Catching My Breath

March? Where did it go?! I cannot believe it is April already. I apologize for the lagging on the Herbal Ally posts, even with cutting back to every 2 weeks I find myself not able to keep up with my own assignments or postings. And now here we are in April and I have a list of deadlines for articles and such out the door, all standing in line along with the bag of potatoes and onions that need to be planted, the seeds that need to be tended, the children than need to be schooled and mothered and a whole list of other to do's.

Sigh.

Mother's mood swings have got me in a tizzy. Commit to warmer weather already, please!!! I realize spring is about going between warm and cold but really, I need warmth. Not to whine or anything.

I posted up the next ally post, yay me! Now to get caught up in my own challenges and report them on here. I'll work hard on that in the next 2 weeks. How is everyone else doing with their challenges? I promise to come around to everyone's blogs and get caught up reading about your own personal experiences, i truly enjoy reading about them! I have some new folks to add to the mix as well, welcome aboard to those who have joined in the last month.

All of our goats have kidded, we have 5 beautiful healthy kids, 2 doelings and 3 bucklings (why do we always get more bucks than does?!). I plan on keeping the girls for future milkers but hope to sell the boys. They are all handsome little devils and I think will throw good kids of their own someday. I'm also starting to look for a new buck as I cannot breed him to these sweet girls in a year. I've been milking one of the mamas daily and will start with the second doe next week. The 3rd doe, my first to kid this year has not been milked yet even though her kids will be 2 months old and ready to wean in 2 weeks as she has been ill. I was worried I was going to lose her for awhile but she seems to be slowly bouncing back. I hope so because she is my favorite doe and I've grown quite attached to her. I've treated her for just about every little thing I can think of and others suggested with no idea what was wrong. Humans are so much easier to treat than animals, at least they can tell you where it hurts.

We have wwoofers coming in the beginning of May this year, our earliest arrivals yet but I'm glad because May is typically busy with weeding so it will be wonderful to have help with that. I just may stay on top of the garden this year (fingers crossed).

The dreads are over 5 months old now and starting to shrink up a bit. This picture was actually taken at the 4 month mark, I need to get a 5 month picture taken. My dad asked me if I was going to brush my hair and if I COULD brush my hair if I wanted to, hahaha. He asked me 'what do you call that?' about my hair. He had no idea what dreadlocks are. I mentioned to him that Samson had locks. I don't think he appreciated my biblical reference. I like not having to use a comb or brush anymore. I like just wrapping them in a scarf or a bandana and not worrying about them. At times I'm wistful for my long curly hair, but then I remember how much it tangled and how it was breaking off from trying to keep the dreads out of it. Then I don't miss it anymore.

A good friend was visiting last week and we started talking about mixing herbs into our meals, intentionally placing nourishment in our foods, secretly, so the picky eaters would not notice but so we could still get the nourishment into their bodies. We talked of how this kitchen witchery herbalism crept into our lives without us noticing and how it felt good to naturally incorporate herbs into our foods as medicine without even thinking about it. For me, the challenge is to get kelp, mushrooms and other important herbs into our bodies right now in light of the tragedies that have struck Japan which is indirectly affecting us. At the same time, my family has been raving about how wonderful the meals taste. What is it exactly that I'm putting in to them that they are noticing? Is it the herbs? The intention? The love? All of the above I hope.

Today is supposed to be back up to 60 which still seems cold after the beautiful 80's weather we had Sunday but definitely better than the 48 degrees weather we had yesterday. Hopefully some onions will get planted, some time will be spent with nettles (or at least more regular time, I've visited the patch several times this past week and harvested some already too), and I'll be able to cross off one more deadline I have listed on my writing to do list.

How is your spring treating you?