Too Close

 

When I planted my ground cherries earlier in the spring, I put them in their own little box.  I added a good thick layer of rabbit droppings to the box and put it outside of what we call “the middle pen”.  At the time we were not using that pen for goats.

Greg warned me, “You’re putting that box too close to the fence.”

“No, I’m not. See, it’s not touching the fence.”

“The goats are gonna get whatever you put in there.”

“There aren’t any goats in this pen and even if we do move them in here they won’t reach the box.”

“Okay.”

He didn’t argue any further. He would let me learn…..and I did.
My rabbit-fertilized ground cherries grew beautifully. I had lots of little cherries dangling in their papery husks and I waited for them to drop to the ground so I could collect them and eat them share them with my children.

Well, I never got the chance. We ended up needing to utilize the middle pen for the goats. At first they didn’t even notice them, but then one day my yummy little ground cherries caught the eye of one of the goats. The box they grew in was set back from the fence, but with a little determination and a lot of neck stretching they managed to eat my ground cherries. Every. Single. One.

I did plant two ground cherries at the back of the carrot garden, but these little plants didn’t get any bunny fertilizer and they only got about two inches tall….so far no fruit.

I have learned my lesson. Next time I will listen to Greg. Well, at least when it comes to the placement of my ground cherries.

The House

Our house is an older house that has had some updates, but could certainly use some more.  When it was originally built it was a dog-run style house.  At some point in time an addition was added on the back of the house and the inside was changed considerably.

We knew we would need to do some work on the exterior of the house and some cosmetic changes inside…or so we thought.  It seems as though the list of things to be done keeps growing.  It’s becoming quite a long list, so I won’t even bother with writing it out right now.  Instead, I’d rather make a list of what has been done on the inside.

1.  We added a second toilet!
This was really a necessity with 9 people in the house.  A row of toilets in stalls would have been even better, but we didn’t have the room, so I settled for a single one.

2.  A new counter top and 2 new sinks in the bathroom.
This was a necessity as well because the sink that the previous owners installed sat on top of the counter (instead of down in the counter like a normal sink). That was all well and good. The sink bowl itself was quite lovely, however, the faucet they installed to go with the sink was not the proper height and shortly after moving in it broke. Instead of just getting a new faucet we went with double sinks and ditched the above counter bowl.

3. We added a new ceiling fan in the dining room.
Ok, so maybe this isn’t a big change, but it made the dining room look much better. The old ceiling fan just didn’t look right and we needed one for the boy’s room anyway so we put the old dining room ceiling fan in their room.

That’s about it as far as the interior goes. It seems as though most of our work has been done on fencing/goat pens, gardens and other outdoor projects.

We plan on many more projects over the years and each room will slowly (very slowly) get worked on.

“Swimming”

The little boys decided to go “swimming” in a mud hole left from all the rain we’ve received as of late.

They were quite pleased with themselves…..until I sprayed them down with the hose.

It seems that little boys and mud puddles attract each other.

It’s A Girl!!!

Joy had her kid and we finally got a doeling!!!  We were almost sure it was going to be another buck after Hope, Blossom, and Ginger had bucks.

She was born late at night during one of our strongest rain storms (of course).  Both mama and baby are doing well and I hope to have more pictures soon.

Resurrection Fern

On our property we have a few oak trees, but there is one that truly stands out.  It’s a giant and a beauty.  It provides ample shade for our animals, and when we had the guineas they would roost high in its branches.

All along the branches grows a pretty little fern called Resurrection Fern.

Most of the time this fern stays curled up, but after a rain the leaves unfurl to soak in all the moisture.

I read that the Resurrection Fern can lay in a dormant state for around 70 years with no water, but at the moment of rain they will spring back to life.

This spring we have had an abundance of rain and I’ve enjoyed the almost magical setting that the Resurrection Fern has created around the oak tree.  I know that soon its leave will curl up until another rain, but for now I’m enjoying its beauty.

The Orphans

A few weeks ago we brought home two little goat babies.  One is a buck that we named Samson, and the other is a doe that we call Echo.  A few months ago we had already made arrangements to get Echo, even though she wasn’t born.  We were hoping that her dam would have a doeling and not only bucklings.  Thankfully, she did.  It was quite sad, though, that shortly after kidding, the dam died unexpectantly leaving behind Echo and Samson.

Since we already have Noah, we weren’t planning on getting another buck yet, but the breeder preferred to keep the babies together so we ended up getting both of them.

Hope and Blossom had just kidded a few days before we got them and they had abundance of milk to share with our new babies.

With multiple bottle feedings each day, Samson and Echo get lots of attention and love.  Lucky little goats!

Paper Dolls

Over the last few weeks we received quite a bit of rain. In fact it rained almost every single day. During that time we were able to go to two library books sales and stock up on some new (well, new to us) reading material.  I think we ended up bringing home close to 75 new books.

The kids love to read and while I wasn’t much of a reader in my younger years, I thoroughly enjoy reading now.  However, even with all the new books, the kids were getting a little antsy and I knew that they needed something to do with their hands.  The big boys whittled, the little ones played with toys, but Ellie needed a craft.

After a quick search on the internet I found a website with lots of links for free printable paper dolls.  You can find the links here at Too Much Time On My Hands.  All that afternoon, Ellie carefully cut out her dolls and their accessories.  She and Natalie have been busy playing with them ever since.  The only problem is that paper dolls don’t last that long even when a little 3 year old is being as gentle as possible.

Perhaps next time I’ll print them on some magnet paper so they are a little more sturdy and won’t have tabs to break off.

The Little Shepherdess

 

I don’t remember what we were doing, but these two little gals were getting in the way.  We asked who wanted to take them out in the pasture while we finished up and Natalie volunteered.   She was so cute running around with them and before I could get my camera out she was actually laying on the ground with Belle on top of her.

She kept them well occupied…….she’s turning into quite the little shepherdess.

Fruit

A little while ago I wrote about all the things we’ve planted here.  I remembered the veggies, but I forgot the fruit!

“She considereth a field, and buyeth it; with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard.”  Proverbs 31:16

Grapes:  I haven’t planted a whole vineyard, but I do have two grapevines planted.  Growing up we had a few grape vines on our property.  If my memory is correct (and it probably isn’t) we had two vines of white grapes and two of purple (or red?).  I couldn’t begin to tell you what variety they were, but it really didn’t matter because eating grapes fresh off the vine is a real treat no matter the variety.

Grapes were something I always wanted to plant and Greg listened to me talk of this quite often.  We began to research grape varieties for our region and we decided on muscadines.  They are native to our area and can be found growing in the wild.  We actually have some growing in our pasture, but they grow high in a pine tree and I can only reach a few.  Muscadine grapes love acidic soil (which we have) and they are disease resistant which is really good for our humid summers.

 

Citrus Fruits:  Our neighbor blessed us with several bags of grapefruit this year.  At first I wondered what on earth I would do with them all, because I didn’t remember liking grapefruit the one time I ate it many years ago.  These grapefruit were so delicious (being ripened on the tree) that I ended up having to ration them out, because the kids would have eaten them all the very first day we got them.  So when we were at Lowes and saw some grapefruit trees on sale for 50% off, we knew we had to get some.  We ended up getting some tangelos while we there as well.

Plum Trees:  Our local feed store sets out fruit trees at the first sign of spring.  It is quite tempting to load up our vehicle with some every time we go by there.  There were already two pear trees and two apple trees on the property when we moved here so we didn’t plan on buying any of those.  The pear trees are old and only produced three pears between the two trees last year.  This year I did some heavy pruning since they were covered in vines and looked like they hadn’t been pruned….ever.  Hopefully we will get some more pears this year.  The apple trees were young, and an escaped goat broke one while bending it over to eat the leaves on the top.  I’m not sure if we will ever get any apples off of that one lonely tree.  Peach trees are a lot of trouble and I had never eaten a kumquat so we ruled out those types of trees.  I would love to grow some lemons and limes, but I decided this wasn’t the year for those, so that left us with the plum trees.  Everyone in the family loves plums so this was a perfect fit for us.  The variety we are growing is Santa Rosa.  We hope to add some more plum trees of a different variety.

Ground Cherries:  Last year I planted ground cherries and only one plant survived, but that one plant made me want more.  I love the fact that I can plant seeds and get fruit the same year, unlike fruit trees where you have to wait awhile.  This year I started more from seed and they are doing quite well.  I have around 15 plants that made it (one of the kids mistook my ground cherries as weeds and we lost a few).

Blueberries:  To say that I love blueberries would be an understatement.  Almost every year for the last 7 or 8 years we have gone to a local farm to pick blueberries.  The first year we only picked a couple pounds.  Over the next few years we picked more each year so that we could freeze them and use them year round.  As our family continued to grow, we needed more berries and over the last three years we picked between 75 and 100 pounds each trip.  Yes, we really picked that many.

With our love (or is it my love?) for blueberries, it seemed fitting to plant some blueberry bushes.  I’m not sure if Greg was trying to send me a message that he didn’t want to go picking anymore or not, but he ended up buying 14 blueberry bushes!  Some were very young, and some were more mature and are already producing berries.  I don’t think I’ll be able to get 100 pounds of off them, so he still has some blueberry picking trips to make.

The Unknown Fruit:  There are two trees in my pasture that blossomed earlier in the spring and the blossoms led me to believe that they were mayhaws, but now I’m not so sure.  I read that they are ripe at the end of April into the middle of May.  Well, here we are in May and they are nowhere near being ripe.  So, I’ll have to do a little more research and find out what they are.

A Time To Be Born (Part 2)

Right in the midst of all our baby goats being born, our guineas began to hatch.  In 3 days we had 10 little guineas born.

Our incubator doesn’t have an automatic turner so we have to mark all our eggs with “x‘s” and “o’s”.  This makes it easier when turning the eggs because you can keep track of which ones have already been turned.

Two of the hatchlings were white and the rest were “normal” guinea colors.  The girls were hoping for some lavender colored guineas like Earl, but that didn’t happen this time.

This is only the second time we have used our incubator.  Before we had the incubator we always ordered our chicks from online hatcheries or from the feed store (they get their chicks from the hatcheries as well).  One big difference we have noticed between chicks (or keets in the case of guineas) hatched at home and ones that come from the hatchery, is that the ones out of our incubator rarely make a peep.  They are the most content chicks and keets ever.  They eat, drink, and snuggle with each other.  On the other hand, any chicks we’ve ever gotten from a hatchery seemed to make noise all the time. We are enjoying our quiet little keets!

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