The Simple Life

I am so very blessed to be living on my farm!  No, we will never be rich.  There are times when I am not sure if we have enough money to pay all the bills, but somehow they do get paid.  And there is always food on the table - a lot thanks to my good friends at the farmer's market who like to swap!!

I was just thinking this morning how extremely lucky I am as I was feeding and watering the various goats and chickens.  It is so peaceful out here.  God has surely richly blessed us.

My buck is STINKY!!!

It is THAT time of the year when all young (or older) bucks REEK!!  Mating season.  Oh how any goat farmer loves this time of year - NOT!!  Well, we do in a sense because that means babies on are the way and that means a fresh supply of good goat's milk.  BUT that also means stinky, smelly bucks!  UGH!!!  And if you have never smell a buck during mating season - trust me - you don't!!!

He pees on his beard about 100 times a day (I am bending the truth a bit but it does seem that way!!).  And he does this 7 days a week!!!  After a couple of weeks, he STINKS!!!  You can smell him a mile a way!!  Supposedly, this "attracts" the girl goats (???).  I guess it works because 5 months later, I find baby goats in the barn.

So for the next couple of months, I have to endure the smell but I keep "focused" on the "end product" - LOL!!

I love herbs!

This is a picture of my lavender garden from last year.  Wish it looked this good this year!! 
I love walking past my herb gardens and I can't help but rub my fingers on the leaves of the various herbs.  Oh they smell so lovely - basil, oregano, lemon balm and rosemary!  I miss that so much during the winter.  This year I am going to try to bring some of the plants inside and see if I can keep them going.

If I ever retire from the goat business, I would love to have an herb farm.  BUT almost everyone at the market sells herbs so I probably won't make any money at it.  Oh well, but I certainly would have fun!!

You never know what is behind the mask

The news of the death of Robin Williams has really sadden me.  Particularly if his death was suicide.  How sad!  You never know what is going on behind the mask that the public sees.  He always gave the impression that he enjoyed his life and what a funny man he was.  But, apparently, the demons he was wrestling with got too much for him and he felt that he had only one choice to deal with them.  RIP Mr. Williams, you will be missed.

Somedays you should just stay in bed . . .

Yesterday was one of those days . . . we all have had them.  Where everything and I mean EVERYTHING seems to go wrong or work against us!

I lost one of the baby chicks.  I am pretty much responsible for that one!  I decided to move the two newer baby chicks in with the "older" baby chicks. BIG MISTAKE!!  The "older" baby chicks were NOT thrilled with the "new" visitors and began to attack the little ones.  I thought maybe if I turned off all the lights that would make it better (chickens can't see very well in the dark).  It did for awhile until I turned the lights on again and the attacking began again.  It seemed to slow down.  So I left them alone (mistake #2).  Somehow the two baby chicks got out.  Baby #16 met one of our Shih Tzus who thought it was a delightful "squeek" toy.  Hmmm - that's funny - after one bite, it doesn't squeek anymore!  So baby #15 got moved back to the little box.  Live and learn - a hard lesson!

Meanwhile back at the chicken pen . . . we had another visitor . . . we are guessing Mr/Ms Fox was back for chicken dinner.  We heard the noise - chickens have a tendency to get quite upset when Mr/Ms Fox makes an appearance.  By the time we got there, there was only a massive pile of feathers scattered throughout the pen and all the chickens very upset.  It had to be a fox because there was no body - raccoons and possum usually leave a body (and it ain't pretty!).

Since it was a nice evening and I was pretty upset by the day's occurences, I thought it would be great day for a bike ride.  BUT I noticed both of the tires on my bike where slightly flat.  Thankfully,we have one of those portable air compressors that plug into the cigarette lighter in your car.  GREAT!!  Everything was going good until I tried taking the stupid end off of my stem of my bike tire.  It won't come off.  It just won't budge.  So I got one of my husband's wretch and tried twisting it off.  Well . . . it sort of came off but it broke the stem off of my tire!  NOW it is REALLY flat!!  So much for the bike ride (with the way my luck is going, I would have probably fallen anyway!!)

So I thought I better call it a day!!

Did I FINALLY find the answer???

How many years I have spent planting garden after garden only to have them be eaten by deers.  Oh, so many times I have look with disappointment at the the bare stems that used to be bean plants or the tomato plants that yesterday were loaded with beautiful tomatoes and today there are none. 

And the hours I spent on the internet researching how to keep deers out of your garden . . . trying ever solution that I found with minimal success - hanging soap bars (which they ate, too!! - YUCK!!), buying chemical smelly stuff, and even human urine.  None that worked on a long term basis.  So discouraging.

BUT then I got an idea . . . if they don't like strong odors . . . why not plant mint around my gardens.  My husband said it won't work - they would eat the mint like they do everything else.  So late last Fall, I rooted a bunch of my mint cuttings and transplanted them around my gardens.

And the mint grew and grew and grew (oops - that's the only problem with mint - it does spread).  BUT, it worked!!  OMG . . . it worked!!  It actually worked!!  The Angels are singing!!  We saw two deers in our yard a couple of weeks ago.  They walked right past our gardens - didn't even stop.  Not one leaf of our lettuce or beans have been touched - all my tomatoes are still intact!!  Did I finally solve the problem of keeping the deers out of my garden?  So far, so good!!!  Now if I can figure what to do with the insects!!!

Summer

Why is it that once the 4th of July is over, that the summer just flies by?  But, when you look at the calendar, summer is really just a couple of weeks old!  Maybe it is because all the retailers start putting their "summer" items on sale or clearance and you start to see "Back to School" items appearing on the shelves.

I was in Walmart last week and they ALREADY had their school supplies out and it was the last week in June!  Isn't that kind of early to be buying school supplies??  Of course, I have been out of "buying school supplies" business for about 3 years now, so what do I know!

Anyway, I plan to enjoy what's left of my summer!  I hope you do too!