The Good Ole Summertime

  Whew!  Summer is so busy here at Buzz and Bleat Farm.  Our goat kids are nearly eight weeks old.  Know what that means?  Almost time to start milking twice a day.  I love my goats.  I love my goat milk.  But milking twice a day is very restrictive.  

We have been blessed/cursed with a lot of rain this year so far.  It is great for the garden but seems to be even better for the weeds.  We plant a huge garden even though there are only two of us.  I can and freeze most veggies and fruits and give away the rest.  Last year our squash was so abundant that we donated 93 of them to the local food bank.  

With feeding ten goats, cleaning two barns, taking care of a huge garden, we were both starting to feel our collective ages.  We decided it was time to bite the bullet and buy a tractor.  We have a couple of tractors already.  But one is a 1946 restored Farmall Cub 

and the other is an old AC that has seen better days.  Neither is equipped with hydraulics nor a PTO.  Since we need help with the heavy lifting we searched for a used small tractor with a loader.   Finally we found one.  

Other things keep me busy.  Still making my dolls and I am working on order number 72.  We also picked cherries.

When we bought this home, we did not even know that there were fruit trees on the property.  Well we have two very prolific pear trees, a peach tree that died last year, and a cherry tree that has seen better days.  When I say "better days" I am not exaggerating.  It looks as if it has been struck by lightning. 

 

But it still produces cherries, which until last year was a yummy meal for the birds and other critters.  Last summer we picked a few and this year I got enough for seven half pints of jelly.  

While I had the canner and jars upstairs I thought it would be a good time to can some pasta sauce so I got a couple of bags of tomatoes from the freezer and cooked up 5 pints of sauce.  Now, don't get me wrong.  I love to can.  But the mess...I could do without that!

I made some soap as well.  This latest is my all time fave.  I made some pretty soap called After the Rain.  It is a pretty soap, perfect for gifting.  It reminds me of the smell of the damp earth after a spring shower.

Some floral soap called Wildflower Field is a mixture of all the different floral notes you get if you are immersed in a field of multi-color wildflowers.

There is also a light evergreen scented soap I call In the Forest that reminds me a bit of those evergreen forests in Colorado.

 And my fave, a cinnamon and citrus soap with ground coffee and oatmeal that I am calling Morning Gardener.  I love the spicy scent of cinnamon and chai coupled with the sweet, refreshing scent of orange.  

My laptop, which was over eight years old, decided it was time for a newer model.  There was such a comfort level though.  It is kind of like starting a new job without your familiar coworkers.  I am sure I will get the hang of it, but for now it is a little slow-going.  

Stay tuned for the continuing saga of growing old on a hobby farm!

Happy New Year!

 I just don't know how it is possible that 2022 is over and a new year begins,  I guess once you get to a certain age, life just speeds up. It seems like life on the farm is so busy that sometimes I wonder how I managed life when there were three kids and a full-time job.  My sister-in-law said it best, "We just don't get started like we used to."  And I guess she is right.

This year for the first time since we moved to Missouri, we had company for Thanksgiving.   My sis and her hubby were here and it was so much fun to visit and just enjoy the company.  I was so proud since I fixed candied sweet potatoes (from the garden) green bean casserole (from the garden) and pumpkin pie also from the garden.  We had deviled eggs from our chicks and pear jelly from the orchard.  There is such a sense of accomplishment when I go to the basement and pull from my stockpile that I raised and preserved myself.  

The holiday season brought community celebrations which is one thing I adore about living in a small community.  My sister and I were able to shop at several craft fairs for unique gifts as well as attend community chili dinners and parades.  Our town has a night parade that is lit up on each float, musician, and horse.  Though we normally go to visit my inlaws at Christmas, this year we stayed home because of the extremely cold weather.  A loss of power could have meant suffering animals, frozen pipes, and more.  We luckily did not suffer any outages though, so all was well.

In late October, our two female goats, Laverne and Shirley came into heat, so we bred them to Mr. Bill our horn dog billy goat.  By now, we are pretty certain they are both pregnant so we will be expecting babies in late March or Early April.  I am excited, scared, and cautious, I am reading every piece of goat literature I can get my hands on.  I think Laverne is starting to show a little.

Our chicks are on hiatus and are currently not laying much if at all. We have a bantam rooster who doesn't like me and today waited until I had my back turned to come after me. He may be small but he is ferocious.

Then there are the bees.  If you know me, you know that beekeeping has been a painful and expensive learning experience for me.  But this last hive of bees is thriving.  Our temps last week were negative double digits but today it is nearly 60 degrees out.  When I walked out to the bird feeder, this is what I saw:

It seems that the bees gather the protein dust from the seeds in lieu of pollen since nothing is blooming right now.  

The other things that are keeping me busy these days are my freelance writing, my Etsy shop, and baking cookies.  I am obsessed with royal icing and made so many sugar cookies!

Do you make resolutions?  I kinda do.  I mean it's more like goal-setting for me.  For example, I want to make it a point to write every day.  Write something.  In a journal, on a blog, something.  By doing this I hope to improve my skills and maybe even someday get published.  

I want to devote more time to my Etsy shops.  Creativity is something I think we all have in us somewhere.  I love designing and making, but sometimes put it off because I need to do something else that may generate more income.  

And to add more balance to my life.  Play more.  Fish more.  Go sit with the goats. Do the things that bring me joy with the people (or animals)that make me the happiest.  

May 2023 bring you joy, health, and love.  Happy New Year my friends!