Spring on the Homestead

Spring, as they say, is pretty much awesome.
       Wait, is that what they say?  Oh, no.  Um, yeah… spring is springing.  See spring spring.  Go spring go.

It has taken hours upon hours to clean up the mess left by one of our previous occupants.  No more scrap metal, no more soda pop bottles, no more tools rusting in the rain, no broken down cars or old trailers, and two less ugly, rickety sheds.  In place of these things there are flower beds with native flowers transplanted from Denny’s place, an herb spiral, blueberry bushes, arbors built from cedar branches, a duck pond, low rock walls and borders, safe, debris-free areas for the children to play… and more beautiful things and projects all the time.

Here are some snippets from around Make-It-Do Farm...

Daisy had triplets this year, the two bucks pictured with her and the doe in Blue’s arms in the next.  We’ve been bottle-feeding the doe to make sure she gets what she needs without competing with her brothers.  We’ll sell her in a couple weeks when she is weaned, as we really have no room on the farm for a goat who thinks it’s a human.  =)


One of Rochel’s two bucklings.  Little named this one Sniffy and the other Finder.

Yours truly opening my first shipment of paperback copies of my book.

A Denny and a Little gardening on a warm day...

Farra is often doing make-up and costumes just for fun.  I think she and Seth are supposed to be some kind of savages...
 
Filling the duck pond...

Building the arbor for the raspberries.  Note the duck pond in the background, surrounded by rock.  Denny has been hard at work!

And as always, we have been hard at work making and selling soap.  Be sure to check out daisyblend.com for prices and varieties!

And More Baby Goats

Amazing how returning to this blog feels almost like coming home.  Like coming home and like “getting away from it all” at the same time.  Neglected for over a year, it’s time to throw open the windows, dust off the furniture, start some dinner in the crockpot, post some flowers…

It feels like a new beginning and and old friend.  Maybe it’s just nice because I haven’t told anyone yet that I’m writing here!  Ha.  Yep, this is me writing to absolutely no one.  Guess that will change here in a bit.

Today was the first milking of the year.  We’ve been getting goat’s milk from a neighbor for the past few weeks, but it’s nice to milk my own again.  We ended up drying our gals up early somehow, so it’s been nearly three months instead of the usual two since we’ve milked them.  Anyway, it’s such a pleasant routine.  And milk means baby goats, which are wonderful, which we happen to have two more of today.  I posted about April’s kids on the old blog.  Daisy had twin bucklings just after midnight Friday and Rochel had twins this morning.  The turkey.  I’ve been watching so closely the last few days, thinking she was very close, but she was giving us mixed signals.  This morning I guessed she’d be a few hours, but within two she had birthed them both, a buck and a doe, and we all missed it!  Oh well, everyone is healthy and adorable.

Rochel and kids, the doe would be the white one, of course.  White goats are, well, just kind of boring.  The brown one is the only one of the six that looks like its papa.  (Apparently my camera corrects for red eye, but not blue eye.)

Daisy with Oreo (named by Atira).  Alfred P. Doolittle (“Alfie,” named by yours truly) is behind her; he’s solid black, I think with some small dark brown spots; will know for sure when we get them out in the sunshine.

April’s kids, one week old now.  The black one is the doe, named Reverse by Royal (because she came out backward) and the brown the buck, Merlin (named by Farra). 

It’s disappointing to have so many bucks.  It’s a sad reality that on a farm the males just aren’t as useful or as valuable as the females.  I really would have liked to keep a doe kid from Daisy; maybe next year.  It’s still wonderful to have so many kids, all healthy, to be in milk again, to have such good, attentive momma goats…  Daisy has the most incredible mothering instincts.  She talks to her babies all during labor and when she has a contraction she turns and looks around like she is expecting a baby to be there.  When they’re born she cleans them up promptly and thoroughly and they are sometimes nursing before they can even stand.   Fascinating.

The goat life is the good life.

Maybe I’ll tell you about my garden next time.  =)