Catching My Breath

It seems like lately every time I have something I just NEED to get down in writing, something comes up and steals the rest of my time for the day.  (Barn / animal work, laundry, pickling cucumbers, cooking, cleaning the trough, checking the mama goats, taking a daughter to drivers ed, and one day to goof off at the zoo with barn and house work on either end of the trip!) 

So since today is a day off from the university, and hubby and I plus two out of three kids are at home and relaxing, this seems like the right time to catch my breath. 

I have to say this with a bit of a laugh, however, as I feel like too much idle time is time wasted.  Maybe it's my Midwest roots showing, but I like to feel like I have accomplished at least something at the end of each day.  Even when it's not a huge thing, I still like to feel like something got done. 

Our Independence Day plans involve keeping an eye on our pregnant goat and waiting for the babies to be born (she is now on the long side of her due date) and I'm catching up on some baking.  Last night it was pie.  Blueberry and Rhubarb to be exact.  Today, bread. 

 

There will also be gardening, and admiring the gorgeous zucchini blossoms. 

Oh, and probably some mowing as the front lawn looks absolutely frightening right now.  That, at least, will be something I mow the edges of and pass the rest on to my son! 

For now though - another cup of coffee and then another trip to the birthing pen to check on Gerie...  :)  Poor mama is enormous...

 And she has "lost" her ligaments...

Looks like she swallowed a beach ball... or two...

 

 

And she is puffy and flashy, with a full bag underneath... 

But as my friend Lyn likes to say... She is a Drah-Mah-Queen!  She likes to fool us and keep us guessing as to when she will finally deliver. 

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Quite rampantly, I must say! 

 

 

Out of this insanity, we have eaten more chard than most people do in the course of any summer and harvested zucchini nearly ever day.  Recipes will be put up at some point in the future - Zucchini bread, Zucchini fritters, Zucchini casserole, Zucchini in stir-fry, Zucchini in everything! :) 

 

We have also canned a dozen jars of pickles and done a couple of batches of refrigerator garlic dill pickles.  Oh Nom!  

No News Is Tiring

So our lovely girl is due any day now, and we are very excited.  However... she has had two and a half weeks of false labor and she just keeps getting bigger!

 

 

Some mornings we get to have some quality time together...

 



We continue to await the arrival of her babies.  See how excited the donkeys are about this?  LOL

 



A Tall View

So the neighbors were out riding the other evening, and invited Bill to take our leggy neighbor girl out for a spin.  

At about 15h3 she's a tall girl and provides a nice view around from up top.  



Special

This has been an eventful week at Zentopia Acres.  On Wednesday our senior doe Gerie went into what we thought was labor.  She showed every sign: bagged up, tail wagging, leaking mucous, colostrum upon expression, biting her sides and being all sorts of restless and laying down, getting up, laying down and pressing her sides on the ground or the wall of her birthing stall, and our slightly stand-offish girl wanted affection.  The other goats didn't want to leave her side, especially Balvenie - our other pregnant doe.  

We took off work, because she is too early at this point and if the babies came they would need special care.  And we waited. And we watched. And we waited. And she contracted, and she rested, and she contracted. This went on for several hours.  Goats pant when they are in labor, just as if they had taken a Lamaze class. Anyway, we had the camera ready so that when she had babies we could document the occasion and share it with everyone, if everyone survived in the end.  

Meanwhile, we locked the other animals out in the pasture and put water out for them. After they all drank their fill and we refilled it a couple of times, Lulu (mama donkey) decided to dump it over and walk off.  (If there was no hard action happening with Gerie, then we may as well take photos of something right?)

Penny (daughter donkey - now 2 years old!) wanted to toss the bucket around a couple of times, then walk away as if she was not involved.  Last though... last came our buck.  

Neville is cute and really affectionate, but perhaps not the sharpest tool in the shed.  

You can almost hear the "What can I do with THIS?!" going on in his little goat head.  At this point, we just knew what was coming - it was only a matter of time.

Smells like water...  Will I fit in there?... What would that feel like?!

Lulu looked away... she knew what was coming too and couldn't stand to watch.  

He continued... and it finally started to happen.  No, he wasn't going to play King of the Hill.  He had ...  A HAT.

  Senor Bucket Head.

I think the donkeys were asking us silently to please not post these pictures.  Ha! As if that was even a remote possibility!

That's our special boy - Neville. 

Meanwhile, Gerie is still pregnant but holding on.  Though false labor in senior does is rare, it apparently really can happen.  Can't take a chance though - if she did deliver, those babies would need special care right away.  We have our goat birthing kit, and we will do whatever we are able to do to help her and her babies when it is their time to appear.

A Matter of Perspective

When I was a kid growing up in east central Illinois, I didn't know any better.  With the rich soil of the Midwest, it was pretty much a given and it seems all the neighbors did it too.  Up there, you can stick a seed in the ground and it's pretty likely to take off and grow. Everyone had a garden.

Mom would hire someone to come out and disc the garden, then we would all walk it and throw the grassy clumps to the border of the garden.  Then would come all of the hoeing and raking and planting, and if it was a dry early summer the endless watering.  Onions. Tomatoes. Peppers. Green beans. Corn. Cantaloupe, and more.  I remember washing tomatoes off with the hose and eating them like apples in the garden, while we went on picking them and putting them into five gallon buckets.

Mom would have Karen (my sister) and I help with the canning.  At the time it seemed like endless sessions of snapping beans, and slipping the skins off of tomatoes, and canning.  We didn't have air conditioning and the kitchen would be positively steamy during the humid Illinois summers.  One dish I will never forget the smell of was green tomato relish.  I can't say it was a favorite, nor can I say it would be one now, but it sure stuck with me.  When we had eaten and canned all we could and there were still tomatoes coming on, and the neighbors had plenty, we would set up a stand at the corner of our property and sell tomatoes to passersby.

When I was young, this was just what we did.  We grew our veggies in the garden - maybe we had too many tomatoes and the neighbor had too many cherries on their trees, so we traded. And we would can or freeze food to eat during the cold months.

Now... take a step away, and spend 20 years of your adult life away from that environment.  Several moves, and finally landing in a place with a great growing season but terrible soil added to the challenge.  When I finally got back to it, so many memories came back to me.  Some more or less humorous than others like standing the flattened corn back up and mashing the roots back into the wet soil with muddy bare feet after a near miss by a tornado had laid it all down was not the least bit funny then... it's hilarious now!

Now, all these years later with my own garden it is different.  When I pick something from the garden or the herb bed and take it in to prepare for a meal I recognize my roots... and I feel a deep sense of satisfaction that I am doing this for my family, my self, and my future.

From garden to table - we all need to regain this perspective.  It's food for the soul.

Garden Goodies!

We have already gotten into the chard and it was delicious! 

Tonight, Zucchini will be with dinner!

photos to come if it isn't raining when I get out there tonight!