Milk

Oh my goodness...all this change. My last post was just one week ago, it's hard to believe. On Wednesday, I went to pick up the Angora Goats, Itty and Frankie from Spruce Hill Fiber Farm. The farm is wonderful. Will and Lisa are sweet friends and have been a huge part of our farm - they are where we got Josie and Blossom, our alpacas. While I was there, their last doe decided that it was time for her to give birth! She gave birth to a single, tiny, little white baby. UNBELIEVABLE! I was there to watch her find a spot off in the corner of the barn, away from the rest of the herd. I was there to see her lay down and watch the baby's nose come out, and then head with her floppy ears, and with a couple more pushes, the baby was out! That was an experience that I had never had before and I am honored that Mama decided to share that wonderful experience with me. I got Frankie and Itty home without too much stress - it was a long drive for them and I understand how they were a little stressed out. Once they got home, we got them settled into the existing alpaca/Ollie (our Great Pyrenees) smaller barn (since the big barn isn't quite ready yet). Everyone was getting along famously.
On Friday, I drove about an hour from here to pick up our two dairy goats, Alpines, Mabel and Flora. Mabel is our milker and Flora is just a little one. We are planning on switching back and forth with our breedings, so we can have a constant supply of milk. Friday night was our first milking. That poor Momma was probably wondering what she got herself into. Between my novice hands (prior to this, I had only squirted milk from a goat at a farm Mark worked at...and it was not a full milking...literally just a few squirts) and she being new to us and the fact that we hadn't had a chance to build our milking stand and had to rely on Mark holding her head while I milked...it literally took us and hour and a half or so to empty her. Now that I've done this a couple days, I don't even know that she was completely empty that first night. Saturday was much better..at about 1/2 hour each milking (twice per day). Sunday, Mother's Day, we spent building a milking stand which made life SO much better. SO MUCH BETTER. She's a stubborn goat, when it comes to being lead to the stand, but once she's in, she just eats as I milk and she's a good, good girl.
We made the decision to get a milk goat (ok, two milk goats) so that we could make cheese and soap etc. but we weren't even sure how we felt about drinking raw goats milk. Would it be different from the cow's milk we've been drinking? Would it taste "goaty"? What does that even mean? LOL On Friday night, we decided to make a batch of cookies and have cookies with a cold glass of goat milk to try it out. UM...IT.IS.DELICIOUS! It tastes JUST like vitamin D/whole cow's milk. It takes a second to get over the fact that it came from that {kinda stinky} goat in our backyard, but once you get past that...YUM!
This morning, I did the entire feeding of all the animals and milked Mabel (I milked her dry in 15 minutes!) and it was successful, tiring, but successful. It will be nice when everyone is moved into the new barn. The alpacas are in there now...that's a long story for another post...but they are settled in there, still waiting on Blossom's baby. But once everyone is moved, it will be easier to get in and out and feedings separated etc. Hopefully that will be soon.
At this point, I would be happy to switch completely to goat milk. I am thankful to the milking goat for giving me and my family such delicious and nutritious milk. It's a great experience for my children too.
Today...I am just thankful.

Changes

...and then sometimes life just goes to Hell. Since my last post, we've gone through a wave of ups and downs. I don't want to bore you with the details; however, let's just say that marriages are fragile creatures and even those couples that seem that they will last forever crack under pressure. We've gone through some pretty rough spots and it seems that each day we are deciding whether we can...will...should stay together. I love my husband. He is absolutely my best friend, partner in life and wonderful father to our kids. Sometimes things get sticky though. We'll just have to see how time goes and hearts mend.
On a much, much happier note...after a bit of a hiatus (between personal issues, me traveling to Portland, OR for last week and more...things have been on hold a bit...Mark has been working when he can and my parents have helped a lot too), we have hit the barn in full force. It is looking great! We had all five of the kids at the farm yesterday, as an early Mother's Day present - they all provided me with a full day of manual labor (so much better and more appropriate than anything store bought). It was nice being able to show them how to do something and just let them do it, while Mark and I worked on other things. We have the sheathing and roofing felt up on the roof, the fence braces are going in and the fence is rolled out, two walls on the main level have siding up, all the internal pen walls are complete.
We still need to...
Before the animals move in:

• Finish two main floor sides of siding
• Put in four braces and stretch the fence
• Build the six pen doors (two pens just have one door each, the other two pens have double doors and one pen is just going to be open
• Get feed containers and waterers
• Build the external doors to the barn (or come up with a temporary option for this

After the animals move in:

• Finish loft siding
• Build doors for loft
• Put rails in the loft, for safety
• Finish window vents
• Paint
• Shingles

I'm sure that I am missing some steps...right now though, I'm still trying to recover from a week spent in another time zone (three hours off), including getting up real early and staying out with co-workers - lots of fun and lots of work and now we are back to reality. :-)
Cannot wait to post the "It's Done!" post...but for now, I'll settle with "It looks Great!" post. Happy Monday all...
Let the barn envy BEGIN!

Tiff, Kait and her boyfriend, David started working on fence post braces - they did a great job! Kait and David rolled out the fencing too, it still needs positioned and stretched, but it also looks great!

Another view of the fence brace handiwork!

Inside of one completed pen, just need the doors built and installed.

LOVE the way the siding is looking (unfortunately, so do the wood bees!)

Side of the barn, facing the pasture area. You can see more great fence braces to the right :-)

Full picture of the end of the barn that faces pasture. Above the siding, we are going to put in basic wire mesh windows, with covers build from 2x4's and siding so we can choose to vent or not.

End of the barn facing our driveway.

Mark did an amazing job putting on all the roofing felt. Now the roof is protected if it rains...not perfect, but at least it's not totally exposed. We are going to focus on some of the main floor type tasks, so we can get animals in place and will focus on the shingles in a bit.

Another internal view of the siding that I think looks so nice. I'm happy with our choice.

Siding and pen wall.

All the pen walls built out...looking good.

AND HOW COULD I FORGET! Captain (one of our three outside kitties: "Captain", "Jack" and "Sparrow") had her (unexpected) litter of five kittens last week. She is a beautiful long haired black cat, that the people that lived in the home next door to us previously, just left at the house. All their left cats have claimed out home/yard as theirs now. The kittens are all black, one with a tuft of white on its chest. They are so tiny. Captain is doing an amazing job being a mom. She's always been the more timid (read 'psychotic') cats in the group and I wasn't sure how she'd be as a mom - but she does great...she hides them well, nurses well, snuggles well...they are a great addition and a bit of a much needed distraction. Congrats Captain!

We've been busy

Our barn is coming along. We started it just last Thursday...so we've been at it about a week and a half.

So glad we had the trusses built for us. They are extremely heavy...nearly 200 pounds each and it's really just been Mark and me, with some help from the kids dragging these things up onto the roof and making them upright.

This photo shows 9 trusses up on top, but we actually have one more up there. Just one more to go!

The Bunny decided to pay us a visit for Easter.

The kids always do beautiful eggs.

Cora, Drake's friend Eion and Drake...showing off their climbing skills.

We've been busy working on raising our barn. We hired someone to put in all the post holes and build the trusses...but for the most part...Mark and I have built the barn together, with some help from the kids. It's going pretty smooth. Although, it is taking much longer than expected. Once we have the last truss up though, we'll be able to start putting up the roofing material (sheathing, then felt, then shingles). We have a couple pen walls up, just one more to go and one to finish off. We still need to put up the siding, doors and finish the gates to each pen. When the barn is complete, we'll need to put in the fencing for the pasture (the posts are already up). After all that, we get to go pick up all of our animals :-) I'm really excited about it. I'm going to combine all the pictures that are spread between Mark's phone, my phone and our camera and put together a timeline and cost list. Now I must work a bit to pay the bills :-)

Barn Raising...Part Two

So last night, we went for our appeals meeting - in front of the county commission. We had to get their approval to have our animals on the property, since we have more than an acre but not much more and technically we are zoned rural residential - so we need special "land use" approvals - we also want to build our barn closer to the property line than is standard. We waited and waited for our turn (there were probably 15 or so people ahead of us, with their own list of approvals)...as we nervously stood in front of the committee - they asked just a few questions - we made each other laugh - we talked about Josie and Blossom and our eventual honey bees. Then, someone made the motion to approve, another person second the motion and with a vote, our dream became reality. All animals, we no reservations have been approved. The barn, we had originally requested a barn 20x24; however, there was a typo on the paperwork and it stated 20x40 - they asked if we wanted them to approve for the larger size, saying we didn't HAVE to build that large, but this way, we wouldn't have to come back if we ever chose to add on - as I'm looking at Mark to see what he has to say, I see a nice woman on the committee nodding her head yes LOL - so I said, if you guys are going to approve it, we'll take the larger size, just in case :-).
Now, anyone wanna come help build?? Ha ha!
I'll be posting pictures of our progress. I couldn't be happier at this point :-)

Potatoes

Yesterday we FINALLY got our potatoes in the ground! We're only a week late, but it's been weighing on my mind and it feels good to have them in. All of our starts are doing so great - there are only a few peppers and tomatoes that we are waiting to sprout. We're trying to grow asparagus (from seed) and they are even starting to sprout a bit. I know it will take several years before they actually do anything, but hopefully it will be worth it. Our peas are looking great! Instead of seeing little bits of green peeking through here and there...we see long rows of green leaves. Which reminds me that we need to get our trellis system in for them.
Projects Projects Projects
We have SO SO many things going on right now. I'm guessing this is what every farmer (large scale farmer and backyard farmer) feels right about this time of year. We can no longer afford to have one of us not working - I have a great career and Mark is really loving his preschool job - the money helps us do the projects that we want/need to do. But that also means so much less time. In the past, we've usually had one person working and one person at home (that has switched from time to time) - but the person at home could handle most the dishes/laundry/cleaning/smaller projects. Now, since we both work full-time jobs, we are both incredibly busy with work and incredibly busy here. There seriously are NOT enough hours in a day.
Yesterday, we had planned on attending our sewing class (I've taught myself some VERY BASIC sewing skills...but I don't really know what I'm doing) so for Mark's birthday, I bought us each a class from a local sewing machine shop - we learned how to make a tote bag...and they actually look really nice. Afterward, we were planning on hitting the Preble County Expo, but the kids had other plans. Apparently, when we were on our way home, they were "playing fighting" Cora ended up falling back onto her hand and instead of going palm down, she went back of her hand down and wrist down. When we were feeling to see "if this or that hurt" Mark and I both felt pops - so off to the Urgent Care we go (which the closest urgent care is 30 minutes away). After a long wait and an X-Ray...we find out NO BREAK...just badly sprained. :-( After all that, we missed the expo, grabbed a late lunch and ran an errand. We still had (and still have) lots of stuff to do here before we are ready to have the landscapers come out and dig holes for the barn. One major project is removing all the rocks and gravel from our current parking area (which is where the barn will live). I always think that jobs are going to be easier and less time consuming then they really are. We kept shoveling and shoveling and this job seems never ending. I need an extra week, I think. But spring break is coming up fast and I need to make sure that we are ready.
Speaking of which...need to go!

Barn Raising...

A good ol' fashion barn raising. We are working hard to get this all to work out. We've submitted our barn plans to the building permit place and they've been approved and are waiting for us at the county. We go Tuesday to make sure that our variance and our final list of animals are approved (which I've been assured that this will be no problem...more of a technicality).

Tonight we had a landscaper come out and price how much it would be for them to come out and put in all the holes in ground for both our barn and fence. For around $275, they'll bring all the equipment and in a couple hours have everything ready to go. Um...yes please! It looks like they can come out next Wednesday/Thursday - which means that, in a perfect world, they will have their part complete (while we are at work) and we can have the building permit people out on Friday (like next Friday...Friday the 30th) and again in a perfect world, we will have their approvals that day and can start really building the barn.
We are also having a truss company build our trusses for us - we are having 11 trusses built - they are 24 ft. wide, gambrel attic, that is 6 1/2 ft tall (ish)...all for around $1,300.


I am unbelievably excited about this. Mark and the kids are on Spring Break April 2-6, which I'm planning (KEY WORD: PLANNING) on taking that week off from work. My parents might be coming out to help as well - I don't want them helping with the barn, due to my mom's bad back and my dad's temperamental heart...but they can help pay attention to the kid's needs and making some meals (hopefully) while they are here, making our life a little easier. I'm really hoping for no hiccups with this process...


Barn Interior - with livestock stalls



Front and Side Views of the Barn



Sprung

If all goes well, in the next couple months, this will be included in our pasture. For now, I'll take all those beautiful flowers.

Our front yard garden beds and our awesome front porch...we so enjoy this space.

The sun rising over our yard.

Peach tree blossoms

Pear tree blossoms

Welcome to our yard. Such a lovely forsythia.

Sun rising over the corn field out back.

Vegetable garden starts.

Vegetable garden staging area.

What a way to welcome Spring. I started this morning laughing with the kids at the bus stop as we watched two deer walk through the corn field. We got to witness a beautiful sunrise. As an amazing benefit, my company offers us a fully ,8-hour day to volunteer in our community. My assistant and I spent today with Mark at his Head Start class. We worked with the kids, purchased materials to do homemade chia heads (knee highs, grass seed, soil and googly eyes) with them, served their lunches to them etc. In addition to the benefit of us helping the class, the school gets to count our 16 hours and travel time to/from as in-kind donations (requirements for the school to exist). After we got home, we walked through the property to look at everything that was waking up from their winter sleep. We thought that we had lost an apricot tree, but just today, we are seeing leaves starting to unfold from the trunk. So as a tally of what survived...3 peach trees (we think we may have lost two of the five), 2 pear, 2 apricot, 2 plum, 2 forsythia, 2 paw-paw (I believe they both made it!), 4 of the 5 apple trees.
Today was a record breaking warm day...I believe it hit at least 83 degrees...In March! I do believe the Spring has SPRUNG!