This is where I spend an enormous amount of my time. I have a sort of love/hate relationship with my kitchen, and sometimes, like today when it’s sort of cleaned up, I even think it’s photogenic.
Pearl and Maude
April
That’s our house down on the left.
It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year
It’s hard to find time to use the computer at all right now, much less actually write anything! It’s crazy around here—that special spring crazy, that I forget about every year in the winter when I’m pining for spring.
Liath is in heat, which has called forth a neighbor’s Great Pyrenees, who Saturday tried to kill Bernard’s geriatric beagle, and darn near succeeded. Liath is scheduled for a little operation next Wednesday, but in the meantime Bernie the Pyr is proving resistant to confinement. He’s back again this morning, locked in a stall in the barn, waiting for his owner to show up and take him home. It sounds like he may be scheduled for a little operation himself!
Confinement seems to be the issue of the moment, as we’ve had escaped horses (I woke up to the sound of a car horn the other morning, and went out to find Marlene the Haflinger faced off in the road with a car, whose occupant was, fortunately, laughing), escaped goats, escaped sheep, and of course, the perennial ducks in the road. The chickens are mostly out of the garden, though an occasional one flies over the fence. We’re building a chicken house, which will have a pen, which should hopefully solve the problem. The bull is still nursing from the cows, but we’ve got milk to spare right now, so we don’t really care. We’ll have to keep him until at least 1 May to know if the cows are bred. He’s very sweet, but it’ll be nice to have him gone, just because of the added aggravation he brings!
We’re all tired, with aching muscles, and we all fall into bed at night.
Edited to add: Oh boohoohoo! Listen to me whine! I’ve got it made and I know it!
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Now playing: Dwight Yoakam – It Only Hurts When I Cry
via FoxyTunes
Spring Snow
Fanny, the Beautiful and Spoiled Lamb
Spring Supper
Spring Update
We’re eating lots of salads from the greenhouse, but still not doing much in the garden. DH and I are both plugging away at getting a fence around the garden to keep the chickens out—we’re getting close! There’s no point in even turning the beds until that happens—the chickens dig huge craters in the soft soil. I did get brave and dig one bed in front of the greenhouse, where I planted snowpeas and radishes. So far they haven’t discovered it!
Fanny the house lamb has been moved out into a pen in the front yard. She has goat kids for company, which is fine with her—she likes everybody. She may be the most cheerful creature I’ve ever seen!
We bought a new cow from the same neighbor who sold us Maude. Her name is Pearl—I’ll try to get a picture of her here soon. We also brought home a Jersey/Guernsey cross bull, who I hope is old enough to get the job done. Maude was in heat this last week, so in three weeks or so we’ll know if she’s bred. The bull is gentle with people, but he’s a nuisance to have around because he nurses from the cows! We couldn’t figure out what was happening to all the milk until we caught him at it one day, so now he has to be separated from them.
I’m off to the Hot Springs market this morning. It’s been a great social occasion, and I’m actually close to making feed money!