All this rain is SOOOO depressing...

How do you get out of a slump when it's caused by the weather? The last two mornings I slept through my alarm. That's how down all this rain has got me. I started milking the goats twice a day this week which means with missing mornings it's once a day in the evening instead of twice a day. But what do you do? The volume on my alarm is at it's highest. I'm sure it's just all this weather that has me down (couldn't have been the disaster of a date I had Saturday night). I'm completely unmotivated. Even my Monday morning cleaning routine got skipped. Tuesday saw me doing laundry and dishes which I didn't do Monday. Sometimes I hate being the only adult in this house. That's depressing too. Do you see the theme here?

Farm chores do continue though. There was a gathering of hands in the barn last night for milking, which I am really thankful for.

My oldest saves me sometimes. She's such a blessing to have around. She's only 8 but she begs to help with milking every single day. I've let her try a few squirts in the past but today I handed over the goat to her. She made it about half way through before she handed her back. We only take half a gallon of milk up to the house every day so we milk that into quart jars and then milk the baby goats milk into the pail. The goat on the stand is Georgia, this is her first year milking and she gave us a single doe kid. She's very patient.

Another blurry shot. My aunt Nina came over. She's also someone who saves me. When I was growing up she was the only real parent I had and although she didn't really know what to do as a parent she made me go to church 3x's a week. I'm thankful for that. Anyways. So she came over to watch Elizabeth while Michelle and I caught the roosters. She came while we were milking and so I encouraged her to get in touch with her childhood. Her family had cows which when the electricity went out she got to help milk. Two old pros on the stand. The goat on the stand is Icy, she gave me the triplets and a gallon of milk every time I milk her. She's been very forgiving of my newness. She also has teats on her that cramp my hands every time I milk.

My garden is slowly growing. Slowly. No I don't have any pictures of it because I'd be too embarrassed to show them anyways. My chinese cabbage has bolted (I mentioned that before) and now has beautiful yellow flowers on it. It's a rather attractive plant and taste great too. I keep meaning to get out and plant corn and more lettuce but it's so wet and muddy I think the seeds would just get moldy. I'm half debating putting off my garden customers one more week because I can't imagine the weather being any different by Monday. I guess  it could be worse. It could be snowing or hailing or a tornado could take away my entire garden. Now that would be a good excuse to put off my garden customers. :)

Oh and the roosters. All but three are gone. 9 birds and I'm sure they were atleast 50lbs of poultry. I only picked up one crate from the butcher because the note said it'd hold about 10. Well they fit but it was a tight squeeze. When I took the crate back I took a look at some of the other crates full of birds and I am now pretty sure I should have grabbed two crates because all the other chickens were half the size of the roosters I took in. I guess that's what I get for keeping them for a year. I might try to fire up the bbq and grill chicken tonight. Or I could cook one whole in the oven, I don't think it'd fit in the crock pot. I'll have fresh chicken stock for cooking. Oh chicken salad. Now I'm hungry. I'm going to make a loaf of dill rye bread so I have something to put chicken salad on tomorrow for lunch. I should talk about food more often it just raised my spirits. :) Think I'll be sick of chicken by the end of summer? Maybe by the end of June. Ah June. May really didn't leave much room for anything. I hope June isn't the same.

Anyways. I need to find some vita B or something. Maybe a nap. I need some sunshine.

Anyways. Have a great week!

Thursday again already?

It's amazing how fast a week goes by when your main objective is to milk two goats and to feed four goat babies and to take care of two kids and to keep laundry clean and dishes clean and the house picked up and... well you get the point. But I forgot to mention feeding the other animals and collecting eggs... oh wait.. shoot that's what I forgot to do today. I knew I forgot something! Ah well.

And the garden.

This morning started at 4:45AM. I think I mentioned once something about getting up at 4:45 but that was a fluke and it didn't happen again because I didn't have any sane reason to be up that early when I couldn't even do anything for another two hours. Well. Now-a-days 4:45 leaves me enough time to hit the snooze button twice, get up, go pee, put on jeans and boots, pour a cup of coffee, put an entry into my diary (yes I keep a diary, I call it "Farm Fresh Diary" [catchy huh?]), collect my buckets and be out of the house at 5:30AM, then I fight traffic all the way to the barn (traffic happens to be my "springing aussie" [she's Australian shepherd and springer spaniel mix given to my oldest daughter for Christmas, by the guy I was dating at the time, who's really smart but really needs more attention. Which I just don't have!]).

So yea, from then on it's all up hill till now which is the time I should be headed to bed, actually past my bedtime but I decided to have a night cap and let the kids stay up a little later. My oldest has been soooo helpful that I don't know how else to reward her, besides letting her steal a marshmellow from the cupboard and letting her stay up 30 minutes later to watch Sponge Bob. I can't afford anything else.

Oh I took pics... let me find them.

 Don't pay attention to the look on her face it's just my cell phone camera taking the picture about two seconds after I hit the button. So the image is about 2 seconds later than what I was hoping to take. Anyways. My awesome 8yr old helped me take all the kids (goat kids) and her sister out to play in the back yard which is currently being turned into a giant garden. She's got La Blanca in her lap, she's one of Icy's triplets and I think the other one with the nose cut off is Latte (she's latte because latte's have lots of milk in them and dairy goats do too).

This is Daisey. She's the smallest of the triplets. She has the same coloring as Latte and their momma Icy. All alpines if you're wondering. La Blanca in the previous pic is missing the saddle on her back.

There's a shot of Latte. This is their first time out on the grass and I think after the initial weirdness wore off they really liked it. Buttercup (the first kid, now two weeks) is really.. um.. frolicsome. Is that a word?

See I caught her in mid frolic. I know it just looks like some evil half goat blurry blob but that's her twisting and bucking in mid air. Nuts huh? She likes to jump off of my back if I'm sitting on the ground long enough for her to do it. Just takes a flying leap. Ok so that pic is a little weird but if you'd seen it you'd have understood.

Ok so I just got tired of goat pictures. I found this fuzzy thing when I was watering the goats. I'm sure it's going to turn into a moth because of how pretty it is. All the ugly ones turn into butterflies. So far anyways that's what I've gathered from the ones I've seen and googled. Hey it makes sense.

See like that one. It turns into a butterfly. Though at the moment I can't remember what kind. My brain is too tired to think but I know that's no moth there.

And the yogurt. It was so beautiful I had to take a picture. I love yogurt. They're sitting on the egg incubator that I incubated them in. That's one handy piece of equipment.

Ok I think I've covered just about everything interesting.

Good night!

Oh yea. I have a date on Saturday...  same guy as last Saturday. Wish me luck! I can't imagine anyone normal wanting anything to do with a mom who milks goats, runs a farm and makes yogurt in an egg incubator but who knows. There are other weird people out there besides me. Lucky dog me!

Ok now I'm going to bed!