Meanwhile the garden is growing like a very leafy army, the chickens and quail are laying like mad, the latest set of eggs hatches in nine days, and we’ve begun collecting eggs from the Old English Game bantams again to set as soon as the incubator is empty. Which will be in six days, since I picked up a second incubator to use for hatching.

The magnificent Miss May continues to give us 3 quarts of milk a day, and I’m getting quite good at cheese making. The chevre May and I produce is frankly amazing, if I do say so myself.

I am woefully behind on pictures and have plans to correct that.

Anyway, if you’re in the area on May 5th, come on out and see us at the big Gilmanor sale, where we’ll have baby crele Old English Game Bantams to brighten up your yard or cop!

I’m still waiting to hear from the American Goat Society about my herd name with them. Hopefully it’s the same or dual-registered babies will have two different names depending on which studbook you’re talking to.

In other news we’ve added a breeding group of coturnix quail.

It will probably get down to twice a day when my hands get some strength in them, but we’re doing all right for now and Miss May has given us about two and a half quarts of milk today. She’ll probably give us another quart and some change at evening milking, which means I need to start making cheese and soap before she floods us.

In other news, Annabelle is currently shacked up in connubial bliss with a blue-eyed boyfriend, which means kids from her in September. Once she’s knocked up, Esk will go done and spend some time with a buck, and be due to kid in October. Our winter milk and cheese supply is therefore assured. Josie, due in late April or early May, continues to inflate like a hairy balloon on legs, and her udder seems to be filling.

Meanwhile I’ve applied for unemployment and am waiting for the determination letter to tell me how generous (HAHAHAHA) my payments will be. And Daniel has secured perhaps the coolest part-time job ever being a bad guy for the FBI. So we’re doing all right despite it all, but given my boredom levels I think I might reconsider my plan to take this summer off from school.

In other news, we sold eggs for eating and then the proceeds mostly paid for siding for the goat house, which is a nice feeling. So far the livestock have basically been a drain on resources, but I’m hoping with me home and able to dedicate more time to things like egg sales and hatching baby chickens to sell (not to mention sales of baby goats) that they will become more self-supporting.

In other other news, I have today, Thursday, and half of Friday left before I am free of my job. I am pretty excited. So far my plans involve a lot of sleeping.

Meanwhile the ten bantam Sumatras and two Madagascar Game Fowl in the big brooder will be moving outside in another week or so. They’d go out today except that the temperature tonight is supposed to drop down to around freezing and they’re not old enough to handle that yet. There’s eggs in the incubator due to hatch in two weeks, we set a dozen from Merlin and his ladies so we should have a good set of bouncing baby crele Old English Game Bantams. Another set will go in the incubator at the end of this week — the other ‘bator doesn’t have a turner, so I’m waiting until I’m off work as the eggs will need to be turned by hand. Then when it’s time for the eggs in the Brinsea incubator to go on lockdown, they’ll be moved into the non-turning incubator and the eggs in it will move to the one with the auto-turner, and life will be much easier.

May 5 is the big chicken and small animal swap at Gilmanor Farms, so the crele OEGBs we hatch, all but one of the distinguishable banty Sumatra roosters, and the random bantams I had picked up to keep a lone banty chick company last hatch will be going up for sale there. I’ll probably also have a couple adult silkie roosters in blue. The swap is at 12187 Chewning Rd, Glen Allen, VA 23059, if you’re close enough to get to it and looking for poultry or small livestock (someone had a pony last year!) then you really ought to stop by and take a look. There’s a lot of sellers there with all kinds of things ranging from chickens to pigeons, cage birds to livestock guardian dogs, goats to ponies… Despite the misleading title of “swap” it’s actually a market, and you can purchase animals with cash money.

In other news, I’m seriously looking forward to being off work at this point and just going to school. It’s going to make life much, much easier on me, I tell you what.

Things I have learned about goats:
They make very poor lawnmowers. Well, I knew that from my reading and talking to other goat owners. They do, however, make excellent edgers. They’ve been living in the backyard while the goat fence got installed, and during their free-range time they have been working in a very dedicated fashion to clean up the dead leaves piled along the fence and also the dried grass stuck in it. What good goats. But what you actually wanted was goat pics, right? Right. Let’s see if I can make this work.

That’s Eskanazi, affectionately known as “Esk” in front with the spots, and Annabelle in back. They’re the Nigerian Dwarf does I picked up last Friday evening. Esk loves people and loves to be petted, while Annabelle is a little shy.

And this is Josephine, who should give birth towards the end of April or beginning of May. She’s an Oberhasli mix. Oberhasli are an alpine dairy breed whose milk is mostly used to make cheese. I am so looking forward to home-made cheese!

But anyhow, two weeks from today I will no longer be employed. The current plan is for me to finish this semester, take the summer off, then go finish my associate’s degree in the fall. After that, I can transfer to the local 4-year university and finish my bachelor’s, and after that, presumably, I will find gainful employment again.

It’s pretty terrifying, I will admit, but at the same time I feel incredibly blessed that we’re in a position for me to do it. In fact, this whole thing feels kind of like God’s way of saying “Look, you’ve been whining about wanting to finish your bachelor’s degree for years now, lady. GO DO IT. HERE IS YOUR CHANCE.”

In less terrifying changes, this evening I will hopefully pick up two registered Nigerian Dwarf goats, both does, from dairy lines. They’ll be ready to breed next month, and I will probably breed one of them for a fall baby (and milking!) and then breed the other one in fall for a spring baby (and covering our spring/summer milk needs). Since there will be electric netting protecting the goats from predators, once they’ve taken down the brush in a significant area and created more of a pasture, I want to free-range some egg-laying chickens. Really I’m feeling rather homesteady; we’ve got three garden beds planted and one more to do, and I’ve asked the Best Mother Ever for a pressure canner for my birthday so that I can put away some of what we grow without having to pickle everything. It’s as if, since I won’t be providing for the family via working outside the home, I feel like I have to provide with milk and eggs and home-canned, home-grown vegetables.

I am, however, feeling strangely optimistic. Yes, it’s scary that we won’t have health insurance, but I am excited to take the summer off for the first time since I was a teenager. I’m looking forward to finding out what I can do and how much better I’ll feel if I don’t have to get up at 0400 every morning so I can leave for work early enough that traffic isn’t too horrendous on the way home. And I’m really, really glad that I’ll finally have time for all my zillion hobbies: spinning, knitting, dyeing, making soap, &c &c &c.

What you’re hearing is male frogs attempting to a) claim territory and b) attract a beautiful lady frog to them for the purpose of procreation. Lady spring peeper frogs apparently find that little “peep? peep!” deeply sexy, and will head for the sexiest and most peepery peeps, whereupon if the gentleman frog has also managed to claim a nice puddle, a stork will arrive and deliver tadpoles.

In other news, the incubator is on lockdown and baby chickens are due to arrive on Tuesday, when I will be at work. Boo hiss. Daniel has been tasked with updating me every hour at least on the status of pips, zips, and chicks in the incubator. It is entirely possible that by the time I get home, the hatching will be all over. Of course, given how contrary baby chickens can be at times, it is also possible that by the time I get home, we will have one pip with a baby chicken staring balefully out at us through the hole. You never know with these guys, really.

And anyway, there are still good things going on. For instance, yesterday we went down to see Christine and picked up baby chickens! Three Madagascar Games and ten bantam Sumatras. Alas, one of the little Madagascars didn’t make it through the night, but then she hadn’t grown any since hatching so I suspect there was something odd going on there. The remaining dozen chicks are doing just fine.

There’s also eggs in the incubator, due to hatch in 9 days — a mix of eggs from Christine’s flocks and six crele Old English Game Bantam eggs from Merlin and his ladies (we’d set him up with a flock of 3 ladies of his very own for just this purpose).

Daniel’s been working over the garden beds, too, so today I planted what I am affectionately calling our “Salad Bed”. It’s got salad beets, lettuce, spinach, sugar snap peas, and short fat Nantes carrots in it. Plus a row of garlic, which is not really a salady thing but we do love garlic so there we go. There’s one more bed being worked over nice and deep for potatoes, Other Carrots, parsnips, and salsify. We have a lot of other stuff left to go in but most of it needs waiting until the temps warm up a little more and the threat of frost is past. So in a couple weeks it will be time to plant other peas, sweet corn, sugar pumpkins, cantaloupe, muskmelon, Bull’s Blood beets, endive (chicory to some), romaine lettuce, and I am probably forgetting something in there. Oh, squash, we have buttercup and butternut squash to plant, as well. Daniel should probably get going on the beds.

Later this year I’ll be learning to pickle beets, because I do love some pickled beets. And anyway, at least between the garden and the chickens we won’t starve to death, for sure. If we’re lucky, the weird warm winter hasn’t destroyed the blackberry crop, and I can make some jam and just can some berries straight up for pie filling and the like.

Speaking of the weird warm winter, the grey tree frogs are out in force already a little east of us, so the spring peepers cannot be far behind. And there’s slugs out already, in early March! How’s THAT for weird? We normally don’t see them til a little later in the spring!

At any rate, pictures of baby chickens to follow once I have found the charger for Daniel’s camera…