Tuesday, June 02, 2009

It must seem weird to most folks. Here I exclaim over a pea plant yielding ... peas. I gush over our first zucchini off the vine.

Many, many people have gardens and do these things everyday-I am in awe of them. Everyday I learn something new and there are new challenges-like I am back in school.

Yesterday I went to town and picked up a couple bags of feed. Put them in the bed of my truck. Stopped to run another errand and it started to pour rain. No rain in the forecast, but here we were with cats and dogs coming down.

I transferred the feed to the cab and drove home excitedly. Sure the straw I had spread out would get wet again, but I was thinking of the peanuts we planted in our neighbors field on Friday and the beans we planted on Saturday (as well as the rest of the garden.)

It stopped raining as I got within a quarter mile to home. Not a drop at the homestead.

5 years ago I hated rain. Theoretically I knew we needed the periodic rain, but I had no use for it. Drought? It only bothered me if they rationed my water or limited open fires at campgrounds. Now I experience personally the greater purpose.

Was reading The Yeoman Farmer the other day, and he was writing about mistakes made when they first moved to the farm. (Boy just check out the archives here and you can read some whoopers!) One involved originally getting a milk cow, but later realizing that for them, goat's milk was a better choice. Funny how it is opposite for us. We bought a herd of goats to milk and it just never really worked. And us with only 2 acres, buy a milk cow, it looks pretty good.

Finally, I have a new nephew born in May: Boethius. (I read Boethius' 'Consolation of Philosophy' some years ago at the recommendation of the my nephew's father. I do also recommend it.)

Oremus pro invicem!

2 comments:

Shea said...

We discovered fairly quickly that we are not goat people. We tried the herd of goats thing and it was misery for all involved... ended up selling the goats and now have a nice little herd of Jerseys (only one in milk currently). We're getting 6+gals a day, plenty enough to make butter, cheese and share with the pigs.

Great reading your blog btw :)

Jim Curley said...

We haven't tried cheese yet, but it will come. We drink most of ours (3 gal a day with all these kids here) and most of the rest goes to the calf or butter.

We thinned the goat herd quite a bit, but still have more to go.

I used to spend some time up your way in Six-Mile back in the 80's. Beautiful country up there.