Saturday, September 27, 2008

Girl Power


Today my 4-H Sheep group (two 9 year old girls at present) showed their grit. The theme of the day was Girl Power. It was pouring rain, and a bit cold to begin with. The girls toughed it out though in true farm girl fashion, complete with slickers and rainboots. The girls learned how to measure wood, hammer nails, mark wood for cutting, use of the drill, and a level, and basic safety issues. Together we built a 11ft by 6 ft sheep stall for my rams including an external hay feeder with slanted "bars" to help decrease hay wastage. Two hours later, we were done. All in all, we had fun, it came out well, they learned to use some basic tools for building, and they learned that girls can do what a guy can do if they work together. I am sure the sheep will be very happy with their new stall. High Fives all around girls!

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Harvest Time



Well, the time has come, summer ends. What little of it we had. This summer was the coldest, wettest summer I have ever seen in my lifetime. Not that I am complaining about it being cold, but I am complaining about the poor output from my garden. It was a poor year for gardening. As I talk to the many local farmers and gardeners, everyone has the same complaint. It is next to impossible to grow root vegetables in saturated ground, and near impossible to get the hay and grains in this year! It is very discouraging to the farmers and gardeners alike. I am discouraged as I looked forward to the crops to get me through the long winter. I had visions of feeding the baby fresh garden vegetables. With the ever increasing prices in the grocery stores, the last thing I want to do is buy something I can grow in the grocery store. Not to mention the gas prices!!! Goodness!
How will we survive it. So half my hay is in, I picked the last squash and pumpkins today. I need to pickle my beets this week. Plant my garlic soon too. It seems that the work never ends. Then the garden needs to be tilled, and prepared for winter. I am still drying herbs though. Guess I better get that done too. I am having a hard time washing wool too. I need a few good sunny days to dry the fleece after I wash it, and can only do one at a time because of the amount of work and space required. It has been poor weather for that too. I only sheared my rams this last week because they never stayed dry long enough to get them done this year. I have been trying to get to them since spring. What a shame though, lost half their wool as I needed to leave an inch on for fall, and they matted too. I will never let that happen again. Next spring they will be put in the barn for a week if needed so they can dry out!
Well, on the positive side, soon I will have fresh meat as butchering time is coming. Also will be able to make loads of applesauce, and put apples in the freezer and root cellar. The apples are juicy this year!
Along with this time of year is the fall fair. I entered Berenger in a baby contest. He placed third, two little girls beat him, it is awfully hard to beat the girls. He was very good about it. I guess he did not want to make the little girls look bad. What a gentleman! Bear is busy learning to roll around, attempting to crawl, trying new foods, and babbling. He will be a verbacious little bugger when he gets talking. He has been helping me can, he sits in his back pack carrier on his fussier days and squaks at me to hurry up. No wasting time with him around to keep me on my toes!
The nice thing about harvest time is that the leaves are changing color and fall is my favorite time of year! The bugs are dying or disappearing into the ground, and you can enjoy a nice long hike in the woods! I miss that! Bear can sit in the back pack now, so we will start hiking, time for him to learn to appreciate the fall too! I knitted him a hunter orange hat the other day, he is so cute in it! To all of you who hate winter, my advice to you is to get outside now, hike and enjoy the smells of fall, the sounds of the crisp fall leaves underfoot, and the sights of those beautiful fall colors! The best time of year is too short, seems it's even shorter than summertime. Enjoy it while you can!

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Plastic or Cloth?






One day, while I was pregnant, my environmentalist daughter and I were discussing the merits of using cloth versus plastic diapers (meaning pampers etc). We figured out that if the average baby wore diapers and then pull ups for two years - it would cost $20,000+ dollars. Yikes! When you think that this equals one year of university including books and meals, and housing... that's alot of dough! So if you use commercial diapers for two years you are basically flushing your child's first year of university tuition down the drain so to speak. That is staggering! I don't even want to think about the cost to the environment. Ever been to a landfill and actually seen the piles of diapers and the plastic bags they travel there in? If we had to personally bring our own garbage into the dump, I think we would be more aware of what we are doing to our poor earth. If you don't believe me, go to your local dump, take a good look around! It is pretty sad when you really think that that stuff will mostly still be there hidden under the soil for thousands of years. Don't believe me - what are all the items the archeologists are digging up. Someone's trash from 1200 bc. So what am I doing about this? Well, as much as I hate doing all the wash and playing with poopie diapers, I am using cloth diapers. I had a problem with all the ones you can buy in the stores (if you can find any), and the hand me down ones from god knows when just were not cutting it (leaking something awful), I decided to design my own. What's more is that the linings are made from recycled materials! Yup, cool eh? The best thing is that if you find plastic diaper covers (from gerber or other company) - they don't leak (unless you put them on wrong or the plastic pants are too loose. I love them. So I thought I would share them. Feel free to call me if you want me to make some for you!

Monday, September 1, 2008

Lonely for Lucy


It is with great saddness that my family announces the passing of Lucy. Lucy was our granny goat, of Angora breeding. She has lived with us for 7 years. Not only did she provide us with mohair fiber to keep us warm, but she also provided us with joy and laughter. Lucy had a great personality. Loads of it! Lucy came to us when we called her name, she had a unique bleeting noise that she greeted me with in the morning. Lucy smiled, really she smiled - we have the picture to prove it, especially after giving birth to Murphy. Lucy was quite the trooper then. She had lived on a farm where she was very neglected, and came to us so thin, that you could not tell she was pregnant. Actually she was 4 months pregnant at the time. I was very surprised when she popped out a baby one cold March morning. Lucy struggled to regain her weight, while nursing Murphy, but she slowly came around. Last winter was very hard on Lucy, and again she had trouble keeping weight on. Upon examination we discovered that she had no teeth, and nearly died during the snow storms of 2008. My daughter, Andrea, made it her mission to keep Lucy alive at least until spring so that we would be able to bury her. She "designed" a mash that succeeded in bringing Lucy around, and in fact she did very well with this mash. But as this summer has progressed, Lucy digressed. And so it is with great saddness that we decided that Lucy should be put down before it gets much colder. She was surrounded by her loving human family as she took her last nibbles of tender green grass, and an always appreciated scratch under the chin. Lucy will be missed. We loved you Lucy! Thank you for giving us Malachy and all your grandkids who will remind us of your smiles and sweet antics. Rest in peace old girl.