Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Sorry for the lack of updates--it's been busy.

I ended up with one painting in the show--there was a lot of competition this year. I'm just really happy I got something in. It was a painting of a nude seated figure with a good sense of light. I'm going down to campus tomorrow to pick it up as well as a painting I bought off of another student. She painted an amazing picture of a green glass jug with lots of blues and blue greens--I'm going to hang it in the baby's room. While I'm down there I'm going to stop at the stockyards where I used to work to visit with everybody.

The garden is doing GREAT--everything is growing! So far there are two types of tomatoes, two types of peppers, cucumbers, onions, spinach, lettuce, zucchini, strawberries, red and black raspberries, grapes, peaches, and apples. I still need to plant some pumpkin seed, green beans, peas, and carrots. I am really looking forward to all that fresh produce.

For Mother's Day my husband got his mother and me a goat each. They are both meat goat cross whethers and they are about 9 months old. The place where he got them only had them on hay and grass so they are skinny, but I'm working on that. They were bottle babies so they are very tame. This gets me started on goat practice, so maybe by next year I'll have a few dairy nannies to tell stories about.

We took my last steer to the locker last Monday. He weighed 1,420 pounds which is very good gain considering about nine months ago he only weighed 400 pounds. This steer we sold as freezer beef. The other steer (that we took in about a month ago) we kept for our own freezer. He weighed 1,290 pounds and was a very nice steer too. Brown Swiss make very good animals all around. The steers are easy to fatten, the cows are excellent mothers and milkers, and they are a very hardy and sweet dispositioned breed. They are very calm and naturally tame. I can't praise them enough. The only problem is that they are hard to find anymore. They don't milk the volume of the Holstein (although because of their hardiness they can be milked longer), and they don't have the butter fat of the Jersey (but they are a bigger animal so they have more potential for freezer meat). So now I'm Brown Swiss-less for a while. I'll probably get a couple again next summer (when the freezer starts getting low). Someday I'd like to raise a couple pasture cows in order to get the breed going down here in Greene County. Just another goal to add to the list.

I've been having morning sickness again these past few weeks (note the lack of posts), but I feel pretty good today. I figured it's because my hormones are spiking to another level--but at any rate it hasn't been much fun. Gotta just push through though--can't let it stop me--I've got too much to do.

I've promised my husband that I wouldn't bring home any chicks, ducklings, poults, or goslings until June, so I've only got a month before I get to start bringing home the re-start of our homestead flock. Also in June I get to finally have an ultrasound which will let me see what this bump growing in my belly really looks like. I'm really looking forward to it. They should be able to see whether or not it's a girl or boy too.

I've got to go let the goats graze for a bit in the pasture. I'll try to write more later.