Saturday, May 03, 2008

EEE - EYE -EEEE -EYE - OOOOOOO

Well, We have done it. We have finally and completely lost our minds. Today the kids went and bought 2 milk goats. One is milking now - Gretta. She is 2 years old. The other was born in Feb. or March - Gabby. And she will have to grow some and have a kid before she can give milk. We had them out in the pig pen, but we couldn't see them out there and it was too windy.

so Justin quickly put wire around the lean-to at the bottom of the back stairs, where the goose usually eats. It is still pretty windy today so he is going to put some plywood up to enclose them in a little. Gabby is shivering from being too cold. She keeps trying to nurse on Gretta, but Gretta wants nothing to do with it. She isn't Gabby's mother.

I didn't realize they would bleep bleep that much. Gabby's sounds just like a baby crying, but Gretta sounds like a goat.

So, within a couple days, we will have goat cheese and goat yogurt and butter and milk to drink. I hope we like it. We also can use it to make soap. Alicia makes really good soap and the goat milk makes a really really nice soap. I guess we will be spending our Saturdays down at the farmer's market this summer after all.

When we first moved to this house, I planted about an acre to 5 kinds of clover and about 7 kinds of grasses/ grains. We will be staking the goats out to graze on that and also on the weeds in the front by the highway. We just traded our neighbor last fall for possession of the land right on the highway so we can keep the weeds trimmed down now and keep it looking better.

Also, thru our etsy site: thewindfarm@etsy.com, we are going to be selling alder chips for BBQs and smokers. Blake gave me the idea on his birthday because he puts hickory chips on his BBQ and I was thinking how many acres and acres of alders are here and going to waste and they make a wonderful BBQ smoke so we are going to harvest them and sew little cotton bags and sell them. Hopefully, we will sell some in town, too, especially to the tourists. AHHHH, you have to love an economic recession. It's really keeping us on our toes.

Look for pictures and a video of the goats and the chicks on Alicia and Justin's blog later. Also today, we moved all the chicks and the turkeys out of the green house and into their newly expanded chicken house. The poor turkeys had grown so much they had to walk all slunched over inside their coop. Our corn is almost 2 feet high, so Justin wanted to get the chicks out so there would be room for his corn to keep growing in the green house.

Busy Busy fun times. Brian is thru building the foundation for the oyster plant. They are waiting for a grant for the money to build the building part of it. So for now, he just has the school and all the boats and tractors getting ready for the start of fishing season. on some days, he gets to sleep 6 full hours before going to work (and one day last week, he slept until almost 8 0'clock. WOW). Of course, now the dog is used to getting up at 6, so by 7 she really has to go out and comes to wake Brian up anyway. No rest for the wicked, I guess. hehehe
Charlotte

4 comments:

Ted & Carole Whisler said...

Ol' McCarper had a farm. Good luck on all your adventure. Love, Carole

Anonymous said...

Wow! I really am so impressed with you guys (and I know Ben will be too when he finally gets a chance to look at the blogs). You are so self sufficient. Way to go! I wonder if there are any laws against us having some goats in our suburban backyard. Maybe we'll just catch the 1st flight up to your place if there appears to be a disaster coming.

The Rhiens said...

Wow! Impressive! It looks like you guys are going to have your hands full this summer. Wow!

Earlene

Anonymous said...

I rather envy this adventure but I wouldn't like the work and the smell. HaHa! I am glad you will have milk and eggs. Janine would have lots of ideas on goat milk and cheese and things and would love to hear from you and be a part of our lives. Love Mother