Struggling To Find Ourselves

As we look forward to the outside projects that are lining up for this Spring, we are considering a wooden pergola like shelter for behind our cabin. We have made no concrete plans, yet, but we are looking at what we can do with the concrete pad that is back there. What can we do to increase the value of the property some more? And what can we do that would actually be useful for us?

God Bless!

….we are looking at getting our raised-bed garden area set up, as well as getting some more compost and such in my flower beds and so forth, and fertilizing the pastures and such.  With all of this moving of dirt and spreading manure and such, we haven’t really figure out what the best composter is yet, but we are working on it.  We are finally getting the barns and other areas caught up, cleanliness-wise, as we started WAY behind on those when we moved in to this place.  We have found that that manure that has actually had a chance to cool off and become a GOOD dirt is GREAT for planting flowers and such in!

In other news, the two sets of twins are doing good!  They have been out for a little while each day to test out their legs by bounding around the pen.  They are soooooo cute and silly looking when they are testing out their legs!

God Bless!

Yep, that’s what it’s turning out to be….another LONG night.

As I sit here and listen to the wind blow outside, I think of all of the things I could be doing….maybe SHOULD be doing….and find myself not doing any of them at the moment.  Hubby is working….Son is gone for the weekend….so it’s just me and the dogs at the moment.

We have had our first kids hit the ground for this year!  The day before yesterday in the afternoon, one of our newer does that we got about Christmas-time dropped her’s….one girl and one boy.  Then this morning, her daughter, which we also got at Christmas-time time dropped her twins….both boys!  Looks like it’s going to be a money year if that ratio continues!  But, a money year would be GOOD, because we got mostly girls last Spring, so it was a growing year for us.  My only concern is that it was cold yesterday and it was definitely cold this morning.  The ones born this morning weren’t even completely dry when we went out to feed and check on yesterday’s babies.  I’m not too sure, but it’s possible that the tips of their ears frozen slightly.  That will be something I keep an eye on in the next couple of weeks.  We’ve got two other does that I don’t think will be too far behind….and at least three after that.  And, come May, June and July, we SHOULD have one deliver in May sometime (our newest doe), and then we’ve got 6 doelings that are in with the buck right now that should deliver in early July.  Needless to say, I will not be milking all of the does all at once.  When some of them start drying up because they aren’t milk goats and their babies are two or three months old, then I will stop milking them and continue milking our dairy/milk goats.  I can’t say I’m sorry to see the kids hit the ground.  We’ve got 2.5 gallons of milk from the store in the last month or so….and I have to say….store milk SUCKS!!  I will be glad to have my goat’s milk back!!!  Goat’s milk ice cream anyone?

Well, I will sign off for now!  You all take care and stay blessed!

Well, Christmas has come and went again.  Now, as we start looking at getting the farm and such ready for our Spring and Summer projects that are on the list, I start looking ahead to possibilities for NEXT Christmas.  I have noticed, over the last few months, that my son is showing more and more interest in music.  So, at some point this year, if he continues to show an interest in it, I will probably do some comparison shopping on drum sets for kids, or maybe a wind instrument of some type, or maybe even the piano or organ.  Only time will tell, I suppose.

Blessings to ALL!

As I sit here tonight, with the ventless fireplace heating the diningroom at this moment, I realize that the wind must still be blowing outside.  It had started to blow earlier this afternoon when the temperatures had started cooling off, and we are currently having a short blast of Winter here in Kansas.  This is basically the first Winter we have seen in several weeks, and we have only had a few days of cold-ish weather and one rain/turns-to-ice-when-it-hits-something storm a few weeks before Christmas.  I keep telling people Spring on the way, but I’m not sure anyone much believes me at the moment.  It IS January and we have yet to get any REAL Winter weather, but the geese started flying North a week or so ago, some of my trees are starting to show budding of leaves, and my irises have started coming up already.  Besides that, our male goat is showing interest in the girls.  Now, contrary to what the majority of the population believes, I don’t really believe the girls will breed (if given the choice) when they would be delivering their babies in the cold.  The wild animals avoid babies in the middle of Winter.  Why wouldn’t goats and horses and cats and dogs and everything else, IF Man would stay out of their breeding cycles and quit trying to rush things?

No baby goats yet…or there wasn’t as of about 4 hours ago when I braved the cold and wind and snow to plug in the heat light…just in case…..

Blessings!

Today is the third day of the new year, and it was another day on the farm and taking care of farm business for me.  As I went about my chores this morning in the brisk morning air, I had no use for sparkling engagement rings on my finger.  In fact, I have no use for a sparkling wedding ring either, but having one of those to show off occasionally would be nice.  My husband of almost a year and a half says he WILL get me a different wedding ring than what I have…..and I keep telling him that maybe after some of the bills are paid off and we choose to have money a bit more loose for things that we don’t need.  Until then, the one I’ve got says what I want to say to the world.

Hope this new year is finding you BLESSED beyond your wildest dreams!

The plans for parts of our property are coming along!  We continue to make a stride here and a stride there.  All of these plans are meant to improve the property, not only for when and if we ever want to sell it, but also to try things out for our next property.  If, say, the solar hot water heater doesn’t work on this property as well as we figure it should, then there would be no reason to waste the time, materials, money and energy in building a similar one when we get another property.  The attic is the same way….we are planning to insulate a certain way and finish it off in a certain to see how really comfortable it is in the Summers and Winters.  With the coming outage, our attic should be finished, as well as our cabin, and we will very possibly have a set of adult bunk beds
in the cabin by the time the outage comes around next Fall.  It won’t be fancy and it won’t have much, but it will be a place for someone to lay their head on their off hours, and that’s basically all these outage workers are concerned about.

You all have a BLESSED week!

Seems like everyone is in a hectic sort of mind with Christmas next week.  We haven’t seen enough snow to say we have yet, and they don’t really expect us to get any between now and Christmas, so it kind of is hard to believe that Christmas really IS that close.

Lots going on here, in some ways, as we try to prepare for the Winter weather that everyone seems to think is going to have us snowed in for weeks….or at least, that’s the way they make it sound.

Some of our does look like they are getting pretty close to kidding.  There are at least 4 that I am confident enough that they are pregnant that I MIGHT lay bets on it, if the odds were good enough.  There are a couple of others that aren’t quite as obvious, but they are obvious enough for me to be keeping a closer eye on them, in hopes that I can figure out if they ARE pregnant or not BEFORE they surprise us with babies.  We have tapered almost completely off on our milking because of the impending kids in the next 2 or 3 weeks.  I imagine that our last milking for the year will probably be towards the middle of this next week.  I personally don’t really like the idea of not having kids on the ground already and KNOWING, without a doubt, that we will have another doe producing enough to milk before we stop milking altogether, but that’s what my intuition tells me we need to do this time.  If we run out of milk before we have kids and can start milking again, I guess we’ll just have to go to the store and buy some until we can start milking again.  I DON’T like that idea, but that might be the way it has to be for this year.  With this next year, we are going to try to have one group of our does kid in January/February and then we will be bringing a different buck back from Colorado this next week, and we will let him breed our doelings and whatever does haven’t kidded.  By doing that, we SHOULD have two different sets of kidding times, so we SHOULD have does that have had their kids and we are milking them.  By the time the doelings and other non-bred does have their kids in May/June/July and have them up to the age of weaning, so that we can start milking them more, the first batch that had kids in January/February will be ready to breed again.  By having two sets of does dropping at two different times, there should never be any reason for us to have to stop milking and risk having to buy milk from somewhere else.

Well, time to run, so I will let you go for now.  Have a BLESSED week and thanks for reading!

….several little things and some not-so-little things to make our life a bit more simple here at the farm.

We need:  more garden hoses;  a couple of more metal water troughs;  some more HDMI cables;  a couple of more stock tank heaters;  the rest of the material for curtains;  insulation for the attic;  the shed in the backyard moved;  dog collars;  more milk jugs….and the list for the farm will go on and on and on and on.  Farm life says that, when you finally get some of the things on your list of needs and/or wants, there are ALWAYS items to replace them.

Have a BLESSED week!

As I sit here and watch the much needed cold rain fall on our pastures, I sit here and realize that sometimes it is easy for us to take things for granted in our every day lives.  Today, I would like to bring to light how easy it is to take living without pain for granted.  I know people that have some sort of real pain EVERY day of EVERY week of EVERY month…and they have been dealing with this pain for literally MONTHS.  I can only imagine that it would be very difficult to imagine a day without pain if you are dealing with it on an all-day-every-day basis.  Would YOU be able to remember days without pain if you had to deal with pain EVERY day?  How would YOU keep your sanity?  One thing I would like to know the answer to is this:  Why do the modern “Doctors” insist on treating the symptom instead of finding the root of the problem?  Is it because they are at such a loss to explain that they REALLY don’t know what the problem is?  Is it because Doctors really don’t have ANY clue sometimes?  Or is it because the rumors are true and the Doctors do REALLY get a kick-back off of the prescriptions that they prescribe?

Just the ramblings of a Kansan on a rainy afternoon!

God Bless!