Not a Moment....

...to stop and blog.  It's been hopping here!!!

Oh hello, my friends!  It has been so busy!  I have hardly had time to sit down and rest, it's been so crazy.  But it's good.  I love the spring and the insane activity that comes with it.  It has warmed up considerably, so the days have just been a dream.  No winter coats, no hats, no boots.  Just me and maybe a sweatshirt, or -gasp- a t-shirt.  It's been wonderful, I am starting to get too used to it.

• One of the big things we've done here is to put in the front garden.  We went from front lawn to:

Ta daa!!  That's 900 square feet of lovely garden space.  Added to the 2100+ in the back, we now have 3000+ square feet of garden space cooking here.  That's not counting the fruit trees and berry bushes, that's vegetable garden space alone. 

Not bad.  I am looking forward to seeing if the 900 extra square feet makes a big difference in production.  This new garden is lasagna-style, meaning piles of stuff and dirt that I planted with seeds.  I started with a THICK layer of straw/manure, added a THICK layer of leaves, and then on top, put 5 yards of beautiful, dark topsoil into beds.  I planted in the topsoil, and the roots can go down and eat up all the lovely nutrients underneath.  So far there are collards and spinach in here--  peas and lettuce went into the big garden in the back.  Soon enough the broccoli will be planted in here as well.

• If you can see the rocks with the black chicken in front, that's a decorative bed that I added next to the garden.  It's going to have lavender in it, as well as some other perennials.  Finally, after three years, this yard has started to talk to me, and I am starting to form a plan for how it should look.  Yep, I know it sounds crazy, but I am a firm believer in the land telling me what it wants to be.  The last house we lived in was very suburban, and wanted a showpiece garden--which it got, with a lot of hard work.  It was nearly magazine ready, filled with perennials of many different types and flowering shrubs.  The nicest compliment I ever got on it was when we had sold it and were moving out.  A nice older couple had pulled up in front and were looking at it (and it was blooming big time), and said to me "We just want you to know, we would have loved to live in your house".  I think that's the nicest thing that someone could have said.  I certainly felt good.  But this house doesn't want that, and though I've been gardening it, it hasn't really told me what it's wanted.  Until now.  Now I think I know what it wants, and I'll be working towards it.  Expect many changes to come.

• In other news, the kids have been growing.  You know, these kids:

Three weeks old now, and growing like weeds.  They drink milk like it's going out of style, and don't stand still.  They have been booted out of the house, because they climbed the coffee table one too many times, and now reside in the garage-barn in the dog kennel full of hay.  They have been disbudded (which sucked), but I don't think Max's took.  He had really big buds at the time, and I think I missed my window.  Oh well.  On Cynthia, however, it looks like it took, but only time will tell.  They spend their days with the big goats in the goat yard, and they love it.  The big goats have been very good to them and don't beat them up too much.  In fact, Cleo is a good mama and kind of looks out for them--within reason, of course.  They annoy her too much, and she'll whack them one.  But that's just goats in general.  :-)  They are eating hay a bit, and looking at the grain, but nothing there yet.  It'll come in time. 

• Speaking of big goats, Minerva ripped off her half-a-horn three days ago.  I believe she was trying to get out of the gate again and got it stuck.  She stood up, and was bleeding like crazy.  The half horn was laying on the ground.  Catching her and treating it was extremely hard.  Horns are full of nerve endings, and she DID NOT want it touched, and I can't blame her.  The best I could do was unload a huge pile of Blood Stop Powder on the stump and wait.  As it was, it took half the bottle of the powder and 20 minutes to stop it from bleeding.  All the while, she did not want anyone near it.  After it had stopped, she stood off to the side of her yard for a couple of days, and was very careful about going into the house, but she's feeling better now.  The horn has stopped bleeding (it bled a couple of times afterwards, just a little at the tip), and she escaped the pen yesterday, so I think she's feeling better.  She now has just the one full horn on the left side of her head.  She looks lopsided.  But I think her experience is a PSA for disbudding, don't you?

There are a million other things I could tell you, but they'll wait.  Today I have to repot a bunch of seedlings that have grown too big for the little seed pots, and see what else I can do between raindrops.  Have a fantastic day!