Spring Peeper Farm

Tundra the Great!

2012-02-10T21:44:00.003-04:00

Sometimes you wonder if your emergency plan would actually work. Yes, you hope that you never have to use it, but at the same time you'd like to test it.

Well we got to test out our farm EMO yesterday.

A friend of ours came to visit and he brought his dog.....not a smart move. When they say that Great Pyrns hate all dogs that they weren't raised with...well they're right.

I wasn't there but Dave said it was amazing to see. Tundra was growling at the fencing to get to the dog to "save" her goats. Stockings would go up to the fence to investigate and Tundra would put herself between her and the fence. Dave had never seen Tundra growl.

Dave warned our friend to put his dog in his vehicle. So I guess our guardian really works. So maybe that's what's happened to our chickens. She was protecting her "girls".

Speaking of the girls. Febe is due Sunday and Cindi Lou Tuesday. Dave finished the new stall to move the dog into and we're going to use the dog's old pen for the kids. I'm going to attempt the CAE prevention program. That's if I can catch Febe in the act of giving birth. Like I've said before she's sneaky when it comes to giving birth. She's quiet and fast. Which is good if you're not trying to get to them before they start nursing. But.....

Have a Blessed Evening

Lisa

Giveaway!

2012-02-07T17:35:00.002-04:00

I've just become a follower of a new blog (well to me anyway) this lady is giving away a fantabulous necklace. Go see quick!!!!

Giveaway

Jerky.

2012-02-06T19:58:00.005-04:00

Dave made beef jerky. It was pretty good. It also didn't last very long.

Before...

After....

But this has gotten Dave on the thinking band wagon.. Not always a good thing. Since we are getting a new buck this year, if we can't sell Tomi he wants to make him into goat jerky!!

..... I DON'T THINK SO!.....

He is not going to be made into goat jerky! Well for one thing he'd be full of buck taint. ANNNDDD.... he's our friend! You don't make friends into goat jerky. He's even thinking of making Febe into goat jerky when the time comes. No. It's wrong.

Well we kinda got a bit of snow last Monday. At 1pm there was nothing. When they called me at 10am from the school to say they were coming home early, I asked the teacher, "Why? It's beautiful out." The sun was shining, not a breeze to be felt anywhere. She said they were expecting a storm. I'm like...where?

But sure enough within 30 minutes the clouds started to show up and little snow flakes began. Nothing serious but it began.... We left around noon to go grocery shopping and the roads were clear. When we left the store the snow was going over the bumper of the car. It was so fast. It was beautiful, but scary. Within a few hours there was a couple of feet of snow....and this is what my magnolia tree looked like...

Mind you...after it cleared up around 4pm I had two excited kids. The day before we had picked up our International student at the airport. He came from Columbia. Imagine the shock he had. But he and J. had fun in the snow.

Well I have to sign off and go make my Vesey seeds order. Yeah, yeah...I know. I said that I wouldn't be planting this year. Guess what.....I lied.

Have a Blessed Evening.

Lisa

The Great Escape!

2012-01-31T20:34:00.003-04:00

Dave is so proud of his mink proof chicken coop. What he didn't realize that if a mink can't get in, then nothing can get out! Including his claustrophobic wife!

J. has had it drilled in his head, lock the chicken door behind you...lock the chicken door behind you! Well he locked the chicken door behind him alright and I was in it!! I never noticed he had locked the door until it was time for me to go inside. By then it was too late.

He was in the house...all the windows are closed of course...it's WINTER! So I begin to slowly freak out. Just slowly. I look at the chickens and they're just staring at me. I know they're thinking feed me or we'll feed on you!

So I begin to yell...and yell...and yell some more...then I start to scream and screech!! I'm feeling my voice going hoarse.

The panic starts to set in fast now. Nobody is hearing me. Come on people...it's a clear winter's night. No wind, nothing. My voice should carry all the way to Manitoba for Pete's Sake! But nobody heard me.

So I start to bang on the door, and bang and bang! Nothing. The door is solid.

So I try to bust the door down with my foot. It looks so easy in the movies! You'd think it would be even easier with a screen door. Ah....no. It's not easier, the screen stretches!

Dear hubby builds things to last. You'd think he built it for a bear...not a few chickens and minks or a wounduptighterthanaspring wife!. Criminy!

By this time I AM HYSTERICAL!!! It's been 30+ minutes.

Finally Dave realizes I've been outside for longer than necessary and comes to my rescue.

I'm not proud to admit it, but I really am hysterical and crying by now. But after going inside I finally calmed down. J. felt so bad. But it wasn't his fault. For once...he listened!

Have a Blessed Evening.

Lisa

I need your imagination quick!!!

2012-01-23T13:39:00.000-04:00

We're getting a new buck and I need a name for him, but the word Lady has to be in it. Dave suggested Lady Killer, but that's almost too common.

So I need you guys out there in blogger land to use your imagination and find me a name.

Remember...it has to contain the word Lady.

Thanks

It's Official!!!!!!!

2012-01-22T10:47:00.004-04:00

I HATE WINTER!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh my, I never thought I'd say that. I love winter, but this year there is just something about lugging buckets and buckets of water to the barn that just fills me with dread. Ugh.... It wouldn't be half bad if the blasted goat wouldn't poop in her water, then I'd just be able to break the ice on the bucket, but no....Stockings just loves to poop in her water. The other ones don't. She needs to learn some manners.

This upcoming week is going to be very, very busy.

I have to make labels for soap and wrap some before Saturday.
I have to try and clean the house slightly since we have company coming
Tomorrow I HAVE to clean the closet of doom...hmmm might find a few skeletons to!
Clean the goat pens

Then sometime before Feb 12 we have to get the goat nursery ready.

Then sometime before spring we have to take apart the old pig pen and make a buck pen. Alternating days they go out is not working, especially when I have someone come and put the goats out while I'm not here. It works for me, but not for other people. The goats listen to me and Dave, but it's kinda like when kids have a substitute teacher, they don't listen. And this summer we are planning to go on a vacation for a few days to PEI.

We've also lost several bales of hay to mold in the little grey barn. So that means we need a new grey barn.

I'm also being tempted by the usual....VESEYS!! They are so evil!!!!!!!

It's like an addiction. Dang it!

So I guess that's it for now.

Have a Blessed Day

Lisa

OUTRAGEOUS!!!!!!!!!!!

2012-01-18T20:24:00.003-04:00

I couldn't believe it! I just couldn't believe it!

I was so excited. I had set up my Etsy shop. I had two different kind of soaps to sell. I was stuck on how much shipping to charge. I looked and researched a lot of the other sellers of soaps. Most US sellers were charging around $3 shipping. Some Canadians were charging the same up to $5. Not bad. I looked at Canada Posts website and averaged it out the 6-7$ for 2 soaps in a tiny box for shipping.

So I figured $5 for just a bar in a padded envelope would be okay.

So yesterday I got my first order. I was soooo excited! I figured I'm on my way!! Woohooo!!!

I only had to send it to New Brunswick. I even included a little extra in it. I honestly didn't expect it to go over $4 for shipping. I mean come on! It's a padded envelope, not an oil tanker!

Dave called me after he went to the post office.

Here's the low down:

-parcel (with our business discount) $9.10

-Fuel Surcharge $ .66

-HST $ 1.27

For a grand total of.............................................$11.03

For Pete's sake! It would have been cheaper to drive there and personally deliver it to her!

I just want to thank Canada Post for busting my entrepreneurial bubble!

So my career on Etsy was very short lived.

How do they do it? Is it because we live on the far end of the east coast that it's so expensive?

I don't know, but I'm not a happy camper.

I do want to thank my one and only customer for having confidence in my product (you know who you are ;) )

Have a Blessed Evening

Lisa

Dehydrator

2012-01-14T21:17:00.002-04:00

We got a dehydrator for Christmas.

I'm dying to use it.

But what should I put in it?

Any suggestions?

Not beef jerky yet. We need to get the meat sliced.

This summer I'll use it for my herbs...but not many herbs now.

So...I need suggestions...

What do you guys dry in the winter.

Have a Blessed Evening

Lisa

This and That

2012-01-13T09:00:00.005-04:00

Sorry, couldn't think of a catchier title.

A Boy and his horse...I mean dog

Christmas is over, things are kinda settling back to normal. Well kinda. Some things are going on that I am not at liberty to discuss at the moment or I might never be able to divulge. Lets just say it's a very, very stressful time here and we are in need of all the prayers you can send our way.

Am I fat?

Strange thing happened this year at Christmas...I didn't fall into my usual depression. Weird. But nice. It might have something to do with the vitamin D pills I've been taking. Dunno.

We've gotten Stockings bred. We waited till the last minute for her, since she was still a tad small. But when she got the right weight, Tomi was more than willing to accommodate her.

Ha Ha.

Stockings pigging out on fir trees.

We are hoping that Febe has a girl, because we will be keeping her, so this poses a problem. We have to find an unrelated buck. I know some people inline breed, but that just gives me the creeps. Breeding daughter to father in my book is just wrong. I know, I know...it's just a goat. But still....

So I'm keeping my feelers out for a buck to replace Tomi and we'll sell Tomi to a good home.

Well that's it for now.

Have a Blessed Day

Lisa

The chicken rescue!

2011-12-29T15:03:00.008-04:00

There is never a dull moment here, and the holidays are no exception. Just because it's Christmas or Boxing day doesn't mean things stop on the farm. And guess what....animals don't realize that it's a holiday either. Go figure?!

Boxing day was really nice out. It actually snowed here for Christmas. So Boxing Day showed up nice, warm, sunny and white! I was on my way back from the green bin when I heard a noise from the big wood pile.

I thought, "no way. It can't be a chicken. I haven't let the chickens loose in a week!" But it sounded like one of my hens.

I started looking around and sure enough, there stuck in the wood pile was a chicken! For Pete's Sake!

I told Dave "You've got to go rescue that hen! We need that hen! The way Tundra's been eating them everyone of them counts!"

Dave and his camera thingie, notice the amount of logs on top

So I remind him of the wonderful gift he bought himself a few months ago for Christmas. It was the perfect opportunity to use it. It's one of those little cameras on the end of a pipe thingie and it's even got a colour monitor thingie that you can watch. (I'm not electronically minded, ok?!)

We finally located the hen with Dave's camera thingie. That meant that Dave (my hero) had to move lots and lots of logs to get to the hen. Hubby was not impressed.

After what seemed like a lifetime, but I imagine was only 30 minutes he got a hold of her legs. There was one log left, but he couldn't move it without the tractor, and if he did move it, it would have squashed the hen. So ever so gently he started tugging on the hen because she was kinda wedged in those logs. Now I say gently, but those of you who have a hubby probably know that it wasn't too gently.

Tugging and pulling "gently", notice the logs all moved!

Finally out pops the hen! I was so happy! The hen was happy too. She didn't seem any worse for wear. My hero!

This photo says it all! You can all imagine what Dave said while holding the hen in this picture....

Friggen chicken!

And how was your Christmas!

Lisa

Winter Solstice Gathering

2011-12-23T21:05:00.008-04:00

Ok, I know, I know...

I'm weird, I'm a bit strange. I know this and some people might question my beliefs, but on December 21st we were invited to a winter solstice gathering. Definately not your usual, normal Wesleyan church gathering.

We are devout Christians. So why on earth would we want to participate in a winter solstice/drumming gathering.

Well.... I like to try different things. I like to see how other people celebrate different things.

I have a strong belief in tolerance. As much as I wish we were all born again Christians, I know it's not going to happen. So we should learn about one another and each other's beliefs. Maybe, just maybe if everyone held to this way of thinking there would be a lot less wars.

Maybe, maybe not.

Having said all this, I would not have attended this gathering if I wasn't strong in my faith and Christian beliefs. It's so very easy to be swayed. I know some of my Christian friends will wonder if I've gone off the deep end.

Nope.

Me and hubby

We did find it was a bit strange at first...but we knew most of the people there. We got there a bit late because I was working that day. We had a bite to eat and listened to the music and the drumming. The drumming was very soothing. I know, when I say that people think "How on earth can drumming be soothing." But it really was. After a while we joined in. They had some spare drums.

This summer we'd like to host a drumming session in our backyard.

When we first got there I told one of the women that I had half jokingly told my work colleagues that I hoped that we didn't dance naked around a bonfire! She said, "Oh heavens no! Not this year. It's raining out. Maybe next year." Then she said, "Just kidding!"

Phew!

So...did I like this gathering? Yes! Did I find it a bit strange? mmmm yes. Would I go again? Oh Yes! Most definately. Am I crazy? Oh yeah. So what else is new.

Have a Blessed Evening and a Merry Christmas!

Lisa

Major Curve Ball!

2011-12-16T21:49:00.003-04:00

Merry Christmas from Simonne!

Like most of you know, we built a piece onto the house for Dave's dad. He was supposed to move in and we were all going to live happily ever after. NOT!

He did move in September. All was going well. About a month after he moved in he passed out on the floor. He was taken to the hospital by ambulance where he was diagnosed with A Fib (a major heart problem). He also was full of fluid. The doctor on call told us, if he would have been living on his own, he would have been dead within 2 weeks! Thank goodness he was with us. But the doctor also said that these episodes had probably been happening for a while, just he never told us.

So we went home with warfarin and other different meds. Then Halloween we got home from an evening of trick or treating when his dad passed out again. It all went down hill from there. The doctor said he could no longer stay at home alone. He needed 24/7 supervision. If he fell again and hit his head he could bleed to death since he was on warfarin. This is kinda hard since we both work full time.

So with heavy hearts we went ahead with the paperwork to put him in a senior's home. It's not something we wanted to do, but he understood. It's hard, if not impossible for us to supervise him 24/7. This even meant someone had to be with him at night, since he was starting to get up in the middle of the night. Dave would be up several times a night to get him to the bathroom, get him a glass of water or just tending to something he wanted...then get up at 4am to drive an oil truck all day. That was a recipe for disaster. I would get up at 4:30 am to get him dressed and fed, then tend all the animals, get J. ready for school and then get myself ready and to work for 8:30am.

It was just not working. We were going to get a nurse in here for respite, but that costs a bloody fortune. Then a place opened at a seniors home for 3 weeks in the respite bed. What we really wanted was for him to be placed permanently in the facility his wife was in. We prayed and prayed and prayed, then 3 days before he was supposed to be moved to our house again or another respite bed...THEY CALLED!!! They had a permanent bed for him in the same place as his wife! We were all so happy we cried. Now he seems a lot happier, we are under a lot less stress and he's being well taken care of. This facility is one of the best. The workers are really caring and the place is beautiful. I want to move in! Just kidding.

But now we have another problem. What to do with the Dawdi Haus. It's doubled our house insurance and I don't even want to see what it's going to do to our property taxes! We are trying to rent it out, but so far no takers.

So this is our little life at the moment and reason why I haven't been blogging . We are finally starting to relax and find a few minutes to spare, plus Christmas is fast approaching.

Have a Blessed Evening

Lisa

Quick update

2011-12-01T21:43:00.002-04:00

Ok, maybe I should have googled the pregnancy test thing first and saved myself some time and money. Especially since I told my friend to pick me up 3 tests also..in case my mom forgot. Since this is a small community the store clerk looked at my friend knowingly and she said, "It's not for me! It's for my friend, she wants to try it on her goats." The clerk is like, "Yeah, right....ok."

Human pregnancy tests don't work on goats.

Case closed.

I'll never learn.

Lisa

Tree time again!

2011-11-29T21:18:00.004-04:00

It's that time of the year again...Christmas tree time!

This year I couldn't wait till after Christmas to go get trees because since I think the girls are pregnant and due in Feb, that means that they need their trees now.

So off we went to the wood lot. We loaded almost all the trees that our friend, Andrew, had cut for us. The trailer was a bit wobbly, but we got home in one piece.

Honey dear carrying the trees to the pasture.

I know some of you will think I'm nuts, ok ya'll think I'm nuts. I got my mom to go to the dollar store and get me some pregnancy test kits. No!!!I'm not in the family way. I just figured if they work on women, maybe they'll work on goats. I mean for $1.25, what do I have to lose? So I used one this morning and nothing came through, not even the control. I did it again tonight. It came out negative. So I don't know what to think. Maybe I should google it.

Hmmm...that's an idea.

Gotta go!

Lisa

November musings

2011-11-19T20:55:00.016-04:00

Who'd a thunk it? A rose in November.

Well the weather here has been wild and wacky for the month of November. Sunny and hot one day, freezing and windy the next. Or rain, rain and more rain. The chicken's run is just a pile of muck. Poor things.

One of these things are not like the other.....

Speaking of chickens....we had a dozen or so brought to the butcher last week. Old layers. They make excellent rappie pie and fricot. We also got rid of Foghorn, since one of the Americanas is a rooster. We also put Mooocher in the freezer. Geez re-reading this sounds like we're massacring animals left,right and centre.

yes, she does look guilty

Tundra has been killing more chickens. I honestly don't know what to do. It's unfair to leave the hens locked up, but at the same time, it's unfair to them to let them get killed! What to do, what to do?

One of Tundra's victims

Since it's been raining constantly the last few months, the path to the barn is just wet, wet, wet. You need rubber boots to get there. So we got a load of gravel and put it down. Well it's better, but water is actually seaping through the hill. Not good. We're not sure if it's the well or not.

Nice dry path...for now

Christmas is fast approaching. I actually have the tree up! Yay for me!!

I thought I was going to have nice cabbage this fall.......

I guess not! The deer now probably have lots of gas. Good.

I interrupt this post for recent goat photos and one cute cat photo.

Cindi Lou

Febe chowing down! Hmmm and I wonder why they won't eat?

I'm a centerfold!

Stockings growing nicely!

Have a Blessed Day

Lisa

Goat's Milk Fudge

2011-11-11T15:24:00.010-04:00

Today is Remembrance Day so that meant I had the day off. First thing we did this morning was attend the Remembrance Day services. We have to teach our kids what those soldiers did for us. So every year I bring J. to the services. There aren't that many kids at the services around here and I find that after today the veterans and the fallen seem to be swept under the rug for another year. I try to teach J. that we should keep them all in our prayers and thoughts all year long. I think that I am actually getting through to him. There was only another girl from his school at the services besides J. I found that sad.

Well it's time for the Spring Peeper Farm Cooking Show!!!

It has been brought to my attention that there is something else you can do with goat's milk.

FUDGE!!!

Now who doesn't like fudge. Especially a gal that has just come off a cleansing fast!! (Which went well btw. Allergies GONE! and 11 extra pounds!)

I found this recipe on this page.

It was really easy, but time consuming. Whenever a recipe calls for a candy thermometer, that means time. But I thought I'd give it a go.

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 cup goats milk

2 cups sugar

3/4 cup chopped pecans

1/4 cup butter

1 tsp vanilla

Mix the cocoa, sugar and milk together. Heat on medium to med high heat stirring till sugar is dissolved completely.

Bring to a slow boil and cook till it reaches the soft ball stage (234 F). Stir often to prevent sticking. This part took the longest.

Almost there! Patience!

Remove from heat and add the pecans, butter and vanilla.

Stir by hand till it thickens and gets glossy. Spread in an 8X8 well greased pan and let cool.

Voilá!! Goats milk fudge.

Give it a try. If I can do it, anyone can!

Oh my word! When it rains, it pours. Literally. It's still raining. Today it's giving 100mm of rain. I've been here almost 20 years and I've never seen it flood. This morning our little creek is flooding and the water is almost up to the goat pasture.

Speaking of goats... I was sure that Cindi Lou was sick again. She was limping because Tundra won't stop chasing the goats and she wouldn't eat her feed. I thought, "Here we go again."

Wednesday she barely ate and Thursday morning she didn't eat a nibble. I figured it she didn't eat by the time I got home from work on Thursday night I was going to take her temp and call the vet. Dollar signs just kept going through my brain.... I left her in her pen all day Thursday and when I got home she had eaten all her grain and was alert. I thought woohooo!!! I couldn't figure out why on earth she had been acting that way when I remembered.....

It's amazing what two 1oo lb pumpkins will do to the appetite! I had completely forgotten that the apple farmer up the road had given us all his giant pumpkins and I had told Dave to throw in 2 in the pasture. The poor goat was full and was bloated.

Coming back to Tundra...I honestly don't know what to do with that dog. She killed two young pullets last week and ate them!!! I was so ticked off and upset I didn't know what to do. Now I don't dare leave the chickens out when she is. Like they say, "when they get a taste of blood." A friend of mine said, "Maybe she was protecting the goats from the chickens, since they flew into their pen." Well, yeah maybe, but...that night, where Tundra sleeps there was a trapped chicken and she didn't even give it a second look. Of course not, she was full!

I'll never understand animals.

Have a Blessed Day.

Lisa

Missed it by that much...

2011-10-30T20:36:00.012-03:00

Stockings

We have a new doeling at Spring Peeper. Her name is Two by Two Stockings. She's a purebred registered Alpine doeling. We got her from the same place we got Marygold. I wasn't going to buy anymore goats and just keep the doelings from our does this spring. Then I thought...hmmm...what happens if Febe and Cindi just have bucklings? Then what? This is Febe's last breeding. The vet said after the signs of CAE first show, you get one more breeding out of them. So this is it. I pray for a doe out of Febe this time. I'll keep her and bottle raise her so she'll be CAE negative. That's if I can get to her before Febe does. Febe has a way of having her babies quickly, secretly and quietly. I have yet to see her give birth. We'll probably have to set up a camera in the stall so we can keep an eye on her.

But honestly...I have no idea if she's bred or not. Dave thinks that Tomi got both of them when we had a cold spell in mid September. I hope he didn't. But they haven't come in heat yet. They usually have by now. All I have to say is that I don't want February babies!!!

Whenever I go to milk the goats in the evening this is what I have to contend with...

A gazillion chickens running after me trying to get into the goat barn in which they are not permitted to enter. So I have to run in the barn, quickly shut the door behind me, go get a scoop of grain and throw it at them, so they'll leave me alone while I milk. There's not much light in the milking area so I like milking with the door open.

The wood pile we have to split...ugh

Last week our friends from Two by Two farm came and gave us a very well appreciated hand splitting and packing our firewood. They even left their splitter here for us to finish. This was a super big help. With Dave's dad moving in and everything we never got the chance to finish the firewood. It's wonderful to have such great friends!

We got another addition to the farm. The last month for some strange reason every time we see our cat Binoo, we'd call her Pumpkin. Pumpkin was a cat we had a while ago. She lived to be 15 years old before we had to have her put down because she had feline dementia and kidney failure. She was our baby before J.

So anyway, I told Dave maybe it's a sign we need another cat and call it Pumpkin......I was kidding.

He, on the other hand was not kidding. He found a cutie pie kitten and brought it home. It looked nothing like the first Pumpkin but I named it Pumpkin anyway, till last night.

I was cuddling him and he just looked at me with a very familiar look. The look exactly like Puss in Shrek when he gives his sad kitty look. So his name is now Antonio.

It was giving lots of rain today, 50-60mm. I didn't think it was giving wind also. Oy! I was so wrong. We got back from a family afternoon in Yarmouth and the loose siding was all over the place, a tree fell and my grape arbour collapsed!!

Boy that was close!

I'm so not impressed. The tree missed the greenhouse by this much! (I'm holding my thumb and finger about a millimeter apart). Remember Get Smart? He used to say...missed it by that much! All the time. I loved that show. But I digress.

Poor grapes

The collapsed arbour almost took out one grape plant. It moved the trampoline about 7 feet also. Dave was almost sick looking at the grapes.

Oh well, such is life.

Have a Blessed Evening

Lisa

Nobody's dead yet......

2011-10-25T20:39:00.003-03:00

Ok, it's day 6 of my candida cleanse and I didn't kill anyone yet!! Woohooo!!! Only 9 more days to go. I don't have many cravings for sugar now. This I am very grateful for. I don't know for how much longer I could handle the cravings. A co-worker pulled out a Caramilk bar and I didn't almost knick it from her. I'm proud of myself. My main concern now is the lack of variety in my diet. I never thought I'd see the day that I'd be sick of chicken and fish. I always said that I could live on chicken and fish....wrong! If anyone knows of good recipes that follow the candida cleanse , please let me know. I've found some, but the website I found permitted eating fruit and my cleanse and osteopath don't permit fruit. Oh well, 9 more days to go!

I'm just about ready to call Mike Holmes!!! Why oh why is it that electricians, plumbers and carpenters think that they can leave the job and not return? Or return when they think you need the work done, not when you want the work done!!

The extension is finished. It took a while. Only the floor needs to be insulated and Dave will do that. But we actually had to hold the plumber/electrician hostage so he'd finish his job!!! We had a week of very cold weather and Dave's father was freezing! So Dave called the p/e at his favourite coffee shop and asked if he was warm? Dave said, "Well we're not!"

So he actually showed up the next day at 8am. and stayed to finish the job till 8pm! Maybe because Dave blocked the driveway and he couldn't leave. But in the p/e's defense, most plumber's and electricians are like that. Same goes with carpenters.

The carpenter we had did an excellent job and he finished the extension, but our side is still not done. I need mouldings and casings put in the living room, bathroom, bedroom and entryway. The inside of my house looks like crap! I have towels at my windows instead of curtains. He keeps saying that when it rains he'll come and finish it. Well, helllloooo!!!It's rained several times since a month ago! He wants to finish his outside jobs before winter sets in first. Hmmm....I can kinda see his point of view, but what about the jobs you started and didn't finish! I can just imagine telling my customers at the store, " I'll mix you this gallon of paint, but I don't think you'll need the other 3 till it rains in 2 months!" I don't think I'd have many customers left. Yet, they seem to think that this sort of business ethic is fine. Everyone I talk to agrees with me and they have all had the same problems. It didn't matter what carpenter, electrician or plumber it is, they all do it!! If someone could open a business and finish their jobs in a timely manner they would make a fortune!

I also have another pet peeve...Blogger! I've been told that they can't comment on my posts, which might be why I haven't been getting many these last few months. Also the ads on the side of my posts don't show up. That's been at least 6 months. There's no way to get a hold of anyone. They say it's fixed, but it's not. BLOGGER GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER!!!

Have a Blessed Evening

Lisa

Canned Apple Pie Filling

2011-10-20T20:38:00.008-03:00

Before....

This year I planned something special with all the apples that we picked. I was going to make pies, but I really didn't have the time. (so what else is new?) I found this recipe in a Countryside Magazine for canned apple pie filling. I thought why not? So I gave it a go. Here's the recipe if any of you want to try it.

7 quarts of apples

In a very large pot put

5 qts water

4 1/2 cups sugar ( I mixed brown sugar and white sugar)

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

3 table spoons lemon juice

Bring to a boil and then add

1/2 cup cornstarch ( mix this with a little bit of cold water, the recipe didn't state this and it made a huge mess! I should have known better)

1/2 cup minute tapioca mixed with 1 cup cold water

Add to mixture and boil again. Add to your bottles, seal them and put them in a hot water bath for 20 minutes after it starts to boil again. If the apples float to the top, you're fine. If they sink in the bottle you might want to make a pie.

After....

Now I've put this recipe on here, but I haven't opened a bottle yet. So...it could be gross or it could be good. We won't know for a while since I'm on a candida cleanse and can't eat sugar , fruit, fermented foods, breads of any kind, like bagels, bread, pizza, cereals, rice, granola, rolls, pasta etc....you get the point, not dairy products.

What can I eat? Hmmmm....not bloody much!! Free range eggs, free range chicken and turkey, limes, lemons, cranberries, seeds (flax, sunflowers), no nuts except almonds, water, veggies but not corn, peas or potatoes. I can eat plain yogurt. Have you ever eaten plain yogurt? There is a reason why yogurt is flavoured! It's gross plain!! And it's just plain gross! Oh I can also eat fish but not shellfish.

I'm just hoping that it's all worth it. The reason for this madness is blepharitis. I'm hoping that the excess yeast in my belly will depart from me and take the blepharitis with it! The only problem being (besides wanting to inhale a chocolate bar at the moment) is that if this works, that is what I'll have to eat for the rest of my days. I'll be able to bring in certain fruits but not all. We'll just have to wait and see. But for the next 15 days I'm going to be one crabby chick. hmmmm....crabs would be good right about now.

Halloween is fast approaching so J. and I bought a premade haunted gingerbread house at Wally world. We had a blast decorating it.

The finished house.

Have a Blessed Evening

Lisa

Thanksgiving!

2011-10-14T20:39:00.008-03:00

Ok, well I'm a bit off, but it's been a long week.

Our wrapped up pig.

I must admit it was a wonderful family and friends weekend. On Sunday we went to my parents house and ate turkey with pumpkin pie and lemon pie for dessert. (ok, I guess there was potatoes and veggies and such somewhere in the equation, but honestly Thanksgiving is about turkey and dessert .) Yummmm..... Dave's father my cousin and his wife came also. It was a good time. Len, Dave's father had never met my cousin. He found that they were nice but he found that they talked alot. Ha ha.

The finished product.

The next day we went to our friend's house, Sheila and Keith. We went here two years ago for Thanksgiving and had a ball! They've got an outside brick oven that they cook in. So they make a mean turkey at thanksgiving. That and a way of bringing all sorts of people with different backgrounds together, it makes a wonderful Thanksgiving celebration.

Keith and his oven

This year was a bit different. We had two 35 lb whole pigs in the freezer! So not knowing how to , or what to do, flying by the seat of our pants we got the pig ready for cooking. We started by filling the cavity of the pig with apples, onions and a sauce I concocted. We stitched him up, wrapped him in aluminum foil (about 3 boxes worth), then wrapped him up again in copper wire.

Sheila reading a blessing.

We brought him to Keith's and shoved him in the oven for several hours. He came out golden, delicious and very moist. Yummmm.....

We also had record breaking temps on Thanksgiving weekend. It was just as hot as July.

On another happy note...Febe is doing extremely well. Between quadrupling her MSM intake and having the farrier come over and fix her feet I think that we've helped her alot.

On an unhappy note...on Thanksgiving weekend we went to the Pines Resort for a craft fair. It was a disaster!! No advertising had been done, so nobody showed up. On Saturday I sold 5 soaps, on Sunday I didn't sell any. I was not happy. I kept seeing that nice weather outside and all the things I could be doing. I was not happy. Oh opps...did I already say that? I was not happy. We were left comment cards. They now know I was not happy. Neither was anyone else. Most people left at noon on Sunday. I made a commitment to stay, so I did.

So how was your week?

Have a Blessed Day.

Lisa

I've made the big time now!!!

2011-10-07T21:43:00.006-03:00

It's been awhile, yes I know. I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. I'm still here. I'm just trying to grab a hold of the world that seems to be spinning out of control. At the moment we are in need of another 4 or 5 hours in a day to make ends meets. FIL is moved in completely. He has his good days and he has his bad days. Today was not a good day. He's a lot worse than what we originally thought he was. His memory is going everyday. But there is nothing we can do. Other members of the family think that he is fine and he should still be on his own. That's all I'm going to say about that.

We did our large yardsale. It rained like a bugger but we did it anyway and sold everything. What didn't sell we called a person that buys estates and he came by and bought the stuff. Phew! At least that's gone.

Many things still need to be done before winter sets in an the way it's going that happened yesterday with the snow we had. I'm getting over-whelmed. The inside of our house needs to be done. While we had the siding off the house we changed some windows so that means the living room we just painted needs to be repainted, sills and casings put back in etc.... Our firewood isn't split, insulation needs to be put under the new floors etc.. etc.. etc...

We went apple picking last week. I have two bags of apples awaiting my attention, it'll have to wait another week. I found a recipe for canned apple pie filling and that's what I want to do.

Two weeks ago I was invited to speak to a group of ladies about my soap and our little farm. One of the ladies said that she was going to write a small article about me and my soaps in a provincial french newspaper. I couldn't believe it when a lady called me about my soap. She had seen it in a newspaper article!! I flew to the store to see and lo and behold there was the article and it wasn't a little one either, it was almost half a page!! Holy Schmoly! A picture of me and everything. I've made the big time now baby! Woohooo!!!

Mamma needs a new pair of boots! I had to invest in a new pair of rubber boots. Mine were only a year old but somehow it got a big crack over the ball of the foot. I was sick and tired of getting a wet left foot, so I invested in insulated rubber boots. From the kids section no less. I guess Walmart doesn't believe that adults need new rubber boots.

Well it's time for bed. I actually had to miss work yesterday because I was so sick. J. and I spent all day on the couch sleeping with Simonne. I've never seen a dog like that yet. She'll stay on any couch or chair that you put her on. She's so cute, perfect for an elderly person.

Have a Blessed Day.

Lisa

At the end of my rope!

2011-09-26T21:16:00.004-03:00

Oh my word!! What a week it's been.

We got the results of the CAE testing and things were not what we expected. Tomi was negative, Febe was positive. That I expected. But the surprise being that Cindi was positive also!! That I was not happy. She was supposed to be from a CAE negative herd! I'm so mad at that that I cannot even talk about it.

I've been giving Febe supplements from Fiasco farm but they aren't working. This morning I actually thought I had to get her put down. She couldn't get up. It was so sad. Her hooves are bad also. We're not sure if the CAE is putting her feet out of line so much that her hooves are curling and causing her pain. Or if the hooves are just bad because they were never well taken care of from the get go and it's making her pain worse. Dunno.

So today I called the vet and we had a long talk. He's going to email me the new findings about CAE so I can email them to the former owners of Cindi Lou. Then I asked him if I could up the dosage on the glucosamine and the MSM. He said I could at least double it. Goats are not like humans and other animals, they sometimes don't absorb the supplements well like regular one stomach creatures, so he said for me to leave the glucosamine dosage the way it is but to up the MSM dosage. I guess MSM is a natural pain killer. It will take up to 3 weeks to take effect but it should work. He said his parents use it and it works wonders. If this doesn't work, then I have to resort to Blaut. I think that's what it's called. It's a horse pain killer, but you cannot drink the milk after. The kids could but humans can't because it would be like drinking milk laced with aspirin, tylenol and advil. Not a good thing. But imagine...my headaches would be totally gone!

The sad thing is that after the signs of CAE become apparent, you can breed her one more time and then it's done. She needs to be retired. That was our original plan in the first place. So we are going to breed her one last time and whatever girls she gets (hopefully twin girls) we're going to keep. I am so sorry I sold Azelle. I contemplated on keeping her, but like Dave said, we wanted a black doe.

But going on to happy news, I was asked back this summer to speak on our farm and why we started in the soap making business to a group of ladies called La Societe Madelaine LeBlanc. So Thursday night, off I went with power point presentation and all my soaps to speak to these ladies. I was nervous as all git out! Yes, I used to be worship leader in church, but this was different. But they even gave me supper! So I gave my speech and they loved it!! They asked questions and everything. Then they swooped down on my soap and bought over 170$ worth of soap in 10 minutes!! Vultures they were. My problem now lies in that I have no more of my best seller! They wiped me out. Usually I'd be super happy about this, don't get me wrong I am happy, but on Thanksgiving weekend (two weeks from now), we were asked to go to a fall craft fair in Digby and it takes over 3 weeks to cure! Ack!! Oh well, I've been making soap this last weekend. Every day! If they buy it, I'll just have to tell them not to use it for a few weeks.

Finished product, just a bit of cleaning up to do.

Have a Blessed Evening

Lisa

The Dawdi Haus

2011-09-18T21:50:00.007-03:00

Dave putting in the last screw in the veranda

You know when you're so tired, you can't think straight, yet you can't stop either? Well that's how I feel right now.

I am this close...(holding my thumb and index finger about half a millimeter apart) to going nuts, crazy, bonkers, loonie bin bound..you get the point.

This is the kitchenette

This weekend the Dawdi Haus was finished (well enough for him to move in). So all last week we have been packing, and packing and packing and then yesterday (Saturday) while I was all day at work, Dave and very nice friends helped us move all the stuff. Then the work really began. I got home from work (and it was a busy day and we were really short staffed) and I had so many boxes to unpack and put away before grandpa could go to bed.

The living room area

He was slightly confused and upset since he didn't really want to move in the first place. But it needed to be done. Dave couldn't keep running two households. He was getting stressed out and burnt out. So the choices were either move in with us or go to an elder's home. So here we are!

The Dawdi Haus, like the Amish call it.

But all that being said, my house, the living room especially, looks like a bomb blew up, or a tornado hit it. I'd say an F4 tornado. It's so bad, I don't even want to take a picture. That bad. I can't stand having my house in such a disarray. I mean, don't get me wrong, my house is not always clean, ok, it's never clean....but it's never this bad. This is the part that is stressing me out the most!

J.'s room needs to be completely emptied, cleaned and painted. The living room needs to have the new mouldings put in, the walls resanded, then washed and then painted. I just painted the entire room a few months ago!! I hate painting. Like I tell people, I'm a paint expert, I'm not a painting expert. When we started the addition I didn't think it would affect the rest of the house.Boy was I wrong.

On top of everything, I'm supposed to be making soap this last week, I need to restock. This coming Thursday I've been invited to speak to a lady's group and bring some soap to sell. I'm hoping I've got enough stock for that night, plus, I need to print more labels and finish my speech. But my problem is that Microsoft Works is holding all my stuff hostage! I can't access it. ACK!!! So tomorrow I have to get on the horn and call my computer dude.

Simone!

But after all this...there is a little ray of sunshine...called Simone. Dave's dad wanted a dog when he moved in. Really he wanted a Beagle puppy. Ahhh...no. So we convinced him to get a retired mini dacshund. She's a retired breeder. We just got her today and she's a sweetie. She cuddles everyone.

Ok, I have more to say, but I'll wait for another post. My thinking capabilities are gone.

Have a Blessed Evening.

Lisa

Addition update

2011-09-11T21:14:00.008-03:00

North corner of the house before

North Side, after

Wow, it's crunch time! Down to the wire.

We expecting Dave's dad to move in by Saturday. We hope. It's been crazy. Today after church we had a few friends come over and move some furniture from Len's place to ours. I spent 3 hours packing up the china cabinet. Egad! There was some stuff in that thing.

Dave's mum, Marg, collected stuff and stuff and more stuff. Some of it cute and unique, some downright umm, there's no way to put it nicely, tacky! But it all went into the boxes.

Front of the house before

Ten egg boxes later, I was done except for several large platters.

So that's it for this update. Hopefully next week I'll be able to say, "We're Done!!" Wooohoooo!

Front and north corner of the house, after

We'll just have to wait and see.

Veranda almost done, ran out of wood.

This is the living room, kitchenette area. This is just part of it. I'll post more photos after it's done.

I love the colour of this room, it turned out better than I expected, the photo doesn't show the richness of the yellow. It's not too bright, but not too drab. It's Beautitone, Biscuit.

Have a Blessed Evening

Lisa

Blah, blah, blah.....

2011-08-30T21:17:00.004-03:00

What looks like a dead chicken, but she's just playing dead.

I just finished making pumpkin spice soap. I think it's going to be pretty good. We are going to a ritzy hotel on Thanksgiving weekend to sell our soap. So I'm going to try and sell it as a limited time only. Kinda like I do with the Peppermint Stick. Which reminds me, I have to make some of that also.

I now know where the saying, "He kicked the bucket." came from. This morning while I was milking Febe, I was almost done. About 2 liters worth, when she decided to kick the bucket. Milk went flying everywhere! I was so ticked off! I wanted to strangle her!! So I can just imagine where this saying came from. Because after milking and they kick the bucket, you want the goat to kick the bucket!

This year the Febe's milk production is doing well. Usually by this time the lactation curve has taken a nose dive. This year it's keeping up there rather well. This is good. I'm not sure why, but I guess every year is different. Cindi Lou is also keeping constant.

This was taken about 2 weeks ago.

Well that's it for tonight. It's kinda boring at the moment. Well except for the extension on the house. That's pretty much keeping us busy at every second of the day. It's finally coming along.

I'll have to post a recent photo. The gyproc is starting to go up tomorrow.

Well have a Blessed evening ya'll.

Lisa

And once again, the vet comes to Spring Peeper Farm.

2011-08-27T22:00:00.007-03:00

You are getting sleepier....and sleepier...now when I snap my fingers you'll cluck like a chicken.

Ok, I'm pretty sick of seeing the vet. The last time we were at his office I told them that I hoped that I would not have to see them or talk to them for a very long time. Maybe a Christmas card. Maybe.

Febe, my main gal

Well guess what! Febe's joints are starting to creak and crack. I can tell when bad weather is coming. She starts to limp, bad. A few weeks ago we had a couple of days rain. I practically had to carry her to the barn. She was bad. I'm suspecting CAE.

Tundra dying of heat today

We called the vet, again. He said the next time he was down, he'd stop in. Don't forget, he's 1.5 hours away, so unless someone's dying, we wait till he comes down for a mink rancher and we share the mileage. Also, we are now a registered farm, so we will come for us. If we weren't a registered farm, he wouldn't even think of coming. The expense would be too great for us. But anyhow, I digress.

Tomi, the head stud.

He's suspecting CAE also. So he came down to take blood samples of all three to see who has it and who doesn't. Cindi Lou is supposed to be CAE negative. Tomi we don't know.

Oh and before I go any further, CAE stands for Caprine Arthritis Encephilitis. I think I spelled it properly. Rumours abound about CAE, like it's contagious from goat to goat. The only way to stop it from spreading is to take the kid away from the mother before it even hits the ground. Not even let her lick it. They also say to pasteurize the milk before giving it to the kid. Another rumour was that it could pass on through a CAE positive buck.

Well the vet told me the alot of research has been done on CAE these last few years. So here's the truth.

-It's not contagious from goat to goat

-The only way a kid gets it is from the mom's colostrum, not the milk after, not from being licked by the mom etc...

-Bucks cannot transmit it either.

SO, that being said. The vet said that if perchance, Febe comes back positive and Cindi, negative, I should breed Cindi first. Save some of her colostrum and when Febe's kids are born, feed them Cindi's colostrum and throw Febe's colostrum out. Phew! Does that make sense? Clear as mud.

Because we love Febe and if she has a doeling, we want to keep one to replace Marygold.

But, this still doesn't help Febe and her creaking and pain. So I did a little research of my own before the vet even showed up. I found a natural remedy called Arthritis and Joint support on Fiasco Farm. It's been formulated for goats with CAE.

Cindi Lou sniffing out the old trees.

I ordered it (it came quickly considering it's from the States) and I had it when the vet showed up. I didn't give any to the goat until I got the OK from the vet and he said it should work great. He said with the ingredients it's also no milk withdrawal and safe on pregnant does. The stuff he would have given me, he said I wouldn't have ever been able to drink Febe's milk.

So hopefully it works. So far I just spread it on her grain and she eats it, but I'm going to try and make dosage balls to see if she'll take it better.

Well chickens are funny creatures. Because of them, my blueberry patch is pretty bare. Here's why......

I don't have a partridge in a pear tree, I have a chicken in a blueberry bush.

Have a Blessed Day

Lisa

It's Party Time!!!!!!!!

2011-08-23T21:00:00.011-03:00

Waiting for the procession to start. J. went all the way in the light rain, through the sunroof,.

Ok, well it was party time, August 15th. I'm a bit on the late train.

We went in the Tintamarre again this year. We also went through the entire walking the streets and walking in the club with banners, flags, screaming, yelling, woohooing etc... Then actually stayed and listened to the band. This is one of the only times that minors can go to the club and stay the entire evening. It's all under a humungabaga tent, half is divided for the drinkers, the other half for the rest of us.

Our Acadian family photo. We were waiting for the walking procession to start.

Everyone was waiting to start walking.

The Baie en Joie was even dancing in the rainy streets.

In last year's Tintamarre I burnt out my car horn!! So when Dave asked me what I wanted for my birthday this year, I wanted the Dixieland horn for the car, so I'd have a majorly cool and loud horn for the Tintamarre. We were barely into the procession that my Dixieland horn died on us!!! AHHHHHHH!!!!! I was so not impressed. Neither was Dave for that matter. I mean, jeepers... I got the horn for that occasion. Oh well!! We still waved and yelled all the way to the meeting point at the club. I'd say that this year's Tintamarre had at least 200 cars honking, decorated, pots banging etc... One of the people watching actually had a little canon, so when we'd pass by, he'd let it explode! That was cool. Most people had just pots and pans. Another guy had an antique air raid siren going. I mean how often can you go driving down the road, escorted by the police, ambulance and fire dept making all the noise you can imagine and nobody complains and you don't get arrested!!

The procession has three starting points and runs about 60 miles long. Meeting in the middle.

Just a few people.

It was cool! It's my favourite part of the festival. It's all about letting the world know that we are here and we're aren't going anywhere again! We are proud of our heritage.

Head fiddler, he's not bad on the eyes either.

The band that played this year was Grand Derangement. It's means, The Great Deportation. They are really good.

Grand Derangement

Well that's about it for today.

Have a Blessed evening.

Lisa

Cops and Cupcakes.

2011-08-11T21:57:00.012-03:00

This is the picture on the back of a old 50$ bill.

You never know what's going to happen here. Monday was supposed to be a cleanthegoatpenandchickencoopandhumancoopday. J. had an appointment to the dentist and I had a hair appointment. Well on the way to the dentist I heard on the radio that the RCMP Musical rides were in town and they actually had tickets left for their afternoon show.

Hmm....I wonder who's more in love with the horse? Me or J.?

Dave was gone to Antigonish to check out a motorcycle (that's another post on it's own, we won't go there.) so I called my mom, got tickets and off the Yarmouth we went. I love the Musical Rides. So does J. They came 4 years ago and we went then. But honestly, the only thing that the Musical rides serves for me, is to remind me how much I want a horse !

Awaiting the theater.

Tonight our church's youth had their Cupcake Theater and dessert auction. They had it last year also and it was just as funny. I don't know where they get their skits, but they are hilarious. Of course the desserts were excellent and even though we left early from the auction, I think they did quite well. Let's put it this way, one cake went for 210$!!! There was about 3 large tables full of desserts to auction off. One of our church ladies made 4 dozen little cheesecakes, one dozen went for 75$. Finally, they auctioned off the last dozen singly. I got one for 7 bucks. It was good. I'm curious to see how well they did. All the proceeds went towards our church building project.

The auction dessert tables! Yum!!

One of the skits.

I think the funniest moment of the evening was when they were about to pull for the door prize of a humungous cupcake, my cousin, who was sitting with us, said, "Man, I hope they don't pull my name!"

Sandy and his prize!

The words were barely out of his mouth, when they called his name! I think we almost peed our pants laughing.

Our excellent auctioneer, Earl Prime.

Well that's it for tonight.

Have a Blessed Day

Lisa

Dis, Dat and udertings!

2011-08-08T21:12:00.002-03:00

Ok Soap box time!

I'm French, well Acadian French to be exact. I'm proud of my heritage. But one thing that drives me to distraction is people making fun of my accent. I work in a completely English environment. For years I have worked hard to hide my accent. Most days I can get away with it. But NO MORE!!! I'm letting it all hang out!

Two reasons behind this change of attitude.

First one...one of our regular contractors came in the other day and I slipped up. I let a dis go by. Blair's a nice, funny guy and on cue he starts, "Oh it's dis, is it?". I was having a bad day, so I gave him "The look".

So this time he actually looks at me and says, "You know, I shouldn't be making fun of your accent. At least you can speak two languages, I can't. You should be proud of that."

You know what....he's right!

Dave and I worked hard to make sure J. pronounces his English words properly. We started with the books of the Bible. 1st and 2nd Thessalonians works really well.

But now I honestly don't care if he's got a French accent or not. Be proud of it!

The second reason is...that most English people can't speak properly in their own language. So if they can't speak their mother tongue properly, I'm doing pretty darn good speaking both well, with an accent, thank-you-very-much!

At work all day I hear..."My lag hurts" hmmmm....I always thought that a lag pertained to a bolt or a screw, not an appendage. Or a verb as in, "I lagged behind."

How about..."I'm going upstair." There's more than one!!! You are going up a flight of stairs or you are going upstairs!

My favourite is "Yes sir, it's sold by the each." For Pete's sake! It's sold by the piece!

It's film not filem.

It's pretty near here...not pertn'r.

So people, before you start ragging on my way of speaking, think about how you speak first.

Ok, I'm stepping down now.

Have a Blessed day.

Lisa

Our yearly trip to Halifax

2011-08-06T21:14:00.005-03:00

Very barren market.

It's that time of the year again. School clothes shopping. This year I wanted to go to the Halifax farmer's market. The website says that it opens at 9am, so we got there around 10am. Hardly anyone was there! Vendors and customers alike! At our market it opens at 9am and all the vendors are there at least 30 minutes before. Most of the vendors only showed at 11am. By noon it was starting to be busy. It was international day. I ate a buckwheat crepe with mozza, tomato and basil. It was really good. J. and Dave ate spicy Thai and chicken noodle dish. They liked it also.

We liked this style of arbour, so Dave's going to build me one for my grapes.

I bought a pair of earrings and that's about the extent of our shopping. We did walk on the waterfront and bought a bedazzled frog. We also saw goat's milk soap at 20$ a bar. Mind you it was wrapped in cashmere yarn, fur...whatever you want to call it. But still... jeesh!

I'm not sure if I'll be going to that market again. I think my favourite one is in Annapolis. I find, that's the one with the most variety and people. Our's can aspire to be like the Annapolis market. Maybe some day....

Well, my brain never stops. The brain activity is constant, even while I'm sleeping. So while I was on the ferry from New Brunswick a few weeks ago I spotted an article in an old magazine. It was talking about Haskap berries. This struck my fancy. I made it my mission in life to get some Haskap berry bushes. I called every nursery around and nobody had heard such a thing.

I finally found two in the Annapolis valley that had some. One nursery would only sell them in 3 weeks from now and they were 25$ a bush. Ahhhh...nope. Too much. This nursery is notorious for their overpriced stock.

I called the other place. They had some and would sell them now! So on the way home we stopped in. AND they were only 15$ here! Woohoo! I bought 3 bushes, since you need two varieties for cross pollination. We also bought a few blueberry bushes since some of ours have died in the last few years.

So check out this site if Haskap berries strikes your fancy.

Oh, I almost forgot...our son made his first Kijiji purchase. This is what he bought. My son the Nerf addict!

Have a Blessed day

Lisa

Definately, not the year of the goat.

2011-08-06T20:48:00.005-03:00

It hasn't been a happy goat year amongst the goat people of the area. Our Boer goat friends have lost most of their kids to miscarriages. Another had a very difficult birth. We've had blood in our milk from broken blood vessels in the udder, the Marygold episode and now Cindi Lou has problems.

After the Marygold episode, we decided to bring one of the older goat's poop to the vet to check for coccidiosis. So I've found that Cindi was looking a little skinny, so I decided on her's. Since we've already spent over 250$ in the last month on goat vet bills, 16$ per poop inspection was going to stretch the already thin goatie budget.

So anyway, Cindi's poop had no coccidia. Thank goodness!! Phew!

Instead she is packed tight, chuck full of worms and worm eggs. ARGH!!!! Will it ever end? So we have to treat everyone. So there goes another 40$! I have dewormer here, but it doesn't seem to be working with these suckers. This one has a milk withdrawal of 5 days! I stocked up today on milk and then I treated everyone.

Cindi still has blood in her milk. It's been a month and it's not getting any better. It's really a minute amount. It's only noticeable after a few days in the fridge, but still, who wants to drink blood laced milk. Yuck! The cats are happy and so is Tundra, because they get it all.

Febe seems to be getting slower. Her joints are cracking. Especially these last few days since it's been wet and muggy. Almost like she's got arthritis.

So that's my goat problems. Hopefully it'll get better next year. We've decided to keep Febe's baby if she has a doe next year. I'm not sure if I'll breed Febe elsewhere, so her daughter can be bred to Tomi the following year, or get another buck in a few years. That I have to decide.

Well that's it for the goat news for today. Stay tuned next week when you'll hear Lisa say.......

Have a Blessed day

Lisa

Marygold update.

2011-08-03T20:22:00.003-03:00

Well we brought Marygold's body to the vet on Monday. He did an autopsy on her. He asked if we wanted to watch. Uh....no. Dave did watch, I couldn't. If it would have been someone else's animal I would have since things like that fascinate me. (no, not weird, just always wanted to be a vet.)

The long and the short of it is that she had an underlying stomach problem from birth. The food was not traveling through her belly in a timely manner so it was all collecting in her second stomach. He took out over 3 liters of food in one stomach! So she didn't have any fat on her at all the protect her. It made her immune system weak, so when the coccidia parasite settled in her, she didn't stand a chance.

What threw us off, was that Tomi had the coccidia parasite when he came here and he had bad case of diarreah. Marygold had no diarreah. The vet told us that the coccidiosis causes the intestines to go nuts and can tie them up. That's what happened to Marygold.

That's so sad, she must have been in pain.

Well that's about it for now. I'm not too much in the blogging mood these days, but I figured that I should update on Marygold.

Have a Blessed evening

Lisa

Sadness....

2011-07-31T18:12:00.004-03:00

I woke up this morning to a dead doeling.

Yesterday it rained and rained plus we had lots of thunder and lightning, so before going to the farmer's market I made sure that the goats were inside. Everyone seemed fine. Marygold wasn't particularly lively, but all my goats are sluggish in the rain. So I didn't think too much of it. I checked on them that afternoon and everyone was still the same.

Then after supper our pastor and his family came over for a visit. He's a goat farmer too. He said that Marygold seemed to be limping. So I figured that was the reason for her "sitting"down. I brought her out of her pen and made her walk around. No limp. Honestly, she seemed fine.

Then after they left I checked on her again. Her belly seemed a bit hard, so I figured she might need a bit of help burping. So I massaged her belly. Then I checked her eye lids. They were rather pale so since it was rather late, I figured that I'd deworm her in the morning. But her poop was fine.

Then at 4am I woke up and had an awful feeling that she was gone. I figured I was just nuts and tried to go back to sleep, but it kept bugging me. I finally fell asleep. Then this morning I quickly went to milk and check up on her.

I was devastated when I saw that she had passed in the night. When I got "the feeling" I should have gotten up and checked on her.

We are bringing her to the vet tomorrow for an autopsy. My main concern is that something is contagious.

So until tomorrow I'll just have to keep wondering.

Have a Blessed day.

Family Farm Day

2011-07-26T21:24:00.008-03:00

Yesterday was a fun, fun day!

I had registered us for a family farm day. I had seen the ad in the magazine Rural Delivery. It was a day filled with seminars and interactive displays. What first drew me to the ad was the words "Goat Nutrition!" That's all they needed to have me hooked!!

Goat things are just about impossible to find around here and goat information even more so.

Registration was a reasonable 25$ and you got a ten dollar meal ticket. So really it was 15$ for the entire family. Mind you....we had to drive 2 hours to get there.

On top of the goat nutrition seminar, I listened to a women's panel, and marketing your produce. All were interesting, but the marketing your produce really didn't apply to me. I did take some pointers home. Dave listened to working your farm with animals.

J. made butter and went on hayrides.

Making butter, shake, shake, shake!!

Lunch was catered and really good!! I don't like potato salad, but this one was to die for!!!

During lunch you could go see the displays. I bought heritage seeds for next year and got up close and personal with honeybees! I was amazed to be that close to an open hive and not freak out! Maybe some day.....sigh....

The bee man!

While waiting in line to register we struck up a conversation with this nice man. We asked him what he farmed and he asked the same of us. We told him dairy goats and how we wish the government would let people sell raw goats milk and cheese. We let our opinions known that the government was saying one thing and doing another etc....

Well FYI...you never know who you're talking to. When we all gathered in one of the halls for opening speeches etc...we were kinda surprised to see that one of the special guests was that guy we were talking to in the lineup. He was the local government official for that area...ooopps! He actually mentioned that he had been talking to a couple in the lineup and totally agreed with what that couple was saying... Well ya never know.

Have a Blessed day!

Mydnight Marygold

2011-07-22T22:28:00.008-03:00

I can't believe that summer is almost gone. Tomorrow is my birthday and I'm going to be the big 44!! Scary.

Since I was a child I considered summer gone after my birthday. So sayonara summer!

We've had a new addition to Spring Peeper Farm for a while now, I just never got a chance to blog her. Please put your hands together and give a warm welcome to Two by Two Mydnight Marygold.

Marygold!

After alot of thinking and praying, we realized that Febe is not getting any younger and with all the udder problems she's had this year, I believe that this fall might be her last breeding. Then she'll be going into retirement.

The Horn!

We had the vet over here this week to cut off Tomi's horn (That was funny, we had to put him

under. I've never seen a goat drool.) So while the vet was here, he took out his ultrasound machine and checked out Febe's udder. Well, to put it in Dave's terms, she's blown a gasket. She has lumps in her udder. While they aren't dangerous, they are causing blood in her milk at times.

So considering all this, we decided that we needed to get another goat. She's from our goat friend's farm. I know them well and I know that the mom is a great milker and their herd is healthy.

Cindi doesn't like her too much. Febe actually seems to like her. It's weird, since Febe doesn't like anyone. Cindi didn't like all the attention she was getting.

Ummm... Excuse me! I want some attention too!

It's so strange how all goats have such different personalities. I think that's what I love about goats.

Monday we're all going to a family farm day. I can't wait. I'll make sure I post all the details.

Now that all the rain is gone, we are now having a small drought. We can't win. It's so hot here that it's hard to do anything. The garden's kaput. Even though I've been watering and regularly giving a manure tea to the greenhouse, I'm only getting teeny tiny tomatoes. It's sad. The only things that are doing kinda well in the garden's are the sunflowers and the beets. The pumpkin plants are a total of 4 inches tall. Woopie!

It's all so discouraging.

The extension on the house is going well. We are only one week behind. Not bad considering it's only been going on for 3 weeks.

Well It's bed time.

Have a Blessed evening.

Lisa

Beulah Week!

2011-07-09T21:48:00.019-03:00

Tabernacle at Beulah.

We've just gotten back from vacationing in New Brunswick. We only stayed 3 days, but we had lots of fun.

We went to a Wesleyan camp ground. Well it's not really a camp ground...well yes it is. Check it out for yourself. Beulah

This is the cafeteria. If you look behind the people you'll see some cars. The line for curly fries went from the split in the path to those cars! Crazy!

10 days in July is called Beulah Week. They bring in excellent speakers, evangelists etc... So twice a day for ten days we all congregate in the tabernacle and sing, praise the Lord and listen to the speakers. You leave there rejuvenated, relaxed and ready for what the world is going to throw at ya.

Our pastor and his wife, Cathy.

The grounds remind you of the movie Dirty Dancing...the relaxing atmosphere reminds you of Dirty Dancing. You almost expect to see Patrick Swayze walking up the path. lol Everyone is so happy, content, nice and smiling. It's the Christian version of The Stepford Wives, only genuine.

Dave and J. enjoying poutines after the evening service.

The last time we were there was several years ago. It was BG....before goats! Then we stayed for the entire 10 days, we also had a place to stay on the grounds. This year we had to stay in a hotel in Saint John...45 minutes away and rather expensive. 100$ a night thanks to priceline.com instead of 260$, but two nights is enough. Plus the ferry to get there was 400$. It's getting ridiculous for Canadians to travel in their own country. It's actually cheaper for me to fly to England than it is for me to fly to Alberta. But that's a whole other post.

Hotel ritual...pizza delivery.

J. walking on water at the hotel pool.

J. and I enjoying breakfast at Cora's restaurant. Those two plates were one meal!

The beginning of Evening on the Boulevard.

On Wednesday nights in Beulah week is Evening on the Boulevard. People set up little tents and sell FOOD!! One other reason for Beulah week (besides worshiping the Lord) is to eat, eat and eat some more!! It's just a Wesleyan thing. We take the Bible verse about breaking bread and fellowshiping with your fellow Christian literally!

Beavertails!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The last time we were there, Dave waited in line one and a half hours for curly fries! Not this year. After the evening service he only waited 10 minutes in line for beavertails!! Not a bad wait and worth every minute. They were good!! I love Evening on the Boulevard. It's a nice time for fellowshiping and eating with your fellow Christians. See we do take that verse to heart!

While we were in NB we visited Cindi Lou's home. I mean, now come on! You didn't think I could go on vacation and not visit goats! Alex, Cindi's former owner was really nice and informative. He had 49 goats there! Wow. J. got to visit with Lady Gaga. It's a goat.

Alex and one of his main dudes. FYI, that buck is on all four legs. He was huge!

But the vacation came to an end and we had to steam ahead. We got to the ferry terminal and we were greeted with fog! Oh well , the ferry has radars.

Our view of the ferry. It really was right there.

A happy, relaxed (kind of) family waiting for the ferry to go home.

Oh! another newsworthy item. While I was on vacation I got an email from Reader's Digest. I had sent in J.'s story about his head bump and they loved it! They're going to publish it.

Have a Blessed evening.

Lisa

Curve balls

2011-06-30T21:52:00.005-03:00

Before the destruction. Notice the nice trees...

Life has a habit of throwing curve balls but this one wasn't completely unexpected.

It just showed up a heck of a lot quicker than we figured!

My FIL is elderly and is having a hard time taking care of himself. We knew this was coming and we offered our help. We offered for him to move in with us.

He's finally accepted our offer. It was getting hard on Dave also, since he was constantly there, taking care of FIL's house too. It had gotten to the point that Dave told his dad, he couldn't keep taking care of two houses. A decision had to be made.

After...Notice the missing trees

So an addition is being built on our house and FIL is moving in.

The curve ball is selling FIL's house. It was put on the market and sold 3 days later!!! Houses around here sit for months...years!! before selling. Not three days! So instead of taking our time building, since most contractors are booked a year in advance, we are scrambling to find someone to build. We found someone, J.'s hockey coach and my dad will help.

Today the excavating company came to dig the hole for the foundation. Five hours later..... WOW!!! It's scary. They'll be pouring the cement while we are gone on vacation. Then in 2 weeks the building begins.

Yikes!!That's one deep hole.

It's exciting and scary at the same time.

We don't have the approval of the rest of Dave's family. The think that we're just after his money, but we are after his wellbeing. He needs help. They live 5000 kms away. They have no clue.

We have been under an extreme amount of pressure the last few weeks because of all this conflict. I've been praying...and now it seems that God is making things go smoothly.

Well have to wait and see.....

Have a Blessed day.

Lisa

Salted onions...

2011-06-23T22:00:00.009-03:00

Good news! Dave went for his stress test and he has the heart of a 30 year old man! Woohoo! So it's not his heart. Phew! They figure it's a pinched nerve somewhere in his neck that is causing the numbness in his arms.

Yesterday and today I've been cutting up green onions and salting them. Salted onions are one of the main ingredients in rappie pie and fricot. That's what gives them their flavour.

My green onions before the chopping!

It's really simple, chop the onions and then add lots and lots of salt. They then keep for years. Usually people keep them in gallon jars. I've done that, but last year I lost mine. The salt corroded the lid and it seeped into the jar contaminating the onions.

The end result, salted onions.

My mom told me that she freezes hers. So this year that's what I'm going to do. Since it's so heavily salted, it doesn't freeze, so you just go and get the amount you need, whenever you need it. So simple. Why didn't I think of that?

Have a Blessed evening.

Lisa

Sorry...no pictures this week

2011-06-21T21:06:00.003-03:00

Last Saturday was my day at the market. Of course it rained and rained and downpoured and rained some more. I'm so sick of rain! I'm getting so moldy I'm getting green spots all over me. I left the farm market and I had to spread out my soap on the living room floor. It was so damp and slimy from the moisture. I brought the dehumidifier up from the basement to dry it out. It worked well. Thank goodness. Moldy soap is not a good thing.

Well the garden is growing not bad. Tonight I had to spread out slug bait, but the sunflowers, pumpkins, peas and beets are doing great. The greenhouse is doing excellent. I water it every two days with manure tea sweetly given to me by the goats.

Cindi Lou is doing alot better on the milking stand. I don't have to pick her up anymore. She was getting heavy. Ninety pounds of squirming goat is not good for my back. Most times I don't have to use the hobble anymore . She doesn't poop on the stand either. So it's going alot better all around.

Febe got into something a few days ago and she had the poopies really bad. She wouldn't eat either. I confined her inside for the day on just hay and water, plus it was also time to deworm everyone anyway, so they all got their medicine. Today she's doing alot better. I let her outside to play and she's even started eating again.

I'm weaning the babies from the moms. They are all going Friday. We finally sold Azelle. So they're all going. The boys to a friend of ours. I know they are all going to good homes. That's the worse about this. It's hard when you don't know if they are going to nice homes or not. People can seem to be nice, but you never know.

We had a scare on last Monday. Dave was rushed to the hospital by ambulance with chest pains. He stayed overnight, but they couldn't find anything. He's going for a stress test on Thursday. We need lots of prayers.

It's J's class trip tomorrow, so I better sign off and get some sleep, since I'm going to be a chaperone. Ugh.

Have a blessed evening.

Lisa

Exciting Stuff!!!!

2011-06-11T20:12:00.006-03:00

Friday was J.'s school mini Olympics. I brought my camera to take photos. His team did very well. They placed javelin, discus and potato sack race. It lasted till 1p.m. then I headed off to work.

I imagine my surprise when a local contractor shows up with a baby raccoon!! Oh MY GOODNESS!!! It was soooooo CUTE!! It was beyond cute. It kept chattering at us. I can just imagine what it was saying in raccoon talk. Probably nothing for family viewing.

He was fixing up a house and a raccoon family had moved in. So he live trapped the momma and the babies. He brought one of the babies in to show us. He was going to move them out of the house. I guess they had damaged the house like nobody's business!! It's amazing that such a cute creature can be so destructive. But who'd think that a cute little mink could be such a cold blooded killer too. Such is nature.

I was just so happy I had brought my camera.

Then just before closing at 8pm, who shows up but MARK CULLEN!!! HOLY FRICOLI!!!! Can you imagine in our little store. For those of you that have no idea who Mark Cullen is just look here.

Mark Cullen and moi

He's the Canadian gardener's Martha Stewart!!!! Need I say more. Probably not, but I'm gonna anyway. We had a few problems with our plants at the beginning of the season, so our manager took pictures and wrote to him. Mark Cullen takes an amazing amount of pride in anything with his name on it. So he was in NS for a garden opening. He dropped in!! He was super nice and answered my gardening questions.

Again!!! Thank goodness I had my camera. I got our manager to take a photo of him and I.

The funny thing is that I wasn't even supposed to work Friday night. I don't work Friday nights anymore. But because I went to J.'s mini Olympics I offered to work that evening. What luck!!! I would have kicked my behind if I would have missed that.

Phew! Ok, I'm calmed down now.

Dave went to the farmer's market today. Strangely enough, it was a beautiful day, yet not many people came. Sales were low. Not very encouraging.

Tonight I bought 6 americana chicks from a guy I know. They are so cute!! They had a nice hatch. I think they said 36 out of 40 eggs hatched. Alot better than my zero out of 36 average for me.

Well this star struck blogger is going to bed.

Have a blessed evening.

Lisa

Ouest-Ville Perennials and garden planting.

2011-06-06T13:04:00.016-03:00

Well Saturday was a fantabulous, but cold day. It was my first day at the farmer's market. It was sooooo cold and it wasn't too busy, but I managed to sell soap and Epicure. So if I'm doing well now, I'm hoping when the weather gets better and the tourists show up I'll do even better!

Then after the market was done it was off to Ingomar (about 2 hours from our house) to get my custom made whirly gig Dave had ordered for me. A woman milking a goat! It's so cute.

Then we stopped at an old friend's house in Pubnico. I hadn't seen her in years!! Like I mean over 12 years! Alice owns a garden business. The last time I had been there it had just opened. It was just tiny. Now it's a booming, thriving business. I'm so happy for her! Check out her website. Ouest-ville Perennials

We chatted, and then had a photo session with her photographer friend, Margie. We had a good laugh, because neither one of us are good at having our photo taken. It took at least 15 shots to kinda get a nice one. But it was fun.

We left her place around 6pm and stopped at another friend's house, not far from Alice's house. We met last year when she got some kids disbudded at our house. She also has sheep. Mary (had a little lamb..lol), gave us a demo in sheep herding. They train herding dogs. It was amazing I had never seen that before. The dog brought that flock of sheep right to us. Amazing.

Then we came home had a plate of nachos and went to bed exhausted.

Yesterday I decided to bite the bullet and plant the gardens. Mud or no mud. It had to be done. So I started yesterday. I got the lettuce, peas, beans and beets done.

Then today I finished with carrots, more peas, pumpkins and half a kg of sunflowers!!

I also planted my tomato plants while the chickens were out. Not a smart move. It was a hard go planted a garden, making rows while sinking to your ankles.

But it's done. Hopefully they'll grow.

Cute animal picture of the week.

Have a Blessed Day.

Lisa

Funny ways people find you.

2011-06-01T21:19:00.003-03:00

On Blogger there's this tab called Stats. It's for the blogger to check all sorts of things about their personal blog. Things like who's looking at your blog, where they're from, how many people looked in one day, week, month etc...

My favourite is "Traffic Sources" with the subtitle of "search keywords". This is what words people used to either find your blog intentionally or unintentionally.

phrases like:

-Raising spring peepers

-spring peepers in the basement

-kids say the darndest things food

-what are spring peeper babies called

-peepers and the maple syrup season (what peepers and maple syrup have to do with one another is beyond me?)

-spring peepers boy or girl?

-how to get rid of spring peepers

(WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT TO GET RID OF THEM?)

Then there's the just plain weird

-fire dept mutual aid moocher

-farm mating ladies (hmmmm...I won't even go there)

-it's mating time

(I wonder what was on this person's mind? hmmmm....)

And here's a few of my personal favourites

-undies on clotheslines

-ripped the head off my chicken and didn't leave the body. (huh?)

-the media hype with willy the wimps death

Then there's the normal (thank goodness!!)

-farmer lisa blogspot

-spring peeper farm blogspot canada

-spring peeper farm

Some of these I have NO CLUE why it made my blog pop up. I mean come on...willy the wimp? Who the heck is willy the wimp?

Some I can kinda see where it was from like the "undies on the clothesline" , but it also goes to prove that one should watch what we put for labels attached to the post.

I'm still confused on the willy the wimp one. Strange, strange people (shaking my head).

Have a Blessed evening

Lisa

Farmer's Markets

2011-05-29T21:08:00.016-03:00

J. and Junior enjoying one of our rare sunny days.

Yesterday Dave and J. went to our first farmer's market. He did well, selling over 100$ worth of soap. We are almost out of soap. I have two small batches curing at the moment, but it's not enough. Tomorrow I'll have to make a few batches, and really everyday for awhile. I'm not expecting to be successful every weekend, but one has to be prepared.

"Red Green" and his new tool. Mixing soap.

Dave thought he had invented a new way of stirring the soap, but it didn't really work well. He had a small paint mixer on the end of a drill, but it didn't make the soap trace any faster. I really don't know what the deal is with those stick blenders. Why they work so well. But like most soapers know they overheat fast. I have two identical ones and alternate them all the time during the batch and still they get really hot. Really I'd need another one for good measure.

Soap taking waaayyy too long to trace.

Today we went for a drive to the Bear River farmer's market. It was nice. It was smaller than ours but still nice, with lots of nice people. I love Bear River. Most of the buildings are on stilts, it's so cool.

J. in Bear River today. Notice the building in the background on stilts.

Bear River Farmer's market.

We left some of our soap in a local boutique there. Another local boutique approached me last week to carry our soap. She tried one bar and fell in love with it.

Well we've been having a few goat problems lately. First Cindi Lou is not still not being cooperative on the milking stand. Still pooping while I'm trying to milk her, squirming, jumping etc... just being a regular pain in the beeehind!

Next Febe has been having udder problems the last month or so. A few weeks ago she had a broken blood vessel in her udder. The milk was full of blood. Yuck! It's not dangerous to her or us, but needless to say, drinking pink milk is not very appetizing, let alone knowing it's blood.

So we called our trusty vet. He told us to take the kids off and milk her several times a day. That's kinda hard when you're working fulltime. I did what I could, but the kids refused to take the bottle. I ended up leaving them on her.

After 7 days it cleared up completely. Yesterday I noticed that it's back again. It's not as bad as last time. Dave never even noticed. I did. I figure it'll only take a few days to clear up this time, but it's still a pain in the buttocks and a waste of milk.

Next kidding season mark my words!!! I AM BOTTLE FEEDING THE KIDS!!!

Did ya'll hear me! Next spring I want you guys in blogging world to remind me of these words!

This year's greenhouse.

Tundra and Moocher playing around. Dave has finally finished the other end of the pasture.

Our son is growing up. Sigh.....he's actually mowing the lawn.

Growing up. Sigh...

Every morning when I milk Febe and fight...uh...I mean milk Cindi Lou, Tigger waits patiently for his treat....the strip cup. To people who don't know what that is, it's the cup you use to put the first three squirts of milk from each teat. This milk is used to get rid of bacteria that is harbouring in the teat and to check the milk for clumps, nastiness and blood. Cats don't really care about all that. I spoil the cats though. I usually fill the cup with milk, not just a few squirts.

Tigger having his snack.

Anyway I digress...Tigger waits patiently for the cup. He sticks his head in and drinks to his little hearts delight! Down to the last drop. The first few times, he actually would jump on the stand and curl around Febe's legs. After he got stomped on and kicked off he now waits at the bottom of the stand.

We moved the meat kings and laying hen chicks into the big pen. It's amazing to see the difference in size. They're the same age yet the meat kings grow so much faster!

Meat king in the front and laying hen in the rear.

We had to move the older hens, so that meant they needed new laying nests. So voila! Milk crates! It works actually very well and they've stopped picking at the eggs.

Our new nest boxes!

Well it's time to go separate the kids from their moms for the night.

Have a Blessed evening

Lisa

Whirly Gigs, Udders and Spring Flings!

2011-05-15T21:22:00.015-03:00

Well one bad thing about a goat having a single kid is that there might be the possibility of it suckling on just one teat.

Well we seem to be having this problem with Cindi Lou. Prince William is only eating from one side. Soooooo.....this is what we are dealing with!

This is so wrong

One very lopsided udder. They say that a seasoned milker is worth their weight in gold. Well guess what....They're RIGHT!

Not only does Cindi Lou have a lopsided udder, she kicks and jumps and POOPS on the milking stand. I have to pick her up and put her on it. She has very bad milking manners. I really thought that she'd be a good milker. Before she was bred she'd jump on the stand, let me feel her udder, stand still as a statue. A perfect little milker in the making.

Then.....

She had a baby. ugh. So now to even out the udder we have to milk her twice a day. It's coming along. The other side is getting bigger. We probably got it just in time. It wasn't producing much milk either, but it's getting better. We have to use the hobble. I don't like to but until she calms down we have no choice. Tonight was the first night she didn't poop on the stand.

Dave fighting with Cindi, even with a hobble.

But she seems to be more tolerant with J. milking her. So doesn't move with him milking. So he might have found himself a job.

Chicks!

It was chick days last Tuesday. We got 24 laying hens and 15 meat kings. So far they are all doing well. Since the incubator massacre I needed to get more laying hens. I find those brown layers are so boring but this year I've got no choice.

This weekend Dave and J. packed up the soap and went to Pubnico for their gardeners Spring Fling! I, of course, was working. He sold a whack of soaps and Epicure and met alot of people.

Our table at the Spring Fling

J. even had his own table with fudge and beach glass pendants he had made.

A guy with whirly gigs gave one to him, another vendor gave him a daylily plant and another vendor gave him chocolates! He made out like a bandit!

Table with rock paintings. Look on the right, the pug rock.

Pastries!!!

Whirlygigs!!

He bought a painted rock from a lady. It has a fox on it. It's really nice. I wish I could paint half as good.

Well I'll leave you all with cute pictures of baby animals.

No, he's not stuck. Just nosey.

Tigger the cutie!

Have a Blessed Day.

Lisa

YAY!!

2011-05-09T21:22:00.000-03:00

Yipee!! The blogs that I follow list is back!!!!

Lisa

Kids say the darndest things!!

2011-05-08T16:55:00.005-03:00

Last Saturday while I was at work and Dave was at the cattle sale, J. wanted to go to Grand-mere's (my mom).

At around 3:30 pm I got a call from a panicked Grand-mere saying that J. had fallen off a granite boulder and hit his head on another granite boulder! The medical center was closed so what should she do! No doctors on call! ACK! He had a bump on his head the size of not a goose egg, but an emu egg!

So by then Dave was back. So he went and picked up J. at my mom's and drove to the ER in Digby, picking me up along the way.

By this time J. was looking not much worse for wear. My mom had applied ice packs to the emu egg and so did Dave. The swelling had gone down a tremendous amount.

I sat in the backseat with J. and asked "What happened?"

There he was looking all sad, holding an ice pack to the emu egg when he looked at me and said,

" I was playing on top of a big boulder, that I was a Jedi Knight and I was swinging my sword, when I slipped and fell head first on the other granite boulder.....I guess the force wasn't with me."

Well I thought I was going to pee my pants laughing!!

I said to him, "No Sweetie, the force of gravity was with you though."

Have a Blessed Evening.

Lisa

Ok, WHAT"S GOING ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2011-05-06T20:27:00.001-03:00

I was going to blog tonight, but I've lost all my blogs that I follow. Is anyone else having this problem?

That's not cool!

When I go on one of those blogs I can't find the follow button, so I can follow them again.

WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON!!!

Not having a Blessed day on the computer.

Lisa

Squishiness!!!

2011-04-29T19:19:00.013-03:00

J. and Oreo

Sweet Azelle

Last week it was so cold that we were wondering if spring would ever show up!

Then the rains began...and continued....and continued....and are still continuing! Monday was actually a beautiful day. It was the only beautiful day we've had in FOREVER!

On the up side going to the barn makes a wonderful squishy sound.

May 6, 2011

I have been trying to get to this blog now for a week or more and I can't seem to find the time.

Easter has been here and gone. It was nice. We had a nice service at church. We even formed a small choir for the day. My mom made a nice glazed ham.

Annual Easter photo. My baby is growing up!

I took our annual Easter photo with J.. He got that bunny for Easter when he was 3 weeks old. So every year I take his photo with it. The first year, the bunny was holding him! Now he's holding the bunny.

Cindi Lou was due on the Saturday before Easter. Well she waited till the next Friday while I was at work.

Half way there!

Dave called me at work. This is how the conversation went,

Dave: "You'd better come home NOW! "

Me: "Why? What's wrong?"

Dave:" I think you're goat is having her baby and I don't know if what's going on is normal."

Me:" Ok, I'm gone!"

I literally flew home. In the 3 years or so that I've had goats, I've yet to see a goat birth. I have no clue what is normal and what isn't.

I'm Out! I'm Out!

So after a tense 2 hours and several phone calls to our pastor (no, not for prayers, he used to be a dairy farmer) and lots of crying (me and her) Cindi Lou gave birth to a bouncing baby boy! We knew she was only having one. We named him Prince William since he was born on the day of the Royal Wedding.

Oreo wondering what all the commotion is about?

Azelle thinks it was much ado about nothing.

Ok, If I don't get all the attention here soon, I'm not going to be impressed!

We have three new critters to the farm. Three sweet kittens. Two black ones and Dave picked up another one last week. He's a tiger striped. The black ones are called Sylvester and Junior and the other one is Tigger. Don't forget, it's a 10 year old that named them.

Sylvester! Or is it Junior?

Febe has been giving us so much milk that we don't know what to do with it. I had been milking her once a day since the kids are only nursing from one side. So one goat is actually supplying two kids, a family and a bottle fed calf and I still have a fridge full of milk!

But the last few days I've been noticing that her milk had a pink tinge to it. Yesterday was really bad and really nasty. It smells normal and tastes normal, but it's really ewwy knowing that you're drinking blood. Yuck.

We called the vet this morning. He figures that she's burst a blood vessel in her udder. It's nothing serious but we have to milk her at least 3 times a day and take the kids away from her and bottle feed them. This is going to be fun. Not. It's going to be crazy around here.

Well it's bed time.

Have a Blessed Evening.

Lisa

A week in photos.

2011-04-22T14:44:00.015-03:00

It's been a busy week!

Dave has rebuilt the stalls. They are now 3 even sized stalls. A lot better for the goats.

The new stalls.

He also went to the cattle sale last Saturday. He found me a nice buggy for bringing my bales of hay or what have you around. It's in excellent shape.

My cattle sale find.

Then Sunday evening we had a pre-Easter service. We had a few people from other churches come and sing also. Becky and Chris sang from our church.

Chris and Becky.

They sang beautifully. Gave me goosebumps.

This cross actually survived the church fire.

Well I know that Cindi Lou is due this weekend, but honestly, does this goat look pregnant to you? Nope. If she has a baby I'll eat my shirt. But who knows? She's not even showing signs of kidding. No pawing the ground, no nesting, no jitters. Nothing, nada.

Is she? or Isn't she?

Febe was due on the 21st and she actually gave birth on the 21st! That's a first! She's always late. So she had a girl and a boy. The girl is small, so I've been supplementing her a bit. We named the boy Oreo. The girl is Spring Peeper Azelle Marie. The reasoning behind this name is simple.

Lunch time!

An elderly friend of my mom's was not well. So I told her that I'd name a goat after her. She was thrilled. Then she passed away a few weeks ago. Azelle Marie was her name.

Spring Peeper Azelle Marie

Azelle looks like a mini donkey. She's a sweetie. Oreo, well, he just has weird markings.

Oreo!

We've also been on the hunt for new barn cats. Well we found 2 brothers. J. named them Sylvester and Junior. Really original. Honestly it's hard to tell them apart. Junior has one white toe on his back leg.

I think we're kinda cute!

Can you tell who's who?

J. got a gift from grandpa for Easter. A pellet gun. It's pretty cool. I wasn't too keen on it at first. We're not really a gun family.

Well, it might be spring but man it doesn't feel like it. I have yet to put clothes on the line. It's too cold! The temps are not bad, but the wind is biting. It's bitterly cold. If the wind would die down it wouldn't be too bad. We're still making fire in the furnace like if it was January for crying out loud!

The eggs in the incubator didn't make it. Two hatched but the chicks would die soon after. I don't know what the scoop was on that. They were a week late in hatching. I don't know if at one time the temp dropped in the incubator and I didn't notice. But it's all very discouraging.

I hope you liked the week in photos. Well that's what it seemed like anyway.

Have a Happy Easter and a Blessed day!

Lisa

Teddy

2011-04-14T21:16:00.007-03:00

The last week we've noticed that Teddy had scours. We didn't realize how bad. I'm not sure but I think we gave him too much milk. Anyway we gave him anti-biotics, dewormed him and gave him electrolytes.

But even with all we did, he passed away last night. When Dave went to feed them this morning, Teddy was curled up in the corner, gone.

Moocher is lost. He's lost his buddy. He keeps bawling for him. It just breaks my heart. I don't think I'll ever get used to losing an animal. It's different when they are sent away to be ...well..you know... but when they're in your care and depend on you for their welfare it's different. Unless you're raising animals it's hard to describe.

Tonight we went to see Dave given an award for volunteering. We were so proud of him. It was for his work in the Fire Department.

My hubby! The tall handsome dude in the uniform.

Every year our community gives a banquet to all the volunteers of the area. It's nice to have them recognized.

Well that's it for tonight. Just a short post. Short and Sweet.

Have a Blessed Day.

Lisa

Acadian Pickers!

2011-04-11T20:46:00.011-03:00

Yesterday was such a beautiful day! Such a tease since we're having rain and wind at the moment. AND....we're expecting rain and wind till the weekend coming up. Oh I'm so not impressed!

Oh well...eventually we'll have nice weather.

After we got back from church yesterday, J. and I decided to go exploring. First he practiced on his, what I call, "A mother's nightmare". He's learning well. Dave is training him to drive it sensibly, BUT accidents still happen.

A mother's nightmare

Anyway, I digress.

Back in the day (don't you just love that saying) they didn't have municipal dumps or garbage trucks passing every week to pick up your garbage. Soooooo....instead they just threw everything in the woods or their own little dump.

It might seem like a bad thing now, but then it was the norm.

Now it makes for an interesting afternoon. Amateur archeology.

American Pickers, Acadian style!

J. had a ball. He had my gloves on and started digging. Mostly broken bottles and rusted out buckets, but to him treasures.

We did find some nice bottles and one weird item. It looked like a buoy. Today I asked Dave, "what do you think this thing is?"

He said, "It's a toilet tank floater."

EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Our wonderful finds including the toilet float.

And here we thought we had a cool and unusual find! We thought we were just like the American Pickers. I guess not. J. would pull out an old bucket and say ,"I'll give you 50 bucks!" Dave would yell out SOLD!

It was so funny.

Oh! Remember the carrots I left over winter? Well here they are. The tops a mushy, but the goats love them.

Dave did some recreational tilling yesterday also. Doesn't that nice black earth just scream, PLANT ME! PLANT ME!

Oh yes it does.

This weekend was my first hockey free weekend since last October! Free at last, free at last! Thank God Almighty I'm free at last!!!

Ok that might be a bit dramatic, but after spending all my weekends either at various hockey rinks or working AND various hockey rinks freezing my buttocks off we deserve a break. Well till next October anyway.

Have a Blessed day

Lisa

And then there was two....

2011-04-07T20:13:00.007-03:00

This time last year we had 5 cats. Now we have 2. We only have one in the house now. Binoo. Daisy is gone. She chewed her last electrical cord. That's all I have to saw about that.

Outside we had Shadow, Tootsie and Duke. Now we only have Duke. What happened to the other ones will remain a mystery. Again, we figure coyotes. Now that we have Tundra we don't see them on the property as much anymore, but the cats don't stay on the property. They like going in the woods. That's where the problem lies. The coyotes are just pacing and waiting to come on our land. Dave heard them yesterday morning and they were close. I heard one after supper. It's still light out. They don't wait for darkness anymore.

Febe giving me some lip and the evil eye!

Today Dave was a busy little beaver. He remodeled the goat pen. It used to be one big one and one tiny one. Now it's three regular size ones. Febe wasn't letting Cindi Lou eat enough so something needed to be done. I was also concerned when the kids were born. Was Febe going to be aggressive towards Cindi's kids. Hmmmm...yup. So this will be better. I moved them tonight. Tommy is freaked out, and Febe is not a happy camper. Cindi Lou is happier than pig in slop! Or happier than a goat in a briar patch! She can eat what she wants, when she wants, as fast or as slow as she wants! Happy goat!

One happy Cindi Lou, ready to eat to her little heart's desire.

We got two calves for our winter beef. We've been bottle feeding them like we did last year. We were only going to have one, but Dave had called two dairies. One called and we picked up calf number one. He was huge! Then three days later the other dairy calls. So Sunday we went and picked up calf number deux. This one was small. Honestly I have no idea what we are going to do with two of them. One is enough. We'll probably end up selling one of them.

Oh their names are Mooocher

And Teddy.

How on earth can anyone eat a steak called Teddy?

Well I don't think the eggs in the incubator are doing anything. I've been candling them but all I see is a big mass on just one side. Strange. It's in almost all of them. This doesn't sound too promising. One week to go.

Well that's it for this week.

Have a Blessed Day

Lisa

I think I can smell it...

2011-03-30T20:33:00.005-03:00

I think I can smell it!

Can you?

I think it's spring!!! Hmmmm....I'm not sure.

Just in case that spring is thinking of not showing up, well....I'm planting seedlings and putting eggs in the incubator. I'm trying to entice spring to stay. I'm hoping that I'll be successful.

This year we are trying out brussel sprouts.

Even Bibi the hen wants it to stay. That way she gets to scratch around the yard every day.

We are getting our calf Friday. The dairy farm called and one of their cows gave birth to a very big boy calf. It would have been better if we would have had him in a month from now, but you gotta take him when they're available.

Binoo living life dangerously.

Have a Blessed Spring day!!

Lisa

Our little church in the vale.

2011-03-28T13:32:00.010-03:00

Havelock Wesleyan Church (taken in 2007)

Blogging is not always about happy things.

This time blogging is about a sad thing.

Some of you know that we belong to the Wesleyan church. Havelock Wesleyan Church to be precise.

Tuesday at around 6:15 our local fire department got a call for mutual aid to the Havelock Fire Dept. Dave is in our local fire dept. When he heard on the pager that the Havelock church was on fire.

Dave flew out of the house. He was afraid for the pastor's kids. You see just 1o minutes before he had called at the parsonage and he knew that two of the kids were at home alone (FYI they are old enough to be at home alone in case anyone is wondering). He was scared that they were in the church. By the time our fire dept got there this is what they saw...

(Glen Mullen photo)

Five fire departments fought valiantly till the wee hours of the morning to save the parsonage. Needless to say, nothing could be done for the church.

Our little church in the vale is gone. Nothing is left.

I am having a hard time writing this. I know it's just a building and nobody was hurt. The parsonage was saved but still.....

A friend took this video. This was when he arrived on scene.

Within 14 minutes it was mostly gone.

It was our second home. So many memories are in there, not to mention all the records of every marriage, baby dedication, deaths etc....for the last 100 years.

The church structure is gone, but our "Church" is still here. We will prevail.

(karla Kelly photo)

Sunday we had a service in the parking lot. It was bitterly cold, but nobody minded. We said our goodbyes to our church.

I hadn't seen it in person, only in photos. When we crested the hill I just bawled like a baby. What is it about becoming a Christian? I never used to cry at anything before becoming a Christian. Now I cry at everything. Oh well, I'd rather be a Christian cry-baby than a tough athiest.

The strange thing about all of this is that the Sunday before we only had half power in the church. The power company had been called. (Just to clear something up, the cause of the fire hasn't been determined yet.)

Dave, J. and I got to church late so we had to sit in the balcony. Half way through the service Dave asked me if I smelled something. I did smell something funny. Nothing like a grass fire (like everyone was doing these last few weeks). It smelled like smoldering plastic. We asked other people if they could smell something, but nobody else smelled anything.

Maybe it was a look at something ahead.

Have a Blessed Day

Lisa

Spring Fever!

2011-03-21T21:44:00.010-03:00

Spring is in the air! WOOOHOOO!!!!

First day of spring and it was a nice one. I let the cannibals loose this afternoon and they were all happy as clams!

This is another problem we have here on the farm. This year our chickens a.k.a the cannibals, are eating their eggs. We almost have to catch the egg coming out of their butt if we don't want them to peck at it! It's very aggravating!

The cannibals!

A few days ago, Dave had taken the eggs out and left them on a shelf in the barn. I didn't know this. I let the cannibals out of their pen to enjoy the sun. The barn door was also open. While I'm making supper I tell Dave, "Oh, look at that! Aren't they cute? Those two hens must have found something to eat on that shelf! Cute!!!"

So Dave comes to see the show and yells, "Their going to the fricot pot! That's it! Their done! That's eggs I left there! They're eating the eggs!!!"

The single cannibal

Then he runs out screaming, "I'm going to wring their scrawny little necks!!"

But they were gone by the time he got there. Phew!

Speaking of cannibals...Dave and J. have started eating frog legs!! I mean that is so wrong on so many levels! For one thing, we are Spring Peeper Farm...The peepers on the farm should be carefree...not worry about the owner coming and eating their little legs! Think of all the frogs around on little crutches!

Second! I'm French...I'm not eating my cousins! That is like the chickens! It would be cannibalism!

Okay, I'm pushing it, aren't I? Oh well, I'm still not going to eat some. J. is too much like his father. He'll try anything once. Ugh.

Saturday, while I was at work Dave was a busy little beaver. He cleaned the chicken coop (after the whole winter yuck), cleaned the goat pen AND tilled the gardens! He also discovered the carrots I had left in the garden to over-winter. He discovered them BEFORE he tilled.

My overwintered carrots

I was afraid that they were going to be mushy, but alas! They are very good and firm.

We have come to the conclusion that we are going to have to get a shock collar for Tundra. I have been fighting this decision for a long time. We have tried everything to stop her from "playing" with the goats, but it's gotten down to the point that she is going to hurt them if we don't do anything. She's already hurt Cindi Lou once and we had to bring her to the vet. I know to her she's just playing, but the goats don't appreciate it. It's gotten to the point I'm afraid that she might make one miscarry.

Bad girl

We've been told by several people that these collars work well. She's a very smart dog. I don't think we'll have to use it long on her before she gets the point. We are definately not going to use to high settings. I'm hoping the vibration setting will work.

Cindi Lou is just about back to normal. She had a severe kidney infection. The urine sample I brought to our local vet looked like a cross between red wine and grape jelly. Not good.

But after a week on anti-biotic shots, her urine is fine and she's eating well again. Somehow she got her back leg hurt this time. I'm assuming it's Tundra again. My coworker's daughter is going to university to become a vet. I told her I could save her a whole lots of money. Get goats, by the time your done, you've pretty much done everything, know everything and tried everything in the veterinary sciences!

This is what I have to deal with when I come in with treats!

Cindi Lou is starting her udder already! She still has 4 weeks to go. I think she's going to be an excellent little milker. Already when I put her in the milking stand she just stays there. When you put your hand on her belly and then her udder, she does that little goat squat like she wants to be milked. She doesn't kick or squirm. I hope it lasts.

Today I noticed that I had a weird thing on my ivy outside. Can anyone identify this? I didn't think that ivies had seed pods or flowers? What do you think?

Well I think it's time for bed. Our belly dancing instructor was hard on us tonight. I'm pooped and sore.

Have a Blessed Evening.

Lisa

Cindi Lou update

2011-03-15T21:33:00.004-03:00

Cindi Lou is still not doing well. Her shoulder is doing well, but she's still not eating and she's been peeing red. Not good. The vet has us giving her vitamin shots and penicillin shots. She'll eat tiny amounts of dulse and that's it.

Nothing more. We are at our wits end. At this point I'm not worried about the kid anymore. I just want Cindi Lou to be healthy again.

It would be a shame if she would lose the kid being only 4 weeks away, but sometimes you just have to look at the greater good of the situation.

Sorry I haven't been posting photos, but it's been hectic here the last several days. I've been gone to a hockey tournament with J. for the last 4 days. They came in 4th. Which is good for them.

I call him bumblebee legs!

While we were waiting for the game, we got J.'s face painted for our Acadian flag. It kinda freaked out the opposite team. Heh heh.

Have a Blessed Day

Lisa

What I do for my goats!!

2011-03-12T20:07:00.003-04:00

We've noticed a few days ago, that Cindi Lou had a pronounced limp. She was also not eating well. So yesterday we packed her up IN THE CAR! and drove 2 hours to the goat vet.

Well it's not her leg, it's her "shoulder". He gave her an injection of anti inflammatory meds and instructions and meds for 2 more doses. He figures it's her nerves in her shoulder that somehow got aggravated.

He also "bounced" her and she's really preggers. I'm glad to have that confirmed. He could only feel one, but that's ok. Other than that he said she was the perfect size for her age. Not too fat, not too skinny.

He also gave me advice on feed and hoof trimming. He said we were doing a great job, but just one spot we missed. An hour's worth of vet brain for the bargain price of 76$!! He's so good and inexpensive. He's worth the 2 hour drive even at the price of gas!!

I just wish he was closer. The vets around here have NO clue about goats, only cats, dogs, horses and cows. That's the extent of their knowledge, which is really too bad since there are so many goat people around here.

Other goat friends of mine, have had 3 does miscarry. Not good. Then another one had triplets 2 were stillborn. They are having hard luck this year. It must be so discouraging.

I just hope that Cindi Lou makes a full recovery. She's not eating still and she needs energy for the baby. If she's still not eating by tomorrow or Monday I'll have to make another trip up, but the good thing is that I'll only be 2 minutes away from the vet since J. and I are leaving tomorrow for a three day hockey tournament in that area.

Have a Blessed Day!!

Lisa

It's mating time!

2011-02-24T21:45:00.011-04:00

Litter of mink kits.

Ok, well maybe not in the goat world, but in the world of mink ranching it is.

One of the major industries in our neck of the woods is mink ranching. Even though I hate the little buggers, if it wasn't for them this area would be dead. Most of us would need to move away for work.

J. holding a mink kit. These photos were taken last year.

So in a little while the ranchers are going to start getting their mink mated. By the end of April / beginning of May it's kit time! Kits are baby mink. The mink start giving birth. They are soooo cute! Too bad they can't stay that way.

I mean, how cute is that!!But then they grow up.

In July they begin implanting. Which means vaccinating against distemper and other such things. It's really an amazing process for start to finish.

Babies everywhere!!

By October is when they are humanely put down and prepared for the fur sales in March and May.

Mink is one of the warmest things you can wear. Cold climates like Russia depend on our mink to last their harsh winters.

I know GreenPeace and Peta would love to shut these places down, stating that the mink are inhumanely treated, but take it from someone who's seen it first hand, these animals are treated better than most people treat their pets! If they weren't treated well it would show in their pelts meaning less money for the rancher. Maybe it's not the best reason for treating the mink well, but at least it's better than nothing.

One of the real threats for the mink ranchers now is a disease called Aleutians Disease. Or AD. It kills the mink early or if it doesn't kill them, it kills their kits. It also is very contagious from mink to mink. We are hoping and praying for a vaccine or cure soon for them.

Well I hope you liked the world of mink!

Have a Blessed Day

Lisa

High Tide

2011-02-21T21:39:00.008-04:00

One of the marvels in our neck of the woods are the world's highest tides (and you thought it was my very own Red Green!)

Low Tide in Weymouth

Pictures cannot do them justice but I'm going to post high and low tide photos anyway.

Their power is awe inspiring!

High Tide in Weymouth

People have been known to get lost on the beaches around here. If it's low tide and they're by the water, then the fog sets in....it's a very dangerous situation. The tide comes in (and it comes in fast) the person gets disoriented. Not good.

Scientists have discovered a good way to use the power of the tides.

Look at this

It's just amazing.

Well we've gotten business cards for the soap business and Dave ordered a banner. Isn't it cool! It's on the same principal as the business cards.

Have a Blessed Day

Lisa

The Latest in Goat Couture

2011-02-13T21:12:00.005-04:00

Well this year it seems like Febe hasn't grown a winter coat. Why? I have no idea? Cindi Lou and Tommy did hmmm...

Anyway I was kinda worried about this. Last year I tried putting sweaters on the goats but it just didn't pan out. They were too big and the goats were walking all over them.

So today I thought I'd try it again and I went to the local second hand clothing store and bought a few SMALL vests and sweaters.

Aren't they just so cute!

Cindi Lou is wearing the latest in zipped up fleece vests with pockets on each side for carrying a few snacks for later on in the day. I mean now...you never know when you're going to get the munchies. Especially when you're expecting!

Febe is modelling the latest in jersey knit tees. She just finds it makes her feel snug and cozy. Even though it is getting a bit tight in the midriff. But I mean...come on...isn't that how all celebrities wear their tees when they're enceinte?

Now Tomi, well Tomi pees on himself. So he doesn't get any goat couture.

Have a Blessed Day!
Lisa

And now panic sets in...

2011-02-12T19:12:00.008-04:00

This is what a buck pen looks like when your husband doesn't properly lock it.

This is what a properly locked buck pen looks like.

This is what a Great Pyrenees' pen looks like.

This is what a Great Pyrenees' pen looks like when the buck's pen is not locked properly and someone has a ball, grabs the goat treats off the tippy top shelf and gets a bellyache.

Hmmm....is it this tiny little puppy that did this damage?

Or is it the face of innocence here?

Hmmm....I'd say both.

Well it's this time of the year when I start to panic. Especially this year.

It's the time of year when mating season is just about over, the does have not come in heat in 2 cycles, yet they still aren't showing.

So I begin to think...are they? or aren't they?

That is the question. Especially when you are using a young unproven buck. Not the smartest thing I've done in my lifetime. But I hope it will all be fine at Easter, cause that's when both are due.

Well I just couldn't help myself. I just couldn't. I broke down and I bought SEEDS!!!!

But I didn't order them. I had to go to Kentville yesterday and today (Dave was having surgery to fix the complications from the surgery of 3 weeks ago) so I went to the Country Store and bought SEEDS in BULK!!

But I controlled myself. I only bought gourds, pumpkins, peas, beets, carrots and I'm looking for a place to buy sunflower seeds in bulk.

It was time to deworm the dog tonight. First of all I just couldn't believe the price to deworm her. Just a few dollars shy of 50$$$!!! ACK!

All I have to say is try giving 3 huge pills to an 82 lb puppy that just wants to lick your face and play. Oh My WORD! It took five tries to get them in her mouth and to get them to stay in there. In hindsight, I should have brought in a few hotdogs. But that doesn't always work. We used to have a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling dog and we'd put the pills in the hotdogs, she'd gulp to whole thing then spit out the pills like we do with watermelon seeds!

So after that wrestling match with Tundra I'm now kinda pooped.

Well have a Blessed Day.

Lisa

Snow storms, snowblowers and soap

2011-02-05T20:25:00.009-04:00

The view of our lake and ruined fence.

Snow! Snow! Snow!

We wanted it and we got it. Last week we got 40 cm of snow in a day. Ack! Now tomorrow we are getting 10 mm of rain. Isn't that gonna be nice. NOT!

Day after the storm, nice and sunny.

Getting rid of your snow in the driveway with a snowblower is great, if you only expect snow. Now.... if your also expecting rain, it's not the best. Because it turns that nice, clean, white driveway into a nice, smooth ice skating rink. Whip out the skates! It's 'Hockey night in Nova Scotia!"

Dandruff or snow? Hmmm you decide.

Thank goodness for studded winter tires. Phew.

Well our night at Rudders worked out well. It didn't have many ladies, but we did sell over 100$ worth of soap. New customers. I can't remember if I mentioned it but we came out with a new scent. Lavender. Some with the petals, some without. It went over well. I'm not much of a lavender fan, but now I'm not making soap just for myself. Kinda like the Patchouli. Yuck!

The lavender we called it Lavender Dreams and the Patchouli is Holy Patchouli! I'm having Deja Vu. I think I did mention this in a previous post. You know what they say. The mind is the second thing to go....and I can't remember what the first thing is.

This feeder is about 5 feet off the ground and Shadow regularly jumps in it. Doesn't grab anywhere, just jumps.

I've begun feeding the wild birds regularly now. Some appreciate it more than others. Shadow was waiting for his next meal of "Bluejay a l'orange".

J. also seems fascinated by the woodpecker.

Barn fever cured after the storm.

Oh! I just about forgot! I've started belly dancing lessons. Very good exercise since I'm trying to lose about 40 lbs. It's not going well. I've been at it for over a month now. I'm walking everyday and bellydancing once a week, eating healthy and I've lost a total of 2 lbs!! Then I gained it all back. Very, very discouraged.

Have a Blessed Day!
Lisa

p.s. why is it that hurricanes and tropical storms have names and winter storms don't. Is the north not important enough?

I sometimes wonder where my brain is.

2011-01-30T15:55:00.002-04:00

Most of you probably don't know this and probably don't care, but we are Wesleyans. You're probably thinking HUH? What's that. That's the church we go to.

Wesleyan church

One of our beliefs is to abstain from alcohol. So why or why would I want to go to a bar?

Welllllll.....it came to my attention in the local paper that this bar was having a Ladies Nite! Good place to sell SOAP! Wouldn't you say? Well really it was a good place. Dave and I went and even though it wasn't busy we sold over 100$ worth of soap!

We have two new scents, Lavender (with or without lavender petals), and Patchouli. I named the Lavender one "Lavender Dreams" and the patchouli one "Holy Patchouli!" Because Holy Patchouli! that scent is strong! They're not very original, but oh well.

Our business cards came in the day before Ladies Nite. They came in handy.

I've ordered a whole bunch of different scents online and they should be coming in tomorrow. I'm all excited!

Well that's it for today.
Have a Blessed Day.

Lisa

It's that time of the year again!!!

2011-01-23T15:49:00.004-04:00

Strange how humans are never happy with what they have. Is it ingrained in our DNA to always want what we don't have? Or is it just our lot in life to always want what is on the other side of the fence?

It's raining, we want sunshine. It's sunny, we want rain cause we think it's too dry. It's winter and it's too warm, we want snow. It's now very, very, very cold with lots and lots and lots of snow and I've had ENOUGH!!!. Hmmmm.....maybe it's just me. Nah! I don't think so.

Where is this post going? Well last fall I decided I was not going to plant a garden this coming spring. Don't have the time. It doesn't grow well, or it grows too well and we have produce coming out of the ying yang.....etc...etc....

Wellllllll....guess what. Yeah.

The seed catalogue came in the mail in early December. I did really well. I just chucked it aside and didn't even look at it.

Hmmph! That was December. It's now the end of January and I found the seed catalogue. Not good. I'm already planning what I'm going to plant this spring.

CRIMINY!!!! I didn't even have a chance to plant my garlic this fall! Where am I going to find the time to do a garden this spring.

I think that God gives us amnesia. Kinda like when we are in labour for 23 hours, swear we will never, ever have another kid. Then give us a few months, maybe a year and WHAMOO! We've forgotten all about the pain. We want more kids. This is how the earth gets populated. The technical term is called Labour amnesia. Ok, no I made that up.

So it's the same for gardening...we tell ourselves at the end of fall that we are NOT going to plant again next spring. Then ole man winter has his grimy cold claws in you and all you just want to do it go out and stick your hands in some nice warm dirt. Once again garden amnesia strikes again!

So coming back the the topic at hand.

Where there's a seed catalogue, there's a way!

I will not go overboard...I will not go overboard....I will not go overboard!!! This is my mantra.

I plan on just sunflowers, carrots, pumpkins and beets. I mean come on...you gotta have beets!

I will control myself, I will control myself...I will...I will....I will.....not......heh heh heh heh.

Have a Blessed day!

Lisa

Winter Musings!!

2011-01-16T15:34:00.017-04:00

Today is a beautiful day. It snowed again through the night and we awoke to a winter wonderland. We stayed home from church since Dave had to fix the snowblower before we could get out of the driveway. Yup, Red Green fixed the blower. He actually found one for 100 bucks! A new one. How lucky was that! Because everyone else wanted 350+ !!

Hmmm...I don't think that this whole is supposed to be there. Do you?

So now we have a happy Red Green snowblowing his driveway. So that means I can go to work tomorrow. crap.

A happy Red Green!

J. and I also went outside. Him to sled, me to take photos. I figured that it was time to take more barnyard photos.

I love going out in the snow when it's not windy and the sun is shining.

Cindi Lou and Tomi

Yeehawwww!!!

WIPE OUT!!

J. loves it to! I took several photos of him and then decided that the animals needed attention. I got a few out of the pen, then I decided I'd get a few in the pen. They were all ready for me.

Out they all flew!! So I yelled to J. to corral them in the barn. Since the snowblower was going I didn't want them to go everywhere willy-nilly. I closed the gate before Tomi got out. So after everyone was safe in the barn I went back for Tomi. By now he was scared of the snowblower. I finally coaxed him out. I took some doing.

You want me to go where?

Ummmm...I don't think so! Maybe I can make a run for it!!!

That's the scary monster!

Then I noticed that Red Green had stopped. He was in a life and death situation with a large 50 ft green snake! (garden hose, that was never put away) Opps! After a struggle with just a small box knife, he came out safe and won!! He lived to snow blow another day.

Green snake carcass in the blades

Part of Dave's trophy! I wonder if we should mount it in the living room?

All the excitement over I went to visit the chickens. This years hens are wimps. I've never had hens that didn't like the snow. These ones will NOT go outside in the snow. Weird. I guess it's too much for their delicate toes.

Speckles. Hen or Rooster?

I do have one hen...Speckles. We have no clue if it's a hen or a rooster. She's not plump like a hen, and she struts her stuff like a rooster does, but she doesn't crow. I've never seen her lay an egg. Well as if I've seen any of the other ones lay. phffft! But she's never gone on the nest. Strange.

I'm soooo excited!!!We are getting business cards! People ask for one everywhere we go. So I guess we should get some. Vistaprint makes them 250 for just the shipping. That's not bad.

Well that's it for today. I have company coming over for supper. We're going to have rappie pie.

Have a Blessed Day.

Lisa

Winter Fun!

2011-01-13T20:43:00.013-04:00

The following picture should be called "Crazy things kids will do when they are happy to see snow."

Here it is!

Silly Child!

Nuts huh. Yeah, I thought so to.

When you leave for work when it's dark and get home when it's dark, you have to take pictures when you can. First snowman of the year.

We haven't had all that much snow this year. It's really sad. Yes, I am one of those crazy people that love snow. Just call me the crazy cat/snow lady. That's me!

A few hours after that photo was taken the snow was gone. Bummer. But! Alas! Yesterday we had our first snow day. The day started blah enough. It was giving snow, but it's given snow storms many times this year and we've gotten squat! Well God didn't forget us this time. No sireee!! Our cups runneth over! and over and over. The snow started around noon and by suppertime we had lots!

But this story doesn't end happily for the snow people. Today it started to drizzle and the temps went above freezing. Crud. Oh well, this evening there still was lots of snow in our area. Five minutes from here, on the shore, there was almost nothing. I guess that's the good thing about living inland.

Tundra loved the snow. We let her loose last night for awhile and her and J. had a ball. She is bigger than J. at the moment. So you see more of her than of him.

Wanna play leapfrog? Or leapdog?

Last night when I was outside I had to go and take some goat photos. I've been neglecting them recently with the photography. So I treated them to photos and dulse.

Where's the dulse?huh?huh?

I smell the dulse, where is it?????

Stop teasing us and give us the goods!

Phew! A nice mouthful of dulse. YUM!!!

I took a photo for all you dulse virgins. This is dulse. Nothing wow! Nothing spectacular. Just plain ole' dried seaweed. Good for you and for goats.

This is dulse. Very appetizing, isn't it?

Dave was all happy to use his snowblower for the first time this year. Until the last 10 feet when the motor went KERBLEWY! Big hole in the side. Not fixable. Even Red Green can't fix this one. We are trying to find another second hand motor somewheres. Anyone have one?

Before the kerblewy!

Oh, Oh! I almost forgot. I found a wonderful new Canadian Goat Website. Canada Goats

You've got to check it out. It's really new, so not too many people yet. But worth joining.

Have a Blessed Day!

Lisa

I should be in bed....

2011-01-08T21:55:00.010-04:00

Family Photo

Well here I sit. It's 10pm. I should be in bed, I'm so pooped I cannot think straight. I worked all day. The last month or so I've been working 5-6 days a week. I'm not used to this. I'm not sure how much longer I can keep it up. Oh well...You do what you gotta do.

First of all a very belated Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!! The weeks leading to Christmas were go, go, go...parties, concerts, contatas, work, work and more work!! Then it all comes to a screeching halt on December 25th. It's almost a downer. I actually get depressed at Christmas time. I almost feel ashamed of the feeling. Everyone is so happy and giddy and I could sit there and cry. Next year I jokingly told a co-worker I'm going to take anti-depression pills from the week before Christmas to the week after New Years.

Sounds like a plan.

Out of everything that came out of the holidays one great thing happened. We have wanted J. to sing with us in church since we started. He didn't want to. He said he never would. NEVER!!!! Were his exact words. Never say never.

Contata Night. Me and two other ladies singing "Beautiful Star of Bethlehem" (I'm in the middle)

We were singing the special in church that morning,"Glory to God in the Highest" by Ernie Hauss and Signature Sound. He actually sang with us!!! I could barely sing. I was on cloud nine! It was also the Christmas contata that night. The organizers loved the song so much that they wanted us to open the contata with it. That meant that J. had to sing it again! And he did! So now he has no excuse. He can do it.

J. singing his little heart out with the other kids.

Christmas eve Dave's dad came and had lobster with us. We open our gifts on Christmas Eve. Most people around here do. I'm not sure if it's just an Acadian tradition or if other people do it.

I was going to go to Midnight Mass with my mother at the Catholic church and I completely forgot. We were in bed by 10am. I woke up the next morning with my eyes stuck shut, swollen and extremely red! I was hoping I wasn't going to be allergic to lobster. I've never been before, but it can happen.

Getting a lobster to fall asleep.

Christmas Day, no snow. Sugar Boogers! Oh well. We opened Santa's gifts, ate a late breakfast and did the daily chores that go with being on a farm. The goats got corn on the cob from Santa, Tundra got treats and a toy. The cats got a scratch post/bed and the barn cats got treats and canned cat food. J. got a Lego Christmas once again. He got a Lego crane from us, but Dave had to put it together. It took him 4 hours! The 2 other items were from Santa and he did them himself. One was actually for kids 14 and up. I was really impressed. Lego teaches kids to read instructions and follow them. Other than that it's not the thing that it was supposed to be.

Binoo loved her scratch post

After a quick lunch of left over lobster we went to the senior's home to visit Dave's mom. Stayed a while then when to my parents for supper. We had rappie pie.

New Years Eve we has a pizza party with our Bible study group. It was fun. Everyone brought a pizza. There was pizza everywhere!!!

After battling with swollen, red eyes for a few weeks, I went to the eye doctor. I've got Blefaritous. I think that's how you spell it. It's an irritation of the eye lids. So I have to take eye drops for 7 days. It's getting better, but baby they burn.....ouch!!! But on the positive side, that means I'm not allergic to lobster!!!

I also had to visit the dentist, since Christmas day I ate a Terry's Chocolate orange (the mint variety) and I love frozen chocolate. Not a good idea. I broke off a large piece of tooth. The last piece of real tooth off of my root canal. Double sugar boogers! I called the dentist and he was off till Jan 4th. I left a message and waited. It didn't hurt, just bugged the heck out of me. So now my entire back tooth is not a tooth. It's all filling. Not very appealing. Oh well, better than a 1000$ crown.

Tonight The Havelock Trio, Dave and I went to the Home to entertain them. We sang three songs and again J. surprised us and sang one also. One we sang is called the French Song. It was made popular by Lucille Starr many, many,many moons ago. I sing the French part and then we sing the English part together. It was a mainly english audience so I figured they wouldn't like it to much. But after, a lady told me that she was taught that song as a child. She hadn't heard it in decades. It brought back many memories for her. They all loved the little concert we all put together for them.

So your lesson for this week....Please volunteer at a seniors home. They will really appreciate it.

I'm thinking of drying up Febe. I'm barely getting 3/4 of a liter. It's time to let her bulk up for her babies.

Tundra thinks she's a goat. She's eating hay, fir trees and tonight it was dulse. Strange dog.

I got lots of fir trees from work this year. It's like a drug to the goats. Weird.

Well I think it's all for tonight. I have got to write more often and not as much. Did that make any sense? Probably not, but it's late and I'm tired.

Have a Blessed Day (or evening)

Lisa

I should have stayed in bed....

2010-12-18T20:30:00.005-04:00

Well winter has come to this part of Nova Scotia. It's cold and it's snowy. That means lugging water. The ground is semi frozen and I didn't get to plant my garlic or pick the rest of the carrots in the garden. Hmmm.. I wonder if they'll overwinter? Will I have carrots next spring? or will they be all mushy? That's something that will have to wait till next spring.

The cats are happy that the Christmas decorations are up. Binoo was in her usual spot the minute the tree was done. They are pretty good with the decorations. They only bother the bottom ones on the tree, and most of the time they don't even bother.

Yesterday morning we awoke to squeaking in the kitchen. Binoo and Daisy had a mouse cornered under the radiators. Heaven forbid that they catch it and eat it. No, no, no!! Too much work and it might dirty their paws. So J. and I went to the rescue. We saved the mouse from the jaws of death..well, kind of. We petted it and talked to it, then I let it loose outside, hoping it would be smart enough to find a nice warm hole to hibernate in.

Well let me tell you, no wonder mice are at the bottom of the food chain. They aren't the brightest bulbs in the bunch. Within 10 minutes Shadow tracked down the mouse and had a nice breakfast.

J. was all disappointed, but then Dave in all his wisdom told J., "How would you like to be stuck in a cold barn all night? This way Shadow had a nice warm meal first thing this morning. Kinda like oatmeal to you."

Tis' the season for Christmas concerts. So far we've had the Sunday school concert and J. was a nice wiseman. Then we had the school concert. Tomorrow night we're having the church Christmas contata.

Well onto the reason behind the title of this post.

It started out innocently enough that Sunday morning a few weeks ago....

We got up, ate breakfast, showered and then off to church.

The weather was still mild so I wore my leather jacket. I wasn't leading worship so I decided to wear jeans.

That morning we sat in the balcony...thank goodness...

It was a bit chilly in the church so I kept my jacket on.....thank goodness....

So we stood up and prayed and sang....then sat down...then stood up again... you get the picture.

Then it was the greeting chorus, so we went down to shake hands with the other people and I still had on my jacket...thank goodness.....

I started to climb up the stairs to the balcony when I felt something weird on my butt. I tried to inconspicuously feel what the problem was, nothing seemed amiss. I figured my underwear were in a spot that they weren't supposed to be in. So I didn't think any more about it.

I got to my seat and by this time it was warm in the church so I took my jacket off! Sat down and proceeded to listen to the sermon.

After it was done I donned on my jacket...thank goodness... and still my pants felt weird. I just said my good byes and left the building. Nothing unusual. Until the cold air hit me and my bottom! I got to the car and really felt for the problem. To my mortification my pants had ripped, from stem to stern!

Why am I posting this? I'm not really sure. Maybe to teach everyone else a lesson...don't wear jeans to church!

Or maybe I'm past being mortified and now I see the humour in it. Because honestly, it is just so darn funny. Or maybe I'm just a sucker for punishment. Dunno.

One thing I do know...I've probably made your day now.

Oh and Dave and I are singing a special tomorrow in church and I will not be wearing pants! A nice long skirt will do nicely!

Have a Blessed Day and Merry Christmas!

Lisa

p.s. the truck is gone.

Weird happenings on Spring Peeper Farm.

2010-11-28T22:49:00.009-04:00

Cindi Lou pondering life

First of all, the date on top should be December 4, 2010.

Well, well, well... Two Fridays ago, we were driving home from J's hockey practice, when we spotted 3 teens walking on the side of the road. It was dark out, so we only saw them at the last minute since they were wearing all dark clothing.

We were just beside them when they threw a two by four in front of the car! What the heck!!?? We just couldn't believe it. We heard Thunk! as it hit the car. By the time we realized what was going on the culprits were gone. We stopped at a friends house to call the cops, for all the good it would do. But we did anyway.

We started on our way home again, when Dave said, "This is bugging me! I'm going back!" So he turned on a dime and we went back. Don't ya think the buggers were there again!

So we went to the house we called the cops at and Dave dropped us off and picked up his friend.

They was gonna go idiot huntin'!

To make a long story short, they found them and Dave chased them down, first with the car, then by foot! He caught one of them, and brought him at the fire hall, since that's where they were at the time and Dave has a key to it.

He called the cops from there and the kid squealed on his friends (honor among criminals eh?). The cops came and took a statement. The kid's dad came and he was not a happy camper! Since they are all underage they have a curfew set on them by the cops. No damage was done to the car. In a way I wanted some damage to the car, because they were obligated to pay for it, if there had been some. I know that's not very Christian of me, but I am so sick and tired of young punks getting away with everything, just because they're underage. My motto is, "If you're old enough to do the crime, you're old enough to do the time."

So putting that behind us, we thought our brush with the law was behind us. WRONG!

Last Saturday was an extremely busy day. I was working, Dave was at a craft sale till 4pm with my soap and spices (he sold 22 bars of soap btw, very good) J. had to be at the Sunday school concert practice at 1pm, then at a hockey game three hours away for 3pm, then he somehow had to go to my mom's in the other direction 45 minutes away for 4pm to go to the Santa parade for 6pm. Then Dave and I had to be at a banquet for 6:30pm. So needless to say, it was busy and J. didn't get to the hockey game. Only so many hours in a day and I don't really want to cut my son in half, like Solomon wanted to do in the Bible.

Anyhoo...We all got home around 9pm and all fell into bed soon after. We were pooped.

Little did we know.....

What had transpired in......

our back yard!

Sunday we were still clueless until after we got home from church and our neighbour came to see if we liked the new creature in our backyard.

We were like, huh?

Till we saw this......

Kids... this is what happens when you drink and drive!

I won't go into details with it, since the police are involved and it's not over yet, but I will say one thing, this poor truck is in a swamp that has 80 feet of mud under it. It's slowly sinking....it's been raining, this is not helping matters. It's been a week today and it's still here. Technically it's not on our land, but it visible from our land and people are coming to see it and it's causing congestion in the road. They stop to have a look, block our driveway and we are at the bottom of a blind crest. Not good.

The police have been here so many times, you'd think someone died here. Geez! I just want it gone. It was funny at first, but it's not anymore.

Febe giving us a kiss.

Anyway, I can't leave a post without photos of goats, it's been a while since I've posted some and new ones of Tundra.

Tommy and Tundra. (Stinky LaPew and Penelope too!)

She's now in with the goats permanently. She even sleeps with them at night. I have my house back. Phew! She wasn't happy in the house anyhow. She's so happy outside all day and in the barn all night. Someone told us it's cruel to keep a dog outside all the time and not bring it in the house. They said, "what's the point of having it?"

Uh...well...to protect the animals it was bought for. It's bred into to her to protect those goats. And she's happy and does it well.

Well that's about it for today.
Have a Blessed day.

Lisa

I'm sooo not impressed!

2010-11-25T20:46:00.002-04:00

Tommy is not doing his deed! Febe AND Cindi Lou came into heat again this week. Febe on Monday and Cindi Lou today.

Dave put the goats out for me today and I told him to watch Tommy and Cindi.

He brought Febe to the pasture and when he came back Tommy had jumped his stall! He was waiting outside for Dave. You gotta understand that Tommy's walls reach up to my shoulders! It's also not big, so he couldn't get a running start.

He was just raring to go see Cindi. So without going into graphic details....Dave said at least 10 times!!Surely to goodness it took this time. If it didn't we're going to bring them to a friend's buck. I'm not taking anymore chances.

Well it's cold here now. That means lugging water and low egg production. Crud. I'm also down to milking Febe just once a day. She's giving a liter with one milking. She was giving less with 2 milkings. So I just milk in the morning.

Oh I also need some ideas from everyone. I need a cute, catchy name for my patchouli soap. Honestly I hate the smell, but I had a request for it.

Have a Blessed Day

Lisa

Oh yes it's Ladies Nite .....

2010-11-23T20:30:00.007-04:00

My honey, selling our wares.

Well last night was our annual Ladies Night at Home Hardware. There were over 170 ladies in that store. Ugh. Think packed, think sardines, think claustrophobia! Ack!!!! But it's for a good cause. I was helping David S. with the spin 'n' win in the greenhouse part of the store. Brrrr....It was our first snow of this year. Just a small sprinkling but cold none the less.

Part of our Christmas room, The photo doesn't do it justice.

All the ladies enjoyed themselves, games, deals, and food served to you by men on platters. Uh, wait, I mean the food was on the platters, not the men. That's the French coming out of me.

We even had Scrooge!

Every year, Theresa the floor manager and organizer of this event also asks local artisans to set up tables to sell their wares. So I asked if Dave could come and sell my Epicure and soaps. It was excellent exposure. We sold about a dozen soaps and some spices also. He's also going to a craft show this Saturday. I'd go but I'm working.

Watch out! She's really vicious!

On another subject. Tundra "the wonder puppy and protectress of the goat herd" has some bad habits. She nips and she keeps putting herself between you and whatever else it is you're trying to get to. It's very annoying. Any hints on the nipping would be appreciated. When she's putting herself in front of you I'm wondering if she's just trying to protect you from what she thinks is a dangerous situation (I mean washing dishes is a very dangerous occupation. Nothing worse than dishpan hands!) or just being a pain in the patootie. Any suggestions? I mean she is a Great Pyrenees, it's bred into them to protect their property (and we are technically her property).

On a down side, Dave's mom was put into a seniors home last week. Her husband couldn't take care of her anymore. Her Alzheimer's was getting worse. It's been very hard on him and Dave. But it had to be done.

On a happy note, I entered a blogger's contest a few weeks ago and I actually won! I was so excited! Thank you Rural Revival!! Also Annie at Cariboo Valley just loves Dave's goat house.

Well I think that's about it for tonight.

Have a Blessed Day!

Lisa

I Did it! I finally did it!

2010-11-15T22:24:00.003-04:00

I never thought it possible.

Today I actually sat down and did NOTHING! I didn't vacuum, sweep, dust, wash dishes, clean the goat pen, clean the chicken coop or clean out the gardens even though it was beautiful out.

I actually did squat! Nothing nada.

I put J. on the bus, came back home, ate breakfast then promptly fell asleep in my chair while watching The Mom Show and I'm not ashamed to admit it. Some days you just need that.

I don't even feel guilty. Hmmm... strange. Did aliens come and abduct me when I was napping?

Have a Blessed Day

Lisa

Gopher Wood anyone?

2010-11-09T20:59:00.012-04:00

Methinks we need an ark.

Well ok, maybe not now. But Friday, Saturday and Sunday, it sure looked like it. My plan for that weekend was to do all the end of season yardwork. Clean the gardens so I can plant my garlic, clean up the greenhouse, bring in the lawn ornaments etc...

Meerrp! Guess not. That plan went out the door Friday night. It started to rain, and rain, and rain and rain some more. The wind came into play so that didn't help matters. Then Saturday it rained and rained and rained and rained some more. Sunday morning it just drizzled, then it rained and rained and rained and rained some more.

Are we seeing a pattern here? From Friday night to Sunday morning we received more than 200mm of rain! (for you Americans, 25mm equals one inch) What rain we didn't get this summer, we got this weekend. Everyone is flooded. Us for some strange reason didn't get a flooded basement. Weird.

BUT! we lost our goat fence and a tree. The tree was on it's way to fall on the chicken barn, hay barn and the corner of the goat barn. So Dave and our neighbour took his tractor and pulled it the other way.

My poor goat fence.

Then...my fence posts at the goat pasture broke under the pressure of all the rain being pounded by the wind. It broke alot of them right at ground level. So the goats are stuck in the barn and not happy about it. The front part of the pasture is fine, so Dave is going to block off the broken part and we'll fix it next spring. So that way the goats will be able to go outside.

The tree that fell. It was going on the other side.

As for the tree that got knocked down in the pig's pen...well... It killed the electric fence and the regular fence. Thank goodness we only have 2 little pigs left. They are locked in the barn for now, needless to say. They are also going to the butcher this week. They are only 3 months old, but nobody wants to buy them. So we are going to keep them whole and BBQ them on the spit.

So back to the rain, about an hour's drive from here in a place called Quinan they really got the brunt of it. The news had a reporter in a boat. It looked like are large lake. It was really a farmer's field. There was at least 6 feet of water if not more.

The dam broke!

One of the dams in our area broke. Dave went out today and took some photos. It was nice today, no rain...until now...I now hearing the rain just pouring outside. Sugar Boogers! This is not good for the people of Quinan. Many houses are destroyed, roads are gone, bridges are underwater and the hydro dam is almost ready to burst. They've been keeping a close eye on it.

This is really a nice big lawn. Not anymore. If it could freeze, it would be a nice skating rink.

Not good, not good at all. We have to keep praying that they'll all be safe. They have evacuated everyone, but there's still property and livestock.

Tundra with her Elvis impression

Well Tundra is growing. And growing.. She's a little over 5 months old now and she's 64lbs, extremely clumsy and into everything. The kitchen is getting too small for her. We were putting her with the goats until the fence got knocked down. That was tiring her out and they are finally getting along.

But in the meantime, she's been busy chewing in the kitchen.

Hmmmm... too bad she doesn't have any bones and toys to chew on. NOT! She's got lots of bones, but she prefers my cupboards....

and the baseboards

and the potato bin

and the antique high chair

and more baseboards!

She has got to move to the barn where she belongs! AND SOON!

Dave is going to change the pig pens to a Tundra pen when she's not with the goats.

Well that's about it for today.

Have a Blessed Day!

Lisa

How cool is that!

2010-11-05T22:30:00.003-03:00

I've just been playing around with the tabs on my dashboard and aside from USA and Canada, I have a following in Russia and many other countries that I would never have guessed!

Who would have ever thunk it?!!

But what I've been wondering is... how do I get more followers? Am I too boring? Do I need to post more regularly? How do I get "out" there more? Any ideas?

Maybe.......

I should do a soap giveaway? Hmmm.....

Now that's an idea!

What do you think?

That way I could also get opinions on my soap?

Ugh...

My hand smells like a buck. And I washed it several times. Yuck....buck in season.

Ok, that comment was totally uncalled for.

It just popped in my head, I think I'm over tired.

Have a Blessed Evening.

Lisa

LET THE PIGEONS LOOSE!! IT'S MY 100th POST!!!

2010-11-01T21:20:00.004-03:00

Well I never thought I'd get to this! My 100th post! I can just see the ticker tape falling everywhere, the banners are a flying, the trumpets are blaring!! Woohoo!!!! The big 100!

Ok now I've gotten that out of my system. So how are things out there in blog-land? I promise that I will be more faithful in posting. I've had friends tell me to post. It's been too long.

Well what's been going on. Fall is definately (I can never spell that word) here. It is cooooold! Not freezing cold yet, but between your fall jacket and winter jacket cold.

We went trick or treating last night. Got lots of goodies. It was good candy this year.(Yes, it is possible to have bad candy. Too many Halloween kisses, yuck!) Lots of little chocolate bars, Mars, Kitkats, Coffee Crisps etc... Oh do the Americans have Coffee Crisps now? If not, you're missing out on one excellent chocolate bar. Kinda like the Ketchup chips. That's my favourite.

Man, I got off the subject there quick! Like the little old lady on the Golden Girls would say..."but I digress..."

It rained on Halloween, but we live in the country so you don't walk anywhere, you have to drive. Still, it was a cold rain.

Why I put this picture up, I don't know. It was just cute.

Update on Tundra. Yikes! She's growing fast. The incredible growing puppy. It's hard to remember that she's a puppy, when she could eat most dogs for a snack! I want to change her name to Wiggles LaRue. She's got one wicked wiggle on her. lol. When she walks, it's like an articulated dump truck. Her front feet go straight and the rest of her wiggles. It's so funny.

The goats are doing very well. I do believe that both girls are bred. Tommy has done his job quick. I think he got both of them on the same day. I wanted to stagger the births, but well..I guess not. If they are bred, they should give birth in March. But boy oh boy Tommy stinks. Woof! The girls seem to like his eau de chevre cologne. Tundra isn't crazy about it. She tries to keep away from Tommy, but it doesn't always work.

Well, it seems like every waking moment now is taken up with hockey or soap. J. is in his first year of hockey. I am something I said I'd never be....A HOCKEY MOM!! Ack! It's not so bad, kind of. I'll let you know at the end of the season.

This is my Lemon Poppy Seed soap.

The soap is taking off well. I have it in 4 stores already. Ladies nite at work, Dave is going to be there selling it also. So far I only have 5 different kinds. But after Christmas I'll concentrate on inventing new flavours, like Dave calls them. Well honestly a co-worker took a bite out of one of them.

This is a funny story. When I did my first batch, I had given small samples to all the girls in the store. The problem being I hadn't stirred the honey in well, so it made nice swirls in the soap. It looked like fudge. This girl wasn't at work the day I passed them out so she had no clue it was soap. That night she was cashing out the tills. She hadn't eaten all day and was starving, when she spotted the piece of "fudge" soap beside the till. She thought to herself, "nobody will notice if I cut off a little piece." So she did. She said that the minute it hit her tongue, she realized it wasn't fudge! I laughed so hard when she told me this, I thought I'd peed my pants.

I guess I should update ya'll on the last post. I'll just say that on the work front things are going lots better. On the friendship "soap" opera, (no pun intended), not so good. Instead of getting mad at her for slandering our name, I'm praying for her.

So que sera sera.

Oh I almost forgot! The pig update. We have sold Charlotte. Three are going to the butcher this week and that's going to leave just 2 little ones. We aren't sure what we're doing with them. With Dave's new work schedule, he won't have time for them. Are we going to get more in the spring? Don't know. At the moment we are going to concentrate more on the goats and the soap. Strange how life throws you curve balls. It's like the old saying goes,

"Life is what happens, when you're making plans."

Well I'll leave you here for this time.

Have a Blessed Day

Lisa

A man's heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.

Proverbs 16:9

I don't know where to begin.

2010-10-25T11:51:00.004-03:00

J. and I on a hayride last week.

I have been dreading this post. I have no clue where to begin. It's been so long. Well I'll try to start at the beginning.

We've known for some time now, that there were changes coming at Dave's work. We've known since last summer, but we had no clue what was going to happen.

Then we found out what was going to happen. We almost wished that we were still wondering.

One thing was no more bringing the truck at home. So that meant that we'd have to get a second vehicle that we could NOT afford. Including the gas and maintenance. He'd have to drive to get the truck, which is an hour away (on a good day). So he'd have to leave at 5am and only get home at 7pm. There goes family time. Plus....he'd have to start working nights also. So once again, there goes family time. Also, he's not on propane anymore, he's on an oil truck. He doesn't mind that, but he's got a bad back and pulling a 100lb hose everywhere is not good for him.

Dave and J. at a friend's wedding last week.

So after the initial shock, we regrouped and figured out what we were going to do. He started looking for work elsewhere, which is hard to do, since he's been with this company for 18 years. He loves his job and the company. It was a very stressful time. He even sent resumes to Alberta. This was a last resort kinda thing, but still an option. He would live there and commute here every several weeks. The only good thing about that option, was that I'd be able to quit my job and stay home, since he'd be paid mega bucks in Alberta. But I'd rather just keep my job and keep my hubby at home.

After several weeks went by, the company changed their mind and even though, he was still not on the propane truck, they could keep the trucks at home and travel with them. So that meant we didn't need another vehicle. Phew! Then they changed the schedule again and the night shifts, were changing, 2pm-2am. That's much better! (I'm not being sarcastic here) This way it meant that he could get some sleep at night, see us a bit in the morning and then go to work.

We were very concerned about the safety of night shifts. They go for 2 days and then 2 days off. So you'd never get your system used to staying awake at night and sleeping during the day. It would have been half bad if it was like the city drivers, their stops are close at hand, so they're in and out of the truck constantly. The drivers down here, can drive for 2 hours before they get to their first drop, lots of opportunities of falling asleep at the wheel.

So we're happy with the 2-2. It's not perfect, but it's livable.

During all this stress, I started making soap. Lots and lots of soap. So much soap that 2 stores approached me to sell my soap in their store! I approached one store last week and she was thrilled to have it and she also makes home parties (it's a home decor store) and she wants to take it on the road with her! Well needless to say, we were on cloud nine!

But not everyone was happy. A friend of mine who was also making soap, accused me of stabbing her in the back! How, I'm not sure. I'm still trying to figure that out. She says I went behind her back and made soap and sold it. Ahhh..... no I didn't. I blogged once that I was making it. I put photos of it on my Facebook page. I wouldn't say, I went behind her back. I'm not using her recipe, I don't even know what it is!? I found my own on the internet.

Now she's slandering me and Dave to everyone that will listen. Supposedly 5 of my friends on facebook , have dropped me as their friend.

This summer she stopped talking to me because, someone had reported her and another goat person to the authorities for selling illegal yogurt and cheese. They said it was us. It wasn't. But it seems like Dave and I are everyone's scapegoat (pardon the pun).

So this stress added to the other stress of Dave's job, didn't help matters. So can ya'll see why I wasn't in the mood to blog?

Well I think that's enough for now.

It'll be easier to get in the blogging mode now.

I'm off to the doctor's to get a cortisone shot in my heel. Ouch!

Have a Blessed Day.

Lisa

No, I'm not dead!

2010-10-15T21:21:00.003-03:00

It's been awhile, but I'm not gone to the big farm in the sky. I will blog more later on.

At the moment we have been under an extreme amount of stress for the last 2 months. So needless to say, when you're stressed blogging is the last thing on our minds. Add to this stress that a few people have been giving us some grief.

So later on I will post more, just keep us in your prayers.

Have a Blessed Day.

Lisa

The History Lesson

2010-09-22T20:42:00.011-03:00

Dave and I under an a willow tree that was there during the Expulsion.

This has been an amazingly busy week! I don't even know where to begin.

Well first, like I've already posted, I've started with the soap making. It's so much fun and I wish I had more time to make it. I made 2 batches on Monday. We've started to use 3" PVC pipe for the molds and it works great. It's hard to get out, but "Red Green" already has his brain smokin' on a way to take them out easier.

Then we got an email from the Baptist minister we met on the ferry last month. They're coming for a month long visit next summer. They've already booked at a B & B. This is going to be lots of fun.

Dave has sold all his piglets from this litter. Well he's got deposits on all of them. I've also found out how to make lard!! So when we take our pigs to the butcher I'll be able to get free lard! Cheaper soap.

The goats have gone nuts. I think Tommy has begun to be bucky. Tonight we were getting whiffs of some different odor while we were beside him. I haven't seen him pee on himself yet, but I'm also not here all day. Cindi Lou was going nuts tonight. She was trying to jump on our backs and stay there as we were walking away. She would actually walk on her hind legs and follow us. Methinks she's going into an early heat. Even Febe is getting edgy and nasty, which means heat time is a coming. It would be so nice if they could be bred early in the season. Then I could relax the rest of the fall. So far in the past years, Febe has only come in heat at the end of October, early November.

We put Tundra in with the goats a little while ago. We stayed there. Thank Goodness!! Who needs a livestock guardian against coyotes when you have Febe. If we wouldn't have been there, she would have hurt badly or even killed Tundra. I mean Tundra is now almost the size of a coyote (they're small here, about 50-60 lbs). But we tried again tonight and it went a bit better.

I'm holding a scorpion!!!

This last weekend we went to the Windsor Exhibition. It was really good. Lots of animals, tractors, old, old machinery and a venom show. I got to hold a tarantula, a scorpion and pet a python and an alligator! How cool is that!

My grandmother had one of these and so did my mother while I was a baby.

We also went to Grand Pre. Ok, here's a quick history lesson.

J. and I in front of the chapel at Grand Pre. The statue is of Evangeline.

In this part of the province we are mostly Acadians. Acadians were peace loving French people that came to the new world sometime in the 1600's. (Don't quote me on that, I can't remember my history at the moment, lol) It was also at the time when the British and the French were fighting for this land. To make a long story short, the British won the land and wanted the Acadians to swear fealty to them. They didn't want to swear fealty to them or the French, they just wanted to be left alone, in peace to live like they had been for years.

Dave put J. in the tree, so he could climb it. Then on the other side we saw a sign saying ,"DO NOT CLIMB THE TREES" Opps. But I mean, doesn't this tree just beg to be climbed?

So one night the British told all the Acadian men to meet them in the church for a meeting. After they were all there, they were locked in and held prisoners. That's when they began the deportation or expulsion of the Acadians. They were sent to the four corners of the earth. Most ended up in Louisiana. Some were sent to Jamaica but never made it since it was hurricane season when this happened (no cruise ships here chickies). It lasted from Sept 5, 1755 to Dec. The men were separated from their families, children from their mothers. It was a great way to break their spirits. I mean, if you've just lost your entire family, what is there to live for?

This is the exact spot that the Expulsion took place. This is known as the Acadian cross. I have the same in gold on a chain. (only a lot smaller, lol)

If you've ever heard of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem "Evangeline" this is where he got the inspiration from.

This tree was so desolate. It was by the path going to the beach. It just seemed to fit.

Many of the Acadians actually walked back from Louisiana to Nova Scotia. To return to their land. And that is why I'm here today. Because my ancestors were extremely stubborn. A couple of years ago, we actually got a formal apology from the Queen of England for the Expulsion.

This is the beach where they were sent away. So sad.

But that's all in the past, we learn from our mistakes ...don't we?

Anyway, Grand Pre is where it all happened. So we wanted to show J. his heritage. As we were walking the grounds, he kept saying to himself, "I'm so proud to be an Acadian." I felt so proud that he recognized his heritage at his young age.

So that was your history lesson for today children.

So that was my "slow" week. Saturday is our annual yardsale at work. It's going to be a long day. Sunday, if it's nice, I want to go apple picking after church.

Have a Blessed Week!

Lisa

Finally soap!

2010-09-14T20:32:00.002-03:00

I cannot believe it! I've finally made soap. I was so stressed out, I got a headache. But it was really nothing. I don't know what I was stressing over. Geeezzz! I knew that was going to happen. I made oatmeal and honey goat's milk soap. I finally found a recipe that wasn't very big. Just in case it flopped. But low and behold....it didn't flop!

The only thing I did wrong was I didn't mix my oatmeal and honey well enough. But I'll know for next time. And the oils cool off alot slower than the lye and milk mixture. Note to self, melt the oils way ahead of time.

I was kind of worried because the recipe I found on the blog Chickens in the road said that goat's milk soap takes 15 minutes to trace. Mine traced in 5 minutes. So I was hoping it hadn't flopped.

Tonight I unwrapped it did the ph test and it was safe. It was officially soap.

I finally found coconut oil. After running everywhere,going online, having every grocery store in the area try and find it, a craft store 30 minutes away from here sells it for 4$ a pound. duh!

I sent Dave all over creation last week to find me some. The stores sent him to the health food store and they were about to sell him some. 20$ for 6 oz! He's like, I don't think so. Then they said, "What do you want it for?"

Dave told them it was for making soap. Ahhhhh!! They told him to go to this craft store downtown and they had some there. Who would have thunk it?

Now I have to find a cheaper source for olive oil. I can't buy it at the store. It's too expensive. I'll call the craft store to see if they have any cheapo stuff.

Krissy, thanks for all your advice! I do have one more question...can you double a batch?

I've registered with the Fly Lady. Only one problem. When am going to find the time to do these things. That's what I'm wondering.

Have a Blessed evening.

Lisa

Hurricane Earl update and autumn update.

2010-09-12T20:28:00.013-03:00

Well, well, well....It just amazes me how fast the temperature can turn. Last week it was so hot and muggy you could have steamed carrots in the greenhouse. A week after "Earl" went by, God flicked the switch and it's now freezing out. We actually had to start the furnace tonight.

First day of school.

Mind you the first day of school it was still hot and the kids actually went in shorts. That's the first time ever. I don't even remember going to school in shorts. Some schools in Halifax let the kids go home because of the heat. See the schools around here don't have air conditioning.

The pastor we met on the ferry actually called us on the Sunday after the hurricane to see how we had fared. It's nice to know that there are actually people out there who honestly care.

Hurricane Earl. It was low tide. The wet part on the wharf is when it's high tide.

The funny thing is that Hurricane Earl turned out to miss us and hit Halifax. We were prepared and they weren't. Bummer for them. Good for my sunflowers. A few fell but most stayed up. Nothing was damaged around here either. Mind, we had strapped everything within an inch of it's life, so short of a tornado would have moved anything. It was actually anti climatic. On that Saturday morning we sold out of batteries. Funny. But I guess it's better to be prepared.

There are so many things I love about having animals. But there is one thing I really despise about having them and that is BUGS!! Oh mylanta! The last few weeks every time I leave the chicken coop I have a little bug or two on my arm. Nothing serious. It kinda looked like baby spiders. I can handle that. Then Friday night I stuck my hand in the hen's nest. I took my arm out and it was full of bugs!! UGGGGHHH. Oh my, oh my, oh my! I brought the eggs in the house and they were crawling with these little buggies also. So we went out with the Raid. Now 99% of the time I do e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g organic. But when it comes to stuff like that, I whip out the Raid can.

When we got to the coop we opened the lid of the nest and it was teaming with crawlies!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I don't think it was baby spiders. I think it was a kind of mite. What ever it was, they is dead! Saturday I Raided that coop. I'm amazed the the hens are still alive. What saved their butts is that I let them loose outside. I never suspected anything since the hens weren't scratching. Oh well. We should be fine for now. I hope.

My mother and J. at the picnic

Today was the second annual Meteghan Family Picnic. We were asked to bring Cindi Lou Who for the kids. It went well. Well kind of. I brought her in the back seat of the car. (uhmmmm didn't I say in a post somewhere, that I would not bring a goat in my car again...) She wouldn't lay down, sooo you know what they say...a goat won't poop or pee if it's laying down. Well, she pooped in the car. Dangit! At least I had the dog cover on the seat. Phew!

J. and Cindi Lou going home from the picnic

But the kids loved her. But again, most kids had never seen a goat other than in photos and a few adults asked if it was a dog. Huh?

On the way home we stopped to get an ice cream. Again...not a good move with a goat in the car. I'll never learn, will I.

My tomatoes that I found in the weed garden and the little ones from the greenhouse

Guess what I found in the weed garden a.k.a the veggie patch. Tomatoes!! Beefsteak tomatoes! I'm so impressed. It was hard to find them in all 2 foot high grass, but I found them.

12.8 oz!!

The greenhouse is almost over for the season. I figure by next week I'll be cleaning it. I have been forbidden from making anymore pickled beets. Like I've said before I hate the darn things, but I love making them. But that is one thing that actually grew well in the garden this year. I still have a row of them left, but Dave won't let me pickle them.

Little does he know, I'll get to them eventually. Muahhahahahahaha!!!

Tundra the amazing growing dog!

Tundra is growing like bad weeds. She's almost 40 lbs now.

I just had to leave you with this parting shot. One meeeeaaannnn panther. Or a sleepy one caught in a yawn.

That's it for this week. Have a Blessed Day.

Lisa

Growing up.

2010-09-02T21:32:00.012-03:00

Upside Down J. on the monkey bars

I was pondering on this past summer, when I realized how much my baby has grown. Not only physically but emotionally and spiritually. He's become more responsible.

As much as I hate him growing up, it's also kinda neat. It's amazing seeing this little life you brought into this world, nurture it, love it, teach it, feed it, clothe it, pray over it and hope for the best. Then you see it blossom into a beautiful,God-fearing, God-loving, caring, hardworking person. Raising a child, you see the world through new and amazing eyes. You now see that a daisy is not just a pesky weed anymore, but a thing that houses little bugs (yuck), or a way to see if that little girl in your class loves you, or not.

Checking out the big toys at the breakwater they're building.

This summer I noticed that J. will get his snacks ready by himself, like using the microwave. Taking a shower and actually getting clean! Dave thought him how to drive the ride-on lawnmower. He now loves to bring in the firewood, because he gets to drive the tractor with the trailer. He's doing an excellent job and he's so proud of himself. We're so proud of him to. He goes to pick up the mail by himself.

First time driving the tractor

So proud and grown up!

There's so many little things that are too numerous to mention and yet some days you wonder if he's not reverted back to being 3 years old. But all in all my baby is growing up! Sniff..sniff...

Tomorrow is the first day of school. He's going into grade 4!! When he left for his first day of school in grade primary, I told Dave, "You watch, we're going to turn around and he'll be graduating from high school." Dave told me I was nuts. Well guess what...It was just yesterday that he started primary. Well that's what it seems like.

Time marches on. Things still need to be done like pigs need to be mucked out, goats need to be milked and puppies need to be taught potty manners.

Tundra on the trampoline!

Tundra is also one that is growing like a bad weed. The flea meds we gave her when we first got her stopped working, because she outgrew it before the other dosage was due! She gained 10 lbs in 2 weeks!

J. jumping on the beds at the hotel. Another little ritual we have in hotels. Can you tell we don't get out often? You can dress us up but you can't take us anywhere!

We all went to New Brunswick a few days ago for Dave's arm. We needed to wait over a year for a specialist's appointment here in Nova Scotia. Only a few weeks in New Brunswick. He got a few injections and we are hoping they are going to work. We crossed over on the ferry. It's a long 3 hour ride. But on the way back we chatted with two couples on the boat. They were great. One guy was a Bible thumping, fire and brimstone, Harley Davidson riding,Southern Baptist preacher! Another lady was a dog trainer. The ferry ride, just flew by! We have photos of them, but I didn't ask their permission to put it on my blog, so I won't. But that's what I love about travelling. It's not seeing new places and different things, which that is all fun too, but meeting new people. That's the exciting part!

Well we are battening down the hatches for Saturday. Hurricane Earl is going to hit us head on. Crud. We do need the rain, just not the winds. This is a picture of my sunflowers before hurricane Earl. I'll post another one after hurricane Earl on Sunday. I waited and waited and waited for blooms on my sunflowers. I finally got them this week and now Earl's going to show up and razor them. Oh I'm not impressed!

Dave and the sunflowers

But don'tcha find that they grew tall! Dave is 6 feet tall and they are dwarfing him. The heads are supposed to be giants, but I guess they put all their energy in the stalks.

Six little piggies and their momma.

Since there's only 6 piglets in this litter they are growing fast, fast,fast! They've been going outside now for a week.

Ginger

Oh and Ginger passed away this week. She survived the great mink massacre, but she couldn't escape old age. I had had her for over 4 years and she was old when I got her. I don't even remember where I got her from. She had also survived being almost pecked to death by her fellow hens.(Nasty things) But we had nurtured her back to health a few years ago. But old age marched and took over.

Well that's it for this week.

Have a Blessed day!

Lisa