These are a few of my favorite things...

I am feeling a bit low today. Not sure why....

But I know that when one is feeling low, a great remedy is to list things one if thankful for. Since I am at work and do not have my journal, I will make my list here......
(in no particular order)

~making it through the first decade of motherhood alive
~Micheal Pollan and Barbara Kingslover books, specifically Omnivore's Dilema and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle....
~roller skating with the kids the other night and not breaking a bone
~ nephews and niece
~great movies....most recently Juno (!), Charlie Wilson's War, King of California, the Amateurs
~upcoming trip to Maine to see the family!
~Gita's imaginary cat friend, Fairy Dancer...even though she gets into a lot of trouble!
~the spot on mother in laws hip was just a fingerprint on the x-ray
~blooming dogwoods, silverbells, and azaleas
~Noah's 11th Birthday! and guess what, he still likes me!
~Pandora (online radio....so awesome, check it out if you haven't...www.pandora.com)
~Saduko (or sa-dork-o, as it is known in my house)
~tons of local produce in the grocery store
~Nimaues dance recital at a nursing home next week
~our brand new super water and energy efficient washing machine...no more lugging a weeks worth of laundry to the laundromat every Friday!
~goat milk and fresh eggs

phew, it worked! I feel so much better

Homestead; Earthday 2008

I will now be playing the part of the DJ. I have a request for more photos of the homestead.

So, this goes out to those of you who care enough to ask and to those of you who may not really care but are curious about the strange ways of your back woods family....

Looking up past the gardens to the 2 houses (which are getting plaster this summer!)

Alex and the great day of building the grey water system(alternative to a septic system or city sewars)

Garden beds, mostly not planted yet....notice, no weeds!

Looking in between the 2 houses...up towards fire wood and the old barn...

Now looking down past the two houses towards the garden and the trampoline and our road

ye old homestead doggie, Atticus the bold

another shot in the garden looking towards our driveway

goatastic update

Having goat babies around is addicting!

I appreciate having this connection to the spring time...spring, after all, means more than just the onset of seasonal allergies and the promise of summer soon coming.

So now in my little world, spring time = goat babies in the barnyard. How wonderful!

Thunder and Rain are growing so quickly, thanks to all that delicious mama goat milk! They are now running and jumping and keeping us entertained. Thunder, the little boy, is showing off his male instincts by walking alongside his sister then placing a hoof on her back, as if to say "now we both know who wears the pants in this barnyard, right babe?" It won't be long before her realizes that it is really the female goats who "wear the pants" on the farm, or at least get the most respect and appreciation and handfulls of peanuts!

...ahhh

Goaty Babies

We did it! We had ourselves some goat babies!
Okay, okay.....Emilia the mama goat did the work, but it feels like a huge success!

Our new additions are baby boy Thunder and baby girl Rain (multiple choice quiz: What do you think the weather was on the morning of the birth? a. sunny b. snowy c. thunder and rain)
And here is their introduction to the world outside of the barn....

After days and days of checking on the pregnant mama and wondering if any slight shift in behavior could mean she was going into labor, Saturday morning she refused to come out of the pen. A few hours, a lot of goat goop, and a total of 7 adult goat herders, 5 children, and one goat midwife later, we became proud "parents" of the two miracles.

Emilia was bred to Gryffindor (chosen for his striking good looks and his cool name) 155 days prior to the big event. We assumed she was pregnant, especially when she started getting wide around the middle, but we did not feel too confident after a false pregnancy with another goat, Sparrow, earlier in the year (turns out she was just putting on a little spring fat...really, it happens to the best of us). But a week or so ago, when she started drifting from the herd and spending most of the day laying down along side the barn wall, we figured we had some babies in our future. And we were right! Thank heavens! And thank heavens one of those babies is a girl....the fate of any male farm animal is usually less pleasant than his female counterparts......

The babies are now running around and nursing like crazy. Today was the first day we took them out of the kidding pen to meet the rest of the herd. We will do that for an hour or so each day until they are two weeks old and ready to spend the whole day with the adult goats.

Noah, Nim, and Gita are quite obsessed with these new additions to our family. In fact, we a have hardly seen them since the birth....and when they finally do emerge from the barn, they inform us that while they are playing with the babies, they have also been sweeping the barn, scrubbing the milk stand, and "grooming the goats" (helpful, even if they use the bucket cleaning scrubber as a goat brush). We have put the hammer down on the request for them to sleep in the barn with their new friends.

We are so very happy! Thunder and Rain have brought a sweet new energy to the homestead and remind us why it is so good for the kids to have farm animals....note, it has been exactly 2 days and 3 hours since Noah and Nim last begged me for a hamster and I am hoping the baby goats filled that need.....I'll be keeping my fingers crossed!

the super chill weekend

david is on the keyboard, let me tell you i really am an ignoramous on da 'puter.
so it has been a soopa relaxin' weekend after a week in the 70s with sun, we woke saturday to much rain with thunder and lightning. it was so nice, and it got cooler as the day went on so we cozied down on the new sofa, watched some b ball on the new flat screen, and enjoyed a sweet rainy day. the loomers were over for a bit in the morning. so much fun having little lilikoi smiling, drooling, and being a baby, she is awesome. 2008 is sure to be another amazing year. so far we've built the new fence with 2 arbors, and 4 gates. We cleaned out in front of the bath house and planted dozens of mountain berries along the fence(wich is basically a 500 ft trellis), and built a small spring fed pond which is atticus' watering hole, I finished the siding on the house, now were down to earthen plaster on the round and trim work left and then our home will look totally done. wow, so even on the super chill weekend i can't help but think about the many wonderful projects to come, and i am thankful for the down time i have now. thanks for reading my thoughts and i hope to write more soon. peace and love

Springing into spring

Atticus and David on top of Stone Mt

Easter has come and gone with a magical visit from the East Bunny, a forest egg hunt, and a wonderful dinner with neighbors. Easter sure did come early this year! I heard something crazy about it being the earliest it's fallen in a century or something..hmmmm....what is blog etiquette? Is someone checking facts? Well, it was really early! We do have some hints of spring around....blooming daffodils, violet, life root. Chickweed, self heal, and trillium popping up. It's hard for me to say goodbye to winter (my favorite season) but spring offers it's beauty and it';s hard to resist.
Gita and best friend forever, Willow


We dyed Eater eggs (and fingers, and a bit of the counter) while David and Alex took an impromptu trip to Asheville for an "emergency" basketball hoop. I am not sure when the sudden realization that one does not have a basketball hoop becomes an emergency, but whatever. I think the arrival of the letter from the IRS about the Economic Stimulus Package made us feel like we may have a little money to spare (not a common feeling for us, but a welcome one!) Really, I didn't mind being home alone with three kids and massive amounts of eggs and food coloring. So now we can play a little gravel ball whenever the desire comes.....ahhh, the sweet life.

...gold at the end of the rainbow



We have also been working hard creating raised beds in our terraced veggie garden. Kelcey and I attended the Organic Growers School which inspired us in many ways, namely in moving towards raised beds. So we have been busy digging, building, amending, covering......and soon, planting. We also built an awesome cold frame so we can start some seedlings without donating our windowsills to the purpose.

Amidst all this excitement, I must remember to take care of some other not-so-fun taks: file my state taxes, figure out if we can get garbage pickup on our rural road, find plane tickets to Maine, and continue trying to expose the kids to chickenpox so we don't have to vaccinate.

happy beginning of spring!

once more from the state of sun

It's our last day of beach vacation and thought I'd make one more post while we have the glories of wireless internet.

Yesterday, we went to Old Town Fernandina to pay a visit to the Farmers Market. 5 crab cakes, 8 grapefruit, and 3 turnovers later, we were suprised by a good ol' southern Shriners parade...a first for me! We also visited Little Talbot Island State Park outside of Jacksonville. 6 miles of pristine, uninhabited beach offered us an afternoon of fun and sun.

You got some video of Noah on the skim board. It is amazing that this kids lives in the mountains.... he is such natural at stuff like this.....if only we all could be so coordinated! I seem to always get injured doing adventurous activities such as opening the door to a public restroom. I think I missed the "skim boarding window" in life.

The girls found and caught a tree frog in the yard today. They agreed to leave it here in Florida after making a nice home for it under a tree.

We head back to the mountains today, with an afternoon visit to Savannah, GA...another first.
One of our mama goats, Sparrow, is due to give birth on Tuesday. We are so excited to welcome baby goats to our farm. We are keeping our fingers crossed that she has two females....we'll keep you all posted....

until then,
happy trails!