27 August, 2012

Holding Pattern

The school semester has started up, which means I have added a full-time class load to the goats and chickens and dogs and cats. This time around at least I’m not trying to also juggle working full time. My whole goal for this semester is to get through it without the kind of life-changing upheaval that had me giving up entirely on Math last time, as the news I was about to lose my job hit at the same time as math class hit statistics, a branch of math that I’ve never learned before. Didn’t learn it that time, either, I must admit.

Anyway, once this semester and a computer competency test are out of the way, I’ll have my associate’s degree and have to pick a real major and decide what I want to be when I grow up. I’m trying not to think about it as it’s kind of stressful and I’ve got enough going on.

Meanwhile, Annabelle is due to give birth any minute now. We’re just waiting on her tail ligaments to soften to declare that she’s about to have babies; as some of you may recall Josie taunted me like this for nearly a month. At least this time I know when Annabelle was bred so I have a definite date range. Esk is due right after her, so this fall will see a crop of bouncing baby goats. Tiny ones. I predict amazing amounts of cuteness.

The barn I ordered will get here sometime in the next couple weeks. I’m sincerely hoping it gets here before Annabelle gives birth, because it will make the whole labor and delivery thing way easier, but I’m not holding my breath. Knowing goats, Annabelle will have her babies some weekday morning at 0300, and at 0800 the barn place will call me and offer to deliver the barn. This is how the world works when goats are involved.

To try and keep myself sane I’ve been making sure I take time every morning to sit with the goats and enjoy their company. It’s pretty peaceful out there. You can see pics from my Morning Breakfast Meetings with Goats at my Flickr account or, if you’re on Instagram, you can find me as mixedblessings (of course).

13 August, 2012

I try things so you don’t have to: Burger King’s Bacon Sundae

Cashing in on the bacon craze, Burger King is offering a sundae for a limited time that features soft-serve vanilla ice cream, caramel & chocolate sauce, and BACON. Yeah, I know. I couldn’t help myself. I am the kind of person who pours maple syrup all over her bacon before she eats it, so how could this possibly go wrong?

It’s disappointingly meh. You could get the same effect with pretzel bits, which is sad. I suspect it might work better with better bacon and also a less overpoweringly sweet combo of ice cream and sauces. On the other hand, I’m not invested enough in the concept to actually try making one at home with good bacon and homemade goat milk ice cream.

Skip it, says I, and just go get pancakes and bacon and cover your bacon in maple syrup.

6 August, 2012

The beat goes on

Ah, a four-day gap. That’s more like me.

Most of it, of course, is that nothing particularly exciting has happened here. I mean, I did find a saddle-blanket seat cover for the front seat of the Big Blue Beast, and get it all registered and titled and stuff so it’s street legal and now I’m having to resist the urge to drive it EVERYWHERE including to places that, let us face it, do not have parking spots designed for an F350 crew cab dually.

Also I keep trolling the free stuff section of Craigslist, looking for some enormously tacky piece of yard art. Preferably a big one. That I can put in my truck and bring home. My deep and deeply weird love of tacky items is a source of great mistification to my husband on occasion. It’s also sometimes a source of mortification for him, like when we were at Stonehenge and I bought a little plastic model of the place.

Oh and predictably, as soon as I said “dang, I’m going to have to dry May off” her abscess started shrinking. I think it was because she was horrified by the prospect of losing her snack of sweet feed twice a day when she gets milked. Goats, who can figure them.

2 August, 2012

Blogging two days in a row?!

I know, it’s like hell has frozen over or something.

Today, I get to go pick up Ambrosia! I am excited, especially since May managed to give herself an abscess biting the inside of her cheek and it didn’t respond to antibiotics, which means I am going to have to call the vet out to drain it. She’ll be under enough stress without having to produce tons of delicious milk, so I’ll be drying her off earlier than intended. Luckily Ambrosia is already in milk, so we will not be forced to go back to buying cow milk from the grocery store. Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with cow milk, just that when you’re used to drinking raw milk with about twice the butterfat content of whole pasteurized/homogenized cow milk from the store, well, the store milk tastes kind of bland.

Actually it tastes like slimy water.

Ahem.

In other news, because I know I have tea drinkers out there reading and because I like to ruin your budget by presenting you with the coolest stuff I can find, let me point you to my friend Summer’s tea sale. You should probably also be reading her blog, because holy crap does that lady do some amazing things with food that is gluten-free and tailored for a range of other food allergies. I wish she lived next door, because I’d totally be providing her with milk and eggs and veggies if she would just, y’know, share her leftovers. At any rate, check out her teas!

1 August, 2012

News Round Up

I know, lazy blogger again. I blame the weather, which has been storming a lot, which always ups my pain levels.

Anyway.

Josie and First (now Fiona) have gone off to a new home! I struggled over whether to sell Josie as she is a sweetheart with people, but the fact remains that she’s aggressive with smaller goats, and with Annabelle and Esk due to give birth in September I’m about to have a large passle of small goats around. So anyway, a friend of a friend was looking for goats, and thus off Josie went with Fiona in tow.

Speaking of Annabelle, she is HUGE. Given the changes to her back end, I’m not expecting her to go far past her earliest due date of August 26th. Tiny goats ahoy! Esk may be up to a month later, she’s not showing the same signs of impending goatlings but lagging behind her sister. I’m OK with that.

I have an actual two-stall barn being delivered at some point in the next month. Yee haw! I am kind of hoping it gets here before Annabelle gives birth, because it would make life ever so much easier. At any rate, one 10′ x 10′ stall will be the Goat Ladies’ Boudoir, the other will be for milking, kidding, and feed storage. There may be a Barn Painting Party involved. Mostly because I am kind of inclined to throw a party.

Soon I’ll be bringing home a new doe from Pun Kids Farm, Love-R-Goats Ambrosia (scroll down on this page to see her). She’s a lovely La Mancha doe who will provide me with a full-size milker to back May up. I was over at Pun Kids a couple weeks ago to learn how to give a goat a show clip, and Ambrosia relentlessly sucked up to me — nibbling delicately at my fingers, asking for love, and otherwise being utterly charming. Who was I to say no when I heard she was for sale? We were already in love! Anyway, I am excited to add such a lovely doe, and looking forward to feeding her cookies for years to come.

I also managed to convince Pun Kids to take the bearded silkies, since we’re re-organizing the flock to be more self-sufficient and let us face it, while bearded silkies are totally adorable floof balls, they are not exactly what you want for a flock that free-ranges to keep the bugs down. To be honest, I seriously need to cut down the number of bantams in general, which means getting pics of the actual pairs for sale (we have several pairs of bantam Sumatras along with Old English Game Bantams!) and updating the For Sale page now that the bearded silkies and the goats are off it.

School starts in 3 weeks, my last semester at the local community college to finish up my general education requirements, and then I need to figure out what the hell I’m doing in terms of a bachelor’s degree. I have no idea.

I have a big blue truck. I am in love with it. Daniel keeps having to stop me from finding random things to throw in the bed and haul around. Look!
An enormous dark blue pick up truck with a full-size, four-door cab and an 8 foot long bed. IT HAS LIGHTS ON TOP YOU GUYS. Also it is approximately twice as long as either Honda CRV which was previously the biggest thing I've driven.
It has a diesel engine so it actually gets 22mpg which is not bad for a freakin ginormous truck. It can haul a LITERAL TON OF STUFF in the bed. Like, I can put 2,000 pounds of ANYTHING in there. ANYTHING I WANT.

Ahem. So there’s my life lately — how are you?