Welcome Aboard

 If you came here via Twitter, welcome aboard.  Theres plenty of life I've shared here.  Poke around and check it out.

The final straw

This year has been a nightmare for me.  Just as I was finally getting a tiny bit ahead, all manner of hell broke loose here.

  The job loss, the kids problems, juggling the bills with no job, Dad getting sick, the ex robbing me while I was at dad's funeral, auntie passing a week after dad, the clutch going out on the truck and now, a cancer diagnosis for my 22 yr old son.

I'm done.  There's no more left in me.

September already

Wow!  It's been a awhile since I've last posted here.  Eh, where to start... Lousy unlucky living about sums it up.  Just one thing after another drove me down and everything I did attempting to improve the situation just made it worse.  So, I had to take a second job.  I have my grandson all the time now and we're sitting in the truck(he's sleeping) using the neighbors wifi.

It's breeding season for the goats and I'm pretty happy about it.  5 months and a new crop of kids will be entertaining me. I'm really excited about it, I love the kids.  All the nanny's are healthy, Billy got big and filled out.  Should be a dandy herd of babies.

Rough summer for the chickens.  Hawks, possums and coons been hitting the flock hard.  I get one varmint caught, another pops up.  I'm down to 4 bobwhite hens and a roo.  They won't start laying until spring
  The coturnix are easier to handle so I'm going to move more towards them.  I need to get the excess roo's out so the girls will lay more.  Eh, the wire rolls are out of reach for now.  Too many bills in front of that expense.  Hence the second job!

Both my lawn mowers have quit on me.  The farm looks like it's abandoned, the grass is so tall, the goats disappear.  The old mare tells me where they are most of the time tho.  The old girl is still in good shape and healthy.

Grandson is awake, guess it's back to the house....

sweltering July

Wow, been trying to figure out how to post updates here with a smart phone.  Not as easy as I was hoping it would be.  Quite a bit slower than the laptop is.

So here it is, middle of July and I've run thru the meager savings and managed to pick up a part time job with dollar general.  A third of the pay I used to have but something is better than nothing.

As you all can see, I'm back to making cheese!  It's goat milk this time, beautiful milkers from Akre Acres farm.  Possible give always in the near future.  Also making some lovely goat milk soap.

Lost a whole hatching of chicks, I somehow ended up with a rotten one in there and it fouled the hatch right before the hatch date.  Hate that, oh well.  Nothing else to do but clean it out and start over.

Guess I will leave it at that and go out in the sauna of a day and try to figure out why the brakes are dragging on the truck....

June Excitement and disappointment

So, here it is, half way thru this yea and I'm in big trouble. 2 weeks ago, I was summarily dismissed from my job. I was in the way of the new store manager promoting someone he obviously liked more than me. Of course I had no idea they were plotting against me. Their conspiracy was at least a month in the making as it takes 3 weeks to get shirts ordered and the day after I was dismissed, the guy promoted had his new shirts already. What a low down, weasel thing to do to someone. Especially one you acted like you were friends with to their face. Quick back stab, a bold fabrication for the termination papers and poof, there ya are.

Angry? Yah, maybe a little but the big picture is, I wasn't going anywhere in that job, I have the wrong body parts. Am I better off? LOL Not right now I'm not! I'm worrying about how to pay the mortgage at the moment.

Eh, I had 30 chicks I could have taken to market this coming Sunday. Big market, I did gret there last month. Dang puppy played with the chicks and killed them all. That's what I get for not closing the door all the way. So, now all I have to take is 4 baby rabbits. So, I whip out my forms for some novelty bird houses. Maybe I can sell a few of those. Alas, my jogsaw has grown legs and ran away. Geez! Can I just not win, ever? Why does it always seem the harder I try, the more I get knocked down?

Here's a good story tho.... A week ago Wednesday I get fired. Thursday, my son asks for help and I give it to him. Didn't work out quite how we planned and it snowballed into us spending 4 hours at the sheriffs dept waiting for assistance from a deputy. The deputy did all he could to help us and it rolled over to the next day. The end result after another 14 hours was what my son needed. If I hadn't been fired on Wednesday, I would not have been able to help him!

So, since I have no income coming in, I instantly rationed the critters way back to minimum, just enough to keep them coming to me when I call them. Hopefully, I can find a job quickly, before I am desolate.

Oh, I've been dabbling with goats milk from Akre Acres farm. I'm a little out of practice but I did make an edible wheel of cheddar this past week and good mozzarella the week before. I visited them Sunday and the compressor they just had replaced in their big cooler went bad after just 3 weeks. They had several gallons of milk that had warmed up to around 50F. I took it to try and make butter with since it needs to be around 70F to separate the cream. On the way home, I blew a brake line. Absolutely no brakes! No even a hint of brakes! Wow, was that a freaky ride home! I made it all the way to the farm having to use the park brake just once. Plenty of down shifting tho. I misjudged the driveway and the front gate stopped me. “sigh” had to pull it all apart and repair it. The truck is about half done now, son came by and took me to get parts for it yesterday after work and stayed to help me get it mostly done. The boy has to get up at 3am so I let him go home. I've been trying to bleed the line out by myself. Not sure if I'm making any headway at all. I iced the milk in the cooler but alas, it curdled on me so no butter try from this batch. Took me too long to get to it. Would have been better to have the cream separator already set up and ready to go. It's new, I need to bolt it down and read the book on how it operates. “sigh” another thing I haven't gotten to this week.

I've got several resumes and applications spread around the area. Hope I hear something soon.....

Mid May, drowning and freezing

Well, yep, here it comes, what is with this bi-polar weather?  The rods in my back sing to me every single day!  The farm is a swamp and the critters are all looking at me like this is my fault.  Hang in there girls, the sun is coming, I swear it is! 

My teeny baby quails have hatched!  I hope I can keep them alive.

The old incubator has gone bi-polar to match the weather.  I'm guessing the heating element is on it's way out.  Dang thing can't stay consistent for 2 hours at a time.  Hard to hatch healthy chicks out like that!  Seems like the new one I picked up with the proceeds from the rooster sales a couple weeks ago is doing a superb job as I got a nice hatch from it yesterday.

I'm working on it, I really am.  All these small opportunities to make the farm more viable in the little time my off farm job allows me.  My schedule got changed again.  Yay rah.  Not very happy with it at all.  The urge to be profitable with the farm is getting stronger every day.  I'm currently working on a barn add-on to house the chickens, turkeys and quail.  Probably have enough room for the new rabbit hutches as well.  Lost a whole kindle overnight to a first time doe I did not think had actually bred.  Guessed wrong I did, big time.  13 kits lost.  SMH with a side order of duh.  That's a loss of $130.  Not very good. 

On the up side.... the goats are all healthy and looking pretty good.  Billy has grown a bunch this spring and is starting to look like a respectable billy goat.  The 2 nanny kids I kept back look good as well.  Baby goat is finally putting some weight on.  Seems like this years kids were rough on her.  I'll have to watch her closer this fall and be sure to keep her weight up thru her gestation.  Can't have her looking so poor come kidding again.  That ignorant neighbors dog didn't help her much, glad she bounced right back or I'd have to hold some animosity toward that neighbor.  Even way out in the country, you still can't get away from stupid.

Got most of the new solar set up sitting here on go.  Need 3 more batteries and the dc to ac converter that I've ordered.  The batteries might take a month or 2 since they're a bit pricey but I'm close to where I want to be with it.  Progress is slow but it's still progress.  No more 1 step forward and 2 back anymore.

So, I'm doing what I can with my limited farm time to get the ball rolling in the right direction.  I've got a few irons in the fire for the future, will share when they're more solid.....  Until next time.....

Blur of Days

Here it is, May already and I can't fathom where the days have gone.  Still a bit cool in the mornings and the past week has brought plenty of rain.  The lawn mowing fight has already begun as I spent the majority of my only day off this week mowing soggy grass.  Saturday night, we had a dandy storm with a pretty heavy gully washer.  Zucchini and tomatoes in the garden, they didn't seem to mind it that much.  They look a little scruffy from the splashed mud but they're okay.

Got woke up this morning before 7am, apparently, I didn't get the lid on the brooder tank on very good last night.  7 turkey chicks were wandering around the kitchen, peeping and generally making a ruckus.  Speaking of turkeys, friend of mine had this beautiful royal palm tom.  Named him Mr T.  He's probably a 3 year old tom, nice bird, good disposition.  The guys son-in-law thought it was funny to whack that bird with his ball cap every time he saw him.  Guess what happened.  Yep.  Now Mr T has a thing for anyone wearing a ball cap.  Well, Pops calls me up and says, "Hey, come get this bird.  Eat him, whatever.  He can't stay here, he floggs me every time I turn my back."  Me, not knowing what in the world I'm gonna do with a lone turkey, says, "Sure Pops, I'll pick him up tomorrow morning."  So I do.  Of course, I gotta work, so T spends the day in an XL dog crate out the back door of Oreillys Auto Parts.  LOL, he was a huge hit! A couple dozen people took his picture, several little kids got to pet a turkey and I had a bunch of offers to give him a home.  I already had an idea tho.  I know a man who has a large flock of turkeys, free range birds.  He didn't have any royal palms but he was still interested.  So, I traded T for a flock of quail.  The quail are still "baking", another couple of weeks before they hatch so I have some time to get a quail run built.  Mr T now has some girlfriends (he never had that before) because after I dropped him off, that man traded for some royal palm hens.  Mr T has a good life now, one where he doesn't get smacked in the head with a ball cap and he can strut his stuff all day long.

April was a good month for the farm, despite the lousy weather.  First week, I sold all my goat kids.  35-45lbs, I sold them at auction and they averaged $110 each.  Then, I took all those darn roosters to another sale and sold them for $7 each!  Had them sold within the first 20 minutes!  Boy, are the hens glad they're gone!  Hahahaha Poor things are just now getting feathers back.  I also sold all my cull rabbits.  So, despite working 6 days a week, I am still managing to get a little done around the farm.

The critter sales helped get the winter bills paid off, bought some feed and some lumber for me to build the quail run and a couple of 3 hole, stacked rabbit hutches.  Now all I need is a lean-to added on to the barn so I can put those all outside.  Can't just put them in the barn because the nannys will tear them up trying to get to the rabbit feed.

I have most of the rabbit does bred and a couple dozen eggs in the incubator for the next round to sell.  Meanwhile, I still need to build that quail run and another pen for the new bantys and the turkeys.  A couple more rabbit stacks are on the list as well.  Seems like the rabbits like the stacks better than wire cages so I need to get going and get them moved.  With all that needing done, I'm wondering when I'm going to find time to start working on the cabin!  I want out of this crappy double wide so bad I can taste it.  "Brick by brick my citizens, brick by brick.  We will build a better Rome."

The grandson front is a bit of a mess.  Unfortunately, I can't get into it at the moment but the whole story will be told soon.  He's fine tho, growing like a weed.  Healthy and happy.

Oh!  I almost forgot about his part!  I've got my solar back!  The goats did so well for me that I had a little bit I could use for new solar panels!  I hated to sell my old ones but heck, at that time, I needed the cash.  I survived, made it thru and now I can get back to the main goal of the farm, little by little.  Just 2 panels, enough to run all my lighting.  Small step but in the right direction.  The add to the paycheck was a very welcome relief this past month.  So nice to look at what I need to move forward and not have to say, well, maybe next month.  Of course, the boone is about gone and it's back to the paycheck to paycheck struggle but my bills are caught up, I've got a little feed and my farm critters are living a little better.  Now, if I can just keep ahead of the jungle-aka- grass, I'll be in good shape!  Hard to get people to take your farm seriously when it looks like a wilderness of messy.

February Ramblings

So, here it is, middle of February and I can hear my old pal Scifichick snorking because I didn't make it to seed starting day without cheating and starting seed early. Yes, I have a whole slew of tomatoes already up and past the peat pellet stage. I decided to use those cheap dollar general 18oz red solo cups this year. Cheap and throw away, they've got more root room than the seedling peat pots that sell at rural king. When I say cheap, I mean cheap. A ¼ of the price of those tiny peat pots with twice as much root room. I used my own compost in the cups to give the seedlings an extra boost for growth. The past 3 years, I've got a friend I used to coal mine with who now owns and operates a greenhouse in a nearby town. He loads my truck bed up (at random) with root bound tomatoes that have grown to the point of unsellable. Lane hates to waste as much as I do so he brings them to me because he knows I'll plant them. I usually pick out the heirlooms and give the others away, LOL. Pass it on, the kindness thing. No one I have ever offered them to has passed on them so it makes me feel good to share. I've got a ton of tobacco seedlings started. I haven't split the peat pellets tho, the temporary cold snap/snow event has slowed them just a little. Darn overcast days. As it continues to warm up around here, I'll be getting everything else started. I can hardly wait to get the beans and corn in the ground. Still a long way off but I can still chomp the bit in anticipation, LOL

Slowly, little by little, I'm getting this place in line. Still have a ½ mile worth of fence line to clean up/clear and run new fence, the back field needs mowed and a load or 2 of lime spread out there, the new hay feeder I have in my head needs built and some minor prep work connected to farmers market selling. Plenty to keep me busy on top of a full work schedule off farm. It's a struggle day by day thing. Don't make enough money from the farm to cover the farm bills so I work off farm but that takes up all my time so I find myself struggling to advance the farm. LOL A continual black hole of struggle. The kind of thing that always seems to be right up my alley. Eh, it seems like all I do is think about the farm, even when I'm at work. I spend all my time there thinking about what I can get done the next morning before I have to go to work, LOL. Time for bed or I'll oversleep the alarm........

Eh, this morning is a dandy. A bit of freezing rain in the wee hours. Now it's overcast, the salt truck just rumbled past and wow, is my back stiff! Rub a little DMSO on it and wait 30 minutes. Same thing just about every morning this winter. I remember the days I was 10 foot tall and bullet proof. I also remember the days when I was 6 foot tall and it was a flesh wound. Now, it's 5'9 and a trip to the ER, LOL Time and tide wait for no man. I slept thru the alarm again this morning, it seems to be a trend for me the last month or so. Happens much more often when it's cold and overcast. Ha, that's this whole winter! Hahahahaha

We had a nice little warm up a week or so ago. 4 days of high 50s, low 60s and I commenced to cleaning up the barn. The goats make one heck of a mess with the hay they need to eat. Part of it is the babies running, jumping and playing in it. The rest is just normal goat behavior. Either way, the waste is is about equal to what they actually consume. So, this cold snap has made another big mess in the barn. I don't clean it up during the cold spells, the goats lay in it. Plenty of wheel barrow loads to haul out tho once this weather breaks. I have a hay feeder idea floating around in my head. I made one a few years back when I had just a couple goats. It worked pretty good but then the herd multiplied and soon it was obsolete. Now, since I've slowly been building the herd back up (more hours=more pay=more feed) I see the need to build another feeder. I could have easily made it thru the winter with 200 bales for both the goats and the one lone horse if I had a feeder in there. I've decided to not make round bales for this year. Seems to me a waste of time. I've 25 sitting here and I'll probably end up burning them all. Yes, the goats and horse have eaten on them but they've spent most of this winter in the barn. The horse is old (over 20) and it seemed wrong to let her stay out in the ice and snow, standing knee deep in muck for another winter. She's fired up and sassy from being cooped up but it's better than having her get down from the weather. Kind of like having her around and I know her days are numbered now.

I'm gazing out the window at the freezing rain slowly falling, day dreaming about the coming growing season. I'm ready to get the garden turned over and ready for the soil to warm up. Hard to warm anything when it's overcast and raining little ice pellets! Wait a minute, I thought that stupid groundhog said winter was over! Eh, maybe it's time to put him in the stew pot. Goofy tradition that doesn't mean anything anyway. I trust the local skunks more than that overfed groundhog. Yep, I smelled one yesterday. That one might have jumped the hibernation gun but it's a good sign better weather is just around the corner. Also, the horse and goats are loosing hair just a little bit. When you draw back a glove covered in hair after the morning rub, it's a sign of better weather coming. They know when spring is here.

Casper, the photobombing billy goat is still off on his date. I'll probably check up on him this weekend. It is my opinion that breeding season is over but the nannys owner insisted that she was in heat. If her Togg is in heat, more power to her. Casper will do his job. I miss him around here tho. Kind of nice not to get harassed every feeding time over the bucket before I can get it spread out. Casper is not happy unless he gets a mouthful before anybody else! LOL

The babies are mostly billys this year. They're still too young to really have a good assessment for the young nannys. (2 for sure, one white, one carmel colored) So far, they look good but that can always change as they develop. I've got a good picture in my head of what I want in the herd. Plus, the idea of having all experienced nannys for next season is a pretty good one. And, maybe it's a good idea to just hang steady with the size of the herd for this year. A thought for later on since it's feeding time and I need to get moving..........

Now it's Wednesday, February 17^th. Chores are all done and I'm working on finishing my first cup of coffee. Whaaaa?!? Just the first? Yep, dogs wanted out first thing and they herded the goats up and brought them to the front door. There goes my peaceful meditation over a cup of coffee thing. It flew right out the window. I want to stay home from work today, very badly. I feel the inventory flu coming on. Eh, I don't have to do the actual inventory, I spent the last 2 weeks doing precounts etc. All I have to do is try to conduct business around 20 people not familiar with my store and none of them really want to be there either. Makes for a long, long day. Then there's my ex-husband, who acts like we're still happily married and he's just hanging out at his parents house, texting me first thing “how ya doin baby?” Really???? What am I, a pink pig? We're divorced. We're staying divorced. No, you're not moving back in here and the divorce papers really are a legal, binding document. ARG, come on coal mine! Buy me out so I can disappear from here and start over somewhere far away from this nutcase.

20 minutes and I have to leave for work. Yay rah. Even tho it's warmed up to 45F, wish there was a little sunshine to go with it. Yesterdays snow and cold is almost a memory, LOL Stil some hang-on drift piles around the farm. I turned the Spookmeister loose this morning. She took off bucking of course, made 3 laps around the barn and proceeded to roll in a couple choice mudholes. Same old Spooky.

Well crap, time to head for the job. Damn, I want to stay home today. Lunch break will be here soon enough tho and that's when I will post this. More ramblings coming up, LOL.........................

Billy goat photobomb and such

The first weekend of February was absolutely awesome.  Warm and to top it off, I had 3 days off.  Yep, I did just say 3 DAYS OFF.

 some of the babies all piled up under the wheelbarrow.  Too bad I ruined the nap when I moved it cleaning up the winter hay mess.

 I was actually trying to get Carmels baby playing in the feed bowl but she stepped up in the way.  The Billy tho, he couldn't be left out and he photobombed it perfectly!

 Grizz says he's a good boy and he didn't tear the trash up.  He grinned to convince me of his sincerity, LOL.

The kitchen garden in it glorious messiness with all the over growth from last year still in there.

 The Chomper says he doesn't care if it's 55F, he's gonna lay right under the fireplace anyway.

 Some of the winter hatch out roaming the fenceline.

 one of the triplets checking the feed for freshness

 Started turning the garden over, getting ready for planting

The over growth, weeds etc being burned off in a pile.

Eh, as always, it's 2 steps forawrd, one back around here.  Lost the water pump on the trusty rusty s-10 today.  Dang thing is pouring out the weep hole.  Gonna have to wait until Sunday ( my only day off this week) to get it done and changed out.  Dang thing couldn't have given up the ghost during my 3 days off when it was nice and warm, oh no.

Oh, BTW, I already seed started!  I can hear Scifichick "snorking" because she just won the bet.... 

For Cripe Sake!

Yep, it's raining again!  I keep looking for Noah to float by.  This round comes with a nasty cold snap and it will be below freezing for a few days.  Hope Baby goat doesn't decide to pop right in the middle of it.

So far, 5 babies in the barn.  Yep, it's goat kid picture time, hehehehe

Yah, I know, that first one is fuzzy.  It didn't look fuzzy in the camera lens!  Eh, my batteries were about shot.  The triplets are doing great.  The 2 blacks and the tri-colored are all Tinkers, the single carmel colored one is Sadies.  The fat little kinder goat tri-colored spit fire ran from me when I tried to get her picture.  She's camera shy and a rascal.  Typical Delta baby.  So, who is left to kid?  Baby of course, she is huge!  The 2 yearlings too.  Hope I can catch them right away so I won't have a repeat of the other yearlings dead twins.

The garden porn is starting to show up in the mailbox and I'm already thinking of seed stating.  Of course I am!  Hard to not think of it, it's my favorite time of year!  I'm hoping to have the garden turned over and ready to go early this spring.  I've given up on help doing that.  It's unreliable and a waste of time waiting for others big dreams and promises to be fulfilled.  So, I'll just do it myself and not worry about it.  Just don't have the time to wait on others to mess my plans and farming future up.  This past year was miserable, my fault for relying on the help that didn't come as promised.  Lesson learned.  Move on.

The off farm job kept me from profiting from the holidays.  Kind of a burn but eh, sometimes ya just gotta do what you gotta do.  Still, it could have come in handy finance wise.  Missed a bunch of catering business from lack of time and missed a couple of markets I could have presented my crochet, quilts and goats milk soap in.  Eh, I have plans to remedy that as well. 

Today, I have pretty well screwed around and not got much accomplished.  It's been cold and rainy and the lack of sunshine makes me melancholy.  So, I have one of the shelves I built the year before last half taken apart in the front room.  I'm re purposing it into a 3 level rabbit hutch for the mini bunnies I've been raising in the house. It needs done but eh, I just don't feel that super motivated today.  Guess I better do something with it, LOL

Until next time................

Monsoon Season

As many of you know, it's been raining/storming around here.  In some places, the rain is now snow (Texas).  Well, this afternoon, the monsoon let up and the clouds broke.  What appeared in the sky?  God's promise to never flood the world again.,  Came close but no cigar!  LOL

Yep, that was a complete rainbow, side to side with a second partial bow above it.  Thanks Ethan for getting the panoramic photo for me.

The farm critters are all happy to see the rain quit, the poor chickens kept giving me the death stare this morning while wading thru the slop in the coop.  going to have to do something about that.  Can't have chickens swimming.....

The critter that rules the roost

Welcome to the farm, Little Critter!  Born Monday morning and has turned the farm upside down!

days melt all together

Always, this time of year, combined with the big, commercialized holidays, I always get kind of melancholy and reflect on things that have happened to me so far this year. It's hard not having a net connection out here. Paying for a wifi hotspot by the gig is just too expensive. Not enough paycheck for it.

So, what's been happening to the little self sustained farm this year? I've been stuck in a rut of perpetual catch 22. The farm isn't making enough to pay the taxes and the monthly bills so I work off farm more which reduces the amount of time I can work to improve the farm which in turn, slows progress on it down. I am grateful for the pitiful paycheck, it is keeping the bills paid. Just doesn't give me enough to make the improvements I need to make in a timely fashion. Took me all summer to scrounge up enough to get 6 pieces of treated 2x10 along with 18 pieces of treated 2x6, 4 rolls of cage wire for the base of the chicken coop. 19 weeks to save up $218. There's chickens in it now but it's not finished and winter is coming fast here. My big stumbler is that darn truckers tarp I need for the shelter side. That bugger is over $100. I need 4 more sticks of lumber, 3 more sheets of plywood to finish the shelter side. Meanwhile, I've got a plastic tarp zip tied and pinned to the base, covering the whole thing to keep the weather off the 45 days old chicks I hatched in the house to fill it. Oh, ha, I don't have a door for it yet, I keep them inside with an old quilt hung over the hole and an old, rotten table top! Yep, use what ya got, even if it's crazy and kind of retarded looking.

Garden was a wash this year. Barely made enough out of it in between the head high weeds to feed me up to Christmas time. Totally my fault for relying on an old fart who was full of crap and good stories of all the stuff he could do for me to help. Too bad it was all bullshit. So glad I wasted 5 years feeding 2 worthless nags for him while he was away. Eh, I did get a square baler out of it. Which, I need to buy a tarp for that and get it moved into one of the side stalls on the old barn. I've been procrastinating moving it because that old barn needs some work and I'm worried it's gonna fall down this winter. The main section of that old barn is full of square bales of hay. Too bad it's not MY hay. Another catch 22 thing. Work too much to cut and bale the hay so I had to reach out for help which in turn, I need to give help in return.

I'm disappointed with the rabbits this year. I've old had 3 batches of kits all summer, sold 18 to Rural King, lost 4 in the yard and ended up with 2 young does and another 2 bucks. Since I lost one good breeding doe this summer, the 2 young ones are needed to replace her. They haven't produced yet. The 2 bucks need to be in the freezer and will be pretty quick. No sense in feeding them for nothing.

Another year has gone by without me adding quail to the farm. The run is something else I need to save for. Right now, it's behind a new pair of glasses. I only have one pair, prescription, and they're expensive to replace. The ones I am currently wearing are so scratched up, they give me headaches. Tried to polish them since no vision place around here would do it for me. They claim you can't polish the transitions lenses. Wow, what a big mistake choosing those were! Pain in the ass, they take forever to dark up then take forever to undarken and the coating is flaking which is what's causing the distortion. I tried some stuff around the shop and made a slight improvement, it did peel some off but they're a little cloudy now. Don;'t have a fine enough grit to actually polish them. So, new pair has to be purchased. Need $300 for that, have $43 dollars saved up for them so far. LOL, it's gonna be a while still. There's no earning potential from a new pair of glasses. Personal comfort and decent vision but no farm income. Hard to make that kind of decision but it's base survival here and it's do what ya gotta do and get on with it as usual. So, it goes on the list with socks, underwear and a new pair of boots that don't have duct tape on them holding them together! Yep, I'm going into winter with 1 pair of sneakers that are pretty much worn out and a pair of work boots that are split down the side. Oh well, just part of life.

Oh! A good thing, it was kind of a surprise! Delta, my Kinder goat nanny, just gave me a new kid to play with! A single this time, a little nanny goat. Tri-colored. Never had kids in November before. Had to be one of the January billys I hauled to the auction in September. She would have bred back in May, during the monsoon rains we had this spring. So, there's a new baby bouncing around in the barn.

Oh, ha, a friend bought me an adult coloring book. Complex, geometric patterns. Kind of cool. Supposed to be good stress relief. Too bad I've only got 4 colored pencils! I colored 2 pages so far but the lack of color option has me a bit miffed. Stress relief, yah, okay. hahahaha Maybe in a couple of weeks, I'll splurge on a new set of pencils and get to coloring.

Eh, the 2 stupid dogs are pestering the life out of me this morning! You're late Mom, you're supposed to be outside feeding so we can run all over the place, chase the loose rabbits and act stupid! Hurry up Mom! Get some socks so we can lick your face and bother you while you're trying not to kill your back putting socks on! Come on Mom! Why are you ignoring us whining and barking? You don't need that cup of coffee! Mom! Quit ignoring us! Eh, okay, time to go out and feed..........

Jumped Up Into Fall And Surprise....

Wow, the pitiful summer just flew by without much bravado around here. Working the off farm job kept me pretty well in catch up mode the whole time. The unusually wet spring ruined the garden with weeds that grew faster than I could control them. The farm spent most of the summer looking like gypsies lived here with the waist high grass and critters tethered out all over the place. August and September were a whirlwind here with me falling into a 20 year old, 3 cylinder gas john deere rider mower, getting the square baler timed ( thanks Gene!) and getting all the hay baled. Without Justins Grandpa Gene, I would have never figured out what the last owner had jacked up on that baler. It's always the simple stuff that gets overlooked and I just never knew that piece was there. Old farmers are always worth their weight in gold. Would have been a waste selling the cows to get tractor tires if I couldn't get the baler going to make winter hay.

So, the 3 billys born this spring got sold, $2 a lb, not bad. Kept the orphan billy to breed with since he's from new bloodlines. If he wouldn't have come here, I would have had to buy one so I'm good with it. He's got a good personality, easy going and is turning out nice and beefy. Should make nice babies. Now I will at least have the winter feed bill covered and a good billy to make new babies for spring kdding. Throw in the hay bales and I'm sitting pretty good coming into the winter. Now all I need to do is come up with a small cushion in case disaster hits like last winter.

I'm still a bit in withdrawal not having a milk cow around here. Had a scare with the old horse, she seemed to just walk into a fit of colic. It was a bit tense here for 2 days while she worked it out with the help of 2 bottles of karo syrup. I figure it was weather related since here diet has not changed. She's also over age 20, officially old for a horse. She's still looking good and can still buck when she wants. She'll be around for a few more years. I don't mind, she earned her stay here.

Got a wild thing picking the chickens off every few days. I've gone from 35 laying hens down to 10. I have 19 chicks in the grow tank waiting for me to finish a coop to put them into. I have 36 eggs in the incubator but they're due tomorrow and I haven't heard any peeps from in there. I think the temperature wasn't good for this batch. The weather change and I found a cat sleeping on it the other day. Eh, I really didn't need any more right now anyway. Hate it that they're all dead in there tho. Seems like such a waste.

One of the team at work has a puss-ass immune system and brought a nasty bug to work for us all. Hacking and coughing, spitting in every trash can and yup, we all got it. I, of course, went on the old timey health ranger offensive and all I ended up with is a mild case of the sniffles out of it. The rest of the crew ignored my suggestions and they're all smacked with it hard. It still amazes me that people can be so narrow minded and hard headed. Where do they think modern medicine came from? Eh, it's like hitting my thumb with a hammer trying to teach people anything. They're sick, I'm not. I'm good with that, LOL

Oh, so, back in July, the company that has been picking up my trash for the last 6 years just quit picking it up. I thought the first week that maybe I missed trash day but the next week went by and the trash was still there. Then, another week went by and the trash was starting to stink a bit. Yep, they aren't picking it up. So, I commenced to drag it over to the burn pile and get rid of it. Then, 2^nd week of August, I get bill in the mail for August pick up. I ignore it since they hadn't finished out the month of July which was already paid for. Then, 2^nd week of September, I get another bill! This one is for August and September pickup! Oh no, this ain't gonna fly. Me being me, I wrote a somewhat nasty note on the bill and sent it back to them. Simple and to the point, if you stopped picking my trash up in mid July, I can not pay for August and September services I did not receive so stop sending me trash pickup bills, LOL Reminds me of the John Deere dealer sending me a repair bill stamped past due for work they did on the mower they took as a trade in 3 months prior. Sometimes I wonder about people. How they can be so stupid and or why they think everyone else is so stupid.

As for me, I'm just plodding along, day to day, going with the flow of whatever happens. It's really all I can manage to do. Make plans, watch them work or fall apart, adapt, overcome, move on to the next plan. Samey same and more of it, LOL.

Oh, I did manage to make 2 small upgrades toward the cottage kitchen being approved as a full on commercial kitchen. I had 2 specialty jobs this summer that paid for the supplies. A couple more things and I'll be good. Now all I need to do is find the time to work it up to a viable business. Hard to cut back hours from the job that pays the bills to build up something that isn't making enough at this time to cover much of anything. I most certainly haven't given up and the market is out there, just taking longer than I planned for it to pay me like I want it to. Hard to dedicate the time needed when I have nothing to fall back on. The not sleeping for 2 or 3 days at a time to get those specialty jobs done is one thing, doing it all the time or once or twice a week just won't cut it. I'm way too old for that!

Well, I grabbed the camera for some fall farm pictures and what do ya know, the battery icon comes on instantly. Wow, guess it's been a while since I picked the camera up. I flip it over and pull the batteries out. Yep, the camera has been a victim of my son helping himself again. In place of the lithium batteries I always put in her, there's 4 cheapie standard ever-readys. Guess my son needed AAs and thought he could just get them from me. He does that quite frequently. Very annoying. At least this time, he actually put something in their place. Normally he just takes what he wants from me and leaves me nothing in return. Most of the time, it's food. Every now and then he sticks me for the lawn mower gas, take dish soap from me and fill the bottle with water to cover it up, help himself to the toilet paper, usually my last 2 rolls. He learned this crap from the ex. He better hope and pray I never get ahead enough to burn this crap trailer down and build something he can't break into so easily. Wish the dang dogs would bite him.

Eh, it's life and now it's time to feed and go to work........

The Bookmarks of Life

It always seems like life is measured by some sort of event.  Happy, sad, etc. Well, add a bookmark to the timeline of life then....  there are no more cows on this farm.

Yep, Goober the cow is gone.  Sold so I could pay some past due bills around here.  A necessary sacrifice since the job I must go to so I can keep the mortgage paid keeps me too darn busy to make any cheese.  It seemed silly to me to feed and milk a cow twice a day when the milk ends up dumped.  The constant fighting with work because some people simply can not understand COW MILKED TWICE A DAY AT 12 HOUR INTERVALS.  That doesn't mean one day milk at 10am and 10pm then tomorrow milk at 6am and 8pm.  I'm exhausted.  Both mentally and physically.  Chasing a dream I know I will never achieve. 

I feel guilty and relieved all in one.  Guilty for feeling like I've given up.  I have in a way, I guess.  Relieved that I got those bills paid that have been hanging over me for more than a year.  Relieved that I don't have to spend 4 hours a day tending the cow, milking, then cleaning the milker just to dump the milk.  All one has to do to see how wore down I am is simply look around the farm.  Actually, you don't have to look past the weedy gardens to see.

The next to go will be the rabbits.  I will most likely spend one of my days off, rare as they are, butchering rabbits.  The amount of time I spend feeding them naturally plus the cost of commercial feeds to supplement their diet just isn't justifying their keep here anymore.  They do sell but not consistent enough to cover the cost of feed.  Even the feed I grow for myself which is cost free but not time free.  It takes every free minute I have to tend this farm.  On days when I can hardly haul myself out of bed, I still have to find the energy to get out there and do all the work that is needed every single day.

I'm keeping the goats and chickens.  Just the entertainment value of both is worth keeping.  Besides, the goats are smarter than the 2 stupid dogs I have and I actually like the goats better than those dogs, LOL  Plus, the sale of the kids every year covers their upkeep, mostly.  The chickens, well, I just like chickens around the farm.  I'm just stuck with the over age 20 horse too.  I've had her since she was a 4 month old weanling and the years of joy and entertainment she's given myself and the family qualifies her for a spot here until she dies.  No slaughter pen at an auction for her.

Now, what am I gonna do about that weedy garden?

June Farm update

So, it's been raining non stop for the past 6 days. Torrential downpour is more like it. The remnants of some tropical storm, Bill, I think. Yay rah. It's kept me in a pitiful loop for existence. Wake up, make some coffee, feed the orphans, drink some coffee, feed the rest of the critters, back to the house to drink another cup of coffee, get ready for work then go to work. Drive home, check on and feed where necessary, clean up, try to sleep. Wake up, repeat. Glad I spent 9 hours weeding the front garden before the rain set in! I can just imagine what it would look like right now if I hadn't taken the time to get it done. My only day off from the job and I spent it weeding a garden, LOL. Yep, I'm still wrapped hard in the dream. I'm stubborn that way I guess. In town every day, six days a week and it would be kind of easy to just chuck this whole self reliant farm thing out the window and be just like the rest of the blind and oblivious buzzing around like worker ants, getting absolutely nothing accomplished with any real meaning. Naw, that just isn't going to happen. I like being the square peg, doing my own thing, not conforming. Conformity is BORING!

I did manage to get 2 books read this past week. One was actually a re-read from years ago. An offhanded comment caused that one to get checked out of the library. Catcher in the Rye. Now I remember why I don't own a copy of that book. Yep, I'm still pondering how the PTB linked it to being the trigger for mass murder. The book did the same thing for me that it did the first time I read it back in high school. Made my dang brain hurt. Whatever. The second book was Chris Kyles book, American Sniper. I chose to read the book before I see the hollywood depiction. I'm sure I will feel the same way about the movie as I do about the big screen version of Marcus Luttrells book, Lone Survivor. I'm not going to go into a whole big discussion about why I appreciate both books, for me, it's not about weather or not I “liked” them, thought they were “great” etc. Both Marcus and Chris didn't write to entertain people and it is my opinion that neither book is meant to be that way. Both are deep and revealing peeks into the souls of American Warriors. Both Marcus and Chris have my deepest respect and gratitude for their service to this country and for having the desire to share their experiences with the rest of us. And, that's all I'll say on that subject.

Oh, I did finally get the sweet corn planted tho it was in a hurry and kind of a blur since the rain was coming hard and fast. Another spot where the weeds are taller than the intentional plants. Will probably spend a few hours on that spot getting pigweed thorns in my fingers. No glamorous rows of corn here yet, just tiny little plants searching for sunlight and a truck load of weeds! Heck, I've still got seed I need to plant and plants in the kitchen that need put out somewhere to grow and produce. Yah, I'm slacking big time this year. The juggling of the job and the farm has me stretched pretty thin most days. I'm right on the verge of a couple nice niche things produced on the farm to make me a nice, small living but the time to make it flower isn't there. Cant get it by reducing hours at the job, the paycheck is too thin already. Eh, it's the old “catch-22” so I'll just keep plugging away at it. It will come in it's own good time.

Well! Here I am rattling away about less important things, I haven't mentioned anything about me headed for Grand Parent-dom. My youngest and his girlfriend are expecting. I actually have some pretty deep, mixed emotions about it. Happy, angry, excited, disappointed etc. I am holding my opinions inside for the moment because when I was their age, just a little older, I made my fair share of stupid mistakes. So, until this all happens, I will do my best to filter the brain to mouth thing (hard to do for me, trust me!) and be ready to do whatever is necessary at the time. I've seen the sonogram, of course both of them keep saying it's a boy but so far, the development says to me it's a girl. We'll see come Christmas time. Due Dec 24^th to Jan 1^st. My vote is January 4^th, at 2:34am, LOL. I actually hope it's snowing like mad, hehehehe. 

So, speaking of babies, the laying hens are annoying me just a little. I end up having to go to work before they get their rude butts of the nests and one by one, they're going broody on me. I've got 4 hens with chicks now and a 5^th has now decided not to get off the barn loft nest. There's 14 eggs in it every day and she's been there 3 days now with the other hens laying eggs in that spot with her. I'm looking at 3 weeks with being cut down to 4 or 5 eggs a day instead of my normal 18. The good news on that is, by the time this summer is winding down and those 2 year old hens are slowing down egg laying, a whole new batch of pullets will be starting to lay. There's the 31 I hatched out in the house plus another 17 the hens have hatched out. Geez, I really need that darn chicken coop built. Eh, I'll not go there or I'll end up on a huge rant about how I'm surrounded by people who are all “talk” with no “do”. I squished that bug already so no sense beating a dead horse. If I ever get caught up on my dang past due bills, I'll get what I need to build it one piece at a time.

Well, looks like I've spent enough time today drinking coffee and procrastinating. Too much to do on my only darn day off...................

May Crazy days

May 12-27th

So, here it is, half way thru May and what's going on around the farm? Time doesn't mean much around here since it's all so scheduled and in high demand. There's not much left over for deviation from the set routine. Out of bed every day, same time no matter how tired you are. Feed and milk, tend to small things that need done then head out to the off farm job. Rinse, repeat.

Critters are doing fair to middling, garden is coming along, no thanks to my old, good friend Ronnie, who spends more time sitting on a bucket than anything else. Even tried to get my son to turn some garden over for money to make it look like he did something. So much for all his big promises and such, all lip service and bullshit. Not really surprising since I seem to be constantly surrounded by people who think they want to be just like me but lack the stamina to keep up. Which, is just a polite way to say they're full of crap and too lazy to follow up. And, a no show today as well.

So, spring farm checklist- chicken coop-nope. Run the front fencing-nope. Build the new lean-to for the rabbits-nope. Turn the garden-nope. Well, kind of, that last one isn't a total no check mark, I did arrange for the corn patch to be tilled which it is. 3 days of rain in a row while I was working kept me from getting that patch planted. Rain on my first day off in 2 weeks put a damper on farm stuff but I still managed to hoe the tomato rows in the drizzle and weed both the strawberries and the asparagus. My great farm hand Ronnie doesn't seem to understand the importance of doing those things so I did it in the rain yesterday. I'll be planting corn today by myself.

I've got 15 chicks in the brooder grow tank, they're 3 weeks old. 2 batches of meat rabbit kits, not sure how many are there tho. Just haven't messed with them yet. The calf is growing like crazy. Meatball, the boer goat orphan, is growing well. He's gotten over losing his only friend now. Hard hit for both of us. I sold a young billy to someone local and while delivering it, the herd went looking for the lost goat kid and Baby goats kid apparently got hit on the side road. They've never been out there before but the urge to find the missing kid must have been very strong. So, that was kind of a blow to the farm, sell one and lose one, cutting the sale price for the one in half.

The work schedule really has me run down. No time to make cheese and I'm dumping almost all the milk I get from Goober cow. I'm at the point now of where I feel like I should just go ahead and sell her to someone who will use the milk. Before, the cost of the feed to keep her in good flesh while milking was worth it because of the cheese, cheese making classes, butter, yogurt, etc. Now, with my work schedule consuming all my time, all that milk is being dumped but the feed is still getting to the cow. Tough choice to make since Goober is such a big part of this little farm. With Lucky and Sis gone, there isn't much keeping me in the farming mood anymore.

Ah, I've left the most messed up art of my time away from the blog out! Roger George! Roger is a 50 something yr old man who lives local, works on the barges and likes to build old cars. Been hanging around for about a year, talking cars and such. Nice fellow, so I thought. Turns out, he and his wife split and he needed a room to rent for a few days. I made it clear there is just one rule on my farm, NO DRINKING. He obviously missed that and proceeded to get drunk and follow me around crying about how scared he was of being alone. Nope, this isn't going to work out. Out he went. Yup, end of that, right? Not hardly. It's been 3 months and he's got his friends all convinced there's some great romance going on between us, he's been rerouting his mail to my farm and telling his work he lives here on the farm. Never even a hug between us, no friendly peck on the cheek, nothing! He is so very not my type to start out with, quite round and bald. Nothing wrong with either, just not what interests me in a man. Apparently, in some peoples minds, not a chance in hell means someone loves you. 3 weeks ago, he got off the boat then he waited for me to go to work, broke in to my home and stole all my farm records, the journals, all of the printed blog. He said he thought he could hold it for ransom to work out a deal with me to stay here. Oh Yah, that worked out real well for him. I got my stuff back and he got a black eye. The guy is batshit nuts and borderline stalker material. I'm currently working on restraining orders. He's been on the boat for the past 3 weeks, we'll see what happens when he gets off it this time. He had better stay clear of me and the farm, I'm getting good at delivering black eyes to idiots.

So today has been a working day off. I've been working on finishing up the front garden, turning everything that's left because Ronnie simply can't do it and I can't wait that long. Turning a 2' by 3' section in a 5 hour day, sitting on a bucket and smoking just doesn't cut it. Times a wasting. I've already found close to a pack worth of cigarette butts out in the garden. Guess Ronnies idea of gardening is very different than mine is. I'm leaning toward working it out so he isn't out here anymore. Just don't have the time to deal with the bullshit. I'm getting another one of our mutual friends to come pick up and board Rons horse. He's used it as an excuse to keep coming out here but since he got out on January, he's not touched that horse. All the promises were dead air and I'll be damned if I'm gonna give him an escape or another excuse to sit around and do nothing.

Yep! Worked it out! Ronnie is gone. No more excuses. No more bullshit.

Now my thorn in the side is my disrespectful 21 yr old son. The things he's done to me this past year are amazing. The way he talks to me, wow. If I would ever has talked to my own parents that way, I'd still be in the hospital! Worse than that, he steals from me. Big blow up this past week, rudeness, disrespect and I've had enough. Yep, that's done. The man child will be taking care of himself from now on, the freeloading is over. Time to grow up and take responsibility for your own choices and your own stupid mistakes.

Now for some fun stuff! 3 orphan boer goats now live here. Bottles twice a day because the young lady who originally took them then sold them back to the herd master, pretty much didn't have a clue and they're pretty well starved. She just dumped them back out in the pasture. Of course, the herd rejected them. They've been here a few days and the belly bloat is about half gone. Kids aren't weaned at 8 weeks and, as they grow, if they aren't eating feed, they're most certainly not candidates for weaning. Nannys here don't kick their kids off a teat until at least 14 weeks around here. These 3 orphans looked like road kill possums when they arrived here. Like the good shepard I am, I will do all I can for them.

2 litters of meat rabbit kits were born last week. Also, 34 chicks hatched. 15 in the first batch, 19 3 days ago. Still no chicken house built! I may try to get to it this coming week. I need to pay the first installment of taxes so if there's anything left of the paycheck, I'll do what I can to get it going. Need it quick tho. Chicks are growing and if I just put them out in the barn, I'll be feeding the local wildlife. As it turns out, I was too late to feed the house wildlife. Zone flew out and the kittens played with it. It's now stuck in the heating vent. I am currently working on baiting it out.

A minor slip this weekend, the newborn kid went missing. Saw the baby Saturday morning before I went to work. Sunday, no kid. Monday, no kid. I walked all over the crp looking for where that first time Momma might have left her kid at. Couldn't find it. Tuesday morning and no kid. I resigned myself to accepting it has been eaten by the coyotes. So, I set myself to task on mowing around the barns and cleaning up more of the sons messes. Some friends stopped by for a visit and lookie there, the newborn kid is back! Bopping around the barnlot like it was never gone. Makes me happy and mad, all at once. I'm thrilled the kid is back and obviously okay but mad I couldn't find it. Oh well, whats done is done.

Now, it's pouring rain. So much for more clean up and mowing before work. I didn't get around to building the fence for the corn and melon patch. Need that done asap too. Not going to get built in the pouring rain tho. “Sigh” the last 3 weeks it's rained on my days off. Part of it I guess. I'm going to have to lose some sleep during the work week if I want to get it done any time soon.........

Warm Weather

It's pretty decent outside.  It's been much warmer, a ton of rain, a little flooding and everything is a muddy mess.  I finally got some seed started.  Just a dozen cherry tomatoes.  The big toms will get started tomorrow while I'm off work.  I'll probably make 3 or 4 batches of soap with all the goats milk I have in the fridge.

Baby goat is currently working on gifting me with a kid and Goober cow is still in her holding pattern.  Got a call last night while I was at work, Daisy cow had her calf.  I sold her a couple weeks ago to pay the past due on the LP bill.  I just owed way too much money and it's been hanging over me for more than a year.  I was never going to get it paid off with $30 a paycheck.  The late fee was more than that!  So, I did what I had to do and sold one of my herd.  Actually, sold 3 of my herd!  Daisy, her unborn calf and the bull.  Yep, I owed the LP company that much money!  Anyway, Daisy had a heifer calf.  No problems, both Momma and the calf are good last time I heard.  Hope to see some pictures soon.

I've finished 5 throw blankets so far this year, all 3x5 (mostly 40x65) and I've got a few bird houses in the works.  Extra things to offer on the market table along with the soap and the fruits and veges.  I also got a promotion at work and a small raise. 

On the downside- my new farm tenant is turning out to be a fruit loop.  Lots of big promises, no follow thru.  Story of my life tho, I always seem to find the winners.

Eh, time to head for the off farm job!

And, Life Goes On

 Whats left of the herd after my(mine and theirs) heart breaking loss of Lucky the herd leader and my best milker, Lil Sister.

 Tinkers twins are a sassy little pair, constantly running and playing.  I got to watch the head butting championship this morning.  Not sure who won, not too sure they know either, LOL

Deltas twins are the same personality type she always gives me, aloof and dignified, LOL

Baby has filled a bag.  This will be her first kidding.  She is Lil Sisters only live offspring.  I'm hoping all goes easy and right for her.  She is officially on kid watch as of this morning.

Pretty darn cold in the house since I ran out of LP.  I owe the gas company still from last year so no more LP for me.  Eh, it'll be warming up soon.  I've got an electric heater on the water lines, what's left of them anyway, so those don't freeze.  Another week or so and it'll all be fine.  Can't wait to see what the electric bill looks like, "sigh", if it's not one thing, it's something else around here.

Not one single seed started here!  Oh boy, if we'd have bet this year, Scifi woulda lost big time!  LOL  Not that I haven't been dying to start seed, it's obviously too darn cold in here.  Looks like 2 more seriously cold nights (9F and 10F) and then a week of mid 20sF.  I can see daylight at the end of the tunnel!  LOL  Another week or so and seeds will be sprouting all over my kitchen!  That, to me, is pure heaven!

Well, I'm late for the off farm job, better get my butt out the door.......

So Long Lucky Boy

 

My little pig nosed baby, he was a fighter.

 

Totally a ball of fun and adventure, all through his too short life.

 

Lucky turned into a wonderful herd leader and pet.  Gone much too soon.

Goodbye Lucky Boy, you were a great goat and I will forever miss you!