We quite successfully survived the week of Bible school, and I am on the other side of that darned cold that plagued me all last week. Just a few more days, and I think I'll be top notch again.
With the end of Bible school, homeschooling, and planting, I'm really looking forward to doing some domestic things in the house. Our house has definitely been neglected in the midst of all of our busyness.
A big part of the problem is that everyone has gotten into the habit of not putting things away when they are finished with them. The youngest little creative spirit is the worst at this. She sprinkles her little messes wherever she goes, and if I don't nag her to put them away, there they remain. But, honestly, we're all guilty of it. And as the mother, I'm learning that I need to train my kids to be neat. It's not necessarily something that comes naturally to everyone. Brad declared a 45 minute clutter-clean-up session after church yesterday. After about 30 minutes of everyone working together, our house looked amazingly tidy, and I felt like I could breath a bit easier.
So I intend to do some more domestic fluffing this week. Cleaning. Laundry. And I really hope to do a little baking. We have a tree-full of sour cherries, and I'm really feeling the urge to bake a rustic cherry pie (making a gluten free crust, of course, so I can indulge in it too!)
So onto the finished projects...
We've had Candy and Licorice (our Nubian goats) for a week now. After about three days, I finally got the hang of milking and felt confident enough in my skills to start keeping the milk for our family to consume. Brad and the kids are enjoying the milk (I'm not able to drink much because of the lactose), and I have plans to make some cheese very, very soon (my fridge is filled with quarts of milk!).
I have been milking right on the ground, and besides this hurting my back immensely, I felt like it was more difficult to keep things sanitary. I knew that I wanted a milking stand, but I didn't want to add another task to Brad's growing to-do list.
Yesterday after church it began to rain and storm and continued to do so all day so Brad and Ian found their way out to the garage to do some woodworking. What they were really making was a goat milking stand for me. They finished it by evening, and now I have a really nice stand to use when milking.
I tried it out last night (in between storms and rain), and it worked great. This morning was another story. The goats were in a mood (as was I) and both goats ended up putting their hooves in the milk. Grrr. That might have made me just a bit grouchy, but the chickens and Midi were happy at their gain of a bowl full of fresh milk.
So I guess we're still figuring this whole goat-milking business out. I have found experimentation to be the most beneficial way for me to learn in the area of homesteading endeavors. And so I will go back to the drawing board and do some more research in order to find a way to make milking even more enjoyable and easier. But maybe we'll just have those ornery days (both the goats and myself) when we just want to stomp our hooves in the bowl of milk.
My finished project is my crocheted linen stitch scarf. I was going to originally do this in a knit linen stitch, but I found myself wanting a quicker project and crocheting is definitely faster than knitting for me. I love the look and the great thing about it is that the crochet linen stitch is reversible whereas the knit one is not. This yarn was dreamy to work with; one I'd definitely use again.
For now, this scarf is getting tucked away with all of my other handmade warm things. As much as I'm looking forward to wearing this one, I'm more than content to enjoy this scarf-less weather.
I may not be that productive this week thanks to this lovely cold virus that has me moving at snail pace, but the creatures and plants outside of the four walls sure have been.
Here come the cherries, oh yes, here they come. Last year's harvest was piddly. The year prior to that produced a massive harvest. I had heard that cherries experience biennial harvests, meaning that they will have a good harvest one year, a small one the next, a good one, a small one, and on and on. That's proven true here. The cherries on this tree are sour and great for desserts. We pop them off the tree and right into our mouths because we like the tartness of them, but they definitely have sour going for them. We do have several sweet cherry trees in the fruit orchard in the back, but those trees are still young and aren't producing much of anything yet. I was excited to see that we have fruit buds on all of the fruit trees (apples, plums, peaches, and cherries) in the orchard this summer. This is the first summer that we've had any.
We've got chickens galore. In fact, I need a carpenter to come donate some time and build me a bigger chicken coop. My poor husband. I think we're wearing him out with all of our plans. I really wish I had the construction know-how like he does. He can pretty much build anything. Me? Yeah, definitely not my strong point. At all. We have 32 hens, 1 rooster, and 9 unsexed chicks. I'm still waiting to see what those youngest nine are going to be, although I do have some guesses since they're getting older now and starting to show some signs of gender.
I'm afraid that I may bore you with goat photos over the next couple of weeks. Oh do I love them! They're so fun and sweet. And I love their little "baahs, maahs," they make when they want something. I'm so used to my alpacas. Our relationship with the alpacas is definitely on their terms, and they never want touched. But these goats, oh my, they are affectionate and sweet and love having our attention. It's so different than raising alpacas.
This goat business has not been without fatalities though. Despite our effort to box in one of our young white oak trees, the goats figured out how to get over the fence and eat the tree. Also, as you can see in the one photo above, 3/4 of one of my lilac bushes is gone. Eaten away. Needless, to say, we still have some goat-proofing to do!
The gardens are growing nicely. Although it's been a cool couple of weeks, we've been getting a nice mixture of rain and sun which means that the veggies are growing wonderfully. I am having a problem with a little wild rabbit who has taken the liberty of eating almost all of my kale (Grrrr) and my swiss chard. One of the challenges of gardening, I guess. Some of my herbs are big enough now that I'm going to begin drying them and storing them for the winter. I like to do that throughout the summer so I can have a nice supply built up.
Thanks for all of the prayers for me! I'm still sick, but God has given me the strength to get through the evenings of Bible school. I will say that I'm not getting much done otherwise, though. I had a little bit more energy yesterday morning, did way too much, and was S-I-C-K last night. I'm definitely going to pace myself today.
Have a great day!
Brad picked up our goats yesterday. I've been really sick so his mom went with him to help out. You may remember when I first mentioned our goats back in this post. Once their kids were weaned, they were ready to go. We ended up cutting down the kids' tree house that they never really went into anymore (I have no idea why other than the mention of a copperhead snake or something to that matter. Frankly, I think their imaginations are just quite active.)
Upon arriving home, it was obvious that they were ready to be milked. I'm still thanking God that my sister and her family were at my parents visiting for the evening. My brother-in-law, Matt, apparently used to milk goats in his teen years which came in quite handy yesterday. Let me just tell you, it doesn't matter how many YouTube videos you watch of someone else milking goats, there's nothing like having someone physically present, walking you through it.
My attempts to milk them were a total failure. Matt came up, and had those udders empty within ten minutes. I was impressed at this unknown, secret talent of his! Of course, he showed me how to do it, walked me through the hand motion and all that.
So this morning was the test. I was alone (besides the kids.) I walked outside and Candy saw me and immediately started bawling at me. It was like she was yelling at me to hurry up because she was about to burst. Surprisingly and, unlike yesterday, I tied her up and she stood still and let me milk her. At first, I couldn't get any milk to come down, but then it came. Whew.
It took me about twenty minute to milk the two of them. And, of course, Candy had to step into the bowl of milk. Yeah, well, I'm just happy I relieved them of their swollen udders. The chickens and dog were happy too since they got to drink the milk.
I'm learning, and my goal is to be able to actually drink/use their milk by next week. I need to pick up a proper milking pail and practice a bit more before I get all worried about saving their milk for us. They seem to be producing quite a bit. Jolene (the woman we got them from) said that she was getting about 1/2 - 3/4 gallon of milk per day from them combined. That's a lot of milk!
On another note, oh please say a prayer for me. Our Bible school is this week, and I am still so sick with this head cold thing which I think may have now turned into a sinus infection. Not only do I direct Bible school, but I'm also the crazy gal who stands up front for forty-minutes acting all goofy and silly. That takes a lot of energy, and normally I have tons of fun doing it. But this week, oh boy. I feel like I'm really going to have to rely on God's strength and power to get it done!
But, hey, His power is made perfect in my weakness, right!?
