Milking in the morning turns into making cheese, then taking care of garden stuff, then damn it, there's a baby goat/lamb/turkey caught in the fence again, then I milk again, then crap I forgot about dinner and I still have to do evening chores, then it's morning again and we start all over.
But today instead of the unseasonably hot, sunny weather we've been having, it's been thunderstorming for most of the day-I could use a quiet, cool day like this at least once a week!
This crazy hot weather hadn't been kind to the a lot of the garden. Snap peas, most of my greens, even the broccoli seem to just want to be done with growing already, while the green beans are going crazy and I have dozens of sunflowers that haven't bloomed yet but are taller than me!
It's the greenhouse that is exploding, and while we don't have any ripe tomatoes yet, they're not far. We're already getting both hot and sweet peppers, and I wouldn't be surprised it we had ripe tomatillos by next week! <
I can't believe I written since we brought Margo home. It took a while but milking her twice a day is just another part of the routine here. Granted part of that routine is lining Margo up next to the milk stand, then lifting her onto it-twice a day, every single day. One of these days she'll jump up there-or maybe she won't-either way her milk is amazing! I've made a crazy amount of cheese with it, but won't know for 6-12 months, when we finally cut into it, if it's any good! Well that's not competely true, we use her milk in the everyday stuff like yogurt and cottage cheese and those are great, but cutting into an aged wheel of homemade pecorino romanno is a lot more exciting!
Every morning is the same: I hear Margo yelling at me to milk her before my alarm clock goes off. And every day she follows me into the milk stall, knowing full well that she gets milked second. I always milk Frannie first so that I can put her back with her kids as soon as possible in the morning and Margo is usually content to have a little pre-milking snack while I take care of Frannie-but not always!
Oh, and Margo is looking a little different than last time you saw her-she got sheared! I got to help shear her, but thank goodness hired someone who actually knew what she was doing! It is a lot easier to milk her now that she is sheared!
Morning milking is my favorite time of day. There are so many animals in that little stall and they all so loud, and goofy and itching to get outside and start their day.
The duck, oh man the ducks. We had three straight weeks of rain in May and the back of the pasture flooded and it was so deep by the pond that we stopped putting the ducks up at night, I just couldn't get back there. Of course a predator took notice (don't know what) and killed a couple ducks and the surviving ducks seem to disappear into nooks and crannies in the pasture. Then 4 emerged, then another, then another. Then another, but trailing behind her were 6 ducklings! yay! She was cautious of me and I haven't been able to close her up at night to try to keep her and her brood safe, so it's not surprising that only one has survived.
Then today I saw our grey duck that I have seen maybe 3 times in the last month. She was swimming at the edge of the pond when I walked over and I was a bit surprised to see what she had with her!
Hopefully more from this bunch survive!
Time for evening chores!
