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I just love these boots and hope to win some. Look on the right side of my blog and see the the pic of the boots. Ugg boots are fantastic! Hope you win and me too! Blessings. |
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Many things have been harvested from the garden and many things have happened since I last blogged. My youngest daughter had her first baby, and I will try to get pics up. We all share one laptop now, others need repairs, and only one internet link so we each take our turn in between all the work that has to be done. Lots of chilly weather and rain lately in between some cool sunny days. I try to get the garden cleaned up when it is clear. We lost two ducks to mysterious wounds we still are guessing what happened. One duck almost got killed by the dog too. We need to slaughter some chickens that turned out to be roosters but my class to learn this isn't until November. And yes some people teach this. My daughter is debating about mating the goats and figuring out the best way to do this with no buck here. I want to plan next years garden but that can be done when the snow and cold comes. Blessings. |
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I do believe we are still a Christian nation. Nothing has happened to change this and the majority of Americans feel we are also. It does not matter that we are made up as a nation of many cultures and religious faiths. What matters is our country was founded on the moral standards of men of faith who believed the Bible was our guideline. These men attended church and had prayer as they made our constitution and other documents. You can go to wallbuilders.com to read many articles that point to this fact and even see copies of documents from our history. Sorry Mr. President Obama I do not agree at all with your statements in the news that we are not a Christian nation anymore. You do not speak for me! Blessings. Please remember to keep our nation in prayer!!! |
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I posted this on my other blog, Blessings from Abiga at homeschoolblogger. I haven't posted anything for awhile and thought I would share my thoughts. As I was cleaning my granddaughters high chair of the crumbs and pieces of fruit it appeared to then be clean. I picked up pieces, wiped the plastic tray and seat and swept the floor area also. This is like when we realize we said or did something wrong and quickly throw up to heaven a prayer of forgiveness and then move right along with our day. But as I wiped the seat covering I decided to peak underneath it and found old food that had been accumulating for days and maybe weeks: cheerios, cracker crumbs, squashed fruit, and unrecognizable items. Shouldn't we when we sin look deeper within our own heart to see what attitude or feeling caused us to sin in the first place? Was it a sin we asked forgiveness for but not truly repented for and prayed diligently to be removed from us? This can be applied to our children as we homeschool and raise them. We need to dig deeper and help them to understand what caused the sin and why it should not be repeated or even hidden away in ignorance. Blessings as you go threw your day with our Lord Christ. |
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Two mama goats and three doelings growing fast. Buck baby was given to family members. One mama still being milked with a struggle by my daughter as she won't let me do it, the goat that is. We get less than a pint. Why is it such a fight and struggle to milk these goats? Will the babies be easier? And how do we getted them mated? Four hens and a rooster giving about 3-4 eggs a day. We lost one hen to we don't know what. Just found her missing one day and the day after found her body. No struggle that we could see. We lost all four of the chicks that were incubated out of 16 eggs that we put in there. Something went into the coop and took them out of their bin. Either the predator moved the cover off or one of us left it off. So sad because one of the chicks was from our own eggs. Not much chance of selling eggs at this rate. Four ducks, possibly three females and one male. They grow so fast and love to swim in the plastic pool. No eggs from them so far. Six guineas kept in the garden to eat the grasshoppers of which there had to be thousands, not exagerating. My grandson leads them to the garden and night and leads them to the garden in the morning. They do a great job eating bugs and haven't yet disturbed any of the crops. One parakeet still surviving in the house. One beautiful and gentle lab mix keeping us company in the house. Three cats in the house, Tigger, Smelly and Rocky. Smelly got out and was attacked by a tom cat so had to go to vet for antibiotics and a checkup. Coyotes were heard that night but he survived it all. Two cute little kittens that live in the laundry room at night and out in the old chicken tractor during the day. They are breing groomed to be outside cats to catch the mice and live in the barn, we hope, we hope.......With that tom cat though don't know what will happen. Vegetable garden filled with lots and lots and lots of tomatoes still green when I left on my trip to CA; cucumbers, much zucchini, yellow squash, basil, dill, green bean vines, pumpkin vines, corn growing, a few lima bean plants, Melon vines and a couple small melons, and lots of weeds unfortunately that I hope my granson is weed whacking while I am away. Maybe we can sell the tomatoes from the roadside. We need a sign. Some of the orchard trees were attacked by Japanese beetles in spite of the fact that the ducks and chickens are free ranged. They just can't get to them all. Apple tree should have been sprayed with oil and some other things done to it. Many if not all of the apples look damaged. We only had a few apples last year and some were bad but the rest were delicious. We didn't get any plums last year as the beetles chewed every leaf practically off of the tree. Now the plum tree has split and is dying. Don't know if we can save a cutting or something off of it. And me in sunny California enjoying the grandgirls, my daughter(in law), amazing fresh air, flowers, food and sunshine. My son is on a mission trip with the youth at his church in hot Arizona at a Navajo reservation. Blessings. |
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Should I blog again? Will I have enough time? Will I have access to the internet? That is the question of the day as I vacation at my son's in California. I miss blogging even without readers, hmmmm.....
Blessings! |
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So why haven't I been blogging??? Well, from windstorms that took out our dish reception.... to negotiations with Hughesnet to get it fixed without charges..... to very poor service once it was repaired....to my daughter cancelling it because she was so disgusted with the service.....to trying AOL dialup and it not working very efficiently.... well, that is why I haven't been able to blog let alone down load pics to the blog either. And as far as our goat milking adventure, ho hum, it is quite a challenge. Starberry kicks and struggles and fusses and hardly lets out a drop. Havanah is very scared and seemed to let you milk her but now has to be dragged to the stand and then she squats down to not let you do it. How long can a person straddle a goat bent over the goat's behind trying to either milk them or hold them tight so someone else can milk them? Owwww our aching backs..... Does anyone tell you in the goat manuals how little comes out and how long it takes to get anything out? Nope, noone. I felt like such a failure today trying to go out and do my share and then wanting to have gyros for supper from goat meat later on, tee hee.....Ah well... we shall keep trying I guess. See you the next time AOL works or I am at the libary..... Blessings. |
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My youngest son Tim started a brand new life in Colorado last fall. He is going to an herbal college to learn about nutritional and natural healing. Although it has been difficult to find work out there he has found some income by working on an alpaca ranch. He finally sent some pictures to the family. The latest one is of his new mohawk haircut. They just had several snowstorms out his way.
A friend took this one as they were out hiking and caving, his new hobby.
It is beautiful out there in the Rocky Mountains.
Blessings. |
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The first baby goats are now three weeks old and the milking supplies have arrived and been gathered together. My daughter got up bright and early to milk Star Berry this morning. Last night began the preparations with first separating the babies into a separate pen from the mama goat. That went ok although they looked a llittle confused about it all. Later when checking on them they seemed fine. My daughter then assembled all the equipment on the kitchen counter. No, not the bananas but my daughter did say you can feed them to goats. I don't know who said it though.
Then this morning it wasn't as easy as hoped for since Star is a first time milker and so is my daughter. With wiggling, and struggling, and a hoof in the pail this was what she ended up with at the end.
This is a wide mouth pint size canning jar we use as a drinking glass. Anyway it was delicious. Dwarf Nigerian goat's milk does NOT have a goatee flavor at all. It tastes rich and creamy, a lot of fat percentage in it. So we all a sip of raw goat's milk today. YUMMY! Blessings. |
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Here are the doeling and buckling from exactly three weeks ago.
And here are the pair of doelings from today.
Blessings. |
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Here is a great site to visit and get a free newsletter. You can enter a contest to win a wonderful sewing machine too. It is called YOU CAN QUILT THIS! Blessings. |
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I actually saw the first robin of spring a long time ago when we had lost the internet. In fact I saw a pair of them on the grass. A few days after that I saw the first flock of robins of spring. They covered the farm there were so many. I scared everyone when I saw the first robin by screaming my head off...."there, look there it is, I winnnnnnnnnnnn....." or screams to that effect.
But then my world came crashing down. My son in law came home to tell me that Granny (my mom) who he had been staying with back then while working in the city told him she saw the first robin of spring. This was at least a week later after I saw my first robin. Granny was so excited and told my sil to be sure and tell me while explaining to him the whole family story of seeing the first robin each year. The problem is it never seems to count if someone else has seen one before dear Granny's eyes spot them. She will usually say she saw one before that even if it is January first. So for the record I did see the first one even if I am telling you weeks later. And Granny does not read this so she will never know. Blessings. |
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OK let's do this again after accidently deleting it. I wish I knew how to find stuff when I do that. This is our kitchen bay window with tomatoes, parsley, herbs, peppers, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and celery.
Our toliet paper rolls in a tray.
Our dairy cartons.
Our empty food trays.
Our cut in half gallon milk cartons
Our large tray of mesclun. If this grows good indoors we will leave it here.
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Blessings.|
Here is a link to understand your type of government. The governement has taken to much control lately. is it still a republic? You tell me. At Team Bettendorf find it. Blessings. |
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EVen though not too many people read this blog, mostly family to keep in touch, I am compelled to continue. And now that Hugesnet is restored and working right now this morning (who knows if it will work later as it didn't work right yesterday and the day before) I want to show you the old pics of the baby goats who are now three weeks old. My how time flies.
The doeling is black and the buckling is white. Mom's head is in here too. She had been a great mom. My daughter helping her out at drying them off. It was cold that night.
My daughter put off checking if labor had started all evening till about 9:30 or later and lo and behold what should she spy as she looked into the birthing pen. Two little baby goats already arrived. Noone got to see the birth so we are happy it went well but disappointed we did not experience it. The grandies were thrilled to see the babies the next day.
Another pic of the buckling later on in his life of three weeks. For some reason goat eyes come out blue in pics just like people eyes come out red.
The doeling standing up. They stand, run, jump, rear up, hop, skip, etc. all of it now. They chase each other all around and up and down the straw bale, so cute.
Our weather has been the greates lately but we are set to get the front that has caused blizzard conditions in Colorado. The weathermen don't seem to know how it will affect us for sure yet. Snow, some snow, rain, thunderstorms,they don't know this but they do know it will be cooler than we have gotten used to. And we always have the wind so that does not have to be predicted. Blessings. |
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Right now I am at the libary in town. When we had our last wind storm the internet went out and still is out. Negotiations are in progress in getting it restored. One of our mama goats had a doeling and a buckling a week ago Wednesday all by herself. No pics right now because of being at the library. They are so cute. The mama fooled us and acted fine and settled down for the night. She had been nannying all day acting funny so noone checked on her until later in the evening. My daughter then discovered the already born kids. In other news the weather has been great with spring like temps and warm sunshine. We have been working on the garden a lot and some spring cleaning. Hope to be blogging again soon! Blessings. |
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Wow time sure does fly quickly when I don't blog. We did have HughesNet issues for a few days too. Well today is a milestone in my life, another birthday. Not old enough for most senior discounts, not old enough fo social security, not old enough to be waited on hand and foot, gee what good is it getting older at this particular time in life. It is like a void you go through. You start to get older, get fatter, get wrinkles, get sags but still can't qualify for discounts and governement money.But I am old enough to make two sunbonnets for the girl grandies and forget where in the world they are. I cannot find them anywhere! Gee whiz! flowers for my birthday
Baby L loves the goats
Warning, graphic picture at the end of this blog of a goat's udder that had to be shaved. This was after my daughter finished shaving, graphic pic next.
This is what happens near the end of the pregnancy.
Blessings. |
Any day now we expect the kids.|
Although we have had a cold spell again here with temps in the twenties during the day and teens at nigh with that old north wind blowing I think spring is coming. One of the signs of spring are the return of the Red-winged black birds. We have been getting a lot of birds at the feeders through the end of winter: sparrows/wrens (never can remember which is which), cardinals, woodpeckers, starlings of course, and now a Red-winged blackbird. I could hear it calling high up in the maple tree one day last week.
We don't normally see them around here. Since last summer was our first summer here I might not remember seeing them along the highways. This summer I will be on the look out for them. Red-winged redbirds normally live by marshes but may nest in pastures. Some of the fields have small ponded areas or little shallow streams of water from snow melted and earlier rains, the perfect things to attract them. Plus we do have a creek within walking distance. These birds will breed at least three times per season. The male only has the black color with red spots and the female is brown and black. Wikipedia says the Red-winged blackbird population is declining because of loss of habitat and also poisons sprayed on the plants. They can be pests eating the farmer's grains but they also eat a large portion of insects so they are considered helpful friends also. Female
Some other birds enjoying the sunshine in spite of the cold spotted by our birdwatchers. These birds just don't like snow.
They all go together.
Any signs of spring where you are? Blessings. |
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I enjoy reading the local town's newspaper. Although our post office address is one town we actually do business in another town which is larger and only about ten minutes away. Since the local paper costs 75 cents per week and really does not have too much in it I read it online. Today I read this - The largest employer Baltimore Aircoil is closing its doors. 223 workers will lose their jobs by this summer.
The global economy has affected it enough to close. I often drove by their plant and wondered what they made. They manufacture items for air conditioning and refrigeration systems hence the name aircoil. TheBaltimore part of the name came from the company being founded in Baltimore. They have two other plants in Delaware and California that will remain open. Another company also temporarily closed its doors and laid off 70 workers recently. It seems things will only get worse before they can get better in the U.S. economy. She's not worried.
Blessings. |
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The tummy flu bug hit here and is making its way through a few of us. Hopefully some will be spared. HERE IS A GREAT SITE FOR CHEAP OR FRUGAL IDEAS! Blessings. |