Autumn

As the sun comes up this morning there is a chill in the air, it seems autumn is upon us. I am not quite sure I am ready for the change of seasons, but then again she waits for no one. It has not froze yet but it has been at least 39 a few mornings. The hot crops like cucumbers are starting to suffer the cool mornings. I am not sure how much longer they will make it, I might try and cover them but a lot of times it is not quite worth the effort. Aah better to yield at times to mother nature as she changes the season.

I am being entertained this morning as I watch from up my window upstairs. Sonny, the goose is brawling this morning with pearl the goat. I watch as Sonny chases Pearl around the pen biting and snapping with his wings spread out in the largest, fiercest way he can manage. It's very entertaining being Pearl is usually the bully and has control of the farm as she pushes her way through everyone. Not this morning though, Sonny has managed to disrupt everyone in the barnyard with his squawks and honks as he continues to bite, hiss, and chase Pearl through the yard.

I just love mornings, the peace and rhythm of daily life on a farm intertwined with outside influences that sometimes interfere with that. I think it is the rhythm I like the most the daily milking at 7 am and 7 pm, morning breakfast, aah morning coffee brewing as the day cycles through . I had the chance to travel to a monastery this year and spend the weekend. Yet now, at this time, it seems I am so far from that peaceful time of tranquility . I enjoyed so much the daily early morning bell for prayer and the closing of evening with compline.

It seems somehow as life crept in I lost my rhythm. Each day as the outside influences came in I lost my balance to the world. So as autumn closes in I am focusing on my own monastery and I am closing out the world's voice and working towards my own rhythm and cycle.

We have so much to do before winter closes in but we have to prioritize and get the things done as we can. The things I have on the list of chores are to finish out the new goat area with shelters for them and finish up the wood burning oven outside. I wanted to get in some new raised beds but I am not sure if I am going to get to that before winter comes in. So I guess I will have to add them into next years farm goals. I already have things on that agenda and one of the areas I need to do is get my new milking room finished. It seems things just never get finished and it is an on going labor of love.

Summer got away from me!

Wow, it has been months since my last post and I had not even realized it. Life on a farm takes its own time. It demands much of your time and things always need to be done. I looked up and realized it was getting close to fall the leaves are changing and the nights are getting cooler. Harvest is in full swing and the canning process is humming along with green beans, tomatoes, tomato paste, salsa and hopefully much more.

So far this summer we have moved our fencing several times and the electric fence idea never really worked for our pigs. We are getting ready to level and set fencing out for out dairy goats. I decided to move them from the area they are by the chicken coop out into there own pasture area and build a shelter and hopefully a milking room.

The goat milking is going full swing and I am milking twice daily. We are soon getting ready to breed our other two Saanens for spring kids. Hopefully I will be able to continue milking until early spring then maybe take a few weeks off in February and pick right back up in March. It's demanding of your time but I so love having fresh milk. I have learned to be very picky about what they eat can really control the taste of the milk. Our milk comes out smooth and creamy and you don't even notice that it is not cows milk.

Cheese making is going great and I am doing a lot of soft cheese and yogurt. I am getting ready to do a couple of hard cheeses this week. It has been a great season and as it continues on I am very happy about our outcome. We have made a lot of advances to our sustainable lifestyle and have progressed nicely to be able to provide quite a lot of our own food. It has been a journey and I have been dragging Paul along kicking and screaming.

Brianna has started homeschooling again for the year and is doing fantastic! She pretty much has taken all the responsibility on herself and is completely becoming a beautiful young adult.

We started new chicks this past week so that they can get a good start before winter and be ready to lay first of spring. I am hoping to get these through the winter without losing the whole lot as I did in early spring last year. I decided to go with a September start instead of November like last year. They should be pretty large when the early predators come out in spring and hopefully they will not mess with them. We have more rooster then we anticipated so we need to cull some of them before winter.

Well off to the kitchen so I can continue to can, make cheese, and render fat into lard.