June 11, 2007

ain! I swear it has rained every day since Mary's husband finally got to move up here to their homestead.  We are certain he brought the rain with him from the coast where it is rather common. I am happy though as after 8 days (and being 24 hrs late from calling in), my guy has returned from sea. Us gals were getting worried about him, his brother and his father. But he called in finally... and we had a nice feed on some fish and crab last night.

There was a medieval event not too far from us and it was a 3 day event on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We couldn't go the first few days and then we got all dressed in our garb and went in the afternoon yesterday, just as everyone was leaving as they got rained out. So we were all dressed with no-where to go. So we decided to have our pictures taken with some of the baby goats over at Mary's. Yes we drive around in the car and go into stores like this sometimes *L*

Picture Above: (From Left to Right) Me, Amy and "Wally".

I like doing medieval stuff and studies as it works very much hand-in-hand with homesteading. Through this I learned my blacksmithing skills (though slightly rusty, I need to fire up my forge one of these days again). Running a wood fired bakery in the middle of nowhere to feed hundreds of people.  Gardening, cooking and preserving without jars or refrigeration. And lots of other things.  If you want to look into the SCA, click here.

Even though it is raining, we need to go work on the calf barn as poor "Blossom" has been living with the baby pigs. But the baby pigs are getting bigger so other arrangements need to be made for her. No Worries. Pigs are very clean and "Blossom" is staying nice and dry, safe and clean. It was either the pigs or our livingroom... so pigs it was.

My guy is going to go talk to the man down the road that "Daisy" decided to live with for a few days. It is too rainy to try to move her today.. so soon.. but not today.

I keep running goats back and forth to Mary's and trading out goats. We will get our front pasture done soon as I have started ripping out wire and posts so we can get our pole fencing done. Then we can put "Blossom" and the 4 nanny goats out front and have them here full time.

Afternoon Update:

Well "Daisy's" fate has been sealed. My boyfriend and I went to talk to the man who "Daisy" decided to go live with at the last second of the chase the other day. My guy and this farmer know each other pretty well. After jabbering at each other about cows, weather and life in general, it has been decided. She has her halter half off, which is not safe, she will not come into the corrals so we cannot catch her, when anyone goes into the pasture, she runs and gets all the farmers cattle running which is teaching them to be wild and they are tame cows. If she teaches them to jump fences, then the farmer will hate us for the next 10 years as that may be how long it takes to get his cattle back.

IF we ever got her back, this will just be the first of many times of this sort of things happening and she is dangerous to be around now as she comes swinging at you with horns. Her udder is very full and she could care less where her calf is. The farmer said she has not called for her calf even once. So we called our friend the butcher and he will come drop her sometime this week. And she will be in the freezer sometime in the next.

Sometimes farming is like that.. win some.. lose some. But if you have an animal who will not work with humans as a team.. and is potentially dangerous, it is not worth it. We got a sweet heifer calf out of her and we have her steer from last year. "Blossom" will be our milk cow in about 18 months. Until then, unless "Muddy" calves out, we will have to continue to utilize the goat milk.