Catching up from Spring Term

Where to begin? It certainly has felt like another looong term, but I survived. ;) Here's some shots to get you up to speed. This is a text and picture heavy post, so here we go. 

Special dance for a guest caller that came to the area

Practicum harvest

Turkey poult

This picture has a bit of a story with it... It all started with my car not starting when I was running late to class. Phooey. Thankfully, I had another car option to get to class. I didn't have time to deal with the problem until the next day after classes.  

It took all afternoon, but I finally managed to orchestrate a tow truck that was 'approved' by the insurance company to get my car to the mechanic. They took one look at it, and said that the only problem was some corrosion on the battery terminal. Seriously?! I looked at that and didn't think that it was that bad. Apparently so. $40, a bunch of phone calls, and an afternoon later, my car was doing just fine. Thankfully, everything worked out well, but it was still a hassle. My classmate the next day asked what was wrong with my car, and after explaining my tale of woe, she said 'Well, was the mechanic cute at least?' 'Uh... yeah...' '!!! When's the next time you get to see him?' "I don't know; next oil change maybe?' The next week, apparently word got around about the 'cute mechanic' and some others were asking if I had asked him out yet. 'Nope.' 'Well, when's your next oil change?' 'A long while.' And this is after I was already convinced that my car was playing match maker because she kept coming up with all these random little things that needed to be checked. :face palm:  

Anyway! Continuing on! My fun class for the term was kitchen herbs. I honestly didn't fully know what to expect from the class, but I knew I wanted to take it. I walk into class to find out that it was a cooking class! Booyah! We've been learning how to grow all this fantastic food, now it's time to learn how to use it! From mocktail sangria, branch dressing, melon mint salad, green bean radish and basil salad, warm maple rosemary sundaes, and much more. Can we have more classes where we eat our way through to earn credits? I guess that would involve going to cooking school. Never mind.

Even with work and classes, my sister, a friend, and I still managed to squeeze in a fun concert one evening. Djangophiles were fantastic, and they have my sister convinced that I need to learn to play the upright bass. To humor her, I looked up the prices for a bass... Yeah, not going to be doing that anytime soon. 

 

I brought in the peonies before it started raining. Love the giant, luscious blooms!

I can't resist the words: free plants

Moving meat chickens out to pasture

Needless to say, these shoes look like something you would find in an archaeological dig after I was through with them.

My red legion poppies started blooming on Memorial Day weekend. Rather fitting, I thought. 

After her yearly adventure where we don't see her for a couple of weeks, she showed up at the back door, wanted food and water, and then curled up in the nearby basket and slept. You crazy kitty. 

A local farm had early ripening blueberries. Nomnomnom! 

That's all for now! I'll post some pictures from work later.

Until next time! 

SG

It's a Sun-shiny Day

Lizzy and her babies made their debut to the herd. I took the opportunity to get better pictures of them. ;) 

Samwise. He looks like he has leg warmers. Mom calls him 'Seventies Sam'

Cutie bug

Rosie

So curious. 

Lizzy is such a good mama

Those little lips! 

Outside play time!

Stella has gotten exceedingly jealous of all the attention that the babies are getting and she's not getting as much loving on as she used to. :P 

Heeeeere's Rita!

I caught you, little stinker. No more nibbling on my pants while I'm trying to get pictures. 

Spring has Sprung!

'Tis a stereotypical spring day in the Pacific Northwest. The rain showers come and go with their usual drama (which includes hail and rainbows). 

The daffodils are in full bloom.

My crazy Weeping Santa Rosa plum tree is open. Maybe I'll get some fruit from it this year.  

The grape hyacinth are reaching into the sky as high as they can (but they're still dwarfed by the daffodils) 

The other flowering trees are about to explode in blooms. 

The cat gives you a weird look... 

And there are new baby goats in the barn. ^_^

Yesterday, I posted about not knowing when our goats were going to kid since we didn't know when they were bred (all thanks to escapee bucks).  

Well, we've been keeping a close eye on the mamas that we figured were due soon. Mom peeked in the barn while on her way to do some other work, and there was no sign of impending excitement from anyone. They all just stood around chewing their cud and staring at the two legged food-giver. 

Hardly an hour later, there were babies. Two of them, to be precise. Twin boys. They were pretty much dry by the time we found them and had been nursing. 

We're still debating what to name them. We've been keeping a list of things we would name the kids if we had twin boys. Now that we have them, we don't know which names to pick! Lol! Should it be Thor and Loki? Sherlock and Mycroft? Merry and Pippin? Kirk and Spock? Calvin and Hobbes? We're not sure which ones to pick!  

All that was running through our minds was, 'This is how kidding is supposed to go.' Whenever you talk to other dairymen (or women), you hear all the birthing horror stories. Then you start to freak out. Oh please, Lord, don't let that happen! Thankfully, we didn't have to worry about anything with these two. :) 

I turned around after taking pictures of the babies, and there's Rita standing on a log wanting attention.

She almost looked like she was asking for her picture to be taken. 

I'm still just as cute as those two whiny things that you're holding in there! 

See? I can pose; they can't. I look like a statue. 

The babies were born on Sunday afternoon. On Monday morning (today), the first batch of meat chicks came in. When it rains, it pours. Everything happens at the same time. ;) 

Here we go!

Until next time!

SG

Spring Fever

Lots of flower starts!

 Something inside of me rebels whenever it gets cold and wet again after we've had a few days of warm weather. But everyone else in the country is able to get their gardens in! Meanwhile we're still swimming in the swamps. But there is a way to get start curing the gardening bug while it's raining cats and dogs out there - you cheat. You whip out the heating pads and a 'greenhouse light' to get things started in the house.

My sister has also been anxious to get things in the ground also. But she's not that into veggie gardens; green food is something to be avoided, given to the livestock, or snuck onto someone else's plate. She grows flowers. And she's way ahead in the game than I am. Her flowers have already sprouted, and there isn't a veggie start to be seen anywhere.

 But that's about to change. Dad got the bug when going through seed catalogs from local sources and ordered tons of seeds. I'm not exaggerating here. I guess we're going to be serious about our veggie garden this year.  

Well, the seeds came in the mail; now we're just waiting for a good day to get the ground prep done. And we're also needing to get some fencing in since the chickens would have a field day otherwise. I'm sure there's something else that I'm missing on the to-do list that takes priority. 

Soon. Very soon. We'll get those seeds in the ground. Then we hope that there will be veggie sprouts. And a certain someone will 'forget' to water them. ;)

Baby Day!

We've been anxiously waiting all week for Mazy to have her baby/babies. For the last two weeks we've been able to feel some knobby legs kicking around in there. We've been feeling her tail ligaments to keep tabs on how close she might be to kidding. A the while she's bagging up more and more every day. Last night, the poor girl's udder looked like it was going to pop, and her ligaments were the loosest they had been. Just in case, we put Mazy in the cleaned out kidding stall with some heat lamps. Just in case. Right before bed, Mom and I headed out to the barn to check on mama goat - no new developments. At 6:30 this morning, Mom checked on the goat again, and still nothing. Although her ligaments were pretty gosh darn loose. We knew she'd kid today.

Fast forward only an hour. We get a call from the post office saying they had a cheeping box with our name on it. The baby turkeys are here! We've also been waiting for them all week. Mom started pulling herself together to go pick up all the tiny dinners. 

Jess had already headed out to the barn to do her chores when she hears this 'BAA!!!' Ohmyword. Baby goats! It's twins - a boy and girl. Jess comes in and tells Jake the latest and greatest in news from the barn (since he was the only one in the kitchen at that time). Jake runs up to tell Mom then runs out to the barn (with just a t-shirt and shorts on, might I add). There were two shivering little ones in the corner opposite the heat lamps. We just missed the birth (whine whine) 

Once we got the twins warmed up a bit, we realized that we still had to do chicken chores, meat chicken chores, goat chores, milking, and fetch the baby turkeys. Oh yeah... At least we already had a brooder tank set up for the turkeys. ;) I think our barn has reached maximum capacity now.

Well, I'll stop babbling and let you see all the new little ones! :D  

Turkey dinner. In six months.

Mamma goat. With a cutie bug in the background.

Thing 1 and Thing 2. That's little mister on the left and little miss on the right. We're thinking that we like the names 'Benedict' and 'Beatrice' from Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. We'd call them 'Ben' and 'Bea' for short. :)

Our next doe is due in about 2 weeks! :D I don't know how we'll be able to contain all the cute that's going to be running around. 

They're HERE!

The daffodils are blooming, the song birds greet the dawn with a chorus of their sweet chirping and trilling, the grass is looking shaggier, our first mamma goat is due to kid in 3 weeks, and we now have tiny pompoms inhabiting a corner in the barn. Yep, meat chicken batch #1 has now taken up residence. It's always exciting when the first batch of chicks is in the barn; over the course of the winter, you forget how adorable the puff balls are and how sweet their little cheeping is. 

The baby Cornish roasters arrived this morning with the typical phone call that comes when everyone is still in bed. ;) But never fear! We were semi-prepared this time! Yesterday afternoon, Dad, Emi and I got the barn all cleaned out (all that deep bedding that has been building up over the winter) and the brooder area set up. All we had to do was flip on the heat lamps and fill the waters. Actually, everything feels too clean now - there's an echo. Oh well. We've filled the cavernous feel with the never ceasing peeping of chicks. ^_^  

After watching the news last night, we (okay, maybe it was just me) started thinking that the chick's box was going to get stuck in the Denver airport since they had a lovely winter storm blow in. (The very first time we bought chicks, they got stuck there for several days. Needless to say, it was a rough start to raising poultry.) But that pessimistic voice in my head was quickly silenced. All of the chicks survived the trip, and they're all feisty little goobers. 

And thus begins a summer of meat chickens. We learned from last year though - I put a cap on how many chickens we'll grow. 300 chickens is too many. ;) 

Spring is coming!

I can't help it. The sun has decided to make an appearance; the bulbs are peeking out, there's a warmth in the breeze promising that spring is just around the corner. I can't wait. ^_^

PS - I promise I'll get you off of the cliff hanger that I left you on with my ER post. My computer situation hasn't been conducive to blogging as of late. 

Behind the scenes, bloopers and outtakes

Being in a wedding entails many things. New dress, new shoes, fancy hair, etc... but one of the never mentioned consequences of agreeing to be in a wedding is all the, umm... flattering pictures that people will get of you. It also helps when the videographer knows you and seems to stalk you with his camera. Just saying... ;) 

There were at least four cameras clicking away during the photo session. Which one to look at. Hmm...

Times be a-changin'

The bridesmaids were not the only ones to be trouble makers.

Wait, did I miss some lint on his suit?

Brothers... What can I say?

It would've been priceless if in focus. :P

There must have been something on the ground or we were looking at our boots.

Don't worry! Only a lot more pictures to go!

My bubbles. They be gone.

You want us to go where? 

Leap frog

Say what?

The guardians of the candle lighters. Don't mess with them.

And for the piece-de-resistance!