I'm back, hopefully...

One of my regular egg customers (and now friend) told me today when she stopped by for her eggs that she stumbled across this blog and really enjoyed reading it. She noticed that I hadn't had an entry since the beginning of May and wondered why.

Why? That is a good question. Let's just say that is has been a very busy summer and more then a bit stressful. The first month I found that I just didn't have the time in my day to do any blogging. Then it just fell out of my normal routine so I stopped thinking about what I would blog about. After about 6-8 weeks of no blogging I started feeling a bit guilty about stopping. When things worthy of noting happened around here I would think "I really need to post that on the blog tonight." but still I would never get around to actually doing it. So, I am now determined to get back to my former habit of blogging at least 3-4 times a week.

Meanwhile, just to recap a few major highlights over the past few months:

We have had lots of ducklings and chicks born. We have sold many of them but still have many that will need to be butchered in the coming weeks.

We had a cria born to our alpaca Gritona on May 22nd. He is a light fawn that we named Seamus (sounds like Shamus). He is a very bold young male so we have had little contact with him as he wants to "play" and this would lead to disrespecting of humans and possible agression in the future. We have left his correcting to his mother and herd mates.

Neil and I got a good bit of cross fencing up and created two new alpaca pastures. In one we put the males Peter, Sidney and Finley. Into the other went the male Novio along with the females GeeGee, Abby, Celtie and Joy. Moving the pacas to new pastures has greatly improved the condition of the grass. I still am mowing the pastures to prevent the thistle from growing up but the pastures are so much better then last year. I can only hope that they will improve every year. Our Nigerian dwarf goats gave birth for the first time. Pepper had a single doeling that we will be keeping. We named her Mary Jane.


Gabby had twin bucklings that we sold to a neighboring alpaca farmer so I know that will be well cared for.

I have been milking Gabby (I let Pepper raise Mary Jane herself) and have made some fresh goat cheese, a batch of Feta that is still in the brining stage and some whey ricotta.

The wild blackberries around that property ripened and we made a batch of Blackberry jelly with them.

And finally, and sadly, our cat Sweet Pea that I brought home from the feed store last Fall went missing the first week of July. I have owned a lot of cats in my life and I have to say she was one of my favorites. I wish I knew what became of her; car, fox, coyote, stray dog? I miss her every morning as I go down to the barn to do chores and she is not following behind me or riding on my shoulder. The farm is not the same anymore.