This and That update

    The shop is all closed in and just in time for a rain storm, night before last :o) No leaks, always a good sign.

 The 10x16 door will be on hold til Spring, because Mike needs to get wiring done and then hang the ceiling and get insulating done, so we're going to wall it off from the inside to keep the weather out this winter while he's doing the inside work but first he needs to move in his coal/ wood stoker furnace and benches. He'd better hurry in the wind today I feel ole' man winter creeping in !

 Looks nice, or so I think*wink*

Cottage cheese in the making( last nights project)

 The curd is firm enough for the desired ricotta cheese I need to make lasagna this week.

Whey draining off, almost ready to hang for a few hours before lightly salting and getting into a container for the frig.

Finished product, Ummm, Ummm and it's good, nothing like fresh made!

 

Well we're off to a cleaning job( Cortney and I clean a couple of home for some elderly friends) and we also have a one time cleaning job tomorrow for a friend on a rental they own. It pays good and it gets me away from the farm for awhile, which I need sometimes *wink*

Have a blessed week everyone, I know you're busy too but we sure miss your comments*sigh*

 

Just enjoying some new finds!!!

I'm fairly new to facebook, but have found some beautiful Fall pictures on there and would like to share them here for everyone to enjoy! Fall is my favorite time of the year!

 

We also have made some progress on the shop and would like to share it with you all :o)

 

 Making the cuts around the doors and windows slows things down somewhat but for the most part it goes pretty fast, once you get your first sheet leveled and set, then it's just a mater of keeping the following sheets level. This is the front of the shop( North side)

 Yes, I think Mike is to high on the ladder too*gulp* He actually built these type of buildings for a little over a year and he climbs and walks on it like a monkey, makes me a nervous wreck! 

 Once it's all closed in and when the three phase power hooked in( in week or so) we'll begin getting electrical outlets and switches installed and once it's all wired we'll begin insulation and sheeting. Of course this is all on a pay as we go basis and we have all winter*wink*  Mike also will be hooking up his coal/ wood stoker it will set a little off center( toward the right of the above picture) He and a friend built this stoker and it's set up with duct work so he can run across the ceiling to get heat even across the whole shop. I'll get pictures of it, it's quite the stoker!

 Windows are in, Mike changed from four windows across the back( South wall) to just two, but larger than he's originally planned. There is a window on the West end also.  You can see what's left of the garden, the sunflowers are still going strong!

 There is also a walk in door in the back, for our convience :o)

 Mike is cutting a sheet for above the 16 ft garage door and he's using the neatest tool( or so I think*wink*)  It's an electric metal shear and let me tell you it works great!  You do have to be extremely careful of the cut edges as they are razor sharp, my fingers can tell you too!

 

The electric shear cuts a smooth line, with little to no jagged edges. He purchased this through Harbor Freight and it was something like $40 and worth every penny in not having to cut the metal by hand, IMHO that is*wink*   We'll share more pictures as we continue to make headway! The plan is to get the remaining back wall all done before this next weekend, then Mike has a crew showing up to help with the roof. I refuse to help with that, the sheets are 18ft long and I DON'T do ladders, at least more than 3-4 ft high, LOL!!! It's not heights that bother me it's unstable ladders*wink* I've helped roof every house we've owned, as long as I can be on the roof or on the ground I'm good! LOL!!!   The roof is the only portion of this shop that I will not have help with, everything else I've been Mike's right handed woman*wink*

Blessings for your weekend, we're planning on actually taking tomorrow off and just relaxing a bit, sounds like heaven to my ears. :o)

We're still alive, in case you were worried! Update w/ pictures

It seems as if life keeps speeding up, rather than slowing down for our family. Since Christmas we've been enjoying spending time with our granddaughter, Jayla and our son, Jon whom we were out of touch with for over a year, so we have lots of last time to make up for. :o)

 This is our granddaughter, Jayla, she'll be two this month and is she ever precious to all of us!

                                  Grandpa, Grandma(me) and Jayla being shy for her pictures.

 Mike's Mom was married on New Years Eve to Leroy, who had been a part of our lives since Jon and Cortney were babies themselves. Leroy was diagnosed with lung cancer in July and  passed away the 26th of Jan. We miss him everyday, he was indeed a very special man to all of us!

                                  Our son, Jon and Jayla

                          Jon, Jayla, Great Grandma and me at Great Grandma's birthday party.

                                     We did a mini remodel in our kitchen, the refrigerator used to sit where the ladder is in this photo, but with the wood cook stove so close the frig ran all the time and with electric prices on the rise we needed to do something. So... where you see the frig. now used to be where my china hutch used to be and now the china hutch is where the frig used to be. Of course none of our projects go off without a hitch, and our hitch was.... the cabinet above the frig needed to be removed, but the installer used glue to place the trim along the ceiling, so when we removed it guess what it tore the sheet rock on the ceiling! Now we've patched this with mud and will have to sand prime that area and repaint the entire ceiling but it will have to wait until we're no longer using the wood cook stove, so we can tape everything off with plastic*sigh*

 While we were moving stuff I decided to paint two walls a sage green to give the kitchen some color. It turned out very nice and we all love the added color.

 Behind the stove is the second wall to be painted and then we finished off baseboard trim, ceiling trim and add a mantle to the brick behind the stove with a shelf that goes through to the living room side in the cubby hole behind the stove( see below). With it all finally finished we're moving onto finishing the mud/laundry room now.

                                            The cubby hole and mantle all finished


We'd been anxiously awaiting our does the kid, checking on them every couple of hours. On Feb 28th I'd checked the does at approx. 3:45pm and they both were in their barn because it was snowing cats and dogs and Ginger especially hated snow and rain. Both were fine, no sign of labor and distress. At 5:00pm we went out to do evening chores, as I open the gate I saw Ginger lying on the ground outside, I knew something was wrong, because she wouldn't have been out in the snow for anything, not even feed. I quickly approached her and realized she was dead, still warm to the touch, I tried to see if there was anything in the birth canal, but there was nothing. So sadly we lost Ginger and her baby(ies)  Now worried about how Angel was going to react to being alone I was up checking her every hour or so. On the morning of Feb 29th she was sad but no sign of labor, so we headed out for Cortney's cleaning job at 10:30am. When we arrived home Cortney went to let the dogs out while I checked on Angel when I looked in the barn, guess what I saw?????( see below)

                        Leap Year kids!!!!This little doeling all wet and trying to make it to her feet

               The white doeling was born first was dry and moving around well already. So we dried them both, cut and dip their cords in iodine and watched them nurse!

 Angel is Cortney's goat, can't you see how happy she is!  She was so worried about Angel kidding and the time she'd be alone, but she wasn't alone long, PTL!*wink* The dark doeling is named, Poppy and Cortney gave her to me because I lost Ginger, what a sweetheart my daughter is Huh?

                         This is Pansy, Cortney's doeling

                                 Angel is so proud, look she's grinning! Angel is such a wonderful mother too!

                               Happy Mama and kids! They doelings and Angel are all doing great, romping and jumping. Our weather has been so nice, 60F yesterday, so the kids romped, bucked, jumped and races off and on all day yesterday. Today is nice too, so they'll have fun again. I can't believe how quick they are and how fast they are growing. They are the highlight of our days! I'm still sad over the loss of Ginger and her kid(s) but that is unfortunately part of life, the vet thought since she'd been starved( remember we rescued and adopted them last Summer) that it weakened her heart and she had a heart attack, it had to have been something like that because it was only alittle over an hour since I'd checked she and Angel and both were chewing their cud in the barn.*sigh*
                               If I wasn't a glutton for punishment, I've added in an EMT course that will run til the first of June to my already hectic schedule. I am alittle stressed and this morning woke up with a head cold to top it all off!  Thanks for catching up and I hope to find more time to post pictures of the shop progress( trusses will be going up soon and then the metal roofing) the garden and our animals. Peace be with you all and know I think of you and the blog all the time, it's just finding the time and energy to make it here to post*wink*  Let me know what's been going on in your lives too, we love the interaction with each of you!
Many Blessing to each of you this week and in the coming weeks.
                   

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)