History

The best way for history to repeat itself, is for us to not teach our children what has occured in our pasts. -Me

I wont let go

This song, is how my husband makes me feel. Our souls are connected and he is with me even from afar. He cares for me no matter what our distance. An ocean, and a desert between us and still, he wont let go.

And I cant stop the rain, I cant catch my own fall.

Knitting and roast

Once again I post late. Last deployment I did better, and last deployment I had 1 million things to do and this one I have 3 million. The kids wanted me to show daddy that they ate enough roast for him AND them. They enjoyed a 2 lb roast over 2 dinners together. Okay fine I helped. Not a lot of kids can share a plate, but see his ketchup isnt touching her plate so it was okay. He has some of his cooling on his napkin, thats SO not the proper use of a napkin! Nathalie is wearing, on her left arm, a set of "handcuffs" that she crocheted. Its two circles crocheted with a bit of yarn in between. They are stretchy and they both wear them as handcuffs and go about with their hands together making it very difficult to achieve things like handwriting class in school. We have had a few days off of school for spring cleaning. I was ready to set off an incindiary bomb in the kitchen/living room hall area because I found that to be pretty central house-wise. We have gotten rid of a heap of things, and gone through closets and shelves. We have made goodwill piles, recycled things and thrown many things away. Here is a pile of junk/goodwill. Here is the completed shelf, this one end closest are some of the school things. We dont have bookshelves so many of our books still live in the garage stacked neatly in boxes, but some we have inside. These are now organized by type and stacked, oh and I dusted! That is a rare thing. The children and I have been attending a local knitting store free classes given on Sunday. I dont think they are classes really, just the ladies who knit get together and give free help to anyone who comes in. The ladies have taught us a lot and shared their time with us, and we thoroughly enjoy them. The lady who owns the store, Jeanie, has become an adopted extra nana especially for Nathalie. She is one of Nathalie's favorite people and I think Jeanie has grown quite fond of her in return. Nathalie tried to spend her allowance on this lamb Sunday but Jeanie said, no you can have him. He had been there sometime and was a bit dusty and old. And one of his floofs had come un-glued. Nathalie loves him dearly and says I am incorrect, he is a she. I think he is a he but whatever. These pictures are fuzzy because the camera wasnt set proper. Here she is snuggling her new lamb... I think she named him/her Flamme which is passion in French. I dont know why she named him this other than its pretty, its a brand of yarn I like and they are learning French. Once again fuzzy photo, Tad is knitting a scarf for Flamme. He is a fast knitter, for a 10 yr old boy who has knit for 3 months, he started this about an hr before this point. Its still very cold outside, much colder than it was earlier this month. I sure dont mind cold but I mind the gray. Its been gray for 8 days and we have another wk of gray to go. Oh, Tad is wearing the first hat I knit that is technically Nathalie's because its a bit small for me and a bit girly. He likes it anyway and with his new longer hairstyle (growing it out) it helps keep it all back and tame. This is his own hat, sorry for photo fuzziness... He gave me this dead-pan look and so I said, dont look like a serial killer please! So I got this look instead. C'est tres charmant! His hat is nearly to the decreasing rows and he is excited, he is making this on a hiya hiya metal circular needle size 10.5 and he is using thick and thin merino/alpaca. Nathalie's is the same in purple, and in MANY less rows. In other news, we are selling most of our goat herd. We were planning on downsizing our herd to just a few for milk and a few for the children's fair projects in 4h. Then an opportunity arose to possibly go to school with him sometime next year. We can either keep this herd, pay to feed them for another winter and breed them and care for them during pregnancy, or sell them now after kidding. We will get the same amount of money either way, and we will buy new goats when we come home. So we have decided to sell for now. We will have 2 milk goats and 4 baby doelings until middle of august. Another reason for selling the entire herd is that I got an offer on almost my whole herd from two ladies who are running a diary together. Its a good offer, a really good offer. I wont make much more selling them one at a time, but I will save a lot of time and technically stress. I love raising goats, I dont love seeing person after person at selling time. Its not my area, people. Goats, my area. So I will miss them, we will miss them but if we can have them time with Frank we will take it!

Oh the smell...

Its not snowing anymore, this was our last snow and if I were not so exhausted I could tell you when this last snow occured. Date wise. But, I dont actually know the date today. Or month. Okay fine its March. Right?

Today we burned 7 baby goats heads, this isnt a fun job. This was the first year that Tad has helped. He and I held the babies, and burned each of their horn buds to prevent them from growing horns. This wasnt fun.

We cleaned the garage, it had much items in it. Some of them are recycle, some goodwill, some trash. Much was used up straw (used by goats...eww), and a lot of kindling laying about. And more goodwill stuff. Also some stuff that I got rid of last night to passerbys. Okay, you know no one passes by my home. If you come down my drive you either live here, are visiting, are lost or have criminal intent. But these people came on purpose to pick up some items that I no longer wanted on our premises.

We took down all items on places that could be stacked or cluttered in the main part of the house and threw away, recycled, burned or put in goodwill pile. We are decluttering our home and yard because it is decluttering my mind. And my mind is slightly cluttered.

So thats all for now. We did a heap of other things. Baked bread. Cared for the goats and chickens. Gathered eggs. Did laundry. Other things. Thats it I am all done being here for now.

You know you are tired

When you spill fabric dye on the floor and mop it up with your clean sock rather than something you dont mind staining.

You accidently dye your new homemade long sleeve white t shirt and you dont care to rinse and try to save the sleeve.

You have worn the same jeans for a slap 2 wks and you dont really care how they smell.

As a side note, if you can use the word "slap" in the context that I just did, you have at least lived very NEAR the Appalachians.

You let your children eat peanut butter crackers for dinner, with a movie, on a school night.

You forget what packages you have mailed to your husband and frantically search for items that are half-way to New York through the US postal system.

You forget entire orders for your home business, even though you advertised the items as available the same day they were purchased.

You forget to eat. You forget lots of things like your name.

You cry over dead lettuce plants. Okay that ones normal right?

You tell your daughter not to worry about it when she tells you she is out of clean underwear.

You stop caring about the mess in the house and just make some nice paths through it by sloughing your feet as you walk back out to the barn to

-milk for the 5th time today because an udder is congested

-give peptobismal to the goat with diarhea

-bottle feed annoying baby goats

-feed and water and possibly remember to shut the chickens in because 3 have been eaten this week alone

-put medicine on the goat with staph because thats contagious right?

-sit down at the barn in the cold wind and watch someone else drop kid.

Anyway I am delirious and forgive me for my poor spelling and grammar and I have to go check the aforementioned congested udder and staph and diarhea and something else. Oh and, nevermind I forgot. I need a nap.

Hiya Hiya

These are knitting needles that I coveted for some weeks until I made enough in my business to buy them. Of course, my husband said just buy them with our paycheck. Well, I wanted to give myself some sort of... governer...on my knitting spending budget. I love yarn and needles after only a couple months of knitting. I wont have to buy hats anymore or scarves and am now making socks. These will be good presents at christmas time and we will be able to save money that way yet still, I feel like buying out the store.


I dont generally like to spend money... but look how pretty! The bags hold needles here, and in the back pocket holds little baggies with the cables. The red bag holds size 2-7 needles, and the purple holds 8-15. You can buy additional needles, there are a cpl of spaces left and you can buy additional cables.


Number 2 needles and a 16" cable. The cable ends are not interchangeable, and while you can buy extra cables online, I cannot find out which ones are large or small cable fittings. The sites dont say, they just sell Hiya Hiya cables for interchangeable needles. So the lady at my knitting store (where I bought these) is going to order them for me.


This is put together, you knit with a circular needle to knit in the round, or just to knit a blancket or a scarf. some people dont like long needles. I use double point needles for smaller round work IE end of sock or top of hat, but I dont care for any regular needles except for that. I dont even own any that are single point. Tad has 2 sets that he longer uses.


This is a clover bamboo needle, but same idea, the hat is on a circular needle. It will stay here until I get through several decrease rows, then it will be too tight to be on the circular. I will move my stitches to 3 double pointed needles, and knit off of those with a 4th double point until I get to the last 8 stitches, then it will be on 2 double points and I will use a huge embroidery needle to do a kitchener stitch.


Hat is for my mama, I made another one for her also. I wear it all the time. Its nice, being able to filch her stuff without even seeing her. or having to travel. Or anything. I have been stealing her items since, well forever, and now its even less work. I will take this even further and make some clothes for her and just keep them. Or buy a new pillow in her name, and keep it. This is a promising system!



The only thing I have to say about these needles that I dont like is the small/large cable issue, and having a hard time buying more. You should be able to find (and perhaps this is avail) "large set cables for hiya hiya interchangeable needles. That is what I want. We need more than 1 set, because 1 child could use the 10 and one the 9 if we had 2 cables, instead I had to buy an additional 7$ clover bamboo round bc I have the one on my hat, and each child is making a hat with chunky yarn.

Finally!

I know right I promised photos. And no one stole my camera so I should post. I have been INSANELY busy! Having these bottle babies, pasturizing milk, a lot of extra house cleaning some big orders for my business. I have big custom orders that are now late, and I also have had people who insist on buying from my store in stock. So I have to ship those items and its usually stuff like "5 yds of fabric A" and its hard to cut that amt on my table! Oh and this is Tad with Dreamer's doeling, as yet un-named. She isnt in the house anymore. She wasnt for long. She was loud. Oh so loud.

Nathalie feeding The Loud One or Tiny One Who Speaks With Big Voice.

Ari-who had a hideous ordeal kidding-with her little buck. He isn't as cute as some of the others. Tall-Boy, Nona's 3 bucks and the last one (dreamer) born are prettier. This little one is sweet though. And he hasnt a name, he is B something. Forgot his birth order, its in my book.

Poor guy...

Two of Nona's bucks. They have flashy color, I think her buck and doe who are predominately white are the prettiest though. She dropped these guys out without even letting us know she was due, and her little doeling was dropped down south barn yard and she walked off and had her bucks in the feed barn!

One of Nona's (corner), Ari's to his left and the lower portion of photo is Dreamer's. Oh and the broom I dont know why its there. It sure wasnt in the milk shed when I needed it I guess thats because its in this picture. Or I am tired. Or both. Its nearly midnight RIGHT NOW.

Sorta fuzzy photo but Tall-Boy is cute. He is pretty superior, he knows he is the oldest baby in the herd and he pushes the others around about it.

These are the other three girls, Nevada in the left, Willow in front and Petit behind her. Petit is Nona's girl and thus Punk's sister. Halfway. you know how goats are.

Same girls, Willow is shying from somthing so Nevada put her ears back also to follow suit, or because she was also startled I dont know which.

Oop! She ran into her butt. This and falling over happens sometimes and I shamelessly laugh at them.

Or when they look like this, when their middle comes up to let their ends go forward in a rather ungainly way for the first few wks.

Where did that come from? Well anyway thats a chicken.

Also in unrelated news, Nathalie has a blue tooth. It was manufactured by Nathalie out of a scrap of red construction paper. Much to Tad's distress, she contacted his imaginary friend on her bluetooth and talked with him.

Okay now its closer to midnight and I have to shower off the days dirt and fall into bed. Good-night and thanks for not stealing my camera.

Goats but no pics

My camera is in the barn. Please do not steal it if you read my blog and live near me. Please if you do steal it, please close the south barn door well and pull on it, to make sure its closed because its old and there is a trick. All the current mamas and babies are locked in there at night to protect them and I dont want them to get loose during night, or anything get in there. All the same if you dont mind dont take the camera at all.

It is midnight here and I would love to give you, especially my husband, an update with photos. There are so many. I have only posted 1 kidding on here, and yet we have had 3 since then, 1 was quite difficult and rather terrible but all lived, one was rather funny and we missed it and that doe had FOUR BABIES in literally a few min from my check time to us finding her and kids. And then one today only had a little trouble, front legs were back I had to go fish. And honestly, I have heard a lot of people curse. A lot of people cry. A lot of people pray. A lot of people cry and pray. A lot of people cry and curse. But I was praying, crying and cursing. Not because her's was the worst kidding, Arizona's was yesterday but because it was a 2nd eventful kidding.

I do expect these and it isnt a big deal but I am awfully tired. Having bottle babies is a lot of work. The children are doing all but 1 feeding daily (I do an 11 pm as I am up), they even get up with the babies and I. They are doing all the cleaning from them and helping enormously with the laundry. They attend and help each kidding, and sometimes they have had to be far more mature than any parent should expect. We are all tired, trying to keep up with school and all of the barn work, chores, house cleaning. We sweep, mop, scrub every time we have a kidding and bring a baby up. We clean milk containers, jars, buckets, strainers, funnels, thermos (heat treat colostrum) pans, thermometers, bottles, nipples... We do many loads of towels and household cloth, we have even used the dryer! Quelle horreur!

We are only running a hobby farm, it isnt quite a homestead and we dont make money. We try to break even and have what we need as well but it is hard to do while still in the military. We all want the experience, and enjoy it but this will be easier when he is retired. In the meantime, we are selling some of our numbers both chickens and goats because I need more time for their school, house and my business as well. I dont let their school slip, but something ends up slipping to not let their school slip.

So tomorrow, if the camera isnt stolen, or broken by the goats sleeping in south barn with their babies, I will show you are new bucks (5 more) and does (3 more) and the first set (1 of each)... See you tomorrow after 2 hrs of chores and possibly 1 more goat to go. Then we are done. Until apr 1.

Last snow-maybe

We had snow last night, and its the lovliest snow I have seen ever in my entire life. And I am nearly 32. I think. It was a wet snow, and it was windy so the snow stuck to the trees, fences, barns, goats (seriously Nona stood out in it as was obvious by her coat). It was so beautiful! It wasnt so lovely walking down barn 3 x during the night, right now I get up to an alarm to go check on Arizona, who like her sister, takes FOREVER to kid but I dont want her to be alone, especially not in the cold.

It was warm today, Tad wore a jacket instead of a coat, but they wore gloves. They made snow balls, snow people and other creations for about 4 hrs today. Nathalie insisted it was the last snow and begged off of school this morning, which I agreed to as long as she cheerfully worked in the afternoon and she kept her word. They got their school done after lunch, then went back out again. They took their Willow baby goat out as well and she enjoyed the snow. Much to the consternation of our mama goat Phoenix, her son Tall Boy also loves the snow.

Most goats hate snow. I have a strange lot here, they go out in it on purpose. The ducks bathe in it and the chickens act like their feet will fall off if they walk in it. They wait to be carried to their barn if they end up taking refuge in the goats barn during snow.

This may not be our last snow, I was told by someone that we would have a snow on the 24th and she heard it from a trusted local source. I am not being funny, the locals know these things. I trust them. I plan on snow on the 24th and if we dont get it okay but I will be prepared!

I miss my husband when it snows, and the rest of you are allowed to look at these photos but they are for him. He misses us, his home, the snow, this state... so they are his pictures. Dont touch them.

Baby goats

Kidding season has begun and true to form, Phoenix took forever to kid. Yesterday, Nathalie told us that she felt that God had told her that a goat was getting ready to kid, and had gone away from the herd. We try to listen if God speaks to our hearts, and sure enough she went down and found this dear goat separate-which began our vigil. We have watched her day and night since yesterday morning.

At around 8 pm tonight, I brought her up to the freshly swept garage with plenty of clean straw. Nathalie stayed by her side from then until almost 11 pm, offering words of comfort and encouragement.

I havent weighed this sable punk yet but he is a big, tall guy. We are calling him Tall Boy for now. He is a sable, which is a breed that comes from Saanens. They are often called colored Saanens. She threw one last yr as well, the buck and the doe must carry the gene, or actually be sable themselves to give sable kids. He entered the world after about 15 minutes of pushing, and a little aid from me.

I was glad he was a buck, we are pulling doe kids for now because our herd was exposed to a virus transferred through milk. Until I get a 2nd neg test back (we have a 1st thanks to Amanda helping me blood draw....) we will bottle feed doelings on heat treated colostrum/milk. I wanted to leave Phoenix with a baby, she is a wonderful mama. If she tests negative again in a couple of wks, we will sell him as Sables are in demand.

Here he is letting us know that he cannot achieve his milk...

And to his rescue, is Tad. Both human punks were so messy at this point, as they were last year. They are not squeamish about helping with delivery.

Now thats better... Tall Boy latched right on and drank quite well. I was able to milk out a pint of colostrum from her while she was cleaning him up, before the 2nd little one was born. I milked out a 2nd pint from that side after so I have enough for the night.


And here is Nathalie's little girl. She wants to name her Willow, and we are considering this choice. She asked could she claim her as her own little 4h project as she helped Phoenix and we said absolutely. She wants to name her Willow because she is already snuggly and one of our best friend's is Willow-she is nearly 5- and she snuggles a lot.

Willow was brought right in, and was able to stand a bit quicker than Tall Boy. We dipped and cut their umbilical cords (with iodine) and gave Tall Boy some selenium/vit e gel to help his legs. Willow insisted she was thirsty and hungry so she had an oz of powder colostrum replacer while her milk treated. To heat treat colostrum, it must come to 130 deg and maintain for 60 min. It would simply solidify without a pasturizer meant for colostrum, which I do not have. I do know a good vet though and she told me to use a Stanley brand thermos, bring it to 133 and put it in, close up and wait 60 min and check temp. It worked like a charm!

See? Its not as easy as we make out. She went flop a number of times as did her brother.

Awww... All that standing and drinking tires a poor girl out.

We cleaned her up more after her short nap, fed her mama's milk and put her to bed in the shower with plenty of blankets. The laundry room is warm, and the shower in there fits baby goats nicely. We put up a baby gate and clean bedding in it and she will stay there until we have a friend at least. Her aunt is due, well today, and we will hopefully get a cousin friend for her.

So thats it for tonight, its midnight 04 and we lose an hr tonite. The washing machine is running with all the towels, and Phoenix and Tall Boy are sleeping in the garage. We cleaned out the yucky straw, fed and watered Ph and made sure TB was comfortable and closed them up. Then we came in, swept, mopped, did laundry, had a snack, cared for Willow, showered, and the kids fell into bed a few min ago, truly exhausted and proud of themselves.

Hopefully we have more babies tomorrow! I want to get this show done this week if at all possible... of course I dont determine this, but their due dates are all between today and the 16th so I hope it goes quickly so we can settle in to just enjoying baby goats.