finished things...

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.