Cookie did, indeed, kid Monday. She had one big brown doeling, born hind feet first. It was Cookie’s first, and a pretty hard birth. I don’t like to see a first-timer have a single, and especially not backwards! However, everything went just fine, and Cookie is a wonderfully attentive mother.

All the other babies are sleek and bouncy, and we’re getting a gallon of milk a day from Tallulah and Maggie. We leave them with their kids at night, and separate them in the morning, milking in the evening before putting them back together. Once we add Cookie to the lineup we’ll be in the neighborhood of a gallon and a half per day! Time to order cheese cultures!

ED and I spent the day moving fences around yesterday, and we’ve got the horses and cow in a couple of really big areas. We would love to give the pasture a several week break to recover and grow some grass, and I think that may be possible now. However, I am so sore I can barely move.. I guess I need to get out to the garden and work it out.

Speaking of the garden, I have a renegade chicken who keeps coming all the way down here from the barn just to scratch up my beds. We got her this winter from S*, who had the same problem with her, but we thought since our barn was so far from the garden it wouldn’t be a problem for us. How wrong we were. Evidently, being raised on nice soft garden soil, she considers it worth seeking out. So the girls are going to catch her this morning and put her in a cage and we’ll offer her to a neighbor who keeps her chickens penned. Otherwise, the soup pot.

Maggie had her kids last Wednesday—a doe and a buck, both black and white. So far, out of five kids, four have been black and white! We may have to try for a different color buck next time! Everybody’s healthy and happy.

We’re on kid watch with Cookie today—she was acting spacy and weird yesterday, and getting hollows around her tail, though she still had ligaments. We have been surprised this year by both does kidding so far—very unusual for us! Usually we are right on top of it; we’ve had very few surprises in the past! I’m not sure what the difference is this year.

The cold and wet weather may finally be past. It’s supposed to be nearly 80 today, and partly cloudy, though we do still have a chance for thunderstorms this afternoon. I am officially way behind in the garden now; the girls are getting a day off of school because I need their help today.

It’s so cold! And has been for a couple of weeks, now. It’s 45° now, at ten in the morning. On May 17th. My tomatoes are on the porch, because it’s just been a little too close for comfort at night; Friday morning it was 37°.

The cool weather has made it possible to get a tremendous amount of work done in the garden, however, as I can work all day without having to get out of the sun in the middle of the day. DH has been helping whenever he has a spare moment, and the girls, for the first time ever, have been a great help, too. We’ve dug and prepared (added composted manure and other amendments) fifteen beds—-45 square feet each, except for two of them, which are only 30 square feet. And five of them haven’t even been planted yet, which is a novelty—-usually I have something that desperately needs to go in the ground, so I’m digging as fast as I can to make a place for it!

The cool and damp has been amazing transplanting weather, too; broccoli and cabbage babies hardly bat an eye when I move them.

I’ve been having more fun with step-in posts and poly-wire; right now Rosemary is grazing on the lower part of the garden which didn’t get tilled this year. When she’s had another day or so, the horses will go on it for a couple of days, and they’ll take it down to nearly bare ground, at which point I’ll remove them and do a mulch planting of potatoes. I’m really, really wishing for pigs. Walter has some good posts about using this same fencing to confine sheep and pigs.So far, one of our ewes respects the fence, having touched it with some sensitive part of her body at some point; the other doesn’t even seem to notice it! We’ve got to work on that, especially before I fence them near the garden.

We’ve had the loveliest rains the last few days—the garden is loving it. Bernard and I transplanted a bedful of chard, bachelor’s buttons, butterhead lettuce and calendula the night before it started raining, and it all looks gorgeous.

We’ve been eating salad from the garden, and it makes me wonder how I could ever, ever buy salad greens from the grocery store. It’s no wonder people don’t like vegetables! These early salads of baby lettuces, arugula, and chives get the simplest of dressings: three parts good olive oil, one part lemon juice, and a bit of salt and pepper. None of us can get enough.

The girls are milking Tallulah, but so far, her milk has still been too colostrum-y to be very appealing. Used to, I would make everybody drink a cup of colostrum in the spring as a sort of tonic, but just mentioning that possibility triggers the gag reflex in everybody, including me, so I’ve given up that practice. Lu’s milk should be ready to start drinking any day now—as soon as it starts foaming in the milk pail while milking—usually at about day five or so. We can use her milk now for cooking—it’s just that none of us like the taste for drinking straight.

The newest baby mouse died—we think it was from being fed pasteurised cow’s milk, as opposed to the raw goat’s milk that Mus Mus was raised on. Speaking of Mus, we think we might’ve figured out just what he is: a Hispid Cotton Rat. Looks to me like we’re just barely in their range, but he sure does look and act like one. Whatever he is, I highly recommend them for pets; he is the friendliest, most affectionate little creature.

I am going to try to get some pictures on here of everything—especially the very adorable goat kids. The girls have named them: Eleanor, Isabella, and King (buck kids get sort of throw-away names, unless we plan to keep them for breeding). I may have to get on the phone with Olympus today and see if they can help me figure out how to get my photos from camera to computer!

As I was typing the previous entry, the girls went out to the barn and discovered Tallulah in the process of kidding. She had three vigorous and healthy kids: two does and a buck (good ratio so far!). I smell of iodine and amniotic fluid—I guess summer really has begun!

Happy Beltaine week! The Celts divided the year into two halves—the summer half, and the winter half. Beltaine is the first day of summer, or the beginning of the exhale. (Halloween is the first of winter, or the beginning of the inhale.)
Our cat Pumpkin had kittens Monday—three orange ones that look just like her, and one extremely adorable calico. DH wasn’t overly impressed, but at least I think we may have two of them given away already!

Guess what our darling neighbors G* and K* found on their driveway? Yes! A baby mouse! And guess who they thought off first thing? Yes! The girls! Only this one really does seem to be a mouse, as opposed to our beloved Mus Mus, who may be a (dare I say it?) rat. This new little guy still has its eyes closed, and is very, very cute, though I am not getting attached! I have successfully, so far, kept my distance—I won’t feed it, and I hardly hold it or pet it at all.

I found the greatest thing at the farm co-op over in Tennessee: step-in plastic fence posts and poly-wire. I’ve been having the best time! I’ve fenced in the back yard in two pens ( took, like, twenty minutes), and Rosemary the cow is currently in one of them. In another couple of days I’ll move her to the next one, and put the two mama sheep in the one she’s in now. Rotational grazing! Yay!

I’m still working up beds in the garden—it’s backbreaking work. The peas are reaching for their chicken wire trellis, the potatoes are big and leafy—I’ve hilled them up a couple of good times, and they’re about ready for a straw mulch, cabbage, broccoli, and chard transplants are perky and happy.

The tomatoes are still in their pots—they’re pretty and healthy, and I’m still a little hesitant to put them out in the garden. I’m remembering that thunder in February that’s supposed to mean a frost in May, or some such. And it has been forty degrees the last few mornings. And S* has reminded me of the time a few years ago when there was a hard freeze on May twenty-somethingth. So I’m waiting a little longer.

Last night I went to Asheville to go to the information session that is required before I can do the Mountain Microenterprise program, and it had been canceled, which the lady I’ve been dealing with on the telephone neglected to inform me of. I have found this woman a little frustrating to deal with. Anyway, I’ll try again next week.

Oh, and in other cheese kitchen news, we found a three-hole stainless steel restaurant sink for $125! Isn’t that kind of exciting?