Happy Birthday Dolly!

I cannot adequately put into words the way I feel about you, my littlest princess.

You move through our lives like a tornado, but your smile is the sun, shining through the rain.

You rarely pause to let anyone catch up, but when you do we all listen.

Your Daddy's little girl, Grandma's favorite pet and Mommy's little diva.

I wish the world for you, my angel in disguise.

I hope you always smile, always laugh, but mostly, I hope you keep that rare and special ability to influence those around you to keep falling in love with you over and over again, everyday.

Happy birthday Baby Girl!

Fresh pics of the babies:)

Emily and I have decided on names for our new little cuties. The pretty doeling will be called Calypso and will be a permanent addition to our herd. Hopefully she will be just as sweet as her momma.

Calypso

The little boy is going to be called Cronus for the time being, though we are not keeping him. We already have our quota of bucks and have no use for a whether at this time. He will stay with mama until he is weaned, then be re-homed or butchered. It's a fact of farm life. Until then, he will get lots of love and attention from the human children.

Cronus

Twins!

We've been on baby watch around here lately with our two young Nubian does, Twix and Oreo. After feeding and milking this morning I went around checking ligaments as usual and noticed they were missing on Twix. Into the kidding pen she went and the waiting and watching began. After missing out on Molly's kidding I was determined to be there for this one.

Many, many hours later things finally began to happen. Emily was right there squirming over the goo and helping take pictures. After pushing and straining for better than 20 minutes to birth her first baby, I got nervous and grabbed the legs and gently tugged while she screamed and tried to run away. The little buckling finally popped out and after some urging she started to clean him. We thought the fun was over since this was her first, but she had other plans. Emily was right in the line of sight for the next one and she was very excited to see the little doeling come out all her own.

Both babies are doing great, standing and eating very well. They both weighed in at 5lbs and are just the cutest little things. Momma is very proud of herself and has been smiling and looking at us as if to say, "look what I did!" We are all proud of her:)

Fashionista or Fashion Disaster?

I had nothing to do with it. lol The child knows what she likes.
I'm just glad we can provide plenty of materials for her to express her sense of style:)

A Good Foundation

I've been searching for a good buck to build my herd on for quite some time and I think I finally found a good one, or two! These gorgeous Nubian boys have it all, good looks, great lines, and a wonderful personality. There are some really strong milking lines in their pedigrees, just what we want around here. These two boys, along with the sweet girls I picked up earlier this week will be my foundation. I hope to find one or two more doe/doelings, then build from there. These boys will serve our herd for a good many years to come.
Razmataz Chaos

Apollo Splash

Chaos is the deity from which all else came, and hopefully many will spring from him:) Apollo is the god of music, poetry, etc. and is said to be the most beautiful of the gods. He is quite pretty at that. lol

Let the battle begin!

We obtained new hens this week from some Amish friends. We had one lone lady wandering the place for almost a year now after the raccoon massacre last summer. While she has been a faithful egg layer and lovely personality to have around, she just can't keep up with our appetite for eggs. Poor girl only manages around 5/week.

The new batch of ladies are young hens, just started laying in January, so they are at the beginning of their peak. After a night spent locked up in their new accomodations(necessary to train them to return to the right roost at night), they were allowed to emerge and roam at will. Naturally Henrietta, our lone hen, was less than pleased with the new blood. An immediate pecking confrontation ensued.

Not to worry, all are fine and Henrietta has the privilege of roosting with her goat friends at night instead of the dreaded coop.

Dolly gets her first official farm chore

We brought home two new goat babies yesterday morning. Both Nubian and both have great ancestry, so I'm excited to finally be upgrading. These sweet little doelings will eventually provide milk and kids for sale on our farm

In the mean time, they need to be fed via bottles. They are only 2 and 5 weeks old, much too young to forage and very dependant on mama(Louise). This is her first official chore, mornings only for now, I will take care of the other feedings. She is very excited and proud of her new "job". I think she will do a great job:)

Around the Farm

Not much sprouting around here, spring is still got a long way to go. Yesterday was spent moving the chicken coop and playing with the goats.

H2 and Louise are best friends now.
Molly doesn't mind company while she eats.
Twix and Oreo are still a bit shy.
Creating a new opening for the chooks.

Honing my skills - Bread Baking

One of my favorite things to bake is bread. It's not all that time consuming, but I still don't make it as often as I would like. Recently, I started trying different artisan recipes and methods, including sourdough. I was fortunate enough to acquire a very old sourdough from a fellow Homesteader that was also used by Richard Proenneke. He was the ultimate homesteader, building his cabin in Alaska using only a few basic hand tools, living a solitary life in one of our most rugged and unforgiving landscapes.

I have successfully gotten the sourdough off to a good start, feeding it and keeping it gurgling away on my kitchen counter with it's slightly sour, tangy scent. Unfortunately, my first attempt to bake with it was a huge gloppy flop. Sigh, I guess I need to save that one for another day.

Thankfully, not all of my breads turn out to be a sour, dense lump. In fact, most of the time I get a lovely result. Soft, moist, aromatic and oh so yummy. Also, gone in much less time than it took to create.

This week I took a standard recipe for Vienna Bread and added some herbs and Parmesan cheese, shaped into small round loaves and topped with a little mozzarella cheese. Everyone loved their own mini-loaf and had their own method of devouring them. Jesse with marinara sauce, Aaron and Emily lightly toasted theirs and added butter. I savoured mine a little at a time with some cream cheese. Nothing the stores can sell will ever compare.