not include any milk.

Ms. Dur: Well you don't have to be a ***** about it, I was just asking.

Colour me mindboggled.

What a week....

2012-01-14T10:11:00.001-05:00

I feel like I say that every week now. What a week. *sigh* It's been crazy between Dr. appointments and getting together with the former club treasurer to get things switched to me (and finding out we couldn't change the banking info without the minutes from a meeting explaining exactly what I can do) and more blood work for Tiff (glucose test for gestational diabetes. And there are women out there who actually get pregnant intentionally??? *mindboggled*) and of course Parsley going to his new home.

*falls over*

Well, after feeling like I have been running in circles for the entire week I had a lovely surprise this morning at chore time. I was loving on Nutmeg and her big old kid-filled belly and I checked her tiny little teats and... there was a tiny little udder under there!!!! Right on time she is starting to have udder development. Of course being a shaggy coated Toggenburg you can't SEE anything but it's there!

I'm less excited about the kids than about the milking. The kids are all destined for the freezer, so I won't be getting attached to them. I am curious to see what they look like, but I am keeping my emotional distance. I'm more excited about my possible new future herd sire, which means waiting until April to see if the doe i want a buckling from even has any boys (this is one of the commercial does owned by the lady who bought Thyme and Rosemary 1, and the sire is her lovely meaty buck, Motor City). But I am giddy about seeing how Nutmeg and Ivy's udders turn out and what kind of milk production I get out of them.

This summer I am practically going to be swimming in milk. *yay*

Winter has teeth, so does bacon.

2012-01-03T11:35:00.000-05:00

BRRR! It turned to real winter yesterday! It's still nicer than it was this time last year (we are just a few days away from Chickory's birthday, when it was -9 actual temps) but.... brrr!

My two bucks refused to use their little house. It was just too cold and windy to leave them outside. I was not at all ready to put Rosie back in the same stall with Sage, but I didn't want to leave the boys outside either. I have plans to goatify my other stall since i never use it for the horse but that is still on my to do list somewhere below "stay sane" and "make sure pregnant teen gets proper care and education".

So... in order to make sure no one died of hypothermia I did this:

Athletic tape over the teats. This was this morning, so it survived all night, and i got my usual amount of milk this AM. Rosie tried to nurse but Sage rebuffed her adamantly and she gave up.

The boys are in tight quarters, but they are getting along pretty well, and aren't shivering like they were outside.

Chickory isn't thrilled being low man on the totem poll again. He'll be glad when they go back outside, which if the weather reports are right should be tomorrow.

Ivy and Nutmeg are doing great.

Nutmeg is due first week of March and is getting huge.

Ivy should be due end of April, same time as Tiff, which is NOT what i wanted but I needed to make sure she freshened this year, even if it meant it was at a bit of an inconvenient time. She is starting to look like she has a baby bump. We'll know more surely in another month or so.

On an unrelated topic, I was cooking bacon two days ago and it tried to blind me!! A bit of fat popped and blew hot grease onto my hands and one little splatter hit RIGHT next to my eye. It barely stung my hands but it left a tiny but quite nasty burn right by my eye. And I can't seem to leave it alone unless I keep a bandaid over it. A half inch to one side and it would have hit me in the eye. *scary* I think I need one of those face shields the coroners in crime shows wear when they have to do something that might be splashy, hehe. But you know what? the bacon was delicious. *grin* Even if it did try to bite me.

Mudville.

2011-12-28T10:23:00.000-05:00

It's turned to winter again, but on Christmas eve our world was still mud. I'd had to park in the yard and walk to the house for a while. THIS was the scene at our house:

I won't complain, not one bit.

Now we are buried under a blanket of snow, the water buckets are covered in ice, and I can't seem to get my feet warm. But the driveway is solid enough for me to get the rest of my winter hay delivered. So i guess it isn't all bad.

We got another deer last night for the family freezer, a nice big fat doe. That should be enough meat to last us a while. I feel much better knowing we have enough to get us through for a bit.

On an unrelated note.... Dexter is really sucking up these days. he is in the dog house again. It's a good thing he is cute.

Two posts in one day!!!

2011-12-27T16:53:00.000-05:00

Brego seems sound again. Thank goodness.

I've been working him less than consistently because, well... because my life has been a huge bowl of yuck soup lately and I've been too much of a debbie downer to do more than deal with the most basic things. But for my sanity I need to do this, and for his health and well being of course. lol.

So today i worked him lightly, I was going to long line him but he was full of himself so i just longed him and unbraided his tail then longed him again. Basically just walkingtrot each way, until he was actually listening to me and not sticking his nose in the air and hollowing out his back.

Early in the work:

Later in the work:

I... I don't even know what to say....

2011-12-27T10:32:00.001-05:00

It's been up there for an hour.

he was standing too close to the fence so I tossed the hay over his back but only two flakes made it over, this one just stayed there.

Snow is accumulating on top of it.

he doesn't even seem to notice it, let alone care.

I can't stop laughing.

I'm dreaming of a greeeeen Christmas!

2011-12-21T06:52:00.000-05:00

OK, maybe green isn't the right word. Mud brown is more accurate, really. But "not white" is fine with me. "White Christmas" may be one of the few holiday movies I can stand to watch (Love the music, Bing Crosby's voice is butter. Plus Danny Kaye cracks me up) but I won't shed a tear if we don't have snow.

Brego seems to be enjoying the weather as well. He has been full of himself in the mornings, dashing around snorting.

This was a few weeks ago. I should get more when i go out and feed this morning.

It's not like we haven;t had ANY snow. But this winter, so far, hasn't been..... well it hasn't been "typical winter in Michigan" for sure.

But, I mean, for Michigan in December this barely even counts as snow.

Nightshade was not happy when it did snow. hehe.

My only concern is that when winter finally realizes it has been easy on us it will make up for lost time. *shudder*

I really need to move south. Not way south. Just to hardiness zone 7. lol.

slaps forehead

2011-12-17T18:37:00.002-05:00

Dexter is living up to his name. He escaped the back yard this morning and tried to kill chickens (keep in mind they are significantly larger than he is) and then while we were gone destroyed my lovely bookmark and Tsu's good headphones. That is the highlight reel of his greatest hits of the day, there was more, but I am trying to not dwell on it too much lest I give in to the desire to punt him.

And now he is sleeping beside Nigel, curled between my feet, looking up at me when i move and disturb him with eyes full of adoration and worship. Stupid obnoxious dog.

Gosh he is cute. I want to strangle him so bad right now. My beautiful bookmark, that was a one of a kind work of art gifted to me by an anonymous friend. *sob* He actually pulled it OUT of my library book and destroyed it. What dog DOES that?

I'll tell you what dog does that, this one does.

He is much more adorable when he has eyebrows and whiskers but i groom him myself and last time i oopsed his face.

This was prior to the oops:

as a new puppy, with the toy he has now completely destroyed and we have thrown away...

and more recently, with his usual grown up haircut...

*sigh* From now on he has to go in the crate when we leave the house. He has been sooo good for so long, but he is still only 9 or 10 months old and i think we trusted him far too much far too soon.

I can't wait until his eyebrows and whiskers grow back.

Baby news: never a dull moment.

2011-12-17T09:43:00.001-05:00

So, early this week we got a call from the OB about the results from Tiff's ultrasound. They found a Choroid Plexus Cyst in Demetri's brain. She very strongly stressed that these are not uncommon and are harmless in and of themselves but they can be a marker of another issue and we needed a level 2 ultrasound with a specialist to rule out anything more serious.

Luckily they were able to get us in with the specialist almost immediately. Unfortunately, because we live in a massive no man's land, the specialist was almost 60 miles away, and our appointment was early in the day. Of course Tiff was nonchalant as always but Josh (daddy-to-be) and I are the worriers in the family and we stressed enough for everyone.

Thankfully, after the second ultrasound they found nothing, not even the initial choroid plexus cyst, and none of the physical deformities associated with the genetic issue it can be a "soft marker" for in some cases.

*phew*

It was a stressful busy week for me, and i am glad it is over.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

2011-12-13T07:53:00.000-05:00

One of the great things about this blog is that it is mine. :-)

I can't control actual conversations, which right now are mostly about why I haven't "made" Tsu get a job (Um, hello? 1. have you seen the job market around here? You know MI custody law says we can't move more than 100 miles until Tiff turns 18, so we are sorta required to stay here in this awful market for another year and a half. 2. I can't 'make' anyone else DO anything. I sorta wish i could sometimes, but I can't, so I'm getting sick of being yammered at about that.) and how somehow if he isn't putting in 20 applications a week i need to make him do that, or being told how I have to do this or do that or make Tiff do this or do that (again with me having to "make" other people do things? *sigh*), or being either pitied or chastised because I'm not thrilled about having an infant in my home again. I'm tired of people trying to fix me because I don't like babies. I'm equally tired of people telling me how screwed up I am for not liking babies. THIS is nothing new, I just thought once I passed child bearing age people would be off my back about it forever and the constant "what is WRONG with you, you don't like BABIES and KIDS?" would never come up again. But no such luck. I seem to be in a never ending loop of trying to explain that I will love my grandbaby (I HAVE ULTRASOUND PICTURES!!! SQUEEE!) but that doesn't mean I will be overjoyed with having him (IT'S A BOY!!!!!!) living here for his first year, no matter how strongly I feel that it is the right thing for us to do for both Tiff and the baby. I did not at all enjoy Tiffany's infancy and childhood (but I got some great pictures of her to show off out of it, because she was adorable as all get out). But she never felt anything less than loved and wanted and adored and Dimitri will never feel anything less either. I didn't enjoy talking about "baby" stuff when I was pregnant/had an infant, and I enjoy it even less now. (Right about now my CF friends are all laughing at me derisively or feeling sorry for me, depending on how much they like me, lol. Don't worry my dears, you should be catching on now that this is not going to turn into a constant baby blog, lol, and any baby posts i DO make will be clearly labeled and separate from farm posts).

I can't really avoid that all in my daily life. But I can here, because this is MY blog, and MY domain, and if I want to update on things about all that I can (did I mention I have ultrasound pictures of my grandbaby??) And if I don't want to.... *crickets chirp* *subject change*

Last night I weaned Rosie.

Say hello, Rosie:

Rosie isn't always the sharpest bulb in the deck of cards....

I was going to give her 12 to 16 weeks with her mom. We are at about 10 weeks and she is turning into a bitey little nurser. Look what she did to her mom's teat!

It was getting difficult to milk her without contaminating the milk with blood! YIKES!

and Rosie has been growing like a weed, I mean she actually lays down to nurse half the time, she has to kneel to get under there anyway.

So last night she moved out of the doe stall and into the other stall with Chickory.

Look at that! Chickory is 11 months old. Rosie is 10 weeks. Same dad, related moms. The only genetics they don't share are the ones from their maternal grandmothers. She has grown SOOOO much faster than the wethers I had last winter. And she was big when she was born but not nearly as big as the boys were at birth. I just wonder if being born at a time where all her food could go to growing instead of staying warm made THAT much difference?

Speaking of growing.... I think Nutmeg is starting to show a baby bump.

Nutmeg, on the right, should be due early March for kids with my mini fainter, Nightshade:

Ivy should be due mid to late april. I don't think Nightshade managed to do his job with her so she spent some time with Parsley. I know he did his job, lets just hope she did hers. I wanted them both to have kids with Nightshade the first time but the babies with Parsley will likely be worth more if I want to sell them instead of process them for freezer camp.

These girls are so pretty.

I hope next year to have either a meat bred myotonic to cross them with or a registered Toggenburg buck so I can register and sell their kids. But that will probably mean selling both the bucks i have now and buying a new buck and with our current finances that isn't likely. So I may just keep the boys I have now.

OH, Gratuitous roo pic! Jewels and Fluffy Butt are hoping to get some stray bits of cat food, so they hang out by the porch. We have to keep the gate at the top of the porch steps closed otherwise they roost up there and poo on everything. lol.

FaceBook, and the year that can't end soon enough.

2011-12-12T10:04:00.000-05:00

First, those of you on FaceBook, please "Like" my farm page, http://www.facebook.com/pages/PhoenixDown-Farm/136510583125084 I post there almost daily, sometimes multiple times a day.

My friends, thank you for putting up with my lack of activity and still popping in to comment when I do post. Hopefully that will change as the new year rolls in. Several difficult situations have been resolved or are at least at a point where I don't feel obligated to keep it to myself.

In a nutshell... my husband lost his job and still isn't employed. The state came after me for child support even though Tiff had been living exclusively with me for over a year, froze my bank accounts, hauled me into court three times, started proceedings to issue a warrant for my arrest for the child support, and refused to drop it unless i proved my case by taking my ex to court. It cost us our entire nest egg we'd set aside for keeping us afloat and another chunk of cash we had to borrow from my father, and once I was able to prove my case in court they awarded me about 1/7th the actual court costs. Which means our 6 months of survival money is gone, never to be seen again, and i am in debt. But it kept me out of jail. *sigh* Then shortly after the court case was resolved I found out my 16 year old daughter is pregnant.

i think now you can probably see why I wasn't terribly chatty. On top of that I have always dealt with some level of seasonal affective disorder and without health insurance I'm handling it with lights and supplements... and to be honest with everything going on right now that's not really doing a lot for me. But as we close in on the shortest day of the year i know it's just a matter of time before the serotonin levels pick back up in my noggin and the chemical issues that bring me down start to back off.

This has really been the scariest, hardest, most heartbreaking year of my life to date. And the struggles are far from over. I've had to put some of my plans for the homestead on hold (I won't be planting a garden this upcoming year and i won't be able to start on beekeeping any time in the foreseeable future. I may also need to downsize the goat herd if things don't turn around soon). But for now we are holding on and making due.

I certainly hope and pray that the next year is better than this has been. I discovered a quote not to long ago that have been clinging to like a lifeline. It comes from an unlikely source.

“I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.”
― Marilyn Monroe

Sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together. I've seen it true in my life in the past, I have to believe it is true now and in the future.

Thank you for following my blog, for those who have sent me emails and private messages giving me support without even knowing what was wrong, I love each and every one of you. Your kindness and support when you didn't even know if something WAS wrong has moved me and carried me through painful times and in ways i can't express here. There just are not words. the English language is sorely lacking at times.

I have some more interesting and upbeat things to share with you now that the news flash is done. But for now I leave you with this... one of the most beautiful sights i have ever seen in my life... My heart horse.

Good heavens....

2011-10-18T21:34:00.001-04:00

I need to post more often.

*blush*

Things are complicated my friends... and have been for a while. It makes it hard to chitchat here at times.

I shall try to remedy that soon. :-)

Until then, check this out:

Rosemary II, 1/4 Alpine, 1/4 Boer, and 1/2 LaMancha. Out of Sage and by Parsley. Thank goodness she got Sage's ears, lol. Future dairy doe, isn't she lovely? I promise to get new pictures soon. I love her ears, and she is just as sweet as sugar and pie. Nice clean teats, and her mom is already giving me a quart or more a day even with the kid on her 24/7. I can't wait to see how she milks once I get a 12 hour fill on her.

Nothing of any great importance.

2011-09-05T15:02:00.001-04:00

Lazy fat cat, Irvine:

The chick has doubled in size and is getting real live wing feathers:

FluffyButt the Broody Hen. She is a good broody, she gets off the nest once or twice a day for food, water, and a dust bath, so she is holding her wight well and keeping her nest clean, but still taking good care of her eggs.

Brego is a creeper and has been in my face everywhere I go in the pasture/barn.

The other day it was pretty hot, and he sweat, rolled, sweat some more. He was filthy.

Sage is getting bigger, we are just over 3 weeks away from her due date. UGH! Those FLIES!

I tried to get some good pictures of Ivy and Nutmeg and this is what I got:

This one is probably the most accurate picture I have managed to get of their colour. Rich chocolate, lovely.

A full herd again!

2011-09-02T16:15:00.000-04:00

Ivy and her sister are back together. I'm calling her Nutmeg. They are almost a matched set, hehe!

Sage doesn't seem to care a bit, hehe.

I'm impressed by how casually these girls take everything. Oh, ride in a car, new home, blah blah blah... whatever.

Also...

Dexter is a bit annoyed at all the attention the chick is getting. So he keeps trying to slip between me and the brooder. lol.

This + this =

2011-08-30T16:05:00.002-04:00

This:

+ This (one in back, to the right.. the one in front is currently holed up in the coop sitting on about 7 eggs):

=

I was using a terrible little incubator just because it was super cheap and i wanted to try it. I managed to get one of the two eggs to hatch, but it went three days over due. Chickie is currently living in an old fish tank in the kitchen with a heat lamp. It's a noisy little thing, but cute as all get out. I keep calling it a "he" but lets hope it is actually a she so we can keep it.

This is amazing, really. i want a real incubator, so I can do this right next time.

Crossed fingers, empty stalls, gifts.

2011-08-24T22:44:00.003-04:00

Crossing my fingers that my two little eggs in my cheap little incubator make it. The chicks inside were moving as recently as 4 days ago, but I haven't handled them since aside from turning them until two days ago when my instructions said to back off and leave them alone. I have been leaning over them every couple of hours to see if they are cheeping in there or not. Tomorrow (the 25th) is supposed to be their big day, if they made it.

They are arriving by spaceship.... lol...

It's almost impossible to regulate the temp and humidity right. I KNOW it is too humid in there but everything I read says too humid is better than not humid enough.

On the bright side, if this fails... it looks like I have a broody hen finally. This is day 4 of her sitting here, and she has a bare patch on her tummy and only gets up to eat and drink and heads back.

This is Fluffy Butt, the Buff Orpington. When she is out eating I am taking out the brown eggs and leaving the white and green under her. I get a lot more brown eggs than the other colours and at least one of the people I am supplying eggs to won't eat the brown ones, so I need more white and green. These chicks won't be the best mix for egg laying since daddy is a Phoenix and they are an ornamental not a production breed... but they should be quite pretty.

So, on the goat front.... I'm not sure it seems "right" only having two does. Two does does not a herd make, lol. I moved them into the Ladies Stall once Rosie and Thyme headed to their new home and the stall seems so.... empty... with just the two of them in there. I think they need a Nubian to keep them company. Someday. I may be going to look at a few Nubian doelings next week but unless I sell my cart and/or saddle that won't happen. Anyone looking for a wide Aussie saddle or a Shetland sized pony cart? I have names in mind for a Nubian should I ever get one. Artemisia or Belladonna, depending on colour. I like to plan ahead.

Thegirls are settled in to the big stall nicely.

Ivy is sure if she keeps checking something yummy will appear in her bucket.

Sage is looking a tad narrower in the belly today, at least from the front, but no smaller from the side.

I'm crossing fingers for the chickies and for Sage to have girls. If I can't get a Nubian this year then her girls will be my primary "sweet milk" does. So yeah, I need them to be girls. NEEEED. Plus I need new a "Rosemary" and "Thyme" to keep my herd's Scarborough Fair core in tact, lol. Yes, I fully intend to name two more of my goats by the same names as two previous goats. They will just be Rosemary II and Thyme II.

A friend of mine, Erin from Cadence Rhythm Beads (eBay seller: ExtraHannah) sent me the loveliest string of rhythm beads for Brego. He isn't quite sure what to think of them, he kept twitching his skin like he had a fly on his side and it kept making them jingle.

They are just gorgeous, I'm tempted to wear them myself when he isn't using them to look handsome and sound beautiful.

I told him he sounded like a bellydancer.

Just lovely.

Bye bye, ladies!

2011-08-23T15:45:00.002-04:00

Well, Rosemary and Thyme got their test results back and as expected they tested negative for CL so they get to go to their new home. I will miss them but gosh were they ever good goats for me. They did just exactly what I needed them to do when I needed them to do it, they put up with me when I was weird and a bumbling newbie, and they gave me a chance to see where I wanted to head with this whole "goat" thing.

It's hard to see them go, Rosemary has always been my favorite. But I know she will be happy where she is going, and I have Sage and Ivy to comfort me, lol. In no time at all Sage will be ready to give me those kids and hopefully a month or so later Ivy will be up to weight to breed the first time. She only needs about 10 pounds so I don't think that will be a problem.

So Bye Bye, Rosemary and Thyme. Good luck, have fun, and be good girls!

Their first day home:

Rosemary and Chickory, her first kid and mine!

The girls, showing me some love:

I kid will eat Ivy, too, wouldn't you?

2011-08-18T21:23:00.002-04:00

Well, we are still waiting on the test results on the twins but Tsu took pity on me and we went and got my dairy doeling yesterday. The lady I was buying her from was heading out of town and if I didn't get her last night or early this morning I would have to wait a week.

This complicates management because with the twins going out and the new doeling coming in I need to practice immaculate biosecurity on the farm. They are in the same barn about 15 feet apart, but with an almost solid wall between them and all of their equipment is completely segregated. I take care of the twins first, then the new girl, since I am making sure to protect the twins from the new goat not the other way around. After handling the new girl I wash my hands in antibacterial soap and rubbing alcohol.

Now, I'm kinda weird about biosecurity anyway. I have a pair of shoes that i only ever use when going to someone else's farm where they have goats, sheep or chickens. I wash them off with bleach after any trip around someone else's farm. I keep a jar with udderwash and bleach and rags to wash my hands before and after handling someone else's livestock. Sure, it's overkill. The bad diseases are passed through things like body fluids and burst abscesses. It's not LIKELY that just walking through someones farm and petting their goats would put MY animals at risk. But still. I'm careful. Not just for me, but for the people I visit as well.

What doesn't make sense is that I'm not nearly as concerned about other people coming on MY property as I am with ME going on other people's property. But still....

Anyway. I don't consider Rosemary and Thyme "mine" anymore so I am acting as I would if i were going to someone else's farm. It's more labor intensive but I feel better about it.

Last night I kept the new doeling in the bachelor pad pen. I had stripped it down to the dirt and bleached and pine-soled it well before bedding it with grass hay and bringing Ivy home. She wasn't weaned, and it was her first time away from her mom and sister. So I took my sleeping bag and fluffed up some hay and made a bed in her stall. This worked well until the wee hours of the morning when I woke up and she was urinating on my feet. *falls over laughing* So I moved out of her stall and put my now wet sleeping bag between the pen and the run in so she could rest her head on my hand and Brego could sniff my feet and spent the rest of the night there, safe from goat pee.

Today once I was sure she was doing well and not suffering from any shock from riding for a half hour in the back seat of a car or sleeping with a crazy lady in her stall. We'd dosed her with probiotics and nutri-drench and I'd given her some free choice minerals and baking soda. She didn't seem to have any ill effects from her travels so i put her and Sage out in the yard close enough to sniff noses so they could spend the entire day nibbling grass and getting to know each other. Tonight they went in to their stall together. My entire dairy herd of two goats. Well, one goat and a second goat that hopefully has another doe or two IN HER BELLLLY!!!!

THIS belly:

She isn't due until the first week in October. Seriously.

Either she has babies in there or she has opened a European youth hostel in there in her uterus. These babies are sired by Parsley who has lovely teat structure and whose three previous kids had lovely teat structure even if they were all boys. No clue what is dam's udder was like, but he produces very clean nice sized teats on his male kids, lol. If I can get at least one female kid from the pair i will be blissfully delighted. If not, I'm looking for a Nubian or something else known for producing large amounts of sweet delicious milk. If I get two doelings i may just explode with bliss. Mama is only half dairy doe and gives up to 3 quarts at peak production. With a decent dairy daddy they may clear 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 gallons a day. And be as cute as Chickory. Win win win!!!

OK. so. all this talk about goats and the new goat and no pictures yet??? What is UP with that??

Hey, I'm climbin' on stuff i shouldn't climb on because I'm a GOAT and it's FUN!

Good heavens, look at these ears.

and even better, wattles.

her daddy has all kinds of + and * things on his papers which means the ladies in his line know how to fill a bucket with gads of milk. She is a registered American Toggenburg. She has lovely fluffy bloomers.

and ears and wattles.

Did I mention Sage is about to explode? Or at least looks like she is?

Brego looks almost as pregnant as Sage.

Yaah. Time to get back to work for him, lol.

Lotsa changes at the farm....

2011-08-08T08:36:00.002-04:00

Well, it looks like Rosemary and Thyme (Anona and Bootsie as their registration papers call them) shall be moving on to a home where their unique abilities to have babies and look cute will be greatly appreciated. They will be going to live at Double H Boer Goats where they will no longer need to undergo the indignity of being milked twice a day for half the year. The owner of Double H has a CL-free herd so they need to pass their CL tests before it's 100% a done deal but I have no reason to think they won't pass those with flying colours.

I will miss them. Especially Rosemary. They are sweet, and have been great goats for a first time goat owner. And Rosemary has those gorgeous ears. But I know they are going to a fantastic new home, and i will be able to check on them because their new owner's mother works at the library, hehe. We talk goats every time I go in there.

I'm looking to spend the money on a pair of dairy bred doelings. I'm smitten with Toggenburgs. I may have found a pair of doelings who will be old enough to breed the first time in October or November. They are gorgeous with good bloodlines. I will be going to look at them this week. Not sure what day, depends on when the vet comes out to draw blood on Rosie and Thyme.

This means NO milk until late October at the soonest, and then limited milk until march. *sob* but next year it will mean MORE milk for a LOT longer.

Oh, and this next week is freezer camp week. So by this time next week the Kennii shall be gone. I may be down to 4 goats for a while. Crazy!

I found the eggs!!!!!

2011-07-24T18:46:00.002-04:00

I went on a quest for eggs. I'd heard a hen making the "I got an egg on the way!!!" sound in the barn so after climbing all over through trees and weeds and wild raspberries (ouch) I checked in the barn. About 10 feet up the hay pile I saw an egg. I climbed up, and found a whole dozen!!!!

If I do the math for when they seemed to stop laying as many eggs it averages out that they haven't dropped production at all, lol.

I didn't think to get pictures before I had Josh (Tiff's boyfriend) get the eggs down for me.

So I marked a few eggs and put them back in the coop (to remind them that they are supposed to spit them out IN THE COOP), closed up the barn, and hopefully they will go back to laying in the coop and not some place else harder to find.

How my day has changed since June 15, 2011.

2011-07-24T16:33:00.003-04:00

I got chickens!!! So that adds a whole new list of chores to my day!

My little coop:

My chickies:

I also have a rooster. We were given two but one decided to get territorial against my tiny little myotonic buckling and when he flogged the little guy a second time he turned into dinner. The remaining rooster is just GORGEOUS. I call him Jewels. He is thriving now that the big red rooster is gone.

I get a lovely variety of egg colours.

That was about two days of egg production but their numbers have dropped like crazy in this heat. Same with the doe's milk. It's bumming me out how little milk and eggs I am getting right now. *sad face* I also think the hens are laying some of their eggs in the trees behind the goat pen. Normally by now I have 6 to 8 eggs, and so far i only have TWO. :-(

I really love the chickens. More than I thought I would. Once it cools down some I will get some video of them chasing marshmallows we shoot out of a marshmallow blowgun, lol!

June 15... a day with Pony, Part 5

2011-07-24T16:14:00.003-04:00

I think I can wrap this up in this post, hehe.

OK so... where were we? Oh, yeah, we were on our way home. Welcome to beautiful downtown North Branch, lol.

We stopped at our local eatery, The Firehouse Cafe. So named because it is owned and usually frequented by members of the fire department. That riding mower out front? Not for mowing, it's transportation for one of the cafe's usual customers.

It's a tiny little place tucked between two buildings with three tables and a bar.

Fireman toad:

The old dude, headed home on his fancy conveyance:

We like eating at the Firehouse because 1) everyone there knows us and for some weird reason seems to like us and 2) you get a lot of food for cheap. Like I can make three meals out of one wet burrito.

As we headed home I broke a commandment by coveting my neighbors hay. That is like two years worth of hay for me. *makes grabby hands*

Headed back down our dirt road, driving past the cemetery:

Can't forget to check the mail!

The goats were glad to see us home.

Now back home it was time to do some laundry. The dogs decided to help.

Their colour sorting abilities leave much to be desired.

Now it was time to start stripping out the deep litter bedded stalls from over winter.

before:

During:

My garden is gonna love this.

I just have to spread it nice and thick. This is my gourd trellis.

Making more progress.

Mulch laid down nice and thick:

Now it is time for evening chores! The goats are the reverse of morning chores so i didn't take pictures of that. Brego is looking forward to getting back to the barn.

I had to refill the tank, and he just loves playing with the hose:

After spending some time at the boy's pen my day outside is over and it's time to crash on the couch and read. No pictures of that either, lol.

So that was my day, June 15, 2011.

June 15... a day with Pony, Part 4

2011-07-14T11:36:00.002-04:00

So, we are at the club, my gun is broke, and the guys are...

Um... standing around smoking? lol.

Oh wait, no, they are shooting.

or adjusting their scope. Then shooting.

I'm bored, so I go for a walk.

LOOK! The urinal on the side wall of the Taj Ma-potty.

It's a two seater. I have no idea why they made it a two seater because I don't know anyone who would actually go in there as a couple to use it, but it makes me laugh. Looks like the mice have been busy in there, it's usually a bit more tidy than this.

The "sink" for hand cleaning, lol.

It's actually pretty darn nice, for an outhouse! It's even wheel chair accessible!

Off behind the club house is a play ground.

We have some primitive camping areas, this is a stand over a fire pit for hanging a stew pot.

We have a decent fishing area there, too.

This boat has obviously been here for a while, the trees have grown around it, lol!!

DEER TRACKS!

They were tiny, like the size of my goat's tracks.

I was taking a picture of Tsu taking a picture of me.

AAAnnnndddd time to go home!

An Answer to Bubby....

2011-07-07T18:52:00.002-04:00

"Hey Sissy,

How do you like using the French press compared to a regular coffee maker? Does the java taste any better/worse even at a comparable brew strength? Are they prejudice against decaf like the French? Are they made of win? If I use one, will I get super powers (even temporarily)? Have I asked enough questions about coffee and the devices used to produce it?

Love,

Bubby

P.S. I miss you guys :( "

It's ok. Only makes about 2 cups of coffee and take a lot more grounds per cup to get as strong as i like and sometimes I get grounds in my cup, but I can make coffee without using electricity. It tastes ok, I guess with better coffee the flavor from a french press is much better than from a drip coffee maker but i buy the cheapest I can find so there isn't much there to work with.

All coffee pots should be prejudiced against decaf. It's an abomination.

They are not made of "win", per se, but they are not made of "lose" either.

If you use one you will not get super powers, however some latent super powers you were unaware you had may surface temporarily.

There is no such thing as "too many questions" about coffee and the devices used to produce it.

We miss you, too.

June 15... a day with Pony, Part 3

2011-07-06T07:43:00.002-04:00

So, i was done with chores, had my coffee, and my meds (I really should eat something before I take my meds, lol).

I made a quick check on the gourds my friend Leah gave me...

I took a couple of pictures of a cart I am trying to trade for a goat (which I need to get back with that lady about!)

I ran the electric across the drive to Brego's pasture.

I made sure all the girls had a good drink of water.

Then Tsu and I headed out to the gun club.

This is the Taj Ma-potty. Fancy two seater outhouse. lol.

We headed back to the firingline.

I walked to the bridge to the island to see how high the water was.

This is the target shack. Tsu and his dad insulated it and put up the interior walls earlier this year.

Tsu got out targets put up.

The guys worked at getting their guns sighted in.

This is my little .22. Dad got it for me for my 13th birthday. I really wanted a pony, lol. But this little varmint gun has served me well...

Unfortunately when I was sighting it in when we adjusted the back part of the sight it fell into two pieces and my shooting was done for the day.

Tsu's .22 is a little more souped up than mine is.

Club president, Jim, was there shooting his blackpowder pistol.

as was one of the other guys from the club whose name I am drawing a complete blank on right now.

To Be Continued again!!

June 15... a day with Pony, Part 2

2011-07-05T08:00:00.002-04:00

When last we left the intrepid Pony she had just finished milking the goats and was in dire need of coffee.

As I headed back to the house with milk bucket in hand Amber watched to see if I would share any milk with her. I would not.

I set down my bucket and checked on the cheese developing in the oven.

I didn't do too bad that day getting milk, not the best I've done but about average most mornings.

I got out my empty, put together my milk filter, and got ready to rumble!!!! Er, to filter milk.

MMmmmm white gold!

Have to date the milk, I use scotch tape with one end folded over so it is easy to remove before washing the lids once the jar is empty.

Ready for the fridge!

Time to take apart the milker and sterilize it! dish soap, bleach, and hot water.

While those are soaking I checked on the seeds I was germinating... gourd, bean, morning glory, etc.

all of which are now full fledged plants outside!! I seem to do ok if I germinate the seeds and then plant them right outside but if I try to start the actual plant then take it outside I invariably kill them off. lol.

Once the milker is rinsed and in the dish drainer I can finally have my coffee..... Oh, for those who have questions about the Henry Milker, I will make a post about it after I do chores that should answer your questions!

On to coffee. I no longer use an electric coffee pot. I'm trying to stop using electricity as much as possible, partially because I'm cheap, partially because we are broke and partially because I actually enjoy doing things "the old fashioned way". So instead I either use a percolator (If I know I am going to want 3 or 4 cups) or a French Press (if I am just going to have a cup or two). Today is a french press kinda day.

But of course I didn't wash the press after using it the day before. *sigh* So I put my cast iron tea pot on to heat...

Then I wash my press.

Then I put in my coffee grounds.

Then I go play Zombie Lane on facebook while I wait for the water boil. *grin* As usual our internet connection is being a pain.

Loading....... the water is going to have boiled away by the time i get to play this game. I HAVE ZOMBIES TO KILL, DANG IT!

AHHHH! hot water.

as if by magic it transforms into coffee.

*cue music from intro to Dexter*

In this house "creamer" means "goat milk".

MMmmmm coffee.

Yay medicine and vitamins!!!! This is just my morning stack. *sigh*

To be continued!

June 15... a day with Pony, Part1.

2011-06-27T10:26:00.002-04:00

I didn't forget, but excitement ensued between then and now, and I just got around to finishing up with the pictures.

So here you go, part 1 of my day, June 15, 2011. My day has change a lot since then, but I'll explain that in another post.

First, I struggle to wake up and make my morning constitutional. No pictures of THAT, thank goodness. Then I either make myself some coffee OR gather my milking supplies, depending on what time I wake up. This day i woke a bit late, so milking first it was!

Once my gear is ready to head out I try to get out the door without tripping over a cat or dog. I usually fail, and trip.

Brego watches expectantly as I start my morning chores.

I grab a flake or two of bland first cutting hay for the bucks and wethers.

They get pretty excited over their breakfast.

Once they are fed and their water is topped off I go out to the little barn where Brego and The Ladies live.

Schrodinger the cat usually greets me, coming out as I am going in. She keeps the mice down, and cleans up any spilled milk.

Brego waits to see if he gets hay or pasture today.

It's a pasture day, so he gets his fly mask put on.

Then we head out to where ever I have the temporary fence set up for him to graze.

This day it was the front yard.

From the moment I opened the front door of the house the Ladies have been calling to me. I think the "goat to human translation" is something like, "OMG COME MILK US! HURRY! ALSO, FOOD!!!!"

I toss some food into the bucket on the milk stand (sunflower seeds and feed mix).

Then I go let one of the does out of the stall. usually Rosemary first, then Thyme, then Sage. They find their own way to the stand.

They jump up onto the milking stand on their own and start to chow down.

i wash their udder.

Squirt a bit of milk from each teat into a pan I have to make sure it looks healthy and clean. Schrodinger will clean that pan for me later in the day.

Then I hook up my Henry Milker machine and start milking.

Mmmmm.... delicious fresh healthy milk!!!

I take each doe outside after i milk her to stake out in the yard. This is Rosemary.

You can see her two tires duct taped together and heavy duty cable in the background, while she tries to eat tree leaves.

I think that is enough for this blog entry.

To Be Continued!!!

Camera in hand....

2011-06-15T10:10:00.003-04:00

I've been chattering away on facebook about things but neglecting my blog.

So... I am taking my camera with me and taking pictures of everything I do today, and I will be posting a multiple part photo essay of my day. You all can pretend to be interested in how I make coffee and how I sterilize my milking equipment, lol.

I think I may be nesting.

2011-05-27T08:28:00.002-04:00

*laugh*

I've been feeling restless and impatient. I think part of it is a reaction to Tsu still being out of work, waiting for the first unemployment check to arrive after the severance package running out. Part of it is the weather preventing putting in my garden. Part of it is we live in a tiny house, and we are all pack rats, and I am sick to death of having so much STUFF make me feel so dang CROWDED. The more I do around here, craft and food wise, the more room I need and the more I get sick of the clutter.

At any rate, I've been on a rampage. I think I am making Tsu crazy. I'm pretty sure he can't find ANYTHING, which makes him pretty crabby. It's a big part of the mental hang up I have had about just plain reorganizing the house.... because it makes him crabby. Add that to the fact that I just plain hate this kind of busy work and it has made it hard to get started. But I got a huge case of the "I don't give a crap if it makes people crabby"s, lol.

Yesterday's big project was the kitchen counter and the cupboard under the sink. It's interesting how getting rid of the electric coffee pot has opened up the counter top. I have brought out the old dish drainer so i can put my milking items there to dry after washing them, rather than run them through the dishwasher every day, twice a day. I refuse to stop using my dish washer. I will hand wash my laundry and dry it on the line, make my own cheese and soap, and i am even thinking of trying to put together a hand baler to bale up some of my own hay (stop laughing, lol) but washing dishes? Until the apocalypse hits I'm using my dishwasher!

So hopefully we can get my hand-me-down counter and cupboards put in soon. It won't happen this weekend because they are having the big Memorial Day shoot at the gun club and Tsu is working the shoot, but we have the 2x4s for putting in the new wall so we can get started on that soon. Then I can get all my pots and pans off the folding table in the front room and into actual cupboards!! then I can finish the front room. The living room is about 80% done, I think we are going to entirely rearrange it once the new wall between the kitchen and living room is in.

Next project even before the wall and cupboards: clotheslines. I already have my lines and clothes pins, hehe. Who woulda thought some day i would be excited about clothes lines? *falls over laughing*

Big ol' batch o' beans...

2011-05-25T15:58:00.002-04:00

It's a miserably rainy cold day for end of May. So I decided this would be the perfect time to cook up a huge batch of beans to freeze up to eat over the next several months. I had one HUGE bag of pinto beans and two small bags of black beans. I pulled out my stock pot and realized it was TOO SMALL. So I pulled out the big canning pot and filled it with my beans and a couple of chopped up onions.

Looks pretty gross at this point, lol.

After cooking for a few hours I added my last two cans each of venison stock and shredded venison, some chili spice, and several cans of store bought tomato stuff. Two of fire roasted tomatoes, two of tex-mex tomato mix, some tomato sauce. Now I just need to cook it down for several more hours.

Looking better!

I'll be packing it all into those Hefty containers and freezing it in single serving size packages.

The soap is looking better, the coffee soap is losing it's gross odd colour and turning a nice light brown with dark flecks. Both soaps are losing the lye smell and starting to smell good.

Ugly soap.

2011-05-24T19:02:00.002-04:00

I used my wooden soap forms that my father-in-law made for me. I made two test batches from recipes i made up myself with stuff I had on hand using a lye calculator to make sure i got the right amounts of everything. Both batches were sorta too small for my molds, so there is a note to make to myself. The first batch was about 1/3 what i need, the second was about 2/3 what i need.

The first batch has beeswax, goat milk, coconut oil, vegetable oil, shortening, lye and ground coffee. Second batch has same basic stuff, lower percentage of beeswax, and allspice instead of coffee. My bars are funky sizes and shapes because they are not from full enough soap molds and because I am still getting the hang of it. I also got impatient and took them out of the mold and cut them sooner than i should have.... because i was impatient and wanted to get a look at the inside of the soap. lol.

So, here is my ugly soap.

coffee hand soap:

allspice soap in the mold:

All of it cut and curing on the rack:

Now we just have to wait 4 to 6 weeks to see if it works, lol. I made a tiny test batch about 6 weeks ago and have been using it for a week now, it works pretty well. I didn't add anything extra so it has no scent but it works. :-)

Well, I'm still here, how about you?

2011-05-22T08:32:00.002-04:00

Yesterday we celebrated the pending apocalypse by having Tiff's boyfriend and one of their friends come over to hang out and set things on fire and eat pizza. So, either the predictions were wrong, or neither I nor any of my friends or family were among the chosen. Which I have a hard time believing. Not so much about myself (*chuckle*), but about several of my family members. I have no doubt that a bunch of them would be out of here, hehe.

I'd just like to mention once, for the record:

Jesus's (that looks wrong, IR fail at grammmmar and punctiations) words in the Bible make it clear that no one can know the date or time of the rapture. NO ONE! No one needs an advanced degree in biblical studies to interpret these verses. You just need to be able to read for comprehension. Of course if you don't believe in the Bible none of this matters, and if you DO then you should know better than to listen to goofballs like this guy.

In Matthew 25:13 Jesus said, “For you do not know the day or hour of my return.”

In Mark 13:32 Jesus said, “However, no one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself. Only the Father knows.” (NLT)

In Matthew 24:3 Jesus’ disciples came to him and asked about the end times. He begins a lengthy answer with “Don’t let anyone mislead you.” (NLT)

So, um, not to make light of people's beliefs but.... the one time I can be absolutely SURE the rapture is NOT going to happen is at the moment when someone like this guys says it IS going to happen.

I've said it before, I will say it again.... THE WORLD IS FULL OF CRAZY PEOPLE!

To be honest, I don't feel sorry for the people who fell for this garbage. I DO feel sorry for the families and children of these people. I read a story about a family where the parents spent their three kid's college funds to pay for billboards. Ugh. Someone needs to kick those parents in the butt. Those poor kids.

First and foremost: The Dog and Pony Show.

2011-05-18T09:53:00.003-04:00

The dog:

Tsu brought home one of my Aunt's puppies when he came home from Oklahoma. He is *mostly* toy poodle.

The picture from Oklahoma:

Once he got home:

Getting bigger (at Tiff's birthday party):

Blending in to his hoarded horde of toys:

With his pitiful do it yourself home haircut:

milk covered face:

playing with his buddy, Misty:

He is named after this guy:

or maybe this guy:

*grin*

And the pony.... what do you think, did he come through the winter a little on the thin side, do you think?

I'm not fat, I'm "Drafty!"

Please note *cough* our yard is full of junk *cough* and there is a TEMPORARY fence between the horse and the junk. Novel idea, eh? *wink*

Wow...

2011-05-08T11:35:00.001-04:00

I suck at updating, lol. I'll be back soon, I swear. Things just got.... busy. And complicated.

Don't worry, everyone is fine. :-)

OOOOOOOO-klahoma!!!!!

2011-04-03T21:41:00.002-04:00

Where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain!

Tsu is in Oklahoma with my dad, meeting my dad's side of the family. Fishing. Enjoying 80 degree weather while I deal with thunder snow on April 3. *sigh*

OK, to be fair it was windy in Oklahoma. But yeah. Thunder snow. In April. I am SOOOO over this.

The part of Oklahoma where my uncle lives is the same area where the book "Where The Red Fern Grows" takes place. Which would be one of my favorite books ever. I was tempted to watch the movie again but.... I am not in an emotional place where a tearjerker sounds good to me. Plus my uncle lives walking distance out the back of his property to Lake Tenkiller, which is just about one of the prettiest places on this planet, IMO.

So there are two places I could see myself living other than Michigan. The Eastern end of Tennessee and North East Oklahoma. One is jammed full of people I already know, the other has virtually no one I know. Both are beautiful and jammed full of rural goodness. Both have much more mild winters than we have here. Both are, for now, an impossible daydream. But maybe someday.

On a completely unrelated note, proof that Tiff's room has a floor.

We moved the futon into her room for her bed, now I have my old freaky satellite dish chair in the livingroom. lol. We may look for a used recliner to put there, but for now the dogs are enjoying the satellite dish chair.

I have no clue why there is a bottle of soda in the middle of the floor. *shrug*

Lard butt.

2011-03-23T21:31:00.002-04:00

Normally in the winter every single day I check all my horses (*gulp* my single horse now) and feel their spine and ribs to make sure they are staying at a good weight. I do this to make sure they aren't getting too thin.

Well, I've been lazy. Brego was clearly not too skinny, is back is almost level like a table, hehe. So i slacked off on the checking. Day before yesterday I had Tiff come out with me to get some pictures of Brego and I with me wearing my Gypsy Horse hat.

As you can see, I was all decked out like a fashion diva:

My cuddle pony:

My silly hat:

Then I went to get the cameras from the kid and the kid tried to play keep away.

Give me the camera:

Come on, hand it over!

RAWRGGG! GIMME THE CAMERA!!!

Anyhooooo.... i wanted to try and get some side shots of the hairy beastie and so i had Tiff take some treats and go keep his attention while I took pictures and when I just on a whim felt for his ribs..... I COULDN'T FIND ANY!!!! His ribs are just GONE! lol.

Parsley and Chickory spent a week in the outdoor pen, they seemed to like it. BUT this ice storm moved in and I had to stick them back in the barn for a bit. That sure makes doing chores a lot more complicated. But isn't Chickory turning out lovely?

It's been busy!

2011-03-17T16:17:00.003-04:00

Mary and Sparrow have gone to their new home. I haven't checked in to see how they are doing, I know Jim would let me know if they had any problems. Brego fussed for a day maybe, and has fallen into a routine of mugging me for cuddles and enjoying having his hay to himself. He keeps sweet talking the neighbors mare and talking to the goats in the barn. My barn floor is drying up without Mary and Sparrow in there going pee all the time as well.

I started putting Nightshade out in the barn in a big dog crate during the day last weekend, i figured he was two weeks old which was when i started to pull the babies from their moms for a few hours so i could get milk, so he could basically do the same thing. Two nights ago he started spending the night out there as well. YAY! No more goat diapers. Today I have him spending some time in with the does and the two Kennys. Chickory and Parsley have relocated ot the outdoor goat pen.

Basically NO ONE is happy. *grin* Rosemary misses her baby, but Nightshade is making good use of her milk. I still have to put her in the milk stand to get her to let him nurse but he has a full tummy at all times so it's working out well.

I gave Parsley his first driving lesson and he did great. He is a natural at giving to pressure, he doesn't LIKE it, but he gets the concept, yay!

My day so far....

2011-03-09T10:32:00.003-05:00

2AM: Tsu gets home from our friend, Jer's, house. Nightshade wakes up and starts fussing. I force a bottle into his mouth and he angrily drinks a half ounce before refusing to eat any more. He falls back to sleep almost immediately. I, on the other hand, lay there wide awake until I give up on sleep and read until 4am, when I fall asleep with the book on my face.

5AM: Alarm clock goes off. I jump, hit snooze, fall back to sleep.

5:09AM: Alarm clock goes off again. I get up. I stumble to the bathroom with Nightshade following on my heels, let the dogs out to go potty. Use the bathroom. Let the dogs back in.

5:20AM: Brew coffee. Apply meds and fresh band-aids to my filleted fingertips (um, yeah, I had a bad day yesterday, lol.)

5:25AM: The Infernal Offspring emerges from The Abyss, stumbles to the kitchen, gets coffee and a bagel with goat cheese.

5:40: I force another bottle into Nightshade's face, get another half ounce into him, he stands in my lap and gets his "I'm going pee, don't bug me" look on his face.

5:50AM: Change diaper on goat. *rolls eyes*

6AM: Drink coffee.

6:10AM: Drink more coffee. Start car with remote starter (WEEE!)

6:20AM: take Nightshade and go get in the car.

6:26AM: Infernal Offspring emerges from the house to go out and catch the bus.

6:29AM: Bus arrives. I return to the house.

6:35AM: Curl up on couch with dog, goat baby and book.

8AM: Get milking supplies ready. Put a collar on Nightshade, take his diaper and t-shirt off. Head outside with him walking nicely on a leash. Tie him to the towing ball on the back of the truck. Feed the horses.

8:15AM: Get goat supplies and milking gear ready. Take it to the barn while leading Nightshade who is still walking nicely on his leash (he caught on to walking on the leash super fast!). Tie him to tack hook next to milking stand.

8:30AM: Start the daily pen juggling by pulling parsley out of the kid stall and tying him in the horse stall. Rosemary tries to jump out of the buck stall so I let her out and lock her into the milking stand. She starts to scream, everyone else joins in. I take the kids their medicated feed. I give Rosemary feed, then stick Nightshade under her. I let him eat until he gives up. he now looks like he swallowed a softball. Her udder is almost empty. *shocked face* I normally get 3/4 of a quart out of her, no wonder Nightshade looks like his belly is going to explode. I put Rosemary in with the kids and all three finish emptying her out pretty quick.

I got remove Brego's feed bag so he doesn't try to drink with it on and end up drowning.

I let Thyme onto the milk stand. I get about a quart out of her. I put her in with the kids and again all three mob her and strip her out for me.

I let Sage onto the milking stand. I get a full quart from her, she still has some left but not enough to warrant changing jars. I give her more food and stick Nightshade under her.

I move Parsley back to his own pen while Nightshade works on Sage's smaller side of her udder. (Yay, that should help balance her out some!!)

Nightshade finally stops nursing and stands there looking bloated, then he pees for about 6 minutes straight and then drinks some more. While he nurses I put hay in for everyone, top off water, then I tie him back up and put Sage back in with the kids. Now it is her turn to be mobbed by all three kids.

9:15AM: I haul everything including the bottle kid to the big barn, unload Brego's feed bag, all the empty feed containers, etc. Carry milking supplies into the house while Nightshade follows, not walking so nicely on the leash because his belly is so full he looks like he just wants to lay down and snooze. I filter milk into clean bottle, and put in fridge to chill.

9:30AM: Pull out milk I pasteurized last night and put it in the double boiler to make mozzarella.

10AM: decide my mozzarella is going to be fail again, decide to try packing it in a mold to see if weighting it down and using it sliced will salvage it since it tasted sooo good but won't stretch.

10:30AM: Realize I haven't heard or seen Nightshade since 10am. Make my "mama goat calling to baby" sound. Hear a little noise right at my feet, look down to see Nightshade almost asleep curled in the corner where the cupboard and stove come together. Chuckle to myself. Pick up the baby goat and come sit on the couch to make my blog posts. Nightshade lays across my chest and promptly passes out. I discover that typing with a goat across your chest is easier than it sounds.

Mary and Sparrow will be going to their new home...

2011-03-08T06:01:00.003-05:00

Probably this weekend, unless Jim can get some time this week.

I'm flip flopping between being fine about it and flipping out.

I feel at peace about where they are going but... it's hard to see them go. I bought Sparrow to train and eventually resell, and i got Mary to keep him company then ended up spending more time working her than i did him. I got way more attached to them than I should have. I've had one silver bay pony or another here for over half of my life. *sigh*

I know it is the right thing to do. And they can bring them back if they don't work out or if they can't keep them for any reason.

*sigh*

Brego does fine alone, and he isn't REALLY alone. He has the neighbor's horse on a shared fence line and they have recently become entirely enamoured with each other. They stand on each side of the fence staring at each other longingly. So I know he will be fine.

I know this is the right thing to do. I know it is for the best. I know with Tsu losing his job it is the RIGHT thing to do.

But it is still soooo hard.

It helps that I am so focused on the goats right now. It helps that they are taking up so much of my time and effort and that they actually provide us with more benefit than cost. It helps that I have a bottle baby in the house demanding virtually every waking and most sleeping moments.

I think THINKING abut them leaving will be worse than once they are gone. Because every time I look out there I think, "they won't be here this time next week." and I have my mini melt down.

Nightshade, my new buck.

2011-03-07T06:08:00.003-05:00

He is, seriously, smaller than most of our cats right now. And he is dozing off on my lap right now. He is a one week old, myotonic (fainting goat), and at this moment he is wearing a diaper and trying to chew on my fingers as I try to type. We stole him away from his mama yesterday. He is eating well from a bottle, he doesn't latch on himself yet, but he eats well once I get the nipple in his mouth.

He woke up twice last night, slept next to me on the couch. He has started to answer me when I do my "mama goat calling a baby goat" sound. He is still looking for his mom, but not as hard as he was looking yesterday. He will be a bit smaller than I had originally wanted but for $50 I am not going to complain!!

He screams his head off in the crate. So mostly i keep him diapered and close to me. He and the dogs also run up and down the hall and he bounces around before falling back into a deep baby sleep.

His dad actually looked like a silky coated fainter. Mom was just a bit smaller than my does in body size but shorter legged.

He sleeps with his eyes partially open, and it freaks me out, lol. I found some mites on him so I treated him for them, once I am sure those are gone I'll start to introduce him to the other kids.

Going to see a man about a goat.

2011-03-05T15:20:00.003-05:00

Actually, it might be a woman. But it sounded funnier to me to say man. My ex MIL used to say she needed to go see a man about a dog when she needed to go potty, lol.

One of my online friends found an ad for fainting goats not too far from me. Going to look early tomorrow afternoon.

I'm so excited. They have two bucklings and a doeling. I just need one buckling. They are only about a week old I think. In my price range, even! Could be possibly bringing home a bottle baby tomorrow. At least I will have plenty of milk if that is how it works out! I can share with a baby goat. Hehe. But he won't be getting any of my cheese, gosh darn it. *chuckle*

We will be heading over there after the blackpowder gun show tomorrow. The pictures in the ad were of the bucklings, one was mostly black with a white spot on it's side, the other looked like a cocoa colour with lots of white. I like the colour of the black one but I want to look them over and see which one has the longer body if there is a difference. If they are built pretty much the same then I would prefer the black and white one. Assuming everything else looks good.

It would be awesome if I could get my myotonic buck still. I'd kind of given up on the idea for this year.

And now for something completely different!

2011-03-05T10:16:00.001-05:00

Ducks in a bathtub!

I just found that on youtube and for some reason it amused me far out of proportion to what it should have. lol.

Back to work, and a reply to Jen.

2011-03-03T12:45:00.002-05:00

First, Jen, I could have sworn I replied to your comment and now I don't see it. i must have dreamed replying, hehe. That sounds awesome. I think I am going to let you have your other English saddle back now, I used it for a lot of work last summer and it came in super handy, so I really appreciate you letting me use it. But I think now between my Aussie and my Natural Ride I should be good to go and I'm not 100% sure of those other billets on that side where the one broke so i don't want to put too much stress on them.

Second, the timing of mid April would be fantastic. I am going to be starting Brego back in work this up coming week. That should give him almost a month of work on the long lines to refresh his memory before you come up.

So, speaking of back to work.... Brego is not going to be happy about this. lol. Starting monday come rain or shine he is back to work. Not only that but I'm going to be starting Parsley, my buck goat, in harness as well. *chuckle* I'm going to get a goat harness with some of our tax refund money. This should be fun.

Kid update!!!!

2011-02-27T13:58:00.002-05:00

First and foremost, the Kid, asleep on the futon. We painted said Kid's room (which said offspring has deemed "The Abyss" and with good reason. *shudders in fear*) yesterday and in an attempt to avoid brain damage due to fume inhalation we opted to not have anyone sleep in there last night.

Awwww, so KYOOOT!

Don't they look so innocent and sweet when they sleep? *rolls eyes*

And now on to the goatie kids.

Two days ago they were banded. If you have to ask what that means you most likely don't want to know. *grin* They were clearly uncomfortable the first evening. I let them keep their moms the last two nights so no milk for us for two days. *sad face* The next morning they were ok, but by afternoon they weren't entirely themselves. Today, though, they seem fine, active and hungry. Tonight we go back to normal, because I want milk for ME. I just felt like after getting shots and losing their manhood they might just need their mommies. Judging by the way they each huddled close to their respective momma instead of huddling together with each other as usual I would say my suspicion was right. Just like human kids, when you don't feel 100% you want your mommy.

So, the Ladies didn't seem to want to give me a chance to get baby pictures. they were all up in my grill, yo.

Rosemary's ear.

Thyme's nose.

Sage's... eye, ear, face...

For crying out loud, Ladies, give the kids some face time, you attention harlots!!

Oh look! there is my Chickory boy!!

Isn't he handsome?

He is finally forgiving me for all the evil I have perpetrated against him these last few weeks.

Long earred Kenny is growing up to be a tank. He is still a funny fellow, and vocal as all get out. He is always fussing about something.

Short earred Kenny is a pistol, always into trouble and loves to steal my hat. He is growing up nice and powerfully built as well. Both of the Kennii are bigger and more meat type than Chickory, which is weird since Short earred Kenny is only 25% meat breed, and Chickory is, um, more than that (yikes, math!!).

The does are doing fantastic. They love their kids, but also love their evenings away. Sage actually tried to walk on her kid. Silly goat.

Rosemary's face always cracks me up. Her expressions are so funny. She is at the top, with her twin, Thyme, in front of her and Sage is, as always, in my face.

And last but not least, Parsley, looking gross because... well... he is a buck.

He has been spending the nights with his sons, and aside from being terrified by them at first they seem to enjoy their time together.

The doe and kid stall is getting crowded now that the kids are getting so big. I can't wait until the weather improves so I can kick them all outside! Then I get to strip out the winter stalls and use the bedding as mulch over the area that will be my garden this year. YAY!

As per request... gratuitous Brego pictures... also goat blog update.

2011-02-27T13:42:00.002-05:00

Well, I hied my way to the barn with a camera early this bright wintery morn, in order to fulfill repeated requests for Bregoness as well as to update on the BeBe Goaties. The kids will get their own post, to follow.

Brego Mine. Heart and soul of my day. He has not been groomed in about 2 weeks because he is constantly either frozen solid into sheets of icey armour, sporting icicles dangling from his belly hair, or just plain soaking wet.

He's been visiting the salon on the sly, I think, because he is sporting impressive highlights.

He's been consorting with either fairies or witches, I can tell by the braids they leave behind.

He was displeased with my attempts to unbraid the fairy braids (or witches knots, as your preference may be).

*Happy sigh*

Someone else wanted in on the action.

NOMNOMNOM

I like big butts and I can not lie!

OK, I have started my daily blog. Please check it out, and if you want to send me pictures of your goats, horses or other animal friends check it out!

The link to my first blog post, there are two already as I write this:

PhoenixDown farm's Daily Goat!

And the link to the main page of the blog.

http://phoenixdowndailygoat.blogspot.com/

I think....

2011-02-24T13:13:00.002-05:00

I think I am going to try and do one of those "one a day" blogs. One of those, "I'm going to pick a theme and every day for a year I am going to post a picture and blog post about it" blogs. I think I am going to do something like "Goat of the day". Actually I think that is already taken. Maybe "The Daily Goat". Or "Goat 365". That is probably already used as well.

Luckily they have the function to be able to preschedule posts so I could do like a month of posts in one afternoon and not actually have to manually post every single day, lol.

If I decide to do this I will start requesting pics of stories from folks about their goats to post. I'd like it to be informational as well. We'll see if I work up enough energy to do it or not, lol.

Three quarts.

2011-02-24T08:56:00.003-05:00

I could have probably managed to get another 1/2 quart but I was out of jars, and the kids were screaming their heads off wanting their share. They are growing so fast. They are finally eating their feed with the anti-cocci stuff in it, and they have discovered the joys of free choice minerals and protein lick buckets, hehe. Today is a big day for them, if everything works out right at least. They are getting their shots and getting banded (I.E. neutered). Well, they are for sure getting their shots, may hold off a day or two on banding depending on how things go with the shots.

I think when I band them then leave the does with them that first night so I may wait to band until this weekend. Either way Tsu will be helping, and the kids are going to be so ticked off at me!

Test result finally....

2011-02-23T17:02:00.003-05:00

the ones I was waiting for almost a month ago.... I've been calling and calling trying to get the results and it was a huge mess. Pain in my butt. But everything is ok. A few things to keep an eye on but nothing that needs any further looking at for now. Thank goodness. I am a little perturbed that it took me getting so obnoxious to get my results, though.

I'm sorry, if you have a mammogram and they call you the next day and immediately schedule you for a recheck, then they take 10 new scans and leave you bruised and sore for days because of how they had to squish you, and then they tell you they will call you either way to let you know what they find.... having to call every two days for THREE WEEKS leaving messages and begging for info to finally get results is inexcusable.

I shared my displeasure, and the nurse seemed interested in the fact that the receptionist has not been passing along messages and she also commented that the receptionist took the "call immediately with results" post it note off my file and put my file away... so the nurse had no reason to think I had not been contacted. She said it WOULD be looked into.

Now I can get back to looking for a job.

Parsley, the big bad buck...

2011-02-22T08:15:00.002-05:00

The girls got the weekend off from the milking stand and I let the kids do the milking for me but I'm running out of cheese and that is a situation that MUST be remedied!

So I had planned to switch them over to being away from the kids at night, but my evening feeding is at 6 or 7 pm, and my morning feeding is usually at 9 am. That is too long for them to be apart, so I fed them then went back out around 10pm and separated them. Here is the thing... last week it was niiiice. So Parsley was out in the outdoor pen. But I do not currently have a real shelter out there, just a table with a tarp over it. So he can not stay out there when the weather is really wintery and if you have any idea what our weather is like in Michigan over the last few days... well... it's wintery. lol.

So... what to so?

Parsley is mellow. Laid back. Super sweet. So i got the brilliant idea to try sticking him in with the kids at night.

So I stuck him on the milk stand while I moved the girls to his pen, then took him in to meet his children for the first time.

He took one look at the bucklings and puffed up and started blubbering and prancing. I had a lead on him just in case he acted like a jerk. The kids were stunned. What is this? It's a goat, but it isn't our moms! Chickory stood up tall, raised his hackles like a dog and snorted.

Parsley stood up to his full height, twisted his head and shot forward like he was going to butt those kids into next week and Chickory met him head to head without any hesitation..... and Parsley made a startled squeaky sound, started to run backward, and hid behind me trembling in fear. He kept burying his face in my side and shaking. He would peak out around me and as soon as one of the kids started to approach he would get all shaky and hide his eyes again.

He is such a tough guy, haha!!

So I took off his lead rope and slipped out of the stall and watched from outside. He kept standing up at the door bleating at me as if he were yelling "Help! get me outta here!" *chuckle*

I checked on them later and he was still looking timid and hiding from the kids, but he wasn't running from them anymore.

So this morning i went out and all four boys were standing in the corner like old friends, and when I went to take Pars out of the stall the kids tried to follow him. He couldn't get out of there fast enough, lol.

I got a half gallon of milk this morning. My little milker wasn't holding pressure very well, the cold was making the lines stiff. So I had to do a lot more hand milking than usual. Thyme is getting easier to milk, her teats are finally long enough to get a grip on, haha. Rosemary, though... HAHAHA! Her little thimble sized teats. *shakes head*

Mozzarella fail and success...

2011-02-19T07:41:00.002-05:00

My first batch of mozzarella was fail. Well, partial fail. Well, total fail in making mozzarella but not fail in making something edible that tasted good. It was a texture fail. First batch I got crumbly non-stretchy curds with no meltability. Boooo. But they were still delicious. I munched on them kind of like popcorn, and top dressed my nacho cheese with them.

Then yesterday on take two I got actual real, honest to goodness, melty, stretchy, "peely aparty like string cheese" mozzarella!!!

It's awesome. I'm so delighted.

Oh, also... I started working as a ChaCha guide.

2011-02-16T13:19:00.002-05:00

This has been eating up a little of my time, and earning me a little money as well.

ChaCha is one of those "text a question and get an answer" places. They pay real live people to answer these questions. I get a whopping $.02 per question answered. Yes, you read that right, 2 cents an answer. So this isn't something you can make a living at, but heck, if you are just sitting around on your computer with nothing to do for a few minutes and you can make 20 cents.... why not? I've made like $10 so far, and I have fun doing it. I haven't spent a lot of time doing it, too busy doing goat cheese and stuff, but if anyone is interested in looking in to it you can check it out here:

http://becomeaguide.chacha.com/

If you sign up, list my email address (I used the email warpwny@hotmail.com to sign up, so that would be the one to use if you decide to look in to it) as referring you and I get a tiny little bonus (I think it is like 10% bonus of what you earn. I'm earning money for my horsie-goatie friend, Epona, when I work my ChaCha, lol).

Here is the thing, though, if you are easily offended or shocked, you might want to pass on this. My VERY first question was "How many penises have you seen in your life?" *cough* You need to be able to handle those kinds of questions gracefully and with humour. If you can do that, this can be a really fun way to spend some time and make a bit of change.

Cheeeeese.

2011-02-16T11:11:00.003-05:00

I've been busy and/or lazy the last week or so. I have the does on a daily milking schedule. I started out taking them out of the nursery stall for two or three hours, then increased it by an hour or so each day.. I already posted our first day's milk. Yesterday they reached 10 hours (that is as long as i plan to keep them apart before I milk them) and I got enough milk to fill a 2 liter bottle. Wheee!!!!!!

So, this past weekend I made a batch of chevre cheese. I used a kit I got from New England Cheesemaking Supply. Super easy. Get milk to temp, mix in culture, let sit overnight, dump into cheese cloth and hang over night to drip out whey, done. And DELICIOUS. Like a rich tangy cream cheese. I spiced some up with a salt free garlic and herb mix and Tsu went totally nuts over it. YAY!

I have also been saving our store bought milk each time we have leer in a jug when it hits the sell by date I bag it, tag it and stuff it in the freezer. I bought a gallon of whole milk on sale, mixed it in with the frozen stuff and used this recipe to make some Farmer's cheese. I added a tad bit of salt, froze some to make chip dip with later, mixed some garlic and chives in some to use on potatoes or sandwiches and left some plain.

*drool*

SOOO delicious. For a cheese lover like me this is pure bliss!

Anyway, after tonight's milking I will have enough milk to make my first batch of mozzarella. I can't wait. I'm so excited. And if I screw it up, I will have enough milk to try again in two days!!!

It's scary... an 80's music explosion.

2011-02-08T12:16:00.003-05:00

It's scary how much I love this song. Sometimes I frighten myself. But it always gives me a delightful pick-me-up and reminds me to keep my chin up.

Plus the clothes and the hair styles make me SQUUEEEEE with delight.

And since we are on an 80's kick here.... one of my favorite songs by one of my favorites bands from the 80's. It's one of their lesser known songs but one of my favorites.

Well, speaking of lesser known songs by 80's bands that I love more than their better known stuff... have some Culture Club. This may be my favorite song of theirs ever, and I was a hardcore (lol) Culture Club fan back in the day.

Why not make everyone certain I have lost my mind by posting one of my favorite songs of all time. Do they have a Rock band or Guitar Hero game in an 80's version? If not.... THEY SHOULD.

And finally, in keeping with my "I think the best songs they ever did were under appreciated..." theme... one of my favorite 80's songs by madonna.

Why did I wake up at 3:30 am?

2011-02-08T04:08:00.002-05:00

I'd really like to know.

here it is, not even close to the crack of dawn, my alarm set for 5am, and yet I sit here, wide awake. I've walked the house, checked on the dogs and cats, leaned my head out the door to listen for anything abnormal with the outside animals and everything seems to be calm and quiet. Aside from being bitter cold again, everything seems to be fine, except that I am awake.

*sigh*

I tried to go back to sleep. I am exhausted. But no luck. So I gave up.

At the end of december I cut down from 3 pots of coffee a day to two cups of half caff coffee and a Coke Zero a day. The thought was that this should improve my ability to sleep, cut back on my anxiety issues, sooth my restless legs, and be easier on my stomach.

Now, granted, since then we have had some seriously stressful things happen (what a crappy time to decide to break my only addiction, lol) but honestly, everything that cutting back on the coffee was supposed to improve is worse. I sleep a lot more, but it is mostly during the day 20 minutes at a time. I can't seem to stay awake during the day, or at night... but I can't stay asleep either.

My anxiety is through the roof but that could just be because Tsu lost his job, Tiff is struggling through some issues, my dog is getting older, and I am trying to find homes for two of my three horses. Oh, not to mention all the health issues and extra tests and only having insurance until the end of april.

And my restless legs are just as restless, if not more so, as ever.

*yawn*

Great, it's almost time for me to HAVE to be up, and NOW I feel like I could fall back to sleep. Delightful.

We have a busy day ahead, Tsu has to go to the unemployment office, we have to hit the farm store for animal dewormer, price chest freezers, pick up some rubbermaid totes so I can organize the front room.... I'm exhausted just thinking about it.

MILK!! And kid pictures.

2011-02-05T12:49:00.002-05:00

Awww look, they have little horns growing!

The does are enjoying getting all up in my grill, yo.

So today I stuck Parsley outside, and moved the does into his pen for a couple of hours. The kids were FREAKED OUT. They got their kid feed that is supposed to keep them from getting Coccidiosis while the moms were out for a few hours. They ate really well. Then, after about 2 hours, I milked the does one at a time and stuck them back in with babies. And this is what I got.

It's delicious! sweet and not at all goaty. Tsu tried a sip and admitted it was sweet tasting but acted totally freaked out by the idea of drinking it, which is hysterical since he is the milk drinker in the house and I am the one who finds cows milk to be disgusting.

Isn't it beautiful? hehe.

Girl talk.... my return for a follow up mammogram.

2011-02-04T10:27:00.003-05:00

*passes out*

That was the single most excruciating mammogram I have ever had in my entire life. And I've had several, because of a horse related bosom injury in my early 20's.

She took 8 different shots, left the room for 20 minutes, came back in and took 2 more. The last 6 were with this top squishy thing that had a projection sticking out of the bottom about the size of the bottom of a coffee cup that they put directly over the questionable areas and tightened until my knees buckled. Literally at one point. I'm a pansy, but I can usually tough it out without complaint.... it hurt so bad I was unable to keep myself from vocalizing in pain.

To put this into perspective, I went through 23 1/2 hours of labor without making a single groan, and only screamed when the doctor cut me without me being numb (then continued to grumble about it for the last half hour of delivery or so, hehe). I may grunt, groan or yell when physically exerting myself (like when I try to carry in the water hose, hehe) but when it comes to pain I generally keep quiet right up until it hurts so bad that I yell.

i was whimpering and groaning in pain, just trying to breath and stay on my feet.

The poor technician kept apologizing, but they had to crank down on there to get the shots. By the time we were done I could barely move without my eyes watering. Tsu picked me up some ibuprofen at the clinic pharmacy and I took them as soon as we got to the car. It wasn't just "The Girls" that hurt, it was the muscle under them. We did some shopping and ate lunch and got home before the real soreness kicked in, and last night I wasn't even able to lift my arms above shoulder level. I was very slow doing my chores, and thankfully Brego drops his head when I put his feed bag on him, otherwise he might have had to skip his grain.

Our buddy Jer came over to hang out and cook us dinner (yay!! that is twice this week, lol) so the men handled all that stuff while I curled up on the couch looking pitiful and keeping medicated. A while back he brought us some dietary supplements and he insisted I take some because he finds he has a lot less soreness after injury or exertion if he has some so i did so.

This morning I feel much better. The Girls are still uncomfortable but nothing like yesterday and the muscles under and around them don't hurt.

So now I just have more waiting to do to see if they give me the all clear or if they want to check me out some more.

On the bright side I got my most recent blood work back, the stuff to check liver function because of the meds I am on now, and it all came back good. So I can stay on my Zocor to keep the cholesterol down and hopefully head off a heart attack. *rolls eyes*

I'm going to try and get some new pictures of Chickory and the Kennii. They are all growing horns now since I didn't disbud them. Next week I think the Kennii will get banded (neutered, basically. in goats that is called getting "wethered") and i will decide then if I think I need to band Chickory right away or wait a while longer. Since he will be kept as a pet I want to give his urinary tract as much time to mature as possible before wethering him so I will wait until the last minute before doing his banding. Since the other two are meat goats it doesn't much matter when I band them, and the sooner the better. I just want to make sure I can give them their CDT shots first.

Update on today's foolishness....

2011-01-31T19:47:00.003-05:00

The health care thing is straightened out and we do have coverage until end of April. THANK GOODNESS. However, they didn't handle our paperwork in a timely manner so we don't get a paycheck for another 15 days. This would be a pretty crappy deal except that we had pulled some money out of our 401K to get things squared away and it hits our account tomorrow... so we can use that to tide us over until they catch up on the severance payments.

Crisis averted for now. I can breath a little easier even though the health issues are still weighing on me.

I got an inquiry about the minis already as well. Lady with two girls looking for 4H ponies. I hope to hear back from her.

I firmly believe that the right home for them will show up, and I hope I have the insight to recognize it when it shows up. I would LOVE for a couple of kids to end up with these two.

Video of snowy day and placing sale ad....

2011-01-31T14:05:00.002-05:00

Well, the unpleasantness first...

We had a bit of a hiccup in our situation today that drove home how real all this job loss and health stuff is. In a nut shell, we got a letter saying today is our last day of health coverage even though we are supposed to be covered until April 31. I read the letter and they actually list a couple of dates in the body of the letter so i suspect it is just a form letter and there was a computer error but it still is scary and we are waiting for a phone call to be returned to find out what the deal is.

If this is the last day of our coverage it will cost us $1100 a month to keep the insurance going. This wouldn't be so much of a scary issue for me except that i had an abnormal mammogram and have to go back thursday for another one, as well as needing to go in tomorrow for another bunch of bloodwork to check liver function, etc... and if this letter is right that means no coverage for this.

Yeah, the letter saying today is our last day of coverage and saying we needed to pay $1100 a month to keep it arrived TODAY. And our pay from the severance package hasn't arrived yet. *sigh*

Anyway, I completely freaked out for about an hour, then I remembered that what will be will be, and no sense letting myself spazz about it. However, my hair immediately started to shed. lol. Hopefully I calmed down before I triggered another mass hair fallout. At least this time I already have some cheap wigs. LOL.

However... it just reinforced the fact that I have to find a home for the mini horses. I sucked it up and started placing ads. Wish me luck, and wish the mini horses luck. My dream home for them would be someone with horse experience and kids who want to take them in 4H or something. I've always said Sparrow needs a little human to show him off. And I would ideally like to keep them together. I don't care about how much i get for them, I just want them to have good homes so i don't have to worry.

*sigh*

Now that the suckage is out of the way... the good stuff. I finally got the videos i took the other day uploaded. Nothing fancy, I was just using my digital camera so it's not the clearest video. But it's still fun. I hope you enjoy them.

Well, there is ONE good thing about winter....

2011-01-30T18:30:00.002-05:00

Photo ops.

There is just something breathtaking about horses running through snow. Especially when the snow hides all the poo that had frozen to the ground. I also got some video but we rely on our internet for TV (netflix) now and our connection sucks (one bad thing about rural life, no good high speed options for internet, just mediocre options) so uploading will have to wait until we aren't trying to watch tv.

The ponies have been getting short shrift lately, at least as far as me talking about them and posting pictures of them. I'm afraid that OMGBABYGOATS took over my brain there for a while, hehe.

but really, it's hard to resist them, you know what I mean?

But as soon as i saw this face looking at me yesterday morning I knew I needed to get the camera and get some pony pictures.

and i did. Like... 65 of them plus some video, hehe.

I found this old pool toy to swing around to get them running, since they are pretty much used to everything else and just look at me like I'm boring them if I try to chase them with anything else.

Mary doesn't care much, hehe.

It sure got Brego riled up for a bit, though.

Man. I still have to pinch myself sometimes to believe he is really mine.

Of course then I let them play with the pool toy.

Brego was not amused.

Once he sniffed it out a bit he lost interest and went back to doing what he does best.

NOMNOMNOM

How do I love thee, let me count the ways...

2011-01-28T09:20:00.002-05:00

I love you enough to drag myself out of my warm cozy bundle of blankets at 3 am when the temp outside is -15 actual temps in order to make sure none of you are shivering and to give you extra hay to make sure you can generate enough body heat to keep warm.

I love you enough to lay on my stomach in amniotic fluid at midnight with my arm up to my elbow in your backside to turn your kid around and help you get it out.

I love you enough to carry 100 pounds worth of frozen hose in to my house every 5 days to thaw it, then slog through knee deep snow to make sure you have fresh water at all times.

I love you enough hand knit you sweaters so you won't be cold.

I love you enough to rinse out your bucket when you have been sick.

I love you enough to find that gap in your teeth adorable and still laugh myself silly over the funny faces you make.

I love you enough to say goodbye when you are ready, even when every part of me wants to hang on.

I love you enough to let you be you.

Bitter.

2011-01-24T12:25:00.002-05:00

It is so cold outside that my camera wouldn't work.

I woke up this morning at around 3 am. Checked my email and my weather add on for Firefox said it was -15 degrees. Tsu spent the night hanging with our "bestie" Jer since they are both currently somewhat "under employed" so I had the house almost to myself. Tiff had been feeling yucky all weekend so she was mostly huddled in her room at her computer with her space heater turned up, groaning a lot about how horrible she felt.

At any rate, when I saw how bitter cold it was out there I bundled up in my mid-70's snowmobile suit, knit hat, scarf, gloves and muck boots and headed out to toss all the herbivores some hay to light up the fire in their bellies to keep them warm.

My glasses immediately frosted over to the point that I couldn't see and even breathing through the scarf the cold froze my nose hairs. Everyone outside seemed toasty warm, though all the goats were crowded as close to the heat lamp as they could get. I made sure everyone had fresh water as well, then dashed back into the house and burrowed into my sleeping bag on the futon couch. Before long I was buried under a pile of living furballs and one coat wearing skin ball, lol. If there were a way to bring the hooved (hoofed?)family members inside to keep warm I'd do it in a heartbeat, hehe.

I woke up several hours later and headed out to do my actual chores. It had warmed up to a whopping -6, actual not wind chill. I took my camera thinking I could get some updated pictures of the babies, but the screen on the camera wouldn't even light up in the cold. After i fed and watered everyone I just sat in the stall with the goats for a while and let the babies climb all over me. They make me laugh so hard.

This cold is just sucking the energy right out of me.

Our keeper, Chickory.

2011-01-16T22:12:00.002-05:00

Hey! whatcha doing?

My plan for this year with our goats was for me to buy a nice meat type myotonic buck to cross with my does next breeding season, to wether Parsley to be said new buck's companion, to keep back a doe out of Sage and Parsley if I got one and to feed up then eventually eat all the other kids. That was the plan when Tsu had, ya know, a JOB.

Now it hardly seems responsible to be spending a couple hundred dollars at minimum on a new buck, and I didn't get my doeling anyway. So... I'm going to put a hold on the whole "buying a meaty buck" plan, and the "wethering Parsley" plan. I'll keep Pars as a buck for another year and use him on Sage in hopes of a girl next year. I'll try and find a local Boer or other meaty buck to borrow or rent for the twins if things haven't improved enough to let me buy my own. And to keep Parsley company so he doesn't have to live alone I'm going to keep one of the three boys.

I've decided to keep the first one since I am just in love with his colour and he is the most friendly and people focused of the kids. I'm going to wether (neuter) him and train him to pull and carry a pack. He already follows me everywhere, and wants to be right next to me all the time.

I'm comin' to get you!!

BIG stretch!!

Whatcha doing?

HEY! I'm right here!!!

So... the twins were exploring the baby table, lol. man, they crack me up.

I got a picture of Tulsa. He just showed up one day. Some times he is here, some times he isn't. He got his name because he meows with an Oklahoma accent. It's hard to explain. hehe.

He still takes my breath away. *sigh*

The worst thing EVER.

2011-01-16T19:23:00.003-05:00

Man oh man. This week has been interesting, hasn't it? Haha! Tsu loses his job, goats start popping out babies left and right, I get to cram my arm into one of them up to my elbow to rescue a stuck baby, we have super high highs and super low lows and right in the midst of it all the worst thing imaginable happens...

My washing machine screws up.

What? That doesn't seem THAT bad you say? OK, let us put this into perspective. Imagine you have just delivered and dried off a baby goat. You have a stack of 4 towels and a pile of rags covered in amniotic fluid, bits of placenta and other weird thick slime-like substances, sticky pools of colostrum, baby's first bowel movement and blood. You rinse them off first to get the chunks off then toss them in the washer which fills with water, sloshes, then promptly refuses to drain.

Soooo now I have a stack of towels and rags covered in all that foul stuff sitting in several inches of water in my front load machine.

*falls to her knees, lifts her arms to the sky, throws back her head and cries "NOOOOOOOOO!!!!"*

First, let me explain... I hate doing laundry almost but not quite as much as I hate doing dishes. But when we moved back here we got two discount priced floor model laundry machines. A stunning front load washer and dryer with glass fronts so i could watch my clothing go round and round. They don't match, but that doesn't stop me from loving them more than I have loved any appliance aside from my dishwasher. I have composed poetry for my dishwasher, we have a special relationship, but my laundry machines are a close second.

Soooo... With fear and trepidation I notified Tsu of the situation. The last time I had a laundry machine emergency it was my dryer and this brilliant man rode in on a white horse in his shining armour, took a look at it, went online, ordered some cheap electronic parts that he had to later solder in and VIOLA! my dryer worked again. But, you know, it's been an odd week, my friends. A week of extremes both good and bad. I REALLLLY wasn't in a frame of mind to risk it going bad.

Well, after some exploratory surgery on the machine Tsu found an internal filter just before the water pump that was, um... well it was clearly not pushing anything through. Only the washer was full of water. the chosen remedy to this was to soak out as much water with the already saturated towels. I stood in the tub with my foot on one end of the towel and twisted it to squeeze the water out while Tsu soaked the next towel. I took off my pants to do this so my hems wouldn't get wet, hehe. Yeah. Me in the tub with no pants on, using my feet to help wring out the towel. A good time was had by all. Not really.

Once this step was done I made my exit. Some time later Tsu steps into the hall and exclaims. I forget what he exclaimed but there was laughing and possibly swear words involved. I believe it ended with "You need to come see this."

Now, we had suspected that the issue was from me washing my barn coat and not getting the chaff from hay out of all my pockets well enough. I was fully expecting to find this to be the case and to be scolded for plugging the machine and making work for him... but there was actually very little hay in there at all. What was there was 5 years of lint and cat hair packed into the filter along with a few pennies, some bits of metal, possibly some nails and heaven only knows what else. This filter was about an inch and a half wide and four inches long and packed solid. Tsu had to soak it in the sink and use a screw driver to pry everything out of it. Then he had to verrry carefully drain the water out to avoid plugging the drain.

I'm tempted to go take a picture of the terrifying mess it left behind. But I don't want to make anyone vomit.

On second thought, hold on. You have GOT to see this.

Be warned, this is not for the faint of heart of sensitive of stomach. You. Have. been. WARNED.

...

...

...

...

...

...

AAAHHHHHHHHH!

*runs around in small circles screaming and waving her hands over her head*

I read my owner's manual from cover to cover. There was NOTHING in there about this filter and it needing to be cleaned. But clearly in a household full of hairballs this sucker needs to be cleaned now and then!

On the bright side my washer works again, just like new, and we have clean towels free of goat birth slime and other funk... and it didn't cost us a penny. On the not so bright side... Tsu's sink is full of sludge.

And now I think we are done.

2011-01-15T12:34:00.003-05:00

Yesterday Sage was clearly getting ready, I was up all night checking on her and she was obviously well on her way. She decided to wait until immediately after she ate breakfast to get down to business.

She had this one at around 9:15am. She just passed the placenta about 20 minutes ago. No more signs of labor so i guess this is it. I didn't get my girl. :-( But I did get three healthy boys and everyone made it through labor and delivery ok, which is the important thing.

I think I may keep Parsley a buck for another year and use him on Sage because I really really do want a doe from Parsley and Sage to keep. I guess we will see.

Sage did this 90% on her own, I just gave one little tug when she seemed to be having trouble getting his head past her pelvis. She took right to motherhood, and aside from me needing to clear her teats before the baby could get some milk she bonded and got to nursing him without any trouble.

Lady in waiting... Gratuitous pony pics.

2011-01-14T11:00:00.003-05:00

My last doe due to kid out is poor dear Sage. She is my 50% Boer/Alpine, the most dairy type of my does, the one I expect to be my best milker. I really want a doeling out of her to keep back.

She is big as a house and clearly uncomfortable as all-get-out. She can barely get up and down and groans every time she moves. This is the doe i thought for sure was going to be the first to have her kids.

Gratuitous pony pics!!

Sparrow was pestering Mary and she was chewing on him, hehe.

NOMNOMNOM

Back to goats, cuuute babies.

Baby goat number 2, Thyme has Massive Gigantorkid McHuge

2011-01-13T02:45:00.002-05:00

OK, normally I go out around 9pm to check on the goats. Since the first kid was born I've been checking to see if he needed a sweater. Then unless something seems off at 9pm I don't check until 5am. Well tonight I checked them around 6 then fell asleep on the couch watching Dexter, lol. I woke up at around midnight and realized I hadn't checked the goats. I rolled over and told myself he'd been fine all day and not to worry about it. But I just felt guilty and like I neeeeded to go check on him to make sure he wasn't shivering. I get bundled up, open the front door and hear a goat crying.

So, I run to the barn, open the stall door and Thyme is down pushing with a bubble present with a foot and a nose visible. Just one foot. I gave her some time to work on it and it was obvious she was making no progress so I popped the bubble, let her try again, and nothing moved from where it was. So i stripped off my coat and took off my rubber "prevent teen suicide" and "Just Ten" bracelets and went in. This baby was HUGE and only had the one leg and his head forward. I spent a good 10 minutes up to my elbow fishing around for the other leg between contractions and getting doused in amniotic fluid (I reek. I will be going in to take a shower asap). I was finally able to get Hulk Baby back in and turned enough to get both feet and nose where they needed to be. I let her push but this kid's massive head was still wedged in her pelvis so I grabbed a towel to give myself some grip and when she pushed i pulled and she screamed and I pulled and PLOP! Soaking wet massive baby with huge huge ears in my lap! He got daddy's colour but not daddy's ears, that is for sure, haha!!

So once I toweled him off and discovered he was a he I set him in front of her and she was all about the mommy business. Unlike Rosemary there was not a seconds hesitation, this was her baby and she knew what she needed to do. She was already pushing him toward her udder while she was still laying down. He nursed the first time while she was still laying on her side catching her breath. he was on his feet within 10 minutes. I tried to take Rosemary and Sage out but Thyme started to holler and scream and it was clearly freaking out baby so I decided to go ahead and leave them together since she didn't seem to be having any trouble bonding with her kid.

Once I got all the important stuff done (baby dry, umbilical treated, mom given a drench and a lot of warm water, etc) I ran to get the camera and got out and after one picture my batteries died so I came in to recharge them, get myself some coffee, warm up, and spread the news. She had not passed the placenta yet, though, so I was kinda getting nervous. But of course as soon as i got out there with charged batteries to get pictures of baby she started to pass it. So I had to crop that out of a bunch of the pictures, ewww. So here he is, massive gigantorkid.

Tsu got laid off today.

2011-01-12T17:14:00.002-05:00

*deep breath*

We have activated our plan of action that we discussed "in case". We will be ok for quite a while. Our credit will be in a rough state but we should be able to keep the house paid for and such for quite a while. But we have a plan, and we will be ok.

However, I feel it is only responsible to find new homes for the two mini horses. This way I can be sure and take proper care of Brego even with a lower income.

Obviously I will be casting my job hunt net a bit wider than i was before, and Tsu will be hunting right along side me now, lol.

I am convinced that this is a blessing in disguise. That job was killing him one day at a time. This is scary but I firmly believe in the long run it will be for the best.

Baby Goat Sweater Pattern Part Three: In The Round.

2011-01-11T10:46:00.004-05:00

Baby goat sweater knit in the round

Size 8 circular needle
Bulky yarn or 2 strands worsted held together (I like to use two strands of worsted together and use up scraps from my stash since no one really cares what colours are in a baby goat sweater as long as it keeps baby warm)

This pattern has two choices for the back end:
1.Tapered back end:
CO 36
K1, P1 rib 1 ½ inches
*K1fb, work in pattern to last stitch, k1fb
Work in pattern 1 row* repeat until 46 stitches
Go to +++ and proceed

2. Straight back end (pictured):
Cast on 46 stitches
Work in k1,p1 rib
Go to +++ and proceed

+++
Work in pattern until 6 (or 8) inches long
Inc 1 at each end of every row until 58 stitches
Join to work in the round, place marker to mark center front, work in pattern until long side of garnment is 10 (or 12) inches long.
Starting at marker work 6 stitches in pattern, bind off four, work 38 stitches, bind off 4, work 6 stitches to center marker. Now work the 12 stitch section between the bound off sections (the front) back and forth in pattern until 3 inches long. Place stitches on holder and cut or break yarn. Now work the back 38 stitches back and forth until 2 ½ inches long. End on a right side row, cast on 4 stitches, pick up 12 front stitches, cast on 4 stitches and join to work in the round again. Work two full rows from the center front marker.
*Decrease in pattern first stitch after marker and last stitch before marker. Work two rows in pattern.* Repeat until 48 stitches.
K one row (turning row).
Knit in k2, p2 rib for 2 inches and bind off in a stretchy bind off.

Pick up stitches around leg hole (approx. 22, legs are optional!) and work in the round in k1, p1 rib for 10 rows, bind off in stretchy BO. Weave in ends.

If you have any questions at all just ask and I will try to answer in the comments. If you have any suggestions or improvements in how this pattern is written please let me know!

Baby Goat Sweater Patterns Part Two: The flat knit pattern.

2011-01-11T10:06:00.004-05:00

Baby goat sweater knit flat

Size 8 needles, straight and DP or circular (for legs)
Bulky yarn or 2 strands worsted held together (I like to use two strands worsted and work through my stash of scraps since no one really cares what colour baby goat sweaters are as long as they work)

This pattern has two choices for the back end, chose one:

1.Tapered back end:
CO 36
K1, P1 rib 1 ½ inches
*K1fb, work in pattern to last stitch, k1fb
Work in pattern 1 row* repeat until 46 stitches
Go to +++ and proceed

2. Straight back end (pictured):
Cast on 46 stitches
Work in k1,p1 rib
Go to +++ and proceed

+++
Work in pattern until 6 (or 8) inches long
Inc 1 at each end of every row until 58 stitches
Knit until 10 (or 12) inches long
Work across 6 stitches, bind off 4, work until last 10, bind off 4 then knit last 6
Work back and forth on the 6 stitches before the bound off 4 until section is 3 inches long. Place stitches on holder or scrap yarn, cut or break yarn and move onto center section of 38 stitches. Work until 2 ½ inches. Work last 6 same as first.
Work next row in pattern, after first 6 stitches cast on 4 then pick up center section, cast on 4 and pick up last 6.
Work 2 rows in pattern, then decrease at both ends of every 3rd row until 48 stitches.
Knit next row*.
k2,p2 rib for 2 inches, bind off.
Pick up even number of stitches around leg holes (I picked up 22, legs are optional) and knit in k1,p1 rib to desired length, bind off.
Stitch center front from last increase to end of collar. Weave in ends.

*this is a turning row, up until this point your sweater doesn't really have to have an inside or outside but once you put in the turning row it makes the collar fold one direction. If you put legs on make sure check the fold of the collar before picking up stitches. Don't be like me and just put the legs on the inside of your sweater the first time you try to make the pattern, lol.

If you have any questions at all just ask and I will try to answer in the comments. If you have any suggestions or improvements in how this pattern is written please let me know!

Baby Goat Sweater Patterns, part one, explanations and such.

2011-01-11T09:50:00.007-05:00

I made these patterns myself, I am NOT a pattern maker so be warned! I tested both patterns myself and they turned out just fine and one of them is keeping my new buckling toasty at night.

Now my goats are sort of small, bigger than pygmy goats but smaller than your average full sized meat or dairy goat. These sweaters will fit a wide range of kid sizes simply because they are entirely out of ribbing so they are self-adjustable and stretchy. As long as they are long enough to cover the baby goat's little bum but not so long that the tummy gets in the way of boys going potty you should be good for just about any size kid.

Also, after trying this on an actual kid I can say that the legs are purely optional. In actuality I don't think I am even going to put legs on future sweaters because they seem to kind of get in his way when he is trying to get up and down. the main thing is to keep the core of the body warm without getting in the way of the baby's ability to move around and do what baby goats do (eat, go potty and bounce).

I've posted the instructions to knit flat first, and the instructions for knitting in the round second at the end of this post.

Obviously these sweaters work well for dogs as well, but I find that the neck is really wide and my dog ends up walking right out through the neck hole, haha!! This does not seem to be an issue with the goat kid, though.

Baby Goat Sweater, Flat Knit Pattern

Baby Goat Sweater pattern, Knit in the Round

OK, baby goat number 1...

2011-01-10T14:49:00.003-05:00

I went out at 5am after tsu left for work and checked on the girls. Sage looks ready to burst so I've been checking them when he leaves for work, at breakfast, lunch, dinner and usually before bed. Well at 5am no one looked like anything but sleepy and bored. Their ligaments in their hind quarters weren't soft, no discharge, no standing posty legged in back.

Well, then at 6:30 or 7am after Tiff got on the bus I just decided to check them one more time and there stood Rosemary with a bloody bum.

My first reaction was "crap. She aborted." She just started getting an udder and wasn't big at all so I expected her to be the last of the three to have her babies. I go in, see the mess in the bedding and no sign of a fetus and then I hear this tiny little "bleeeee". So I got Parsley out into the outdoor pen, got Sage and Thyme into his pen and lowered the heat lamp down, ran into the house to grab my baby goat birth kit with towels and iodine and what have you and trucked back out there. I flipped the baby over to check his umbilical and discovered he is most assuredly a he.

So, without further adieu...

Baby goat number 1:

OMGBABY!!!!

2011-01-10T09:20:00.003-05:00

single buckling born to Rosemary between 5am and 6:30 am this morning.

details to follow, along with pictures....

Happy Festivus!!!

2010-12-23T13:10:00.002-05:00

So... look, the full water tank!

The heater makes bubbles for some weird reason.

A picture of Mister Fish before the tank was filled:

I was killing time while Brego ate his lunch (I'll get to that soon) and fluffing the hay in the goat's stalls. I just leave the hay they won't eat for bedding and every other day I fluff it to let the goatberries fall to the bottom and to let it air out. I laid the Ladies table on it's side and moved it out from the wall some, this way they have some semi-enclosed areas to curl up in, for them and for the babies. That doesn't stop them from climbing on it. Please ignore the gross blue blanket. It was Sparrow's Blankie until he got bored of playing with it, now I gave it to the goats and they toss it around. It looks horrible but they have so much fun with it that I leave it in there. In the summer I hose it down now and then. Right now it is just jammed with hay and straw.

Sage's udder is twice the size it was just two weeks ago. YAY!!

Anyway, Brego's lunch... I've spent almost 2 years now trying to perfect an easy way to feed Brego without having him share it with Mary. It wasn't until recently that some folks online were talking about feedbags and it occurred to me that a feedbag could be the perfect solution. Well, it took me a month or two to earn enough cash through doing surveys to get one, but I got one! Last night he got his first meal in it. He was confused, and so were the other two little boogers. But he very quickly figured out that meant all the food was his and he COULDN'T share.

So breakfast today was his first regular meal in the bag, since last night I stood right there and made sure he didn't freak out with the bag on his face. But this morning I put it on him, then got hay, fed the goats, checked and filled everyone's water, and by then he was done and I took the bag off. But at lunch time Brego is the only one who gets anything, so I fed him, got some pictures, then went and hung out with the goats while he munched.

PICTURES!

Hey! What 'cha doing?

Can I have some?

HEY! What are you guys doing?

DANG IT!! I can't get in there!!

HAHAHA!!! The minis were SOOO ticked off!

It looks like the bag is going to work GREAT.

Not a good day to have a bad day.

2010-12-22T09:55:00.002-05:00

Seriously.

*sigh*

Sometimes I wonder if there is some cosmic conspiracy to make every simple thing as absolutely difficult and complicated as possible.

Simple thing: fill the water trough.

How it is complicated: The water line to the big barn (closest water faucet to the tank) broke under ground over a year ago. So I have to run the hose from the trailer to the little barn, which takes about 175/200 feet of hose. So the hose has to be hauled in to the house the night before to thaw. The hose is heavy. I can barely move it. Then the next day it has to be hauled out into the yard, run from the faucet to the tank. then once it is hooked to the faucet I have to open the skirting (which was jammed and didn't want to open) turn on the spigot underneath and hopefully fill the tank. Unless the pipes are frozen. In which case you need to find a way to thaw them before the hose freezes back up.

urgh.

You know, I have simple dreams. One of them is a faucet within 10 feet of my stock tank, well insulated with heat tape.

The horses have water, I had a massive melt down, and I totally jacked up my shoulder trying to deal with it. But hey, at least the tank is full and I won't have to deal with this again until... next week.

Oh, and all my winter clothes are soaking wet now. So me and my jacked up shoulder are going to go do laundry now so I have dry winterwear for doing chores tonight. lol. So much for handling things ok this winter! *rolls eyes*

The shortest day of the year....

2010-12-21T07:17:00.002-05:00

Things only get brighter from here on out. I made it through to the Solstice ok, just a few bad days here and there where I could feel the S.A.D. trying to crawl in. But for the most part, so far so good. I just have the actual holiday to get through and I should be home free. I even made it through the anniversary of Jamie's death without a total melt down. GO ME!!

It's been a bit of a fight, though. After having two winters with low dose Prozac I am not sure it's worth the effort to keep mentally healthy and fight the S.A.D. without meds when the meds work so well. I've done ok but it has taken a LOT of effort. Part of the reason why I went without meds was because we had a financial crisis hit right when I would have been going to the doctor for my check up, so the money that would have gone to the copays went to keeping our lights on instead (long story, lol). By the time that was resolved I decided to just give a med-less winter a try and see if I did ok compared to how I had done pre-meds.

Well, I did ok, but I don't want to have to fight this hard to keep it together. Especially not after having two years of not having to even think about it. It's EXHAUSTING. I don't want to do it again if I don't have to.

My "Indian" name is "Smells Like Goats".

2010-12-20T07:36:00.002-05:00

First, i woke up with this song stuck in my head:

*sings along and rocks side to side* Now THAT is music, my friends. I may love a lot of kinds of music from power metal to reggae to mariachi to 70's and 80's and classic rock... but this kind of stuff? It just still blows me away. I just have NO idea why I woke up singing it today. Drifter, Platters, Temptations, etc... just love it. On the Roof, Under the Boardwalk, Only You, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, STAND BY ME!! Looooove it.

OK, so... on to the goats. Yeah, I'm allll about the goats these days. The closer we get to kidding day the more obsessed I am getting. Rosemary is actually getting an udder now, too. SO CUTE! Yes, I'm "awwwwww"-ing over goat mammaries. So I made a run to Tractor Supply and got some iodine for dipping navels, CDT vaccine, some free choice minerals (I ran out), and a few other things. I also picked up some cheap pet clippers from Walmart to clip back the hair on the Ladies tails and udders for hygiene reasons. Yesterday my big project was to update their shots and give them their mommy makeovers. Thanks to Thyme, I got a little CDT vaccine myself. *sigh*

I think the clipped tail looks stupid, but it will be much simpler to keep clean during birth and the week after. Look how round and bulging Sage looks:

Rosemary and Thyme are getting a tad bit portly themselves:

Since it is pretty cold out there and likely will be when the babies are born I am knitting sweaters for them. No this isn't some crazy idea I came up with, google "baby goat sweaters" and you will see it isn't entirely uncommon.I made my own pattern and I am still tweaking it, I'll post the pattern when I finish it. I made the first two out of scraps of left overs so they are super gaudy. Here is Nigel modeling the first test baby goat sweater:

Brego modeling them both:

obviously they would work ok for dog sweaters, too.

I plan to have 4 of them ready in slightly different sizes and the Ladies due dates are spaced out enough that the first set of babies won't need them any more by the time the second set get here.

Parsley seems to be enjoying having his own bachelor pad and not getting beat up trying to munch his hay.

Gratuitous pony pictures:

nomnomnom

Parsley's Bachelor Pad, Wet Horses, and Topless Shots of Sage.

2010-12-12T16:04:00.002-05:00

Parsley is now a swingin' bachelor, chilling out in his hip cool bachelor pad. The last time I tried to make him spend some time away from the ladies he cried. A lot. All day. Until i finally took pity on the poor sod and put him back. But at that point I had no reason to think the girls were expecting and I was just kind of toying with the idea. But now I am pretty sure we have at least two ladies in a family way and they need to not have a randy dandy buck pestering them while they try to grow the future of my herd in their bellies.

So Parsley got his own place, and moved to it yesterday. He fussed for about 10 minutes then seemed to notice that, oh my gosh, I don't have a herd queen kicking my butt and stealing my hay, but I can still talk to them all I want! They weren't putting out anyway, so I guess this gig isn't so bad after all!

He really enjoys not having to scuffle for his place at the hay pile:

He begs for attention every chance he gets, which isn't so bad now that the stink of rut is gone and he doesn't reek. he stands up on his hind legs and does this tiny hophophop where his feet come off the floor like 2 inches, max, haha!!! It's so cute.

We are in the midst of a snow storm, I made sure the horses had a ton of hay in the run in and what do they do? stand outside in the wet sticky snowy crap.

*shakes head* goofy ponies.

So, I needed to get indecent photos of my girls so i could show them to the folks at the goat forum and get opinions on the likelyhood of their impending motherhood. Since they are all set up in their winter digs it made it nice. In out of the wind and snow, I was glad I had them in the barn.

Anyway, I was looking at the pictures of their girlie bits and found a pair of pictures that show how Sage's udder is filling in. I cropped out the more inappropriate of parts to just show the udder. I got pictures of her boobies, and didn;t even have the decency to give her a string of beads.

This is her udder in september of this year:

and this is her udder this morning, hehehe:

Sage has an udder!!!!!

2010-12-09T19:02:00.002-05:00

As in, like, enough of an udder that it is about two good handfuls and soft and squishy!

Looks like maybe Parsley got the deed done with at least one of the girls after all.

Sage and Thyme both have bellies that are larger than normal and feel decidedly round and squishy in the udder area. Rosemary seems thicker around the waist but no sign of udder development.

But Sage's udder is like the size of two grapefruits.

I'm so totally stoked about it. Man I hope it isn't just some weird hormonal thing, and she is actually pregnant. I REALLLLY want a doe out of her and Parsley. It would be 3/4 dairy breed.

*jumps up and down*

Tomorrow I will get pictures of their poochies (girlie bits) to post on The Goat Spot and see if anyone thinks they look like they have babies on the way.

I need some cheap clippers to clip their little udders. Is it really weird that I think their udders are CUTE?

I seriously have gone crazy about goats. It's scary.

I can see a time in my life where i could be happy just having a goat instead of my minis. and I think, when I am old and grey and can't or won't be able to take care of a horse that a small goat could keep me sane.

I always thought some day I would be a crazy cat lady, but I think I am going to be a crazy goat lady instead.

It is ice cold and pitch dark out there and i seriously just want to go out and hang out with my goats. lol. I think I am going to load up my pockets with stale froot loops and go see my goaties.

Tit for tat....

2010-12-09T12:20:00.002-05:00

Tatting is my newest skill I am learning.

There are two kinds of tatting, shuttle tatting and needle tatting. Shuttle tatting is the original method, needle tatting is a more recent development in the art. I am needle tatting because it looks easier to me, hehe. tatting is a type of knotted lace work, if you had a grandma who made doilies or put fancy borders on pillow cases she might have done it with tatting.

I got some tatting needles and have made things with thread and with yarn. It's fairly simple but makes a complicated looking finished product. I think next year for Christmas folks will be getting tatted snowflakes in their Christmas cards, hehe!

First practice project following a pattern... it's edging for a collar made with crochet thread:

second project using a pattern, a snowflake using cheap worseted weight yarn:

The two together so you can see the difference in size:

I fiddled around with stuff to try making my own patterns and made some stuff for Tiff:

I am finishing up my holiday knitting, I have just one snood to finish, assuming I didn't totally screw it up (in which case i may just rip it all out and use the yarn for something else blarg!) then I have to finish the woven reins on my loom, then I can do more attempts at making tatting patterns.

I totally need a job at a yarn store, lol.

FILTHY!!!

2010-12-07T12:31:00.002-05:00

How is it that when the ground freezes and the mud is completely gone Brego gets the filthiest ever? Seriously?? And it's impossible to get him clean. And he STINKS. It was the same thing last winter. He turns one spot in the run in area into a sewage swamp of urine and such then lays in it. Rolls in it. REVELS in it.

Seriously dude??

UGH! This isn't mud... I wouldn't mind mud so much.

He is so lovely and graceful *cough* and noble *cough* and elegant *cough*laugh*cough*. "Fairytale horse" my butt!

Not only that but he must hang with a rough crowd of fairies or witches. Because they go wicked mad on his mane.

It's hard to see, but he had three massively knatty "creatures of the supernatural world" braids. I've heard them called witch braid, fairy braids, fairy knots, etc. but i just call them "those *&%#@@%&%$ rat's nests in your &^$@@!#$^^$ mane!!" They are usually underneath a lovely lock of untangled hair, so you can't see how horribly knotted it is until you see him shake his head OR go to brush it out. I wish you could see how ratty it really is but it actually looks pretty good here. DON'T BE FOOLED!!!

I bedded his usual "pee and play" area and what did he do? just picked a different spot to pee and roll. *slaps forehead* I groomed him all up right after taking these pictures, ended up reeking of barn stench, and within an hour he looked the same, only now he was wet and stinky instead of dry and stinky. What a doofus.

He is just SUCH a boy! Ah well, I love him anyway. It's just not as nice to hug on him when he smells like a porta-john. lol.

The fanciest goat pen this side of the Mississippi.

2010-11-16T16:46:00.002-05:00

So, the goats have DeStRoYeD the little hoop hut. It served it's purpose but now we need something more solid and permanent. We have plans for it, but I also needed a goat-safe stall in the barn to keep them in when weather is really bad, when babies are being birthed, when I need to keep some goats apart from other goats and to keep them in while we work on their outside pen.

I had this "stud stall" I built for Sparrow when i got Mary and I tried to put the goats in there but Rosemary The Climber got out within 20 minutes. So I requested help from the guys to make a goatproof stall. After brainstorming we came up with the idea to use the left over lattice from our wedding decorations (HAHAHA!!!) to extend the walls up.

It only took a couple of hours. They managed to get it all done between taking our first doe of the firearm gun season and heading back out to hunt for the evening. It works and the stinkers can't get out.

It looks like it needs climbing vines with flowers growing on it. *rolls eyes and laughs*

The goats, resigned to their fate and chilling out.

Now I need to tear down the hut before the ground freezes and make my second goat stall in the little barn with the cattle panels from that, get the new shelter put up in there, and get some toys for the goats to climb on in the back corners of their stalls to help keep them entertained. I have a couple of old woodenshop tables I may use for that.

Today I set them up with their free choice minerals and baking soda, and while I can't say they are THRILLED they do really seem to enjoy being in out of the wind and sprinkles.

Brego comes dashing out of the barn every time one of them stands up against the door and looks out. It's quite funny. I left them a space over the door so they can look out but not get out.

Once I get the other little pen in the barn done I'll have more room than I have goats. Hm. maybe that means I should get more goats. *raises eyebrown*

NaNoWriMo...

2010-11-12T11:17:00.002-05:00

I am almost half way done with my "novel". As I write this I am at 23,147 words on my word document. Honestly? It sucks, and I have no clue where I am going with it. Which, thankfully, is fine for NaNoWriMo!! It's about quantity, not quality, thank goodness.

Thank you for the thoughts over the last few weeks... those who have posted here or sent private words. I appreciate it. It's all good, I'm still not terribly talkative as far as blogging but i do feel the urge coming back.

Until it is all the way back, here are some pictures:

Tough.

2010-11-01T09:28:00.002-04:00

I've had a rough two weeks or so. So, as usual, when I have difficulties that involve stuff and things and stuff... I don't talk about it publicly. So, no offense, but "things is private". And since things and stuff that are private have been really foremost in my mind... I have not had much to say.

And now I am starting NaNoWriMo so I am going to try and put all my words into making my 50k words in a month. I may make a few picture posts here and there, but expect a lot of nothing here until I am back in a proper frame of mind to be blogging and NaNoWriMo is over.

And please don't worry. Everything will be fine. I'm just worried, very disappointed and more than a little bit pissed off. But things have a way of working out.

The Gourd-ucopia....

2010-10-16T14:55:00.001-04:00

This is the gift I made for grandma's 90th birthday. After I got the pictures we found some baby "Native American" corn to put in with the little gourds.

The job hunt continues.

2010-10-13T07:30:00.003-04:00

Today I am heading into town to visit the Michigan Works office.

There are two medium sized towns close to us, one north of us that we never go to and one south of us that we go to all the time. The one north of us is about 5 miles closer to us but both are basically a half hour drive or so from here. Well, a few months ago I got it into my head that we needed to start heading north more often. Just because I got that into my head doesn't mean we did anything about it... until last weekend.

Sunday we finally head up there, after two months or more of talking about it... intent on exploring the town as thoroughly as possible... and find the entire down town area blocked off for some massive fall festival. lol. Good going! But we did find the WalMart and the MiWorks office. But even better than that... we found....

TRACTOR SUPPLY COMPANY!!!!

It occurred to me that I spend wayyy too much money in there. Also, part of the reason I am returning to work is to be able to pay for extras for the horses and goats and to finally get my property properly fenced... We have three TSC's within a half hour/45 minute drive from us. Can you see where I am going with this? I am a country girl, I know about horses, and goats, and pets... I garden a lot and I have been learning about chickens as well. I could be a knowledgeable asset to a farm/garden type store don't you think? and i could really put that employee discount to work for me. So guess who is going to TSC today to ask about getting an application?

Wish me luck, folks.

I'm going to hit the MiWorks office first, then head to TSC to scope it out. I've never even been in this one before.

I can't believe I forgot to post this...

2010-10-13T07:03:00.002-04:00

This happened the 5th, I believe. WEEE!!!!!!!! I have a barn with no holes in the roof!!! *does the happy dance*

Tsu was in the depths of a massive fibromyalgia flare so they wisely kept him on the ground or just part way up the ladder. Father in law, Fred, and our friend Jeremy did the roof work. (Fred is sitting by the spot to be patched, Jer is standing up demanding all attention be on him, as usual, hahaha!!!!) and Tsu is on the ladder.

Interestingly enough the barn floor is drying up really well and packing back down. Heh.

Brego was not entirely sure what was going on, he did not care much for the sound of the power screwdrivers.

Eggs, and my loom, done enough to use!!!

2010-10-04T12:55:00.002-04:00

Look at these, aren't they just gorgeous????

My nephew's chickens have finally started laying enough eggs to sell!!!I have a source until I can get my own flock going!!! Now the hens are still pretty much babies, so we have some variety in size still, but aren't they lovely? Those brown eggs are huge and the green eggs... well... I just love those green/blue/brown/pink eggs. Not for taste/flavor, etc. But just because gosh darn it they make me smile.

I was making a fool of myself over them, I was so delighted. I had to show them to my mother in law, and my father in law, and post pictures of them to all my friends. hehe.

OK... does anyone remember this: I have a new addiction! (toward the end of the post)

Well, guess what? The guys have my loom done enough for me to use!!! We have one more thing we are going to add to it but I just couldn't wait....

Check out this gorgeous thing!

Because I will be doing horse tack (lead ropes, reins, maybe breast collars, browbands, etc)in addition to other things I needed to be able to make them longggggg. So for my first project on my own loom I warped on 12 feet. *shocked*

Work in progress... my home made shuttle loaded with yarn. I designed and made this myself, with some cutting done by the guys to save me some work. It works GREAT.

I finished 12 feet in about 3 total hours of weaving.

Nigel offered to model my work for me:

Look at the wood grain!! There is NO stain on this thing anywhere. Just the natural beauty of the wood and a clear finish.

I am going to warp up another one asap... hehehe.... I have a couple of books I need to finish reading but I am having a hard time dragging myself away from my loom now.

Are you TRYING to give me a heart attack?

2010-09-30T18:48:00.002-04:00

So, yeah. You know how I am about Nigel, right? I mean... how he is like... a part of me... my heart dog... right?

*the evil eye*

I used to have two Chinese Crested Dogs. Mylo died just over two years ago from a rapidly growing brain tumor. After going blind, stopping eating, and losing control of most body functions he had a seizure in which he went completely rigid, flopped like a fish out of water, and screamed in a way i have never heard a dog scream before. We were able to rush him to the vet where the severity of his neurological symptoms made the issue clear and the prognosis grave and we gave him peace while he laid in my arms. *sniffle*

SO. I watch Nigel like a hawk for loss of appetite and anything not quite right. If he burps unusually loud I check him over head to town and watch him like a hawk until I am sure he is ok.

*AAACHHHOOOOOOO!!!!*

So today I am sitting on the couch and he is crashed out on Tsu's side of the couch licking his feet and scratching his ears and randomly looking at me with his idiotic tongue hanging out. Suddenly out of nowhere his whole body goes rigid, he starts to scream, and he falls over sideways thrashing and wailing and kicking out with one hind leg.

I swear, I almost peed my pants. I threw my keyboard out of my lap and rushed to him and grabbed for him thinking he was having some kind of seizure or something... in that instant I just had this feeling of pure horror wash over me from head to toe and instantly I had tears rolling down my face. In literally the same instant that I burst into tears and got my hands on him I realized that in his zeal while scratching his head he had tangled his hind foot in the tiny bit of hair he has on his head.

*slaps forehead*

I extricated the trapped foot from the tangle of hair which turned out to be ear hair, and he was fine.

"Thanks for rescuing me, Mom!!"

Stupid dog.

"I'm so ashamed!"

Quest for employment: The hunt begins.

2010-09-29T07:48:00.002-04:00

If life were a video game I could just go outside and take a sword to small wild creatures I find while walking along... money, hides, and random bits of protective clothing would fall out of the small animal's corpse and i could go to an auction house and sell it for little pieces of gold. That would be awesome.

Unfortunately, real life doesn't work that way, and even if it did it wouldn't add anything to my Social Security. Bummer.

Now in the past I have found my jobs mostly through friends and family members. I get hired out of pity or as a favor and then i prove myself through hard work, dedication and a commitment to doing the best job for my employer that i possibly can.

OR I got my job through people who knew me at one of my jobs and proceeded to brag me up big time until someone else tried to steal me away.

The problem is that I am now a decade out of the work force and I have no connections. My network, locally, is almost non-existent. The folks I knew who owned businesses and employed me in the past are mostly out of business (booo bad economy) or retired. The folks who had good jobs and could pull strings are also retired. Yay for hitting an age where a lot of your friends and family are retired, haha!!

Now in the past when I didn't pull strings to get a job I had a pretty good resume of entry level jobs to hold up and show off (Look! I will do anything legal that I am physically capable of doing for almost no money! How can you beat that deal??), as well as some glowing references that were pretty current. Several of THOSE references are now, sadly, deceased.

Wow, if they aren't retired they are.... yikes.

And the ones remaining haven't seen or heard from me in 10 to 20 years and knew me under my previous married name.

This leaves me in a quandary. I don't want to work in a deli, that is what ruined my arms in the first place. I'll do anything I am physically capable of doing, though I would prefer to not handle money (so no cashier jobs, unless it is in a small business type environment which is NOT fast paced in any way) and I absolutely will not under any circumstances ever accept a job in childcare ever ever ever no matter how well it pays ever. So how do I sell myself as a good employee to people in careers where i have no professional experience OR have no living references to back up that experience?

Well, as soon as I have a full tank of gas again I am going to make an appointment to go to MichiganWorks.

My Mother-In-Law found her job through them, they helped her get a decent resume and might be able to hook me up with career training to get me into a new career.

So, my friends, wish me luck. And if you hear of someone close to me looking to hire someone, let me know. *grin*

Parsley, oh he of the expressive tongue...

2010-09-25T13:00:00.000-04:00

Flapflapflap...

Meh.

PFTTTHTT

mlehmlehmleh

*kissy*

He isn't the only one, Brego and Nigel get in on it as well.

Enjoy it while you can...

2010-09-23T13:00:00.000-04:00

Enjoy the warm summery sun while you can, ponies, summer is over and soon... well, let's not talk about that, ok?

HA! I caught someone making a deposit on the poo pile. Thanks for making my job easier, buddy.

Uh oh. They noticed me. Yikes. here they come.

Really? That close? Is that entirely necessary?

You too? Seriously?

How about I run backwards and see if I can get far enough to get a decent picture?

Nice.

At least SOMEONE isn't gettin' all up in my grill...

Um. My shoes are not edible. But I guess the little horsie tooth marks add to their attractiveness.

Oh, yeah, when he realizes I have no food I get this view.

But he eventually comes back.

The partners in crime, spreading their own brand of trouble where ever they go. Mary makes Brego look so tall. Hard to believe he is only around 13.2hh, lol.

For Jen, House/barns...

2010-09-23T05:27:00.002-04:00

Check out this:

Barns with apartments above them.

It's ok to drool.

As I get older the idea of a set of stairs to get up to my house sounds less and less appealing, but I thought having a barn built like a walk out basement with a house on top at ground level on one end would be cool. lol.

The thought of being able to go out and feed in the morning without having to actually go outside delights me.

I see skies of blue...

2010-09-22T11:00:00.001-04:00

But not in a place where i SHOULD be seeing them.

First, this is my run in area of my little horsie/critter barn.

I had to move my hay out of the barn partially because of lack of room but mostly because of.... this:

*sigh*

That isn't the only one. Three of the six skylights are like that, including the ones over the run in area.

Which means that if it is really rainy the horses have virtually no place to get out of the rain. Which would concern me more if they ever even TRIED to get out of the rain, which they don't.

However, those have GOT to be patched before the weather turns bad, because freezing rain is a whole other beast.

We have these to patch the roof with:

They have done a phenomenal job all summer keeping the grass in that spot from growing. Which is a noble endeavor considering that our lawn mower is less than perfectly functional.

I wish i were physically capable of doing this stuff myself. I'm gonna lose my mind having to wait on other people to do it.

On an unrelated note... what the heck?

I warily pick it up, and try to figure out just what the heck I am looking at, laying there, walked in to the dirt...

It's a knit glove of some sort, turned inside out. And it was in the horse paddock. NO clue where it came from. First i find spoons, now this? Weird.

Edit to add: after writing this up and scheduling it to post the topic came up and it seems that this project is tentatively scheduled for weekend after next. *crossing fingers*

Gone to seed...

2010-09-21T13:16:00.002-04:00

So, I am attempting to save some seeds from some heirloom tomatoes my neighbor, Sandi (Sandy? I can never remember which it is) gave me. Saving tomato seeds is kinda gross. The seeds have a protective coating on them, a slim, if you will. This prevents them from sprouting until after a slight fermentation process that breaks down the slime. So to properly save tomato seeds you need to let them sorta ferment a bit first.

I will save you the gory details in THAT process, but i will say... stinky. Yuck.

So after three days of stirring and other gross disgusting stuff... I have seeds!!

They are well on their way to being dry enough to store until next spring. According to Sandi she gave me Brandywine, Black Beauty and some random heirloom mix. How do you like my fancy "hardwood flooring"? *grin*

My whole body aches from two days working hides, and I over used my hands so now they hurt and are weak and shaky. Sometimes I forget they are faulty. Then something reminds me. *sigh* But the hides are pretty much dry and ready to store until I am ready to tan them. We'll see then if i did this right or if I should have kept them wet and soaking in salt longer. I'm also working on some small pieces from the lower leg with dew claws attached to make a bag like one I saw a picture of in a museum a while back. THOSE are hard to get the membrane and stuff scraped off of.

This is our pool.

Say goodbye pool. *goodbye pool!!*

The metal sides will be turned into fancy goat shelter, and the rest? *shrug* who knows. More junk to pile up somewhere i guess.

Can you tell our lawn mower is broken? The goats do not do as tidy a job, hehe.

Goats and Venison...

2010-09-19T19:11:00.002-04:00

A couple of days ago I took the goats out for some free time in the yard. They all immediately did this:

at one point ALL 4 had at least 2 feet up there, lol. When they discovered that there was no food there they quickly lost interest.

"Um, hello? Something is missing here!"

NOMNOMNOM earning their keep.

A shot with the Casa Del Violet in the background. *grin*

Funny goats.

"Oh, hai!!"

It is the early season for antlerless deer in Michigan. The guys got 2 deer day before yesterday. yesterday we processed them and got them into the freezer. Today I spent the morning salting their hides to tan later. I have another day or two of work on them before they are properly salted. Then this afternoon we had family dinner with my inlaws and ate some of the tenderloins and backstraps. OH MY GOSH. Melt in your MOUTH delicious. Grilled, with salad and fries. fantastic. The deer were small, so i was surprised at how much meat we got from them. It's a good start to having full freezers for the winter.

Check out Life On A Southern Farm and enter to WIN A HEN NESTING BOX!!

2010-09-14T19:20:00.003-04:00

I know a lot of the folks who read my blog enjoy country/homesteading kind of stuff. I also know a lot of you have small livestock and/or poultry. And obviously you kinda like reading blogs.

So I would like to recommend that if you are one of the above mentioned folks you check out the Life On A Southern Farm blog!! That link will not only take you to the blog, but to their current give away!

Their nest boxes are lovely. really. I want one so bad I can hardly stand it. I actually want the 3 nest box. Check out the different sizes they have available at the HenPals Nest Box store!

I had my eye on the three and four nest boxes. I actually think 3 will be all I need since I won't have many hens, then a one hole box to set aside for a broody hen.

Check out that first link to see how to enter their give away.

My chickens are going to have a repurposed pickup camper and plywood coop, their pen is going to be hillbillied together out of stuff I already own. But it sure would be nice to give them a nice fancy nest box to lay their eggs in, hehe!!

Do You Remember?

2010-09-11T10:15:00.002-04:00

I asked my daughter once, several years ago now, what her first memory was. I was actually wondering if she remembered a time when her dad and I were together. Her answer shook me to the core.

"I remember asking you if I could sleep on the couch in the living room because I was afraid if I slept on the top bunk in my bedroom (which was on the second floor) airplanes might kill me."

I was home, on the computer. Tiff was at school. Tsu was at work. I was playing Bejeweled. Tsu and I were chatting over an instant messenger. He said, "A plane just hit the WTC." I assumed someone drinking and flying in a small plane. a few minutes later... "You really need to go downstairs and turn on the TV. It was an airliner. This couldn't have been an accident."

I turned on my old standby, Good Morning America. Diana Sawyer and Charlie Gibson were giving live reports, and as they looked at the cameras and each other i watched in utter disbelief as another plane flew in to the buildings. THEY weren't watching the monitors so it was a surreal moment as tens if not hundreds of people died before our very eyes in that second impact... and then the shock and fear in their eyes as they discovered another plane had hit.

I think I spent the next 36 hours glued to the TV. Peter Jennings kept me from flipping out for like 20 hours. Somewhere during the morning he got an ink stain on his hand. It sounds silly to me when I say it, but... having someone there for that long, giving me the updates, looking and sounding as confused and scared and angry by turns as i was feeling, and so human with that ridiculous ink stain on his hand... it held me together.

Mid-day the next day a group of military planes flew over our house super low. All over the news it was saying NO planes were in the air and the sound of those plane engines terrified me. We now live on a flight path for military aircraft, they fly over about 3 times a week here, and to this day my heart races and I freeze where I am when they go over.

At the time my favorite silly online web site was My Cat Hates You and two days or so after 9/11 they made a post in memory of two cats they know (their own? a friends? a relatives? I can't recall) that were trapped in the evacuated zone close to the WTC and presumed dead. Locked in an apartment, alone, without enough food and water to get by, their world coated in the dust of the lives of thousands of people. i completely lost it. Over those two dang cats. Cats I had never heard of or seen before in my life... commemorated on a silly web site.

Two cats who survived after all, as they stated in an update. Scared, hungry, thirsty.... but alive.

That is what I remember about 9/11/01. Peter Jennings with ink stains on his hands and crying for two cats.... and assuring my daughter that her bedroom was safe, even on the top bunk.

Goat stand, Mouse, gourds, horse braids, and hunting for a job... in reverse order.

2010-09-09T10:11:00.004-04:00

This week I was going to start looking for a job, and instead I have spent days on the phone dealing with a completely unrelated and exasperating issue completely not of my doing. *le sigh* One of the towns fairly close to us has a "Michigan Works" office so I am going to make an appointment with them and see if I can get me a lil' job. My kid expenses are going up significantly as she enters the final three years of high school, and i want to buy a few horse things and I'd like to get our debt paid off faster than the 4 1/2 years we are scheduled on now. I might pay extra on the mortgage, i dunno. Plus I need the points for my social security. So we can retire to the mountains of tennessee and live off of our soc sec checks. lol.

Anyhoooo. I braided Brego's mane over. It's gradually been getting less and less tidy and part over here and part over there and part who knows where. So I braided it to one side after coating it with coconut oil. *grin* He is sooo not thrilled.

"Seriously? It has to stay this way for HOW long??"

GOURDS!!! Um, so far I have, out of about 40 plants (half hard shell gourds, half decorative small gourds) one single craftable sized gourd.

I have about 15 hard shells that are this size:

a few that are between (the largest of these is about 4 inches tall. it will make a cute snowman some day i guess):

and about 10 decorative gourds that are actually bigger than the hard shells. *sigh*

There is an itty bitty decorative gourd growing here, can you find it?

and now, here is our cat, Mouse, with her tongue sticking out:

And finally!!! Katherine, my hoof trimmer, is awesome. We chat like a couple of old hens when she comes to trim the horses, lol. I SO look forward to trim days, because I enjoy it when she comes by... Anyway, I mentioned a couple of trims ago that I needed a goat milking stand and she mentioned she thought her mom had one she might want to find a new home for. Jump forward a couple of trims and she brings the stand with her and sends me the news her mom wants the unreasonably high price of... hold on to your seat and get ready for it because this will BLOW YOU AWAY!!!! FIFTEEN DOLLARS!!! *falls over*

So, um, yeah. I almost feel guilty for only paying her $15 for it, I would have insisted she take more but I didnt have any more cash on me.

it has wheels on the front and is super easy to move around. the support on the side keeps goats from wriggling their way off the side, as well as adding stability. It's covered in hoof trimmings in this picture, lol.

The front has like a keyhole opening and then a bar that drops down to keep their head in the narrow place until you are ready to let them out. It also has a bucket holder that one of my protein buckets that was emptied out fits into perfectly!!!

Front of stand, open for putting the goat in:

Closed to keep the goat from pulling it's head out:

I gave the goats their dinner on it and was able to handle the ladies teats, even Rosemary and Thyme, while they ate. There were some small fireworks but once the twins realized they were stuck they just hunched their backs up and ate. I may actually be able to milk them someday afterall!! lol. Today I trimmed their feet while they had breakfast. How have I survived since March without one of these????

The wind in the trees...

2010-09-04T13:20:00.002-04:00

...is making me crazy.

It's a lot cooler than it has been and while i am not looking forward to winter the cooler air is ok... but this wind! I don't even want to step foot outside in it!

Every time I open a door the wind grabs it and tries to rip it away.

It has the animals all riled up. The dogs are jumpy, the goats have been flipping out and Brego just seems annoyed by it all. Mary and Sparrow are huddled in the run in but when a big gust hits they come dashing out then run back in. Brego has been standing with his butt to the wall of the big barn glaring at the door of the house as if i am somehow responsible for this situation and can fix it.

Sorry, big guy. No can do! Y'all are stuck suffering through just like the rest of us!

I woke up with this song stuck in my head.

2010-08-30T11:16:00.002-04:00

Thanks to a post on a forum i go to I woke up with this song stuck in my head.

And so, in my brilliant attempt to get rid of that song (which, honestly, is great in it's own right and I only needed rid of it because the number is the ONLY part of the lyrics I can remember) I resorted to my old stand by... no matter what is stuck in my head I can usually replace it with something I know more of the words to, so I can at least share my brainworm with others by singing whatever happens to be stuck in there...

ABBA.

Today's ABBA "moment of brilliance" of choice?

Take a chance on me!!!

The sad thing... I am watching the ABBA video thinking, "Hey, I like that sweater, I bet I could knit that."

This makes me want to watch Mama Mia again. I think I need to make a date with my Mother In Law for a Mama Mia afternoon.

Again.

lol.