Gardens and Goats

Hi all! I'm going to post a quick update (that turned out not so quick) with no pictures, since it started raining before I took any and seems to be planning a nice long soak. That's a good thing, but it sure was nice to enjoy the sunny weather yesterday. Hope there are lots more days like that soon.

Yesterday and today were full of accomplishment (which doesn't happen all that often, so I'm taking advantage of my ability to report on progress). :)

Yesterday started at 6:30 A.M. when my sister in law dropped my sweet niece (17 mo)off for the day. We headed out to a home school field trip at 9:30 A.M. This one was to the Lake View Natural Dairy. It was such a blast! I love getting my fresh, healthy, raw, all natural milk; cream; yogurt; and butter there, and was so happy that more people got to see what it's all about. We all taste tested a glass of milk. I wish I'd gotten a picture of all the kids with their milk mustaches. :) Adorable!

After that it was a quick trip to town for shoes for two of my kids, then home (where I'd secretly wanted to be all day). I was very much looking forward to putting up my garden fence and planting some things. I was able to get all the posts in and 100 ft. of fencing up, but it wasn't quite enough. Of course, bright and early this A.M. I was out planting anyway. My husband watched me chasing chickens out for a while, then came to my rescue. He found some old snow fence that worked awesomely to finish up with. Now my garden is hopefully safe from the chickens and I'm on my way.

Today I transplanted tomato, basil and broccoli plants. Eight (four bush early girl and four grape tomato) plants were from an awesome green house and nursery on the corner of Hwy. 53 and county(?)rd. 16 near Hibbing. I could have gone broke completely there had it not been too hot to leave a goat in my van. (Oh yeah, there was a goat in my van because I was on my way home with Starlight.) The other plants I planted and then covered with milk jugs as little green houses. Had I realized what the weather was going to be like, I may have held off on that. Oh well.

I also planted squash (transplants from the starting tray), beans and peas today along the north and west sides of the garden up against the fence. I'm hoping the beans and peas will climb the fence and be easier to pick that way. I'm trying not to garden quite so intensely this year so that if there's something going wrong (ie. insect pests, slugs) I'll be better able to see them and get rid or them. Usually I pack in so many plants that I can't get at the pests even when I do happen to spot them. About a week ago I planted onions in the garden near the house. Other than a bit of spinach poking up there isn't too much else going on garden wise here yet.

Dan and I also fixed the goat pen wall and gate today (already). When Pansy was all alone she broke it. We didn't make the gate tall enough for her to know she couldn't get over, so she had to try it (she was lonely, and wanted to be with us). She slammed into it hard enough to break the cement anchor screws, so the wall was askew and the gate was VERY hard to close. All fixed now, and tall enough that the goats aren't even thinking about jumping over it. (So take that, you crazy little trouble makin' cuties!)
And, I guess that about sums up what's been going on here. Next time I'll try to get some pictures. Have a wonderful Sunday!