Great Spring Fling....

The ground is still mostly covered in dirty, tattered snow. Where the snow has receded there is mud. It isn't pretty. But, if you look closely, there are tiny blades of grass that hint green, and some shoots coming up that promise spring flowers are coming. The trees have buds that are beginning to swell, and the birds are filling the air with sweet love songs. All of this causes something to stir deep within me. It makes me want to ...

SPRING CLEAN!!!!

Daughter Rachel has helped me, and so far the living and dining rooms have been well cleaned. Windows polished, baseboards wiped, walls washed. Cobwebs have been banished, floors washed and polished, furniture shined. This morning, after I did chores and fed dogs and tidied the kitchen, I had an hour to spare before my first customer arrived. I had two choices:
sit and happily surf the internet or tackle another room. I chose the less pleasant of the two options. In one hour I managed to move all the furniture from the front room (except one heavy piece that is known for scratching the heck out of the floor.) I got the baseboards wiped, the inside of the windows washed, the floor vacuumed and washed and one coat of polish applied.



We call the front room "the snuggery." It is not a large room, but it houses the wood stove and welcomes family and friends into the house. It is cozy. It also attracts clutter like nobodies business. On one wall are two rows of hooks. We hang our coats and such there. Today I tidied that area. One hook held my incredibly warm Carhart overalls. I decided today that the season for that garment is OVER and tossed them in the wash. The wall that has the hooks looks so much nicer now that I have removed much of the clutter that had gravitated there.

Spring cleaning is well under way. Three rooms down. 7 to go.

First Freshener...

I'm a day late on this post, and I apologize. I've been a bit busy with Celeste the goat. Celeste was pregnant and due to deliver her first baby (or babies.) Goats that have never given birth before are called "First fresheners." This is because a goat "freshens" when she begins to produce milk after kidding.

(NOTE: birth pictures follow. If you don't want to see, stop looking now! Consider yourself warned!)

On Easter Sunday, Celeste was restless. I kept an eye on her. By 3:00pm I could tell she was in labor. I gathered the necessary delivery gear and intensified the observation.
She spent a long time lying just inside the shed, where I could clearly see her from the house. Chanel, the horse, went out and laid down with her. She did something I rarely see her do, laid flat on her side, with her long neck pressed against Celeste. I think she was commiserating with her laboring pal.



Soon Celeste was up and pacing outside. And then two little hooves appeared. She stood up and with one giant push sent a kid flying out to thud on the ground.



All of this happened very quickly.



We scooped him up and dried him off, and moved his mama into the goat palace.



Moments later she began to deliver kid number two.



A boy and a girl. Both strong and healthy. But there was a problem. Rather than cleaning her kids and talking to them in a sweet goat voice, she looked aghast at them. I pushed them up under her nose, and she recoiled then tried to bite them.



In fact, she looked at them like they were knit out of a mass of writhing spiders. This presented a major problem. Mama's that think their babies are demons don't nurse them. Things looked grim.

Friend Marion came over and gave us several suggestions. One was to confine mama and babies to a small space, alone. Another was to tie mama up so she could not get too far from the kids, giving them more opportunity to get up to the milk bar. We did these things. And every few hours I would go out and hold Celeste still so the babies could have a chance to suckle.


I can't imagine why Celeste isn't enchanted with her babies. I certainly am!


We are still hopeful that given time Celeste will tolerate the kids better. Meanwhile, they are growing strong and beginning to bounce around adorably. One more goat is due to deliver any day now. Stay tuned.

Easter Happy...

If you've read more than one post on my blog you know that I have chickens. And that I love them. Here is a bit of the back story. When I was a little eight year old kid I desperately wanted chickens. We had an old play house that I thought would make a dandy little chicken coop, and I cajoled my dad to let me have some. He said yes at first, and then went back on the deal. It was one of the few times he ever did that, and I held a grudge! Fast forward 40 years; we had moved to Maine and I had plenty of room to keep some hens. I thought of 100 reasons why I shouldn't, but then thought, "I've wanted them for 4 decades, what am I waiting for?" So I bought 4 big, pretty Silver Laced Wyandotte hens.

Chickens are a bit like potato chips. When you get some, you want more. I currently have 15 laying hens and one silly rooster. They earn their keep by eating bugs, adding life and beauty to my yard, and laying delicious eggs. And here is something else about chickens, there are so many varieties, and they are so inexpensive to buy and keep, it is tempting to want to try out many different types. One type that always appealed to me are called Silkie's. Small, with soft, fluffy feathers and blue skin, they are very docile and can be held and carried around. Some people even have special Silky purses to tote their favorite birds around in. And here is the thing...they are pretty useless. They don't lay well, but gosh darn are they fun to look at. Someone gave me a Silky hen a couple years ago, and I loved her. Sadly, she died recently.

But a friend had some she was looking to re-home. How could I resist? We brought them home last night.



It was fun to wake up Easter morning to see their whimsical little selves. I felt a similar giddy feeling of a kid with her Easter basket. Baby goats, fluffy hens... better than plastic grass and chocolate candy by a mile!

D is for delight...

After this long, long, cold and hard winter, I am grasping onto what small signs of spring I can find, with great glee.
Earlier this week the ground under my crab apple tree was covered in snow and ice. By today it was all gone, and to my complete surprise I saw this:



Daffodils starting to pop up! The mud is hopeful, too, but not as pretty.

And for more delight... earlier in the week a customer and I were chatting about "healthy food." Things like oatmeal cookies, because, hello! They have OATMEAL! She shared that she liked carrot cake, and OH! I do, too. She told me she had an excellent recipe for carrot cupcakes. I asked if she would share a copy. Today, as I was working, she called and asked if she could drop the recipe off as she was in the area. I thought that was incredibly nice. But she went above and beyond, and brought me a whole tray of the scrumptious little things.
I'm ashamed to admit I ate two. And enjoyed every moist, sweet morsel. I think I shall have another for breakfast. After all, it has vegetables in it, so must be healthy!



The new baby goats are strong and healthy and learning to jump and hop and spin. This only increases their adorableness. It is a bit hard to get much done, when I have the option of standing outside and watching them be babies.





These are the kinds of things that bring me delight.

Challenge and construction and cake...

I neglected to mention that I am partaking in a 25 day blog challenge. I am to post a daily blog for this span, and it is an alphabet challenge, so my first topic began with an "A" and I will end with a "Z." Since this is day 3, I am blogging with the letter "C." I scrolled through the pictures I've taken lately and thought I'd share these with you.



Earlier this week I was riding in my daughters car, when I saw the above scene. As we whizzed past I tried to wrap my head around what I had glimpsed. I couldn't, quite. So I asked my daughter if she would turn around. She kindly did.



I've always liked this house. It was clearly in need of repair for many years, but it had great lines. It was recently purchased by a home heating oil company. They tore down the old barn and built a huge new one. They put new siding on the house, and made some other improvements. I have NO idea what was up with the excavator through the front door. But it fascinated me.

I'm going to add in one more "C" word for good measure. Cake.



Although it is called Boston Cream Pie, it really is cake. My daughter baked it for me, from scratch, for my birthday. Her rendition was not only beautiful, but amazingly delicious. Dense, moist, filled with smooth, cool custard and topped with rich ganache. I think I may turn this into my annual birthday request.

"Bad" Birds...

Those two little brown ducks I "rescued" at the livestock auction? They are trouble!



Oh, they are pretty enough, I'll grant that. They look like lovely, hand carved wooden decoys. And they are friendly and personable, too. But because they are a bit smaller than the other ducks they have discovered that they can pop right out of the fence and wander about at will.



Last year the ducks never ONCE left the fenced pasture. But the little brown ladies use their feminine wiles to lure the well behaved ducks astray. They waddle into the front yard and poke around the flower beds. They splash in the puddle at the end of the driveway and patter in a comical line down the side of the road. They scoot out of the hen yard and into the dormant vegetable garden, drilling their bills into the soil, looking for bugs and seeds and weeds and other delectable duck treats.




And whereas the other ducks mutter quiet, polite little "quacks," the new girls are shrill and strident. And loud. So loud that when I was at the neighbors house last week I could clearly hear their voices climbing upwards, "quack, Quack, QUACK, QUACK!!! How so much volume comes out of such a small package, I do not know. I do know the bad little brown ducks brighten the yard, and my life, with their antics.

April Fools Surprise....

If you are a regular reader of FairWinds, you will remember that Luna goat (my favorite, but please don't tell the other kids!) has had a difficult pregnancy. I've had weeks of feeding her multiple small meals a day, cajoling her to eat, giving her minerals and vitamins and treats and anything I can think of that would help her feel better. According to my schedule she was due to give birth 10 days from today. This morning she was anxious for breakfast, a good sign, but hardly ate anything. After I fed her she hot-footed it back to the goat palace, instead of following her normal routine of eating hay with the rest of the herd. I took hay out to her and she was nibbling at it when I headed back to the house.

Around noon I had a break between grooms, and went out to see if I could get her to eat a little lunch. The other two goats and the horse were eating hay in the pasture. I headed back to the goat palace, carrying some fresh spinach and other goodies. As I rounded the corner I saw something that made me gasp. On the straw, white fur coated with blood. I thought Luna had died. My heart sank. I forced myself forward and found, to my delight, that Luna was up and bright eyed, tucking in a mouthful of hay. The white fur with blood? A brand new, just-born kid. And a few feet away was another kid, wet and messy, but very much alive.

I hustled back in the house and got my daughter. We carried out warm water with electrolytes, some dry towels and other kidding necessities. Luna happily sucked down every drop of the water. Rachel and I helped dry the twins, and in mere moments they were up, wobbling on long legs and trying to figure out where the milk bar was.



A boy and a girl. And Mama Luna seems well and fit. The kids have nursed several times and last time I checked they were snuggled together in the deep bedding, clean, dry and well fed, next to their mama. New life at FairWinds. A lovely surprise.