Breeding Season ~ Summer beds

Fall, I  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  fall !!  Above is my brother and sister in my backyard.

October is a busy month on the farm, of course I am still recovering from my "girl" surgery, none-the-less the work must continue.

It's breeding season for the goats, so all my 'kids' are running around jacked up on their hormones.  I have chosen to give the girls a few extra months off.  I will breed them in late December.

Thanks to the cooler weather it is time to fix things that have been broken over the summer, chop up downed trees, and rehabilitate the soil from the summer garden.
Did you square foot garden this year ??  Loved it ... If you have a large area for gardening or small, square foot gardening saves LOTS of time.
Test your garden soil to figure out exactly what it needs and give it to it... Till it up and leave it until next year.

Have you noticed how old time traditions are making a come back? Canning, knitting, gardening, home-schooling, root cellars, bread making, etc...  Don't you find this interesting ??  I personally believe it stems from Americans waking up to the fact that our government is imposing itself on our freedoms and the uncertainty of our declining economy. Is that an oxymoron 'American's waking up'? 

Anyhoo, before I get on a political rant I will bid you all farewell and pray that you have a Spirit filled day !!

Goats ... Boy my Buck is Stinky !!

If you are considering purchasing some goats for either your families dairy or meat needs, keep in mind that intact male bucks - STINK ... They pee on themselves - so yes they really stink !!  So when you are building their pen, I say 'their' because he will need a companion, put them down wind and fairly far away from your house. Not so far that it is a huge inconvenience, but far enough so on these beautiful windy days you are still able to sit out on your porch.

Disbud your goats, neuter your inferior boys, and take really good care of your girls, and they will reward you with more than you can dream of.

The workout ...

My very fit friend Shawna text me yesterday and invited me to go work out with our other friend Nicole and her group. Nicole is a personal trainer/fitness guru !! She has a group of ladies over every Friday for an intense group workout. In a momentary lapse of judgement - one stupid, ridiculous, idiotic word I text Shawna back "sure". That was mistake 1 ... I will list mistakes numerically so you can follow, because they are quiet numerous.

I wake to the sound of glorious rain...yank the covers over my head and snuggle further into my pillow.
Mistake 2 - I got out of bed to get ready for the workout -
Mistake 3 - Ate a piece of toast with some peanut butter and honey on it - didn't seem like a mistake at the time, but you'll see...I text Shawna to make sure we were still working out because of the rain - Shawna says "heck yeah the rain should be out of here by 9"
Mistake 4, believing Nashville weather-people ... they are NEVER right.
As I am driving to Clarksville in the mini monsoon I think 'maybe it will be called off and Shawna and I can just go grab some coffee' yummm...doesn't that sound nice :)

We get to Nicole's house/gym and there are 14 ladies there to work out. All varying degrees of sizes, shapes, and athletic ability. I'm feeling OK right now ... that feeling would not last !!
As Nicole begins to demonstrate what we will be doing today I kept looking around wondering if everyone else thought she was insane... all the other women appeared calm so I thought ... hahaha we are getting punked - someone would jump out and say hahahaha just kidding. But no one ever came - Ashton Kutcher was no where to be found and I began to get worried.
She describes the first thing we will be doing .. HA ... She says in a very confident voice, "we will be running 400 meters holding the 25 lb weigh plate over our head - arms straight up ... WHOOOOOA sista - WHATCHU TALKIN BOUT WILLIS -  Clearly Nicole had been eating too much Flax Seed and it had gone to her brain - because ... WHAT ?? Again, no one seemed to be thinking that she was stark raving mad - BUT ME... Clearly I'm the only one in the whole place that had NOT takin leave of their senses. I mean - NOBODY seemed shocked by this. I'm going to run in the rain - holding a metal 25lb plate over my head - and RUN - WHY would anybody do this? sigh ... Needless to say Mistake ... what number am I on ... Mistake 5 was when I grabbed the weight and headed out the door into the rain. I got about 100 feet down the road and the weight clunked on my head, I dropped down to a walk cradling the weight to my bosom, picked back up to a jog, shoe came untied, and I can no longer see the girl I left the building with - she was dusting me. I finish the 1/4 mile, now my poor team is way behind... Did I mention we were all broken up into teams - my poor team - those poor girls... We never made up for my dismal time on the run. That put us behind for the rest of the workout. Anyhoo...OUCH !! I had to move my arm, I won't make that mistake again. Good grief. OK, this is getting way too long for me to go into every torturous activity Nicole dreamed up for us, but after the third one I was outside in the rain puking in her bushes. After the 5 torture test, puking in bushes continued - it was really the one thing I excelled at that morning.

I called my sister when Shawna and I were leaving and told her I just got finished working out and she says " oh I bet you feel good" what is she MAD - clearly she didn't realize what I had just went through I said "NO I don't feel good !! I feel cold, clammy, soaked to the bone, and puked on my shirt" she said "well you'll feel better later" FYI ... I won't feel better for like a week - then I need to deal with the humiliation of sucking so badly... No ... I really won't feel better... Everything  is crying out in pain... and a Snickers Bar would be really really good right now.

So the next time I see a woman with a body of steel, instead of envying her I will have to high five her because the work they do to get that body is tremendous. They are athletes in every sense of the word.

So have I inspired you - go get on the treadmill or something - you'll feel good !! Really you will !!

Job Seeker: 40 Something Hormonal Woman

How's that for a resume heading?? It's time for me to get ultra-serious about finding a job. I don't watch Alli near as much as I use to and my Mom can fend for herself during the day. As good as I have gotten with regards to saving money, this family needs more income.

Ahhh the days of 6 figures are long gone, and I really don't even desire to make that much money again. I just want to find honest work, with an honest company. 

I have dreamed of living off our land, raising goats, chickens and maybe a few cows. But I think I will try to work for the next 8-10 years with hopes of paying down/off the house.
I am ready to work again ~ I am ready to go back full time ~ God willing, He will allow me to find something good for our family.

Labor day weekend coming up... Tilling the summer garden, and fixing some fencing is on the to-do-list ...

Have a Spirit filled day

Do you smell that?? Smells like Fall to me :)

On this first morning in the 60's poor little Scarlett had to go to get dis-budded. (Burn her little horns off) But she is now back home with her momma and recovering nicely. My goal will be to have a polled (naturally has no horns) buck and a few polled does and that will hopefully limit the amount of trips to the vet for this awful procedure.


I am eyeballing some baby chicks ... I know I know, Dan has said No several times, but I think maybe I can get him to change his mind. With all this salmonella running around in eggs, I so want my OWN EGGS.
On a scale of 1-10 how bad would it be to get a fewww little chickens without ummmmmm telling Dan? I think it would be a couple weeks before he discover them :O...

Probably not the best idea I've ever had, but a good one none the less ....

Fresh eggs ...

I'm the laugh stock of all homesteading websites not having any chickens...It's really unAmerican.

On another note, my grand-baby Alli is walking now, and she LOVES playing on the piano. She is truly just the cutest baby on earth :) See for yourself:

You said what ??

Sometimes in the quiet morning hours after the goats have been watered and fed, the dogs have been fed, and finally I am able to sit with my coffee and my bible, God whacks me on the back of the head and says ... You did what ?? You said what ?? You thought what ??

I set my bible down, close my eyes and allow God to rebuke actions, thought, and words I had not repented for, nor did I feel I needed to repent of.

I am NOT in control ~ I am not more righteous than ANY other ~ For all have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Who am I to look down my nose at someone else. I am probably the worst of these. I am SO flawed. Sometimes I think flawed to my core.

When am I going to learn ??

God's grace and mercy allows me to fall face first into a pile of crap, and He will eventually lift me out, wash me clean, and hopefully show me the error of my ways. Ahhh the errors ~ why are they so numerous.

I am human ~ but I so desire to be more Christ like... Why is this so difficult for me ??

What I am so thankful for and feel truly blessed is that I hear God, I hear His words to me, I feel His love and His correction. THAT my friends is a relationship...that is what HE desires.

I find this blog is less and less about homesteading and more and more about the daily musings of my life.  I will try to stay on task more in the future.

** On the homestead front, hawks have been circling my goat pen. I fear they have their hearts set on a tasty "Scarlett" morsel. I have fended them off by shooting into the ground to scare them off, but the down side to that is it scares every other animal on my property. Once it cools down, Aramis will be outside more and he will not even let them circle the property.

Wheelin and Dealin and APPLES !!

I needed laundry detergent ( oh this is going to be such an exciting post ) so I scoured the ads looking for the bestest deals. I found a BOGOF at CVS. Sometimes these deals aren't the best, you just have to know what you would normally pay for the detergent. "Side Note" I was "making" my own detergent for pennies on the load but I find myself needing stronger stuff through the summer months.

Anyway, so I see that the razors are 8.97 with a 4.00 cash back reward so that would make the razor and blades 4.97... Which is a great deal if I didn't have enough razors to shave a small African villiage from previous great buys. So I say, NO I won't do it. However, I need the detergent AND I have a 5.00 off coupon for the razor, making the razor ... say it together, FREE. So when I get there I go up with my razor and 2 bottles of detergent and the lady says, OHHH I have an even better deal and runs and gets me a large can of shaving gel. She says "we you buy the razor you get the gel for free". The Gel is normally 3.97. Woohoo !!  So now I must ring that stuff up seperate from the detergent because I will use my 4 dollar cash back rewards on the detergent. Razor/blades and Gel ring up I owe 5 bucks ~ I get 4 bucks back. I put my detergent up 2 large bottles for 7.87 and use a 1 dollar off coupon with my 4 bucks rewards, and pay the lady like 4 bucks. So for a little less than 9 dollars I got a Schick razor with extra blades, large can of Schick Gel, and 2 large liquid detergents... NOT BAD considering just the razor would have cost me that much alone. So, stack your coupons and use your reward bucks wisely.

As for my apples...Yippee !! I have never picked an apple right off the tree and eaten it !! YUMMY ~ Now it is the first year they have produced, so I think they will be even sweeter next year, and I didn't spray as much as I should have so they have some spots, but all in all - they are YUMM-O !! I planted a yellow and red delicious 2 years ago and now have fruit... It's a beautiful thing.

I have fought with the bloody peach trees since moving here. Every year they get that brown rot stuff. I am seriously thinking of chopping them down and starting a new. If I don't spray MAJOR chemicals on them every 7 days the desease gets out of control and I get a tree full of nasty deseased fruit.  I think maybe starting over with desease free trees might be the best idea.

This year I will be planting pear trees and some more blueberry bushes.

Until later... God willing ... Think about doing a random act of kindness for a stranger OR just a strange person ;-P