After a busy and successful summer, fall has slid into winter almost without warning. Snow and below freezing temps the past few nights have given us due warning that summer days are gone! We had a lovely long summer though, so we can't complain. With all the unusually plentiful moisture all season the grass was green right up to the end here, and that was great! Better pasture and better growing for the second crops. Now, all that is ended, and all that hay that we were blessed with is coming into its time!

I still miss all the little goats that went to their homes in late July, but breeding season is upon us again! The little girls will be coming back for breeding around December, they went to a (nearly!) local fellow, and couldn't have a better home! The new herd sires we sold went a little farther away, but we made some great new friends of goat keepers we hadn't met before. That's one of the great things about goat-keeping, the people you meet while involved with them are so nice!

Anyway, we are pleased to be using our new buck, 'Sterling', from the Bethel herd in Iowa, and anxious to see his babies in the spring! He is a beautiful fellow, and keeping that great workable disposition that we require in our girls, so his offspring will be a lot of fun to see on the ground! Sort of no-holes...
One of their does, Bethel Mur Rhapsody Rhonda, has been the top producer in the Alpines for two years, and last year she outdid the top producers from all other breeds, though they don't have an award for that! So we are pleased to be maintaining our high production with this guy, and are looking forward to freshening out his daughters, and taking a look at their udders. Sterling's first kid crop is sure to be exciting!

I just hope that we didn't keep back too many '09 doelings, because I have a feeling we'll be wanting to keep a lot of 2010 kids!

July and Hollyhocks

July is upon us already, and it's almost as quickly slipping into the past. True Summer's noontime heat, and beautiful evenings, and drop-dead-gorgeous nights, are so easy to get lost in, to where you don't even notice that the calendar days are surging on like the click-clack of a railroad car.
(As I imagine a railroad car would, at least. I wouldn't actually know. [I like 'railroad car', it sounds so classic and elegant and sophisticated, even if it were only a third class ticket. {Even 'third class ticket' sounds so thrilling!} It's mostly the era, I imagine, and all the movies made it seem so stylish.] But I think I would like to ride on a train, someday.)
And so summer steals by us, and on toward August...

But first, there's Hollyhock season! It wouldn't be right to leave them without an accolade for all the beautiful blooms they put on. So in honor of hollyhock season, take a look at these...


They make a terrific show by the front gate, and Bard the boxer likes to lay in the cool damp earth in their shade. When he isn't waiting for somebody...

What a vibrant and lovely soft pink! The colors all coordinate beautifully. Who says red and pink don't go together?

How Does Your Garden Grow...

Of course it's always gardening time, and there is always so much to be done! From the big vegetable garden, to the flower beds, to the smaller raised beds around the house, there is always something that could use the attention.


















And a long balmy evening is always the perfect time to do it.

Haying!

In the latter part of June haying began, and with the intermittent rains and slow-drying muggy days, it covered a good two weeks of mowing, raking, (often re-raking after a rain,) and baling. Once these were accomplished, by bits and pieces as the fields dictated, the bales needed to be hauled off.
Mom got this shot of the summertime sky on one of her trips to and from the field. Rather iconic...


















And here you can see the 'work-place'. You can almost feel the coolness that that cloud shadow brings... and the sky is picture perfect summer time!
It gets pretty hot in the middle of the day... but you can't beat the view...


Haying is one of the major milestones of a country summer, a huge expenditure of effort that, mercifully, is over as soon as you've finished. Unlike, I suppose, most things on the farm, which are more slow and gradual progressions where 'finished' is a lot harder to define.

Evening Rainbow

All spring we have been getting a lovely profusion of scattered small storms and rain showers, and after one of them we noticed this. Isn't it gorgeous?


Of course, when hay needs to be mowed the moisture is harder to appreciate... but ignoring beauty in the sky won't change the weather. Make the best of it, and glean a lovely memory... at the very least.

Turkey Chicks

The turkey chicks grow so fast! Here is a photo I got of one hiding in the greenery, probably looking for a bit of peace and quiet to catch a few winks...

The pursuit of...

Seeing as it is that time of year again, I wanted to share this... one definition of happiness for any shepherdess, shepherd, or animal lover. When the grass is green, the herd is healthy, the year is young and the world is crowned by a big blue sky... that's what happiness is.

June, June...

Well, we almost have the garden in. Just a few more days of planting to get done, but we keep getting delayed with rain.
Not that anybody objects! After the bad drought recently I for one will not take rain lightly. It can come on down about any time it likes, we will simply work around it. No problem!
But it does make our garden planting a bit strung out. Which is actually all right, seeing as we are planting second batches of a lot of things, like pole beans, bush beans... it will spread the harvest a bit. Which is good!
Gotta love it...
But today is a very nice after-the-storm day, with the damp earth drying out a little, so it makes for a pretty beautiful evening. I really like to make a point of enjoying the beautiful things about spring, and summer, well fall, too, even winter, (though that's not such an easily beautiful season, what with our, {Very Much Appreciated!} open winters, which means a lot of brown scenery.)
What a terrible shame to live in the midst of beauty and ignore it because we're 'too busy'. Terrible! So I try to remind myself to take a minute and take a look around, even just as I'm walking to the barn for morning chores. It takes no more effort to look around me while I go than to keep my eyes on the ground, and it brightens my attitude for the rest of the day.

First Kid Photo: Profile; Aries

Don't have much time today, but I did want to get up a baby goat photo, so I'm putting this one up. Just got ahold of my camera again, and so new ones should be forthcoming,
but for now we'll have to get by with this shot of Aries, Argentina's buckling, helping out with the flower bed upkeep early last week.




Nice flat topline on this fellow!
And that side spot... does it look like a wispy ghost? A strangely shaped panther? ...A ghost panther?
Who knows!

We've Had An Explosion!

Well, wha'd'ya'know... in the last two days we've had ten kids. Yes, that's right. Ten.
Egypt kidded out first on Wednesday morning with a tiny single buckling, a little chamoise with a star. Then Tigir went into action and produced triplets, two sundgau bucks and a little coal black doeling. All three were pretty small, (which is good, and understandable with triplets!) and the one little guy is the tiniest baby we've had for several years. He's super cute!
Then Verde decided to include herself into the mix and kidded out late that evening with triplets as well, two big chamoise bucks and a slightly smaller black doeling.
("What is it with black doelings?" We ask!)
With the size of those three it is amazing that they all fit in there! But she never looked especially huge, so... wonders will never cease, I guess!
Then the next morning Ave kidded with the third set of triplets! A tiny edition of her mother, a little larger chamoisee, and an even lankier sundgau buckling. We were glad to get the two little does, our percentages were kind of getting murdered there for a while!
So that keeps me busy running to the barn for feedings.
I will have to try and get some photos of them taken and posted. My camera went walkabout with my sister and so I won't have that until she returns late, late, late on Sunday. (Yes, that sister. She is gone, and so I am all alone in a forest of little goats!)

It's Begun!

Well, Signet Dairy Goat's first kid of the season has hit the ground!
He's a perky little sundgau with white splashes, out of Signet Argentina and by Signet Sir Jocelyn. And he's got a perfectly healthy appetite!
[He actually hit the ground quite a few days ago, but this blogger-thing has been giving me trouble with signing in. And with things being busy, I've not had a bunch of time to devote to it!]
And Argentina is doing a great job of providing, her milk production is climbing swiftly and nearing a gallon a day already. I am happily anticipating what it will look like a few more months into her lactation.
In other news, we went to a local plant trade yesterday and came home with a bunch more different plants, which will add the the wealth of our collection already. And the weather was perfect for plants to be out of the ground... heavily overcast and just a wee tad drizzly, but not too much. So the little plants are sure to be happy and feel up to a vigorous start as soon as we get them into the ground. They will fill out our new terrace beds pretty well.
So, spring continues to get springier and I couldn't be more thrilled about it. The trees are starting to really leaf out, so their tops are covered in a sort of lacey-looking bright, light green, which is uniquely spring.
And Ave should be right around the corner with her babies...

Cool and Cloudy, a Quiet Spring Day

It's a cool and misty day today, and we hope to get some rain out of it before this front is over. The oats are all in and just waiting for some moisture to get started growing. One of the prettiest things I can think of is a field all green and growing.
We planted some peas in the garden, and I put in two short rows of red potatoes. That should ensure that we get some fresh vegatables as soon as possible, even though the weather is a little uncertain for many other plants quite yet.
We have also been waiting for the fields to be finished so the tractor can come and disc the garden. Since they were finished up yesterday, we should be next on the schedule.
We checked the hives again this month, and were faced with a very sad thing. Hive A, which we had needed to feed some sugar to in February, was dead. The loss of a hive is a minor tragedy in itsself, but I had little idea of what exactly had caused it. Today I did some research on the computer and found out here that they had most probably starved. (I feel so awful! I should have made more candy in Feb. or checked on them in March!)
I will definitely know better next time.
I'm so sorry, bees!
But the other two are really doing great, so I hope to get my third hive back yet this spring. Perseverance is essential in any new endeavor, and while I cringe at my mistakes, I will use them as fuel for future sucesses. Hurry up flowers, hurry up balmy days... we have a hive to make!

Margin for Human Error

Well, this waiting dragging on and on was getting to my nerves. So yesterday Abigail and I got out the breeding book and re-calculated all the due dates, just to make sure we had them correct.
And we didn't. In a big way! Argentina was off by almost two weeks... which would make sense because that's how much overdue we had her figured. Turns out she was actually due on the 24th. So giving her the usual delay time of somewhere about five days, puts her babies arriving within the next few days. She is looking like she's getting ready to have them, put it is always impossible to tell exactly when a doe will kid. They like surprises!
And Ave is due on the 28th, which is a move of a week from where we previously had her figured, and she looks like she could keep the appointment pretty close.
So those two should be starting off the milking season this upcoming week, and there's no telling who will go first. Then we can let Elma go dry until she kids next month.
We are only milking Elma once a day lately, in the mornings, and she is filling up our half gallon jar for house milk. Seeing as this is the very tail end of her lactation I am pretty pleased with her performance. In previous years she has usually been one of the earlier kidders, and Tigiris is our 'old reliable' that keeps us in milk until the other does freshen and then takes her quick turn at being dry.
But this year Tigir is in the 'first battalion', and Elma is our last doe to kid. So she got the honor of keeping us in milk, and has done pretty well at it.
Tigiris is due the week after next, sharing a day with Egypt, Elma's '08 daughter. She is a leggy young doe, and we are looking forward to how her udder freshens out. She is also completely black, so we may have a black line in the making.
Of course we are hoping for doelings. And especially from Tigiris, she has had a heavy leaning toward bucks all her life. But she really looks like she must have multiples in there again this time, (she is huge!) so the chances of at least one doe are good, and if we're lucky she might have several.

Oh, the agony of expectation that always accompanies the start of kidding season!

Scales and Pails; (in which we get the one, and not the other)

Well, we're getting the tail end of a storm it looks like, a drop in temperatures and no drop in wind! But it isn't as bad as they were calling for, and is now expected to be in the 50's somewhere. I don't know if it's supposed to last a while or not, I guess I'll find out!
I ordered a Pelouze Dairy scale from Hoegger's yesterday. Our old one was pretty worn out it seemed. (Had a nice talk with a very nice lady there, from GA. She said they'd had bad weather, it froze the previous night. I had to laugh. Makes me feel not so guilty for our own weather compared to South Dakota.)

I wanted to order the scale from Caprine Supply, because I really super-like their 8 qt. milk pail and have been wanting to have a second one for years. But we order so very rarely... so I loved the idea of the perfect excuse; we were going to be paying shipping on the scale anyway!
But... they didn't have it! (They had other scales, but not the Pelouze, which accurately measures to .10 lb. )
How could they! Ruin my beautiful plan, to get a beautiful milk pail. Now I am back to where I started... just wishing.
Oh, well.
Now that things have pretty much settled down from the move, we are going to try to get the does milk production recorded, in-house style. I had thought of trying DHI, but we don't have much for a dairy community around here locally, and finding a tester is bound to be like a needle in a haystack. (And not knowing if the needle's actually there!)
So we are going to go with barn records, which will not allow us into the Top Ten, but I don't really expect to be going there anyway. We just feed regular alfalfa and grain... and if it turns out we have a whopper in the barn, we can always go official next year.
Anyway, so now I am actually hoping that Argentina will not kid until the shiny new scale arrives. If she is contrary and kids out anyway, I guess we'll just measure until it gets here.


And hey! What'd'ya know? Very First comments!
Thanks, guys!

Hey Vanessa! Thanks for stopping by, I love to here from neighbors! Which town are you by? And thanks for the compliment, I can't wait for the grass to really green things up, and the leaves to come out on the trees. I guess that translates into 'summer'? Well, late spring.

And Livelife100percent, thanks to you too! Not quite picture perfect... you'd be surprised some days! Still, you're absolutely right, and I am very grateful for the opportunities that I have before me.

April, and we're waiting for the kids to start...

Well, here it is April already. And it seems we are just flying through it.
I can almost hear the whistle blow, Too-woot! "Next stop... May!"
I am anxious for our first kids to arrive. We usually have already had some by now, but this year we bred the does too kid out pretty late.
It sort of just worked out that way, and I thought it might turn out to be a nice break, certainly save us from the, 'the goats are kidding and it's storming out' scenario.
But we just got a storm here last week. Not a bad one, but nothing I'd want to be born in, if I was a little goat.
Our first doe, Argentina, is due later on this week. Of course she will not, (it's almost guaranteed!) With years and years of waiting for does to 'just kid, please!' I expect that she will actually kid next week sometime.
Which will work out all right, since the weather has cleared and become nice again. One nice thing about spring storms is that they rarely last long. (Of course, depends on where you live. Can't just tell that to the folks up north! Fargo Flooding and Snowfall )

[On a side note, friends up in the western end of SD. tell us they've got six foot drifts in some places, and worse in others. (Was I just complaining about the weather? We got a few inches.)]

Back to the subject, I am a little surprised at how anxious I am for the little critters to get here with them being scheduled later than normal. I didn't expect it of me! I have been through so many kidding seasons I should think that I would be a very old hand at this game. Which I am, but I guess it still gets to you.
Goat people are just like that!

The Denim Quilt

I have always liked quilts. Probably because of Mom, who introduced me to them because she has always loved quilts.
When I was seven Mom and my (then teen-age,) older sister went to a series of quilting classes that were being offered in our little town. They met some really sweet ladies there, who became friends long after the classes were over.
So every week they would come home with a new quilting style to make into a block. I remember watching my sister ironing painstakingly as she turned the edges under on an applique. I think it was a star pattern, but the fabrics were autumn colors, with leaves on them. It made me think that the applique was more of a odd shaped leaf itself, in the fall.
I wanted to do some too, so Mom set me up with a nine-patch. Mom gave me my choice of fabrics and I cut them into squares. Then I sewed them together.
I wasn't allowed to use the machine, Mom was extra careful about that since having her eldest run the needle through her fingernail. So I was kept to hand-stitching. I remember working on them curled up on the couch. By the time I was finished with the block I was tired of the idea. One was all there was to be!
Mom has always been the saver type, from buttons off of worn out clothes to the un-worn portions of denim skirts, jumpers and jeans. All these pieces of denim gathered into an apple-box, and were intended to be used someday.
When we moved here all the boxes and crates of saved things came with us, and by the time the whole move was over Mom's patience with all the 'stuff' was wearing thin. So, she threatened to throw out the box of denim.
I was shocked. We'd been collecting those pieces for a long time, and to think of throwing it all away was horrifying.
"What if we made it into something?" I asked. Mom said that would be fine, but she had too many other things going on to take the time.
So Abi and I resolved to make it into a quilt for our tall father, who has trouble with blankets not being long enough for him. We figured that even if it didn't turn out very pretty, (as this was our first try,) he wouldn't complain.
We sorted out the denim by size, and then brain-stormed up a plan. It would be a bit of a crazy quilt, since a few of our pieces would only lend themselves to that, and besides Dad likes crazy quilts. The middle we patterned with a grid like look, nine-patch and four-patch, with a nearly solid block for each corner. We put the crazy pieces along the sides.
We used an old blanket as batting, and backed it with a gray plaid flannel.
We made it to measure six feet by nine, with six blocks down and four across. This way our blocks would be taking full advantage of the size of pieces that we had, and we would not be doing too much time consuming piecing per inch.
It still took a lot of time, and getting it completely together was the hardest part. I did the final quilting just on the Singer, and had a little trouble with running into wrinkles no matter how carefully I smoothed and pinned it. Luckily, just like we figured, Dad didn't mind.
We had kept it sort of as a surprise, and gave it to him in the spring. Even though he had often walked right through when we had everything piled on the dining table, (and were trying to be careful,) he was surprised, (not being the really observant type!)
It has been on his bed ever since.

So this is how it ended up. I like the sturdy way it turned out and will probably do it again when I get the chance. But it does take a long while to save up that much denim!

2007 Clay Center Show

So, to catch up on a few things.
We have had our goats since the fall before Abigail was born, (when I was six-turning-seven,) so we have done a lot of things with our goats, as you can imagine. Going with the herd up into the forest-covered mountain for most of the day, picking service berries that grew along the railroad tracks, holding baby goat races. All of which taught us another aspect of life, and was as much fun as any child can handle!
But we had never gone to a goat show.
So when we moved to Nebraska we looked around and decided to go to the Tumbleweed Classic, put on by the Nebraska Dairy Goat Association, in Clay Center. (Which is about half-way across the state, so it was still a good piece.)
With all the things that were still in progress with getting the farm renovated, it was a tight squeeze, but Abi and I worked extra hard, and put in some very late nights, and got everything done to go for the weekend.
The NDGA folks are super nice and made us feel so welcome, as did all the folks who came from all over the surrounding states. Having pushed so hard to get everything done, I was seriously sleep-deprived, but we had fun anyhow!
Here's what I put on the Signet Dairy Goats site;

Showing in showmanship photos.


We have always wanted to be able to show our goats, but our previous very remote location worked against it. Now that we have relocated to McCook, we have been able to have a few more opportunities for that. So last year we went to our first show, the Tumbleweed Classic in Clay Center.

Had a lot of fun, won several ribbons, and met Nebraska goat folks.

Abi is hooked, I'm afraid she might become a goat show fanatic.

Elizabeth surprised everybody, and herself, by being placed first in adult showmanship. The fact that there was only one other competitor didn't alter the surprise for her at all.


[End web post.]

So there they are, the 'goatists' of the family. My good little sister and I.
Argentina, the yearling doe I took in showmanship, behaved very nicely for that class, and then when it was time for her own class, she went bonkers. Fidgeted, refused to stand still, made a complete nuisance of herself. But she is a gorgeous girl!
Abi's showmanship choice, Bellarus, displayed a similar pattern. Maybe they could only handle behaving themselves for one class, and two was too much! (We sold Bella that same fall, and she was shown in the Furnas County Fair last fall, winning the Championship ribbon for her owner's boy, Caleb.)

So we came home with our ribbons, and slowly recovered our sleep! The goats were also very glad to get back, they do not seem to apreciate being disrupted.
But it was a lot of fun, and we met a lot of, (far-flung,) fellow goat folks, ...and Abigail wanted to do it again.
So we did... but that is another post.

Checking the Bees in February

Abigail and I checked on the bees yesterday afternoon. It was very warm and sunny, and we thought it would be a good idea to take a look at them and see how they were getting along.
We checked Vivian first, and she was looking a little low on honey supplies. She had also suffered the most death loss of the three, but she still had enough to get a start on the flowers when spring gets here. But we'd feel much better if we got her something to eat on, so we left her top cover off and went on to Scarlet.
Scarlet was doing great. Still doesn’t much care for her second story, but when we set it off the first story was filled solid with bees. We pried up a few frames and she still had lots of stores left. So we put her hive back together, as she didn’t need any assistance.
By this time we had gotten hot in our bee clothes, and so we decided we’d take a break before going at the third hive. It would also serve the double purpose of letting Carol’s bees cool off. So we popped the lid off of Carol, (to which her bees replied angrily, as always,) and broke the seal between the stories, setting the top aside on bricks. They came out of there in a swarm, and we retreated far from the scene and sat in the shade of the barn’s south wing and talked to Dad, (who was leveling the dirt floor after the recent construction, and raking things smooth,) and Kate, (who sat on her gray mare, and practiced her relaxing.) The mare didn’t like Dad working in there, but she soon settled down about it and just started sniffing around complacently.
We stripped off our bee gloves and veils, and removed our jackets and breathed deeply of the nice breeze. After a few minutes we returned to find Carol’s bees had calmed, and we sorted through her frames. She did not have as nice a pack as Scarlet’s, but there was still plenty of honey for her and her crew. She had emptied some of the honey filled burr-comb that we left for her to chew on over winter, so we now took the opportunity to take that off. Her hive is really rather bad about burr comb, I hope they behave themselves this next season.
Then we packed her hive back together and Abigail went to feed hay to the goats while I went inside. We had decided to make some sugar cake for Vivian, to make sure she had enough to get a good strong start as soon as the flowers start. I looked in my bee folder for a recipe, I know that I used to have one, but it wasn’t there any more. I must have thrown it out in an effort to organize things in there.
So I tried calling our bee suppliers, but they didn’t answer the phone. I really needed to find that recipe and get it made, because we had left Vivian’s hive open while I brought the inner cover up to the house to pour the candy into. So I went to the Internet.
I had the hardest time getting the search words right, because I kept coming up with ‘bee cake’, which would end up to be a regular cake, only made with honey, and there seems to be a great deal of variety on these. One was called a ‘Bee Sting’ cake, which I’m not sure where the sting part came from.
Anyway, after much searching, I came across a recipe posted by City Bees. These are bees that apparently live in Washington, D.C. Which just goes to show that bees really can be kept everywhere!
After jotting down her very helpful instructions, I descended to the kitchen and prepared to concoct some. I have never had a great deal of success with candy making, despite numerous attempts, and was ambivalent as to my chances of success this time. (They always seem to come out grainy, even when I put the lid on and let it boil capped for three minutes like they tell me to.)
Reading in one of our natural remedy books for animals, the author included bees and said that many old bee keepers in merry old England would put a pinch of salt in the candy. So I threw one in. The book also said that sage tea was an excellent thing to start with instead of water, it was very good for their health. It was already two late for that, as the sugar and water was heating nicely, but I stirred in some sage herb along with it, it was sure to lose its properties to the hot syrup, and the bees are savvy enough to notice part of a sage leaf when they come across it.
In a lot less time and bother than I had anticipated I had the mixture whipped to white, and I dumped it out onto the upturned inner cover. I set the cover at an angle to prevent the hot candy from running out the handle hole, and the whole thing set up very fast, quicker than I could get the pan cleaned with the rubber spatula. It finished cooling in about fifteen minutes, so that when I turned it over the candy showed no signs of falling off of where it had stuck, even though it still had some heat in it.
It was getting late in the evening when Abi went to milk the goats, and took it down to put on top of Vivian’s hive. I hope they are as pleased with it as I am.

Introduction

Hello!
This is my first post, so I'll just give myself a little intro. This blog will be about whatever happens to catch my fancy long enough to make it to the net, mainly, most likely, things that go on around the farm here and in my 'rural living' life. Since this has been the way I grew up, (for which I am thankful!) I'll probably mostly jot down things that are out of the ordinary, or something that I am trying to figure out.
In this day and age, and with the way things are going in the world in general, I am also very grateful that the Lord has blessed me by placing me in a family that sticks together and that wouldn't consider living in anything remotely resembling a city. By having an animal based family business that allows us to be located in some pretty remote places, we have had the privilege of experiencing as children a sort of freedom that probably mainly went extinct at least half a century ago.
I must confess it's pretty addicting.
We moved the whole kit and caboodle to western Nebraska in the summer/fall of 2006, and have been blessed with really terrific neighbors, pleasant winters, and green, green summers, ever since.
Since childhood, my siblings and I have always had lots of exposure to all sorts of the common domestic animals, and one species that we last picked up when I was seven, and has stuck with us ever since, is our own dear dairy goats. Although Dad talks of a cow, we two goat-keepers won't hear of parting with our pretties. They are reliable and prolific milkers, despite the vagaries of fortune which often brings changes in their grain.
Last year I did the research and purchased two packages of Italian bees, (which begat a story unto itself.) Having our own honey has been a 'bee in our bonnet', (if you'll pardon the pun,) for years and years. Previously living in droughtier and colder climate, we had not gotten up the courage to make it a go, but with our relocation to the sunny hills of Nebraska we decided to do it. It especially helped to see all the flowering things beside the roadways, and in every draw. We were encouraged that bees could readily thrive here. So far, so good!
There are several more things I need to get figured out about this format, but I hope to put up some more soon. Until then...
Thanks for reading!