Sunshine and Goats

This was a beautiful time!  Snow, after snow, after snow.  It was lovely!  And definitely an initiation to caring for critters in cold, nasty weather.  And the other lovely thing?  It's over for now!

Jeremiah and I set up a new field for the goats.  We're gradually getting faster at this.  We've been using extension cord reels for $7 instead of the fencing reels for $50 and the've been working quite nicely.  1320 feet of fence fits perfectly on one reel!

They're getting better at moving to a new field without scattering which is very nice!

Despite appearances, I think that means she likes the minerals.

Her too!

Another little project we're working on is the shelters.  We're trying a Norweigan technique called cladding.  We're using a hog panel bent to shape and woven with cedar branches.  It isn't like we're gonna run out of cedar anytime soon!

Figuring out how to haul a hog panel across the farm to where the cedar is
without wrecking it by dragging.   And not using a truck because isn't really, really, really muddy.
 I'm the "stability engineer".  :)

Here we go!

This is what a "used" tree looks like.  Just a little thin up as high as I can reach.

That fresh cedar is quite heavy.

We ended up having to stake it out to make it stand up while we worked on it.  Hoping that as it dries and when we trim it, it won't be quite so unwieldy.  I love how it looks and the usefulness of it, but the jury is still out on whether we can find a way to make it feasible for being mobile.

Oh and another little project ...

It's corny, I know.  And yes, I found it on pinterest.  And I like it.  Leah was a good sport and helped me make some of the paper balls.  I'd wanted to use pingpong balls, but after pricing them, scrap paper seemed like a much better medium.

Song for the day - Everything'll Be Alright

PS. I wrote this post probably a week and a half ago.  Thanks to an internet hiccup and my impatience .... I had to re-do it all.  It isn't nearly as much fun the second time around, let me tell you.

Rosemary Babies

So I have this lovely rosemary plant ....  a pot of happiness.

There are few herbs that I love more than rosemary, added to the fact that this particular gem was given to me by a very special lady.  I had had a rosemary once before.  And it got moldy.  So brilliant little me sprayed some apple cider vinegar on it to kill the mold.  Well it killed it alright.  :/

This one seems to have had a rather hard winter.  A month or so ago, some of it's branches started dying.  I started watering it more regularly surmising that the vent above it was causing it to dry out more quickly than I was used to.  I pruned it.  I religiously cut the dead branches.  My anxiety grew with each branch that I laid to rest in the trash can.

So during one of the prunings, I put several cuttings into little jars of water, nestled them on the window sill, and crossed my fingers.  Sure enough!  A few weeks later they began to root!  I gave them a bit of fish emulsion and then prepared some pots.  Finally, something to do with these uselessly cute little pots.

I made deep holes with my finger and tucked the gangly long roots inside.  I cut back the tops of some of them and left others whole.  We'll see which ones do the best!

They sat on the coffee table for a while, receiving dainty little waterings.

And then graduated to the south window sill.

The greatest part is that the mother bush seems to be much happier and healthier!

Song of the day: Friend Like You - Josh Radin