Wednesday, December 28, 2011

The Winter Slow Down

Everything has slowed down now that most of the winter holidays are behind us and we are down to the animals that we plan to keep from year to year.  Kissee is getting kinda large with those twins in there and her milk is nearly dried off.  Partly that's my fault, we started moving her to 1 a day milkings and her numbers tanked.  Now here we are about 20 days away from her planned dry off date and she's giving so little milk its not really worth the effort to clean the pail, strainer and strip cup.  So tonight is her last official milking, anything beyond this will be to keep her comfortable and nothing more.  We will miss that milk for sure.  Store bought cow's milk, even the organic, tastes old to me.

The hens are still laying in nearly full force.  We are getting anywhere from 8-14 eggs a day, one of those is a duck egg.  I'm in awe of our duck, she lays more reliably than the hens do!  Anyhow, these girls easily overwhelm us in their quantity of eggs so I took about 7 dozen to the family Christmas and needless to say I returned empty handed.  Our chicks are still doing great, we still have the remaining 7 and the 2 that appeared to be roosters still do look like roosters so once the weather improves for spring we will add them to the deep freeze.

I think I might have mentioned it already (I guess I can go look it up) but I had started making goat milk soap back in November and we can finally use the bars.  They aren't great at sudsing but they are really nice feeling on your skin, not drying at all.  They remind me of Cetaphil in how they feel in your hands, but without the dry it leaves behind.   The first batch was Oatmeal, the second which I made in December is lavender/mint.  Now that one I can't wait until its ready!  Its smells so amazing!

So that's whats going on here.  Nothing too exciting.  Anything going on with you?


Monday, December 5, 2011

Who needs a blood test when you have ultrasound?

My neighbor is proving to be quite the person to know.  He's been talking to us about a friend of his who is a local vet trying to sell of some of their dairy goats.  I was telling him we were planning to add another doe in the spring and maybe get a buck to breed with (Those long trips to Angola, I love that breeder but I don't care to ruin my truck again).  Anyhow that particular vet was ultrasounding her goats on that particular day and she came out and did ours too.  Kissee is having at least twins and it appear her pregnancy is healthy.  Makes me so happy to know this.  So come around March 15th we will have a couple spring loaded goat kids around here :)