good tired

today it got up to 80. lovely. my day was very relaxed:

hooping practice in am (good exercise)
knife throwing practice in am
2 loads of laundry on the line
garlic weeded
strawberries weeded
3rd bed weeded and sown with peas, cabbage, carrots, spinach, radishes, lettuce mix, rainbow chard
herb beds cleaned out
nettle seeds sown

jaden wasn't feeling well and sent most of the day vegging in front of the tv and sleeping, poor thing. i hope she feels better soon. sage 'helped' in the garden. he and i still aren't feeling 100%. i'd say we're about 85% right now.

i know i'll sleep good tonight, provided sage lets me. the kid is 2 1/2, shouldn't he be sleeping through the night by now???? (ha, i think jaden waited another 6 months or so before she got there).

we have been sleeping down in the living room for a few months now. we lay down the futon mattress plus the papasan cushion and 2 big throw pillows and make a huge mattress. it's so much nicer than our double sized bed upstairs! we really need a larger mattress. until then, it's been kind of nice living on one floor. i maybe get upstairs twice a week now, usually to get some clothes to wash and take a shower. we bathe very little in the winter, once or twice a week is really pushing it. our skin thanks us for it, we don't have any dry, itchy, flaky skin that we used to have when we showered/bathed every day or so. our water bill thanks us too. but, being downstairs makes me think of space requirements. our home is 2000 square feet. before we lived here, it was 900 square feet. of course, we were merging families and went from 3 full time living in that space to 7 living there at least 50% of the time. now, we have 8 to juggle. jaden and sage sleep in our bedroom and all their toys are downstairs in the playroom. 3 of the older kids have their own room upstairs and all their belongings are up there too. we are going to have a huge shift in family dynamics in 3-6 years when the older 4 spread their wings and fly the nest. granted, they most likely will go to college and will be around part time but it's going to open up a whole lot of space. i suppose our younger two will end up with their own rooms but i kind of like having the sleeping space separate from the playing/living space. i'd be open to just putting them in 1 room for sleeping purposes only and allowing the other 2 rooms be used for other purposes...one will definitely become greg's full time office (he shares a room with his son right now for that purpose). the other i could invision as being a rental room. it's hard to say. we have lots of dreams we want to fulfill once the older kids are on their own. dreams we'd love to see now but cannot due to custody restraints and financial restraints. ahhh, life. who knows where it will take us!

field trip!

i took the kids to look at some goats a friend is selling today. we left at 8 am and got home at 6pm. it was a great break from the everyday mundane...

first, the goat shots. i'm hoping to get 3. 2 are first time fresheners and 1 was born this year. they are half or more lamancha so i've got to sell greg on the elf ears. i milked both and the milk was very sweet and delicious!


this is snowball. at this point, i'm undecided about her. her teats are tiny and her bag small. her hind end is narrow too.


this is the doeling i'm interested in. mostly because she has horns. they missed her when they were disbudding. our herd is horned.

snowball headshot. (the name would definitely change).

this is cinnamon (her name would have to change too, can't have 2 cinnamons). i am sold on her. she was easy to milk, even being a first time freshener, her teats were larger and hind end wider.

headshot

tori doesn't usually milk her first time fresheners. yesterday, she put both on the stand to see what she could get. they freshened in feb and mar. snowball gave 1 1/4 cups. cinnamon gave 3 cups. the kids were not removed from either of them prior to the test. i think cinnamon had twins and snowball a single birth. so, cinnamon at this point seems very good. snowball came from good lineage so she could be better with time and the right feed (neither is on the poundage for milkers).

now, on to the fun stuff...(ok, the goats were fun too!)


pyrenese mix puppies


mr. peacock kept showing off for the hens. the female peahen is currently setting on eggs. while the hen is away, the cock will play!

mr. duck...mrs. was setting on her eggs and a few chicken eggs.


here piggy, piggy...


jack the miniature donkey


one of 3 bunnies.



nina absolutely LOVED the horse after she got over freaking out being on him solo. she wanted me on there. i was wearing a skirt so i didn't think it would be wise.


amos is 30 years old. he was a sweet pony...


2 semi-wild icelandic horses. one of three chicken tractors they have in the pasture. they currently have another 425 chicks in the brooder. i don't recall how many were in the 3 tractors in the pasture. probably 300. they have them processed and sell them.


sage LOVED the pony. he got mad when i took him off.


jaden enjoyed him too. poor thing was foundered. i felt bad for him.