He's a Sexy Man

Ganja was DECIDEDLY in heat this week.
Naturally, I set her up on a date.
(Coffee says it was a booty call... I guess she's right.)

Photo by Brendon B.
I mean. Look at him. He's totally hot. His nickname is STINKY.
Let's just say he doesn't come by that name by ACCIDENT.
On a similar note:
Goat sex is
HILL
LAIR
EEe
US.
The peeing on his beard part takes the cake.
We'll know in 21 days if the pregnancy took!! If it did, we may have miniature nubies!!
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Getting Ready for Fall

Seems like EVERY YEAR we get caught with our pants down when it comes to being ready for Fall weather.
I don't mean I'm not ready for Fall.
I mean, all the STUFF that we have out for summer always seems to get caught outside when the weather turns wet, and then we have a bunch of wet things to pick up.
Or WORSE.
They don't GET picked up, and come good weather time, there's ruined stuff all around the place.
This last week, we spent a lot of time getting projects finished up.
Trouble is, we have a habit of finishing up the PROJECT...
and leaving the mess we created while we did it.
This year, however, we might actually be READY when Fall gets here!!
The chicken house/coop project is complete. I still need to add hardware cloth to the bottom half, but until that time, the chickens can be locked securely at night, and bird netting works to contain them during the day while T sleeps. We just need hardware cloth before we leave for a vacation. (which isn't something we're planning any time soon.)
I also got the Goat's area set up better.
Mind you, none of the things we've done are fancy, but they work.
Just for the cute factor:

THE CHICKEN SET UP!:

The run is small, and only suitable for keeping them in for short periods of time. I also wanted them to have a covered area for staying dry if they want to. (they never seem to want to. lol)
I removed some panels on the storage shed turned hen house so that they can get in and out.
Travis made a door with the panels so that they can be shut in at night for safety still.

THE GOAT SET UP:
I used a tarp to create a roof that covers all the way to the ground on the tractor. I also used it to seal in the end of the tractor. I'll be adding hay to the inside soon.

Got the hammock stored for the winter, the inflatable river toys put up for winter and all our "project" areas cleaned up. Still have a few little things to get put up before the cold and wet hit, but I feel like we're ahead of the game this year.
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The Altered Page!!

Seth at The Altered Page, has featured some photos from artist's studios, and I'm one of the artists featured!! Check out the third chapter of THE PULSE!
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Satisfaction.

Things are shaping up around here for the winter!! I love it. Travis and I have been continuing the work on the chicken house/coop. We've moved the hen house to rest at the end of what used to be a hen house, but that I've changed into a small coop.

All that's left to do is clean up the CRAP all around the thing, put a hardware cloth skirt around it and put hardware cloth over the bottom half of the coop.

Macs and I went and got GINGER yesterday!!
My friend Holly has an Akbash (pronounced Ahk Bahsh) guardian dog to protect her animals on her farm.
She is such a beautiful dog.

She loved Macs, and he was smitten by her too.

Now that I have Ginger, I needed a milking stand!! I have no idea why, but milking stands are called Stanchions. I took photos of Holly's stanchion, and got to see it in action. Then today, Travis helped me build my own!!
I found the bottom part of a small entertainment system a while back at a garage sale for free, and I grabbed it, thinking it would be the perfect base for a stanchion. All I had to do was build the brace!! Here is the start of the brace.

Complete with neck hold, and ready for a feeding dish!

Space is limited in our garage (where I'll be milking) so I got a feed dish that I can take off so that Travis can get past the stanchion with the lawn mower.

All set up in the garage! Pretty pleased with it! The most expensive part of the whole thing was the DISH!! lol Free base. Salvaged wood. about $4.00 in hardware. All together, I MIGHT have spent $20.00... SCORE!!

No photos of the actual milking, because I wanted our first couple milking sessions to be speedy (which is tough because I'm hand milking, and still getting the hang of it) and "fun" for her. I didn't want to fuss around her too much. She's still not sure about all of us.
BUT
I did get a photo of her milk when I was done!! Here it is, quick cooling, and ready for the fridge!

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I NEED YOU!!

Officially, I have THE BEST artist/writer friend EVER.
ETA:
OFFICIALLY, you guys are AMAZING. All the books HAVE BEEN BOUGHT!! I'll share with you guys.
This year, I've been given the chance to be a guest art teacher at my oldest son's high school. The school is small, and the whole art class is 14 kids big. I want to get in there, and empower those kids. When I was in high school, I loved art. I enjoyed it, but I thought that I wouldn't be able to do what it takes to make a LIVING at it. It wasn't until a few years ago, I realized that I should have KEPT art. I don't have to make a living at it to be able to keep it in my life. I shouldn't have let it go...
Journal Revolution was one of the books that helped me really get into my art again. To make room for it in my life no matter what. I want to share that with the students I'll be teaching.
So I emailed my friend, Linda Woods.
I emailed and asked her to work with me to put a copy of the book she and her sister wrote into every student's hand in class.
SHE SAID YES!!
This is where YOU come in.
Linda has offered her book to the class at a GREAT price, but I can't afford to buy them all myself.
SO
I need YOU.
She has created a listing for all 14 books in her etsy store.
YOU can go there, and purchase a book (or more!) for a student. Once all the books are purchased in this listing, she will ship the books directly to the school for me. I'll be keeping track of your names, so that I can write inside the books, that they were bought for the students by YOU!! Each student will have their OWN PERSONAL COPY of the book I only WISH I had had when I was a teenager. Please visit Linda's shop, and purchase a book for a student!! Thank you SO MUCH for your help!! The class loves my copy of the book! I know they'll love having a book of their OWN!
FOR.
SEVEN.
DOLLARS.
$7.00.
Linda and Karen, you rock!!

and THANK YOU for helping me!!
ETA: Because of the GREAT price Linda is listing these for, she won't be making a profit from this sale. Thank you, Linda!!
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Farmin'

I think I broke my back today.
However, the soon to be covered chicken yard is coming along nicely...

The chickens have been following me all over the place today,

because not only did I get a HUGE chunk of organization done in my studio today,
Travis helped me get started with getting the goat a PEN!!
Up until now, Ganja has been tethered on a lead and we move her around the property. This is far from a good set up for goats. Now that we know we're keeping Ganja, and we plan to get a second goat, we needed a pen. We wanted a movable pen that could be moved around the property to allow the goats to eat the brush on the property, so we got cattle pannels, and got started!! Here's what we ended up with.

It's not fancy, but it's a good size to start with (we'll be adding two more 16' pannels) and it all comes apart so that it can be moved to fresh browsing areas.
Ganja is LOVING not being on a lead. She came to us with a lead, so I'm not sure she's used to NOT having one.

We adapted the front of the old chicken tractor, which I have made into a GOAT tractor. (full length roof to come) Travis put new larger wheels on it, so it's much easier to move now.

More proof that Ganja likes it. I do believe that's a SMILE.

and one last one for good measure...

Lots to do to finish up the chicken coop, and get ready to get Ginger on Saturday!! My back is killing me, but I'm happy with what we got done today!!
I think it's official. I live on a farm.
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Got Your Goat

A while ago, I posted a short little blurb about having taken in a goat this summer.
Travis works for the Sheriff's Dept.
One day while he was on patrol, there was a report of a loose dog and goat. Travis responded to the call, and took the goat back to the house he believed she came from. However, he also thought that no one was living at the residence, and knew that I have been talking and thinking about goats. So he put a note in his report to Animal Control that if the goat ended up being taken in, we might like to take it.
The owner of the goat ended up releasing her to the county, and we ended up with her.
A couple of weeks into our new goat ownership, we got a message from the animal control officer saying that the owner of the goat had a son that wanted to take her.
We waited, now thinking that we wouldn't be keeping her, for over a month, and didn't hear anything about when the goat would be leaving us. Eventually, we got word that the son had moved, and by not taking her with him, she was ours.

She's Nubian goat, and the sweetest thing ever. I love her to death, but I wasn't SURE I really wanted goats. I hadn't been able to taste goat milk, and I hadn't had the chance to get a set up ready for more than one goat. I firmly believe that it's not OK to keep one goat. Goats are herd animals. They are MEANT to live in groups. It's in a group that they form bonds, and behave as they are meant to. I was also pretty sure that I wanted a different breed of goat, if we did end up getting them.
I thought about listing Ganja on Craigslist, because we weren't really ready for more than one goat. I thought about butchering her, because I didn't want to put her into a home that wouldn't be good for her. I don't know anything about her past, but knowing what little I do about where she came from, I don't think she's had it easy so far. Every time I talked about doing something OTHER than keeping Ganja, Travis wasn't happy. lol So I started looking into our options.
Fortunately for ME...
The same friend that I got my first pullets from is also a goat farmer!! This year, she started milking her goats, and I had the chance to visit her. She had kids for sale, and some milk and cheese for me to taste. I had already decided that we would be getting a pal for Ganja, but I hadn't decided whether or not I would be milking or not.
Because the kind of goats that Holly has (Nigerian Dwarf Goats) are much smaller than Nubian Goats, we talked about the risk of injury to any kid I might get. I would really rather start building a herd of Nigerian Dwarfs than Nubians, so we started talking about the idea that I could take an adult.
In the end, I chose to take Ginger!!

Holly just sold her kid, so she's milking, and I should be able to keep milking her for a while! I'll also be able to take Ganja to breed with Holly's buck soon. Ginger is most likely pregnant right now, and if Ganja is bred, I could have kids as soon as next spring!
I do have to say this. If you have ever tried goat cheese or milk from ANYWHERE other than fresh from a goat, you HAVE to try again. Fresh Goat milk and cheese is NOTHING like the goaty flavored cheese I have tried from the grocery store. NOTHING. The milk is so sweet, it's amazing. I've also learned that if the buck of the herd is kept with the does this can adversely affect flavor.
Ginger should be coming to our house in the next week or so! Keep your fingers crossed I get the pen set up for them to be together, and that all goes well!
Did you know that the term Got Your Goat is a horse racing term? Racing horses commonly used to be kept with a goat in their stall. The company helps them to stay calm while on the road. The practice back in the day, was to steal the goat in your competitor's stall, in order to "shake up" their horse the night before a race.
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Flock Rotation

Originally posted in my guest post at Another Kind of Drew.
Before our recent move to the country, I had a small city flock of chickens. They lived in a chicken tractor. I had read about battery hens. The ones that lay your eggs if you buy them in the super market. Their life is NOT a nice one. I decided that hens would be a great addition to our family. MY chickens would have a better life and thus provide me with better eggs. Since you don’t have to have a rooster to get eggs from chickens, and we lived in the city with neighbors close by, I chose to have only hens. I should just warn you now. If you get chickens, you’ll be hooked. If you’re anything like most of us crazy chook people, you’ll always be looking for ways to grow your flock and manage them. How can you NOT?

All I can think when I see that photo is “GUESS WHAT?!?! Chicken Butt”. Oh yes. I’m THAT classy. Moving on.

Now that I live in the country, I have more options as to what I can do with my flock. I decided to start by getting a rooster in order to allow my hen to raise their own chicks. (Hens to a MUCH better job raising chicks at a much lower death rate and with much less WORK than we humans. MUCH.) Rather than start having chickens all over the place, I created a flock management plan that will allow me to maximize my hen’s laying years, sell eggs to neutralize the cost of feed, butcher some chickens for meat each year and still maintain a smaller scale flock. I wanted to have my flock in rotation in a way that would allow me to have a full and productive flock in a cycle that would never stop. Here is what this will look like:

* I will add to my flock in groups of 3-4 each year until I have 18-20 hens.
* I will be allowing my hens to hatch and raise chicks starting next year. I plan to allow them to sit on about 12 eggs.
* I will keep 3-4 of the pullets and butcher any roosters and extra pullets I have from the hatch. When I have a full flock (20 girls), I will also cull the oldest batch of laying hens that I have. This way, I will have 12 or so laying hens in varying stages of productivity at any given time, and a fresh batch of soon to be layers coming in.

My flock should be full and in rotation by 2012. At least that’s the plan.

Getting chickens seemed like a huge leap, but we LOVE our chickens! I can’t imagine ever NOT having them now. They were a great decision, and I love knowing that our eggs come from happy content chickens, who frankly, live it UP here in the country. Free range pastured chicken life? yeah. They’ve got it good. I also like knowing that when the time comes to butcher, they’ll be treated with the dignity and respect they deserve, and an appreciation that I’ve learned can only come when you truly know your food.

So tell me. What leap did you take toward a chewy life that you can’t imagine living without?

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Fun and Games

Found this fun meme on Fall Down to fly
Instructions:
1. Delve into your blog archive.
2. Find your 23rd post.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.
:::I learned how to play solitare.:::
The post was about my gramma. My dad's mom. Things that she taught me...
Interesting.
Today I saw three kids that I worked with and taught when they were little, and went to the day care I worked at.
MY class was all the two year olds and once in a while, I helped with the babies. Thing is, all those babies and two year olds don't remember me now...
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Slow and Steady wins the race.

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Boys and Their Toys

I firmly believe that it's more fun to grow up with a Daddy that is still a kid at heart.

I love this man with all my heart.
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Silly Chicken

There is one pullet that is light enough to hop/fly over the four foot "fencing" that I have around the hen house. It keeps the Rooster from crowing outside my bedroom window while Travis is asleep on the days he works nights.

I don't know why she chose this place...

but she lays me an egg there every day. :)
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Never Forget.

I remember where I was when the news came on over the show I was watching...
I remember wondering about the families and people I never knew that lost their lives.
A few years after that day, I found a project online.
Project 2996
And I signed up.
In honor of the fathers, sons, brothers, uncles, nephews, mothers, daughters, sisters, aunts and grandmothers whose faces and names suddenly became numbers on a list, I blog.
Every year, I remember. I remove that number and remember Jerry Devito.

May he never return to just being a part of the list.
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Global Warming Has Nothing to do With My Life.

Also titled:
Three Reasons I am "Green" That Have Nothing to do With the Environment.
There are a lot of reasons besides the environment to live a "green" life. I realized the other day that for most of my decisions that involve the environment, I'm really making those choices for three main reasons. Three reasons that don't really have anything to do with Global Warming, or being Environmentally Conscious, or reduce any footprints that I make.
Usually, those decisions fall into one of three areas.

1. Being Frugal
2. Relationship
3. Knowledge

Frugal: adj. 1. practicing economy; living without waste; thrifty.

A lot of my choices... like making my own laundry soap, drying my laundry on the laundry line, buying things secondhand... are choices I made because they are less expensive. Who doesn't like to save money? A little bit here and there really adds up!
Relationship:

In the movie Avatar, Neytiri teaches Jake to appreciate the life he takes as a hunter. He says "I See you, Brother, and thank you." as he makes his kill.
I see you.
In the movie, "I see you" is a powerful thing to say. It means that you REALLY see a person/animal/being. That you appreciate them. There is a relationship with the lives taken to become food for the Na'Vi.
Relationship is a huge reason for my food choices. I choose to have a relationship with my food. I choose to know where my food comes from, and the care they receive. I want to know that they are respected in life, and truly appreciated in death. In the case of my chickens, I've chosen to be able to look them in the eye before I make my kill, and truly SEE them.
Knowledge:

I like to KNOW.
Surprising, I'm sure. lol
I like to know what's going on.
I like to know.
Gardening
Home canning
Homemade cleaning supplies
Homemade bread
Spaghetti sauce from scratch
Homemade laundry soap
Seed saving
What is in my food.
What is in the products I use.
These are all things I do because I want to know. Knowledge is power.

That all these things have a positive impact on the environment is really just an extra. A bonus to the fight against global warming... because if studies came out tomorrow saying that global warming WASN'T helped by these things I've chosen to do... I'd still keep doing them. Because Global Warming has nothing to with my life.
So tell me.
What choices have YOU made that have nothing to do with the environment?
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Puppy Faces

Just some shots of the puppy!! He's been REALLY good!
He sleeps a lot.

It was brought to my attention that puppies lose their puppy breath when they start eating cat poo and licking "parts"...
So.
I'm off to figure out how to keep THAT from ever happening.
I call it my puppy breath quest!!
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