It’s so fun having a baby goat around! Yesterday after I milked Matilda I was sitting in the grass waiting for Ethan to finish milking Geranium. He browsed around and then sat right down beside me and chewed his cud as if I were another goat. Well, it’s Thursday again, and Night Hawk is cute,…
Author: toadstoolsfairyrings
Night Hawk
A week ago we picked up our buck for this year – a 2-month old Nubian – from my friend Denise. We traded two piglets for him, which worked out great because she’s got tons of skimmed milk for pigs, and now the piglet load seems much more manageable (or feedable) at our place. …
Creative Pickles
I thought I had gotten a lot done at the farm this weekend, but really I mostly moped around and complained about how hot it was. It’s been REALLY hot – too hot to do very much of anything outside. It’s sunstroke weather. A little bit of pickling got accomplished, however. I realized I had…
Cowboys and Crazy Cows
Mirin riding on Geranium It’s been so hot and dry…and it’s only June. Tropical Storm Bill is sucking up all our rain somewhere in the gulf. Somehow the grass still managed to grow, and yesterday a storm went so close to us, the thunder seemed right overhead, and I, always lightening-shy since my 5th grade…
You Know Your Garden is Overgrown When….
you find a wild turkey nest tucked into the zuchini! I came across this egg the other day, and picked it up thinking Ethan had accidentally let one of Gorgeous’s eggs roll off. But then I noticed it was in a nest! (Gorgeous, by the way, was one of the turkeys we had raised…
Cows in Love
I didn’t know cows could fall in love….but Isla and Explorer apparently are. They are always mooning about each other, licking necks and goring each other playfully with their horns. Isla is the only cow Explorer will allow to share the water trough with him while he is drinking. It’s very romantic. I guess she’s…
Protesting Cows and the Playground Nanny-state
While we were in France we let the cows have most of the pasture to graze on, thinking it would be too much for my mom to move fences every day. They loved it and gorged themselves. But now that we’re back, we have to feed them hay while we wait for the grass to…
Goodbyes Are Sad
Our plumbing was back to misbehaving again, and even backed up into the laundry room, but hopefully that is all smoothed over. It always feels like our house is on the verge of some sort of collapse. It was the 1950’s version of the modern stucco-and-particle board cookie cutter house – some things were not…
Adjusting
It has taken a week to get used to always being hot and sweaty, but I feel like I have acclimated. Yesterday it was 78 F, and the wind felt incredibly cool because it was not 90 F. I have also realized how incredibly beautiful the clouds are in Florida, especially the purple, billowy ones…
Too Many Blueberries, and New Strictness at Mealtimes
I know yesterday’s writing was a bit radical…situations like that just annoy me so much. It’s appalling to me, but I realize I am a minority…things are the way they are because most people want them to be that way, even if they don’t realize it. At this point in my life, I am mostly…
Settling in
I’m sorry for another boring vegetable picture. The garden is doing so well right now. There’s always something to pick every day. Still settling in, there’s still so much to do. It was wonderful to go away and get a perspective on my life. I needed that so much. It was interesting coming home. The…
Home Again
We survived and are home now, and scrambling to pick everything up where we left off. Everything seems slightly different – the goats are fatter, because my mom was slower at milking and they got twice as much barley as usual. The cows all benefited from the spring green-up. It is good to see…
Toadstools And Fairy Rings 