Countdown to the market!

Our first market of the year will be this coming Saturday, June 5th, from 10-2! We have been having very cool, wet weather, and it is supposed to be raining Saturday, but we will be there! We should have our goats milk soap, lettuce, greens, radishes, green onions, possibly strawberries, and more. All grown organically and hand made by us! Please come out and support the market!

Wet, wet, wet!

We've had lots of rain this week. Everything is very soggy, and the slugs are loving it! I am liking that I don't need to worry about watering though. We had a busy weekend working on house stuff; Brian poured and tiled the mudroom floor and I worked on lime plastering. I just couldn't bring myself to get soaked working in the garden, and I don't like weeding when the ground is so saturated any way. Our new chicks and baby goats are growing fast, and the turkeys are getting huge! Here are some new garden photos:

More kids!

This week the boys came running in announcing that there were two more baby goats in the goat house! Our oldest goat, Nettle, kidded for her fourth time. She is a pro-mama, so she was already licking and talking to her babies, then birthed her placenta a promtly ate it up! No mess to clean up for us. I have a good connection with her so I sat down next to her while she licked her babies and nuzzled me. My other milk goat, Rose, is a little less lovey, so I give her lots of space to bond with her kids, but Nettle is happy to let me be with them. Her udders were pretty full and low, which makes it harder for the new kids to latch, so I helped them get the hang of nursing. I was struck by how peaceful it is spending time with my animals. I need to remember that feeling the next time they sneak through a fence or when I struggle to trim their hooves!

Ugh, Slugs!

We have been blessed so far with very few pest problems. We get our aphids here and there but nothing terrible. But here in the cool, moist Pacific Northwest; slugs are always an issue. They can cause serious damage to our new sprouting seeds in one night. We had some tomatoes in our cold frame and Brian pulled them in when he saw some slug damage. Of course that meant bringing lots of slugs, beetles and even a snake into the house with the pots! I just know that the weather will warm up, the plants will get bigger and the slugs will be less of an issue, but right now they are driving us crazy!

We've had a pretty busy week. We had a birthday party for our two older kids (turning 11 and 8) plus some friend's kids as well. So we spent more time doing land and house clean up and cooking, and less time weeding and planting. Sunday was our day to plant and weed in the garden so we put in more beets, cabbage, zucchini and summer squash. It is that funny time of year when the sun shines and we are roasting, and then it goes behind a cloud and it feels too cold!

Here are some recent photos of baby goats, chicks and wild boys!