Hodge Podge

I normally try to limit posts to a single subject, but there are a bunch of little things I want to show.  Here goes...

Here's the first bouquet of the season riding to the office with me this morning. I don't care if Dame's Rocket is a weed.  It's pretty, and it's coming with me to the office.

Blue Flag Iris isn't the only kind of Iris I have.  I've got these bearded yellow ones with both purple and blue, and this pale white/yellow kind.

I didn't get my act together to protect the apple trees from plum curculio before they came out of dormancy, so I shouldn't be surprised to see this curculio smiley mark on most of the new apples.  I'm pleasantly surprised to see so many apples forming because I had multiple days of hard frost and snow after the blossoms came out and I thought there would be more frost damage. It won't stop me from using these apples for eating and for cider this fall, and I'll try to do a better job next year against the plum curculio.

More About the Place

Here's some more stuff that Linda taught me about my place.

She showed me Jack in the Pulpit

Jewelweed, Virginia Creeper and a Trillium

Wood Sorrel with beautiful purple stripes on the white petals.

Not sure what this stuff is ... [edit: Ellen Rathbone, who writes Adirondack Naturalist, says it's a Starflower. Thanks Ellen!]

We saw a TON of moose tracks like the below, and a bunch of moose poop.  Folks on my street have seen the moose family that comes through my place, but I haven't.  Probably something to do with a bark-y dog that lives at my house.

We walked around the entire area that was logged.  It looks to be about 6-8 acres cleared

The area that isn't logged looks like this.  Rocky, hilly, fern-y.

I was also able to put up some Posted signs, mostly around the corners.  We didn't bushwack around the edge of the entire 25 acres; that would have been a true ordeal.  When it was easier to use a path or a cleared area, we took the easy way out.  Now that I've seen the corners and know how to use the GPS, I can take my time posting the rest of the boundaries.

It was really neat to walk the land and see that the flora is not a complete mystery.  I understand the property SO much better than I did before.  One last thing Linda taught me - the call of the Barred Owl, "who cooks for you".  I'll never forget that one!

All Four Corners!

For over a year and a half, I've asked everyone with plans to be at my place for more than a few hours if they would be interested in coming with me to find the corners of my property.  It was an endless stream of, "not so much," until my friend Linda, visiting from Colorado said, "Sure!"

It's not a stretch for us - we were Boy Scouts together a few years ago!  When we were high school students, in High Adventure Explorer Post 1, we camped at least once a month, year-round.  Summers brought a two-week trip somewhere woody.  Hiking, canoeing, we did it all!

After we stayed up waay past bedtime last night drinking wine and catching up, we booted up this morning and took the GPS out for a test run.

Here's Linda at the north east corner.

Here's the view from the south east corner

And here's the south west corner of the property.  Rocks all around.

I'm really glad Linda decided to make the trip from Ithaca to visit, and I'm really glad we got a chance to do some real outdoorsy stuff!

So, um - What Is This?

Aside from being something else that managed to survive me mowing it down last year.

Mom Projects

Next week's guest is my mother, who'll be staying with me for a month.  By the time she leaves in July, everything at the 'stead will be better.  I'm 44 (I mean 29!  I'm 29!!) and I still look to my mother to make things better.  It won't be radically different, but it will be cleaner.  It will be more organized. Things will look nicer. 

I'm going to take some time off, but will still work most days.  I'll come home from work and mom will have lists for me.  She'll show me something and say, "Jord, I'm going to put all these things upstairs," and it will make all the sense in the world.  She volunteers at the Habitat for Humanity Re-Store in Oregon - and applied those hardware organizing skills to my shed last year.  My shed looked like a store when she was done, everything on hooks, in containers, beautiful.  It doesn't look that good now!

Last year I was desperate to figure out a way to make it through winter without freezing and that colored everything we did.  This year shelter and warmth are covered and we'll move higher on the Maslow scale.  I'm NOT making a project list (mom is going to decide for herself what she wants to do), but here are some things she may be interested in:

Picture the sundial surrounded by beautiful ground cover.

Can you see the kitchen garden here, underneath the hostas, astilbe, and who knows what else?  I do too!

I've been thinking of groundcovers ever since Melanie of Our Wee Farm mentioned using them about a month ago.  Conveniently, I recently read a blog post by Ellen Rathbone, who writes Adirondack Naturalist about a new native plant nursery in nearby Argyle.  This nursery carries groundcovers native to the Adirondack climate!

I don't even have to do research to know that I already have two of these, Partridgeberry and Lowbush Blueberry!  I can see us bringing some of the Lowbush Blueberry down from the hill.  Or Wintergreen would be cool.  I'm really digging having shelter and warmth covered! There are so many fun things to focus on now!

Imaginary Boundaries

I came home yesterday to find all the animals exactly where they're supposed to be.  I had been worried about the goats because no power was flowing through their fence, and they knew it.  I guess the powerless fence worked.  It got me to thinking that sometimes imaginary boundaries are the strongest ones of all.

I noticed that parts of my yard hadn't been mowed at all this season, and since I have a guest coming this weekend and another guest coming next week, I hopped to it!  Wouldn't want guests thinking I've turned into a complete hillbilly!  I couldn't really get to the entire 2 mowable acres in the short time I had, but I hit the worst spots.  One of those bad spots was around the apple tree I'm standing under for this picture.  The tree is on a hill, a few feet away from the goat fence.

I knew I had to be careful between the tree and the goat fence, but managed to get stuck anyway.  So I put the goats to bed early, took the entire front side of the fence down, moved it back and mowed this area.  When I went to get the fence to put it back up, I found the missing ground connection, about 15 feet away from the battery.  I have NO idea how it got there, but I'm amazed I found it.  It's black, and pretty much invisible unless you're looking straight at it - and I was.  For the umpteenth time - luck.

Of course, it's supposed to rain on Saturday when my friend Linda will be here.  I may be second-guessing my choice to cut the grass instead of vaccuming the house when we're inside playing Parcheesi.  Although ... Linda's an outdoorsy type - we may do outdoor stuff anyway!  She may be the one I finally entice to visit the corners of my property.  After 1-1/2 years here, I've never seen them.

Purely Psychological

Today, the barrier keeping the goats in is purely psychological  The power energizer is clicking and the fence is still up, but power is not flowing through the fence.

Why?  Because the connection between the energizer and the ground rod is GONE.  Disappeared.  I can see that it was still there on Monday when this picture was taken (in the blown up version of this picture the teeny thing that looks white at the top of the ground rod is clearly the ground rod connection).

I don't have any spares, so my only choice was to nonchalantly pretend that everything was normal and hope that the goats don't figure it out before I can buy a new one (today's lunchtime errand).  Picture me with a nonchalant expression on my face, whistling nonsense tunes as I walked away from the goats, a la any Sylvester cartoon.

Those goats aren't dumb!  They know that sometimes it's OK to touch the fence.  This morning they both touched it on purpose before I connected it and turned it on.  I hope, hope, hope that the clicking sound the energizer makes will be enough to hold them in. 

And if not?  Maggie will have 2 playmates when I come home.  (Oh rats - I just realized that they won't be able to run back into their shed because I have the door closed - it's only attached by chicken wire and falling off.  I just bought hinges yesterday but didn't get a chance to put them on yet.)  Now that Pancho's gone, Maggie has even fewer animals to play with and is excessively bothering Sparky to try and get him to play.

Don't the goats look like superstars?  The setting sun bounces off my white house and lights the goats' dark sides.  Don't be fooled by how big they look in this picture.  They're really about the height of my knees.

Joseph Campbell - Follow Your Bliss

After I mentioned thinking about archetypes a few months ago, I did a bit of research into Joseph Campbell, one of the major personalities in using mythologies to understand our own stories.  Before he died in 1987, Campbell had a series of talks with Bill Moyers.  I put those interviews, and any other DVD featuring Campbell into my Netflix queue, and over the weekend I watched about 5 hours of them.

Campbell is the guy that coined the phrase, "follow your bliss."  He talks about the mythologies of the world's peoples, the huge and small stories that people have told for centuries to make sense of the world.  The outside journeys that parallel our internal journeys.  Often, he was asked what lesson we should learn from these stories.  His response, "follow your bliss."  It's not that simple, of course, but that's the essence.

If people had charisma scores on a scale of 1-20 like characters in Dungeons and Dragons and other role-playing games (shhh - it was a small part of my past...), Joseph Campbell would have a charisma of 40.  Off the charts.

One exchange between Bill Moyers and Campbell in the 5th hour struck me, and I stopped, started and replayed the section over and over to get a transcription.  The last line is the one that got me.

Moyers: How would you advise somebody to tap that spring of eternal life, that joy that is right there?



Campbell: We are having experiences all the time that may on occasion render some sense of this. That little intuition of where your joy is - grab it. No one can tell you what it's going to be, I mean you've gotta learn to recognize your own depths.

Moyers: Do you ever have this sense when you're following your bliss as I have in moments, of being helped by hidden hands?

Campbell: All the time!

Campbell: It's miraculous. I even have a superstition that has grown on me as a result of being helped by hidden hands all the time. Namely, that if you do follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one that you are living.

Campbell: When you can see it, you begin to deal with people who are in the field of your bliss and they open doors to you.

Campbell: I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be.

Googling the phrase, "follow your bliss," leads you to this site: http://www.jcf.org/new/index.php?categoryid=31 .  It turns out that I didn't need to make my own transcript at all!  It's there.  Apparently the same phrase that struck me has affected other people as well.

An Absurd Amount of Stuff - or - The Tradeoff

This weekend I chose the staying-home-and-getting-things-done side of the tradeoff vs being social.  I'm naturally a task-oriented person (as opposed to a relationship oriented person), so this choice fit my nature.  My social options were things I was going to have to force myself to do anyway - large parties where I only knew a person or two.  As soon as I gave myself permission to not be social this weekend, things got really good. The weather was wonderful and I got a totally rude amount of things done.

I cleaned the chicken poop out of and took apart the chicken playhouse.  Here's my Home Depot/Wal Mart deee-luxe chicken poop hauler.  I put the manure across the street where the dogs can't get it, since I don't have a compost pile - yet.

I washed and sanitized 40 bottles, preparing to bottle the 5 gallons of cider I've had fermenting for the last month.  This was a chore.  (Remind me next time to do a better job of cleaning the bottles right after I empty them - before yukky things get a foothold.)

I made raw milk mozzarella cheese and then had one of those balls with fresh basil pesto for dinner last night.

I planted more basil, melon, zucchini, squash, more tomatoes.  Now everything I've started is planted.  The only thing left to plant is the fig tree I bought last week.  Don't judge - I LOVE figs.  Yes, I know figs don't do well in anything less than zone 7 and I'm at zone 5b.  That's why it's not planted yet.  I have to figure out what fantastically creative thing I'm going to do to keep this guy alive so it can make figs for me.

Today I re-arranged parts of the kitchen, which involved taking something apart and putting it back together, hours later.

AND - this is the big one, even though I'm not doing the work - logger dude brought his carpenter friend over and they framed in my new woodshed (with a 6-foot extension for the ATV and lawnmower).  What you see here is 4 hours of work for them, that would have taken me infinity hours more than that.

Now, even though I have 3 more gallons of milk and was planning on making more cheese - I think I'm going to give myself permission to stop working.  Take a shower and sit in the shade with a book and some hard cider.

PS - the other big project that I think I've got covered is that I think I've found the guy I'm going to hire to build a big shed/barn thing to house the animals and hay for the winter.  I think I'll skip spending money on a new-to-me sofa this year in favor of getting this thing built. 

Last summer I looked forward to months of big projects, trying to do stuff myself.  This summer I've smartly found other people to do the big projects, and am instead looking forward to small projects.  The relief is incredible.

Happy Anniversary, Baby

I started this blog one year ago today.  This blog has been part journal, part writing exercise for me and I'm very glad for the discipline of writing something semi-interesting every day.  It's forced me to be a better writer and a better thinker.

I'm also endlessly thankful for you, Dear Reader.  You've helped me get chickens and goats, and not freeze over the winter and not kill plants.  Please continue to challenge me to be a better homesteader.

I'm in the middle of a catch-up weekend with stars in my eyes about maybe actually not being behind, for once.  I've cast off all social events this weekend, and right now I'm taking a break from shoveling chicken poop.  Livin' the dream, baby!

Harlequin Blue Flag Iris

Spent some satisfying time identifying this iris.  It helps to already know most of the name, 1) it's an iris. 2) woodswalker from Saratoga Woods and Waterways mentioned that Blue Flag is native to this area.  3) There are 5 kinds of blue flag irises in the country, so it was simple elimination.

I'm so glad I didn't accidentally kill these this year.  These are native to northeastern wetlands, and just about the only way to kill it is to run over it with a lawnmower, which is what I did last year.  I saw a yellow bearded iris by the house, but didn't have the camera with me at the time.

I was blogsurfing last night and came across a blog that mentioned and showed Dame's Rocket.  Now I know what's so beautiful in front of the house and at the edges of most pastures I drive by.  It's a weed, and an invasive one.  I should see if the goats like it!

It's Not Dramatic

My two goats-in-training have been working on this overgrown area for exactly a week now, and here are the pictures to show how much they've accomplished.  It's not very dramatic.

They've eaten the southeast corner completely down (they don't get the tops because they're short, and haven't yet figured out how to push the bramble down to get the youngest leaves at the top)

 They haven't moved north of the blueberry bush yet (to the right of the bush in the center of the shot).

What happens when they eat all the leaves is that the wounded plant sends energy up from it's roots to make more leaves, weakening the roots.  After goats eat the leaves a few more times, the plants will die.  No human work or herbicide required.

Here's a picture to try and make the progress look more dramatic.  Left and right of the fence looked about the same this time last week...

A San Francisco blogger writes that the Oakland City Council approved $250,000 and an additional $1.5 million in Wildfire Prevention Assessment District funds for goat grazing.  Here's the link to his blog entry:

Close to $2 Million for Grazing Goats in Oakland Hill Parks 'Maaa' Be Worth It

Last Year I Was an Idiot

Last year was my first summer at this house.  As March and April turned into May, this area was completely overgrown with thorny brambly stuff and I spent hours and hours hacking it down.  Then as this weird grass began to grow I mowed it all down.  One lone iris survived next to a rock and I got wise about what the weird grass was, real quick.  In addition to the iris, it turns out I'd hacked down some peonies as well.  I put the cutter down and vowed to let more things grow this year.  Except not the brambles.  They're going to try and take over again, if I let them.

I'm Cheating and I Don't Care Who Knows It

In two weeks my mother is coming to visit for a month.  I've been daydreaming about us having fresh tomatoes, fresh, homemade mozzarella cheese, homemade bread, fresh basil clipped off the plant.  Bruschetta, caprese salad, pesto.  There's one problem with my dreams.  The chances of my tomato plants that I nurtured from seed making actual tomatoes while my mother is still here are vanishingly close to zero.

So I'm going to cheat.  Actually, I've already cheated. I've been keeping an eye open for tomato plants that are farther along than the ones I birthed, and found some today at my almost-daily trip to a home improvement store.  This little guy has blossoms, and already has a small fruit making his way into the world.  Now he's first in my small pantheon of tomato makers.

I wouldn't be surprised if they've done unsustainable stuff to get this little guy pushing his energy into fruit instead of roots.  Maybe they've put huge numbers of little planties into a room and force-fed them so they'll grow, same as they do to sheep babies and turkey babies - to feed our voracious appetite for more, bigger stuff ... earlier.  It felt like there was a parallel to animals, and that the virtuous person wouldn't be trying to cheat nature.  But I got one of these babies anyway. 

When (not if) this guy makes some big red ones, I'm going to pluck one of them, and while it's still warm from the sun, I'm going to slice it and put it on a piece of white bread with some mayo.  If it tastes good, I'll congratulate myself for being brilliant.  Selfish, but brilliant.  If it tastes like warm cardboard on white bread, I'll say I deserved it for trying to cheat.  Or maybe I'll feed it to mom first like any good hostess (and daughter) would do, and let her be the judge.

A high school friend is coming to visit for part of next weekend (Linda, who writes the blog Multilocus) and I'm pretty psyched to see her and catch up face to face.  I don't think there's any way to have ripe tomatoes by then though!

One More Post that's Not About Homesteading

One more post where I wonder in amazement at how much my worldview is different from other folks.  Except this time I'm not wondering about men so much as wondering about home decor.  Another weighty topic!  I want to get rid of my sofa.

I got it for $75 from craigslist shortly after I moved in.  Its qualifications were that it's a sleeper sofa, and it's short - only 75 inches long.  It's been a wonderful sofa.  I slept on it as a bed for 3 months that first winter.  Pretty uncomfortable, but when you don't have options, you use what you got.  Now I have sleeping capacity for 11 in the house (10 more than I need, ha ha), and I find this sofa extremely uncomfortable to sit on or lie on.

What I'm looking for, on craigslist, is a dark brown naugahyde sofa.  I'm not going to pay new sofa prices because this is a want, not a need.  My current sofa may be uncomfortable but it's perfectly usable.  I'd like to get something that a dog (ahem) won't want to lie on.  Or if she does, can be cleaned by wiping it off.  Dark brown is a good farmhouse color because it doesn't show dirt quickly.  Dark brown also fits the decor of my house better.  Nobody really sells naugahyde any more, so I've been looking at leather, even though I'd prefer fake leather.

Here's what people are selling:

Or this

or this

These people must not ever be around dirt!  A sofa like this would look OK in my house for about 10 minutes!  A majority of the sofas for sale look like this - light colored.

There are some nice darker fabric ones, but muddy paws would make short work of those as well.  Then there's some that are leather, but not-so-nice in color.  Apologies if anyone has this color sofa in their house, but it's too bright for me.

I've come to the conclusion that I'm far from the pack in my sofa taste.  I've been looking at craigslist several times a day to make sure that I don't miss the perfect sofa if it comes along.  I missed one a few weeks ago by 10 minutes.  Ten minutes!  I still have faith that the perfect one will come along if I keep my eyes and heart open, and don't give up.  (Oh yeah - I'm talking about sofas here, not guys!)

Newbie Goat Questions

I hope these are dumb goat questions, but I'm not sure.  So here I am asking.

Question Number 1:  How would I know if the goats had bloat?  These chilluns are much fatter than they were a few weeks ago.  Of course, a few weeks ago they mostly had their mother's milk and now they're eating all the green they can stuff into themselves.  Do these pictures look like normal goats?  I mean normal young goats?  Would they be obviously uncomfortable if they had bloat?  If they did, what should I be doing?

Question Number 2:  They don't appear to be drinking any water.  I've seen them pee a bunch of times, so maybe they're getting their water from the plants?  It's funny how as soon as one of them starts to pee, the second one starts right away.  It's catching, like yawning.

Amusing how they're not morning creatures.  The chickens are out before dawn, but I have to entice the goats to get moving at 7:00 when I have to get going to work.  They're like some people I know - move slowly and not in a very good mood in the morning. 

Let's Keep Politics Out of This, Shall We?

For a while last year, I was a member of 3 internet dating sites, all catering to different audiences.  They are OKCupid, Science Connection and FarmersOnly.  I tried FarmersOnly because I read about it in Jenna Woginrich's book, Made From Scratch, and looked forward to meeting big, strapping, single farmer guys.  I gave up on FarmersOnly many months ago, and had forgotten about it until I got an email from them saying my membership would expire soon.

I hit the website early this morning to see if there was any interesting reason to stay involved with these folks. 

This is from the profile of a guy that emailed me recently:
Ideal Match???
She Loves our Lord.
She agrees that our government is way out of control.WAAAY TO BIG. Too many crooks in the white house. Too much power, taxes are too high, and our freedom and liberties are compromised, and we must stop it.


Here is an email I got a few months ago, after telling this guy that I'm not a fan of Rush Limbaugh. He's a pharmacist in Indiana and had seemed very literate and smart until this missive.
Hi JORDAN , I am sorry but I am a libertarian at heart and love my freedom from all government regulations , THE O Bama Gov. is worst than Bush and He was BAD !! I am least optimistic of this country and it'd Constitutions and THE Declaration of Independence since Jimmy Carter was in Office sorry I do not think we see life thru the same eyes , God, Country , respect of the Constitution as it was written, it is not living document . I do not want to become a Fascist and Idol worshiper I believe in Gods law as per the the DECORATION of INDEPENDENCE not O bamas sorry for your time please read Common Sense By Thomas Payne the original or the new version by Glen Beck if you understand EITHER please E mail Back,you sound Prosperity is your work HOPE YOU CHANGE Jeff

And here is an email from a pilot in Nebraska,
Hi Jordan,
I am surprised that so many people can be happy with a president who was born in Kenya and not in the US and not in accord with the laws of the land. You are right, --- we would certainly not be compatible. I need a rational conservative, not a liberal socialist, and there are plenty of conservative women on this site because I have had many positive comments about my likes and my choices and my disdain for the liberal communists. 
At any rate, I wish you well.  Jerome

Interesting that people think it's OK to be so insulting, and interesting how much some people ascribe to the "either you agree with me or you're a fascist/socialist/communist" school of thought.  I go to internet dating sites not to find someone who thinks just like me, but to find someone who is a good person and has a good heart, but can also articulately explain why they think a certain way and are open to debate.  I love discussions like that.  I did not bring up politics with any of these folks - partly because I don't view which political wing someone is from as being all that important, as long as it's from the saner part from either wing.

Anyhow - after a few minutes looking through this detritus of months of wasted time, I decided not to renew my membership to that dating site.  The thing that makes me sad is how much time and energy I've spent on this and the two other sites, although to be fair, in the depths of winter there's not much else going on.

I ran, ran, ran last night until about 10:30 when I collapsed in the hammock to take a few minutes before bed.  I started to try and bargain with God about bringing Pancho back (I read Pet Cemetary, so I'm wary of asking for anything that might make weird stuff happen), but then it deteriorated into me asking Him to tell me something, anything. Here's what came to my mind.  What if God told me now that I'm going to be alone for the rest of my life?  Would that change anything that I'm doing?  I could stop spending time trying to find Mr Right on the internet or anywhere else. I don't think about things like that often, especially when I don't even have time to make dinner because I'm trying to get so many things done.  But what I do think about is "am I spending my time and energy on things that add value to my life".  For the most part, the answer to that one is, "yes."

Avoiding Confrontation

I spent a few days percolating about whether to contact the Harlem lady to tell her that using goats to clean up the Japanese Knotweed in her back yard is not unreasonable, and if she were writing this next year, I might offer to bring Penny and Coco on down.

This afternoon I decided to check out the comments and possibly add one to the list.  It's a case of nothing ventured, nothing gained in my book.  I could hear nothing back, or she could be intrigued.  What I saw when I read the comments was an atmosphere full of vitriol and heavily leaning towards Round Up.  Many folks told her goats were a stupid idea and Round Up is a smart idea.  That's when I realized that it's not really a case of me having nothing to lose.  I have no desire to be told I'm an idiot.  So I passed on the idea of commenting.

It made me think of Saturday morning, when I also avoided confrontation.  For the second time in as many months, I heard music in my yard early in the morning.  It wasn't loud, but having to listen while rude people inflict their 30-year old music on me drives me nuts.  It didn't bother me in the city, because that's just part of the ambience of a noisy place.  But in the country, for me to hear music 1/8 of a mile away means that someone is playing it very loud.  Much louder than necessary.  Especially at 8:00 in the morning on Saturday. 

I thought that it's possible the person didn't know that other people could hear the music, but dreaded the thought of pissing someone off out here in the wilderness.  People can be unreasonable.  Especially the kind of people who play music really loud.  (As an aside, this pet peeve of mine started when I lived in a penthouse apartment in Cleveland after my divorce.  No, it wasn't as nice as it seems.  The apartment sucked, but I did get half the roof!  My only neighbor was an architect who had parties at night for the bar workers after the bars closed.  Picture being roused from sleep by thumping bass at 3 am more nights than not.  It totally sucked. Totally.  Sucked.)

Long story long, as I was considering driving down to introduce myself to loud music person, the music stopped.  Confrontation avoided.

Years ago, when I worked at GEICO, I told my boss that I don't like confrontation and he laughed me out of the room.  He gave me an example of earlier that day when a vice president of IT was wrong and I firmly told her something or other.  He told me that I'm not afraid of confrontation at all.  Interesting to hear someone else's viewpoint, but I wonder what he would have said as I struggled with myself about whether to confront loud music person.

PS.  It occurred to me later that I may be able to contact the Harlem writer without becoming fodder for the commentocracy by using email instead of a comment.  I'll let you know if anything comes out of it.

Last Frost

Chives in the heavy morning dew.

The last frost is something that you track in the rear view mirror.  You don't know when it's going to happen until afterwards.  After a warm April and a cold, snowy snap at the beginning and middle of May that had me shivering and the apple blossoms dying, I think the last frost is passed.

I took a chance over the weekend and planted basil and tomatoes in the raised beds, and transplanted more basil into cups. I think next year I won't nurse as many plants from seed.  It makes sense for varieties that I can't buy at the store, or heirlooms.  But I'm a total beginner at this - it will be a few years before I attempt heirloom stuff.  Until then, $3.48 for 3 basil plants is cheaper than the amount of time I've spent on these babies.  Oh, I understand that they will taste out-of-this-world, but still, I have to ration things that suck time, and started plants will likely still taste out-of-this-world!

When I have the goat business running (and who knows how many years away that will be), I won't be home to take care of chickens or needy plants.  I'll be camping with goats in weedy places.  Chickens will be in the freezer and the garden will be a weedy mess.  I drove to work this morning envying (as I always have) the ruddy-faced, healthy-looking construction and landscaping dudes driving big pickup trucks, because they get to work outside.  But this morning, I caught myself mid-envy and thought, "just be patient.  Soon enough you'll be outside, too.  Then, you'll fully appreciate the sacrifice of driving to work in a suit, windows closed, hair perfectly coiffed. Be patient.  You're doing what you can."

Happier Hens

Destroying an over-ripe mango.

They're beginning to lay eggs again.  I got 3 eggs yesterday from these 5 hens.  For the last month in the playhouse, only one hen was still laying, every other day.  I actually had to buy store-boughten eggs.  Horrors!  But I deserved it for treating them so badly.

The goats have been eating, resting, eating, and whining for me to come keep them company.  It's cute. Coco likes raisins - thanks for the suggestion Melanie!  Penny has no use for stinkin' raisins.  Still don't have anything to tempt Penny, except that she likes having her face scratched like a cat.  They both love the minerals I bring for them in the evening, which is how I get the leashes on to take them back to shelter for the night.  Since I put the dogs away in the house in the morning and evening to move the goats, I suspect that the goats will eventually follow me unleashed.  But I'm not ready to take that chance, it's only been 2 weeks of this and practice with the leash is not a bad thing.  They're getting to be pretty good leash goats.

Still no Pancho.  He's been gone 6 nights, so far.