Another Chapter

I never thought I'd see the day that I would post this.

I'm not even sure how to begin.

I've been thinking about this for the last year or so.  

But I was avoiding it.

I sold all the goats.

There I said it.

There's been rumours in the community going around as to why I sold all the goats.

Some people are even saying I've got cancer.

Put all your minds at ease. 

I don't have cancer.

What I do have is I'm exhausted.

Mentally, physically and emotionally.

I thought I could do this homesteading thing while working a fulltime job off the farm.

Well I have come to the realization that I can't.

I admit it...

I cannot.

There I said it.

Like I tell people when they ask why?

I'd get up at 5am and go till 10:30-11pm 

and I still didn't even have everything that needed done, done.

A few people told me in the last few days that they have no idea how I ever did it.

I was constantly worried about the health of the goats, paying for the goats, if something happened to one of us, who would milk the goats? 

Like all farmers know, leaving the farm for even just a weekend involves a lot of planning.

The first thing being...who's going to come and take care of the livestock.

It's relatively easy to find someone to come and take care of a dog, cat or even the chickens.

But when it involves dairy animals that need to be milked twice a day, everyday, whether you want to or not. It's almost impossible. Especially if you don't live in a farming community like we do. Whether you're sick or not (like the time I had H1N1 and one of the goats didn't like Dave so I had to drag myself to milk her anyway), whether there's 5 feet of snow, hurricane force winds, etc...

They still need to be milked twice a day.

And then you have to deal with people that are not always honest.  

And that's what broke the proverbial goat's (camel, whatever) back.

Like I said, I had been thinking about selling the goats for a year or so when I sold a goat to someone. To make a long story short, he says she was sick and almost dead when she got there. We say she was fine when she left here. He wanted his money back. (the goat is still alive btw) or he was going to slander our name everywhere. This wouldn't bother me too much because everyone knows we have quality livestock.  Like my vet said, this was cyber bullying. Blackmail whatever you want to call it.

It was the end.

So I talked it over with Dave and we decided to give a fellow farmer a call to see if she wanted to buy all the goats. Every last one.  I gave her a good deal because I knew they were going to an awesome place. She had bought goats from me before, so she knew our goats. This is also the place my goats went to "goat camp" a few summers ago.

I told Dave, if she says yes. Then it's meant to be. If she had declined, then I'm not sure if I would have tried selling them to someone else or kept them. 

But she said "YES!" 

So the goats are gone.

Did I cry when they left...no.

But I cried after they left. I couldn't even talk about it for a few days.

I knew I had made the right decision for the goats and me, but it was still hard.

I'm tearing up as I write this. I still have a hard time looking at goat pictures.

I miss their little faces, their personalities, but I don't miss anything else.

Will I ever go back to goats? Don't know.

Maybe, maybe not.  But for the next 3 years, no.

I'm not selling any of my equipment for now....

I'm still going to make soap. Because that was one of the biggest questions people were asking me.

I have enough milk in the freezer for a long, long time of soap making. And when I run out I have my sources that will supply me with milk. And no, it's not where the goats went. We are still going to be homesteading, just not with goats. More with gardening, preserving our food etc..

So from this day forth this blog will be more of a gardening theme. A travel theme.

Since I'll have time to travel...not exotic places. But just down the road. 

I'm also going to take my Master Gardener's course with Dalhousie University this winter.

I'm also going to take care of my health. Exercise, eat right and try not to stress too much...ya right.

I'm going to take care of my family more, go to church more, camp more, bake more, blog more, be able to visit my friends more...relax more.

We still have the chickens since the way they're set up they can take care of themselves for a few days. And I've got plenty of people that can come and pick up the eggs if need be.

So it's really not the end.  It's just another chapter in my life.

So sorry if I've rambled on too much, but now you know...

the rest of the story.

Have a Blessed Day.

Lisa

Canada Day!

Happy Canada Day!

Our store had a float in the parade and this year I had my own little paint float. We borrowed magnetic paint splotches from another Home Hardware store, put them on the truck and then I took white coveralls and spray painted them. I also splashed paint. I knew those mistints would come in handy some day. I had empty paint cans full of candy for the kids. So we were slightly popular! Ha ha.

Rachel, Irwin and I.

Dave and J. had the firetruck in the parade. That was one excited little boy!!

It was a beautiful warm day. I was dying of heat in those coveralls. Whew!

Dave and J. in the fire truck.

Well my chicken watching habit is still going strong. They love going in the manure/hay pile. On hot days they'll go under the bushes and snooze. We don't have to whipper snip there anymore since they squish the grass under and eat most of it also. So far the only thing we have to do is put a barricade at the barn door since they love going in there and pooping on everything in sight!

Happy chickens!

We brought the meatkings to get snuffed tonight. They were overdue to go. We usually only let them go to 3-4 pounds and this year it looks like they'll be 5-6 pounds.

Cindi Lou has the poopies. I don't know what she got into. Nobody else has them. I left her in the barn with lots of baking soda and hay today. I'll leave her again tomorrow.

Febe's milk output has gone down. She only gives 4 litres a day now. She was giving 6 litres a day, but it usually goes down after 3 months into the lactation. I mean, honestly I don't need all that milk anyway. My freezer is now full!

We still haven't been able to sell Esme and Whisper. What's the scoop?!!

Happy father and son!

I thought I'd add a photo of J. and Dave on a new tractor. No, it's not ours. We had dealers bring in tractors on Father's day at the church this year and one of them gave Dave the keys for a test drive. Hmmmm..... I wonder if he was going to say no??

Have a Blessed Day!

Lisa

Productive Day

I'm having one of those days. It was a very productive day. I cleaned the goat pen, put away 5 loads of laundry, washed 4 loads, went to the hairdresser, did the banking (which I hate), made a large batch of banana chocolate chip muffins, tied the raspberry canes, cleaned the greenhouse and collected the tomatoes, stripped the beds, brought J. his lunch at school since I forgot it, drove him to drum lessons 45 minutes away, carved 2 pumpkins AND made a large supper of glazed ham, mashed taters, spinach, carrots and corn for my family. Phew! I'm pooped. Now I'm finally sitting down to relax a bit.

We've had to make a horrible decision today. It's been a long time coming though. Our dog Roxie has been suffering from Acral something or another (a very long word). In other words, she eats her legs and won't stop. It's been three years, about 1500$ in medication and vets and nothing works. It's stopped for a little while and now it's started back with a vengeance. She's at it on three of her legs. Except for that, she is the perfect dog. So tomorrow she is going to the vet and not coming back. We haven't stopped crying yet. I think that's all I can write about this.

Last night we harvested all the pumpkins. I love pumpkins. I think next year I'll just plant pumpkins and sell them. I didn't think all that many grew. We could only see half a dozen or so, but when we got in the pumpkin patch, there was alot more than 6.

Dave noticed that there was still alot of cherry tomatoes in the greenhouse. So I took a picture of him stuffing his face with tomatoes. He said "how many people do you know that are still harvesting tomatoes on October 26th!" It was so hot yesterday, and today it was sunny, but cold and windy.

On our way to carve the pumpkins in the barn (saves on the mess in the house) I noticed that Wilbur looked so depressed. He was just sitting there in the muck. Poor thing. Oh well, take heart Wilbur, Dave is going to put you in with Charlotte in a few weeks.

One of the little pigs looked under the weather the last few days. Dave gave it a shot of Tylan. Around here they use it as a cure all for pigs. We don't use it often, but it does work. We try and do things as natural as possible, but there are sometimes you just have to use medication.

It has rained so much here in the last few weeks that Wilbur, the laying hens and Charlotte are flooded. Charlotte's pen isn't so bad, but Wilbur and the hens are. The hens look like they're in a health spa with a mud bath. tee hee.

J. and I carved two pumpkins after he came home from school. It was the first time I let him carve it by himself. With supervision of course. He did a good job.

I had to tie the raspberry canes today. They were falling over themselves. I actually ate a few. Some were still on the vine. I saw a few will be ripe in a few days. That's how weird our weather is down here this year. I mean, Febe is still not in heat. Strange. She should be by now. Watch her go into heat tomorrow night, because I'm going to make my first Epicure party tomorrow night.

Well that's it for tonight.

Have a Blessed Evening

Lisa

Is she, or isn't she?

It's that time of the year again. Is Febe in heat, or isn't she? Every day, twice a day, I check. Not the nicest thing to do, looking at a goat's butt, but it has to be done. I can't tell by just looking at her. Maybe in twenty years from now I'll be able to tell, but for now I'll just have to keep looking at a goat's butt. They say that one way to tell is if they're more vocal. Well Febe is vocal all the time, so that doesn't help. So I'll just keep looking at the butt. I don't think that Whisper will be ready to breed this year. That'll be one less butt to look at for this year anyway. Phew... thank goodness.

We had a family day today. We packed up and went to the cattle sale. The piglets were going really low. Around 25$ each. Good for the buyer, not good for the seller. We brought our last piglet to sell but we brought her back home. We refused to sell her for less than 60$. One of our buyers backed out of the deal we had and we were able to sell one of their piglets but not the other one.

We met a nice couple that's just as crazy as we are. Maybe a bit crazier. They have 20 goats!!!Ack!!But we drove to their house after the auction.( No we weren't stalking them, they gave us directions to their house) We stayed there for 2 hours just chatting outside. J. was ready to go home after 10 minutes!

We were supposed to have our "End of Harvest Bonfire" for the church tonight. Well it rained and rained and rained some more this morning and most of the afternoon. So we had to cancel it. It seems like we had to cancel everything because of the rain this year.

My parents came over tonight to play "Wampoo". Oh man, we laughed so hard. It's fun to have a laugh so hard it hurts your sides, your eyes are all teary and you just about pee your pants.

Have a Blessed Evening.

Lisa