One word: Busy. All in all we're not too busy, we take time every day to spend time as a family, somehow.
Drew has been on again off again sick with this nasty bug going around. There is one bad thing to say about a milk winter for sure and that's that it's not cold enough long enough to kill off all the nasties.
Off topic, but truth be told, I feel like I haven't seen my husband in months! He's been gone all the time for one thing or another. I won't get in to why, the reasons are many.
We've been really enjoying the record temps here...spring has sprung really and I hope it sticks around.
We've had new babies born- 2 on Sunday and 3 yesterday (2 does and a very large handsome buck). Rachel's (hopefully) last dr's appointment for her leg was yesterday. They took final X-rays and gave her the all clear to run and jump as long as it didn't cause her any pain. We've been waiting on Apricot for what seems like 2 weeks with daily and nightly checks. All in her own time 2 days past her due date she had a kid on the ground by the time we got home. I hadn't planned to come home, I had planned to go take the kids right to school but as it happened, Rachel wore stained play clothes instead of school clothes so as fate would hate it, we got to see two of them enter the world.
Toddy had 2 flashy buck kids on Sunday. I won't talk about them too much as their fate is pretty much sealed. One of them though I call "Bitchy Boy" because he just doesn't shut up. Or rather, he has spurts where out of nowhere he'll squawk, then stop...like, someone disrupts him or the wind hits him wrong or the sunlight isn't in the right position. The kids think it's mean to call him that. He was doing really well until yesterday, then it seems he didn't want to eat a whole lot. He knows where to get food and seems eager to go get it but looses enthusiasm. I tried to bottle him but he didn't want anything to do what that either. It may be that he's just a bit slower to get going than this brother who's now robust and doing all those fun goat baby things at only 3 days old. I gave him a little oral pick-me-up and we'll see how is today.
We expect rain much of next week. It's welcome! Our pond has standing water in it and I do hope that this drought does not continue.
I have been making and selling goat's milk soap. I find it rather fun. In fact, I have a new website for all goat/farm/soap relate stuff: www.marmaladehollow.wordpress.com Eventually I'll change it over to a "dot com" address but if you happen to want to check it out, be my guest. I'll continue with the blog here, but in trying to keep the farmy stuff separate of the family updates, I'd rather keep personal life, personal (even if the world is free to read here) so this one will remain as is.
We have our chicks ordered. Me and a couple of other families went in on a large order of 'pan fry' birds. We'll be raising about 25 of them strictly for butcher. They are all roosters and hefty discounts are given since, like most male species, the world doesn't need but a few. So, we should be putting some home grown chickens in the freezer in the fall.
I also ordered my layers as well- silver laced wyandottes. I don't know if I or Rachel (for those of you who talk to Rachel) told you the story or not, but last year when we were getting hay I heard Rachel screaming from across the yard. Course, we all thought it was funny that she was being chased by a rooster and there was a split second where I didn't realize she really thought she was running for her life. It was one of those "funny but not really all that funny" moments. After that split second I, of course, ran over to run the rooster off but after that she wanted nothing to do with chickens ever again. She still doesn't but in reading up on chicken breeds I found the SL wyandottes not only to be very attractive but also good layers, good dual purpose (meat and egg) and very cold hardy due to their small close comb. I ordered only pullets from the farm store. I had wanted some roos as well but I waited too lat to order online and the minimum order from the farm store is 25. I don't need 25 additional roos! So, I am hoping from this 'pan fry' order of 150 or whatever it is, there will be at least SL wyandotte in there so that I can have a roo for my females. Laying hens are VERY popular around here. Not that I intend to start selling layers, amongst all the other stuff I do, but eventually I will need to replenish the stock.
Never mind that we don't have our coup built yet! I'm hopeful at some point that happens.
As I sit here and white this in the dark, the cat is licking the bowl of cereal milk. Guess I won't be finishing that!
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