Bucks Beware!

I was born and raised in a city. Not a metropolitan city like New York. My city wasn't sprawling or congested. It was just a bunch of housing developments carved out of farmland. And the city slowly grew until it reached the borders of other cities. My city grew out, not up. 

In each of my family's houses, my parents made sure we had a garden and fruit trees growing. I enjoyed working in the garden, for the most part. My problem with gardening as a child was my health. I had severe asthma and allergies. Being outside digging around with dirt and blossoms and grass could easily trigger an attack that would put me in bed for weeks. So I was typically relegated to inside tasks while the rest of my family was pulling weeds.

As an adult, with my asthma and allergies under much better control, Hubby and I have had a garden at each house we've lived in and as many fruit trees as we could fit in the yard. But we've always lived in the city. Our biggest property was a fifth of an acre, with our house sitting on a 1/3 to 1/2 of that land. And we managed the yard nicely and dreamed of living on a bigger parcel.

And now we are living the dream.

We started two years ago with three acres. Now we own FIVE! We purchased the two acre parcel that butts up next to ours. 

We are doing lots of things with the land. We are growing in our skills as homesteaders, trying to live off the land and be self-sufficient.

This post is to document one of the Skills that I have recently acquired.

Through a mutual friend, we have met an expert on the care, keeping, and judging of goats. She and our mutual friend, who we discovered is also quite proficient in the care and keeping of goats, graciously came to my house to help me improve the care of our five goats. Those two sweet gals were not thrilled with what she found when they came to visit...

Most of the advice I've been getting from other people regarding the care of goats is WRONG! The good thing, they told me, is that I have Nubian goats and Nubians are hardy creatures. The gist of the conversation basically down to: "Sarah, if you had any other breed you would have killed them off months ago. Fortunately, you have Nubians."

I felt really bad about that, but they were kind and reassuring with me. I've since put a lot of what they told me into practice and am working on incorporating the rest of it over the next couple of months. 

Then we talked about the quality of my goats. I know that two of my does are absolute mutts (I don't know the correct goat term for this, so am using the dog term) so I wasn't concerned about them. And I knew that our milking doe had some problems, after all--she came to us with mastitis and we'd battled that for months. So I knew she wasn't the best quality.

What surprised me was her assessment of my bucks. Fred, the bigger buck, has more meat goat traits than dairy. His bone structure is also off. But the big surprise was that they said Fred is super aggressive! 

All of the behaviors that I had translated as Fred being a shy goat are actually signs of aggression. Yowsers!! We watched Fred and George, the younger and smaller goat, for about half an hour, with the expert gal pointing out all of the aggressive behaviors and the bad body structure. Choosing a buck to breed with your does is a HUGE decision. You need to be sure that the buck has good diary characteristics or you can end up with a doe who is not a good milker. Of course, the gals said this in Goat Terminology. They also pointed out the wonderful qualities in George. That goat truly is a sweet goat. He likes people, he likes my children. And his body structure is dairy and healthier long term.

And so we had a decision to make: Sale Fred to someone else for either meat or the breeding of meat. OR Weather Fred.

After talking to Hubby, we decided to Weather Fred.

And that, dear friends, is the new skill that I have acquired: I know how to Weather a buck/buckling. 

The gal did the actual banding while I held Fred still. That goat has GROWN since we got him in March. I straddled Fred at the shoulders and held on to his collar. He is a tall buck! Luckily, I have long legs. The gal was behind him with a banding tool. I have to tell you, although Fred is not yet full grown...his testicles are the size of a full grown buck. They were huge. It took some effort and finagling for the gal to get the band around his testicles. Fred was not happy with her messing with his boy bits. He tried jump and "buck" about, but I held that big goat firmly in place. I am super impressed with myself and my buff thigh muscles. Haha! 

Anyways, that was a few weeks ago. Fred's testicles have shrunk and now look like a hairy pancake. Seriously. That is what they look like.

We're going to add a second band this week to finish the weathering process. They'll continue to wither and eventually fall off.

And so...

Bucks Beware! 

I know how to Weather!  ;)

Beth's Arrival

Here is the first installment of my "Catch-Up" blogging. While I am sure you would all like to see detailed posts on the progress of our house renovations, yard improvement, etc., I assume that the first thing you'll want to hear about is the New Baby.

 

 

 

This is a picture of me at 38 weeks. To preserve the memory, I want to note a few things.

 

 

1. I am normally 5' 7 3/4" tall. During pregnancy I tend to shrink an inch or two. It is pretty weird! The height loss returns by the time my baby is 3 months old.

 

2. All of the baby books, pregnancy websites, and doctors' offices recommend that a woman gain between 25 and 35 pounds during pregnancy. With all six of my pregnancies, I have put on between 50 and 65 pounds. My final weight during this pregnancy was 208 lbs.

 

3. My hair was driving me nuts by the seventh month. The front parts kept getting in my eyes. When the back touched my neck, I got so hot and had problems breathing. I kept it in a ponytail most of the time, just so I could breathe properly. One day was particularly hard. I was ready to just get rid of it all! I was planning on a haircut like this...

The only reason that it didn't happen is that during pregnancy I get motion sick easily. And that bad day with my hair was also a bad day for me motion-wise. I was getting nauseous from walking. There was no way that I would survive a car ride. And so my long hair stayed.

 

And yes, I do see that my hair is down in the first picture of this post. And yes, having my hair down in that picture does look contradictory. What you need to know is that I took my hair out of its ponytail so that Hubby could take a picture to document my big, preggo belly and the length my hair had grown. As soon the picture was taken, I threw my hair back up into a ponytail so that I could breathe.

 

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Since I have a history of having big babies, my doctor suggested that I be induced a week early to keep this baby's size down a bit. I do not like inductions. I much prefer to go into labor on my own and told my OB as much. Hubby agreed with my assessment with one caveat. He asked that if I didn't have the baby by Week 39 that I be induced. The reason? He was going to be out of town on business for most of Week 39. He didn't want to miss the birth. I didn't want him to miss the birth either. Hubby has the important task of distracting me from the pain of contractions by telling me stories. Lots of stories.

So we set up a tentative induction appointment. 

After Weeks 37 and 38 passed with no baby the tentative appointment became a for-sure appointment.

It worked out fine. The appointment was on a Sunday afternoon. The same Sunday as our Ward's Primary Program. I was happy that to attend the program. I love watching the children sing and bear their sweet testimonies. This year Anne, Joe, and Cakes participated. They all did a great job!

My parents came out to see the Primary Program then watch the Grands while Hubby and I went for the induction. My Mom snapped this picture just before we left for Church.  It's the last picture of our family with five kids. The next family picture will have SIX Children!!!

 

 

Birth stories are quite personal, so I'm not going to share many details here. The details I am willing to share are:

 

1. Miss Beth was born in her amniotic sack. The nurse said it is very rare and considered lucky.

 

2. She was born at exactly 11:00 am.

 

3. She weighed 8 lbs, 12.1 oz. and was 20 1/2 inches long. She has lots of dark brown hair and gray-blue eyes.

 

4. Hubby didn't cut her umbilical cord. He cut every other child's umbilical cord. The reason he didn't get to do it this time was that a nurse delivered our sweet baby girl and kind of freaked out. And the other nurses were kind of freaking out about how fast Miss Beth came and had to hurry to get stuff ready and in all their rushing about, they bypassed Hubby and me completely. They didn't even hold her up so I could see her! They just whisked her away!

 

I didn't even know if the babe was for sure a girl. I had to ask. My doctors and midwives in the past make a big deal about holding the baby up so the Momma can see the babe and announcing "You have a BOY!" or "You have a GIRL!" And nobody did that. They were to busy trying to get the medical trays ready.

 

All I can say to that is, I told you all that I go fast! I told you to get ready. I told you the baby was coming. You chose to ignore me. You implied I was being melodramatic.  You kept telling me that it didn't matter if this was my sixth child because every labor & delivery is different so I really didn't know what was going to happen and that you knew how labor really progresses since you'd been a nurse for so many years. Give me a break!!

 

There were many other problems, but I don't want to get into those. Enough ranting and complaining. Let's move on to happy things. :)

 

 

Hubby took this picture shortly after birth.

This picture was taken later that day. Miss Beth is BEAUTIFUL! She has dimples in both cheeks. We know this because she started smiling on her first day of life. :)

 

 

In the evening, Hubby brought the kids to see their new little Sister. Cakes and Joe got to hold her first. They were quite enamored with her. :)

 

 

Anne held her next.

 

Then Rose's turn.

 

 

Jim came in the room and headed straight for me. He looked at his new Sister, but didn't want to hold her. He just wanted to snuggle up next to me. That dear boy missed his Momma and was so happy to see me. :)

 

 

(I don't like pictures taken of me in the days after I give birth because I look so haggard and drawn. I don't usually let Hubby take any of me. But I had to have one of Jim all snuggled up next to me. I adore that sweet little boy.)

We are thrilled to have this newest addition to our family! Welcome, Welcome Miss Beth! We love you dearly!

 

One last note, Beth and I were discharged from the hospital the day after her birth. Hubby took us home, spent about an hour getting us settled in, then left for his business trip. He was gone for the next three days. Yowsers, that was tough. My parents stayed long enough to get all the kids tucked into bed, but then they had to leave too. Fortunately for me I have two fantastic daughters! Anne and Rose took turns staying home from school to help take care of Jim and Cakes while I recovered from labor & delivery. Those two girls are turning into lovely Young Women.

Yard Progress, Part 1

First off, Hubby was able to fix our washing machine last week. Hooray! I really am grateful for the easy accessibility of having a working washing machine in my home. It makes life so much easier! Especially when children are sick and bed sheets need to be washed immediately, which is what happened just a couple days after Hubby fixed the machine. It was so nice to just throw the bedding in the washing machine and have the yucky smells and sicko germs be gone.

We have been working hard on our yard. The yard is the WHOLE reason we bought this property. We're not sure the exact size. The title company has it listed at 2.98 acres. The irrigation district has it listed at 3.09 acres. The exact size doesn't matter at this point. The point is...we have lots of land to play with!!

There was a lot of work to be done with this property. The acreage was covered with obnoxious weeds with deep roots, pitted earth, cow patties, and garbage. We took out so many loads of garbage! Two or three truck-fulls were loaded with just metal. METAL! Ei-yah! Those loads went straight to the recycling center. We also took several loads of garbage to the local refuse dump.

This picture is of the Northeast corner of the property. It's been cleared of trash. Only the weeds, cow patties, and pits remain.

This is a picture from the Southeast corner of the property. The East side of the property was not as bad as the West.

Jim loved helping dig.

In addition to clearing garbage, we had to get rid of all the trees on the property. I told one friend this and she was SHOCKED! She just couldn't believe that I would be getting rid of trees. Haha! I am a big tree-lover. However, I firmly believe that a tree should have a purpose...Fruit, Shade, Climbing, or Beauty. Only one tree on the property fulfilled one of those purposes: A Palo Verde in the Southwest corner of the property was beautiful. Unfortunately, it had to be removed. Palo Verdes do NOT like a lot of water. And it was sitting right next to the irrigation covert. As soon as we start irrigating, it will die from too much water. I checked into having it transplanted to the front of the property. I had two different tree companies come out to give an opinion and a bid. Neither would move it. They both told me that it wouldn't survive the transplant. So sad! It was a pretty Palo Verde too!

The other trees on the property were nasty, pokey Mesquites and useless palm trees. A friend with a tractor plucked out all the Mesquites. We cut them down and hauled them to the refuse dump. As for the palm trees...

Two palms were about seven foot tall with a diameter of two feet. We referred to the palms as the "Small Palm Trees". Hubby decided to remove those himself. Please note the tall weeds in the forefront of the picture. The back of the property was covered in those. They have deep, deep roots and nasty stickers on them that not only poke your skin, but then set it to itching.

Hubby used his good old Chevy Pick-up and a big chain to remove the two small palms. He looped the chain around the trunk, hooked it to his truck back, and started pulling back and forth.

Being a big pregnant gal, my job was to sit several yards away and tell Hubby which way to pull. It was pretty fun watching the trucks tires spin and the tree teter. The job was harder than Hubby had anticipated. Even though palm roots don't spread out too far, they DO cling to the dirt around them. The first palm took about an hour to remove. Here's Hubby and Joe after they got the first palm out. They hauled it to the front of the property by the trash bin.

Waving "Hello" as they drive by me.

The second palm was more stubborn. It did NOT want to come out. Part of the problem is that it had grown in to the fence. That palm tree took about two hours to pull. During the process, Hubby tweaked his back again. Poor guy! He took it easy over the next few days, and, fortunately, his back healed up fine.

Washing Machine Woes

My washing machine hates our new house.

It is a fancy Samsung with all sorts of sensors built in to ensure the perfect wash. Hubby picked it out special just because of those special sensors. He has been so happy with his choice. It worked fine at our old house. But the thing does not work well here.

The problem?

Well water!

Our washing machine, with all its fancy sensors, despises the well water.

We've tried all sorts of different remedies. None have fully worked. Our last resort was to unplug the hot & cold water hoses and manually add water to the machine after it ran its initial scans. Then during the rinsed cycle, we would manually add water again.

It worked for a whole two days. And then it stopped. I don't know what happened, but the sensors are not loving our little trick and so have gone on strike.

Hubby says that he will get it fixed this weekend. I told him that, at this point, I'd rather he just buy me an old-fashioned washboard.

I've wasted three hours this morning trying to get ONE load of laundry washed in that finicky machine. If I had a washboard, I could have had ALL my laundry washed in an hour.

Oh well, Hubby is going to give it one more shot this weekend. In the meantime, there is always the laundrymat. :)

Fixing It Up

We've spent the last few months in limbo trying to purchase a run-down house in the county. On June 18, everything finally went through! The loan funded, the title recorded, and the keys were officially turned over to us.

We had done many renovations on the house during that time, trying to get it fixed up enough for a lender to agree it was worth the risk. We got the well running, installed a new water heater, put on a new roof, put in new carpet, fixed a faucet, fixed a door, fixed some walls, put on baseboards, removed three abandoned vehicles from the property, removed several truckloads of garbage from property, added a ground wire for the electrical, fixed a few jerry-rigged electrical problems, installed a couple light fixtures to replace the naked & exposed wiring that had been left behind, and crossed our fingers that those things would be enough.

Thank heavens it was!

But now that the place is ours, the renovations have kicked into high gear. 

Here's what we've been working on the past few weeks:

Taking more garbage to the dump.

Ripping out the bathroom. Please note the dirt. 

A gopher had been living under this tub...

Finding honeycomb & a dead beehive in the bathroom walls.

Taking another load to the dump.

Taking time out to nurture the garden at our current house.

Those are giant pumpkin vines around my kids.

Ripping out the kitchen cabinets. Please note my rounding belly.

Getting a 2-Yard bin for trash. That's right people...I have a BIN!!

Turning into a ghost painting the ceilings & walls at the county house.

Painted living room.

Installing new bathroom pipes & fixtures.

Framing in a unnecessary, heat-increasing window in the kitchen.

Cleaning up blood after the windowpane shattered, injuring my dear neighbor.

Still framing in the window.

Installing new cabinets in the kitchen.

Installing counter tops too.

Having a yard sale. Necessary when moving to a house 700 sq. ft. smaller.

Moving a HEAVY tool shed to the new house.

Please note the Dad in the blue shirt. He is instructing his sons to 

hold on tight and not die. They are sitting on the front of the ATV 

to add weight so the thing won't pop up.

I am happy to report that no one died...yet.

Hubby and I have been very blessed with loads of help from family and neighbors. We appreciate the time and efforts they've spent on our behalf.

Unfortunately, the work is only halfway done...

Wish us luck. :)

New Residents

Last year, I don't remember when, Hubby built us a huge compost bin. My dear brother made his wife a composter that has a turner built in. Ours is not so fancy. It is made of cheap wood. It is rectangular with a hinged lid and you must turn the compost yourself. I drew up the design and Hubby built it. It is perfect for our family and I am quite enamored with it!


In late January, I was in the backyard watering the compost. In Arizona, watering your compost helps it to break down better. As the water began to soak in, I started seeing movement. Now, this is a typical phenomenon when I water. You see, crickets and beetles love to live in my compost pile. And lizards love to hang out on the edges to catch the crickets and beetles as their dinner. So usually when I start watering, the bugs and the lizards start hightailing it out of the bin.


This time the creatures moving around were field mice. I quickly dropped the hose, ran into the house, and started yelling directions. Hubby and the kids started grabbing tupperware and ran outside. We turned the hose back on and started flushing out the mice. I watered the kids corralled and Hubby caught the mice. We ended up catching SEVEN field mice!

Flushing out the mice while Hubby catches them.

The girls had friends over. After this experience, their friends

declared our house the funnest place they had ever been. Haha!

We emptied the mice into the big container. There are six mice in the big container!

I dumped the seventh one in after snapping this picture.

Well, I thought seven mice, that is quite the family. I turned off the hose and commended the kids on their hard work and non-squeamishness. (I truly appreciate when people don't freak out about bugs, mice, or other creatures.) However, Hubby was not done. He went to the garage and came back with the pitchfork. We use the pitchfork to turn the compost. Hubby or I will do this once or twice a month, depending on how much we've added to the pile.


Hubby thought that there might be more mice hiding on the bottom. He was correct! As he started turning the compost over, more mice started darting out. We ended up catching SIX more field mice! It was kind of funny because those mice at the bottom were pretty smart. They tried to hide on the outer sides of the compost bin, covered by the hibiscus flowers. I hosed and hosed them to get them to come out then Hubby caught them. It was fantastic!


The kids thought we should keep all thirteen of the mice. They and their friends started talking about how wonderful it would be to have the mice as pets and how they could have babies so then we would have even more field mice. 


Dear children, YEAH RIGHT!!!


Of course, being a Mom who is trying to teach her children respectful speech, I respectfully explained the reasons we could not keep the field mice. 


Hubby had some ideas for disposing of the mice... The kids were a bit upset about to hear his ideas. Miss S practically flipped out. It was kind of funny hearing this fifteen year old girl, who was only a few minutes earlier saying how gross the mice were, now acting as though we would be terrible murderers if we disposed of the mice. Goofy kid!


Anyhoo, I told the kids that I would take them to a pet store so that people who wanted field mice as pets (*wink, wink*) could buy them. Out of earshot of all the kids, I called around until I found a pet shop that was willing to take them as "pets". 


Rose wanted to come with me. Here we are about to get in the car. We left the last six mice in the tupperwares because the field mice in the large container were jumping like crazy to get out. And let me tell you, Field Mice Jump High!

A gal at the pet store carefully dropped each mouse into a glass container. She ended up losing one of them. The mouse was getting pretty aggressive and tried to bite her. It was one of the larger mice. She told me that she has been bitten by the white pet mice plenty of times, but she knows where those mice are from and that they have no disease. She didn't want to take a chance and get bit by a field mouse that was carrying who knows what.


I don't blame her.


She told me not to worry because they leave out poison so the mouse wouldn't last long on the run.


Rose didn't hear that part. I had sent her off to look at the kittens and snakes.

Twelve mice in their temporary home.

A close-up of the field mice. See the mouse whose coat is darker? It's darker because it is WET! That was one of the mice that we had to drench in order to catch.

I'm not sure how many of the field mice are still in the pet shop. I know for sure that the owner took three home that evening. She had a pet snake that was looking for some new playmates...  


Ssssshhhh! Don't tell me kids. ;)

4-H Fun

We signed up to participate in 4-H again this year.  

Rose and Anne signed up for Cooking, Sewing, Photography, Shooting Sports, Arts & Crafts, and Rabbits. Miss S signed up for Shooting Sports and Rabbits. I informed all three girls that Rabbits were out of the question this year. I will be student teaching in the spring and cannot be their chauffeur to all the rabbit events.

Joe and Prof. X signed up for Cloverbuds. This is the group for 4-H kids who are too young to compete. They have a new leader this year and she is turning out to be FANTASTIC! She wants the Cloverbuds to have a thorough 4-H experience so she has arranged for them to participate in a ton of different events. It is wonderful!

Here's what they've all done so far:

Cloverbuds

Joe & Prof. X toured a seed sprouting facility. We saw acres upon acres of baby plants: lettuce, cabbage, artichokes, celery, broccoli, and more! The place was a dream. The month before the boys (& Rose) painted pottery at a local studio. This was a combined activity with the Arts & Crafts group. The Cloverbud leader is also the Arts & Crafts leader! She has planned for the two groups to do an activity together once every other month. Very fun!

The most recent Cloverbud activity was a tour of a local bakery. I was informed halfway through the activity that is was also an Arts & Crafts activity, so Anne & Rose were invited. Tough luck for them. Fortunately, they were at other activities that Saturday so didn't feel bad about missing the bakery tour.

The boys in their baking aprons

Reading the recipe

Rolling out their dough. Prof. X chose that small pin. Goofy kid!

Joe decorating his cookie

Prof. X showing his decorated cookie.

Can you tell he's been taking bites of the frosting?

Shooting Sports

Miss S., Rose & Anne are working on perfecting their aim every other Saturday using air rifles and bows & arrows. No pictures.

Arts & Crafts

The arts & crafts leader is also the Cloverbud leader. She is lovely. On the Arts & Crafts side, she has arranged for 4-H members to paint pottery at a local studio which was then fired. Anne was sick for this activity. Rose painted a Halloween monster mug.

The other activity they had was to decorate t-shirts. They used iron-on pictures, puff paints, jewels, and more, to jazz up the plain white tees. The end results were crazy! 

Cooking

Rose & Anne have experimented with pancakes. Their leader had them try different kinds of flours and rising agents. They also made some sweet potato pancakes and vegan pancakes. Then they tasted all the varieties to see the differences. 

For their meeting just before Christmas, they baked all sorts of cookies. Their leader told them to pick out any recipe, but no chocolate chips allowed! She wanted them to try new things. Anne made sugar cookies and Rose made toffee bars. Rose's toffee bars were Excellent! She used the recipe that I used growing up and the bars turned out delicious.  Poor Anne's cookies were not so good. In all the excitement of baking, she forgot to add the baking soda, and the baking powder. It is amazing the difference that a teaspoon of each can make!

Sewing

Rose & Anne have done nothing. The youth sewing instructor they had last year did not return. The main sewing instructor, who took all the advanced sewers last year, flat out refused to take any new students. So the girls were left with no instructor. Except, I know a little about sewing and my leader status finally went through...  So I volunteered to be the sewing instructor for my girls and any other potential sewers/quilters. We haven't done anything yet. We will have our first meeting in January.

Photography

Rose & Anne have been meeting once or twice a month with the photography leader. She is helping them become familiar with the cameras, teaching them how to set up shots, and other photography related things. One of the things she has stressed is the need to Practice, Practice, Practice! 

Here is evidence of the girls' practicing:

Photos of Desert Flora at local park 

Photos at Wal-m's Garden Center

 I think they are off to a good start. :)