that is great you get raw milk from a goat friend. Jealous ! :)
well what a wonderful place you have .
March on the Homestead
Jay
Have you thought of getting a milk goat of your own? You could bring her to your friend's billy to breed and eat the kidd or sell it?
Right, and have to be there twice a day rain or shine to milk it! Been there, done that. I loved the goat's milk but we never could find anyone to take over chores occasionally to let us have a bit of a life off the farm! Probably that's more possible in some areas, but this one isn't sufficiently ag-oriented.
Tell me about it! We have 11 horses, 10 chickens, 2 dogs, 2 hamsters, a cat, a rabbit, a duck, a turtle and a salamander. We don't leave home often. But we do have people we can dole the animals out to a couple times a year.
We think about it, but it's a lot cheaper to get the milk from my friends--no buck fees, no feed bills, no housing maintainance, no vet bills. I get goat meat from them too. I'm working on my garden so earnestly so there's more exchange happening... fresh veggies at the stores here are a joke!
I know what folks are talking about... it's hard to get away for any extended period of time. =0( What we do now is take turns... I go away for a week, SO goes away to something. Last year we did manage to get away for 10 days to go to the Small Farmer's Gathering and Auction up in Oregon. Which by the by is coming up (April 17-19), if anyone's interested. We've got a dear friend who does housesitting and we trade massages for her taking care of the place when we go. But besides being in demand for staying at folk's places, she works two jobs... a full time at the local prison (she's a social worker) and a part time cleaning.
We got the baseboards on the high tunnel done this evening! Wooo--hoo, we kicked it today!
Jay
Are you a massage therapist?
My partner is. =0) Definitely has its benefits. LOL Except that we both tend to overdo it at the same time (like today) and it just seems plain mean to ask for a massage when she's just as tuckered as I... though she'll offer, I always turn her down.
A built in massage therapist. Wow! I couldn't be as selfless as you, I'm afraid.
Lier, lier, pants on fire!
You take good care of DH, and if he were dragging in all tuckered and wore out, you wouldn't have the heart to ask more. You are sooooo busted. =0)
You're right. I do spoil the big lug. LOL
LMBO, just getting caught up on the homestead. You all have been very busy. I was raised on goats milk. I dont drink it anymore. SWEET! I do love the cheese. I would love to give it a try but it is in a long line of...I would love to try thats. So I still buy it.
I would love a massage therapist at this point. I put my back out again and sit here all swollen and hurting. May need to take something soon. I cant sleep very long before it just pushes me out of bed. :/
Pics of High Tunnel would be great. Have a good day all!!
Ooo, sorry to hear about the back. Mine went out a few years ago and I happened to stumble on a great book of exercises to strengthen it and haven't had any problems since. I'll see if I can find the title for you.
Check out the high tunnel thread and you'll see more pics than you can stand! LOL I don't kow that we'll get much further today, we're supposed to have high winds again. =0( And I feel a bit like a truck ran over me.
Today we'll probably just make sourdough bread, set the house to order, and finally up-pot some of those hundreds of tomatoes. Sheesh. I didn't mean to plant hundreds, really I didn't, but everyone's doing so well I haven't the heart to pinch any off. LOL
Thanks Jay! That would be great. I had to have emergency surgery on the back about 6 years ago. (couldnt walk anymore) I guess thats not a good sign. hehehe So I get epi injections every three to four months. I am way over due. :/ I would love to do something so I dont need the injections anymore. I will check out that thread. (high tunnel) Thanks. I know what you mean about the plants. I ended up with way more than I needed as well. Even after dropping a try. oops! I plan to grow them anyway and selling the rest to the garden center my DH works for to resell. ;) Might as well make a little with them. LOL Have a great day!!!
It's great you have an outlet for your extra plants. If my veggies do as well as I hope, I am going to set a table yp in my front yard and sell some. Didn't think about selling the plants.
Ouch! My back trouble was nothing compared to that. I just couldn't stand up after trimming a hoof on my donkey... with one more foot to go. And sleet blowing down my neck. I sure had to be careful bending over for a month or so.
The book is titled "Backache: What Exercises Work" and it's by Dava Sobel and Arthur C. Klein. It has both stretching and strengthening exercises, very low impact and very good. My partner has recommended it to a lot of her massage clients and it's helped several of them, even after surgery. Hope it helps you!
Gee, another book to add to my growing list of books I need! I spent most of 14 hours in the car Friday, going down to Phoenix (and Chandler, Mesa, Scottsdale, Payson, Heber -- what did I skip?) Came back with two new dwarf citrus trees (yeah, for up here, for the greenhouse I haven't built yet, ha ha), and a colossal backache. And I had my nifty little car seat with me, too -- this is a gadget that looks way too small, but is guaranteed to correct the way you sit and eliminate back ache. When I first got it it did seem to help a great deal but I got out of the habit of using it, and backache has returned. I've had a pinched nerve problem off and on for about as long as I can remember -- and Jay, your suggestion of exercise is really the way to go, because when I get myself off my er, okole, and go hiking, the pain goes away.
Meanwhile, the sour milk cheese I make is sort of a stop on the way to the chickens, I just hate to waste food I paid for without giving it a try. I give them the whey which they love. The cheese turns out pretty sour but after a few days in the fridge it is okay for a spread on crackers when I am desperate for something to snack on. Then what's left goes to the chickens!
Thanks Jay. My doctor says core strength is important so I will pick that up!!!
Chicken cheese??? LOL I love redwine cheese. mmmm great, hungry again. hehehe
Well, it's more a watch me put up my high tunnel thread... lol
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/963785/
And high tunnel stuff shows up from time to time over on the greenhouse forum, too.
Lets see your GH! I'm jealous...
oh Jayryunen there is nothing to be jealous of LOLLL but i m flattered :)
its just a humble little 20' cattle panel hoop house :) nothing fancy .
but i am still having trouble with it . I just can't get the plastic to fit on the end. Hmmm the tape isn't working and then i ran out of tape LOLLL uhg.
At least I'd have a place to put all my thriving tomato plants... I was admiring them just a couple of days ago, and then it hit me... I've no place to put them yet! OMG! Got to get my tunnel up pronto...
Now if I lived near you...
LOL
OoooOOOoooo, tomato bliss. That sound loverly. =0)
Has that been legalized yet?
Tomato bliss? Is there a recipie? ;)
Other than eating supermarket tomatoes and then being exposed to a real, ripe, warm from the vine honest tomato?
Maybe some basil...
=0)
Oh my, oh my... we may be getting just waaaaay too sensuous for a family forum here...
Must go work on tomato patch, dreaming of lovely, lushous, drippingly juicy plump tomatoes with fresh chevre and basil just clipped from the herb patch...
Drat!! It's crazy windy out there, small dogs and cats flying by. Ugh.
With all the wind, how do you keep any soil in your garden? Was the wind a deciding factor for the high tunnel?
Well, clay doesn't blow much... LOL. Seriously, we are starting to see some dirt drifts on the road into town. When we have as little moisture as we've had, any bare soil starts to move.
The wind was definitely part of the reason. Things growing under row covers do so much better because the wind isn't constantly sucking moisture from their leaves and the soil. Hail is another reason; where we are, in the foothills of the mountains, we are as likely to get hail as rain in the summer and you know what that can do to a gardener's day...
Peel me a tomahto....
Peel me like a grape an lemme get outta here.
{snort} =0D
It's going to be a busy day today, chores and then off over the mountains to deliver some goat milk to a friend of mine who has pancreatic cancer. Doing some chores over there. Then back home to bake ground goat meatballs for another friend undergoing radiation treatment and beginning to feel very low energy. Trying to keep her strength up. The nice thing about these meatballs is you can heat one up at a time in a little sauce and have it on a bit of pasta... a smallish meal for someone who's appetite may be dropping off.
It's not supposed to be so windy today, that'll be nice for the driving. =0)
What a wonderful way to spend your time Jay. Helping others. :)
Have a wonderfully busy day and be Blessed.
I am at school being grumpy. :{ Now I feel a bunch better after checking in with you all. It always makes me cheery to read about your days.
It seems like all we hear about anymore is people who are fighting battles with cancer. A good friend of ours passed away yesterday after a long battle with cancer that started in his prostate and ended up in his brain and a few other places as well. He was a good man. He pastored a church until his health got to bad. I know he is pain free and enjoying his rewards now but the earth will be a sadder place without him.
Well, I think mostly it's 'cause we're all getting older, not running with the 20 somethings anymore. We're getting to the age (50+) where the degenerative diseases start to take their toll, rather than mishap and misfortune.
A hundred years ago the average lifespan was much shorter than it is now, and many, many children died in infancy, women died in childbirth, and men died in wagon wrecks. Heart disease was rampant because of poor childhood nutrition. Tuberculosis, cholera, dysentary, sepsis, VD.... and folks also died from cancer.
Life is a delicate precarious proposition and I think in our vigor we forget that the causes of life are few and the causes of death manifold. It's so easy to forget as we rush from one project to the next, as we try to meet deadlines, make paychecks, obtain wealth, reputation and ease, create our vision of our life, that it's fleeting and tenuous. We often take life as a given, when really it's a gift.
I hope everyone will take the time to appreciate their life and the life around them today. Just as it is, nothing added, it's a wonder.
Blessings,
Jay
Too often we don't take time to enjoy our blessings. One of the things I like best about living here is the slower pace of life. It's a nice change from how we have lived for years.