Weekend

Last Friday Jeremiah had the day off work. Thursday was teacher conferences and he always works late that night. We dropped the kids off at school and then headed to Home Depot for counter-tops for the rental. By the time we showed up at 10:15 the tiler was already there. He showed us what all he'd be doing and talked for a long time about this, that and the other. We headed out about 11:45 to meet the kids for lunch but not before nearly missing a local cloth diaper customer for a pick up. She lives in town, it was easier for her to meet us there than for her to come all the way out.

After lunch we stayed for a while for recess. After a game of soccer I was ready for a nap! Jeremiah and I decided since there wasn't much we could do at the house as the tiler had a lot of stuff everywhere, we may as well get some work done at home. We had a huge brush pile from the weekend before in front that needed to be moved. The chainsaw chain is stretched out and the bar's bent so we can't do much cutting but we did get that huge brush pile onto the trailer and moved it all out to the brush pile in the pasture. I moved 3 lawn tractor trailer loads of wood to the pile and stacked some at the house for the cold weekend, the rest went to the "wood pile".

Friday night we attended a new 4-H group. It's farther away than the one e normally go to but I think the kids will enjoy it a lot more. Two years ago we met two girls a bit older than Rachel showing their dairy goats at the county fair. Rachel did not show this year at the county fair but we've seen the girls at different 4-H events so they sort of remembered each other. We felt a lot more welcomed in one night than we ever did in 2 years at the last one. Plus too, we have some other friends with kids just Rachel and Drew's age (who did not end up going this past Friday) but that makes it even more worth while going knowing there are lots of kids our kids already know! I think the day and time will work out better too. It's the first Friday of the month at 7 PM and while it may conflict with Salthawk football in Sept. and Oct., if we miss a meeting, it's not a big deal.

Saturday we attempted to go to an auction but it was 39 degrees at peak and raining while we were there. We had gone for a 3 point (adapts to a tractor) log splitter but it ended up not being what we wanted and since it was so cold, we decided to grab some lunch, some movies and head home. Saturday we hung out much of the day.

Sunday we were up early. The kids went to church with the neighbor and Jeremiah had a former student come over to help us butcher. We didn't get started until about noon on this goat but all in all it only took us about 3 hours start to finish. Nice to know there's plenty of meat in the freezer! The weather was actually perfect, cool but not freezing which meant few flies and no worries about having the meat out while we cut. The dogs were thrilled with the bones.

I think we've decided that the female pig will go into the freezer first. She's getting big and still has that limp, especially on cold days and I cannot see her being able to get around well when she's 200+ lbs. Plus too, I don't think we need two breeding sows. Pig breeder is not something I have time for! One to two litters from one sow is plenty enough a year to raise up for ourselves and to try to get one to two out of the deal to butcher. All the others will be sold. We may see how well the hampshire sow does. If she can get us one litter before she gets bad off, we'll keep a hampshire sow out of her and then send her off. So, it's all a wait and see. I prefer the spotted pigs so far based on body though they are a lot more demanding. People say the spotted pigs are easier on pastures. I don't know if that's true or not as the whole pen is pretty much rooted around in. Eventually we'd like to get them out on pasture.

Mia playing with an old plastic bucket.

I put a whole bale of straw out for them on Saturday in their shelter and temps dropped below freeing that night. They are cleaner than the goats who tend to poop everywhere making their bedding soiled pretty quickly. The pigs potty outside thus keeping their shelter cleaner so that bale should last a long time. They like to throw the straw up on their backs to cover themselves with it. None of them were shivering or had goosebumps on Sunday morning after the temps dipped below freezing. Some of the mornings last week I could see they were cold. I really think the straw was helpful in keeping them warmer, though I know a lot of people don't give them anything but enough to keep the rain off and that seems to be enough. I felt better about giving them straw.

Soaps- (left) citrus mist (fragrance) with black walnut hull for coloring. (right) Cederwood (fragrance/essential oil) with alfalfa (for color) and meadow-sweet. The little rounds are samples I made a while time ago that I forgot in the mold and just cut Sat. They are Strawberry.

After butchering the goat on Sunday, I had enough time to make 2 batches of soap. I pulled them out of the molds this morning, very pretty! Jeremiah TIG welded 4 aluminum loaf soap molds for me Sat. and I even got a little TIG welding in time too. Speaking of welding, we spent a little time cleaning the shop the weekend before last and it's finally organized enough to start welding classes. A gal we met 2 years ago when we moved in has a son who has been anxiously waiting for us to be ready so Jeremiah can give him private welding lessons. Several other people they know whose sons want to weld have also been asking Jeremiah about private lessons and it never fails, when people ask what Jeremiah does, they say something to the affect of, "I sure wish I knew how to weld." Well, now the chance is here! He figures he'll give group lectures and one on one individual lab time, mainly because we have just the one MIG welder. Eventually we'd like to get a machine that does all processes -MIG, TIG, & ARC.