Catch up.

I have been too busy snoogling goat kids to take pictures.  I have got to learn to use the video on my phone, since they don't hold still long enough to be a good target for still photography.  Every morning I spend time doing my impression of Mount Sweezie, so that they can climb all over me.  This, of course, makes me collapse into a pile of hysterical laughter.  What a good way to start the day.  Sage still sidles away from me and I haven't started milking her yet.  I am aiming for next week, come Hell or High Water.

Apple (L) and Willo (R) enjoying the sun.  I have to
work on my camera skills.
No kidding.

Chickie is being a very good uncle.  He chases them around every once in a while, but, for the most part, they follow him like a little wagon train.  They are getting tall and have wonderful confirmation.  Apple (as in the Apple of My Eye - truly) is very curious and likes being held.  Willo is more her mother's daughter.



They look so...adultish.



Grass is growing, so the sheep and Apria get a little time on grass in the morning and in the evening.  Just to make sure they don't starve.  (BTW, I am still looking for that "before" picture - which I KNOW I have.  Just don't know where I have it.)

The peas continue to grow, I have put in three types of beets this year, along with two kinds of chard.  On Sunday, I finished construction of the new strawberry bed, filled it and finished planting the strawberries at 7:30P.  Down to the wire.  Today I snuck in a few rows of beans - hoping that the weather will continue to hold steady.  I am sure I tempted fate and we will be struck down with a hard freeze.  Why, oh, why do I do it?  Will I ever learn?  Probably not.

I have one mushroom log done and one still in the planning stage - which means I won't be harvesting Blue Oysters until 2015 at this rate.  The old hoop house has been stripped of its raggedy coverings and I am almost done digging around the foundation.  Once that's been cleared, my farmer neighbor and three burly fellows will come over and wrench it out and move it.  That's the plan, anyway.  There is some excellent compost in the hoop house - and I want at it!

The germination in my cold frame has been disappointing.  A measly four inch row of spinach has come up - same with two types of lettuce.  Everything else did not germinate at all.  I'll start more this weekend but, at this rate, I better start looking elsewhere for salad makings.  I did enjoy a couple meals of fresh dandelion greens - by now, the neighbors don't even blink an eye when they see me rooting around in the fields.

Newbies discovering new territory.  (That's
Dizzy Mae's big white butt.)

I love this age.

The chicks are officially now teenagers and are spending their days outside of the brooder coop in the fenced run (with a tarp for shade and protection).  Dizzy Mae, the ex-patient, has made a full recovery and is very bossy.  Of my four straight-run Blue Laced Red Wyandottes, I think that one is a rooster.   Depending on his temperament, he is in the running to replace Kees, who will go to a Barnevelder breeder.  He is standing on the 4x4 in the bottom pic. 

I've managed to get some things checked off the big list - now to focus on the 248-page small list.