Navigate this Blog

Today's Quote


“If people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny.” Thomas Jefferson

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Livestock and Cold Weather

The biggest chill factor for livestock when the weather turns cold believe it or not isn't the temperature, it is the wind. God gave animals the design (fur coats, feathers, down etc.) to survive the cold. However, the problem with livestock is that because we have them confined to certain areas they can no longer rely on the instincts that God gave them to seek shelter from the wind. A cold blowing wind will chill an animal, just as it does us. So what should we do for our animals when the temperature plummets and those winter winds start blowing. The simply answer is to give them some sort of shelter to get out of the wind. For our horses they have their stalls. If they aren't locked in their individual stalls you will often find all three of them in the same stall. All of our animals have some sort of shelter from the wind, even though the barns themselves are cold. The goats will huddle together in their one big stall and the rabbits have walls around them so that they can huddle down in their hay and no wind blows directly on them. Another good thing for livestock is to feed them. Hay is a great source of heat to feed. The very digestion of the hay causes their metabolic temperature to rise thus providing them heat from the inside. High caloric grains can also help, like corn. However, be careful about introducing something like corn too quickly as doing so causes problems in and of itself. During the cold winter nights I always put my livestock to bed with piles of hay to munch on during the night if they wish. This helps to keep them warm. Remember the biggest killer is wind because wind chills, so give them shelter from the wind and the rest will take care of itself. If you have big drafty opening in your barn some well placed tarps will help keep the wind off of the animals. One end of our horse barn is open and all the horse stalls are on the other end. So I tarp the side of the stalls that faces the openings. This doesn't close up the doorway so that it can't be used, but it provides a windbreak so that the side that the horses are on stays draft free. Really, it is as simple as that. Stop the wind, stop the chill. Blessings, Kat

Monday, October 29, 2012

Fabric Scraps to Keep the House Warm

I save all my fabric scraps and clothes that are too worn out and too stained to give to someone else. So that often means that I have a large stash of fabric that is useable for something. One thing that I have discovered to keeping this old house slightly warm in the winter is to cover the windows. But drapes are expensive and I want something a little prettier than just an old blanket over the window. Although I have plenty of windows covered by old blankets, I still want something that looks nicer. If I have to suffer the dark of having the windows covered it might as well be by something nice. So, back to all those scraps and old clothes...use them to make window coverings for the winter. Just cut them into squares and in the same general idea of making a quilt sew them together and then sew them to a backing. The backing can be the old blanket that you used to use or you can use all those worn out blue jeans and make your own backing. The stitching doesn't have to be as nice as it would with a normal quilt, but these window blankets will look infinitely more charming than the old thrift store blanket. You can place grommets in the top and then use rope, twine, or shower curtain rings to hang them. Add to the rustic charm by hanging them from a "rod" made from a thin sturdy branch. They can then be opened during the day on the south side of the house and closed at night to keep in the warmth and block the chill coming through the windows. If you have some really bad leaky windows then you can put bubble wrap on the windows themselves to add an extra layer of insulation. Of course, don't forget to go around and caulk around those windows. We have to do this every single winter because this house moves so much. We even have to sometimes re-caulk what was caulked the year before because the movement of the house has widened the crack that was filled. If you have a house that moves don't forget to check and caulk around baseboards as well. With ours being on a crawlspace, the cold air loves to blow under those baseboards that are no longer tight because the floor has moved. I will do a picture tutorial sometime later about the window quilts, but really it isn't all that hard. If I can manage it then so can you. Blessings, Kat

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Whoa, Where did that Chill Come From?!

Wow, that was fast. Just day before yesterday I was wondering why we were still in the 80s at the end of October. Then, I woke up yesterday to much cooler weather. The sun was hiding all day long, the wind was blowing and we didn't get above 70 for the day. Big drop from the day before. We aren't supposed to hit 70 today either. The goats didn't quite seem to know what to do with themselves yesterday and nobody really has winter coats since we have stayed so warm for so long. They stuck close all day yesterday and by 4 pm were ready to go in the barn. I left the horses stalls open so that they could get in the barn last night and I noticed the pigs had dug their nighttime nests deeper. Yes, pigs make nests to sleep in at night and I can guarantee you my pigs build better nests than the chickens do. I just wish my little sow would build her nest inside her house, but she seems determined to stay outside. Oh, well....you can lead a horse to water or a pig to shelter.... We had a fire going all day yesterday as it was downright chilly in the house without it. It was nice to have and we were glad we spent the other day getting firewood up. Guess I need to get on that a little more if old man winter is really rearing his ugly head. The garden is coming along quite well and I am hoping that it will keep it up. The broccoli and cauliflower plants are still a little small and I am hoping that they will get big enough to stand up to the first frost which is scheduled around Thanksgiving. Today it looks like I will be covering all the windows in the house to keep out the cold air. It is one of those chores that I put off until the last minute, simply because I like light and covering the windows definitely cuts down on that. Some of the windows we only cover with bubble wrap so we do still get in some light, but still the house is much darker in the winter. I suppose since this house has moved so much this past year that I have a lot of caulking to do also. Need to check my supply of caulk and will probably have to get more. I go through about 3 tubes every winter, if I am lucky. This year might be more as we have had some serious movement. Oh! And guess what?! I am so excited. I got my studio cleaned up yesterday. It isn't perfect by any means and I still have a few stack of things to go through, but I can get in there to work. I even set up a painting that I had started working on several years ago to start on again. Maybe I can get it finished. It really helped to have cleaned out the space that I did. I have several more boxes of things to clean out and I have to get the little ones things set up in there for her to work with while I am out there working. I even starting organizing my sewing things so I can start sewing again. I was so excited to have that done. I just love crossing off projects off my list of things to do. Today I am going to try to finish mulching the garden. It looks like I will be expanding the garden next year even more than I had planned. I have had family that is getting hard hit in these economic times and they might need my help. I have always planned for that event, but not really sure I am ready for it. Well, it is getting to be that time of the day so I had better get moving. Blessings from the farm, Kat

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Music Junkie

Ok, I admit it. I am a music junkie. Have been all my life. Some of my fondest memories are sitting in my mom's bed watching her get her makeup on and do her hair at her dressing table while Bette, Cher, Liza or the fabulous Barbara belted out of the radio. My children laugh at me because I have such a huge affinity for all kinds of music. I can go from Moonlight Sonata to Janis Joplin to the Ramones and then flop over to Memory from Cats all in the space of a few minutes and never miss a beat. I love to have music playing while I work and believe you me I can belt out every tune in full vocals. I sing well enough to make a hound dog howl, but I live in the country so I am only scaring the critters. While I do have a wide variety of interest in music of all kinds, here are a few of my all time favorites. Ok that is enough for now. You probably get the picture. I have a really wide interest depending on my mood. So does music speak to the very depths of your soul? Have a great day!

Thursday, October 25, 2012

The past few days

Sometimes life just turns really stressful and seems to be more than you can handle. My mother has not been well for some time now. Lots of issues, but it is getting to the point that we are wondering if it might not be better if she comes to live with us. Of course, that is a tough one to think about because we still don't know where we are with the farm issues. In other words, do we move her in with us and then all of us wind up homeless. That would not be good. However, I can't stop my life to sit with her at her home all day long either. So right now that is all up in the air. And then we have so many things to be done around here and there just seems like there is simply not enough time. So many half done projects are beginning to drive me a little nuts. I don't do half done very well. I am a list person and like to be able to cross something off a list before moving on to something else. It is just a little OCD type quirk that I have. And then there is the stuff, stuff everywhere. This house never had enough storage and it seems like things breed in the middle of the night around here and just when I have gotten things cleaned out and a home for most things then there seems to be a population explosion. Ok, another OCD quirk I have is stuff everywhere. If I have to move stuff to clean then I start going insane. Right now I have to move stuff and my studio never seems to get organized before it is a disaster. All I get to do in there is organize and clean up. Then I get distracted and can't enjoying my sewing space or painting space or anything else out there before it has to be cleaned up again because all of us have run out there looking for something and things are strewn hither thither and yon. So my stress level is through the roof right now and I am beginning to start that spinning around can't figure out what to do now kind of dance. I have been stressing about firewood lately, but yesterday we got a good portion of firewood cut and stacked. We still need a whole lot more but at least we have a good start vs. the week supply that we had. It does feel better to have that done. Oh and one more thing to add to the stress level is that the baby goats got into the garden and ate all my red cabbage, all my broccoli and a whole bunch of other stuff. One more time and I will put them in the freezer instantly. They have no respect for fences, even electric ones. You can see them brace for the pain as they run through the wires. With everything going on with my mom, I really need to take a heavy look at ways to make my life less complicated. So that is my goal for the next few weeks. I am going to start by getting rid of some furniture. I have too much. I have things that no one every sits on or at or in or anything. Hope you all are having a good week. I will try to post an update in a few days, but right now just can't get up the gumption to post everyday. My mental and emotional exhaustion level is through the roof. Blessings, Kat

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Not Sure I am Ready for This

Oh, I am really really not sure I am ready for this. I am not sure that I posted about this, but a few months ago we had to have Cujo, our Rhodesian Ridgeback, put to sleep. He had a very aggressive type of cancer and went downhill pretty fast. It has been rough around here without him. Cujo was the all around farm dog. He protected both livestock and property viciously. Old age did slow him down a bit and that is why we went looking for Dakota. He was a great dog. Now poor Dakota has duty all to herself. It used to be that she would take night duty and get to sleep while Cujo kept an eye out during the day. She would periodically do a check during the day, but for the most part it was her downtime. Now, she is on duty 24/7. I can tell that sometimes she is just plain tired, especially after she worked hard on a particular night. We have had a fox that has been desperately trying to figure out how to get past her at night, but it stays just far enough away and outside the fence. Soooooo.....we know it is time to get another dog. The problem is that it is almost impossible to bring an adult dog onto the farm because of the livestock. Sooooo...that means a puppy and all the things that a puppy entails. Introduction into the pack, learning its place in the pack, obedience training, chewing, housebreaking, chewing, obedience training....well you get the picture. Puppies are almost a full time job in and of themselves. But we really need another dog. Not just for 4 legged predator control, but two legged as well. Pyrs are great at guarding against 4 legged, but they are just too people friendly to make good property guards. We do have another dog, but well she is about as useless as tits on a boar hog. We really knew that it was time to start looking when a couple weeks ago someone drove up to the house, got out of their car, didn't think anyone was home and got back in their car and drove off without either dog giving a single bark. Now fortunately, I found out later that this was someone that I knew. However, this was not someone that the dogs knew and they should have barked. In his day, Cujo would have barked and held them in their car until I got there. I didn't realize how much I depended on him until this person showed up. When he was younger, Cujo never let a stranger out of their car until I told him it was ok and then if he was unsure of the person he would stay by my side the entire time they were here. He did slow down quite a bit on meeting strangers at their car door as he aged, but would at least still bark most of the time. We would like another Rhodi, but not sure if we are going to be able to do that. Breeders are hard to find and pet quality pups are even harder to find. We need a working farm dog not a show dog. So we will see what we can come up with. I just know I am not ready for a new puppy on the farm. Blessings, Kat

Saturday, October 20, 2012

The Dilemma of Christmas

A few years ago this holiday became a dilemma for me and our family. Steeped in pagan tradition and worship, I began to wonder if truly this was something that a Christian should participate in. Understanding that it really wasn't about celebrating the birth of Christ (which the early church did not do, nor are we commanded to do)and that it was a pagan holiday and all the trimmings and trappings had everything to do with ancient pagan religions put me in a tailspin. There is a passage in the old testament, can't think of it exactly right now, in which one of the old kings was losing revenue during one of the old testament holy days because his subjects were going to other cities during that time. So he erected some statues and called the problem solved by telling them that they could now celebrate those holy days in his kingdom and worship God with those statues. Well, God destroyed those statues saying that you cannot worship Him with false images. Then there is the 2nd commandment: Ex. 20:4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Seems pretty clear about graven images. But then: Ex. 20:5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me. I have never bowed down nor served any of the "images" of Christmas. Back to the people of that kingdom....they were worshiping those images as if they were God. And then we all know the story of the golden calf. Again, the Israelites were worshiping the calf as if it were God. So, our family started weaning ourselves off of Christmas. It was not easy and still, the struggle and dilemma remained year after year. Many of my decorations did not come out and for the past two years we have not had a tree. I should have felt right about our decision, but for some reason I have fretted over it every year. This year it has weighed heavily on me all year long. I want to do the right thing and I want to bring my children up in the way that they should go. However, I am afraid that making life so rigid and taking away what they see as joyful and fun will only drive them in the opposite direction. I saw this so many times in college from girls who came from very strict homes. They went wild and completely rejected everything their parents tried to teach. Jesus Christ taught with compassion and He expected the same from His disciples. Maybe there is something there for me to learn. Maybe He did so because teaching with rigidity would only drive His sheep further from Him rather than bring them to hear His message. In other words, if I am so busy being rigid and stuck in what I think needs to be done and denying what my children enjoy and love (not talking generalities here, so don't go there) then maybe I am actually doing the opposite of what I want. Like the Old Testament covenants and the 5 million laws of Leviticus, rigidity is impossible to keep. Maybe God understood that and intentionally set up the Israelites for failure because if they kept the law perfectly they would have had no need for Jesus Christ. At least that is my thinking. Then I had a conversation with a friend of mine who had been going through the same thing. She had a talk with her Dad. Without going into the whole conversation he questioned her by asking if by having a Christmas tree was she worshiping that tree? Was she expecting great fertility by having the tree in her home? Or did she just simply enjoy the beauty of such a decoration? He went on to ask the same question about other pagan symbols of the holiday and her answer was always no. So his point was that if one didn't think of those things as spiritual or holy, then were they anything more than any other decoration in her home. Hmmmm...Ex. 20:5 comes to mind. Maybe he is right. I have little sculptures and all sorts of such things all over my home and I suppose that I could think of any one of them in a holy/religious manner if I so chose, but I don't because only Jesus Christ is Holy to me. It is His gift that I hold dear and it has always been His gift that was the most precious and most talked about in our home at Christmas. If I want to rid my family of everything that at one time was considered holy by some group or another then I would need to cut down every oak tree on my farm because they were once holy to the Druids. Now that would be ridiculous. I don't regard them as holy, I regard them as beautiful but there is simply no spiritual nor religious significance to them. I can take that same power from the symbols and rituals of Christmas and any other pagan holiday as well. I have to say thanks to my friend's Dad. He is far wiser than he knows. Christmas will come back into our home. I am glad because it was always my favorite holiday simply because of the joy that abounds at that time of year and the memories associated with people now long gone from my life. My girls will be happy that they can once again trudge through the woods to pick out the perfect tree with their Dad like I did with mine. Special memories will be made and I don't think that God has anything against that. The truth of the matter is that whether or not it truly was the time of Christ's birth or whether or not it was to be celebrated or not, it is the gift that He gave that we should celebrate, remember, and be thankful for. If that gift isn't enough to have joy about and focus on then I don't know what is. For me and mine we will be joyful and thankful. Blessings, Kat

Friday, October 19, 2012

Be Careful When Tired

Yesterday I was exhausted. I woke up at 1 am and couldn't go back to sleep. So by 9 am I had all my housework done, my farm chores done and a few other little things. I started making some yogurt in the crockpot. All was going well, until it came time to put my starter in and my milk was a little cooler than it needed to be. So I turned the crockpot back on did a couple things in the kitchen, checked the temp on the milk, added the starter and covered my crockpot with towels for insulation. I forgot one very important thing.......turn off the crockpot. Last night about 8:00, I started to smell something like toast burning. I went in the kitchen and check the stove and oven...nope nothing on. About half and hour later, the smell was getting stronger and I was thinking that it was about time to pour up the yogurt. That was when it hit me....did I ever turn off the crockpot. Well, into the kitchen I run and sure enough I didn't. Needless to say every plastic piece on the crockpot was melted, the milk had burned completely up (that was probably the burnt toast smell), my towels covering the crockpot were covered in a brown stain. Don't know if they singed or if it was just the smoke from the burning milk. Needless to say my crockpot is ruined and I will never do something while so tired again that I can't think straight. So be careful ladies when you are really tired. I got a real good reminder last night of how easily it could have been to burn down our house. Oh, well....I needed a new crockpot anyway. Blessings, Kat

Apology for the State of the Last Post

I apologize the the last post being hard to read. I had everything in a list that would make it easier to read, however blogger won't publish it that way. I have tried everything I know to try and even in the preview shows up properly, but then publishes like this. Hope you can muddle through and I will continue to try to fix it. Sorry, Kat

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Farming and Calories

When you are farming you can throw all those calorie recommendations out the window. Farming/Homesteading drastically changes your need for food and the kinds of food that you need. When I started to try to find out why I was so tired all the time, I began to realize that my lifestyle had changed and so had my need for dense calories. I work hard and in turn burn a lot of calories. In fact I found a great little calorie calculator online here. I like this one because it has activities that I actually do like farming/feeding livestock. Yes that is listed. So I put in the things that I normally do in a day or similar activities with similar motions and here is what it looked like for me: Activity Calories burned Showering 89 Walk / run play with kids 166 Raking lawn 166 Walking 3 mph 183 Mopping 189 Washing dishes 189 Standing 200 Cooking 222 Housework 244 Soccer casual 294 Construction/Remodeling 488 Sleeping 544 Farming/Feeding livestock 599 Garden 683 Total Calories Burned 4,256 So on an average day without any extra this or that I burn around 4000 or so calories a day. Well, when I ate a piece of toast for breakfast, a big meal for dinner and typically just some leftover vegetables for supper you can see that I really didn't consume many calories. Certainly not enough to maintain a normal day, much less a really busy hard labor day. At the time the average calorie intake for me was something like: Bread, white, toasting 180 Milk, goat 336 Rabbit, domestic, roasted 335 Beans, green gram, mature, cooked/boiled w/salt 212 Mashed Potatoes, prep f/recipe w/whole milk & butter 237 Eggs, hard bld, lrg 155 Banana, fresh, extra lrg, 9" or longer 135 Cheese, goat, soft 80 Tea, iced, sweet, w/o lemon, ready to drink, bottle 400 Coffee, French, w/sug, inst pwd 188 Rough estimate on calorie intake- 2258 So as you can see that was a full 2000 calories less than what I was burning. Not only that but if you notice a large portion, 588 calories were in my tea and coffee. Hmmm, no wonder I never had much energy and was burned up by noon. I made some changes and I have more energy and feel like doing the work I have to do. Without going through the whole list my current avg. calorie intake is roughly 2756 calories. However, the majority of my calories come from healthy animal fats and protein along with nut fats like coconut oil (I take 1 teaspoon per day) or peanuts/pistachios or pecans. I eat very few carbs, typically only one piece of bread a day and limit my fruit intake as well. I feel better and I have more energy to get through the day. Some days I do crash after lunch and I attribute this to my ongoing thyroid issues, adrenal fatigue and chronic fatigue. However, it doesn't happen every day and typically only happens when I have had a very busy active week. So, I know you are thinking...what about all that fat. I don't do anything lowfat. First, I need the calories from the fat and I need the lasting energy from the fat. Second, since I gave up lowfat and vegetable oils my LDL cholesterol went down along with my triglycerides. My husband's did also and was actually told at his last checkup that his was borderline too low. I don't think there is such a thing, but that is what the doctor said. So our bodies are healthier because we are eating healthier fats and I have more energy because I am putting in more fuel of the right kind to sustain my work level. Another benefit to all of this is that I no longer have nearly as many migraines as I used to when my calorie intake was too low. I know that is what it was because the result was immediate with no other changes. So my whole point in all of this rambling is, if you are having a hard time keeping up with the work load and seem extremely fatigued from the homesteading/farming life then maybe you really need to take a hard look at your diet. You simply may no be getting enough calories and especially the right kind to sustain the level of activity that you do each day. This life is much different than sitting at a desk and you need to eat to work. Blessings, Kat

Personal Responsibility

The talk about homeowner's insurance with a friend of mine has had me thinking the past few days. We were talking about how dangerous it is to not have it simply because society as a whole is sue happy. Well, this got me to thinking about personal responsibility. Do we as a society no longer accept personal responsibility? When I was growing up I heard many times, "Nobody owes you a living". Meaning it was my personal responsibility to make my living however I was going to make it. It was no one else's responsibility to do this. Yet, look at statistics today how many people are in the welfare system. Why? Because they were never taught or they don't accept their own personal responsibility. I have two children and as such those two children are my personal responsibility. If I go somewhere with my children then it is my personal responsibility to see to their safety. No one else's. If my children get hurt somewhere it is an accident or lack of my personal responsibility, not someone else's fault. I think it is ridiculous that we as a society feel we can't do without homeowner's insurance simply because no one accepts their own personal responsibility for anything anymore. And that not only applies to homeowners but business owners as well. When I had my brick and mortar art gallery, I had to show my proof of insurance with a 1,000,000 dollar liability just to get my business license. This was for an art gallery and that was liability in case someone got hurt. Really?! So I had to pay out the nose for insurance just in case it was raining and someone slipped coming into the building, or in case someone tripped coming up the steps into the building. So people have such a lack of personal responsibility that even if they can't pick up their own feet correctly it is somehow my fault. Or that somehow, I am supposed to be able to stop the rain and dry off the sidewalk because some ding dong isn't going to think that the water might make thing slick despite it being roughed concrete. Now, I can understand if their is a spill with water on the floor inside a building that isn't cleaned up or some such obvious negligence. However, if I take my child to someone's house to play and they fall off the trampoline it is my responsibility because I am the one who allowed my child up there in the first place. The only time it would be the homeowner's responsibility would be if I left the child in their care with specific instructions on not to let them on the trampoline. Period. End of Story. One thing that brought this up was being told a story of a woman who took her child to a birthday pool party. Child could not swim and mom left child unattended in the pool so that she could get out and take pictures. Child slipped through inter-tube and drowned. Homeowner was the one to spot child floating in pool and pulled child from the pool, homeowner's husband (a doctor) performed CPR. Child's mother was right there on the side of the pool taking pictures of the party and never once took the personal responsibility for her child that she knew could not swim! Yet, she sued the homeowner's who took far more responsibility in trying to rescue and revive the child for everything they have including the husband's medical license. Seriously! Where is the mother's sense of personal responsibility? Her child, her responsibility. Don't get me wrong, I can't imagine the grief and the need to blame someone. But what happened to facing harsh realities and accepting our own failures as our responsibility. I am living in the wrong generation because I just don't understand how my actions and my decisions are someone else's responsibility. If I choose not to watch my children then it is my responsibility if they get hurt. If I choose to not work, then it is my own fault and responsibility to go hungry. If I chose to not study in college then it was my fault and responsibility to flunk out. No one else is responsible for me after I am grown and out from under my parents roof. Wake up world...Ugghhh, I simply don't understand how society can go from accepting responsibility for themselves to blaming everything on everyone else in just a couple generations. Nobody owes you a living or anything else. Ok....rant over with. Blessings, Kat

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Homeowners Insurance

I have been reading stories all over the net about people being dropped by their homeowner's insurance company. Recently, I had heard about someone in the town near me being dropped because she had 5 chickens. She was allowed 4. Now a friend of mine tells me that she is being dropped for a claim from 2005. Folks, that is 7 years old! None of these people have ever been late on a payment that I know of and neither have the people online either. One couple recently was dropped for reducing the number of their cattle herd. Now I have thought long and hard about this and it makes no sense. Why are the insurance companies dropping people for such ludicrous reasons? They are losing money in doing so. Some of these people that have been dropped have never filed a claim. And why have insurance if filing a claim will get you dropped? Once you have been dropped then if you can find another company to take you on you will pay higher premiums. Is this some type of scam within the industry as a whole....company x agrees to drop so many clients and company y agrees to drop so many and then they trade clients and get higher premiums? Hmmmm...maybe I am on to something there. I know quite a number of people who aren't buying into the insurance scam anymore, but if you have a mortgage you have no choice. And like one friend said we live in such a litigious society now that it is downright dangerous to not have insurance and then allow anyone onto your property. If they get a splinter they can sue you for everything you have and many will do exactly that. So what is a body to do? I know people who pay tremendous amounts of money to insurance companies and when they do have a legitimate claim to file for won't do so because they are afraid they will be dropped. Wow, I need in on the homeowner's insurance racket because that is exactly what it is a racket that is perfectly legal and they get away with it. And nobody says or does anything. What can we do without leaving ourselves wide open for some nutjob to take everything we have worked hard for because they came over for a dinner party, took their shoes off and stepped on a sticker in the front lawn! Am I the only one who thinks this is absolutely ridiculous and am I the only one who fears that as the economy crumbles frivolous lawsuits will grow in number as people are desperate for money....any money....even from a friend. It is a crazy world we live in and I tell you some remote jungle somewhere looks better and better all the time. Blessings, Kat

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Garden Tip of the Day

I am always advising folks just starting out in the garden to start small. Then I realized that I don't give much advise to size of the garden after that. So here it is. Each season and each year you grow more comfortable with gardening and you learn from the things, good and bad, that happened there. Each season expand, just a little bit. Even if it is only one bed or two. It seems as if I am always creating new beds and coming up with new ideas and ways to utilize all that space that I have fenced in. This season we added three more small beds. One I am transplanting fig trees in and plan to keep them trimmed to hedge height. The other one is growing cabbages, radishes and ginger right now, and the other will be growing more cabbages in a few days. We also planted some banana trees in another area of our garden that wasn't much good for anything else. In the spring I have ideas on more expansion. I like being able to expand the garden and the areas can lie dormant or allow other areas to lie dormant or give me more space to grow crops, especially for livestock. It allows me to better rotate crops also. So by expanding little by little you really don't get overwhelmed with things because it isn't one huge project you have just dumped into an already very busy project. Anyway, hope that helps. Blessings, Kat

Monday, October 15, 2012

End of the Fair

Well, yesterday was the last day of the fair. We didn't go and compete in anything. Frankly, I was just plum worn out. After dinner (lunch to most folks) I laid down to take a nap and slept for 2 and a half hours. It will be fun to work on other fair projects for next year. The fair wasn't very busy this year and I believe attendance was down quite a bit. That definitely is a sign of the times and the economic hardship hitting many families. I can remember that even poor families would spend an entire week's paycheck going to the fair. Now, those families that used to do so don't feel like they can do without that paycheck. I heard several of the food vendors complaining about slow sales. I would like to say thanks to the Charlie's owner for letting me refill my cup all week at the discounted price. He was really nice about letting me bring my cup back for refills all week. We don't eat much at the fair, but there are certain things that you simply must have at least once during fair week...funnel cakes, cotton candy, caramel apples. So we did partake of some fair food. We all had a good time seeing the shows and looking at the exhibits. The livestock was nice to see also. Now, it is time to rest up and then start working on projects to enter next year. I think we will work on my little ones sewing skills and start her on a sampler that maybe she can enter next year. I think I might do a cross stitch something or other this winter that I might be able to enter. The oldest will continue to work on her photography for next year. Fair week is a lot of fun and continues to provide fun and incentive all year long. Next year we might let the little one enter some of the livestock competitions. Probably the rabbits. We will just have to see. Blessings, Kat

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Garden Tip of the Day-Prepare for Spring

Spring is such a huge time and loaded with work. Sometimes it is overwhelming just to get the garden ready. Take the time now to do as much as you can so that in the spring, there is less to do to get the beds ready. Add compost, mulch pathways heavily, mulch beds not in use, make fence repairs, put trellises in place for next season, etc. If you can do it now then do so and then you will save yourself some headache next spring. Blessings, Kat

Fair and Farm

Well, this week at the fair has been fun. I haven't won any of the cooking contests, but have had a great time participating. The children have had loads of fun and the little one is plum worn out. They have seen all the shows at least twice. Next year we hope that maybe the little one can show a rabbit. We will see. I also found out yesterday that they have a goat costume parade after the dairy goat competition. Now which one of those neurotic little buggers could I get to wear a costume! I have a year to work on that. Actually, that probably won't happen as I don't like to expose my goats to outside goats. I keep a closed herd for a reason...disease control. But the cow costume parade was so cute that it is tempting to see how cute little one would be in costume leading her goat also in costume. We have been mostly consumed with the fair, but have managed some work in the garden. I had been neglecting to pick peppers lately ( mainly because I am sick of peppers) and there were some monsters out there. Today we are having cheese and bacon stuffed peppers for lunch and tomorrow I will stuff them with something else and serve with a side of salad. I might use up some of my sausage that I seem to have an excess of since I made it a little too spice. Sausage stuffed peppers with ranch dip....hmmm might be good. Or a queso dip...ooohhhh the possibilities. Anyway, the fair is almost over thank goodness. It is a week load of fun, but exhausting and we are glad to see it gone for another week. We will do one more cooking contest tomorrow and then be finished. Meanwhile in the garden we are mulching, weeding and adding compost to beds that aren't in winter production. The winter crop is coming along nicely and looks like it will be well established by the time frost gets here (late November). I do have a few things to re-plant thanks to the fire ants. One thing that I have learned is that if fire ants move into your nice garden beds while seeds are germinating then you will lose that germination. I don't know if they eat the seeds or what, but nothing will grow there. I killed ants yesterday so should be good to go today to replant. Fire ants have been terribly this year and it seems like it has been non stop killing the beds. I hate having to do this since it involves some pretty potent chemicals, but I have yet to find a natural remedy to fire ants. Grits don't work, boiling hot water doesn't work, vinegar doesn't work, neem doesn't work and they laugh at diatomaceous earth. If you don't kill them then they just move the nest down a little bit away from whatever annoys them. After this summer and the battle with fire ants in the gardens I now have scars from their bits on my arms and ankles. I can't tell you how many times I have been pulling weeds and pulled up a handful of fire ants. And it is deadly to let a pile of weeds sit overnight without taking to the compost, because that pile will have a brand new nest in it the next morning. The scars on my arms tell you how I know this. So needless to say I have been waging war all summer with the ants. So we are busy playing catch up with the garden and have everything that is not in production put to bed for the winter and ready to gear back up in February. We have added several new areas to the garden so next year it will be bigger. Hopefully, we will be here to get the benefit of all this hard work. We are still looking for suitable property since we don't know how long our situation here will last. Sometimes it seems like there is a never ending to do list that keeps us from doing what needs doing most. Now the freezer is going to have to be replaced. I was hoping to wait until spring to do that, but it doesn't look like that will happen. The door fell off of it yesterday. We got it back on, but it is just barely there. So we are looking for a used freezer and if we can't find one in the next week then we will have to break down and buy a new one. Everything is still frozen and we are trying to keep from opening the door until that point. Oh well, I think we paid 30.00 for it and we have had it for about 5 years, so we got our moneys worth out of it. Things are moving along pretty routinely these days...working on fence, looking for a freezer, working on fence, gardening, working on fence, deep bedding the animals for winter, working on fence....you get the picture. Just typical life on the farm. Well, I had better get to it. Blessings, Kat

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Easy Homemade Firestarters

Well, since that familiar chill is in the air in the evenings it has pushed me to do something that I have been putting off all summer...make new firestarters. I know, I know...you can just wad up a bunch of newspaper throw in some sticks and hope it starts. However, if you want something guaranteed to start the first time then either fatlighter or a firestarter is in order. These little handy dandy firestarters are great to make and the really great thing is that they are easily transportable. So here is your step by step how to. Materials Dryer lint paraffin wax egg carton In a pot melt some paraffin wax. Depending on how many starters you plan to make. Start with a quarter of a bar and then go from there. Please keep the temp low, paraffin is extremely flammable and if melted over high heat is prone to catch fire. That is good once in the fireplace, but not while it is on your stove. Place dryer lint in each egg hole in the egg carton. Make sure to really stuff it in there and I always twist a little at the top so that it sticks up. This helps to light it. Pour melted paraffin over the dryer lint. Let cool, take out of the egg carton and store. I keep a little bucket by the fireplace for these. See I told you this was easy. You can make a whole passel of these little babies in no time at all especially if you use several egg cartons. I keep my yucky egg cartons that are a bit worn out and don't really need to hold eggs anymore. Using the firestarters. Place a small amount of paper, then kindling in fireplace or stove (wood only please). Then place a firestarter on top of the kindling. Light paper or firestarter or both. As the paraffin melts it will coat the kindling and then catch fire. Dryer lint is highly flammable and will produce a hot burn. This will catch the kindling and keep it burning for it to truly catch and be hot enough to start the wood. You can use just the firestarter, but I find that they can fall through the kindling before it is properly caught, so the paper helps to hold it where it needs to be. Also, I am a creature of habit I suppose. I do know that the firestarters keep one from having to add more paper because the paper burned up way before the kindling really had a chance to get going. Nothing more frustrating than trying to start that early morning fire and the kindling won't catch fast enough. With the firestarters it will catch. Enjoy!

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Big Day for the Little One

Yesterday was a big day for the little one at the fair. They had three contests throughout the day for the kids. She was in the wee ones group for all three (6 and under). The first contest was a pumpkin decorating contest. Many kids had been practicing at home and with parents had diligently planned out what they were going to do. Our strategy was gathering the craft supplies that the little one wanted to take. No planning, no "you make this". So it took her a little while to figure out what she wanted to do and watching her thinking process was really cute. The little ones are so cute to watch anyway. They have 45 minutes to decorate. Some kids had all their pieces cut out and all they had to do was attach them to the pumpkin. Others had all their pieces and had been coached and shown by mom how to do it at home and then struggled to execute in the competition. And then there were the ones who really were getting into their own thing. We called Pootie's pumpkin the party pumpkin because it had feathers and cheap gaudy earrings, loads of paint, beads and even a boa. She won third place. It was great to see her excitement and great knowing that the win was all hers. Oh, parents are not allowed to help in any way while in the competition. The next competition for her was the Crazy Creations. They are given a bag of materials and allowed to make whatever they come up with. The older kids really came up with some neat ideas. They were given straws, pipe cleaners, a coat hanger, some spools, tin foil, etc. Katie made a sort of mobile with the coat hanger and then a wand with some of the straws and such. She won second place. Again all on her own. The funny thing while watching her work was when she started singing. Apparently singing is a great thing to stimulate creativity. Then onto contest number 3, the cupcake decorating contest. Again, it was obvious that some of the little ones were following the designs that mom taught them. I gave Katie two big tubes of icing and a large variety of candy. While I was trying to give her some ideas she promptly told me that she knew what to do. So I hushed and then just sat back and watched as she did her own thing. She won third place again. I thought her Andes Mint/Hershey Kisses cupcake looked really yummy...well that is until she topped it with a fruit roll-up. She had fun and really felt proud of herself yesterday. She should. She did well being put on the spot all three times and coming up with ideas all uniquely her own. That is what makes watching these little ones in competition so much fun...watching the thought process and the concentration. All in all it was another fun fair day and we are taking the day off today. Mama can only take so much! Blessings, Kat

Monday, October 8, 2012

Homestead Burnout

Since I already have talked about the fair, I will update on a friend that I ran into. They started homesteading about the same time that we did, maybe a year or so later. I was a little shocked at what I learned when catching up on what we have been doing. When they started they jumped in with both feet, large flock of chickens, large herd of goats, beef cattle, planted a pecan orchard, etc. etc. All done in a big way and all done within the first year of buying their land. Their goal was to be able to produce and sell off the farm. Well, to make a long story short trying to get it all going all at the same time...they burned out. It wasn't fun, it was too much. And they were right. It was too much too soon and they couldn't keep up with what needed doing for trying to keep up with what needed doing (you folks who do this understand that wonky sentence). I have said this time and again and will say it again....go slow, take your time to get one thing under your belt before you jump in with something else. I hate hearing of this family and the many others that go so fast and then burn out so quickly. You simply can't live this life all at once especially if you have never done it before. Trying to conquer so many learning curves at one time is overwhelming. Get one thing under your belt and in some semblance of control before you start another. It may take longer, but then the process is fun (most of the time) and doable. Meanwhile if you are trying to do too much all at the same time it is much easier to throw in the towel and go back to the grocery store. Rome wasn't built in a day and neither will the homestead be, especially if you are the only Roman doing most of the building. And face it folks, if one Roman is out making a living to pay for the building materials then we are the only little builder on site with only the occasional day laborer to be had. So take it slow, build slowly, conquer those obstacles and then move on. You will be much happier and Rome will last much longer. I was saddened to hear of my friends burnout. Now they have 40 acres that is just sitting there. Blessings, Kat

It's Fair Time Again

Well, the fair has started and yesterday was our first full day of contests. I won a first, second and third for some of my artwork entered. The little one won a second place for her granola bars. They didn't look very pretty, but I guess they tasted pretty good. She got an honorable mention for her collage. The oldest didn't enter anything because she got disgusted when the printer messed up her photos. However, she had fun. I entered some bread in the home baking contest and then another loaf in the special bread contest later in the afternoon. I didn't win either, but that's ok. However, for the special bread contest I don't think that the one who did win should have. The second place person had a much better, much more unique bread. For that matter so did the third place person. First place had pretzel bites that frankly were quite tough and hard to chew. The cheese sauce that she had to dip them in wasn't that great either. It tasted like it was processed cheese. I was a bit disappointed at the results. There were some great breads. The fun part about the cooking contests is going around and tasting what everyone had after the judging. Who needs to eat fair food when you are nibbling from the contests all afternoon long. You also get a chance to get some great recipes! We had fun walking around the barns. Yesterday was the dairy cow competitions and let me tell you there were some nice cows there. The best of the day is the costume contest where the young competitors and their cows dress up in costumes. I couldn't believe how tolerant some of those young heifers were of their costumes. One was dressed like a tractor while her young handler was dressed as a scarecrow. The pigs were coming in yesterday for today's competitions which I am anxious to see. Of course, unloading pigs and getting them in their pens was quite noisy. My oldest's friend who was with us is a city kid and she didn't know what the noise was. We were several barns over from the pig barn and I told her it was the pigs coming in. She didn't know they were so loud. I told her you would need earplugs if we were actually in the pig barn. Rabbits were there and I was a little disappointed that there were so few breeds represented. All in all it seems like there were very few at the fair. The midway was even quite sparsely populated throughout the afternoon. Usually the weekends are the worst for being crowded. There also didn't seem to be as many entries for the contests. The bread contest last year had over 50 entries and this year only 18. Hmmmmm....sign of the times? Probably. The fair is expensive or can be. We get competitors tickets and so can come an go all week as we please. We tend not to eat or drink at the fair. And only on one day do the kids get to do rides. There are loads of things to do without paying for rides and games. We see the shows, watch the competitions, and look at the other attractions. So we tend not to spend too much money other than for our initial competitors tickets. However, I have known families that spend hundreds of dollars. I did notice also that prices went up this year for just about everything. Last year pony rides were 2 dollars and this year they were 5. That may have hurt the fair more than helping it make more revenue. We are guilty of doing some junk food during the fair. We will get a funnel cake which was 5.00 this year and today the kids can share some cotton candy which I noticed yesterday was 4.00. That is a little much I think. Maybe I will win one of the cooking contests this week and make our money back. Oh well, if not we have had some fun. Next year the little one will be ready to enter more contests and she is having a great time seeing her ribbons displayed next to her work. So it will be a busy week as we get things cooked and prepared and off to the contests we go. Blessings, Kat

Saturday, October 6, 2012

How Does it Get This Dirty?!!!

Really, how does the refrigerator get so dirty? We put clean things in, we don't do anything but take stuff out and put stuff in. If I thaw meat I do so in a pan, not on the shelf. So how does the refrigerator get so dirty? It is a little ridiculous and I am just amazed at the filth that I wipe out of there on a weekly basis. It's like little pigs live in there. We rotate stuff in and out so nothing in there that is growing stuff. Just dirt on the walls, the shelves and certainly down at the bottom . Where does it all come from? Amazed....and disgusted! Blessings, Kat

Friday, October 5, 2012

Rabbit Colony Addition

We have had several rabbits that we were growing out and thinking of starting another colony with them. However, I don't know with all of the projects that we have going on if we are going to get to building another colony before winter gets here. So since the original colony started with 6 adults we decided to add the girls to the existing colony. We started with the oldest the other day. It can be tricky adding a new adult to an existing colony. Does are very territorial and they can kill intruders (new additions). We certainly don't want anything bad to happen to our little replacement so we placed a cage in the colony and in that cage she went. All the rabbits came up to check out the bunny in the cage. She has been there two days and it looks like all is well so far. We will see when we let her out today. We will have to keep a close eye on things, but fortunately no one is nesting right now so there shouldn't be any serious aggression. Once she is out and safe we will put another doe in the cage. We have several juveniles that need to be removed and placed in grow out cages but with these bunnies taking up grow out cages we didn't have anywhere to put them. Hopefully, the additions go well and we will be back up to 6 adults. We are beginning our deep bedding of the colony, goat barn, and chicken coop to get us through the winter. We added another window yesterday in the colony since it seemed to be so dark in there all the time. It makes a tremendous difference and lets in so much more light. I really think that will help the buns. We discovered yesterday that we seem to have mites in the colony so have treated everyone for them. That is the one drawback in the colony is that instead of one getting something they all get it. Mites can come in on hay and since we have been adding more hay for the bedding it is just something we have to deal with. It is easily remedied though except for the having to catch every rabbit to treat them. They will have to be treated again in 14 days to fully kill the life cycle of the mites. Just another day on the farm taking care of critters. Blessings, Kat

Thursday, October 4, 2012

The Acorns are Falling! The Acorns are Falling!

I love it when the acorns are falling and so do the goats. The run around from oak tree to oak tree snarfing up the little nuts off the ground. If they feel that there are not enough on the ground then they are hopping around on their hind legs trying to get more off the tree. Of course, the really smart ones stand around and wait for the ones doing the hopping to knock them off the tree...then they eat them off the ground. We have mostly red oak varieties which have acorns that are high in tannins. This is a good thing for raising goats...not so much of a good thing if you want to use the acorns yourself. Tannins have shown themselves to be a natural de-wormer (Auburn university studies). So the higher the tannin level the better they are for the goats. I will gather some of the acorns dry them and store them and then periodically feed them through the winter. They can be dried in a low oven (200 degrees) for a couple of hours and then stored in something that seals well with DE. They can also be gathered, dumped in ziplock bags and stored in the freezer, then thawed out and fed through the winter. If not put in the freezer though they must be dried first as acorns have a high moisture content and will mold. Mold is deadly so we don't want that. Humans can use acorns also. White acorns have very little tannin in them and some can even be eaten without leaching the tannins. They are actually a very good nut. Red varieties take some work to get to the edible stage. The tannins must be leached out. This can be done by putting the acorns into a pot of water and bringing to a boil then changing the water and repeating the process. Do this over and over again until the water is clear. Or they can be soaked in a bucket, changing the water 3-4 times a day for 3 or so days. Then they can be dried and stored. You can grind the acorns and use them in place of corn meal. They are gluten free so a good addition to a gluten free diet. They are very high in fat though and pretty low in protein. So get out there and find out what acorns you have. The goats sure love them. Blessings, Kat

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Raising up the Strong Willed Child

My oldest is growing up. She is 14 years old now. My where has the time gone. It seems like just yesterday that we were bringing her home from the hospital. Each stage of her young life has brought a new stage of parenting and a unique set of challenges. I remember when she was little that I didn't think that I would survive even just those young years. My daughter has always been strong willed (that is putting it nicely). I like Dr. James Dobson's description of the strong willed child on the back of his book, "The New Strong Willed Child". He says: "They come into the world smoking a cigar and yelling about the temperature in the delivery room. As toddlers, their greatest delights include painting the carpet with Mom's makeup and trying to flush the family cat down the toilet. As older children and teenagers, they are irritable, defiant, and seemingly bent on challenging all forms of authority...." At the time that I bought that book, it seemed like he knew Petunia personally. I still have the throw pillow and area rug that she decided to paint with fingernail polish. I still have the table that she decorated with the black sharpie marker and no one will forget her artwork on the floor of her Kindergarten classroom that I made her scrub up in front of the whole class. A strong willed child....absolutely. It seemed like she came into this world saying "Make my day". There was a lot of hair pulling in those early days and I am sure there are a few gray hairs that she has put there as she has gotten older. We have had some challenges and I expect that we will have more as she continues to grow and mature. A strong willed child cannot be controlled and dominated. They cannot be forced to think or believe or behave in a certain manner. Trying to do so will only make them dig their heels in harder and believe me they can dig in their heels. Strong willed children are shaped in much the same way that the potter shapes the clay on the wheel. It is a delicate touch and manipulation of the clay that forms the piece of art, while a heavy hand will only make it collapse into a pile of nothing. The thing that I have found and that my parents found (Yes, she is a mini me)is that sometimes as the strong willed child grows the parent must let them fall while they are still under the protection and guidance of the parents. Since strong willed children challenge everything they are prone to getting themselves in not so good situations. These are places where the parent can guide, pick up the pieces, and teach life lessons. Boy, have we done some picking up the pieces and teaching life lessons in this house. While I could go on and on about the challenges of raising one of these little anarchists, what I really want to say is this...they are amazing to watch grow and bloom into adulthood. It seems, like the phoenix, that they must crash and burn at least once in order to rise. I crashed and burned, Petunia has had some crashing and burning and now she is blossoming into a wonderful young woman. She has a strong mind of what she wants out of life and the kind of life that she wants to lead. She has determination and drive that truly I never thought that I would see when she was younger. She has developed and is developing self discipline and her ability to think for herself and not let everyone else think for her will serve her well in life. Don't give up hope on us strong willed children. We are the movers and shakers, the ones who take life head on as a challenge. We are the ones who step outside the box and question the norm. We are the ones that do hard things. I would almost bet you that our founding fathers were strong willed children and that their parents gained lots of gray hairs at their expense. We don't always do the best thing and we tend to make a lot of mistakes on that road of life, but once we have learned from those mistakes then our convictions are solid. We do not waver from what we feel is right. We are black and white people trying to live in a gray world and while establishing those black/white paradigms we sometimes fall off a cliff. The thing is that we eagerly climb right back up and start again. I know...I have fallen off many cliffs in my 41 years. I am proud of Petunia and the young woman that she is growing into. I will gladly accept those gray hairs and sleepless nights that have come and will surely come again as she has many challenges left ahead of her. I pray every night that God will give me the wisdom to guide her and teach her so that she will be able to handle her own need to be strong willed. There will come a day that I will have to let her go out into the world and I pray that I have given her the guidance and faith in Jesus Christ to stand against the onslaught of that world. The one consolation I have is that she is strong willed and doesn't always just go along with the flow. I know....a double edged sword. I can't always be there to protect her....but Jesus Christ can. But for right now, we are still molding and shaping with a delicate hand. It is a challenge and a blessing as well. Blessings and prayers for all who raise strong willed children, Kat PS..If you haven't read it and are dealing with a strong willed child I highly recommend The New Strong Willed Child by Dr. James Dobson. If nothing else you won't feel so alone in your challenges! It was a book that brought laughter and understanding during a time when I felt like I had nothing but confusion and tears. Blessings.

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Swimming in Milk

Yep, you read that right and it is a good problem to have. We have so much milk coming in right now and I simply can't keep up with the cheese making, yogurt making, ice cream making etc. I made cheese and ice cream yesterday. Today I am making cheese. I say this is a good problem to have because I have read a couple of reports the past couple of days that milk prices are going to double. Which means that every product made from milk will rise sky high. I guess I might be making butter today too. The good news is that most of the girl's have been bred. All of them over the past week. If they all caught that means babies in February...yippeee!!! However, I have one small problem, if they are all due within the same week. I only have two kidding stalls! Oh well, I will figure it out and I suppose I could set up a temporary or two now that the goat barn has been revised. Now, just to get the last one bred for this fall and get blood tests done to confirm pregnancy. Will hold off breeding Strawberry's babies until this spring when they will be big enough. Food costs are definitely rising and I don't see how some folks are making it. Praying for all who are struggling. Blessings, Kat

Monday, October 1, 2012

Goat barn has been revised

I love it! Yesterday morning my husband and I did some work in the goat barn to make it less of a horse barn and more of a goat barn. We had built two kidding stalls in the back of the two horse stalls, but the middle wall in between the horse stalls was a pain in the neck. So we took that out and made one big stall. It is so much better now. The barn feels much less crowded and the goats have plenty of room to spread out. Also no getting slammed into the middle wall anymore by goats anxious for food. I will have to try and take pictures of it today. We should be able to keep this large area deep bedded this winter and keep the aisle way clean. Hopefully it will make spring cleaning the barn much easier. Lilly still likes her pallet in the aisle way for laying on at night though. I think she feels superior to the others. So far, Dolly Sugar and Coffee have been bred. Lilly is in heat now it looks like so maybe we will get her bred. It will be nice if everyone catches. I still don't know what I am going to do with Tea. She is such a nice girl, but has never caught. I think I am going to try treating her for cystic ovaries and lute her to try and force ovulation and see if we can get her caught. If everyone gets bred within the next couple of weeks then I can get bloodwork done and find out who is and who isn't pregnant. We are going to be butchering Strawberry this week. Another sad day for me as she has turned out to be such a sweet girl and so good on the milk stand. The problem is the mastitis she caught from her mother that has damaged her milk supply. She always freshens with a ton of congestion, can't nurse her own babies (bottle babies), and produces less and less milk each freshening. I really had high hopes for her. Last year when she freshened we just thought it was a congested udder. We did get it loose but it took two weeks of massaging and working that udder 4 times a day. We had no idea it could be mastitis as she was a first freshener. We have since learned that some forms of mastitis can be passed from mother to daughter in the milk. Once we got it cleared she produced 1/2 a gallon a day. This year when she freshened again a congested hard udder that nothing would come out of. So we had to steal milk from someone else to feed her babies. Thank goodness I keep colostrum in the freezer for just such emergencies. Again 2 weeks of massaging that udder, and talking to the vet and treating for mastitis. We got her cleared, but there is obvious damage to the udder and lots of scar tissue. This year she has only produced a pint a day. If she was feeding babies that wouldn't be enough to feed them. We bottle raised her babies using milk from another doe. Since it is important for us to keep our goals in mind, which is a healthy herd that provides milk and meat for us without being high maintenance she has to go. There is no sense in passing her on to someone else. She isn't a producer, she has issues that can be passed on. So while it has already been a hard week emotionally, it will get even harder. It has rained pretty hard all night long and of course since I am still upset about the boys I found myself waking up all night wondering if they were ok and if they had shelter. I definitely know now that I could never be in the conventional livestock business. I don't have the stomach for it. While I do view livestock as livestock, they are more than just dollar signs in the pasture for me. I have had people tell me that will change, but I don't think it ever will for me. Anyway, since it is going to be raining all day today I will be in the kitchen and of course getting the house cleaned up from the weekend. Loads of things to do so I had better get doing. Blessings, Kat