Unexpected Blessings and A walkabout( in photos) by Cortney

 My friend Alla blessed me with this milk based soap making books, after she read we got our goats.  I'm thrilled with it and have been getting milk pasteurized and frozen for a couple of batches of basic milk soap.  Alla, again Thank you for the surprise and such a thoughtful gift. :o)

 If you click this photo, you'll get a larger view. This is the view from the bottom of our front pasture looking toward the Beartooth Mountains with the river in the background

 Salad to go along with supper tonight, Ummmm. Ummmmm.

 Button last evening resting with a full rumen, after a day of grazing.

 Chance, he's still so dang cute, you just want to hug him.

 This was taken on the opposite side of the river from our farm, when Cortney was walking the dogs this afternoon.

 Hoss, he has his own personality and it is more reserved and shy, although he enjoys a good scratching under his jaw, on his nub and between his back legs.

 Tuffy and Casino posing for their picture, quite the pair!

 Sarah and Lucy conversing with the chickens.

Just a photo to show we have seen bits of our "Big Sky" here in MT .

Around the farm this Monday morning

 All the seedling 4 packs have now been transplanted into 6" pots( these are cabbage), next move will be to harden them off in mid to end of May, then into the garden.

 Tomatoes, about 25 of the 65 will be planted directly into the hoop house, hopefully around mid May and the remainder in the main garden about the same time with "Walls of Water" around them.

 I planted our onion sets on Sat, red and white 125+ of each variety

 The irises are up, I can't wait until they bloom, they are my favorite flower.

 This is Chamomile, you can see the frost on it, but it is tough as nails and keeps going! Can you tell we really like it?*wink*  Actually it blew seeds all over our garden, some of which I will transplant into areas I want it as companion plantings.

 Rhubarb is finally peeking through it's mulch blanket. The asparagus is still hiding, waiting for warmer temperatures

The garlic, 100% germination; YEAH!!!!

We're still covering stuff in the hoop house, due to below freezing temps at night.

 This is some new lettuce mix, planted almost two weeks ago and almost ready for harvest.

 Spring onions and radishes. There is also cabbage and turnips in this bed

 This is the Lettuce, Beets, Swiss chard and Kale we started back the end of Feb. We've been enjoying salads and steamed greens for several weeks now. Soon we'll have small beets and turnip roots to add to our meals :o)

 This is Valerian, it overwintered beautifully in the hoop house, as did the Root beer Hyssop.

 Now outside again, the chives enjoying the warmth of the sunshine.

 These are the transplanted raspberries from last Spring, when I was thinning the main bed last Spring, looks as if they all overwintered well and are off to an early start.

 If you click the picture you see them better. Here are the "Freedom Rangers", they are almost 6 weeks old and looking rather gawky. This morning we did find one dead, don't know what happened, as it was laying by the feeder, didn't appear sick and was a healthy size( heart related maybe?) Thankfully that is our only loss and lets pray it stays that way.

 Ginger greets me this way each morning, when it's time for her feed.

 Angel and her twins enjoying breakfast! Ginger's wether is to busy, see below!

 Well... we said we weren't going to name him, but....... we kept saying, "look he's such a pistol ! ", and it stuck so.... "Pistol" it is! He's to busy wanting to play to eat some feed, Mama has plenty of milk, so why worry*wink*  Little guy stole all the milk one night before milking, so now we separate them for several hours so we can get our fair share, LOL!!!!!

 Ginger enjoying her breakfast. We've been a few rounds and she's still testing me, but she is settling down into a nice milker. We're getting almost 2 qt a night and Pistol has it all day, until a few hours before milking.  Now the next challenge is trimming her hooves*sigh* I've been working with her in the mornings picking up her feet and holding them up a little longer and longer, she still fights me some but feel we can successfully get her feet trimmed now.

 This is another thing I do when the girls are eating in the stanchion (in the mornings.) They both enjoy it and it gets out all the dead winter undercoat. Ginger especially enjoys it up behind her horns.  If you'll notice her horns are cut back, this was done before we got her. She is aggressive over food( with Angel and the kids, not toward us at all)  She's finally settling in and seems to understand this is her forever home, she's been sort of standoff-ish until last week.  Both of the Does are gaining weight and their coats are looking better too.  I've been breaking them into grazing on the green grass gently, first it was for 30 minutes a day, now they're up to 1 hour. I just want to be sure they don't bloat of get upset rumens due to the rich new grass, so far so good. :o)

 Pistol, still playing! Isn't he cute?  When he is weaned we already have him sold to a good home. He'll be a pet and companion to an older horse.

 Angel has had her fill of feed and now enjoys some hay.

 Ginger eating some alfalfa hay cubes( small and broken pieces)

I'd like to introduce"Chance", isn't he precious?  His face reminds me of those Ewoks(sp?) in the Star Wars movies. Poor little fella is actually two days older than Sarah and Lucy, but his Mama dried up and he wasn't getting enough, thus the reason he's here being bottle raised.

In a few weeks they will be weaned and ready to return to the Sheep ranch. We're always sad to see them go, and yet again Cortney is always glad to decrease the feedings, beginning with the middle of the night feedings; she enjoys her sleep, undisturbed, *wink*

This week is fore casted to be warm with chances of rain, so........ if it all works out we hope to have our  potatoes planted by mid week as well as get some salad greens and root crops,except carrots we'll wait until mid to end of May to plant them as we've learned from experience that it works better that way. Everything else will wait until end of May, but we'll have plenty to do with yard and flowerbed clean up, thinning of the raspberries, planting more strawberries and building more raised( mounded) beds.

Blessing to each of you this week and Thank you for visiting our farm.  :o)

Happy Resurrection Day!  For HE has Risen, HE has Risen Indeed!  Amen

Uggggh, Winter just keeps dancing

 We knew it was coming, so no surprise and although the moisture is a blessing, I'm certainly sick of this!

Good thing about metal roofs, the snow doesn't stay on long, just be sure your not under it when it comes sliding off *wink*   It's supposed to stop snowing this afternoon and begin rising in temperature  tomorrow, with chances of snow and rain everyday until early next week.  I'm sure glad we got composted manure spread and some tilling done before all of this. At least the areas we need to plant(salad greens, potatoes, onions and root crops) first are ready. :o)

 Okay the egg on the left is a turkey egg, normally larger than a chicken egg by  25+%. Cortney comes in with this chicken egg the other day( on the right) and it's larger than the turkey egg. We broke it and it was a double yolk, both yolks HUGE!  Poor hen that laid this monster, but no tell tale signs in any of the hens( we looked) and the egg didn't even have blood on it, Whew!

Chicken eggs is on top, you can see it is larger than the turkey egg.   BTW, PTL! we have a turkey hen setting on 35 eggs. Her hatch date should begin May 14th and my guess is the other two hens will join her in setting( they always do*sigh*)  Some chicken hens are beginning to show signs of becoming broody, so we'll let a couple set again this year.   Our Freedom Rangers are growing by leaps and bounds, right now they are at the scruffy stage, with pin feathers and gawky looks, LOL!!!   I'll get some photos ASAP, thankfully we got them settled in the brooder coop before all this weather hit. We're still running a heat lamp, but not for much longer, once they have their feathers all in off it goes. 

My back has been giving me fits*sigh*. I woke Sat. morning and almost couldn't climb out of bed, I don't recall doing anything that would have aggravated it to this degree. It's not been this bad in over a year, I deal with pain daily but this was a full fledged hit on the sciatica and my right leg was painful as well as tingly( if that makes sense?)  I've been taking Arnica MT and Rhus. Toxicodenron and it has improved from a 9 on a scale of 1-10 to a 3 today.  I sure don't need this with gardening season coming on and our memberships sold for our CSA garden. Praying it was just a fluke and I slept wrong or something.

Blessings for your week, we're looking forward to sunshine :o)
Kelle

As per several Follower's request*wink* Yogurt recipe

Plain yogurt
2qts. goats milk
2 tsp. plain cultured yogurt
1c. powdered milk
clean and sterlized wide mouth canning jars.( pint or qt.)

Warm milk to 115F Stir in powdered milk( if desired, it's supposed  help thicken it) Add 2 tsp. yogurt, mix well and pour into jars. Place filled jars into a roaster or kettle, fill with hot tap water up to the neck of the jars, cover and let it work. If the yogurt isn't setting up, change out the water and add more hot tap water until thickness you desire.( I did not do this, instead I  poured the yogurt into a casserole dish, with lid and wrapped it in a thick towel. After about an hour it was still to thin, so placed the oven on 200F when warm turned it off and placed the towel and dish in the oven ( remember to turn your oven OFF first)  This yogurt is milder than cows milk yogurt( less of a bite, if you know what I mean) and REALLY creamy, Yummm, Yummmm  Fruit smoothies on tap for dessert tonight! :o)

I hope everyone give this a try, whether with goat milk or cows milk( not sure if you can use store bought to do this or not!  Such a great and healthy treat and handy to have around in case of animal stool issues or upset rumens.

This and that on the homestead

The goats are doing great! The kids are growing quick and so much fun to watch( great stress reliever). We made a pen from corral panels so they can graze out in the pasture, starting them off slow and building them up.  When Angel's twins will be weaned when they are 50+ lbs and will leave for their new home. Angel is already beginning to wean the buckling off( he's such a pig), he's now eating more hay and grass than he's nursing.  I'll get pictures of them, right now we're working on brushing them, the "girls" are shedding out their winter coat.  Angel must have some angora in her, maybe pygora, the under coat is so soft.

Cinnamon( now renamed, Ginger, it just seems to fit her better*wink*) is now being milk in the evenings, after her wether has been on her all day. We started off slowly, only taking part of what she had, to ensure her kid would have plenty.  We had to redesign the stanchion so that she is hooked on two sides( head/ neck lock didn't work, she fought it) so, we improvised and now hook her with clips on each side to her collar and she's happy with this. One thing we've been working on is the fact that she eats so fast I can't get her milked out and she thinks she's done and begins stomping her hind legs and acting up. It's a learning process for us all and Ginger is coming along nicely. Tonight she stood for several minutes after she'd finished her feed before stomping. I was able to get her all wash and dipped before she got to worked up.*wink*  Tonight she gave the most milk at 1 and 3/4 qt. This works well for us, especially since we've been milk free for over two years, it takes some practice getting back into dealing with it all.

              Tonight's milk cooling in the freezer( I'm milking over a Ziploc bag of ice, for a quick cool)

                          This is designated for yogurt, as it's coming on two days old.

                         Yogurt in the process

                          The yogurt all wrapped and ready to set up. I can't wait for our first fruit smoothie!

                   Tomato seedlings, in need of transplanting. I did manage to get half transplanted a couple days ago and hope to get the rest transplanted tomorrow.

            Sweet peppers

 Cabbage, herbs and eggplant

         Some of the recently transplanted tomato plants, looking good and ready for more growth before hardening off and transplanting in the greenhouse, hopefully in early May. 
         
          We've been busy with yard and garden cleanup, manure spreading, cleaning coops, building and re- roofing. We have the usual list that is a mile long and we're having fun on our weekends crossing off completed projects. 
           If our weather holds long enough we may be able to till our garden plots. It seems we have had far, far, more gray days than days with sunshine and EVERYONE is grumbling and unhappy without the sunshine. If it was raining or snowing I could understand the gray, but........ just to be gray and windy is becoming OLD!!!!!   I am a sunshine lover, I NEED sunshine, LOL!!!!!!
           We're feeling blessed to have our goats, they are truly a stress reliever and in the times of stress( Spring) it's welcomed :o)

Our chicks at 8 days

This was March 25th, the day they arrived

                                 In the photo below they are 8 days old

Tomorrow they will be moved outside to the brooder coop, they are getting smelly, noisy and adding unwanted dust to our already dust house.*wink* It's always fun to have them inside, for about a week :o)

I need to run I'm borrowing my neighbor's computer, ours is still giving fits.

Blessings for your week