The "Farm"

Finally got out the camera, but the old one- sorry for the quality. But hey, I'm not a photographer anyway- lots of other things, but not a photographer. :)

 Hot day, full term, full coat of hair- you'd look like this, too.

 This is big for Tirzah- she is still kind of traumatized from all of Bailey's jumping on her, so she doesn't really like going close to animals. She WANTS to, but freaks out very easily.

 Unlike Berea, who is good and bossy, yet still friendly.

Christian put this shelter together pretty quickly and built a little shelf for it, which Belle has taken over. I think Nellie's just feeling too fat to even try.

 Jumping up for kisses.

 Nellie got her first dairy shave today (not a very good job, I admit- but better than nothing). This will make it easier to clean up after kidding and help keep dirt and hair from getting in the milk, if she ever lets me milk her. Over all, she did marvelously for her first time on the milk stand to get her shave. Christian surprised me yesterday by bringing home the milk stand- I wasn't expecting him to have time to do it until Friday! I feel much better having shaved her, though. Maybe this evening or tomorrow we'll tackle some hoof trimming, though I'm a little intimidated by the prospect. They're so wiggly and the hooves are so thick!

 Christian's making the shelter more weather-proof. Hopefully it'll be a comfortable place for kidding!

Belle makes a dive for the drill. She tried the screws yesterday and didn't approve.

 We're trying to be extra friendly with Nellie so she'll get used to our hands touching her all over- with the end result of some good milk! (yes, I've tried raw goat's milk- and it's great!)

 The goats kept squeezing into the chicken coop to ransack the chicken feed, which is bad for them (and our budget!), so we had to partially bury this cement block in front of the doorway to keep them out.

 The importance of strong fences...

 Preening chicken. They're so funny when they fluff out their feathers. Not nearly as funny as when they take dirt baths, though.

 Daddy has a couple of good helpers!

Yeah, We're Crazy

What a weekend! 

Friday night we had Kale'a come have a "slumber" party with her cousins. They are officially in top form for girls, staying up way past their bedtime talking!

Saturday afternoon we went to some people's house to look at their goat (in our quest to start a family "dairy"). They had quite the menagerie in their backyard- 4 goats, ducks, chickens, a miniature horse, a gosling, and an alpaca! The goat we were looking at was pretty timid and would only run away from people. But she was in milk already, which was a plus. We left there with chewed up skirts and the fun barnyard smell still lingering to go to our nephew's 1st birthday party!

When we got home in the evening, I made my customary glances through craigslist posting in 3 different cities and saw an ad I hadn't seen before- for two bred does that had been used often in petting zoos and enjoyed people- in the breed we wanted (nigerian dwarf)- and for a good price! Well, these girls happened to be in Tempe- about 3 hours away. But our favorite Auntie Faith and Uncle Gary were coming to visit the next day and they had a truck...so....we made some calls and they picked up the does last night!

P.S. The chicks are now two weeks old and I'm feeling less attached to them every day. I'm pretty sure that's good. 

Sunday. Church. Stopped by CalRanch to pick up some alfalfa. Home for lunch. Decorated for my mom's beach/Hawaii theme birthday party. (This is really big for me. Generally I hang a sign and call it good. Just watching other people put on big "themey" parties makes me tired. I feel very crafty. But with a mom like mine, it's a pleasure to branch out every now and then. :) )

We can't remember when the last time we celebrated her birthday with her was! Probably high school! Everybody showed up and we had fun opening presents and eating REAAALLLY yummy cake (I can't take much credit- it wasn't my recipe, and I didn't dare make any changes- I don't generally have much luck with cakes).

 The birthday gal!

 Oh. Wow. Hot stuff right here. ;) Haha!

 Can't wait to meet the little dude next month!!!!

After most of the festivities were done, Faith and Gary showed up with the girls! For some reason we only have pictures of one. The white one is Belle (she's a first-time mom, due in about a month, so we hear). The black one is Nellie and is due in about a week or two! Hopefully the elevation change doesn't make her go into labor early!

After the BBQ and just about everyone had left, the eclipse started! In this shot, if you look closely, you can actually see the craters in the moon! Super end to a super day!

Oh yes, and we're hampster-sitting Sammy for a couple months. :)

One Week

The chicks are one week old! Notice the new wing feathers that have sprouted and the paunchy little bellies! Even since 2 days ago when these pictures were taken, they've started getting tail feathers as well. And they have started eating quite a bit more already!

Enjoying the warm Spring!

BBQ Special

I'm glad I checked e-mail at 7am today. There was a shipping confirmation of our new chicks that we're raising for meat! The e-mail was sent at 2am and said to expect them to arrive at our post office anytime today through Tuesday. Fulling expecting it to be tomorrow sometime (I didn't think our P.O. was even operating on Sundays), I was surprised to get a call 15 minutes later from the post office saying that the chicks were in and they would be closing at 10am! So Christian went out (about 20 min. drive one-way) to pick them up while I hurried to get their food/water/light set up as well as get the rest of us ready for church! And we still made it on time! :) Nothing like a little fun on a Sunday morning...

 While these little ones are sooooooo cute now (they only just hatched last night!), they'll be full-grown and ready to eat/freeze in just 8 weeks! We'll take pictures of them every week to log how fast they're growing, just for the fun of it. :)

Creativity Days

 The kids and I painted some dollhouse furniture for the girls' dollhouse recently. Our neighbors gave us the kit for the dollhouse and my parents put it together and fixed it up really nice! The furniture came from a kit at Michael's for $5- just needed assembly with some glue and paint! I ordered a few little cheap Playmobil dolls since we don't have any dolls small enough to fit the furniture! :)

 Since I wouldn't let the twins paint the furniture, here are their painting creations...

 This little sneak got a hold of the scissors and cut several holes in her brand new shirt. My "turning lemons into lemonade" was cutting out flower pieces out of fabric scraps and zig-zag stitching them on the shirt, over the holes. Better a shirt than her hair! Been there and done that with their big sis!

 I finally (mostly) finished A's dress for a wedding she's flower-girling for next month- just needs the sash now! (And please don't look too closely if you go to the wedding...!) The main thing I've learned with my sewing attempts over the years is that invariably the bobbin thread WILL run out 3-6 inches before you want it to- so you might as well just expect it and not get all crabby about it. :)

 The kids made "kites" today (pieces of paper with yarn taped to it)

Elijah made this "beauty", as he calls it, using Peter's new drawing program.

Happy days. What Spring projects are you working on?