I've been gardening for most of my life and have been a devoted fan of organic gardening the whole time. It just makes so much more sense to work in harmony with Mother Nature than to fight her. Besides which it is better for the planet and better for our bodies. Here you can see what I'm planting and harvesting, with gardening hints and resources thrown in for good measure.
If you missed yesterday's post I decided to recap this year by doing a post for each month of the year so this is Februrary 2023. Above are Esmarelda's twins, Jupiter and Aries, doing well.
Christmas Evie was so cute!
Digger discovered his first tarantula. I have no idea why one was out in February
Started loads of tomato plants.
My indoor seed starting area in case you are curious.
My Farmer Boy came to visit for a bit.
It was totally crazy weather.
And so of course Bambi decided to have her triplets
And then to top off everything else, I had a broken pipe underneath my bathroom floor. So the water to the house was shut off for about a week, while I had bottle babies and Farmer Boy to tend to.... Very crazy and stressful.
Just trying to catch up a bit here since I haven't posted since Oct 2022. Things just got so crazy and I was trying to work on videos so this space was neglected. Trying to do better! This was how big Digger Dog was at about 6 months. He's even bigger today of course!
This video is from November; things have changed a lot since then!
In November I sold the 4 wether kids which helped the feed bill a bit.
In December Chocolate gave birth to a single doeling, Christmas Evie
And then Gazelle had twins
And a look back at 2022. I'm hoping to post a some more catch up posts the next few days and then keep up with at least a weekly roundup.
Mmm. Alright Bambi how many kids are you hiding in there and when are you going to let them out???? I thought it would have happened by now….
Found some cute new signs for my market table. I have had to increase my prices a bit….. soap is now $6
A sugar scrub is this month’s new product
The lilac soap was ready to package. Mmmm. Smells heavenly
Picked up an awesome solar light for the Patchwork Shed.
Digger sniffing around in the car.
Digger went to the veterinarian for his rabies shot and other vaccines. At 5 months he weighs 62 pounds.
Digger digs. That hole is knee high on me.
Mmmm. Looks like some chickens need a new roof pretty soon.
These four little bucklings will soon be wethers. They are all still available and if not sold will go in my freezer when the weather cools off. They are already eating almost as much as adults and the price of hay is going up.
Well I’ve been a bit lazy today. Did chores and cleaned pens until it got too hot. Came in and had some lunch and played on the computer some. And now it’s time to do afternoon chores. One of the reasons I haven’t been posting a lot is my phone battery seems to be dying. Of course it’s only 6 years old….
Who says dam raised kids aren’t friendly? Mine are all very friendly although not as pushy as bottle babies. This is one of Midnight’s boys.
Argh! Digger! Can’t let you out of my sight! Played in the chard bed again!
Well. It looks like Chocolate wasn’t pregnant after all. She came into heat this week and spent a couple of days keeping Bashful company. If I don’t see another heat cycle in a couple weeks then I’ll expect kids in December.
Esmarelda what are you doing? Digging for China? There was no hole there and now it’s a foot deep.
Didn’t get rain the other day but got a rainbow
Trying to turn this packing crate into a hay feeder. Besides being in the way the goats kept trying to eat the screws.
I added some pallet wood to help stiffen the sides and some 2x6 legs
Does it pass inspection girls?
Probably the only time they’ve eaten out of it like this. Gazelle and Chocolate usually stand it it.
And in the meantime Esmarelda broke the hay feeder in her pen. Fortunately it was a pretty easy fix.
Poor Digger Got a wasp or bee sting. Didn’t stop him from trying to chew on everything in sight. He was fine and almost no swelling in a couple hours.
I was a bit concerned that maybe he tried to play with this little king snake but there weren’t any puncture wounds.
Mmmm. Gazelle objected to Chocolate being on the other side of the fence with Bashful and beat up my new cattle panel.
Got a few little jobs done on Friday like putting cattle panel over the hole in Posie’s gate
I stuffed the pallet fence with weed tree saplings to help give these girls a little shade in the late afternoon. Would like to extend that some. Have also thought of being able to tie off a little shade cloth high up on the sticks for more shade.
Didn’t really show up in the pic but there’s a huge hole in a fallow garden space. Maybe a rabbit burrow as it looks bigger than most of the ground squirrel holes I’ve seen. Goes quite always down.
Had a lovely time at market and came home to Chocolate and Gazelle going walk about. They even had Posie’s gate open.
Apparently the wooden fence post I hinged to dried out and the pintles are twisting. Got the girls in, temporary fix. Will work on it when it cools down some.
At milking time I discovered there was more to the story. Posie has broken off her small scurs… AND Mocha has blue paint on her horns (like Chocolate and Gazelle. Mmmm so now I wonder if Posie and Mocha got out and they got the other gate open. Mmmm.
Digger looking cute and innocent. He’s getting a little better about chasing the cat and chickens IF I catch him BEFORE he actually does anything. Like we are walking and I see a loose chicken and Digger is paying too much attention to it. If I tell him NO and distract him it’s good.
I have no idea what was sooo interesting under the car.
Tonight’s milking was interrupted by a thunderstorm with a little rain so took even longer than usual. Got the bottle baby, Digger and me some dinner and went to bed.
#appreciation
I appreciate all my customers that help support my crazy life 😀
Dreamed all night this little guy didn’t make it. I was almost afraid to touch him when I got up because it looked like he hadn’t moved all night. A little weak but alive. And after 1 1/2 ounces of milk pretty frisky.
Doing the usual morning chores. And there are Midnight’s twins in with Chocolate and Gazelle. I put them back where they belonged.
They did it again so I just put Midnight back in the pen. So far things are good.
Got caught up on processing eggs, just 3 days behind.
Little goat was hungry after his nap.
Made deliveries to Superior. Did chores. Forgot to get a picture of Storm on the milk stand. One side of her udder was getting full and tight. Milked out a pint of colostrum for the bottle baby.
Another pic just because. 😛
Not sure which one has longer ears! This is bottle baby’s brother.
Dark thirty when I got done outside and even then probably forgot to water something. 20% chance of rain tonight. Fingers crossed.
Up at 4:30 outside at 5:00 to hay the goats. Started a batch of soap and started laundry to wash.
The cheese I set last night is ready to drain.
Shade cloth up but I ran out of zip ties.
Found a chain for the gate.
Hung out the pile of udder washing rags I washed earlier
Took hay to my buck Bentley who is staying at my friends house for now. He got a hoof trim while I was there. Realized I was missing a meeting at work. Went anyway because I need zip ties. Meeting was over of course. Realized I had no cash and new debit card hadn’t arrived yet. So go home for $, go back and also get feed.
On the way home. It’s not even 10:00 am. It was actually reading 100 down on the highway.
Check on goats. Got a big piece of tin off the back of the pen so they have more airflow. Water goats and chickens while I’m out there.
Get to taste a White Marseilles fig for the first time. Yummy. Thomas Jefferson brought them to the US from France.
Finished this batch of soap. Unscented with colloidal oatmeal.
Check weather. Supposed to rain next weekend. But we have already exceeded the predicted high for today by several degrees. Afternoon heat check. Chocolate (in back) and Gazelle are fine. I have decided to move Gazelle along so message me if you want to know more.
Got the chèvre draining.
Put away all the milk things I washed last night.
Had toast and cheese for lunch.
Went out and checked on everyone again, filled up water buckets, wet down shade cloth and of course played with baby goats.
Feed & water chickens, pick up eggs. Get ready to milk. Midnight’s udder feels hard so I coax her the milk stand by carrying her twins. So then Chocolate and Gazelle are yelling because they want to go too. Midnight has the tiniest teats ever! They’ll get bigger but it was hard to get much milk out of her. She did super standing for her first milking and after they went back to their pen her boys were nursing. I hope that relieved some pressure. I’ll check her again in the morning.
Bambi is last in the milking line and I decided to move her and Bashful in together in the new pen. Bambi isn’t very nice to Esmarelda, always butting her around. I’m afraid if Storm and her kids get in the way the kid would get hurt. Anyway took some coaxing and manipulating with a pan of grain to get Bashful in. Bambi immediately began yelling and testing the fence and gate. Cross my fingers I did a good enough job.
I grabbed my clippers and trimmed some tree branches to give them something to do. But there was still a lot of yelling even past dark. On the other hand Storm and Esmarelda didn’t seem too concerned that Bambi didn’t come back to their pen.
By the time I brought the milk in the house it was going on full dark. So I filtered milk, washed up all the milk things, a few people dishes, got a bath and went to bed.
