*trying to seal his fate

 It takes everything I have each day not to just eat these little cuties up! They are so flipping adorable! These pics were taken on their third day of life in the barn (and on planet Earth).

This is our little buck, Stew or Kabob, seriously though, if we do not find a buyer for our little buck, he will be meat for the freezer. Nubians are considered a dual breed (milk/meat) because of their body structure.  I am already totally attached, so I am not sure how making stew or shish kabobs would go. 

I think he must know what is potentially in store for regarding his fate, just look at that precious face. He is doing his best to win me over. Done. Won over.  Oh my!

 Just one last look, "Momma Lynnie", aren't I cute?

We are so proud of our sweet little Nubian kids! They are just perfect. Bodie is continuing to be a very good mother to her twins.   They are feeding 24/7 on demand, they kids will continue to stay in the stall with her until she shows signs of trying to wean them which might be sometime in 6 to 7 weeks based on all I have read.  They have started to eat some hay from the pail alongside their mother on occasion.  They are certainly growing by leaps and bounds. 


I started our milking schedule just a few days ago.  We are enjoying the delicious milk and boy, talk about timing. I would say that Bodie's conception date, her deliver date are both right on time based on the latest news reports.  We made an order for some enzymes and other supplies that are needed for cheese making, we can hardly wait!

*peeking outside the stall

Narry, Henry's turkey has just realized both Thanksgiving and Christmas have passed and she has survived! Whew!
 (she is going to be part of our breeding stock)

This is the first short trip outside the barn for a bit of sunshine!  They little goatlings seemed to enjoy the ability to frolic around and nibble at fallen leaves like their mother.  After a short while they were escorted back into their stall in the barn where safety and shelter welcomed them!

*we have grown in number by TWO!

I have been waiting for this day for months and months, and preparing for it for just about as long!  Today we added to our numbers by 2!  Our sweet Nubian doe, Bodica gave birth to two (a buck and a doe) seemingly healthy kids this afternoon around 1:30PM.

I have read website after website, posted on several different "goat groups" online, read several books and learned so much in order that I might be prepared for what I was a part of today.  While we were over the top thrilled to figure out that Bodica was pregnant, we didn't have an exact date as to when that happened.  I must say that all of the signs that the books, websites and blogs that I read was all spot on. Not that I doubted any of them.  If you have a doe that has conceived on a date that you are unaware of, if you keep close watch you may still be able to recognize her delivery week.

I have been checking Bodie's ligaments daily to note when I feel a change, the ligaments near her tail are tight and pencil like right up to the day of her delivery. Approaching the delivery date the ligaments start to soften and totally give way on the day she is to deliver.  The  last few days she has eaten very little of her hay, which was another sign that I checked off the list.

Today I had my alarm set for church, but I woke earlier in the morning with a headache, so I turned the alarm off and stayed in from church.  I am really glad that I ended up at home today.   I walked out and picked up the paper, went back to the barn and sat on the floor of Bodie's stall and read the paper.  Earlier in the morning I had rubbed her tummy for a long while, which she really seemed to enjoy.  I felt that her delivery date would be soon, but I had no firm clue that it would be today.  I look at today's events as a gift from God. I so wanted to be in the stall with her when she birthed and I was. So grateful.

As I sat with her reading the paper, she got up a few times, stretching but ignoring her food completely.  This is not normal.  The last time she came back to sit down on the big hay pile near me she stretched out, and elongated her neck along the strong wood in front of her and began to moan a bit.  Shortly  there after she grunted loudly, pushed and her water broke. I was like holy cow!!!! I immediately phoned my beloved who was in his workshop and gave him the news. The next thing I did was fly out of the stall, ran like the wind to the house to get the "birthing basket" and ran back out to the barn. 

I sat down, got my camera ready, and within 20 minutes she had issued birth to her sweet little baby girl.  She pushed several times with such force that her whole body rocked.  The little doe had a textbook delivery - two front hooves and a nose appearing first, then after a good push - flop.. she was out on the barn floor.   As I started to wipe the little doe off and clean her up some, Bodie was starting to push again.  This time around the next one up was showing signs of some possible difficulties.  There was only one hoof present with the head pushing through.   She labored heavily for several minutes pushing with all she had, but to no avail, not much was happening.  I chose to intervene by reaching in with my gloved hand and pulled the other leg out and forward.  Then with one little slight push (or so it seemed at this point) out came out little buck!

We did our best to get them started with nursing so they have a good start with the colostrum they are in such great need for at this point.   The little goats need to get as much colostrum as possible in the first 24 hours, as their stomach lining changes after that first day. So they do not absorb and take in the colostrum as they would have in that short window of time.

We went out to check on momma and kids one more time before bedtime.  They were snug as a bug in a rug.  Bodie has been bonding with her kids nicely and is showing signs of a great momma!

It seems every other creature in the barnyard was wanting in on the action that was taking place in stall No. 1.   Bodie was showing signs of protection over her little one, pushing Lucy (the chicken) around with her head and she would not let Zeke (the cat) get very close either. 

More to come, you can be sure of that.  Good night!

Some of these photos was taken with my Android phone, so.. the lighting and images aren't the best but still captured some great moments!

*zy·mol·o·gy

Cabbages grow so beautifully in the garden.  The grandness of the outer leaves are just beautiful, actually quite ornamental.  Of course, the outer leaves are very useful here as rabbit food and do not go to waste.  

This year we planted 15 or more heads of cabbage over a course of a month, so we have some coming ready at different times.   Our first 5 heads were harvested just a few days go in order that we could make our attempt at sauerkraut!

You not only need cabbage to make sauerkraut, but you also need a crock. OK, so you don't NEED a crock, you can make the kraut in a glass container, a food grade plastic pail but not in reactive metal containers.   We found this 3 gallon crock at an awesome hardware store ( Halls Hardware of Milton, Fl) in a neighboring town in our area.  Hall's had crock as large as 5 gallons available as well, but I felt like the 3 gallon was sufficient. 

We  ended up using only 3 of the large cabbages that we picked before the crock was full.  The other two heads of cabbage will go in a gift basket for two of our neighbors along with other veggies and some fresh eggs as an early Christmas gift.

Shredding with a knife as fine as we were able, then layering half of each cabbage head with a sprinkling of salt and caraway seeds until we reached the top.  We also added some onion about mid way through the crock. 

Now we just wait.  I hope to be able to report back to you on how delicious our kraut turned out!  We will likely freeze some of the finished kraut as well as can some.   We visited many different websites before we proceeded with this exciting venture. Yes, I said exciting. It seems anytime I have something new to embark upon, I feel excitement.  

 Real Food Fermentation by Alex Lewin is actually an excellent book on fermenting foods. 





zy·mol·o·gy (Source: Dictionary.com)
[zahy-mol-uh-jee] –noun Biochemistry.
(formerly) the science dealing with fermentation and the action of enzymes; enzymology.


 

*my knight

Years ago we lived across the street from a very sweet young family. Some families are DIY families, some aren't. It doesn't make one better or worse than the next. Ang herself use to say, "we are the family who buys the service agreement with each purchase." (this post is all about how awesome my husband is.. just sayin) My dear husband grew up in a home with a father who was and still is, a fixer of most anything! He didn't fall far from the tree!

We stay pretty busy around here, don't get me wrong - we have ample down time as well for leisure too.  It does seem like there is always something that needs to be done with this blessed property whether it be tree maintenance, fence mending or building animal shelter of sorts.

There isn't much that my dear husband can't do and for that I am truly grateful!  He really amazes me more often than not.  If we were to add money back into our budget based on the repairs, work etc he does for our homestead, it would be huge.  This ability to do most things or to research to find out how to do things and have the precision to carry it out really is a gift that has been instilled in him.  Trust me. I have built tried to build a nesting box for our rabbits in the past. I measured. Marked. Cut carefully but somehow I just don't have what it takes to produce a nice looking end product.

Whatever it is that your dearly beloved excels in, praise him for it. It may be that he is the chief handler of your finances for the family or perhaps he is a great help around the inner working of how your household operates, or maybe he is the master gardener, whatever it is make sure you don't take him for granted.  When you are reading folks blogs, looking at their FB or the old fashioned talking to a friends who are sharing about their husbands strong points, don't compare.  I think comparing is a huge NO-NO, this only leaves us with a feeling of coming up short when that is not the case at all.  Unfortunately I did it for years because I wanted my husband to "look" like other husbands and fathers "in the church", this was not productive for either of us. Shame on me. Bottom line is those people you are comparing to aren't who and what you think they are. While they are probably fine people, they too have flaws - some you may not see.  I couldn't be less concerned with what other people think of my husband now because most don't "know" him, so shame on those who judge him.  It isn't that my husband has developed into a different person although as time has passed he has grown and changed, it really is more about me having changed.  Whatever it is your husband lacks, or is bad at there must be a number of redeeming qualities you can put your focus on, so you can see your knight in shinning armor through a different pair of lenses.

 He is not perfect, but he is perfect for me. The Lord has really blessed our marriage and we make a great team!

 

*getting to the root of it

When you buy a property with a large number of beautiful old trees like the ones that have grown here, you are going to have to prune, trim and cut down at some point. Since moving here a few years ago, we have had several trees to loose LARGE limbs and there are others that have needed to come down due to the dangers they pose to surrounding buildings.  Back in the hot summer months we  cut down a number of different trees but we were left with the stumps here and there. 

One of Henry's projects around the property has been to work at getting some of the stumps out.  Some of them were easier than others and he did successfully get two uprooted with the help of his pick ax and several other tools. However, there were some that weren't coming up with elbow grease alone.

No more root, no more stump!  Now on to the next one...

And so it begins...

Eric and Henry has been working on this one for a while. They first used the tiller to cut the top layer of small roots up in order to get down below.  There was one other root prior to this one that Eric was able to put a chain around the base of it and pull it out with the truck once he had the roots cut away. 

So grateful for helping hands, shower will be provided!

Aren't good neighbors like gold?  After noticing that Eric was working at getting this root out, our neighbor came over with his front end loader and helped him get it finished!  I however didn't get any pictures of that because I was on the road that day!  After getting the stump out and the dirt back in, there was quite a bit of settling, so Eric borrowed our neighbors front end loader to move more earth back to where it had settled so that area would be leveled out.  Job well done!

Frayja is disgusted by all this root pulling, wood burning, nasty mess. She likes it better when her owner's hands are free, free to pet her and throw her toys!



“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.”  -Jeremiah 17:7-8