I'm Back

I have returned. I have no reason to offer for my lack of writing. I just haven't wanted to do anything but go thru the motions of life. It was like everything was to much. You know getting up everyday to do the same thing. I couldn't do anything extra. I wasn't even crocheting. Anyway sorry.

Everything on the homestead is doing fine. The animals are growing and thriving. We are making it through the summer heat. Water, water, water is the key. Oh yes and shade. But for the life of me, I do not understand why the silly goats will not use their shade. Not any of them. The stand in the blazing 110 + heat and chew away. It is as if the heat doesn't faze them. I hurry to do the chores in and out so I can get back to our house. My shade. They seem content.

We put the female goats with the bucks at the beginning of this month and left them there for a week then separated them again. And like last year Ned got right to work. He is very ornery. So it is a good thing he produces such nice kids. With the mamas help of coarse. Many times my husband and sons have said just get rid of him and find a new buck. I think on it. But here he is still. He is a small goat so he tries to intimidate others. Be it the other goats or the humans. His method of scare is head butting which is the case for most bucks. I remember one time he got me thru the fence. He hit it so hard I landed on my butt. Not before I hit my knee on the milking stand. I hurt for a good two weeks. This is also the reason why he is housed alone. When we purchased our Heidi and Coco they had their bucks penned alone. Now I know why. They are bullies.

We have 3 bucks. Ned who we keep for Abby, Heidi, and Coco all smaller breeds. Sprinkles who we keep for DQ, Nubians. Chocolate who we keep for Oreo and Barbie our babies. Yesterday we put DQ in with Sprinkles again. I did not think she was breed the last time. Sprinkles is housed with Chocolate. We haven't had any problems with these two males together yet. I think it is an age thing. I know the day will come when we must separate them. Goats are herd animals. They do not like to be alone. So It is sad for me to put them in a pen without a companion. However, what choice do I have when they are so mean to each other they cause blood. We will need to create yet another pen for Chocolate. I am hoping it can wait until colder weather. Nobody should be working outside in Arizona in 110 + weather. That is a sad statement because my husband did for over ten years.

Back to goats. The babies are in the new pig pen. I was afraid to leave them with the females when we put the males in with them, for fear of mating. They are to young, not yet 3 months old. Oreo is blind and follows Barbie around. They have a communication system all their own. Kind of a beeping sound. Oreo will walk backwards to get around which is something I thought was strange. But if you think about it would you want to bump your head or your bottom when bumping into things. Humans would use their hands to feel for walls and things. She can not. Walking on all fours and all. The wooden pallets we get are sometimes flawed. I was worried about a large gap on the top of one. It is by the gate and will eventually be an internal wall for the next pen. but it is alone right now. The babies put there little heads over the gap to look out. Very cute to see two little heads poking out to see you. Even when I know Oreo can't see. She to puts her head there just like her sister.


Right now Abby, Coco, and Heidi share a pen. Dq does not get along with these goats. When we are done mating her we will put the babies back in the pen with DQ. I am hoping the babies will not want to nurse after this separation. I milk my goats. That is there purpose. The milk stand is right outside the mamas pen. I open the gate and they jump right on. Sometimes they all want on at once. DQ is another thing. She is afraid of the milk stand Right now I walk her/ pull/ push/ drag her to move her outside the pen. She is named DQ for Drama Queen. When I finally get her out I have to hobble her foot to a pole. She gives close to a gallon but I have to work for every drop. When I made chevre last week I got three 8 oz containers from her one gallon of milk. When I use the other mamas one gallon of milk only yields one 8 oz container if I am lucky. I make yogurt once a week and chevre once a week. I put the yogurt on cheerios instead of milk, and use the chevre on my bagels instead of cream cheese. I have also made mozzarella which i eat with crackers. I am still using up all the grated cheese from the grocery store. To make Mozzarella the milk must be at least three days old or it doesn't work correctly, at least that is my experience. The pigs get whatever whey is left over and occasionally milk They slurp it up eagerly.

The pigs are growing. I think Dinner, the pig that was castrated, will be ready for the freezer before my November birthday. We feed them rolled corn and oats that my husband gets from the mill. They were getting whole corn but the mill didn't have that available last time. We soak it the night before. They also get any kitchen scraps and eggs that have cracked or are to soiled. After i wash them of coarse. What funny creatures, as soon as they see you walking out the door they begin to talk excitedly. I can imagine what they are saying to each other. They like to have their ears scratched and to be sprayed with the hose. Watering them is another story. We water them in barrel cut in half. As soon as you dump out the soiled water and scrub the barrels to refill they are standing in them talking happily. My husband has saved an old water heater that he is going to make a water device with a float in it so they can only put their snout in it. I think they will miss this morning ritual. However, making sure they always have clean water is very difficult.

The chickens are also thriving. That is if we can keep them inside their coops. We have one full grown rooster, four adult barred rocks, two adult black stars, five adult rhode island reds, and two adult red stars in the old coop. In the new coop we have three adult white leghorns, two teenage rhode island reds, two teenage americans, and two teenage welsummers. In this coop we also have placed the tractor that houses the remaining 24 barred rock roosters that we got on June 25th. I say remaining because we started out with 27. They kept getting out. The outside dogs like to eat chicken, as do I. They don't care how its prepared. I prefered mine to be cooked. He he. Oh I forgot we also have a teenage americana in the bunny house. Their was two but one got out and was dinner for the dogs this was after the other chickens tried to peck them to death. Occasionally a chicken will be brave an get out on its own. Flying out or running out the door, who knows. When we first built the new coop the dogs were stealing the chickens out from under the walls. They would lye and wait until a hen would go and sit in their favorite corner and grab them out. This was clever on the dogs part. We have since put blocks and boards in their way. One brave hen fought for her life which resulted in a broken wing. She still lays one egg a day. I didn't have the heart to cull her. She is thriving, this is months later. Her wing still hangs on her she roosts and eats and lays just like all the others. The chickens are at summer production. They will lay occasionally but not the whites. Every single day I get three nice white eggs, rain or shine. The teen age chickens have started to lay. It is so exciting to see their first egg. They are always so tiny. So far we get three different eggs a solid light brown an long oval light brown and a speckled brown. You wold think with 25 chickens we would be rolling in eggs, nope only about 10 to twelve a day. I bake alot and we eat eggs for breakfast. So I hope when it gets cooler they produce more. Some of the older chickens are getting up there in the years. I thought maybe I should wait and catch the ones who are laying and mark them and the ones that are not laying we should put in the freezer. In October the little roosters should be big enough to put in the freezer. So In September we should get 25 new egg layers and start a new flock. We shall see. I will get white leghorns for egg laying purposes.

Ducks
Well they are happy. Little Uno is as big as the other ducks. We had Uno and the gray female in the bunny house but all the water and no sun was causing a lot of flies. For the past two days we have left the gate open between the bunnies and the ducks and there haven't been any fights. No feather loses at least. Uno walks around cautious though. To fight the flies the feed store has canisters which you fill with water and put a terrible smelling goo in then screw on the top which has holes in and hang. The flies can't get enough of it. We got two. Placing one on our back porch and one in the bunny house above the duck water. Just a note it seems the one in the bunny house in the shaded areas does better than the one in direct sun. My husband has cleaned the one in the bunny house twice and we only got it ten days ago. As far as eggs go we get 3 to 4 a day. Uno is not laying eggs I don['t know if its an age thing or which sex uno is. I hope female. They have a duck house which I have never seen them in but they lay eggs there now. And each side still has a pool. They like to be sprayed with water. Their past time is drilling holes in whatever puddle is available. They love watermelon. I cut up the rinds and throw it in the pools and they dive bomb the rinds and gobble them up.

The bunnies or as my husband said I should call them rabbits. To each his own. We struggle to keep them cool. They get water in bottles to drink, water in bowls to throw around and frozen bottles of water to lay on. I also spray them down, which they do not like. They have a fan which blows on them. Out of all the animals they have the most shade. They are covered on the ceiling, and all sides. We feed them pellets, hay and vegetables. The females are still young they snuggle with each other. When I first got them we separated them. No eating, no drinking, just pacing. We tried this for a couple of days. I was so worried. I did not want to lose anymore bunnies. So I put two in each cage. Now I am worried that they will get to hot because they lay on each other. It is so hot. The two males seem content. I hope to breed them at the end of August. Again we will see.

We have 5 dogs. Dogs are like children. You must watch them all the time. I feel that my husband and I are fairly good at this. The boys do not do this very well. So needless to say the dogs do potty in the house on occasion. We have carpet. My husband cleans carpets for a living. You know the saying the plumber has leaky pipes, the electrician has bad wires, well the carpet tech has bad floors. We have riped our carpet out it is wonderful to have them gone. How yucky is that. We are hoping to replace it with wood floors. any way. The dogs have those automatic 5 gallon water canisters. They are so smart. The water that pools in the outside bowl gets dirty probably because they step in it. They will tip the 5 gallon jug over to get at the inside water. This is fine for that drink and maybe the next. But then when that water dries up they have none. So they roll the jug around to get more. We have placed blocks on top of the jugs to stop this but they still nock it over. We would use a 5 gallon bucket like the other animals but poor memee the chihuahua can not reach. We have been giving shots to the dogs. This Friday will be the last. At the end of August Taco and Puppy have appointments to be fixed. We will get the rabies shot then for them. This will be nice. It is so yucky when a dog goes thru the menstrual cycle. They do sell cute little diapers for them. But it is yucky still the same. We will have to continue with diapers for Memee. She is to old to get fixed, or so they say. She was a rescue. They do not now how old she is but the vets do not want to fix her.

The children start school today. My youngest lives in Maricopa with my sister during the week and comes home on the weekend. My oldest attends the night classes at a local high school. He is also wanting to attend an online school to play catch up. He has made some poor choices and is now very far behind. In the past we swapped kids every weekend. We have had them both at home a couple of times and no blood was drawn. It is hard to keep them busy all the time. They have video games, computers to surf, tv to watch, telephones to text, you know. Then of coarse theres the animals an house hold chores. Yet still they have issues when it is down time. We purchased model cars and the put them together and painted them. I thought that would take forever. Nope. We went to the library too. Anyway this school year I hope to have them both home during the weekend. They are getting older.

I continue to bake on a weekly basis. This helps with our grocery budget. I don't have alot of time so I created mixes in a bag. I was buying the jiffy corn bread mix and was shocked when it went to 67 cents a box. So I googled and found a recipe and made pre mixed bags now I can just grab a bag and go. I also did this for oatmeal cookies, chocolate cookies, blueberry muffins, and oatmeal honey bread. I just have to mix the wet ingredients (eggs, milk, oil, etc) then mix in the dry and bake. This cuts down on my baking time. Right now I have bags labeled and placed in the cabinet. But I think I will cover a shoes box and pt them in the box to keep them contained. The bags are kind of messy looking. I know who looks in your cabinets.

I went bowling with my youngest, my husband, and my husband's friend this Monday. I had such fun. When the children were young I went bowling once a week with my husbands grandmother. I have my own ball and shoes. Of coarse it has been years and I was a bit rusty. Monday night is dollar night. I will try to convince my husband to take me again tonight. He does not like to bowl. It hurts his shoulder and knees. Block laying put a lot of stress on his body.
But I had such fun.

My husbands company has hired another worker for Casa Grande. Which means my husband is a manager. He ran Casa Grande alone for several months but was very busy and has asked for help many times. This is a wonderful turn of events. They are both staying busy. This new employee is a friend of the man who changes our tires. So far all is going well. My husband has a new van it is so pretty. He is like a little boy buying all the supplies, tools and business materials for inside. Nothing feels better than buying whatever you want without having to pay for it. No decals yet. He had an appointment for this last week. after he drove 45 min they called to cancel after the appointment time. He set up another appointment for this week. Talk about frustrating.