Lorihadams-- hi guys...been busy!

[keljonma]

You certainly picked a great breeder to get your girls from. Sounds like the change in goats has settled your routine.

I love the pics....


ETA: Just a few more days and you'll be a BEEK!!!

 

[Denim Deb]

My fav of those pics is the one of the kids and goats running in the pasture.

 

[FarmerDenise]

I love the pics!!

 

[savingdogs]

Your daughter is a beauty! get ready for when she is a teenager!

 

[LovinLife]

I dont' know if your kids are cuter or the goats are!

 

[glenolam]

All the pictures are just beautiful! Glad to hear the breeder was so good about everything. I'm sure she understands that it's hard for some goats to adjust.

 

[lorihadams]

Yeah, she is a great breeder....

Well, I am child free until Sunday Can you tell I'm happy about it?

I left at 9am yesterday and drove 3 hours one way to my granny and papa's house, stayed for an hour and drove back home. I got out of the car, cleaned up the house and washed the dishes and then got on the lawnmower for the next 2 hours and mowed the yard and then closed up the girls and mowed the pasture (it was really high as you could see in the pics).

When I let the girls out of the barn you should have seen the looks on their faces! It's like they didn't know where they were

Chad weed eated and met with the electrician about running everything for the barn and the garage and then came in the pasture with me. I wish I had had my camera cause he sat down on the ground and Tally came over to him, flopped down on her side next to his leg, and laid her head on his lap. She is in LOOOOOOOOVVVVVVVE.

I somehow put my phone on vibrate and overslept this morning. I woke up at 7:40 and ran out to milk Aliana. She gave me about 12-13 oz and ate half of her food. She is eating all of her feed in the evenings but just doesn't want much in the morning so I may just give her 1 cup in the mornings and 3 in the evenings so she gets her 4 cups per day. It doesn't help that my husband feeds her animal crackers when he thinks I'm not looking

Today I am just taking it easy. I had to post an ad on CL for my papa, he has a reloader (ammunition) that he wants to sell so I'm trying to help him out. He told me I could keep $50 from the sale for my trouble

I seriously need to build some trellises for the garden. My peas are crazy. Everything else just seems to have stopped growing. Its green but my lettuce still doesn't have true leaves and my peppers are about 3 inches tall. Tomorrow when we get the ducks to their new home, the farmer is going to give us a load of aged organic cow manure!!! I'm gonna spread that all over and see if that helps everything get going, otherwise I may be replanting all my lettuce, chard, beets, turnips, kohlrabi, and spinach. My potatoes are doing fabulously well though.

I replanted some more parsley, chives, and cilantro and now my basil appears to be stuck too but I think I need to move it so it gets more sun. I'll probably throw some more seeds in the tub and see if they get started too.

Oh, and my husband has a friend that owns a fitness business. He had a collegue that was looking to sell a $2000 piece of gym equipment and he told hubby yesterday that the guy didn't care if he made any money on it and he just needed to get rid of it. We bought it for $300!!! We don't know for now if we are going to keep it or try to turn around and sell it on CL. Chad figures we could easily get $1000-1200 for it cause it is in great shape and has all the bells and whistles you would want in a home gym.

I am trying to entice him to sell it so he can buy some of his woodworking tools with the profit.

We figured up all the money from the golf tournament Sunday and we made $3000 after all our expenses. We donated $1500 to our friend whose husband has leukemia and probably is not going to make it. She was able to keep the bank from foreclosing on her home with the money and we got her and the kids out of the house and hospital for a day and did something fun. Her daughter drove the golf cart with the sodas and water on it. We had a pretty good turn out with 20, 4-man teams at $300 per team. We did raffle prizes and Chad's mom had a client that donated a 3 day/3 night vacation to Topsail Island to his oceanfront house that sleeps 17. We also had another home gym that was donated and the gentleman that won it donated it back to us so that we could raffle it off when we do another tournament fund raiser for the family again in October.

 

[lorihadams]

I'M MAKING CHEESE!!!!! I had a half gallon in the fridge since the kids are gone and I figured what the heck, lets take the plunge. I am only making queso blanco (vinegar cheese) to start with but I put about a tsp of basil in it with a little salt and pepper and figured I could use it on top of a pizza tomorrow night.

I am so excited to be using my wonderful goats milk for something other than coffee and cereal.

I gotta get more goats and a bigger pot!

Oh, and we dropped off the mallards at the organic beef farmer's pond and guess what??? He gave us a whole trailer load of organic aged cow manure FOR FREE!!!

I also have 30 ducks coming on the 31st, two dozen mallards for another landowner and some new black indian runners for me to replace my flock.

We also got surprised Friday by a 5 ft black snake inside the duck house....scared me so bad I dropped one egg and it cracked another before hubby and I got to catch it. We put it in a cage and released it about 3 miles up the road into a big patch of undeveloped woods.

Today the kids come home and I have done laundry and I'm procrastinating cleaning the floors. We also got both gardens top dressed with the manure and put the other half of a trailer load in the compost bin.

Oh, and the tadpoles are getting back feet!

Oh, and on a sombre note, Chad's friend Brian died either sometime last night or early this morning. He is the one we did the golf tournament for. Say a little prayer for his wife and kids tonight, they're gonna need it.

 

[Denim Deb]

 

[lorihadams]

I also forgot...we got our 2 nucs at 1:15 Saturday morning. We got them installed Saturday afternoon and one hive is going strong but the other didn't have as many bees inside but had lots of capped cells. I don't know what is going on with that one but I am feeding heavily with sugar water and keeping an eye on it. We also have an issue with purple martins wanting to dive bomb the hive and eat the bees. Don't know what I'm gonna do about that.

We got both installed with no smoker and no protective gear at all. They were very gentle but Chad did get stung when we were opening the nuc boxes Saturday night, I think he just freaked out and it stung him.