Thursday, Cheese Day, June 10, 2010

My "to do" list today was bigger, but Cyndy, the lady who cleans, showed up when I wasn't expecting her till NEXT Thursday, so I had to scurry around putting up clutter.

In between all that, I made a batch of feta and a batch of camembert. The feta is ready, and I'll bring some to you tomorrow or whenever is convenient.

The little camembert rounds are SO CUTE! I'm hoping they get nicely moldy by the time Cole is here. That's "Gran's White Goat Cheese."

Cheesemaking is labor intensive, especially with two batches going. There's frequent temperature checking, stirring, additions to the milk, timing each stage, etc.

I got *none* of the outside work done, but I did make a back up table cloth for the little outside table and a sleeveless shirt.

Also, I've made contact with a geriatric specialist in Jonesboro and one in Mountain Home. Dr. Thompson's office lied about Lonnie's health insurance not covering him if he went into Arkansas.

We're waiting to hear about an appointment in Mountain Home. He has one in Jonesboro, but it's not till mid-July.

I made four little goat cheese and Swiss Chard quiches for lunch. WOO HOO!

It was a good day, just not quite what I'd planned.

Busy Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Really good day. I mixed buck feed, and I don't need to get more feed till Friday. (Maybe we can NOT go somewhere for a couple of days?)

Cleaned all the waterers and decided to ask on the goat boards if anyone uses an additive to keep the algae down.

Trimmed back some of the trees by the garden, fed the trimmings to goats.

Weeded.

Planted okra again. I have leftover okra seed and some of the wax bean seeds for you.

Watered the garden, the flowerbed by the bird baths, and the mint/herb bed.

Put out tick granules so that we won't have any bugs in the yard when Nathan and Cole come for Father's Day.

Got the hoop house down and out of the Forest Goat Pen.

Made Chicken Chinese and Veggie stir fry for lunch.

Played Farkel.

Took a nap.

Fixed Hibiscus Mint tea.

Pete got the tiller started, so I'll use it tomorrow to work on the compost.

Made a draw string edged little tablecloth for the table outside the back door. Looks better than stained plastic.

Salad supper: Caprese salad, sweet potatoes, cauliflower and broccoli salad.

It was SO hot this afternoon that I didn't take the goats on their browse walk until after supper. Pete had brought the flat bed trailer back, so everyone except Princess spent some time playing on it. Kate and Abby spent MOST of the half hour on the trailer.

Starting to milk Cassie in PM, too. She's weaning Abby.

Dessert will be vanilla ice cream with raspberries.

Report end. ROFL.

Triplets!

At 8:00 am, all was normal. Cassie ate breakfast and finished the remainder of Feline's.
I went back at 9:20 to check on them, and Cassie was plowing up all the bedding and had half of it completely dug up, down to the dirt. I fenced her in the back half of the goat shed.
Nothing much going on at 10:00, except some humming and a bit of digging.
At 11:00 she had Abby almost clean and dry. I called Lonnie.
At 11:10 she had Gibbs, but was busy with Abby, so I removed the amnionic sack from his face and started to rub him. When the cord separated, I put him in front of Cassie to clean. Lonnie got to the barn and settled in the sun with Abbie and a towel, and said, "There comes another one."
At about 11:20 she had Ducky. I scrubbed him with a towel, and turned him over to Cassie.

She had a few more contractions, and we thought there might be more kids, but she just passed afterbirth, etc. We've been out several times to take more pics and to cuddle them

They were up and on their feet and sucking faster than the full size goats. Still, Abby is the only vocal one, except Gibbs squeaked once when stepped on. Lonnie has been sitting in the sun and holding them one at a time, and Ducky just curls up and goes to sleep.

Abby and Gibbs are very hard to tell apart. All three kids are tri-color, brown/white/black. Abby and Gibbs have a balance of the three colors, but Abby has just a bit more brown, mostly on the back of her neck. Gibbs is more silver/grey where his black and white mix over his hips. Ducky is much darker. He's dark chocolate brown on the front end, black on the back end. His white is limited to a white sunburst on his forehead, white on his tiny ears, a spot on white under his chin, and about ten white hairs on his left side over his ribs.

Each of them weighs about 3 1/2 pounds. Each is 8 inches from the base of the back of the neck to the base of the tail, and they are about 10 1/2 inches tall at the shoulder. Just about the size of a half grown cat, I guess. Abby and Gibbs have soft hair, but Ducky's is more coarse.

After they were up and about, we moved them to a clean area, with a little goat hut and a small fenced paddock. They spent the afternoon sleeping in the sun, getting up and nursing, and generally getting licked over and over by Cassie. The licking instinct is very strong in new goat mothers.

We wondered if Cassie would be able to get them up in the goat hut for the night, as it's built with a wooden pallet for the foundation, and the step up is about four inches, but apparently they go where the milk is. When we went out to milk, Cassie and all three of the kids were in the hut. No problem!

A Quilting I Will Go

Thanks to this wonderful grey, wet, and cold winter, I've spent quite a few hours in my sewing/quilting studio. My studio is the back room of my Office of Multiplicity, across the two lane farm road from my home. Through four large windows, it faces a shady backyard and a wild overgrown field full of birds, deer, bobcats, and other creatures.

I'm turning out quilt tops and learning to machine quilt, too.

My two machines are both Baby Lock brand. I have an Esante' and a Quilter's Choice Professional.

Deep Freeze in Texas!

This is most certainly not the normal winter on the coastal plain of Texas. We've had temps down in the mid 20's the last two nights. Yesterday (January 10, 2010) the high was 38 degrees.

Luckily, we had no freezing precipitation.

I got all the water pipes insulated, etc., EXCEPT for the lines to the cattle troughs. I completely forgot those, and there was a beautiful ice sculpture out there.

The rent houses apparently came through OK, except for a line INSIDE the garage at the Doll House. Luckily, one of the neighbors saw the water running out and called. It took only a quick fix to cut the line and install a cut off valve. As it was Saturday afternoon, that was all that we could do. I'll finish the repair and hook the water to the clothes washer again on Monday.