Catching Up

 I'm hoping to catch up on what's been happening here this summer.  I'd love to get some photos of things other than goats up soon, but first I have to find my camera so I can upload them.
We've been able to squeeze a ton of summer fun into the last two months.  The weather has been wonderfully warm for water activities, which has meant lots of tubing and swimming.  The "Big Lake" has been 70 degrees many days, so the kids and Dan have been jumping off the dock in the bay near our house.  I just watch and take the pictures :)  I'll post a few as soon as I find that camera!  Before the lake warmed up so much we had the local river to play in, and I've got some pics of that to show you as well.  We have a great spot for swimming and playing.  It's like a water park just for us!  There's a water fall that flows into a pool where the kids get right in the water fall, and there's a flat rock formation that makes a water slide into the next pool down.  The river is usually not as full as it stayed for so long this spring and early summer.  Since we have this enormous ridge running the length of our county, the rivers run fast during spring thaw and hard rains, but are nearly dry the rest of the time.  By the time I remembered to bring the camera, the water level was down, but you will still get an idea of what it's like when I'm able to post pics.
The garden this year hardly deserves an update of its own, but today I was encouraged when I went out there.  Things are actually coming along now, and it's somewhat of a jungle out there.  Much more than I'd expected with the slow start I got and the failure to germinate that so many of my seeds had.  It was quite a strange phenomena how so many of our gardens had such trouble with germination this spring.  The strangest part for me was that so many of the seeds kept "popping out" of the ground.  I'd go out and find nearly the whole row of bean seeds sitting on top of the soil.  I'd poke them all back in and one or two would stay in and sprout.  Others would pop out of the ground again.  I'd poke them in again and another one would sprout.  That happened a few times and then so more sprouted.  The same thing happened with the squash, zucchini and cucumbers.  Out of about 8 rows of carrots, maybe four carrots came up.  One lettuce plant, one radish, absolutely no dill, four cucumber plants out of about 25...VERY strange.  Perhaps some of you have found out why things were so crazy, but unfortunately I haven't had much time to read (or write) blog posts lately.  I'm hopefully going to be able to slowly catch up soon though! :)
I've also got some pics of the chicks hatching in our incubator.  Molly got 5 eggs to hatch, then put the chicks under a broody hen.  She was thrilled with them, and is an absolutely terrific mother.  It's so fun to watch  them, and a big bonus that we don't have to raise the chicks.
So, next post will be pictures of what I've posted about today, but since the only recent photos I've got on this computer are ones of the does browsing that I took with my daughters camera today, that's what I've posted.  Next post, no goats...No, I mean it!  Really! ;)
It's nice to be back.  Hopefully I'll be here more often now.

Starlight's daughter, Lil' Bet

Panzy reaching for a leaf that caught her eye

Starlight and daughters, Ginger and Lil' Bet