Whisper Wind Farm Comes to a Close

I have decided to bring this blog to a close. We have moved and started a new chapter in our life and are in a new place with new goals, wants and needs. All of that deserves its own space and its own blog. I am sad in many ways to see the end of Whisper Wind Farm. I spent 16 years of my life doing a lot of sweating, bleeding, crying, laughing, and living there. It is sad to be starting over after all those years of working so hard. It is sad to see the end of the place where I have raised my children. I don't do change very well, but in many ways I am excited. Since we are no longer at Whisper Wind Farm I feel like I can't write for Whisper Wind Farm. That is a chapter and story for someone else. I am going to leave this blog here and attach it to my new one. So our journey will be followed and recorded for all to see, but all of the old knowledge and ramblings will be here just like it always has been. So while I hope you enjoy and gain much from our past journey, I pray that you join us on our new journey at Willow Pond. Blessings to all, Kat

Sorry, I have been gone so long

I know, I know. I am sorry that I have been gone for so long. Life has just been crazy and we as a family have had some serious decision making to do. Our oldest daughter Petunia will be graduating high school this year. So, I have been with the other graduating moms planning graduation and all that entails. Petunia has decided that she will be going to nanny school like Patrice's daughter over at Rural Revolution. She loves children and babysitting has always brought her much joy. She is very excited. But first she will spend the summer with my sister in New England working to earn some money and experiencing life a little bit. But first she had to have her first car accident. Thank the good Lord above that she walked away with only a scar on her forehead from a tree branch that came through the window and nothing more. Trust me when I say, odds were in favor of her not walking away at all. She was most definitely surrounded by angels that night. My husband's pathfinder was totaled and we had to look for another car. That has taken up a few weeks of our time. Then the little ones schooling is taking up much more of our day as she is getting into more big girl things and it simply takes more time. We follow a Charlotte Mason curriculum and there is a lot of reading on both of our parts. We have decided that it is time to downsize our farm activities for two reasons. The first being that it is time for us to look for a new home and the second is that I simply need less physical stress so that I can finish healing my autoimmune disease as much as possible. So, we will definitely keep the chickens and the garden. But more than likely most of the rabbits and the goats will be going. At the most we will keep 3 goats and 3 rabbits. That will allow us to start taking up fencing and give me a break on the physical aspect of farming. It will give me a chance to do some healing and us a chance to save some money to help with a downpayment. We have not gotten much from our livestock over the past couple of years, and it just seems like we are wasting money feeding them when we are getting very little. I also don't know yet whether I will be able to eat dairy anymore, my little one doesn't like to drink much milk and is not a cheese fan, my oldest will be leaving the nest, my husband is not fond of milk and only drinks about 1 glass a month...so we just aren't sure whether it justifies keeping the goats for now. Just lots of changes going on and this blog will probably take more of a homeschooling and homekeeping path rather than the homesteading path. I suppose that is ok for now and we will just have to see what the future brings. Blessings, Kat

Still Working on the Book

Well, I am still working on our book. I know, I know...I have been working on it forever. However, I keep getting distracted. I did decide though to write some small e-books that are topic specific. I have two of those finished and outline done for two more. That is my goal this year finish the four e-books. Mainly for those I have chosen homesteading topics that can be used for anyone living in the country or in town. The book will be more reflections of our journey and things that we have learned along the way. Anyway, this is an interesting project that I have taken on and I just wish I had the discipline to sit down everyday and work on it. However, my big problem is that daily life gets the best of me and then there isn't much energy left for thinking. Oh well, I will eventually get it done. Hopefully, someone will find it interesting enough to actually read it. Blessings from the farm, Kat

March Farm Update

Well, it has been an interesting time lately. Things are going strong in the garden, at least the digging is. I am actually on schedule and don't feel rushed. The salad greens are just about ready to harvest and I thinned out the broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage. My peas are coming up, but don't seem to be coming up strong. I don't know, we will see. This is actually the first year that I got them in on time, so whatever I get will be a blessing. The weather has been bringing in some nasty storms, but at least those storms have brought the temps back into the normal range. Before the first storm we were pushing 80 degrees....in February. Definitely not normal. Now we are sticking in the 50s/60s range. Much more normal for this time of year. I have most of the other beds done and will be planting sunflowers within the next week or so. The pastures are doing well this year. We will be adding some bahia in some places and adding some cowpeas for variety. I am looking for some lespedeza, but am unable to find anything less than 50lb bags and I simply don't need that much. I am also planting sunflowers in the pastures this year. We had another litter of bunnies this past week and they are finally doing good. The mother was a first timer and had them spread all over the place. She waited until the day after she had them to pull any fur. Meanwhile I had to build a nest and use some dryer lint to line it with. I used the fur once she pulled it. Then she didn't realize that she needed to feed the little critters. So I have been having to hold her so that the kits can nurse. She now seems to have the hang of it and the 5 surviving kits (we lost two that were really really small) look fat and happy. I really think this is just a case of first time mom confusion. Her mother was an awesome mom, but did the same kind of thing the first time she kindled. From then on out though she was a great mother. Goats are getting closer to kidding and several of the girls are looking rather pudgy. We have all feet trimmed and cleaned the winter crud out of the barn. Now the rain is making it a soaking mess. Oh, well...what can you do. Well that is about it for now. I will update as I can and hopefully have more interesting posts in the future. As I said earlier, for some reason we can't access google at home on our computer. It really is strange and seems to have all the techies stumped for the moment. Blessings and happy spring, Kat

Computer Problems

I apologize for not blogging lately, but I am having some interesting computer issues. It appears as if I am blocked from using anything powered by google. No mail, no blog, no youtube and no google search engine use. I can use other search engines and have no problems. So I apologize if anyone thinks that I am ignoring them. I am not. I just have to find the time to spend at my mom's checking mail and updating. Bear with me while we try to get this sorted out. So far no one can figure out the problem and all anti-virus and malware comes back clean. It is a strange issue. Blessings, Kat

Back Pain

I live with pain on a daily basis and can usually muster the stubbornness to get through it and get what I need to get done. This is different. This is debilitating. This pain is crippling. I don't know what I have done or how it could have happened since I was taking a couple of easy days resting on the couch with the heating pad and doing some mending that needed to be done. I worked really hard getting everything outside taken care of before this storm we were supposed to have and never did. I was sore and my body was whooped. So, I did the basic chores and decided a couple of days on the couch doing some writing and mending wouldn't hurt. I was wrong. Yesterday afternoon I started to get excruciating pain in my lower back. I couldn't get comfortable and the heat from the heating pad just seemed to make it worse. By last night I could barely walk. If I attempt to stand up straight, my legs give way and I fall. This morning I can walk around the house only if I stay hunched over and hold onto something because my back can't hold me up. What has happened to me? And what am I gonna do? If I can just make it through today, then my husband is off the next two days and will be home. I hope I will be better by then, but after not being better this morning I don't have high hopes. I wish I knew what was going on and if I am not even slightly better tomorrow I am going to have him take me to the doctor. I doubt at this point that I could even drive because I have no strength in my back, which means moving my legs is not very easy. I am trying to figure out how I am going to get out to the barn to milk and feed. That is the one thing that I am kicking myself for right now. I have been putting off teaching my oldest how to milk and getting the girls used to her milking when I can't. So I am the only one who can milk and someway, somehow I am going to have to get out to that barn and do just that. She can feed, but only I can milk. So ladies, take this from my experience.....teach someone else in your family to milk and make sure the girls will allow them to do just that. I also needed to make cheese today and I made broth yesterday that needs to be canned today. I took some robaxin last night, hoping that would relax the muscles and help. It didn't. I also took a Lortab which would normally knock me out in a second since I rarely even take anything for a headache. It didn't even touch the pain level. The pain in my shoulder is gone though! I am trying to move around a little to keep from getting stove up and not being able to move at all. My legs are still giving way though. I am praying that the Lord gives me the strength to get through morning chores and that this is something simple that will heal with rest. To be honest, this is humbling and scary. I have always been such an independent, strong willed person. I have always managed to do what I need to do despite pain or injury. This is the first time in my life that I can't do that. No matter how much I want to or how determined I am, my body won't. Here is hoping that your day is better than mine is looking to be and that none of you have to go through this. Blessings from the farm, Kat

Writing Ads

As you can see by the previous post, I will be writing a few ads here and there. This will help to support my blogging efforts and add a little cash flow to the farm. I don't intend to have too many and they will all be listed under the advertisement category so as not to interfere with anyone searching for information under the other categories. I apologize if this annoys anyone. However, our little farm needs to earn money where it can. Blessings, Kat

I Love You, Daddy

I don't post much about my Daddy. He died on October 31, 1995. The pain and sadness are as tough to handle now as they were 15 years ago. So it is tough to write about him because it forces me to remember and when I remember the tears tend to flow. I can't help think about my Daddy though, so I thought I would write a post to tell you all about him. The thing that I miss the most are those great big bearhugs of his that always told me me he was so happy to see me and have me around. Those hugs always said I love you no matter what. Even those days when I was an awful teenager (and yes I was awful!). Daddy was never one of those men that regretted not having sons. He loved having daughters and taught us both to be as tough as we needed to be while we relished the fact that we could be girls. My Daddy was the generation that moved off the farm, looking for better pay and not so many early hours. In a way Daddy got that and in a way he lost a lot, and I think he knew that to some extent. You see my Daddy was a chemist and for most of his adult working life his only outdoor time was either taking care of the yard work that had to be done or the times during the year when he went back home to the farm. Daddy didn't like farming and he hated chickens. My grandparents had over 2000 chickens and it was his job to feed the chickens before school. He only had one pair of shoes and wasn't allowed to wear them in the chicken houses. So the chickens pecked his toes while he fed them. Even as a little girl I would ask him if we could get chickens ( I always wanted to farm). He would say the only chicken that we would have was the dead one on our plate. He also had to milk 8 jerseys after feeding the chickens. This was all before breakfast and before school. Daddy grew up working hard on the farm and seeing his Daddy working hard on the farm and struggling to make ends meet. So Daddy left the farm in a way that allowed him to earn more money, but he lost so much. As my grandparents aged it was up to Daddy to pay the taxes each year and it often required him to work two jobs to do that and maintain his family. Daddy never complained, but I think at times he realized what he lost. One thing that I learned from Daddy was his love of nature just for its existence and its beauty. Grandaddy loved the land because he could live off it and if he took care of it, then it would take care of him. Daddy loved the land just because it was there. I often remember when we were at the farm, Daddy and I would get up before daylight and head across the pastures and into the woods. Often our first goal was the old cemetary to watch the deer come out of the woods. Then we would make the trek up the hill to the old homestead, long gone. He knew right where it was though and remnants of the foundation were still there if you knew what you were looking for. We would be gone for a good couple of hours, walking and sitting. Watching and listening. Often there was a sparkle in Daddy's eyes that only existed when he was home on the farm. He would often talk about how he wanted to retire to the farm and have a herd of Hereford cows just so he could watch them in the pastures as he drank his morning coffee. He never got that chance, and sometimes that is what saddens me so much to think about. He worked so hard so that one day he could enjoy the farm like he wanted, without the milking and chickens pecking his toes and without the struggle of wondering how you were gonna keep it. I think that is one thing that I learned from Daddy's life. Enjoy what you have now, even if it is a struggle to do that because tomorrow is never guaranteed. Each morning as I sit on my milk crate, listening to the chickens running around the barn and the goats eating breakfast I think about Daddy. As the warm milk flows and I snuggle into the warm side of my goat, smelling the hay and fresh air I think about my Daddy. My husband and I struggle like my grandparents did, but I can't ever say that I will feel as if I missed out on something. I haven't lost anything by living this life and living the struggle that comes with it. Instead I have gained everything and for that I am so grateful to my Daddy. Daddy taught me a lot of things, more than I can mention in this one post. He was such an awesome father. I will never forget this one thing that he taught me without even meaning to do so. Maybe the struggle is worth it and the easy way out isn't always so easy. So, my husband and I struggle to make ends meet like so many generations of farmers before us. But, we abound in riches that money could never possibly buy. Thank you Daddy and I love you so much. Blessings from the farm, Kat

Thanks to all our Veterans

I just wanted to say thank you to all our Veteran's out there today, especially my husband. I thank you for your sacrifices and your service to the people of this country. I also want to thank the families of these wonderful men and women for their sacrifices as well. Being the family member left behind is truly a sacrifice that many don't think about. So.....have a great Veteran's Day and take it easy. My vet is sleeping. Blessings from the farm, Kat

Added a New Category

I have added a new category for my blog. Money saving ideas will now be published under the Tightwad Tips category. I thought this would be a better place to find these specific types of posts. Don't know why I didn't do it sooner, but oh well. I will try to go back through my posts from the past to add them to that category but it might take some time so please....patience is a virtue. I hope everyone enjoys the tips and can get some good ideas from them. Blessings, Kat

Random Photos

My daughter has really developed a love for photography. So I thought I would share some of her hard work. Enjoy!

This is our horse Whisper Wind. She was our first born here at the farm.

This is our sorry farm dog, Cujo.

This is BC. He was my dressage show horse and now seems to be a pasture ornament. I really miss riding like I used to.

Sunset on the Farm

The View from the front porch
Well, I guess that is about it for now. I need to get dinner in the oven. Blessings, Kat

Last of the Fair Updates

Well, this will be the last of the fair updates as the busy week is done and over for another year. Thursday and Friday nights we didn't compete in anything. We really needed to prepare for the big cake contest on Sunday and I was entering the casserole contest on Saturday. I also had dinner to fix for the church youth group on Sunday evening and had to take that to the church before heading to the fair. So Saturday, I entered my shepherd's pie in the casserole competition and guess what.......I won!!! My first blue ribbon at the fair. I was so shocked and surprised that tears came to my eyes. Really, I didn't expect to win anything this year. All of this was just for fun, but the win on Saturday made it a whole lot more fun. There were some really good casseroles there too. Well, then comes Sunday. My daughter and I started in the kitchen about 7am. Saturday we had baked the cakes themselves so Sunday we had the icings to work on. She was doing a coconut/lime buttercream icing which takes quite a bit of time and I was doing my fudge icing and my cake was filled with buttercream and cherry glaze. Petunia's cake was absolutely gorgeous. It truly could have come out of any professional bakery in town. After spending most of the day making the icing she then made candied limes to decorate it.Here is her cake:

Then there was my cake. I guess I simply did not cook my icing long enough. It went on the cake just fine, but in the heat of traveling in the car (even in a cooler) and then sitting on the table while the judges made their rounds, the icing began its slide off the sides of the cake. The cake is delicious, but doesn't look too great because fudge icing just was not ready to set up properly. Here is my pitiful cake:

So needless to say, I did not expect mine to even place much less win. I was almost ashamed to even claim it, but I did. Petunia's on the other hand I did expect to at least place after looking at the other youth entries. There really was only 1 other cake that looked as nice as hers. I expected that cake would win first if it tasted as nice as it looked. All of the others looked like my three year old had decorated them and some looked worse than that. Not only did her's look fabulous (appearance is 40% of the score), but I have tasted this cake before when she has made it and it is really really good (50% of score). However, she didn't even place. It was tough. She had handled the disappointment of not winning throughout the week, but this loss was tough. She knew her cake was fabulous and she had put so much time into it. This loss brought tears in the car. However, I am so proud of her. Once she got through the tears she determined that she was going to make the same cake until it won something even if she took years to do it. The loss made her more determined and more confident in what she had produced. It's a great lesson that will last her a lifetime. She has always sought her self verification from other people, but this was a turning point in which she verified her own abilities and didn't need someone else to tell her that her cake truly is a blue ribbon cake ( or at least a white). This one milestone made the whole week of effort and hard work worth it. So to me, it was definitely a blue ribbon week. Now, time to plan for next year!!!!Have a blessed day!

Pie Day at the Fair

Well, Wednesday night was Pie Day at the Fair. I entered two pies, a Mint Kentucky Derby Pie and a Pear Granola Pie. Neither of them won, but apparently the Kentucky Derby Pie was a hit with the other contestants because it disappeared within minutes of the winners announcements. I think that is what makes these competitions so much fun...sampling everyone's hard work and getting ideas for our own home baking. I should have had whipped cream on the pear pie, it would have been better. However, I was out of heavy cream and prefer that as much as possible is homemade, so refuse to use store bought whipped topping. Besides mine is better. Oh well, I have a year to come up with new pie ideas for next year. I am thinking of a grasshopper type pie (can you tell I like mint?!). I found a recipe for zucchini pie that might be interesting to experiment with. I was too chicken to try that for the fair, it really might be yucky. Then what would I have done. Anyway, I took a break last night (Mexican night) and will take another break tonight (Appetizer night). I have a great appetizer idea but really just don't have the energy. Besides, my daughter and I need to start getting our cakes together. Tonight we will get the fillings made for the layers. I am going to be doing the Casserole competition tomorrow along with working on our cakes. Mine is a Dark Fudge cake with Raspberry filling and my daughter is doing a Coconut Lime cake. She has to make the candied lime slices for the decorations and the filling tomorrow and I have to make my filling tomorrow. We will also bake the layers tomorrow also. That way we just have to put them together. I will probably put mine completely together along with decorations (raspberries and chocolate curls) tomorrow and then put it in the freezer. That way I will have more time to help her with hers on Sunday after church. This has been such a fun and exhausting week! Blessings from the farm, Kat

More Fair News

Well, last night my daughter and I entered 3 loaves of our bread in the Fleischmann's bread contest. Unfortunately, we did not win. But that is ok. Truly, the ones who did had phenomenal bread. The first place prize went to a young lady with some delicious bagels. I have never attempted bagels because they look complicated, so my hat is off to her. Second place went her mother who baked a delicious blueberry stuffed loaf, yummy. And third place to me was the most fantastic. The young man made....Pimento cheese and collard green bread. Sounds absolutely awful. I was hesitant to try some. However, it was absolutely fantastic. After the first bite I wanted to hog the whole loaf and take it home. Really folks this was GOOD bread. I never would have thought to put collards and pimento cheese into bread together. So we lost to some really phenomenal bread. Now, we have loads of bread at home since we baked 7 loaves yesterday so that we would have the best loaves possible to take with us. Tonight is pie night, so we will see how that goes. Blessings from the farm, Kat

It's Fair Week!

Well, here it is that time of year...Fair time. This is the first year that my oldest daughter and I are really heavily participating. We already have plans to do more next year. We missed the day of the home baking contests because we were out of town for a friend's birthday. It was a little disappointing to miss those, but there is always next year. My daughter entered the youth photography competition and won first place in the landscape division. Can you tell I am soooo proud of her. She has really been working hard this year on developing her photography skills. It is nice for her to see the payoff other than just Mama saying it is great. Anyway, tonight we have the Fleischmann's Yeast bread baking competition. There are two categories and both of us are entering both categories. Sure would be nice to win that 125.00 first place prize, but what is even nicer is that this is something that she and I can do together with a little friendly competition. Tomorrow is Pie Day at the Fair, then we have Taste of Mexico, Appetizers and Finger food, Casseroles, and finally on Sunday evening the Best Cake competition. My daughter makes one of the best Coconut Cakes I have ever tasted and that is what she is entering on cake day, then I am entering my famous fudge cake. Next year I plan on doing more of the sewing contests and will probably do some of the embroidery work this winter to have ready. As you can see we are pretty busy with the fair so there isn't much in the way of school going on this week. That is ok. It is the reason that we educate all year so that when we want to take time away then we can. Our 4-H group entered the scarecrow contest, but it didn't win. They worked really hard and were a little disappointed, but they had so much fun building and decorating their scarecrow that the disappointment didn't last long. Anyway, it is a fun week and even though it is busy and does require some work, it is a good time to take a break from the monotony of day to day life on the farm. Blessings, Kat

Progress on the Book

I posted at the beginning of the year that I have decided to write a book about our journey toward self-sufficiency and a more agrarian life. The book is coming along, pretty well. Somedays it is hard to get motivated or the time to write much. I was hoping to have at least the first draft done by this winter, but I don't think that will happen. It has been a busy summer and like I said sometimes hard to be able to sit down and work on it. I have several chapters done though. So maybe we are looking at spring to finish with at least the first draft. Blessings from the farm, Kat

Prayer from a 3 Year old

Our 3 year old loves pistachios. Today when she got her snack of pistachios, this is what she said..."God, Amen. Thank you for these nuts." I thought it was cute enough to share and I hope that it warmed our Lord's heart as much as it did mine. Blessings from the farm, Kat

I'm Back!

Sorry I have been away, but my modem broke down on the computer. Sooo....I had to wait for the repairman from the phone company to come and fix it. They did and now I am back. Blessings, Kat

The Neighbor Story...as promised!

See I didn't forget that I promised to fill everyone in on the neighbor story. Just took me awhile and time to kill while I wait to add more weight to my cheese. Ok, the story really started 9 years ago when we moved here. We quickly found out that she kept dogs...aggressive dogs that we suspect her son fights. How do we know that the dogs were aggressive? Well, on several occasions those dogs that roamed free cornered me in our front yard a good football field away from her backyard. I had two literally chase me on the tractor as I bush-hogged the big pasture and they continued the chase all the way to the house. I tried to be nice, I tried to be considerate. I didn't want to be the neighbor that suddenly moves in and immediately starts shooting dogs. I also took into consideration that she had probably gotten used to this property being vacant. No one had lived here full time for 2 years. The owner would come and spend a couple of weekends a months to mow and weedeat and general yard cleanup kind of stuff, but she lived elsewhere. So, there would have been no issue really with the dogs with no one living here. At each incident with the dogs, I would go and knock on her door and politely ask her to please keep the dogs in her yard. I explained that I had a small child and I was afraid to take her outside to play because of the many times the dogs had come after us in the yard. Now, if she answered the door she would deny that the dogs were hers. If her son answered the door he would claim them and say that he would keep them tied up. Which of course he did not. So then we decided to get some chickens and some rabbits. We built a nice tall fence around the old chicken coop. We even thought we were doing good by doubling the chicken wire around the bottom to give it some extra strength. We got a nice little starter flock of cochins and they were gorgeous. Their eggs were small, but we used them anyway. We had the chickens a month before their pit bull ripped through the fencing and dug under the door of the old coop in the wee hours of the morning. By the time we got out there he had just killed the last of the flock and still had her in his mouth. We took pictures and disposed of the dog as he growled at us. I took the pictures to her and again asked her to please keep the dogs in her yard. She denied the dog was hers. We knew she was lying because we had heard her call the dogs and seen them running to her yard when she called them. We went through 3 flocks of chickens and our very first rabbits because of her dogs. Oh, they change dogs like they change underwear. I guess when one gets killed fighting, they get another one that is a little meaner and a little more aggressive than the previous one. I have never once asked for compensation for the livestock lost or the property damage. I just wanted her to keep the dogs away from me and mine. Anyway, that is our background. About a month ago we noticed she was building something that backs up right against our fence. Now, our fence sits 20 feet inside our property line. So what she is building is on our land...not hers. We decide that we needed to refence that corner anyway and now was the time to do it. As we were gathering surveys and trying to find the survey pins so that we didn't have to call a surveyor out to find them, the goats decided to go for an adventure.....right through said fence and into her backyard. I the little over a year that we had them they had never even gone to that corner of the pasture, but I guess us spending so much time climbing through the underbrush over there made them a bit curious. We didn't not see them go through the fence. However, they were there long enough to strip the bottom couple of branches on her plum trees. Mind you I said the bottom couple of branches on fully mature plum trees. Also, mind you that plum season is past....way past. They were also there long enough for the sheriff's deputy to arrive and take pictures of them. However, by the time he got to my house they were right back where they belonged. Anyway, the deputy told us they were over there and what they had done. He also showed us the pictures so that we knew they were our goats and not another neighbor's goats. Since that day a few weeks ago, I have been trying to catch her at home to apologize for the goats and also to talk to her about her building. I finally caught her yesterday afternoon. I apologized for what the goats did. She immediately started screaming at me and telling me that she should have had me arrested because she didn't get any plums off her trees this year and it was all because of my goats. My blood began to boil, but I remained calm. Somebody had to because she sure wasn't. I tried to explain among her shouts that the plum trees were already starting to leaf back out on those branches and if she didn't get any plums on those trees at all she had bigger problems with them than my goats. I tried to tell her that everyone is having pollination issues around here because of the lack of honeybees this year. She just kept yelling, so I added fuel to the fire. I told her I didn't want to argue but if she really wanted to go there then let's talk about the livestock I have lost, the property damage I have sustained, and the physical threats I have sustained at the hands of her dogs. She again denied they were her dogs. So then I opened the big guns with...."Well, the second thing I wanted to talk to you about was this building that you are building on my land. It looks to me like you are trying to steal a portion of my property." Oh she really hit the roof then. She ranted and raved. I showed her the survey that is on record at the tax assessors office. She said it was a fake. It clearly showed the property line and my fence line. I told her to go down there and get her own copy. She said a lot of ugly things and of course told me that she was gonna call right then and tell the sheriff to come arrest me for her plum trees. I told her to tell the sheriff that I would be home the rest of the day and feel free to come on over. Of course, he didn't. If you could be arrested for your livestock getting out there wouldn't be a farmer left in the whole state. I have never known a livestock owner that didn't have something get out at some time or another. So I left with her still screaming that that was her property and my fence was on her property and I better move it. I think the judge will go with the survey and the survey pins. I came home and took my video camera down to the corner and videoed the damage to her trees, her building project and her trash burn pile (illegal in this county to burn household trash)just for good measure. I also videoed the garbage that has been thrown over my fence or gotten there from the trash pile that hasn't been burned off yet, since the trash pile is right next to the fence too. I called my attorney today and he will be sending a cease and desist on the building through the sheriff's office so that she can't continue her project. The surveyor comes out next week to locate the pins so that we can mark them since she removed the stakes that were there marking the pins. Then we will probably take her to court to try to get our attorney fees and survey costs back. We will of course be refencing and putting the fence closer to the property line. Aaack! Why do people feel that they need to be so ugly and hateful? If she had been civil and acted human, then I would have even paid her the 20 dollars worth of plums she "might" have lost due to the goats nibbling at her trees. Oh, and the last thing is that somebody has been snooping around here in the middle of the night. I think it is her son, but I can't prove it. Things in my big barn and the shed have been moved around and those buildings are just far enough away that I would be able to hear anything and neither would the dogs who are inside at night. So, anyway that is the neighbor story. I really hate drama and now it seems like I am right in the middle of a soap opera! Oh well, what can you do? Blessings all, I am heading to be now that the cheese is on the drying rack!

Wow, I have been so busy!

Things have been hopping around here! The garden is taking up so much time with all of the weeds growing like mad and the bugs trying to conquer civilization. Then with spring kidding out of the way I now have 3 goats in milk. That is a gallon and a half a day of milk that has to have something done with it. So, I have been making cheese like crazy. I will do a cheese post to let you know how far I have come in the cheesemaking process in such a short period of time. Of course, there is also the rest of the harvest that we are canning and freezing also. Last week was peach week and I processed 40 lbs of peaches. It took me three days to get them all put up. I have a few left that are just right for peach cobbler tomorrow. Out of 40 lbs. of peach I put up 30 quarts of peaches, 16 pints of peach jelly, 8 pints of peach syrup, and 1 gallon of peach juice. Now the figs are starting to come in and I processed my first 5 pints of fig preserves of the year. This year the trees are absolutely loaded so I might be sick of figs in another couple of weeks. I have been going through my clothes and getting rid of things that I can no longer wear, is not worth wearing, and won't wear. I re-purpose as much as I can. Like stained shirts become family cloth or cleaning cloths. Things in good condition but doesn't fit goes to charity. Then there are my jeans.....I don't wear jeans anymore. However, I figured they still had a purpose and many were not fit to go to charity. I have been holding onto these jeans (taking up 2 dresser drawers) for years thinking I would find something to do with them. Well I did. I am turning them into skirts. On some I have cut off the legs just leaving the waist. Then I sewed fabric that I had gathered onto the yoke that was left. I really cute skirt with an easy fit jean waist. Then some other I took the legs apart and cut them off. The I sewed a triangle strip of fabric in between each of the leg fabric pieces. I then hemmed it and they make really cute skirts too. So now I have a closet of new clothes which cost me pennies if that. Some of the fabric for the skirts came from the scrap bag and some came from other clothes that I cut up and repurposed. Fun project to work on. Then there is the business with my neighbor. Basically, she is being a horses behind and it looks like we might wind up in court. Anyway, I will do a post explaining the whole mess. Blessings for the night, more tomorrow I hope!